The Hive God Arrives
Oryx stood in His Altar, His three green eyes from his magnificent, dark magenta head were overlooking the Rings of Saturn that He currently occupied with a giant, diamond prism that He calls His Dreadnought. His crimson wings were folded behind His back, and His dark gray diamond horns that represented His crown were resonating with power. On either side of the Dreadnought, a large circle occupies the exact middle, one of the few weapons that Oryx uses on His ship, and one of the greatest, second only to Him. He stared out on the starboard side after getting bored with the yellow gas giant Saturn on the port side. At first, there was nothing but the blackness of space, dotted by tiny white stars. "If only those stars were to collapse on themselves, or filled with Dark Soulfire," He said to Himself, "then this universe would be a paradise." The only things that caught His attention were His battleships, large Hive starships that formed rhombic pyramids always pointing forward, and orbiting the most important of Hive ships, His Dreadnought being one of them.
Suddenly, an Eliksni ship appeared out of nowhere on the starboard side, only a few megameters from the Dreadnought. A female voice called out across the vacuum of space, "This is Mara Sov, Queen of the Awoken. You are trespassing on my territory, and are sentenced to life in the Prison of Elders. Stand down."
Oryx laughed, then cast His own voice across the vacuum, "PUNY MARA SOV! YOU MADE A MISTAKE COMING HERE! I AM ORYX, KING OF THE TAKEN, GOD OF THE HIVE! STAND OUT OF MY WAY, OR BE DESTROYED!"
Mara answered with, "Consider your sentence upgraded to the 'death penalty'." Thousands of Awoken Crow Fighter and Crow Bomber ships were deployed from the Queen's Ketch, all flying in attack formations.
Oryx growled, "ATTACK!" Thousands of Hive Tombships were deployed from the Dreadnought's side openings, while hundreds of thousands of smaller Agonarch Karve fighters were deployed from the long slits on the top and bottom of the Dreadnought. The Karve and Crow fighters engaged one another, exchanging blows and fire. The Crow bombers were flying in for an attack round on one of the battleships, protected by the fighters. The Crows, led by Uldren Sov, flew in for another 5 attack runs, each one targeted a different battleship. Oryx ordered the other 34 battleships to the Dreadnought's starboard, prompting the Crows to attack them all. The Taken King growled as He held out His Sword, absorbing all of the battleships' leftover power and souls. "This 'Mara Sov' is starting to annoy me!"
The Awoken Queen stood in the center of her bridge, her three Techeuns stood behind her, ready for whatever she commands. Mara turned to them and said, "Do it."
Shuro Chi, the eldest Techeun warned, "But Mara, the Harbingers are not ready!"
"Did I stutter?" she ordered.
The Techeuns gulped and stood around Mara, leaving the front open to her gaze. The Queen closed her eyes stretched out her hands toward the Dreadnought and her mind into the Void, the Techeuns spread their hands apart horizontally, and 9 giant purple orbs swirling with Light and Darkness appeared in front of the Ketch; the Queen's Harbingers have arrived. Mara sent the orbs straight into the Dreadnought, tearing up any Tombship and Agonarch Karve in their way. Mara fainted in Shuro's arms, just as the Harbingers hit the starboard of the Dreadnought. Surprisingly, the Harbingers failed to inflict any damage to the giant Hive ship. Mara woke up and stared at the Dreadnought in awe, "What!? Why isn't the Dreadnought destroyed!?"
Oryx laughed as He absorbed all of the Harbingers' energy into His Sword, Ecthar the Willbreaker. "YOU MAY HAVE ADOPTED THE DARKNESS, BUT I," He shouted across the vacuum, "I WAS BORN IN IT!" He thrust His Sword down into the Altar's ground, activating the circles on either side of His Dreadnought, detonating a Darkness Blast of poisonous blue, green, purple, and black. It was clear to Mara what He did, 'He absorbed the Harbingers!' She ordered all of the Awoken to retreat, but it was too late: the blast had consumed all of the Crows, all of the Awoken within its reach, even the Queen's Ketch. Mara closed her eyes and accepted her fate as the Darkness tore through her body and her Techeuns, transforming them into darkened versions of themselves. Mara opened her "eyes" again, finding herself with all of the other Awoken, all of them were taken by the Darkness blast. She and all of the other Taken Awoken bowed before their new King on the Dreadnought.
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Erik "Lysander" Larsen stood before a metal diamond door. Whatever few followers he had, they stood behind him, a few were unaware of the dangers he was about to unleash. He opened the doors, grinning like a mad man, revealing a dark chamber infected by crimson tentacles that rose from and buried themselves into the metal floor.
"What's going on?" one of the followers asked to another.
"This," answered Larsen, "is our salvation from Max, from those who would see us dead!"
"And who is Max?"
Erik marched over to the Concordat soldier that asked the question, "Max Prodigy is our greatest enemy. He alone nuked my empire and destroyed any chance of repairing it. My scar is evidence of that! And now that he's back and his memories are reclaimed, he seeks to kill me again!" Erik leaned closer, displaying overbearing power, "Which side are you on, soldier?"
The follower mumbled, "Yours, sir..."
"Hmm, really?" A crimson tentacle stabbed the scared follower in the heart, infecting him with small nanobots that turned him into a cyborg with black and crimson plates growing from his skin. The rest of the Concordat was so scared that they began to run, but the diamond doors closed them in the chamber. Larsen grinned, "As I said, which side are you on? Because it won't matter in a few minutes. You'll all be MINE!" More tentacles shot from the ground and stabbed more members of the Concordat, all except for Larsen. As soon as all of the followers were infected, Erik commanded, "Now go into the Cosmodrome! Consume, enhance, and replicate everything in your path!"
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Primus Ta'aun slouched with his hands covering his Cabal face. "This is torture! First Valus Tha'aurn, then Ta'aurc, Sha'aul, AND now the Flayers!?" His campaign on Sol 4, what the Human Race calls Mars, was failing because of the encroaching Guardians
Valui Tlu'urn and Mua'aul sat opposite him, their armored gear resting beside them. Mua'aul, who favored up-close and personal attacks with his heavy red armor, responded with "Sir, we managed to kill 70 of these dead soldiers."
"Sure, and every soldier of theirs that we kill, we lose 1000 of our own, including Fleet Commanders! And how many Cabal have we lost!?"
Tlu'urn preferred to deal with his enemies at a distance with his teal armor, and was often the quiet one of the three bond brothers. He remarked "Over 700,000."
"And the numbers keep rising, thanks to these Guardians!" Ta'aun rotated a screen towards his bond brothers, frustrated at defeat. "Max Prodigy, Lilianna Qu'lene, Asher Mir, Jess Qu'lene, Cassandra Razar, and an Exo named Kaden-2! These 'Guardians' have broken our Exclusion Zone and brought in a horde of their kin, and since then we have been nothing more than fish in a-"
Alarms blared all over the base as Valus Vro'orun burst into the room. "Primus!" she said, her white armor reflected the red alarm lights in the hallways, "We're under attack!"
"By what? Vex?"
"No, sir!"
"Guardians!?"
"WORSE!" She opened the door, revealing a hallway full of dark, viscous puddles. "What's worse is that some of our soldiers have been..." she stumbled for her words, "...TAKEN!"
Mua'aul abruptly arose and asked, "Taken? How?" A Phalanx suddenly appeared in the hallway, but its appearance had changed as if it is being consumed by Darkness and its soul corrupted by an omniscient force. Where its face once was, there was only a singular, hungry eye. The Phalanx raised its shield, which now held a glowing vortex in its center, charging a blast capable of sending all four commanders into a wall and snapping their necks. Everyone's eyes widened.
Vro'orun shut the door just in time and said, "They look like that!"
Ta'aun had seen enough. "This is Primus Ta'aun!" he shouted into the comms, "Everyone must evacuate to the Dantalion Exodus VI! This is a Crimson Red Alert, I repeat, this is a Crimson Red Alert! The Dantalion will leave in two hours!" He turned to the Valui, "Are you ready?"
"Yeah," said Tlu'urn, strapping his armor onto his body.
"Yes," said Mua'aul, forcing the red armor to cover his limbs and head.
"Always," said Vro'orun, already loading her weapon.
The Primus strapped on his gauntlets and said, "Alright, let's go!"
The four of them grabbed the rest of their weapons and gear, and fought against their corrupted kin, all the while running to their ship. Mua'aul charged headlong at near lightning speed into a Taken Centurion, impaling it and hitting each of its sides into the ground in an arc. Tlu'urn fired his Mortar at any Taken Cabal that came too close to him or his friends. Vro'orun lobbed her rocket-propelled grenades at the Taken Psions and Ta'aun provided cover fire while they moved to the ship. The Three Valui ran into the ship just in time, and the Dantalion flew away from Firebase Korus in a speedy exodus.