Chapter Text
Being inside a Pyramid that wasn't empty was so weird. He was used to the quiet halls and just the sound of his own breathing. But now there were the sounds of other footsteps but also signs of the Cabal had been here. Again it made him irrationally angry. Hunger gnashed at the edges of his skin like the teeth on his armor wanted to open into true mouths and bite something. His Light was a gentle flame compared, almost cool but not smothered like it had been before.
"These guys gotta stop meddling in our business," Shin said as he pulled his sword out of a legionary's head where it lay dead, bleeding out on the black floor of the Pyramid. Their black blood followed the groves of the strange floor and dribbled off the edge into a dark abyss below.
"You'd think after the Hive and now us they'd be over fighting things they can't win against," Wolf agreed.
"Try telling that to them," Rat said. Shin was surprised how cool Rat had been to him when they'd touched down. She'd punched him into atoms with an empowered punch but after that she seemed... fine. But Shin didn't know Wolf's friends well enough to make full comments on their personalities. She could be furious and Shin would never know. "Cabal have too much pride. Don't know when to quit when the getting's good," and her stalwart helmet turned and looked right at Shin. Ah okay. She wasn't fine. But she was going to kill him a thousand times with her words instead of beating him to a pulp. That was fine with him.
"Feels bad, punching down," Wolf said.
"These guys shot us first. And they aren't our allies. Who cares," Rat said flippantly. "Now which way?"
Wolf looked around and before the Pyramid had been guiding them in a way. But now the wall in front of them was solid. So they wouldn't be going that way. There were narrow walkways along the sides but they didn't look like they led anywhere. Wolf went up to the wall and put her hand on it. Nothing happened. "It guided us this far. Why'd it stop now?" She asked softly. Then she turned and looked at them, "Either of you see anything?"
"Girl you know I don't see shit. I just punch stuff," Rat said.
Shin rolled his eyes and also looked around. The Pyramid didn't want the Cabal here so why wasn't it letting them through? Unless it thought whatever was through that wall was more than they could take? Or looked out into the abyss below. It wasn't endless like the Ascendant Realm but it was deep. He was looking and as he looked back the way they'd come he froze.
"Magpie," he said softly, getting his Ghost's attention.
"Hmm?" His Ghost spun up and paid attention, coming into his hood from doing his own looking.
"Anything down that hallway?" Shin asked, nodding at the hallway they'd come.
"No," Magpie said. "Why? What do you see?" Shin stared at the figure. He'd never seen this one before. It was him. But not like Vale. The little shade waved at him. Unthinking he walked towards it. "Shin--"
"Shin that's the wrong way," Rat called after him sounded unimpressed by his sense of direction.
He went down the hallway they'd come and a new hallway had opened up. The shade, however, was gone. "No, it's this way," he said over comms. "There's another hallway," and he headed down it, looking for the shade.
"What? But we were just there," Rat said in confusion.
"Don't argue with the Pyramid, Rat," Ghost sighed and he heard them following him.
The hallway twisted, turned, and eventually opened into a big room where one of the statues was on display. And the Cabal were here. Shooting it. They were trying to take control and thought the statue was in control. "We can't let them destroy that statue," Ghost said. Shin didn't understand why. There were others. It wasn't like that statue was significant. But he didn't say anything. He also didn't know why or how he'd know that about the statue.
"Great! Punching and shooting, my favorite1" Rat cried, smacked her fists together and a Void over shield appeared on all three of them. "Have some fun busting some Cabal."
Hunger licked at the overshield, chewing a hole through it around his hands. But they hardly needed to be told twice. And Shin was still pretty pissed at these Cabal for being in his Pyramid. He used the Thorn on the Cabal with brutal efficiency and while using Hunger the gun was even more lethal and Shin unkillable. Every bite of the Thorn refilled Shin's Hunger and he threw more grenades, and more knives than he reasonably be able to construct. Usually only Solar felt so bottomless but the Thorn feeding his Hunger on the Cabal made him feel like there was no end to it.
The last thing to do was deal with the disgraced Valus. They bellowed a war cry at them as they destroyed his shield generators. Their armor was strong and took an expenditure of Wolf's Golden Gun, even bolstered by Rat's Ward. "I hate big Cabal, they never know when to just lay down and die with dignity," Rat growled.
"I got it," Shin said.
"Heh, yeah sure," she said sarcastically.
"Just watch," and Shin collected Hunger in his hand and it formed a super dense point that yawned desperately to be filled, to be fed. He suddenly felt that same hunger in the pit of his stomach. He was starving. Then he over handed the tiny point of Hunger. It collided with the Valus and the Cabal had time to roar in rage even as the point expanded to almost a dozen feet across. Unlike Xivu Arath's Celebrant the Valus wasn't too big or the Singularity. It latched onto the Valus and sucked.
"What the fuck?" Rat said slowly as the Valus vanished into the hole in the world.
"Stay in your bubble," Shin advised as she approached it.
"Is it dangerous?"
"It doesn't have a friendly fire mode," he said.
"Dude what the fuck?" Rat stared at him.
Shin just stared at it and after another moment it ran out of energy, ate itself, and collapsed with a snap. He was just left with an ache in the pit of his stomach. "That was cool," Ghost said.
"I said I had it under control," Shin said, holstering his gun.
"Also: what the fuck was that?" Rat demanded.
"Darkness powers ungiven," was all Shin said and went over to Wolf who was standing at the statue, looking up at it. "It supposed to do anything?" He asked her.
"It always has before," she said softly. "What was that thing that changed things in the Throne World? It has to be related."
"Wolf, report," Ikora said over comms. Shin stepped away to not be part of it.
He went to just look around but he didn't make it far. Standing against the side of the statue, hiding behind the draping robes, was the shade from before. Shin rapped his knuckles on the forehead of his helmet, squeezing his eyes shut, like he was trying to rub his eyes. But when he opened them it was still there. "What's the matter?" Magpie asked. He knew the signs when Shin saw things by this rate. "Who's bothering you?"
"No one," he said quietly. "Its just... me," and he stared at the child figure of himself. Twelve, maybe thirteen. They hadn't known how old he was. No one had bothered to keep track of some orphan's age. His hair was a mess and wore a tattered coat. But it wasn't really him. The kids' eyes were mean. He'd never been a mean kid. Vindictive, bit vengeance filled but never mean.
"Should I tell it to go away?" Magpie asked.
"Just wait," he said. Usually the shades taunted him by now. But this kid was just mean mugging him.
"Can I see your piece?" The kid asked. "Your iron?"
Shin lifted his cloak to show the hip he usually kept the Last Word was empty. No iron for him. He remembered asking Jaren the same thing so many times. He just wanted to see it. All the guns in Palomon were rusted ancient things that sometimes didn't even shoot and always got jammed at the worst possible time. The Last Word was a far cry from that. Shiny, clean, and beautiful. A weapon from a more civilized place than that dusty place he'd lived. The only beauty allowed to exist in Palomon belonged to the Magistrate. Yet Jaren had waltz in with it and pristine and intricate made armor like a spit in his eye.
Shin could still distantly remember the party the adults had thrown that night. As much as they could. Through a child's eyes it had been the biggest event of his life. Looking back on it it was barely more than a big dinner with music.
"You don't even use it anymore. What good's it anymore?" Shin just shrugged. Wolf was still talking with Ikora. "Can't even use it for what it was for, like Jaren did." Shin didn't react. He'd learned not to react to them better than before.
"Shin?" Magpie asked. Shin just held up a hand briefly. Not yet. Why was there a shade here in the Pyramid? He'd never seen one in the Pyramid before. They only tormented him outside of this place. He also hadn't come here again since he'd left the first time. What was different now?
"Just going to stand there huh?" and Shin didn't move but looked to his right and there was Dredgen Yor. His pristine shining armor looked extra immaculate here in the Pyramid amid its fetid air and encroaching dark. "Leave that pretty girl of yours hanging?" he taunted Shin.
But that didn't make any sense. Shin wasn't doing anything. And he certainly couldn't do anything right now. Right? He looked over at Wolf and she was just standing in front of the statue looking up at its barely marked face. He couldn't see her face but her stance was aggravated. They'd come all this way for nothing. "Nothing for it?" he asked her.
"We just don't get why it'd lead us all the way here to kill the Cabal and just do nothing," Ghost said. "It wanted protection from the Cabal. It has to know what we want."
"Maybe it can't help for once," Rat said.
"Eris said it should," Ghost said.
"Well it isn't. It can sense the Darkness in all us. It knows we bat for the other team sometimes. So now what?"
Shin stepped away from the shades. "What exactly were you hoping it'd do?" Shin asked.
"There was some strange... anomalies in the Throne World. Acknowledging them changed them. Something happened like that in Oryx's Throne World but I could sense those," Ghost said, "and reveal them. This is Savathun's flavor of things and it's difficult to trace. It's hidden like- like--
"Like it's on the tip of your tongue," Rat's Ghost offered. "Only through sight."
"Yeah! And passing through certain areas reveals them," Ghost said.
"Huh," Shin said and they all looked up at a feeling coming from the statue. It felt like... acknowledgment. Then he was filled with a strange sense of clarity.
"Ikora, the statue did something," Ghost said. "But whatever it did doesn't seem to do anything? We'll need to investigate the Throne World to figure out what it might be."
"Very well," Ikora said as Wolf stepped away from the statue with Rat. Shin stayed looking at the statue.
"You're a real dumb dumb," the little shade said next to him. Shin looked down at him. "Didn't ask what you were even coming to get before he came and got it."
This shade talked differently. It wasn't like the others who Shin knew were manifestations of his fears, his doubts, his darkest moment, his darkest memories. This one didn't talk like the shades. It sounded like him, it looked like him but while the voice coming out was his the mouth moved to another's speaker. He didn't know how he knew in that instant but he did
"Well we got what we came for. Let's get out of here," Rat said.
"Did you also get it?" Ghost asked her.
"The ringing? Yeah. Loud and fucking clear," Rat huffed.
"Alright, then let's go," Ghost agreed. Shin heard them walk away. He was still looking at the shade.
"You leaving again? Until you need something right? How like you," it said.
Shin turned off his comm entirely, externals only. He could tell from his HUD that Wolf and Rat were gone, no longer pinging on his radar. "Shin," Magpie said worriedly as Shin took a knee in front of the shade.
"It's okay," he told Magpie quietly. "What? Want me to stay?" he asked the shade.
"Wouldn't kill ya."
"Wouldn't it?"
In a motion that was immediately familiar to him, because he used to do the same thing when adults annoyed him, he stomped one foot. Shin couldn't help but smile slightly. No wonder adults always laughed or rolled their eyes when kids threw a temper tantrum. "That's not the point," it said. Shin glanced up when not-Dredgen Yor came and stood behind the child shade. "You keep leaving you're never going to get it."
"Get what?"
"All of it. Dumb dumb."
"Hey, Shin!" he looked over his shoulder when he heard Wolf call him over externals, her voice amplified by the speaker.
"Coming in a sec," Shin called back. He looked back at the shade, ignoring not-Dredgen Yor. "I dunno if you're actually me or what but lemme tell you; you never get all of it. And that's fine. You learn as you go," and he stood up.
"But if you stay-
"I'll be alone. And I'm tired of that. Trust me, I know, it'll work out for us," and the shade just stared up at him. Whatever it had expected Shin to say it hadn't been that. He gave it one last look and turned and left.
"What was that?" Wolf asked him as he left the big room. The Pyramid moved and shifted around them, closing it off again behind them. He looked towards Rat. "This is a private line," she added.
"Just seeing thing," he said around a deep breath.
"Should I be concerned?"
"Nah," he shrugged as they followed Rat.
"Magpie?" she asked his Ghost.
"It seems to be okay," Magpie said slowly.
"Everyone talk to themselves sometimes. I just see it when it happens," Shin said sarcastically. "Hmm?" he looked over when Wolf grabbed his hand.
"If it is something, tell me," she said.
He leaned over and tapped his helmet against hers.
"Will you two stop making out back there and keep up," Rat called from a hallway junction.
"Rat," Wolf sighed.
"We can actually if you want-
"Shin!" he laughed when Wolf, Magpie, and Ghost all yelled his name in annoyance.
"Anyway, it's this way," and he took a different hallway.
"But we came from this way," Rat said, a bit flustered.
"Yeah but it's this way," Shin said.
"How would you know?" Rat grumbled even as they both followed.
"Pyramid," was all he said.
"The fuck does that mean?" Rat grumbled to herself but didn't question because Wolf didn't. They walked for a bit and ended at a dead end. "Told you it was- what the fuck," Rat squeaked. The Pyramid had opened in front of Shin when he reached out and touched it.
"Told you it was this way," Shin said and looked out the hole.
"The fuck he just do?" he head Rat whisper to Wolf.
"You're going to like this. We're high," Shin said looking down. They were about half way up the Pyramid and it was a long way down to the snow below. The wind was icy up here and chilled his head completely even in his helmet.
"I fail to see how that's good," Rat said.
"It smooth?" Wolf asked, seeing what Shin was getting at.
"Oh yeah," Shin said with a smirk. "Ladies first?"
"No way," Rat grabbed Wolf's arm. "Age before beauty and all that." He could tell Wolf rolled her eyes by the movement of her head.
"Yeah okay, sure," Shin said.
"I'd just like to say this is a terrible idea," Magpie said just to him.
"You've picked me off bigger falls," Shin said and jumped off the edge.
"That's not the point!" Magpie cried over the wind as Shin landed on the Pyramid.
It was covered in ice and he leaned back as he slid down the Pyramid. He looked back up and grinned when Wolf shot out a few seconds later and then behind her was Rat. Shin used the teeth on his gauntlet to keep him going straight and not fly out into open air. He wasn't sure what Wolf was using but a glance back told him Rat was straight up sledding on her Void shield. He could distantly hear them both whooping over external speakers but but the wind snatched it away.
Then the end of the Pyramid came in a rush. "Get ready," Shin said over comms. Unlike the times Shin had been on it the Pyramid wasn't on the ground but rather floating. At the edge he got his feet up and jumped, throwing himself off and towards the high snow banks all around.
He landed with a soft thump as he crashed into a snow bank and went down a foot or so. He heard Wolf and Rat scream in delight as they also sailed off the edge and he dug himself out of the snow. Wolf landed nearby but Rat slowly drifted down. "Hey! Cheater!" Wolf yelled, pointing at Rat.
"Not my fault Hunters fall like lead in an ocean," Rat said and she landed lightly.
"That was fun," Shin said, smiling widely. "Ah!" and he was tackled back into the snow by Wolf. "Hey," he said cheerfully. She didn't have her helmet on. His heart hammered excitedly. She popped the seal on his and the European air was bitterly cold on his skin instantly when she pulled it off him. Then she kissed him. Her skin was oddly cool and he realized obviously she was channeling Stasis so she wasn't cold. Well she was cold and the air was cold. But kissing her was wonderful and Solar Light trickled up to his skin making him warm again. They started to sink a bit deeper into the snow drift as Solar Light filled his skin and there was not a little bit of steam rising up out of the hole in the snow drift. Shin hardly minded. All he was thinking about was Wolf and the taste of her mouth, the touch of her lips, the way her cool hands held his hot face.
"Oi! You two going to stay in there all night or what?" Rat yelled from beyond the snowdrift.
"I could," Wolf said softly against his mouth that sent a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold down Shin's spine.
"Ship's warm," Shin grunted and shit when had his hands put themselves on her hip and ass? He hadn't really been thinking about them but damn if he didn't just want to touch her.
"I guess," and she sat up. Shin couldn't help but think the view was great. Even in her armor he could still get a sense of the shape of her.
"There you are. Get out of there it's freezing," Rat scolded her.
Wolf laughed and grabbed her helmet from off the top of the snow. "Can't feel the snow for the Stasis," she said and pulled on her helmet and then climbed off him, leaving him in the snow about two feet down.
Shin just turned up the heat. Steam poured off him as his body flared up with Solar Light and around him the snowdrift melted away until he could just casually step out of it onto solid ground. "Show off," Rat said as Magpie transmatted his helmet back on.
"There gotta be perks to just being good at one Light, right?" Shin asked sarcastically. "Might as well let it be just burn everything."
"Wouldn't know," Rat said. No. Like a good Defender Rat didn't know how to use Solar Light very well he'd heard. Bear could he knew.
"Okay let's get out of here," Wolf said. "Head back to the Throne World, give this... whatever a try."
"Sounds like a plan," Rat said and their Ghosts took them away.