Bree came to stand on the sync plate in the middle of the platform. It illuminated white under her boots, and then went dark. Next, the sound of a slamming stone door echoed throughout the seemingly empty cave. After a few tense seconds of nothing but silence, a glass crystal began to form, at first, it was knee high, then grew to tower over Bree and her team. It began to shake ever so slightly, as a dancing light show played from within the crystal itself, sending beams of luminescence out to pierce through the darkness. They were all focused on the miraculous brilliance of light that flickered and flashed from inside of the crystal, that no one noticed the enemy that began to emerge from behind it. Casted in deathly shadows, they emerged, the Guardians lost to the Trials. Like a horde of zombies in body armor, they came forward, but they didn’t move in the typical fashion of a Guardian, it was too mechanical. They moved like Vex. The attention of the fireteam watched the crystal continue to shine, until Bree caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. “Contact! They are moving in! Take Cover, aim, fire at will!” Bree barked orders as she cocked her auto rifle and crouched behind a broken piece of wall. The dead Guardians walked on, their eyes glowing an eerie red while their stomachs glowed a ghostly white. Bree’s team opened fire first. Her Fallen were using weapons that were well cared for and built specifically for them, so, they had no trouble maneuvering through the various spots of cover while shooting. The first wave of parabellums peppered into the oncoming Guardians, and while they were able to withstand the storm for a little while, they crumpled like tin cans and collapsed to the ground. But no matter how many Bree and her crew cut down, a dozen more appeared to take their place. “Flower, why aren’t they stopping? What do we have to do?” Bree spoke into her helmet as she stood and placed her rifle on the jagged rock that was her cover. She pulled the trigger ever so slightly, and like the kick of a mule, the rifle breathed fire as it sent a barrage of bullets into the advancing, never-ending line of Guardians. Bree’s reticle snapped quickly from one enemy to the next, exploding headshot after head shot, the gun kicked and roared in her hands, but she was steady and held on firmly. “......///////////………..///////…….Err..error...possible ...///\\\\\\\d..data corruption….lost…///” All of the information on Bree’s HUD began to flicker and jump, becoming fuzzy then returning back to clear, then faded black. The reticle, which was killing with an unwavering precision before, was flying all across her HUD, to the floor, ceiling, and even her own Vandals. She immediately released the trigger and threw her body against the safety of her cover. As Bree cowered behind her wall, her team started to spread out across the platform, all hiding behind varying degrees of broken rocks and stones, but each one of them were firing continuously at the pursuing enemy. “Flower, are you there? Can you hear me?” Bree said. “...........\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\......corrupt….” was the only response given. “Reboot all systems, close everything and run a diagnostic scan, but only on the main OS, all other backup systems have to wait, we don’t have time for that.” Bree gave the order, but her HUD kept showing the same thing. It continued to blink and waiver, she reloaded her weapon and popped back up from behind her rock, as she did her best to ignore the glitching auto aim mechanism, she pulled the trigger. Bree would have been better off closing her eyes, her aim would be adequately described as sporadic at best. Bree’s bullets flew in all directions, some actually landing on her targets while others jumped and skipped into oblivion. Ducking, reloading, ducking, reloading, and so it went on for forever. She was beginning to lose hope. They slaughtered and murdered everything in their path, but they continued to come and there seemed to be no end in sight, until several of her bullets slammed into the glimmering crystal. A quick flash, dozens of sparks, and a loud crackling noise, the crystal absorbed the firepower, but its light seemed to decreased as a few more random spray found their way home. Bree’s eyes grew wide as she watched, then, it dawned on her. In the standard military soldier fashion, she crawled on her elbows and knees, her auto rifle clutched in her hands. She reached the nearest Vandal and grabbed him, pulling him down to her level. On her knees, she presented the rifle to him and as quickly and safely as she could, she popped up out of their cover and fired blindly at the crystal. Again, more impact, more sparks and the crystal’s incandescence dimmed even more. The Vandal watched at the demonstration, then spoke in his strange tongue to his companions. Three of the Vandals continued to concentrate their shots on the Guardians whose bodies were piling up at the base of the stairs to their platform. Bree and the one Vandal she grabbed, fired at the crystal. It only continued for another minute or two before the crystal shattered into a million pieces like a glass chandelier. The onslaught of Guardians finally came to an end and the large circular chamber fell silent once again. Bree’s HUD came back to life, everything was stable and clear. Relieved, she reloaded her rifle and spoke into her helmet. “Flower, what the Hell happened to you?” “I don’t know. I had no control over anything. It’s like something was trying to hack in and take over, it took everything I had to fend off the invader. I have no idea where….../\\\\\\\\\\\\\/////…….” Flower’s voice cut out, and Bree’s HUD started to fault out once more just as another crystal transformed out of nowhere, this time, it was located further out. It glowed a hauntingly white, then came the Guardians. Bree had ducked back into her cover just as the first round, from what she thought to be a sniper rifle, skimmed just above her helmet, crashing into the stone behind her. Popping back into the line of fire, she did her best to ignore her schizophrenic reticle and took aim at the crystal. Her bullets magically found a path to the crystal, but the impact was ineffective due to the longer range; she had to move out into the open. And so, that’s exactly what she did. The firefight between Bree’s team and the fallen Guardians lit up the dark room in a bursting aurora of orange and red. Looking for a clear path, Bree, foregoing the stairs, lept over the broken wall and landed on her feet, now on the same level as her enemies. It immediately drew their attention and that’s when the shelling started. Like a pinball, she bounced from stalagmites, to walls, to boulders, anything she could find that would save her life. The Vandals all dropped down from the platform as, Bree, continued to run. The Vandals, and Bree, were all spread out, like five fingers, they stretched out and covered every possible angle. One gun covered the next, no one was without another set of eyes and that could mean the difference between surviving or dying. As the dead Guardians spawned,they wielded whatever guns they died with. Hawkmoons, MIDA Multi-Tools, Icebreakers, SUROS Regimes, and so the list went on, but it didn’t matter because they were instantly met with death. Bullets searing and ripping through their armor like tissue paper, they didn’t have a prayer. Bree made her advance as she moved up close to the crystal. She lobbed a tripmine grenade, ducked back into cover as it landed on the crystal. In a loud explosion of shattering glass, the crystal busted and broke into pieces and the fallen Guardians vanished; like they were never there. Again, and again, the crystals appeared, and like the ones before them, they were shattered and forced into obscurity. They worked out a system, it was a revolving map of coverage. Vandals were moving up to cover while others were moving back, Bree covered the ones who fell back, and they covered her as she advanced forward, they looked like a well coordinated team of mercenaries. And it worked as crystal after crystal fell before them, until they popped the last one. Everything went dark and Bree’s HUD restored itself, the platform in the center lit up and the fireteam of ruthless killers walked wearily up the stairs to the sync plate. Once they were all on it, they became engulfed in a swirling bubble of purple that laced itself around, and in-between the group of five. Then, they vanished from sight and appeared in another cave that looked identical to the one they just left. [i]Trials of a Guardian: The Trial of Corruption (Chapter 8: Part III)[/i]: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/116748787 [i]Trials of a Guardian: ALL Chapters (Appendix)[/i]: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/105589170/0/0