The group of seven stood in the doorway of the massive chamber. The chamber that they were inside of was nearly a hundred meters across and a hundred meters wide. With the black spherical taken blight was just above the center of the chamber about twenty meters in the air. Under his hood, Dregen Yor snickered to himself at the sight of the seven guardians. 

"Now, then, James," Yor said to him as they stood across from each other. "As you can without a doubt tell, Emily is still under Oryx's control." He said looking to his right at the Taken Hunter lifting up her hair with his right hand letting it fall to her shoulder. Nova's eyes grew wide along with David and Williams. 

"Yor," David said coldly. "WE'VE GOT ONE BIG BONE TO PICK WITH YOU!" He shouted pointing at him. 

"Yeah, I know you do kid." He said looking over at the Exo wearing the Voidfang Vestiments. "And I have one to pick with your old man." He said looking directly at James. "How do you think it felt for me to have to return to my master, only to tell him that I had failed?!" He shouted pointing his gloved hand at him. James didn't respond, only with a clenched fist moving forward to face Dregen alone. "You were heralded as heroes, and I was only met with disappointment and disdain!" He exclaimed. "And defeated by you, a Warlock! THAT IS ONE MISTAKE I WILL NOT REPEAT!" He shouted before he started to power up to his own version of Invictus. 

"So, it looks like you've achieved Invictus too," James said to him not moving his hands from his pockets. 

"Invictus? Oh no no no." He snickered. "You see, this is far superior to your pathetic transformation. It increases my strength and speeds far greater than that of your sons ever could achieve." 

"My sons?" He asked. 

"Yeah, the pathetic excuses for a Warlock and Titan who are standing over there." He said looking over at the two boys over the Exo's shoulder. Then as if from nowhere, Nova took off with her Invictus state activated and rushed Yor with her sword fully extended and swung over her head at the Dark Guardian. Yor dodged her swing rather easily with her sword crashing into the Earth below him as he moved back, making the chitinous floor crack and break. She blitzed him as fast as she could possibly go, but Yor was dodging her with ease as if each of her strikes were moving in slow motion as he kept moving backward. Then the Taken Guardian kicked her in her side with both feet sending her to the other side of the room. Nova felt winded and stood up to fight again, but she found herself already at a disadvantage. Emily was going to be fighting with all she had, and she couldn't. However, something odd happened, Emily pinned her to the ground, Nova struggled, but her strength far surpassed her own. 

Yor looked over to his left and smirked. "Now, if any of you try to interfere," He said looking at Cameron with her fist tightly clenched. "She dies." He said to them then shifting his attention back to James. "So, now that we understand each other," He said to James. "Perhaps I should explain since you called your form Invictus, I will title mine, Tenerbris." 

"That's a little on the nose isn't it?" James asked him. 

"That's beside the point." He replied before powering up again. "The point is I'm going to utterly eviscerate you." He told James. "You know I spent the past sixteen years training, fueled by my hatred for you and the humiliation you had dealt me. I studied your fighting, your training, I made sure that I was strong enough to beat you." He sneered. 

James eyed him back and powered up to match him in strength and got into a ready fighting stance. Yor matched his position and took off toward him nearly faster than James could see. Then Yor slammed his gauntleted fist into James' right metal cheek sending him backward into the air. James backflipped and onto the floor and charged forward with his fist cocked behind his head and flew toward Dregen and their fists collided sending a shockwave around the room. 

"Looks like you've gotten better," James said to Yor as their fists remained locked together.

"As I've said." He said raising his right leg to kick him in the side sending him to the other side of the room. "I spent sixteen years learning how to beat you." James got back on his feet and started to think of what he could do to defeat Yor now. From what he could tell, any attempt that he would make to attack his emotional instability wouldn't work like they had the last time that they'd fought. Now, he'd have to beat Yor based on pure martial skill. James smirked to himself as Yor flew toward him, it had been much too long since he had an actual challenge. Cameron was perhaps the only person who was on his level, and Charon was a close second. 

"You spent sixteen years learning how to beat one person?" He snickered crossing his arms to block another hit from Yor as he crashed his fist into him. 

"If I can beat you, I can beat everyone! Then I'll be the strongest guardian in existence!" He shouted as he started attacking with both his fists, elbows, and knees. James kept watching and looking for any opening in Yor's fighting style. Then as they were continuing to fight the ground underneath them started to crack and break. 

"Guardian?" James asked catching his punch with his right hand and delivering a heavy punch to his gut, one that nearly winded Yor in the process. "You lost that title long ago." He said before blasting Yor at point blank with one of his beam attacks sending him to the other side of the room. 

While the two of them were dueling, Nova was struggling to get out from underneath the grip of the Taken guardian who had her pinned. She didn't want to move; she couldn't hurt Emily. No matter how badly she would have wanted to. Then, she heard a voice. "Mom, listen to me, you have to kill me." She heard a female's voice call to her. 

"E-Emi?" She thought. Then behind the Taken an entirely void light figure sneaked in and pulled the Taken off putting her in a chokehold. The Taken struggled and swiped at the girl keeping her in place, but it was no good. She could interact with the physical plane, but nobody could touch her. 

"Mom, listen! You have to destroy me! I'll be alright! Kill me!" She shouted. Nova could feel tears start to build up in her eyes. 

"I can't!" 

"You can! You have to!" She said to her. "Listen to me! I can't move on to the Afterworld if my Taken-self isn't destroyed!"

"I can't! I can't kill my baby girl!" Nova sobbed falling to her knees. 

"Please Mom, everything is going to be alright!" Emily pleaded. "I promise!" 

Nova's fear and sadness then started to boil over into anger, and void energy started to charge in her hands and with her Invictus re-engaging, she screamed, so loudly it shook the chamber they were in and fired a Blitz Beam at full power. The Taken wailed and screamed as Emily held it in place, its form disintegrating with the beam of void light. And at the same time, Emily could feel herself growing in strength, absorbing the void light like a sponge. 

"Thank you, Mom, goodbye," Emily said as her spirit faded away to the Afterworld. Nova collapsed to the floor and started to bawl uncontrollably. Yor looked over to his left for a moment and saw that the Taken was gone. 

"NO!" He shouted. James then moved ahead and crashed his fist into Yor's face. 

"YOU'RE WIDE OPEN!" He shouted before inflicting massive amounts of pain into the Dark Guardian's body. His motions so fast that Yor could swear he saw his fists phasing in and out of existence as he struck him. Yor attempted to block, but then he started getting hit from behind. He looked over his shoulder and saw that there was a second James that was hitting him from behind, then one on his right, then one on his left. Then all four of them punched Yor across the face sending him sprawling to the floor. 

"You said that you trained sixteen years to beat me." All four of them said to Yor as they surrounded him. "You clearly haven't studied nearly enough." Each of them said raising their right hands and creating a purple glowing orb in their hands. Yor slowly stood up to his feet and looked at the clones that surrounded him. Then the quartet of Warlocks fired their nova bombs at their enemy. When the smoke cleared, Yor was on his knees, incredibly weakened. James deactivated the form to conserve his energy.

"You fought well Yor..." James replied. 

"I....can't....give....up." Yor said slowly raising his fist to James' face from the floor. 

"YOU WON'T HAVE TO!" Nova shouted standing up with glowing purple tears pouring out of her eyes. She stood with her hands outstretched and with her wrists pressed together and her teeth clenched. James moved back as Yor struggled to move. "BEGONE!" She shouted firing a massive blitz beam into Yor. The Dark Guardian looked on as the blast of void energy barreled toward him. Then the impact and strength of the blast was so great, that he was disintegrated on impact. The Dark Guardian was gone forever. Nova then collapsed to the floor, broken-hearted and sad. James and Charon walked over to her and picked her up, "You're done Nova, you did good." James said hugging her. 

"I killed my baby, Dad..." She sobbed. 

"No you didn't, you killed the monster that took her away," James replied comforting his stepchild. Charon looked at the two of them and nodded, James let go and let Charon and Kronah comfort her with them. 

"Sweetie, we're going to send you back to the ship okay?" Charon told her. 

"Okay, Dad." She sobbed rubbing her eyes as Captain pulled her out. Once that was over, and Yor had been finished off for good, the team had no time to celebrate. Another one of their team members was incapacitated, and it would only get worse from this moment forward. Yor only wanted to fight one of them. The rest will want all of them dead.