Chapter 54: Little Lost Light

Guardian

a Worm/Destiny Crossover

Chapter 54: Lost Little Light

Taylor had no answer.

She had no words, either. Her mouth had gone dry. Her tongue had become thick and useless. The presence of it, of the oily shadow that bled from it, curled around its legs like a pet. The way its blade burned in the dark. Its green, witchlight eyes, burning bright in its skull. It had seeped into her, like poison into a wound. She could feel it, worming down and coiling around her soul's Light with dark, barbed chains. It hurt to be there, facing it.

"You," it said, voice like a funeral dirge, "are a long way from home." it seemed...at ease. Like she was no threat. She gasped in a breath, feeling its chains wrap tight and its barbs hook and tear. Pain jittered up from deep within. It wasn't that pain that made her ears start bleeding. No, that was it's voice.

The idea of speaking was nearly unconscionable. But she had to. She had to know. "What...are...you?"

For a brief instant, she recognized an emotion in its witchlight eyes. It was, honestly and truly, confused. "You do not know? " Each word sent spikes of pain into her skull. Tighter the chains wrapped. Deeper the barbs dug. " Truly? " it paused, as if to consider the novelty of the idea. " I'm almost insulted. You should know your enemy, little Light."

A sound scraped its way from the back of her throat, a soft whine of pain. She ground her teeth and felt the sticky heat of blood trickling down her cheeks and dripping onto her collar. Her blood. It watched her, watched the pain it caused in her by mere existence, patiently. Her grip on her rifle was weak, and a jolt of agony caused by the runes on its sword suddenly flaring sent the weapon clattering to the ground. Her fingers spasmed, and she clenched them into fists, fighting the urge to fall to her knees.

Tighter the chains wrapped.

Deeper the barbs dug.

Her eyes swam with tears as it stepped closer to her, silent and languid. "Are you hurting? " it seemed honestly curious. " Are you in pain?"

She inhaled through her nose and stood her ground.

Its blade began to rise, shadows writhing across its obsidian surface, runes burning green. "Your torment will not end in death." Like the headsman's axe, like Madame Guillotine, its blade began to fall. She watched it come towards her head, almost detached, lost in her pain.

She had to move. If she did not, she would die, and her world with it. The chains were tight, the barbs deep. She had to move. She had to free herself.

Be brave.

Her hands touched the hilt of her sword, the handle of her knife. Solar Light howled, melting the barbs. The storm's fury roared, shattering the chains. Lighting and flame brought light to the darkened tunnel. She brought the blades up and caught the descending sword. Free, her Light, coursed through her.

It leered down at her, bearing its weight upon their crossed blades. "Good. There's no sport without struggle."

=+= Chapter 54: Little Lost Light =+=

Her blades burned bright in the dark. Each time they met its own, weeping bilious smoke and witch-green light, there was a flash of white and a crack of thunder. Once, twice, thrice they exchanged blows, and she knew she was outmatched. It feinted twice, tricking her guard up high before dropping its sword from one hand to the other and sent its jagged tip screaming for her stomach. She twisted at the hip, putting herself off balance, to avoid the blow. Doing so left her open to the backhanded strike that sent her flying.

She struck a pillar hard enough to shatter the yellowed tiles and landed hard on her knees. Eyes burning, lungs empty, she forced herself to her feet. She felt her throat constrict as it paced towards her, lazy and indolent. Her head spun and she swayed, almost falling, before air rushed back into her body. She snarled, fear bleeding into anger and back again. "You'll have to do better than that."

"I have not yet begun." It spun the blade in a dizzying pattern, glowing runes leaving trails behind it, then struck hard. First, horizontal cut at her shoulder. She parried, letting the black sword scream across the upraised, angled edge of Howl aflame. In the same moment, she stabbed forward with her knife, seeking its stomach the same way it sought hers. It batted the blow aside and kicked out, a trunk-thick leg racing for her chest. She turned into the blow, letting the limb slam into and through the pillar before she brought up her knife and drove the point into the meat of its thigh.

It howled, spiking agony in her brain and drawing a fresh well of blood from her tortured ears. Even as it did that, it turned on its other leg towards her and with its upraised leg kicked her in the ribs hard enough to crack them and send her sliding across the floor. The pain was enough, the force was enough, that she let go of her knife's handle as she was pushed away. She came to a halt a few yards away, gasping as her ribs knit themselves back together. It lowered its leg to the floor and, slowly, drew her now extinguished knife from its leg. It seemed to study it, the blade that had served her so faithfully. It then broke her knife between the fingers of its free hand and let the shards drop. "I would say you have done well to stand so long, but you have not." It started towards her, lazy and indolent. "I have your measure, now."

Taylor took up Howl in both hands. She felt the heat of its fire wash over her. The flame, once red-and-orange like the sun's surface, became blue-and-white. Like its heart. She spat her challenge at it, "Do you?!", and charged. It did not race to meet her, merely lifting its blade as she neared.

She attacked low, feinting with a kick at its left leg that became a second kick at its groin which in turn became her true attack at its sword arm. It weathered her kicks, sounds like bricks being struck together emitting from each blow, then caught her by the wrist and crushed it in its grip. She screamed, pain spasming in her ruined hand as it lifted her off the ground. Howl went dark, falling from her grasp. It looked her in the eye. "Yes." This close, its voice was pure agony. "I do. You are pathetic."

Then it turned on its heel and threw her across the platform. She spun through the air, limp, and hit the stairs she had come down not minutes ago. Something in her back went pop, and she was flooded with sensation so intense that it took a moment to register as pain. It was so overwhelming she didn't have the breath to scream. At first. Then she did, and it tore her throat bloody. Her back bowed, her head thrown back, her legs crooked and numb beneath her, she screamed.

It did something then. It laughed. It laughed, a sound of joy so pure even she recognized it, even then. It walked towards her, amused and indolent, and came to stand above her broken, screaming form. She couldn't move. She could barely think. It smiled down at her and said, "Your torment has only just begun. Death will not end it. You are ours now, little Light. Now, and forever, you belong to the Hive."

Then came a sound, a scrape of metal on ceramic tile. It snapped its gaze up the stairs behind her, beyond her sight, just before a maroon-red blur slammed into it hard enough to send it flying. The sound was tremendous, more felt than heard, as a woman in armor landed and came to stand before Taylor's limp body, spiked gauntlets raised. "You'll find," Spike's voice was low, controlled, and furious. "that she belongs to us." And then, "Dick."

When it stood, there was a crater in its chest, which it looked at with interest before turning its baleful gaze on Spike. Then it laughed again. "Finally. Something worth killing."

=+= Chapter 54: Little Lost Light =+=

Tyalor had seen Spike fight before. In Las Vegas, she'd been a whirlwind. A near-berserk fury of thrashing limbs and wide, exaggerated motions. At the time, Taylor had assumed that Spike just fought that way. That she, like most brutes, let her incredible strength and durability stand in for training and/or skill. As Taylor lay broken on the stairs, pain driven through her like nails, she was forced to consider that maybe Spike had fought that way because the situation called for her to.

Its hateful blade, weeping smoke and witch-green light, cut the air so quickly it was all Taylor could do to see it, let alone reach. But Spike was never struck. The blow at her head she bobbed away from, retaliating with a combination of punches that cracked like thunder when they hit. She swayed back from its blurring fist and swung low, twisting at the hip to hit just above where the groin would be, if her target were human. It bent around her fist, just a little, and slid back a foot or so on the dusty, tiled floor.

Taylor's legs twitched and began moving on their own. She could hear them fixing themselves. Hear them. She still felt nothing below her neck. Still couldn't move. All she could do was grind her teeth and glare through wet, blurry eyes as Spike fought for her. She wanted to call out, to rise up. To fight. All she could do was lay there, betrayed by her own body, her own weakness, and wait. Muscle in her jaw flexed as her hips un-broke themselves. Wouldn't be long now.

Hold on, Spike.

She had to hope it wouldn't be too long. It was all she had.

Down on the platform, Spike blocked an overhead strike on her crossed wrists, turned them inwards, and trapped its hand between hers. Her voice, hollow and furious, rang out from her helm. "Got you." Then she twisted, turning its arm up, brought the over-extended elbow down onto her shoulder, and threw it across the platform. Bone snapped, cracking like a whip in the stale air, and its nightmarish blade faded from existence as it fell from its master's grasp.

It landed, rolling and coming to a stop at the edge of the platform, just before it dropped down to the tracks. It snarled, the air wavering in response to its fury, and rose to its feet. All laziness, all indolence was gone from its frame. Spike had hurt it. "You will suffer for this."

Spike put up her guard, like a boxer might, and moved forward. There was something...odd...about the way she did so. Something in the motion of her head and shoulders. It snapped its broken arm up, and out, each motion sending cracks through the air. Then it stomped towards Spike, each footstep causing tremors in the ground. Just before Spike started her attack, Taylor realized that it was a figure-of-eight, but never the same direction twice. Then, just before they closed into combat, Spike lunged, putting all of her weight and built-up momentum into a single, vicious punch.

It blocked her strike on a thick forearm, rocking backwards from the force of the blow, but Spike was only just getting started. One, two, three blows rocketed into its guarding arms, each one cracking the air as they did. Then it retaliated, pushing out with its crossed arms to force her back. Spike retreated, sliding back just outside range before flexing her entire body back, then snapping forward with a fourth punch that came too fast and hard for it to do anything other than take it across the face. It staggered from the force, and Spike took advantage, pushing forward and delivering punch after punch, each one splitting the air and driving it down. Down, to its knees.

"You gotta stop stealing my lines, dickhead." She snarled. In that moment, with such sights before her as her nightmare manifest driven to its knees, Taylor felt something.

She felt her spine pop back into place. She felt her limbs obey her again.

She felt Light.

Taylor stood and retrieved Howl from where it had fallen. The sound of its flame reigniting drew attention to her. She began to move, towards Spike and her enemy, feeling her pace quicken towards a run. She saw it take advantage of the momentary distraction and begin to rise, pulling from the shadow the hilt of a very unwelcome, very familiar blade. She saw Spike's guard rising again.

Taylor didn't say a word as the battle began once more.

=+= Chapter 54: Lost Little Light =+=

Howl lived up to the name as it parried away a strike from Spike's head. Taylor crossed behind her, almost spinning from the redirected force. This would have been taken advantage of if Spike hadn't used the opening given to her to punch it in the face again. She circled it to the right as Taylor moved left, it pacing backwards to keep them both in sight. At the edge of the platform it feinted towards Taylor before whirling at Spike in a flurry of blows.

Spike dodged two, blocked one, and would have taken the last across her breastplate if Taylor hadn't slashed her sword, coated in blue-and-white flames, down across its back. It snarled again, spinning to lash out at Taylor with a heavy blow that she barely managed to block. It still sent her sliding back. Spike planted her foot in the back of its knee and rose up to drop an elbow on the crown of its head. The blow landed like a hammer, and it responded by driving its elbow into her side and hurling her over the tracks to slam into the tunnel wall.

"You are beginning to annoy me." It turned to Taylor as Spike fell to the floor, gasping for air that had been driven from her lungs. It abandoned subtlety in favor of brute strength, hacking down at Taylor with a pair of vicious, two-handed attacks that she knew would overpower her if she let land. She dodged them by twisting out of the way and letting them hit the tile floor like meteors. Ceramic shards flew. In the seconds of opening that bought her, she cut out with Howl and scored a thin, deep line across the chest, neatly bisecting the crater left by Spike's arrival.

Speaking of...

Spike announced her return to the fight by turning its left knee into pulp with a sliding, two-footed kick. Taylor drove Howl into its opposite shoulder with one hand and caught the wrist of that arm with the other as she shoved forward. It resisted, showing no reaction to her strength, until Spike punched it in the face. Then it started sliding, one good leg scrambling for traction as Taylor forced it back away from the tracks. Towards the wall. It weathered another hit from Spike before snarling again and digging its foot into the floor, tearing gouges, and bringing the three of them to a halt.

It drove the crown of its head into Taylor's face. She felt her nose break and her grip slacken. It threw her away and turned towards Spike, pulling Howl free and tossing it aside. As they fought, Taylor wiped the blood from her eyes and ignored the pain of her nose resetting itself, took up Howl again and drove the burning edge through its middle from behind. It roared, shaking dust and clumps of cement from the ceiling, and she began sawing her way up through its torso. Spike prevented it from doing anything by breaking one arm and wrapping her entire body around the air. She planted her feet in its armpit and pulled, screaming from effort and rage. With a tearing sound and a spray of steaming black ichor, the arm came free and Spike fell to the ground.

It roared again, and Taylor ducked just in time for its spinning blow to pass overhead. Howl came free as it whirled around, and she hacked into its left leg once, twice, and on the third strike, took the leg off at the knee. Spike had scrambled to her knees and caught it as it fell. She trapped it again; hands on its wrist, feet around its shoulder, trapping it in joint lock. It lifted the arm, Spike with it, and slammed her into the ground. The impacts dug a crater into the floor and shook the room besides.

Taylor stepped forward, lifted Howl up to her shoulder, and drove its burning point between the enemy's eyes. She bore down as it began thrashing with its two remaining limbs, driving Spike deeper and deeper into the cement and sweeping Taylor's feet from beneath her. She scrambled up its heaving torso and, kneeling there, bore down again on Howl's hilt.

There came another great tearing sound as Spike tore its other arm off and threw it aside. She knelt next to its head, wove her hands together into one great fist, and began driving hammer-blows into its face. "Quit! Stealing! My! Lines!"

It took what felt like hours for the creature to die. But die it did, and after Taylor was as certain as she could be that it was finally dead, she slumped off its bulk and fell onto her back, panting. Spike crawled around its mostly flattened head to sit beside Taylor. "The fuck was that thing?" she asked.

Taylor shook her head. "No...idea."

Spike sighed, casting her gaze around the ruined platform before settling on the newly carved entrance. "Think there's more down there?"

"...probably."

"Fuck." Spike fell onto her back in a clatter of armor. Taylor agreed. "We're gonna need backup."

Taylor nodded. "And a hell of a lot of firepower."

Spike snorted a laugh. "Sounds like a plan." Then she held up a fist.

Taylor bumped it.

=+= Chapter 54: Little Lost Light =+=