Spark of Paracausality: Sword Logic & Sorrow

Chapter 2: The Coming War

Crimson's POV

I'd expect a full fledged defense base ready to kill on sight, but it seems like the total opposite.

"We're setting down on Phobos now," Nolan informed Zavala.

The ship came to a pause and transmatted me underneath it, standing on a cliff side.

I walk slowly along the cliff path with my weapons: Last Word and Badger CCL.

Right at the curve point of the path, a Cabal ship rose from the left of me and pointed their lights at me. It's engines vibrated the surface around me, blowing dust all over the place. I had assumed it would fire so I got ready to shoot, but it didn't. It had fled away. "Odd," I say.

I direct my attention to the right and had sight on the Cabal base. The front entrance was not protected or secure. Everything seemed like they were in the middle of something. There was a sound below me. I look down to see a nearly dead Cabal Legionary. He was groaning in pain and crawling. Then by surprise, an explosion was made from inside the base to the outside and had killed all the Cabal that were near the entrance. My reaction was swift by turning to the explosion immediately and quietly gasping. Shortly after, the Cabal next to me had died.

"Zavala, the Cabal are evacuating with extreme prejudice. They're getting torn up down here," said Nolan.

I run-walk my way to a crashed Cabal ship outside of the entrance and tried to figure out what happened. Nolan appears and tries to access the control panel on the ship to dig out any information.

"The Cabal detonated this ship after it crashed," said Nolan. "Standard procedure when they are under attack. I think the list directive received was an evacuation order. But the Cabal have no word for 'evacuate.' All ships and personnel were directed to focus attack on enemies beyond Martian orbit."

This was weird. The Cabal never flees from anything, even if they know they will die.

I head towards the entrance stop by at a Cabal corpse. I kneel down to the dead Cabal and summon Nolan to scan him.

"Skyburners Regiment. Dead, obviously," he stated. "There were no other Guardians here. I wonder who put them down," he said with curiosity.

I stand up and head inside. "There's only one way to find out," I said.

When I enter in, there were torn banners and pipes on fire. It was a massacre here.

"Something has drawn us here. I can feel it," said Eris over the comms.

"Crimson, I've asked Eris Morn to monitor the channel," Zavala told me.

"I hear, whispers in the dark," Eris adds.

I keep moving and enter another room. The room was filled with Darkness. This was a Restricted Zone, but radar wasn't  detecting any threats. What could be emitting dark power? After another moment of searching around, I turn to the next corridor and see a flashing, glowing orb of some sort. The second I saw it, it dashed away, making a light whooshing sound.

"What the hell was that?" Zavala asked.

"Fingertips on the surface of my mind!" Eris said.

While she was talking, I ran towards the pulse to follow it, but it was gone.

"Yes, thank you for your input, Eris," Zavala said.

The corridor, however, was splashed with the same color of the pulse, which was white and black and a dark, faint shade of blue. There was these splashes of what Nolan calls Dimension Rifts. They look like someone who tried to paint this hallway, but didn't have enough. Small object that were near it were floating. Levitating around the Rift. One of them were on a Cabal Legionary. I told Nolan to scan it. I wanted to document everything that's here so I won't miss anything.

"This membrane is attempting to form a bridge between dimensions. But I think it requires a living host," he said.

"This doesn't make sense. What could do this? Are they... taking things? No. People?" I ask myself out loud.

As I keep moving to the next room, I kept thinking about it until out of nowhere, a Cabal elevator came grinding down to my level on the center of the room and stopped. I lost my balance from the shaking. I fell and look at the elevator and see a Cabal Legionary on it. He was attempting to escape it. He jumped up to the top of the elevator and tried to get out, but some giant object from above crushed him, along with the lift down to the bottom.

"This is definitely not an assault, Zavala," I told him.

I stood up and kept moving. I ran around the corner and watched another Cabal disappear from existence. The only thing that was left of him was his gun. His gun slid down the ramp to me. I ran up and kept moving.

"I have to keep up to know what's going on," I said. But before I could run long enough to my full speed, I shrieking noise rang out from the room in front of me with a flashing effect as well.

The room was splattered in Rifts.

I kept running to hopefully catch up to this orb. But before I left, Nolan stopped me to scan a Cabal computer as Eris kept ranting.

"Whispers are louder," she said. "I will endure..."

"Wait, look at this," he said.

I reach my hand to it and let him scan it.

"Before the attack on the base, the Cabal deployed ships to investigate a threat beyond the Reef," he reads. "The entire Cabal fleet is either in the air or destroyed." He then turns to me, which I'm assuming by his tone of voice, concerned. "C, this base, wont last long," he told me.

I turn to the next hallway and finally get a better look at a Cabal disappearing. A Centurion was waving his arms, flailing them for escape, but got sucked into something. Something was grabbing him and just took him!

"I'm gonna find this thing one way or another!" I said. I ran again, following the path to the next room. The closer I got to the Rifts, the louder they were. They were humming a sound that sounded like something from the Void or space. But I didn't get distracted, I kept moving and was almost at the next room.

"They speak a word... a name," said Eris.

I enter a large and spacious, yet empty room. There were no Rifts, no enemies, and no sounds. It was quiet. I slow down and walk towards the middle, spinning around to examine the room. This must have been the Cabal command center or a main room of some sort, but again, no one was here.

"The orb isn't here," I mutter.

"Sorry, C. Let's just move on to the next room," Nolan said.

I was going to agree with no hesitation, but then I thought about what Eris was saying.

Something had drawn us here... She can hear whispers in the dark... The Darkness speaks a word, a name...

As I kept repeating that over and over in my head, I was starting to actually hear something, or someone, say something.

A word... Revenge...

A name... Oryx...

Right as I heard it clearly, I looked around ready to fight. I had Bladedancer active and ready.

I felt a presence coming towards me. It was heavier and closer every time I heard the voices get louder and louder.

"He, is here!" Eris yells.

As she says that, a monstrous shriek rose in front of me at the middle of the room. It was a shadow of some sort; A figure. A figure of Darkness that had finally found me.

"Light!" It growled. "Give your will, to me!"

Something was spawning in the middle. It was going to be something big. What I'm more worried about is what's it going to be...