The Three Ravens (Story)

[Nekriist]

((WARNING: The battles written in this story can be very explicit in their detail, with the intent to add grittiness and a kind-of-sort-of-as-close-as-you-can-to realism to the story. Language is fairly mild. PG-13 at best. You have been warned.

Anyways, this is my starting story for a character I created for this game. He has so far, briefly appeared in The Dojo RP thread (In which an event in this story is referenced: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/183511-the-dojo-open-rp/page-5), and who I introduced in the RP subforum "Introduce your character" thread).))

 

The transport was only minutes away from breaching Earth's atmosphere by the time he had finished his preparations. Which was good. A bumpy ride would not make for an accurate ritual.

He would have preferred to perform his ritual in his own living quarters, but the urgency of the mission forced him to improvise. Fortunately, he was always prepared for battlefield divinations. A small bit of charcoal had allowed him to draw the designs and symbols needed in the passenger compartment of the spacecraft. Around him, three brother and sister Tenno watched on in relative silence. Oh, there were the occasional mumblings, and noises of confusion, but they kept their peace for the most part.

 

Being the only one not strapped into his harness, the Tenno kneels onto the floor, in the meditation position, and retrieves his casting runes from the grineer-skin pouch at his waist.

"Don't you know that nonsense doesn't work, Runen?"

Runen the Mad turns his gaze towards the youngest of the group, an Excalibur warframe. Well, young in relation to how long he'd been awake from his cryopod. Regardless, he certainly acted like a young person would. Arrogant, headstrong, no respect for their elders. The other two Tenno chose not to comment, but from their body language, they seemed to agree with their younger comrade.

 

With a sigh, and an effort of will, he returns his focus back to the ritual. Only maybe another minute or so until the craft would hit the atmosphere. The ambient noise of the cabin fades as Runen focuses on the bones. Soon, all he can hear are the gentle clinking of the bone talismans hanging from the horns of his helmet and clacking of the casting runes--themselves small bones--in his armored hands. With a sharp intake of breath, he throws his hands outwards, and the bones scatter. All of them stay within the design drawn upon the floor.

The Oberon leans forward and inspects the results, knowing time running short before the pattern is ruined. Every placement of the runes, their angles in relation to others, everything had to be scrutinized. Runen saw nothing damning or doom-laden in the design. Although...it did speak of great hardship an--

An armored foot invaded his view, crashing down to pulverize one of his runes. Instantly the sounds of the compartment came rushing back, his focus destroyed. What or whose rune was destroyed? That answer escaped him in the head of the moment. With a howl of animal fury, he surged to his feet and slammed the Excalibur against the wall. The younger Tenno put his hands on Runen's forearm.

"I told you to get back in your damned seat you idiot! We're about to enter the atmosphere, and we don't have time for your magic tricks!" If the helmet weren't on, Runen imagined the Tenno would have spit at him. The other two Tenno were looking between each other, probably considering whether or not they should intervene.

"Do you have...any idea what you've done?! It's all changed now! I don't know what will happen to us now! Whatever happens to us is on you, whelp." The Oberon snarls in return, casting the young Tenno to the ground before stooping over to collect his remaining casting runes.

"And for the record, we hit the atmosphere in ten seconds."

 

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The mission counter read two hours. It felt like eight. At least eight. Grineer resistance had been much heavier than the Lotus had said. The mound of them three bodies deep at the mouth of an old drainage pipe confirmed that. Everyone on the team had wounds of some sort, and Runen called for them all to stop so he could tend to them.

Well, tend wasn't the right word. A few chanted words in a dead language (Bits and pieces he could recall from before the long sleep), and the activation his warframe's Renewal ability were all it took. Healing energy was released within not only himself, but his fellow Tenno as it spread to each of them. Blood clotted, wounds knitted themselves back together, and after several seconds, they were ready to go again.

It was at that moment that the pile of Grineer corpses toppled to reveal still more clone soldiers. All four Tenno dove for cover, but a stray shot sheared off some of Runen's bone totems. When he spied the sinew and bone creation laying on the moss-covered ground, his vision went red.

 

The Volt, who jokingly called himself the 'Electromancer', started towards the Oberon as he lept from cover and ran into the wall of gunfire.

"He's gone and done it..." the Electromancer said in awed tones. "The crazy bastard's finally snapped..." Having been the only one of the three Tenno to have run more than one mission with Runen, that was a telling statement.

All of the squad were dangerously low on their energy reserves, although a lone bolt of green red lightning from the Volt arced out to flash-fry several of the Grineer inside their armor. Aside from that, only gunfire was lent to Runen's insane charge. Not that he noticed, as the sane portion of his mind had since receded behind a wall of blood colored rage. Were he aware, he would have noticed himself screaming at the Grineer in their own crude language--something he had been studying during periods between missions, ever the scholar. The colorful language and exasperated sighs over the internal-commnet would have also been very noticeable as his comrades reacted to his recklessness.

 

Runen was halfway across no-man's land when his shields gave, and his advance slowed considerably with the amount of solid slugs rattling off his warframe. Engraved and inlaid runes of protection were blasted out of existence as the withering fire began to take its toll.

But they had apparently done a good enough job as he reached the first Grineer. His Latron rifle lay discarded several feet behind him, the magazine empty. And so the mad skald drew his Stiletto pistols from their thigh holsters and jammed the barrels in a gap between the chest and abdomen armor of his opponent. Depressing the triggers brought a wave of soothing satisfaction as he emptied both magazines up and into the chest cavity of the clone. Runen let go of the machine pistols as soon as they had fired their last shots, the guns clattering to the ground as he kicked the corpse into the other Grineer. This allowed him time to grab the Orthos slung across his back. The killing began in earnest then.

 

Limbs, heads, and torsos fell to the ground in arcing sprays of bright arterial blood. The Oberon dispensed with all pretense of form or fighting style and simply hacked and stabbed and bludgeoned. Every bifurcation, every amputation, and every decapitation brought him closer to regaining control of himself. As the blood-fog started to clear, the sane part of his mind caught fragments of his butchery. With detached amusement, he watched his arm cast a severed head at a scorpion, the heading fracturing the creature's face in a fountain of blood.

 

And suddenly, it was over. The towering rage that had consumed him had burnt out completely. Control, consciousness, returned in a wave of pain and physical exhaustion. The HUD cast over the interior of his helmet explained to him in flashing red points over an image of his physique that he had taken several wounds as a result of his mindless charge. Above that, the blue shield bar remained depleted. So it had been less than a minute all told. It had seemed like ages. Tired, burning muscles clung to the Orthos he was now using as a support. Less-than-whole bodies lay strewn around him, and his legs were submerged past the ankle in liquid that was more blood than water.

Around him were...oh, the Grineer he hadn't killed. It was only moments until they recovered from his berserk assault, and he was too drained to do anything about it. Not to mention the shield bar remained depleted.

It was funny, he thought, that his life wouldn't flash before his eyes because he couldn't remember most of it. That was a pity, because maybe he would be given answers to what he had been before the long sleep.

 

Maybe I read the bones wrong...a mistake during the ritual? What bone did that damned excalibur destroy? I can't even answer that!

Rifles raised. Runen straightened himself and stared defiantly back.

 

"You're all motherless cowards." He muttered in their crude language. Might as well die defiant. Boy, did those gun barrels look larger and darker than a black hole...

 

"Runen, you stupid, mad bastard!"

 

The Volt slid past Runen, his fingertips tracing the edges of the drainage pipe. Using the last of his energy reserves, the Tenno discharged a massive blast of electricity. Lightning arced from the blood-water, and around the metal walls of the pipe. Most of the Grineer charred, some were sent into the seizures that wracked their bodies so hard they broke their own spines, and the least among them simply turned to ash. A handful of seconds later, and the lightning storm had faded into nothingness. The pipe was clear, and Runen was still alive--after a fashion.

 

The Excalibur and the fourth, a Saryn operator stalked past Runen and the Volt. As the duo passed, the Excalibur stared at Runen, perhaps remembering the encounter within the transport. He said nothing as he joined the Saryn in casually executing anything still alive. Single gunshots echoed within the confined space.

"You took a beating, Runen...what the hell happened?"

In response, the Oberon gestured to the singed piece of sinew hanging amongst the rest of the totems. "They destroyed one of my totems."

The Volt just stared at Runen for a long moment. For all the time he spent with the 'sorceror', he had still not figured the madman out. "So you almost got yourself killed because they shot off a couple pieces of bone? Couldn't you just...I don't know, tied them back on?"

Runen was already walking back to retrieve his weapons. Without look back, he shook his head, the remaining totems clinking gently against his helmet. "They lose their power when they're severed."

"And what was their power?"

The Oberon turns around as he slings his Latron across his chest. "Good luck."

 

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They were nearing the end of their mission. The prisoner was held in the next room. All of the Tenno were hurting. Runen's last expenditure of energy to heal them all only healed so much. They were all leaving small droplets and splatters of blood as they moved along the corridor. But the extraction site wasn't far from the holding cells. The Lotus had updated them (Without an apology for misrepresenting enemy strength, much to the skald's irritation) with information that there was only one occupied cell in the facility.

 

Just outside the door, they stopped.

"Alright--" The Saryn began, her voice harsh like a throat ravaged from Chlorine gas. "We're going in. Oberon, and Volt will go to the left. Judging from the layout we were given, there should be good cover about twenty fe--"

"Why don't we just go in there now? There can't be more than a handful of them left, given how many we left dead in that drainage pipe." It was the Excalibur, who had grown increasingly impatient as the mission wore on. This was partly because of his disdain for Runen, and partly because he was tired like everyone else.

"We don't know what's on the other side. It could be ten times that number. I say we listen to Sister Yersinia here and see what she has to say." The Volt suggests.

A handful of muffled voices can be heard on the other side of the door. The Excalibur gestures towards the portal. "See? There's barely anyone in there. Let's just go."

Runen remains quiet, despite the glances thrown his way by the Saryn and Volt. Too busy with the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he keeps to himself.

"Look, if we don't get this captive, the Grineer wi--"

The Excalibur cuts the Saryn off mid-sentence. "I'm tired, I hurt, and I want to get back to the Dojo. I'm going in there. You can come with or mop up when i'm done."

Before walking through the doorway, the Excalibur checks his weapons. Finding everything locked and loaded, he rushes in. Behind him, Runen and his comrades follow, more cautiously.

 

Single, precise gunshots fill the large room as the leader of the charge  begins making surgical kills. Despite his arrogance, the young Tenno was skilled. Shell casings left a trail for the rest of the squad to follow as he advanced up the ramp leading to the second floor. The last round exited the weapon as the last visible Grineer fell, it's abdomen blown out. Instead of stopping to reload, the Excalibur continues up the ramp.

Runen's stomach churns.

At the top of the ramp sits a Napalm trooper, sitting casually upon a heavily reinforced chair. Nonchalantly, it stands up, it's cannon held in one hand. The clone laughs, and hefts the cannon. It almost seems bored as it fires upon the unaware Excalibur. Fire consumes the warframe, whose relatively unmodified technology leaves it's shields remarkably low. In mere seconds, the shield is gone, and the Excalibur is covered in napalm.

 

Several steps behind, and out of energy, Runen knows there is nothing he or the other two can do for the Tenno.

 

That doesn't stop the screams. They nearly  burst the eardrums of the three as their squad mate is cooked alive in his armor. And it seems like an eternity. The Volt and Saryn cut comms with the Excalibur, but Runen grinds his teeth and listens. These things need to be remembered.

With it's presence the revealed, and now facing three heavily modified warframes, the Napalm doesn't last long. In fact, it lasts long enough to see the shot fired from the Tenno who puts a bullet through it's faceplate. The back of the helmet blows outwards, evacuating whatever brains and skull fragments were stirred up from the killing blow.

 

Only several feet away, is the prison cell. One of the three has a cipher.

 

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They all stared at the charred body laying behind them. At the back of the compartment, they VIP simply gaped. The other three, much closer, remained silent. All were in pain, all were exhausted, and all were ready to go home.

 

One by one, they removed their helmets with a faint hiss of pressurized air. A woman, hair alternatively white and black-streaked, and a face webbed with black veins and plague-green eyes. A man with tanned skin, brown hair, and eyes of an unnatural shade of blue. And finally, a pale skinned man with heavily lines about his grey eyes, and long blonde hair braided in places.

 

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"Pity. He had a lot of potential." Says the woman, the voice of sickly death.

 

"Never to be realized." Says the brown haired man, the spark of life.

 

"And never meant to be." Says fate.

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Time has passed. The three Tenno and the VIP have all slept most of their journey, collapsing into exhausted sleep not long after pickup.

 

Runen snaps awake. Unsure if he had dreampt--a maddeningly frequent occurance--the Tenno stares around the compartment. As he had suspected, the charred remains of the Excalibur lay strapped to the floor. The other three survivors remained unconscious. It was a miracle they were still breathing. Of anyone, he should have been dead.

His trophies hung from the compartment ceiling. Two severed heads on the meat hooks he always carried with him, and a sack full of severed limbs. All would need to be flensed, cleaned and bleached before he could utilize their power.

 

The Oberon looked back at the body again. His helmet sat next to him on an empty seat. A grimace lit across his features. So much potential. Pity.

 

Wait. Had he imaged those words? Had they been a fixture of the dreamscape? The lack of an answer was frustratingly mad. But it triggered something. Almost like the rewinding of a recording, his mind went back over the mission. Back, and back, and back, and...

"Runen, you're awake? We're lucky, we just made it, huh? Hey, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

Death, her job finished, faded into the shadows.

Life begins to do the same, but turns at the last moment to Fate. "What would he have become?" It asks, the bright blue of a sunny day demanding answer.

 

Fate regards Life with a grey the color of detachment.

 

"Something great." Runen says quietly, as realization crashes down upon him.

"What?"

The mad skald turns to regard the Volt sitting across from him. "He killed himself."

"...what?"

"The fool. He stepped on his own rune."

((NOTE: Runen cannot actually see the future or predict anything. He thinks he can. Coincidences just validate his own "abilities" to himself. He's called mad for a reason. The reality is that before the long sleep, he was something of a scholar, who in his free time studied ancient civilizations (The Norse, prominently, among others), and memories of rituals and dead languages are fragmented, so that their meaning realistically was lost along with a good portion of his individual identity.

Just...in case anyone was wondering.))

Edited March 20, 2014 by Nekriist

[Nekriist]

Wow. That actually fit in one post. MS Word made it look way longer.