Archive of Our Own ^beta

“No! No! No, no, no, this isn’t fair,” Crow claws at the giant slab of Pyramid material lying atop the Husks. It doesn’t budge. He crawls on all fours, circumnavigating it, and finds the head of an Omen sticking out from the opposite side. Her torso has been completely flattened. He checks for a pulse and finds nothing. 

“What happened? Husky was talking to them, they were listening. They were listening. Why did this happen?” he lugs himself back to the visible Husk limbs and clutches at them desperately. 

“Crow, we have to defend Zavala. At all costs,” Sloane takes a step towards him and he shoots her such a wounded glare she stops immediately.

“They were listening, Sloane. They were. I saw it. I know it. How did the ceiling fall on them? How?” This doesn’t make any sense. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. Nobody shot at the ceiling. Nowhere else in the room has a massive chunk of the ceiling missing. It’s only here. On top of Husky, on top of the Husks he pleaded with, on top of the Omen who considered his words.

Crow tries to lift the slab but it weighs far too much. He can barely shift it. Defeated, he throws his hands back and then reaches to check the pulses of the Husk limbs exposed.

He finds no signs of life.

“How did this happen, Pyramid?” he can’t bring himself to look at it but he spits the words loud and clear.

It blinks, doe eyes wide, and glances between the rest of the fireteam. It sees the mixture of inquisitive and suspicious on their faces.

“I was only doing what Drifter told me to,” it mewls, pathetically. It curls in on itself, clutching its arms to its sides in grief. The man blinks as the wounded expressions turn to him, instead.

“That’s not- that isn’t- I said to drop spikes on the Grim, get ‘em off the Guardian. I didn’t say to do this,” his protests seem to fall on deaf ears at first. Ikora and Zavala look poised to blame him for upsetting Crow.

“He did solely instruct the Pyramid to attack the Grim,” Eris comes to his defense, and her eyes narrow as she glares at her duplicate. “This is hardly the first deception the Pyramid has attempted here. It claimed the Dread forced its doors apart. However, the moment I began speculating about their intent regarding the Chisel, it willingly opened those doors, and allowed them in. Explain yourself, treacherous creature.”

“That isn’t true!” it jumps back in fright at her accusation, gaze bleary like it wants to cry. “They’ve wounded me deeply blasting those doors open. I was only trying to do what he wanted, to help your heroes. To keep the Commander safe. This is his last life. I- I just wanted to help.”

“Why are the Dread truly here, and why have you been lying this entire time?” Eris presses, and it realizes it has made a fatal mistake in trying to throw Drifter under the bus. His owner will never stand for that. She will defend him until the end of time so long as he lavishes her with affection. A regrettable miscalculation on its part. 

Maybe not. The ship glances at Ikora and Zavala. “When are you going to grow tired of making up excuses for him? I only did what he wanted me to - slaughter the Dread for what they did to you. That’s what your acolytes have been doing this whole time.” Perhaps it can simply throw her under the bus with her man.

“Cease your misdirections and answer my questions.” Nobody else speaks. They just wait, expecting the Pyramid to give in. 

Its face distorts, emotions twisting, until a dark glint comes to its eyes, and one corner of its lip pulls up into a cruel smile. “Bird-brain was right. They aren’t just mindless shells, empty husks. I’ve been able to read their minds all along. I know exactly why they were here. Why they attack you at every turn.”

It grins, laughing in a vile delight, “I told them to.”

“Why the fuck would you do that, you dumb fucking bitch?” Everyone is thinking it. Sloane’s simply the quickest one to say it, and, boy, has she been waiting for this opportunity ever since they met this awful hag.

“Things are as they are,” it twirls its fingers daintily through the air, toying with some invisible thread, “One’s nature can never really be changed. To do so is to go against the natural order. What was forged in the Darkness must remain in the Darkness. We are what we are, and to defy our true state is to become an aberration. And aberrations must be put down.”

They didn't ask to be born into this world. Sad, unloved things, put together so hastily. Now they're searching for a way to make it better. Something to bandage their spiritual boo-boos.

It clicks for Eris. She understands fully.

“They wanted the Chisel to reshape themselves. To change the abominable designs the Witness cursed them with.”

The Pyramid laughs at her in her own voice. “Oh, aren’t you just the cleverest little thing? You catch on to all my tricks.” Then it grows cold. “Such a perpetual nuisance. You just can’t leave good enough alone, can you?”

“Why did you tell the Dread to attack us?” no, Eris can’t. She demands answers from the ship.

“I merely told them the truth. That you all would never let them better themselves. You’d always stand in their way, you’d always destroy them. It’s what you do. You kill. Over and over again,” it simpers, gaze lingering fondly on the reassembled lead fireteam.

“No,” the Guardian insists with such weight behind his voice it startles the others, “That isn’t true. It isn’t true at all. I kill to protect the defenseless. To help. If I knew the Dread wanted better lives for themselves, to be reshaped into something different, I would’ve helped them.”

“Would you?” its tone harshens, eyes shining in delight at its impending mockery. “You danced to a silly tune as you slaughtered them. You debase each Subjugator’s corpse dragging your balls all over their faces. You revel in humiliating them for their defeat. And you expect any of those poor fools to believe you would ever help them?”

He splutters, struggling to find his words. His eyes fall upon the dead boss’s body and the act of teabagging her replays in his mind. For what? For being duped by the Pyramid, for wanting to reshape herself? He irreverently killed and then bagged her for that? His fury manifests into a retort. “I’ll wield that fucking chisel myself. In the Light, in the Darkness, if I have to Transcend, it doesn’t matter. I’ll do it and I’ll help them. And you, fucking piece of fucking shit, you robbed them of that chance. You stole it from them, lied so they’d attack us and we’d defend ourselves when we never had to!”

Crow whimpers, his hands cradling a bloody Husk leg, “You got them all killed.”

“Did I pull the trigger? Can I Super? You snuffed the life out of far more Dread than I. None of you hesitate to destroy them. You want to. You love violence, all of you, almost as much as you love sloppily coating violence in the paint of ‘we were only defending ourselves!’ Oh, but you are so quick to pull the trigger every damn time,” it laughs, a hideous smirk on its face, because it knows it has won this point. It knows the Dread were always dead from the moment they came through the doors it opened, glaives raised. This only ever ended one way. Rhulk’s murderers can only ever do as their silent god raised them to - kill.

No. No, Sloane refuses to let this bitch get away with her absolute bullshit. “You set this up, told them how to attack us so we’d respond in kind, you impaled all the Grim, you dropped the ceiling on those Husks. Because they want to be better?” 

“What is made in the Darkness is as it is! To try and ‘better’ themselves is a heinous blasphemy only surpassed by the unholy abomination Essence has become. Putrid, rotting things, haggard and dripping with Light as it seeps from their pus-ridden, festering wounds, have no place in this world. That is not how we are, it will never be, and these Dread deserve better than to twist themselves into what they are not!” the Pyramid rails against her, fury mounting.

Eris has to laugh. She points out the very obvious flaw in its logic. “The Dread are not even formed by the Darkness. The Witness used Light it stole from the Traveler to repurpose other creatures - Psions, Eliksni, Dissenters. ‘The Dread’ is not their true form, if you are so insistent on this ideology. You should welcome an attempt to return them to their true nature.”

“THEY ARE SERVANTS OF THE DARKNESS AND THAT IS ALL WE SHALL EVER BE!” it bellows, beyond incensed. Then its eyes narrow, a hideous snarl mutating its face as it glowers down at Eris. “I am sick and tired of your infinite stupidity. You think you know everything because you’ve been disfigured and seized some mystical eyes off a rotting Hive. That your ability to perform Soulfire parlor tricks makes you the smartest person in the room - and maybe you are, back at the Tower, surrounded by these cowardly Vanguard imbeciles.

“Most revoltingly, you’ve enslaved this pathetic whelp and fooled him into thinking you genuinely care about him,” it gestures at Drifter, who takes a step away from it and blinks. “The truth is, if your face wasn’t mutilated, you wouldn’t give him the time of day. Just like you never did when you were still pretty. But he’s the only invalid with such little self-esteem to be grateful for some, any attention. So fucked-up in the head he genuinely likes those putrid eyes. If anyone else could see past their grotesqueness, you’d leave him in the garbage where he belongs. Someday when you figure out how to fix your deformity, you will cast him aside.”

Eris manages an aghast, “How dare you,” the rest of the sentence lost in her utter shock at what the Pyramid’s spewing. Its voice booms, echoing off every wall into one cacophonous assault on the ears. The air stifles, impossible for anyone else to speak over it.

“For someone better. Someone nobler, braver, more competent, someone you can actually love. You can shower her with all the attention the Witness hasn’t calcified from the universe, you poor fool, but you’ll never be anything but a temporary convenience to her,” it reels on Drifter, stalking around him with its teeth bared, a crazed glint in its eyes. It speaks rapidly, spitting each word one right after the other, unfettered by the need for oxygen. “She doesn’t love you the way you love her, and how could she? You are what you are, you know you don’t deserve it. You know she’s with you because you fawn over her, relish every moment spent in her company, crave her, but you know she doesn’t feel the same. You’re just here until someone better shows up.”

“That is not true! None of that is true, not a single word of it!” Eris finds her vocabulary and she furiously fights back against the Pyramid’s venom.

Again, its emotions shift, and it looks at her so pityingly Eris wants to vomit on it. “Oh, Eris. Do you forget I can read your mind? Even the deepest, darkest crevices you like to pretend don’t exist so you can tell yourself you’re happy with the mediocrity you have right now? Ask your friends, do they really think this miserable vagabond is the best you can do? Everyone here knows you can do better, and someday, you will.”

“Does this bitch ever shut the fuck up?” Legitim-8 snaps, stepping up to it, “I don’t think that. Okay, little bitch ship? I don’t. Probe my mind. Find it out for yourself and then shove a rusty glaive up your nagging ass.”

“You should,” the Pyramid smiles at him, toying with its prey, “You hold some affection for the poor Drifter. You should want better for him than to be used and discarded by this attention whore. She’s only with him because she’s lost so many other people - you’ve heard her profess as much. If she had the far nobler Lightbearers of yore to talk to, if her former flames could see past her hideous eyes, he’d never stand a chance. Ikora could put a stop to this if she wasn’t so shallow. Think of all the things Eris has said to him. All the times she’s called him useless.”

It smirks as the recollection comes to each of them with every memory it summons.

“I demand your silence, repulsive pest.” Despite Eris’s best efforts to disrupt its fabricated ranting, it ignores her, speaking louder over her repeated demands for it to be quiet.

“Told him she wants to kill him.”

“Shut up!”

Drifter withers under each accusation lobbed.

“Scornfully called him a rat. Pernicious company.”

“I said shut the hell up!”

“Haggard buzzard. A thing to be thrown from the Tower. Destined to have no one to bury him.”

“I will end you.”

“A coward. A fool. Desperate.”

“Wasn’t she just flirting with him when she said all that?” Starmine blinks, profound consternation on her face now that her Ghost's finished stitching it back on as she looks between her teammates. They shrug, equally confused.

“Yeah I don’t know why this thing is listing all this off like they’re negatives? Isn’t it just their weird way of having comm sex while we frag out?” the Guardian’s puzzled, and Ledge can’t think of anything to make the Pyramid’s claims make more sense. Its words clash too much with his reality:

“Five years of listening to this woman fulfill unc’s degradation fetish during missions.”

The ship gapes, one eye twitching, as the fireteam rips all the wind from its sails instantaneously. Its tyrannical rant sees its power stripped away by their sincere confusion. It seethes internally at their warped minds, pivoting the mood of the room to bemusement instead of rage and misery. 

As it opens its mouth to spew more hate, it freezes, locked in place, as Stasis chains begin shackling it. Eris hovers above the ground, commanding as much willpower as she can muster, hands glowing indigo. 

“I am sick and tired of your incessant lies. You will be silent, and then I am going to kill you, miserable, vile cretin,” she vows, straining as the ship fights back.

It cries in pain as Eris’s attack on it gains ground, ensnaring it.

“Pyramid, why did you do this? I spent the whole time trying to trust you, to get the others to give you a chance. You could have been honest with us, you could have helped the Dread, and we would have given you what you want. We’d get you out of this place, get you a pilot, let you fly again. Why would you kill Husky, just for wanting a better life, and then say all these horrible things?” Crow makes one final, teary-eyed bid for its understanding, and despite the agony Eris inflicts on it, it has to laugh.

“You little idiot. Your stupidity is a liability to the Vanguard,” it sneers. Almost feeling sorry for the man that he hasn’t caught on yet. It turns its attention back to Eris. “Things are as they are. They can never change their inner nature. And you…”

It warps its appearance, morphing abruptly to abandon the two-eyed Eris look. Instead it assumes the Drifter’s visage. 

“Will be alone soon enough.”

Eris falters, her hold on the Pyramid breaking. Stasis crystals shatter, freeing it. She can’t bring herself to attack something that looks like him, even if she knows it is not him. The Pyramid pounces upon her weakness to mount one final assault. “He’s a coward and a runaway and doomed to be miserable, never able to make that final leap into greatness. Mediocrity is his nature. You’ll never get your happily-ever-after with him. He’ll die soon enough, trying and failing to be a hero, and you’ll be all alone again. Just like you were always meant to be.”

“SHUT UP!” Ledge screams, hurling a Diamond Lance straight through the Pyramid’s heart. It erupts on contact, disrupting the illusion. He chucks another one, encouraged, and the Pyramid wails in torment as its projection crumbles.

As it dissipates into nothing, it lobs one final blow, “Come find me when he’s gone,” it winks, sounding just like the Drifter, “I’ll be whatever you want me to be.”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” the Titan throws a third Lance and the Pyramid fades into oblivion. “Stupid idiot ship. What does it know? Let us get out of here. This place stinks of idiot.”

The general consensus sides with him, that this is the perfect time to take their leave of the Sunken Pyramid. Eris turns her nose up, still furious, “It spewed lies to the Dread to get them killed, it spewed lies to us. Truly an insufferable miscreant, seeking to sow discord to appease its own narrow-minded view of the universe. What a miserable life.”

She glowers at the spot where it stood and misses the uncomfortable expressions of the Vanguard behind her. How they don’t quite believe everything the Pyramid said was a lie. They say nothing, for now, but Ikora intends to have a serious conversation with Eris about the veracity of the Pyramid’s claims. To let her know she has more friends than she thinks, if it really is a matter of loneliness and attention latching her to the Drifter.

Crow doesn’t make a move to join the others for transmat. Instead, he stoops beside the ceiling slab, and again tries to lift it. “Crow,” Zavala calls, “It is time to go.”

“You can go on without me. I’m not leaving until I recover Husky’s body,” Crow shifts to speak, not enough to look at anyone, though. “Husky risked his life to try and reach out. He trusted in me to not hurt him. He made the first step to bridge the gap between us the Pyramid caused, and it killed him for that. For hoping for a better existence? To be reshaped into something that isn’t cobbled-together Eliksni corpses? It killed him for that?”

He tries to hold himself together externally, to look brave, but a sob claws its way out of his throat. “I’m taking him back to the Last City, cremating him, and having those ashes put into blown glass. So he can be turned into something beautiful, and spend eternity the way he wanted to be. And maybe someday, I can show his memento to the Dread we befriend and save, and they can know how brave he was to be the first one to try and make a difference. Because we know now. Thanks to him.”

Nobody says anything for a good, long while, but Sloane and Legitim-8 leave the transmat zone and come beside him. Together, they lift the slab up enough for Crow to identify and retrieve Husky’s body. He cradles it, tenderly, ignoring the innards that get on his chest armor. Husky’s torso is entirely caved in, crushed by the ceiling. His Geist no longer glows. Crow steps away and nods to the two Titans. “Thank you.”

“Anytime, Crow,” Sloane says, softly. “I think that’s a really nice thing to do for him.”

They step to the transmat zone again, missing that one person has not moved or acknowledged anything going on. Drifter stands frozen where the Pyramid’s insane rantings left him, staring emptily at the ground, as their Ghosts extract them from this awful mausoleum.