Haunting Visage

4 - No Turning Back

Echo could barely see through the fog now. He was deep in the forest, only following the sound of what he could only assume was Mazora battling the massive taken force that had been sent to intercept him. As Echo closed in on the source of the sound, he saw a large darkness bolt get launched through the trees. Shortly after, a large vortex could be seen forming around the taken army. Echo walked up and saw what was happening; Mazora was fighting off at least 60 enemies by himself, with the majority being knights and phalanxes, and a scattering of captains and centurions could be seen throughout. Mazora was holding void energy up in his hand, which was causing the void field that Echo had seen before he had eyes on the fight. He was draining the life of all of the taken at once, and still he was suppressing enough strength to make him seem like a normal guardian now. Echo put his hand in to the vortex, and it immediately felt like a thousand needles had pierced his armor and dug into his exo arm. He pulled his hand from the violet haze, and his arm slowly recovered even without Frost healing him.
"Frost, are we able to get through without being torn to shreds?"
"I have us set as friendlies to Mazora, he's just unaware we're here." Frost said, not appearing in case there were more taken outside the vortex.
"He's aware you're here, he just can't control the vortex enough to let you through." Luna said, her voice coming through the comms. "Use your light to push through, it should be enough. Just don't use too much, this is still a stealth mission until Mazora says otherwise."
Echo rolled his eyes, holstered his sidearm, and concentrated arc light into his hands. As he put a hand into the vortex this time, he felt nothing. He spread the arc light through his entire body, and marched through the void energy. By the time Echo reached Mazora, almost everything had been disintegrated. All that remained were a few knights and no more than 4 phalanxes. Echo raised his hand to cause a lightning strike, but Mazora held his free hand out. He was telling Echo to stop, that he was taking care of it. Echo put down his hand, and Mazora continued looking at his enemies. The vortex condensed to only cover directly in front of Mazora, right where all the remaining taken were. Echo let his light die down a little so that he could save his strength. Echo could swear he saw void tendrils, or chains, coming from Mazora's hand and attaching to the last 2 captains. As they faded away, Mazora slowly floated back towards the ground. He let out a heavy breath, and picked his rifle up from the ground.
"What happened to the 'quiet infiltration' part of the plan?" Echo asked, walking over to see where it was they were going next.
"What matters right now is speed. Until now, the fastest way through was through silence and efficiency. But that has changed, and now we need speed through strength to punch through the taken in our way." Mazora held a hand up to the air, and void fire came from it and hit a wall of blight. He put his hand back down, and a small section of the wall was now burning. "When you're ready, hit that spot with a blast of lightning, and we'll continue making our way to the fragment. It can't be more than a mile away."
Echo put a hand to his helmet. "Frost, transmat these guns to the ship and send me my Bad Juju and one of our Winter Legion cryo-splitters." His hands shimmered as the guns were taken from them, and new ones replaced them. Echo's indigo painted Bad Juju appeared first, the war beast skull on the front's eyes faintly glowing a light blue with a tint of green. Then a cabal shotgun appeared on his back. It had been heavily modified by Echo and his Winter Legion weapon-smiths, creating something entirely new. It had large crystalline ice shards coming from the front of the barrel, and there was a canister on the back with a light blue, glowing liquid inside.
"I'll be here in case you need anything else, just don't get us killed." Frost chimed in, and Echo raised his left hand, charging arc light into it.
"Ready?" Mazora asked, stepping forward with his rifle drawn, and hand cannon ready in it's holster.
"Ready." Echo's hand brightened even more, and a beam shot from it at the void fire on the blight wall.