The crows hit Garuud and tear into his back and face. Garuud makes swipes up with his arms knocking them away and throws a incendiary grenade into the crows.. burning them away. " Bring it! Enough of this petty crap! hurt me more! bahahahahaha!" Garuud yells as his injuries slowly heal. He then brought out his imbious and began firing at anything that got close. His smile growing bigger each shot. " I will kill you, make no mistake. I will find a way."

A Rhino comes charging out of the shadows, the bully's pinging of its armor plating. It swings it's horn upwards, attempting to gorge out the Titan's insides. Meanwhile... "Stop this! Stop it now!" Alice shouts at the voice. [b][i]"Stop what?"[/i][/b] It replies to her. "Hurting him! Killing him!" [b][i]"Okay, sure."[/i][/b] Alice blinks after hearing this. "What?" [b][i]"I'll stop. At a cost."[/i][/b] Alice crosses her arms. "What's the cost?" She asks, fully prepared to pay that cost. [b][i]"Simply take the darkness into your light willingly. That easy."[/i][/b] Alice bites her lip. "Why?" She asks. [b][i]"No matter what, the Darkness will turn you, but with this infusion of Darkness, it will make you even stronger than regularly changing. This is for the benefit of both me and you. More so, you."[/i][/b] Alice continues watching the screen as she considers this offer.

The Rhino connects with Garuuds mid section and goes through completely. pinning him to the wall. Garuud does not seem to move.... and then the camera pans to his hanging head. That is when his head shoots up to face the camera and his eyes turn black during a high pitched scream. "Graaaaaaaaahhhh! You pitiful creature! Let me show you.... true fear! hahahahahahahahaha!" Dark Garuuds armor turned stark white with black eyes and mouth. He reached down the Rhino and ripped it out of him and snapped its horn off and began stabbing it repteadedly and threw the Rhino across the room. The hole in his midsection healed instantly with what looked like bone. "Graaaaah! " He yelled as he rushed into the crowd of wolves slaughtering them, but as soon as they "Died" They re-appeared somewhere else. One wolf Bit onto Garuuds arm and tore it off, it grew back instantly covered in spikes and clawed ends. He then used that claw to impale the wolf and throw it back at its friends. " I will kill you all! baahahahahahaha!"

The Contagium continued fighting, doing all that it could to hurt the Titan. It began sending waves of horse riders with spears and swords, circling him multiple times. Meanwhile... The screen shows Garuud fighting- no, struggling against the incoming enemy, getting torn to ribbons by wolf fang, crow talon and Rhino horns altogether. On the screen, the door began opening and Anaxis stumbled into the room. Immediately, the door slammed shut again, trapping them both in, and all the while, Alice watched in horror as they began to be torn apart. "Okay, yes. I'll do it." She mutters to the voice. [b][i]"Beg your pardon?"[/i][/b] It replied. "I'll do it!" She shouts at it. "Dammit, call the Contagium off and infuse me!" [b][i]"With pleasure."[/i][/b] What sounds like a snap of fingers echoes around the room, and the Contagium is called off.

Garuud is tearing into the creatures feeding on their darkness. He then went into a rage and began destroying everything in sight. The room? The creatures? It didn't matter! They were all his prey. he screamed so loud that the whole building heard it. " I will feast on you, graaaaaaaaaaaah!" Its tone getting progressively deeper and the cuts in his armor filling up with the bone like substance going bone like protrusions. . He began slaughtering the creatures. " I... know.... your..... secret...." He hissed out.

All of a sudden the creatures disappear leaving the illusion of the same teenage girl from before. "It was a pleasure, Mr Garuud. But I've finished distracting you." She does a curtsy before looking back up at Garuud. "This is a matter bigger than you or the one out there know. Until we meet again, Garuud." Then she lowers her head and becomes as still as a statue. Meanwhile... [b][i]"Close your eyes, stand still, and let your mind float away."[/i][/b] She stands there head lowered, and she feels something cold climb it's way up from her feet, into her legs, to her torso, and spread from there. "It's so cold." She whispers. [b][i]"Don't worry, it may feel like death, but when your done, you will feel more alive then ever."[/i][/b] And with that statement finished, her consciousness drifted to Darkness.

He couldn't explain what he saw, nor did he really want too. Anyway, it didn't matter, the room was clear and the crystal above was un damaged. Perfect, that would be the best source if information. Wait. Where was Alice? "Titan, you alright? Where's Alice?"

Garuud simply stood there panting The bone spikes moving with his armor. " GRAAAAAH!" He punched the statue of the girl shattering it. Still in his darkness infused state he began to feel and sense the other source of darkness. The one that created that creature. He began moving towards the source at a high speed. He screamed as he tore through a wall. " Where are you!?!?"

Alice, lying on the ground of the hive room, woke up to the sound of Garuud breaking through the wall. The Dark that Garuud felt is dissipating rapidly, leaving only Alice's light in the room. She looks up at Garuud, his armor torn to shreds. "Hey Garuud." She says weakly. "How's it going?"

Anaxis ran into the room after the berserk Titan. He really should figure out his name, it'd be better than calling him 'Titan' every time. But he saw Alice laying down on the floor and quickly went over to her. He looked her up and down. She didn't seem to be harmed, excluding a large cash across her back that he hadn't noticed before, but judging from the way it looked, it had to be an old wound. Probably from Grixis. She got lucky, he knew how deadly that cleaver of his was. However, even though she seemed unharmed, something about her seemed... Off was the only way to put it. "Hey, you okay?" He asked Alice. But he already knew she wasn't, he had no idea how he knew, he just had that feeling. If she said she was fine, she would be lying. And if she said she wasn't, she would only respond with a very vague truth. But he could be wrong either way. He waited for her response, eager to get back to the large crystal in the bridge.

Alice switched her gaze from Garuud to Anaxis. "Oh yeah, perfectly fine." She mutters sarcastically. "Not like I just had to fight off a creature of Darkness or anything without the help of you two." She lowers her head to the ground. "Sorry, I'm just on edge right now." That was mostly the truth. After everything that just happened, Alice choosing to save Garuud's and Anaxis's life by infusing herself with Darkness, that was a form of fighting off a creature of Darkness. Or at least, that's what Alice was thinking to herself. "Do you mind helping me up? I'm kinda woozy."

Garuud upon seeing Alice and the darkness dissipating began to calm down. With no prey to hunt, there was no need to be in that mode. Garuud reaches down and pulls Alice up. " Watch the spikes, they are quite stabby haha. you okay?"

"Same answer I have Anaxis, just with less sass." She stands up and looks at Garuud. "How about you? You're the one whose been torn apart."

" Torn apart? I heal just fine, but it was nothing I could not handle bahahaha.... were you watching the fight?" Garuud asked confused as the spikes broke off and fell off of his body. Garuud looked around. " So whos play room is this?"

"Don't know, I just woke up here." She walks out through the hole in the wall and over to the corner. She rests her back on it, then slides down it to rest at the bottom. With the others in the other room searching, Alice lowers her head and closes her eyes. Something was there, she could feel it. Before the infusion, it was increasing, the Darkness inside her. But now? It's like her entire body is cold. Something rubs against her hand which lay on the ground, and her eyes immediately jolt open. Almost like it was caressing her hand, a pool of Darkness in shadow form surrounds her, rubbing and seeping itself into the her. She looks over at the wall, quickly checking to make sure no-one was watching. Then she looked down at the shadows. "Go away, please." She whispers frantically at the shadows. The strange thing is, they seem to listen. As soon as she says it, the shadows retreat to the other corners. It was scary. It wasn't the shadows that openly stayed with her that scared. It wasn't the fact that she had gave them an order and they seemed listen like a sentient being that scared her. No. It was the fact that when the shadows and darkness surrounded her so closely, she felt comfortable, happy even. That was what scared her.

"This," Anaxis said, as he stepped back into the bridge, "is the bridge of the cruiser." The entire room was illuminated by the eery white light above the long room, and from the opening at the front of the ship. He looked up at the large, green crystal that seemed to float on its side. His Ghost appeared a second later. "[i]Shall I?"[/i] "You know what to do." He responded. With that, Maxus floated up to the giant dormant crystal. He was halfway there before Anaxis stopped him. "Maxus." He looked back down at his Guardian. "Be careful. That isn't like any other Hive machination." He warned. And then turned and glided up once more. He hoped nothing would go wrong. He needed this information. Without much to do but wait, he looked at Alice. "You were about to ask a question before we came in here, I believe?"

Garuud looked around the room Eyeing Alice when ever he could. a voice spoke up in his head " She seems different.... closer to me.... ahahahahaha how delicious." Garuud dismissed it and moved into the room. " So what exactly are we looking for in the giant disco ball... thing? Is it valuable?"

From her position in the corner, she sits with her eyes closed, thinking. She hears the two Guardians working around the room, no doubt looking at her when they can. Thing is, she felt different. She had a Darkness infused into her light. Or at least, that's how it felt. But... It didn't feel wrong. It felt... Nice. She felt like where she sat in the Darkness of the Hive Cruiser, if she wanted to, she could lift it out of the sand dunes and back into the sky. [i]Could I?[/i] She thinks. She opens her eyes and looks over at Anaxis. He just asked her a question, but she hadn't been paying attention, so she asked her own. "What's the chance that we could get this Cruiser flying again?"

" That would be fun!" Garuud says with a grin no doubt trying to lighten the mood. "would be nice to have a functioning carrier for our own purposes."

"Or we use it against our enemy's." She stands up, and she [i]feels[/i] the shadows of Darkness shift around her. She laughs out loud, curious at the way she never noticed it before, the way that shadows cling around, completely enveloping everything. "I'm going to have to try some time..." She says out loud. To others it sounds like she wants to try to power the cruiser, but she knows in her mind that what she really wants to try is controlling the shadows, bending them to her will.

" Im down! bahahahahaha! Lets do it. " Garuud laughed. " So what are we looking for?"

"Those chances are very, [i]very[/i] slim," he responded to her question, never taking his eyes of the long crystal. "Actually, it's impossible with the given the circumstances. The reactor is no doubt completely drained of power, and the only way to get this thing moving is with a collection of specialized Wizards to make a hive mind, or Grixis himself inside that crystal," he said, pointing to the dim crystal. He didn't even know why she asked. It was truly impossible to get this cruiser airborne. She even chuckled apparently at the thought. Why did she seem so eager to give it shot? ...Wait. He thought back to when he first saw Alice in the cliff. She told him that she bonded with Shovoroth, who was completely full of Darkness. She also stated that she went head to head with Grixis. Thinking about Shovoroth, the evidence that he was dark was his black hide and his black eyes. Now that he was bonded with a Guardian, it would make sense that his hide changed color to match that energy. But he also saw that the edges of each scale were the same pitch black color. His feathers too. Now with Grixis, he was able to permanently kill Guardians that could easily be deemed powerful. But her? She gets out with only a gash on her back. And just recently, she all but disappeared when they were attacked on the bridge, only to re-appear close by when the shadows vanished. It clicked in his head, and he slowly took his gaze off the crystal. [i]You have got to be kidding me.[/i] He slowly turned his head and looked at Alice, slowly turning his body in her direction. Then he slowly began to walk toward her. "Alice. You said that you were bonded with Shovoroth, a being that was brought back from the dead, and augmented by Darkness. His hide turned to the color of Light when you made that link, indicating that he was infused with that same Light. Except parts of him stayed that same color of black. Why is that?" He let that sink in for a few seconds before speaking again. "You even stated that you dueled Grixis, mainly [i]by yourself,[/i] and survive, that even the most powerful of Guardians couldn't do in a fireteam, and were killed. How were you able to do what they couldn't?" Same moment of silence, then again. "And just now, when a collection of unknown beings of pure Darkness attacks us, you are nowhere to be found. When the fighting is over, you are found seconds later. Why?" He stopped just a meter in front of her. "Is there something that you're not telling me?"

Alice's watches him come closer, then tilts her head when he's a metre away. "First, he might still have some resounding darkness buzzing about inside of him. Probably will fade. Second, he only cut my armor and a bit of skin. Plus I think I may have absorbed some of his energy. Last, the creature that took me was probably aiming to eat me after it killed you too, so it went after me after it lost, but I was in the next room, so Garuud bashed the wall down, scaring and making it run, leaving me alive." The lie came so simple that she thought that she may not have even said it. Beneath her helmet she smiles, knowing full well that anything more would through the lie of track. She matches Anaxis's stare with one of her own.