Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The husk fell to the Sentinel’s blade, its death cries echoing strangely. Rather than just the Haunted threads snapping away from it, a viscous darkness seeps out of its shell, bubbling and swirling.

The Second Sentinel wields their scissor blades once more. They must protect the Citadel. It’s crumbling, but it’s still standing, and while it stands, the Sentinel’s duty is eternal.

As they prepare for the next threat, they feel something. Deep inside them, in their head, it feels… 

Cold.

The darkness that leaked from the slain husk lashed out at them, like a creature’s severed limb. It clung to their shell, and they don’t feel temperature normally but this has to be what being frozen alive would feel like. The Sentinel dropped their blades to try and claw it off, but the darkness held fast and slipped inside the gaps in their metal shell.

Their cogheart thrummed frantically in their chest. The darkness was inside them. They felt the cold spread, first in their shoulder joints, then wrapping around their heart like claws, and simultaneously reaching down for their legs and winding up through their neck.

Before they can do anything about it, their vision fades to black, and they feel themself fall backwards and collapse on the ground.

…No, that’s not the end. They’re still conscious, as conscious as an automaton can be.

They try to move, but their body doesn’t respond. Not even a single twitch. Is this what it would have been like if they could think while they were dormant in the Cogwork Core? 

Their whole body shudders. Their hands close, and open, and they’re not the one doing it.

They are jerked upright, getting to their feet in halted motions like a puppet on strings. Like a corpse on haunted strings. Their body stoops over, picking up the scissor blades, but the Second Sentinel can’t move. The darkness pilots them, and they feel themself walking unsteadily, one step at a time, as though it’s trying to figure out how to move.

The Sentinel focuses as much as they can. They can’t control their limbs, they can’t see; the coldness is everywhere. The husks controlled by the dark strands seemed less jerky in their movements, but still very much controlled by something else. Did they all feel like this? No, no, some were very much reanimated corpses, not just possessed. Like their minds were that of the dark strands. The Sentinel could still think, as much as they already could. 

So they mused that it would typically be like piloting a suit of armor, but with the Sentinel it was like a child making a doll walk.

This didn’t make them feel any better.

They were controlled by the dark strands. Termination is the appropriate fate for them. But they can’t do that at the moment.

(As the Lost Sentinel prowls the Choral Chambers, a Wish is placed on Songclave’s wishwall. A wish detailing malevolent darkness inside a golden shell, lurking through the halls in search of something to attack.

A wish that a certain hunter takes pause at, before regretfully taking it with her and setting out to the halls of the Citadel.)

The darkness doesn’t stay perfectly inside their shell. It twists around inside their limbs as it pilots the Sentinel, like intelligent vines. It trickles out from the gaps around their eyes. A mockery of mortal bugs’ tears.

After some time, there’s a clicking sound getting louder. It’s claws against the smooth floor, getting closer. Approaching them.

The void tightens its grip on the scissor blades and twists the Sentinel to face the sound. It’s an unnatural stance, the blades held loosely at both sides and their body in almost a C-shape, void dripping from their eyes as it looks at whatever unfortunate soul found them.

The newcomer speaks. “Gilded one…”

The Second Sentinel internally freezes. 

They know that voice. They try to speak, to warn her or apologize, something, anything, but the darkness is strangling their voicebox. The only thing that comes out is garbled noise.

The darkness doesn’t let Hornet make a full sentence. The Sentinel feels themself lurch forward, swinging their blades wildly. They feel resistance, hear a loud clash of metal, and then feel the other’s needle slash against them. 

That’s good. If she was able to defeat them once, then she can defeat them like this.

The darkness possessing the Sentinel attacks with everything it has, but Hornet doesn’t hold back either. The strikes and parries hit hard, and they realize that she was holding back during the duel in the High Halls. She must have been.

The darkness seems to be borrowing most of the Second Sentinel’s techniques in battle, but after yet another parried slash it staggers. Just for a moment, the Sentinel can tell that the fighting wore on the darkness, before it straightened up once more. The Sentinel let out another garbled static yell, and feels the dark tendrils themselves begin to lash outside of their shell. 

Hornet is still able to dodge it. They don’t feel the tendrils hit anything, but they do feel the needle strikes against their back. 

The darkness continues fighting, but Hornet is landing far more hits on it than it is able to land on her.

It staggers once more. Hornet takes the moment of weakness to continue striking. As she does so, the darkness recedes from their eyes. Just for a moment, not all the way. They see the ground splattered with the darkness, themself holding the scissor blades in a way they weren’t programmed to, and they see Hornet. Her cloak has some void dropped on it, but she doesn’t seem too injured. She wields her needle, ready to strike again, when she locks eyes with the Sentinel.

“Gilded one, are you in there?” She asks.

The Sentinel attempts to speak one more time, and words finally come out. “R-r-recognit-tion gran-ted, from this S-sentinel.”

The darkness is still there, still in them, but they are temporarily themself again. They open one hand and drop one of their scissor blades, letting it clatter to the floor.

“I am sorry, my friend,” Hornet keeps her composure, but her needle shakes, just for a second. “I couldn’t remove the black strands any other way.”

“F-forgives, t-this Sentinel does-s.” They say. “T-termination, is the necessary fa-a-ate, for t-those infected b-by the d-dark threads.”

They have one chance to do this, before they’re controlled again. Before the dark makes them break their protocol any more.

They continue, grip tightening on their other blade. “N-no excep-ption is to be m-m-made, for t-this Sentinel.”

They lift it up with both hands, sparing a single moment to look at Hornet (was that horror in her eyes? Grief? Or resignation?), before plunging the blade through their chest. 

The darkness itself hisses, and the Sentinel feels it begin to dissipate as their cogwork heart is impaled. They drop to their knees, hands letting go of the blade. Their systems are slowing down, and they slump against the ground.

With fading awareness, they notice Hornet standing next to them, head bowed.

Everything goes dark, and the last thing they hear is a soft melody played on strings.

Chapter Text

The wish is heavy in her hands. 

It’s just a bug’s wish, made of material light enough to pin to a board, but Hornet feels a sense of dread at it.

The Void is bringing everything down, everything that she fought to protect, to build. Every life ended by the Void-touched Haunting is something that she caused. Unintentionally or not, this is her fault. 

She’d been flitting between the different surviving settlements, granting whatever wishes she could on the way to her quest to save what’s left of Pharloom, and walked into Songclave with a needle stained with void and a memento of a fallen knight in her pocket. She took the latest wish from Songclave’s wishwall and began to read.

It was written by a pilgrim, their handwriting was shaky and rushed. They described a being with a golden shell and wearing the Citadel’s emblem, but possessed by the same darkness that was plaguing Pharloom and wielding deadly sharp blades. The pilgrim wishes for it to not come closer to Songclave and to not attack any pilgrims.

Something about the wish makes Hornet worry. It’s vague enough, surely it’s not them. They’re strong and swift, they should be fine. There’s many different automatons that she has seen, it could be any number of those that fell to the Void.

A little voice in her head mentions that it has been some time since she has seen the Second Sentinel. The last time a supposedly capable bug disappeared for a time in this apocalypse… well. She pockets the wish, claws briefly brushing against the Hero’s Memento as she does, before setting out to the Choral Chambers.

Granting the wish is hardly even a choice. Despite its current state, Pharloom is not dead yet, and neither are its people. She will do what she can to protect them.

As she starts her hunt, she sees a gash in the floor. It’s not the kind that a claw would make, but rather what would happen if one were to drag a heavy nail behind them. Importantly, it wasn’t here the last time she had come this way. She pinpoints which direction the one who made the gash went, and follows the trail. She goes from scratch mark to scratch mark; there’s some drips of void alongside them, but the entire Citadel has void staining it. Tracking from that alone would be a futile task.

She enters a room and sees a few corpses of Citadel bugs at the entrance, void puddled around their bodies. She places one hand on her needle; a foreboding feeling prickles up her shell, and it has never misled her yet.

Hornet sees the figure in question, standing hunched over in the shadows. It turns towards her, twin scissor blades dragging alongside it.

Oh. Oh no.

Hornet’s stomach drops. The Second Sentinel is facing her, but their eyes are black and dripping Void. It leaks out from the gaps in their metal shell, and at certain angles she can see the tendrils of Void strangling their inner mechanisms. Their posture is no longer proud and tall, but hunched and ready to charge like a puppet on strings, in an achingly familiar way. Even their white fluffy antennae are blackened and drooping, as though soaked in Void. 

“Gilded one…” Hornet mutters.

The Lost Sentinel makes a strangled screeching sound, like metal rending itself apart, before lunging at her. She raises her needle to block and parries the strike.

There’s nothing else she can do, so the Hunter in Red does what she does best.

The duel in High Halls feels almost like it was a test to prepare for this battle. The Lost Sentinel is fast, swinging their blades in the same patterns but with little hesitation or rest. She darts in and out, slashing at her voided friend whenever an opportunity opens up.

After some well timed strikes and parries the Sentinel staggers. They drop to the ground, and for a single second their eyes flicker from black to white, and then back to black. They jerk back to their feet, like a string yanked them upwards, and scream, another garbled, piercing thing. The Void tendrils inside them lash out, and Hornet feels the wind as they barely miss her face. The moment they stop, she continues her assault.

The Void shows itself in its attacks more, and Hornet knows that she’s weakening it. It hits her a couple times, but she recovers and heals with her silk quickly.

She gets the Sentinel to stagger again, their eyes flickering again. She’s about to swing again, when she notices that something is different. Their eyes stay white, like normal, and it’s like they’re taking stock of their surroundings. It’s a small risk, but maybe-

“Gilded one, are you in there?” She asks, not expecting a response.

They tilt their head, as exhausted as an automaton can appear. “R-r-recognit-tion gran-ted, from this S-sentinel.” Their voice stutters even more than usual, and one hand fully opens, one of their blades clattering harmlessly to the floor.

Hornet feels her heart drop.

She can’t keep doing this.

“I am sorry, my friend,” she says, keeping her voice steady. It hurts, but it won’t break her. “I couldn’t remove the black strands any other way.”

In her mind she briefly thinks, what if she could? What if there was some other thing that she could have done that could save the Second Sentinel? That could have saved Garmond? 

“F-forgives, t-this Sentinel does-s.” The Sentinel trembles, briefly, before stilling themself. The Void is still staining their shell, still present. “T-termination, is the necessary fa-a-ate, for t-those infected b-by the d-dark threads.”

As they say this, they grip their remaining blade tightly with both hands.  “N-no excep-ption is to be m-m-made, for t-this Sentinel.”

They hold out the blade, pointed at themself, and Hornet knows what they’re going to do. (A knight, screaming with a voice they weren’t supposed to have, driving a blade into their chest, burning orange infection pouring out of it-)

The Second Sentinel falls to their knees. The Void hisses and starts to leak from their shell, the ticking of their inner mechanisms growing louder and more strained. They catch themself with their hands, then drop again, scissor blade pierced directly through the same place that Hornet had gingerly put the cogwork heart, and she does nothing but watch the light in their eyes fade. Not to Void, but dark. 

This is her fault.

They’re dying because of the Void, which wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her springing that trap. 

They’re not dead yet though. She doesn’t trust her words, she isn’t a soft, comforting bug, but she can’t sit silently.

She pulls her needle in front of her and strings silk along the blade. While the ticking of the Second Sentinel’s mechanisms grow quieter, she plays a tune, the same one she played with Shakra for her master and the same one she had played for Garmond. She keeps playing until it’s entirely silent other than her playing, and then she continues for a few moments after.

She hopes it brought them some comfort.

Then she stashes her needle on her back once more, gives the fallen Sentinel a final nod, and then leaves. 

She doesn’t have time for grief; never has. And this time she has mistakes to fix, before they take away anything else.