[Fanfiction] The Lone Sword (Completed)

[FiveHours]

Where's the new chapter?

Umm, not entirely sure about that. Definitely within the next three days, when I'll be on weekend holiday in Devon. Some dramatic story changes planned, so there's that to look forward to!

[Dexaldem]

Impressive story so far! I like it!

[FiveHours]

Hoo boy, this weekend was the best. Doing absolutely nothing but sitting in my rent home in Devon and writing, listening to music, chatting with friends etc.

So I managed to write this while I was inside, but I managed to get into contact with some other people, give advice, critique etc. so yeah, nothing much else. Will have chapter 9 done by the end of next week, cant tell when because of school etc. Anyway, here is Chapter 8!

 

 

He was alone. Even though his capsule had no lights to illuminate the blackness, the feeling was apparent when it crept up his back and across his shoulders, making his hairs stand on end and his throat tighten in invisible hands. This added to the urge to choke back curses at Hek, who had killed his comrades; the Nekros, for not looking for alternatives and being so negligent and ignorant towards the Trinity, who had tried her best to save him; to the Lotus, who has sent them on the mission which was doomed to fail from the start. Rage scalded and burned his skin, making his hand clench into a fist. He slammed it into the wall of the capsule, which sent a shock back into his body in response, making his now healed wound throb painfully.
His breathing stilled and his fist unclenched, aching slightly from his small outburst. He exhaled and opened his eyes.

The only light he had were faint rays from the distant curtain of stars that twinkled and glimmered over the eternal blanket of nothingness that embraced them with gentle arms. He felt a strange calm invade his spirit when he looked out towards the heavens; it was a sudden stillness that toned down the crescendo of noises that played across his mind constantly to one, single note.

He hadn't felt a peace like this for as long as he could remember, no matter how much he scoured over his few, shattered memories. It almost seemed fitting, he thought, that he should die of something like lack of oxygen instead of a bloody fight of fists, nails and teeth in the heat of battle. He had searched for a peace like this all of his life, yet he found it right before he was going to die.

"La vie est drôle." He repeated a phrase the Saryn had said once on a mission, after she had poisoned a Corpus crewman with hallucinogenics and watched him with maniacal laughter as he slaughtered his comrades with plasma fire.

This "fond" memory made Ash chuckle; he, of all people, would die a peaceful death thinking about the woman who he had convinced himself that he hated.
Maybe he had been too harsh on her. She had, after all, saved his life on more than one occasion, as he had saved hers in turn. As much as he hated to admit it, they did form an excellent team through mutual love of bloodshed, however much they bickered and spat at each other when they returned. It was a harsh and uncomfortable truth, but one, Ash realized, he had to accept. And, with that, he closed his eyes and waited for death to sink its scythe into him and, at last, take him to the hell in which he belonged.

***

"My, my, this certainly is interesting." said a voice that sounded somewhat normal, but was lined with a sinister edge that was nearly indiscernible.

Ash opened his eyes after what seemed like a lifetime of breathing in tranquil silence and waiting for the oxygen to run out. Around the windows of the capsule frost had crept it's way across the glass, reducing the lights of the stars to dim shimmers. He shivered, this time out of cold, for his warframe was just repaired and functional, and so barely managed to keep up essential life support.

He remembered that he had heard a voice from somewhere. He looked to his left to see blackness; his right only showed a few twinkling lights. Ash looked up and nearly yelled from surprise.

There, blocking out any light, was crouched a black figure, rooted to the spot with his head cocked to one side. His suit seemed almost jet black in the dwindling light of the stars, but the blood-red trim of its helmet glowed dimly and illuminated just enough to see that the ominous figure was wearing what looked to be modified warframe armour. In one hand it held what looked like a Spectra-pattern laser cutter; the other held a double-bladed scythe with one end crooked at a small angle. The weapon plucked a small string of memory in his mind; he couldn't remember where he had seen it, but the weapon held a distinct familiarity in his shattered memories.

 

The figure spoke again, somehow managing to break into Ash's voice-communications.

 

"Why are you here? You seem awfully far from your little dojo, Tenno." A row of perfect white teeth appeared on the figure's face turned crimson under the helmet's light, turning an unnerving smile into something out of a nightmare.

 

"W-Who are y-you? H-how do you k-know who I am?" Ash managed to make out the ragged whisper over his uncontrollable shivering and lack of oxygen.

 

"I know many things. And one of them is that all Tenno wear warframes, even me. Well, I'm not exactly Tenno; I abandoned your futile cause centuries ago, but you get the idea."

 

"Y-you haven't answered my question."

 

"Neither have you."

 

Ash exhaled sharply in reply, before shivering again and saying "M-my name is Ash. I was i-implanted with a Grineer tracker when I was mortally wounded, so they c-c-casted me out here in a bid to save everyone else on the s-station."

 

"You have been betrayed. I can at least relate to that. Anyway, I don’t think that you’ll be joining them soon, no?”

 

“The t-tracker will kill me if it gets r-r-removed. I can’t g-go back.”

 

“Understood. Now, firstly, let’s turn the oxygen back on, shall we?” The figure proposed as it slammed the palm of its hand on the outside of the capsule, making the lights turn back on and artificial air hiss through a vent on the floor. Ash took a deep breath, allowing himself to fully awaken and let oxygen back through to his fingertips and feet. Warmth flooded back into the capsule, caressing Ash's body with gentle fingertips and stopping his shivering.

 

“Now, Ash, I have a proposal for you. You may board my ship and accept my offer, or die in the cold vacuum of space. What do you prefer?”

 

“What offer are you talking about?”

 

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

 

As soon as the syllables passed its lips, the figure brought up its scythe and sliced downward through the metal. It carved through the glass capsule, letting the freezing nothingness if space into the capsule and causing a red light to flash repeatedly above Ash’s head. An arm came down through the slit and tore the metal outward, making the fissure even bigger. The figure reached down again, this time with its palm out and the arm extended a lot further down.

 

“Grab on, Ash. You don’t want to die even quicker, do you?” the voice asked.

 

He shook his head and grabbed its wrist, bracing himself for his exit. This came a sudden jolt that yanked Ash out of the capsule and into space, leaving him, quite literally, breathless. He watched as the capsule floated away, the red light flashing meekly every few seconds or so before snuffing out. The nameless Tenno, or whatever allegiance he had sworn himself to, looked down at Ash and opened up two scales along each side of his armour. These gaps blasted white gas out into the vacuum, propelling the two forward into what looked like utter blackness. He then made a quick, swift movement of is fingers over his right thigh, which lit up by the faintest amount in response.

 

Within a few moments a rather small yet somehow intimidating slender ship uncloaked in front of Ash’s eyes. It was slim down its front and back, with a small divide that came back round in the middle. The back of the ship housed engines that spat green flame into the airless void and struggling to stay alight. No lights could be seen from within the windows on the centre of the ship, leaving them eyelike and vacant. The front of the ship was whittled down to a point, leaving the entire vessel with the guise of a blade that seemed all too familiar to Ash; his Nikana.

 

His Nikana.

 

His heart leapt into his mouth as he smacked his hand into the side of his hip to feel for a holster that wasn’t there. He swung round, tearing free of the stranger’s grip to look back at the capsule. He zoomed in onto its interior, but his search yielded nothing. He had lost it.

 

“We have no time for grief, Ash. Time is pressing.” He said, as if to read Ash’s mind.

 

Ash’s heart f elt deader than it ever had before as he re-joined the stranger; to lose a weapon was one thing, to lose something as bonded to his soul as that sacred sword was different. It was like losing a limb, a connection severed by the cruel scissors of fate. He felt slightly detached; as if the broken piece of him had latched it’s fishhooks of sorrow into his soul and refused to give without tearing chunks out of it.

 

Slithers of insidious orange light crept through the eerie blackness of space as a door opened to the vessel, compelling Ash to turn his head away from the distant metal glint of the capsule. The pair landed softly on the metal grating of the ship and waited for the airlock door to slam shut. Once it did, the lights turned on and white gas hissed from small vents in the walls, illuminating a room with a pale green light that made the pervading gloom even more oppressing on the mind. Ash opened his helmet and breathed air again, wheezing a few times and ridding himself of the nasty chemicals used in the warframe’s artificial air.

 

He followed the mysterious stranger down the metallic corridor into what looked to be helm of the ship. Unmanned consoles poured walls of text across their screens with no one to read them; the three chairs at the front for observation and ship navigation were also deserted. The wall on Ash’s left bore a rack where a bristling assortment of weapons hung on rusted racks. He recognized nearly all of them, some not of Tenno design, but distinct nonetheless: the Braton, a solid, all-round efficient rifle still in use with all Initiate Tenno all throughout the system; the Jat Kittag, a Grineer hammer that brutalized piston-driven forces to pummel enemies into the ground with immense force; the Dera, a plasma Corpus rifle that disintegrated matter on contact; the Paris, a bow that used magnetic polarities at its mouth to fire bolts at nearly the speed of sound. All of this weaponry must have come from some Tenno armory, but how? This stranger was supposedly not of his kind, so it must have been bought some way or another.

 

He looked across to the centre chair of the helm, where the figure had already sat down and reclined in, spinning around and opening his palms out. A bow and quiver leaned against the wall next to him, what looked like modified Kunai lay scattered across the desk in front.

 

“Welcome to my domain, Ash.  How do you find it?” The stranger asked with what sounded like genuine interest.

 

“Rather empty, as I would assume you know.” Ash answered blankly.

 

“A looted Corpus snub fighter. It is nothing remarkable, but it has served me well for these past decades.”

 

“Why did you bring me here?” Ash said abruptly, wishing to change the subject.

 

“Here is my offer. I would like you to join me in my cause, I return for saving your life.”

 

“I don’t even know who you are.”

 

“You don’t?” The stranger sounded almost hurt.

 

“Am I supposed to?”

 

“One would assume, yes.”

 

“That’s no matter. Why do you want me?”

 

“To seek redemption against those who have done harm to my kind.”

 

“Doesn’t everyone?”

 

“Yes, but I get paid for it. But lately, Ash, I have been losing clients. The market has gotten too advanced too fast, and I have no way of keeping up. I need your expertise in assassination and combat to help me on my contracts, and eventually to exact revenge on those who have done wrong in this wretched system.”

 

“What contracts? Why not just join the Tenno cause?” Ash was getting impatient.

 

“I despise them. They have betrayed their creators, and so I hunt them.” The stranger’s tone darkened into a desolate, cold murmur.

 

“Yet here I am.” Ash lifted his eyebrows, unimpressed.

 

“But they cast you away. You have been betrayed.”

 

“What’s your point?” Ash said after a moment of contemplation.

 

“I ask you to hunt everything in this system. Rid it of impurities, so we may walk out unscathed and clean. You have no one to call friends in your clan, no? Why fight for them anymore? I can see that you have no desire to, they’ve just left you for dead without a second thought.” He let the words sink in before asking with a gravity Ash did not expect to hear, “So, do you still consider yourself a Tenno?”

 

Ash thought back to his fellow Tenno; the Saryn, who he despised for her constant aggravation but tolerated for her playful spirit; Umbra, who had sat through months of mental temperament on his mind just so he could be sane, but who had always scorned him for his sadistic thoughts and actions; Fenrir, who now lay dead in Nekros’ sacred burial grounds, as if to have answered Ash’s silent prayers for him to die. He looked back up at the seated figure, and shook his head.

 

“Then let us get started.” The stranger replied with a shark-like grin.

 

***

 

Ash winced as the operation table’s restraints clamped down on his elbow joints and knees. The stranger stood over his pale frame and, with surprising delicacy, picked up a diamond-tipped scalpel from an operating table. Ash was suspended in antiseptic fluid prior to the operation, so the stranger patted the incision markings on his side dry and began to cut. The scar that was only closed a few hours before was opened up again, making Ash grab the cushioned surface of the operating table and clench his fists until his knuckles went white. He let a small cry of pain loose from his lips, resulting in a mocking smirk from the stranger.

 

The small pain inhibitors implanted along his spine and neck instantly kicked into action, resulting in a soothing blanket of anesthetics and muscle relaxants flooding through his body and reducing the searing pain from his side to a dull throb. The stranger noticed his relaxation and began to work with more haste than care, working slim fingers round muscle tissue and inserting what looked like wires into his side.

 

“What are you going to do?” Ash demanded, but his voice lost its alarm through his drowsy state.

 

“Not much. I’m surprised your former colleagues could not see the solution to this problem.” He began with a clear look of disappointment on his face. “I’m inserting a false transmitter of vital signs into the tracker. The tracker itself was disabled at your dojo, but the explosive is still primed. Running this transmission through it will make it believe it is still part of you; we can dispose of it safely afterward.”

 

“Hmm. Just remember you die too if you fail.” Ash stirred.

 

“Don’t remind me, Ash.” The stranger replied with an eye roll.

 

The two fell into silence once again, leaving the hushed drone of the bed and the whine of the scalpel to fill the air once more. The stranger grabbed two wires and, with great precision, guided them in through the divide. A small spark from inside made Ash nearly jump, but then the stranger took his hands out and held up a spherical metal ball with strands of sinew hanging from it up for Ash to see. He went over to a console and quickly tapped in a code, letting the cold void of space reach it’s hands into the operating room. Air rushed out into the blackness outside, taking the tracker with it.

 

The stranger then slammed a button on the side of the window and waited for it to hiss shut. When it did, he gestured with a brief point of his hand toward the window for Ash to look at. There was nothing for a few tense moments before an explosion tore through the vacuum and smothered the small operating room briefly with blinding blue light. Ash felt its shockwave ripple through the room and rattle a few instruments, and looked down at his side, wide-eyed.

 

“I… That was inside me?” Ash managed to make out, shocked, as he sat up.

 

“Yes. I think you understand now why those ‘expert’ surgeons of yours would rather not have taken the risk of removing that tracker.”

 

Ash felt a retort rise up in his throat, but this was cut off by an uncomfortable tug at the opening in his side as the stranger sowed the wound shut with several thin threads. He sat up, facing the stranger, who had now gotten up and gone to inspect the servo-arms repairing his warframe.

 

“What now, then?” Ash broke the silence once again.

 

“Now, we go to see if you deserve to be a wearer of the Ash.”

 

***

 

The dueling arena was reminiscent of Ash’s chamber, with high, domed walls; the small platforms and ledges that were built high up on the walls; the small fissures in the ceiling that only allowed the most narrow rays of light through.

 

The stranger had decided upon using his scythe for the duel, giving Ash a small variety of stolen weapons to choose from. Ash browsed over his choices, which were hung upon a rack on the wall: a Prova sizzled with electrical energy, but its weight was unbalanced and ineffective, so Ash decided against it; a Fragor hammer, which used seismic force distributors upon landing a hit to deliver maximum energy, was also out of the question, for it was too heavy; a pair of Fang stilettos that struck a chord within his heart, making his chest hurt with painful recollection of Saryn; and finally, a rather peculiar looking sword that lay rested against the wall, not hung up on the rack like the others. This particular sword boasted a lean, slim edge on its blade, which had only the slightest of curves. Although unpowered, the sword radiated an aura of seemingly forgotten expertise of its previous owner. The groove along its blade had imprinted letters across its surface that could, under the more observant eye, be seen to be translated as:

 

“Until death do us part.”

 

Ash stared with a keen interest at the blade; he gripped the handle and brought it to level with his eye, before cutting into the stale air a few times to test the balance. It handled well under Ash’s speed, but, like with his old sword, there needed to be a connection. When he had connected this sword to his warframe AI, it had snapped its technological manifestation for jaws at him and coiled back against his will. It fought constantly, whispers scratching at his ears and seemingly supernatural energies pulsing against his hand and through his body.

 

Who are you?

 

 A voice rasped harshly from all around his mind; he couldn’t seem to pinpoint it to one specific location, it seemed to come from everywhere at once; it was as if the black, looming walls were talking themselves.

 

Ash found himself looking at the sword with stark interest, gazing at its silver, glistening edge and the faded runes in the groove near the hilt. He closed his eyes and reached out with invisible arms towards the weapon.

 

I am Ash.

 

You are not my master.

 

Your master is dead. For now, I am.

 

You are a fool. You are… troubled.

 

That is no matter. You will obey me.

 

The sword snapped its invisible jaws at him before drowning itself into the sea of whispers that scratched at Ash’s mind. Ash turned to the dueling arena, where the stranger was sat, kneeling on something that looked to be a prayer mat.

 

He had taken his armour off and replaced it with some sort of ancient gown that cropped at his thighs and was tied with a black belt at the waist. The stranger had a ghastly white hair and even paler skin, which reminded Ash of his own reflection. However, where Ash’s eyes were a shadowy grey, the stranger’s glowed an insidious scarlet with a slight tinge of shrewd cunning. On his face he bore a large scar that ran across the centre of his forehead and behind a curtain of ashen hair. His lips curled ever so slightly into a frown as he looked up at Ash’s selection.

 

“The Pangolin sword, I see. I would be careful with that, if I were you. It belonged to a Nyx who I had assassinated near the Phobos catacombs; that sword has something inside it that I would rather not allow to taint my mind.” He explained, being careful not to look at the sword itself.

 

I guess I’m too late, then.

 

Ignore his words, corruption has taken him. He should not fear me, but himself.

 

I am to lock swords with a madman?

 

Remember which sword you wield, Tenno.

 

“It will have to do.” Ash answered.

 

“Very well. Shall we begin?” The stranger asked with an unerring kindness.

 

 

Edited March 2, 2015 by TheDeathofThem

[Not_Oliver]

Finished reading what is up and man... being an amateur writer, this story is better than a majority of books I've read. 

 

Love it... BUT YOU KILLED LOKI NOOOOOOO

[FiveHours]

It was bound to happen. Anyone Ash wants dead, dies. And thank you for the compliments :)

 

A tiny bit of foreshadowing, maybe?

[FiveHours]

Just an update to everyone following this topic:

I've been really busy with school, revision for exams, other issues etc. so future releases (excluding chapter 9) will be more far apart to accommodate for these next few weeks. Sorry about that :(

[Not_Oliver]

Just an update to everyone following this topic:

I've been really busy with school, revision for exams, other issues etc. so future releases (excluding chapter 9) will be more far apart to accommodate for these next few weeks. Sorry about that :(

take your time :) 

[FiveHours]

Alright, small update before chapter 9 comes out.

 

I've been told that I'm going to have exams in two weeks time, and I have a lot of stuff to go over before the exams start in order to get good results and all that jazz. As a result, the story will only be written during weekends until this storm passes and I can keep going as per usual. Sorry guys, I know I've been holding out on this rubbish for quite some time now :/

[FiveHours]

Ok everybody, here is chapter 9. The duel between Ash and the mysterious stranger finishe, but who will be the victor? Or... Is it neither of them? Find out in Chapter 9! Thanks as always for reading, followers :)

Chapter 9
 

Ash landed hard on the cold, oaken floor of the dueling arena, sweat dripping from his forehead and a rivulet of blood trickling from his mouth. He winced at the pounding pain emanating out of his shoulder and through his skull. His suit pulsed and crackled with energy as he pounded an enraged fist into the floor and pushed himself up. He groaned as he stood up on shaky legs to face his opponent, who, with a satisfied grin, rose from an upward strike. Ash let what power remained in his warframe to trickle feebly into the sword, resulting in an even weaker response. He closed his eyes briefly to try and console with the spirit inside the sword, but to no avail. It said nothing, but its anxious, bloodshot eyes bore holes through his spirit entirely.

 

He raised his sword somewhat reluctantly with slithers of doubt beginning to shadow over his tired mind. The stranger had turned to face him, fingers drumming impatiently on his left hip and his scythe grinding back across to his right. Ash gritted his teeth and crouched, muscles tensed and waiting to strike. His sword sizzled with the same nervous anticipation.

 

“You aren’t as fast as I had expected you to be, Ash. What’s the matter? Giving up?” The stranger said, disappointed, as he leaned on the neck of his scythe.

 

“I’m… fine. Let’s continue.” Ash rasped with heavy breaths.

 

“Very well.”

 

No sooner than the words passed the stranger’s lips, Ash pounced, sword raised. The stranger looked up in surprise and brought his scythe up in defense. Ash landed right before him and swung his sword upward, clipping a shoulder plate with a small spark. The stranger jumped back and raised his weapon once again, hands clenched. Ash charged with a raised sword, ready to come down with a two-handed cleave. The stranger offered his scythe up for a parry, but Ash side-stepped and kicked him in the side with a brutal connection. The stranger stumbled and brought his weapon round for another flurry of attacks. Again and again, Ash cleaved and swung at his opponent, again and again missing by hair-widths and millimeters.

 

This one’s a challenge.

 

Upon one of his many inhumanly fast attacks, the stranger stopped the sword with his scythe’s handle and parried the strike with savage force. Ash recoiled and flipped backwards, catching himself with a somewhat graceful handspring. He landed on the balls of his feet with a small grunt, the Pangolin sword trembling in his fingers and thrashing about supernaturally. In a bestial rage, it snapped,

 

You have no control. No discipline. You are exhausted, and you will soon lose this duel and die if you do not focus.

 

After a moment of deliberation, its voice softened but lost none of its sinister edge.

Do not leave me here, Ash. This man has an even more disturbed, twisted mind than you do. He is on the brink of insanity.

 

Ash felt somehow surprised by this; the sword’s spirit had offered him nothing but curses, pain and torment for his brief conversations with it; its voice sounded like it was begging, an apologetic plea for help that didn’t seem to be answered for however many forsaken years it had been left in this place. He felt pity for a reason he didn’t quite know, but some force urged him on.

 

The stranger had now managed to steady himself and regain most of his strength, but, under the ghastly white light, he saw that the man before him had suffered lacerations down the abdomen and a few slashes across the arms. Chest heaving, he swung his scythe backward and charged forward.

 

Ash tried to block the outward strike with his sword, but the force of the charge knocked him down on the ground and punched the air out of his lungs. He tried to stand back up, but this was met with a swift bash in the face with the butt of the scythe’s handle. Ash looked up with weary eyes at the stranger, shapes and colors mixing in a viscous pool of grey and white. He saw the faded shape of the scythe raising against the blinding white light of the ceiling, it’s crooked end glistening with a single filament that…

 

Suddenly, his vision went white, then blood-red, veins pounding from the sides of his eyes. He remembered hours of agony on a cold operating table after being struck by the weapon that sang its damned name across the stars themselves. The crooked end, the edge of the blade, the daggers, the bow, the armor; the shattered memories began to fall into place. He finally had relieved the itch that was digging its way into his mind. This was the Firstborn. The Stalker.

 

“Wait.” Ash wheezed, at last.

 

“You don’t look like the type for mercy, Ash.” The Stalker lowered his scythe, but only slightly.

 

“I know…” Ash hesitated.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Who you are…” Ash said as he slowly stood back up, his sword pulsating with newfound energy.

 

The “stranger” lowered his scythe, eyebrows raised in sudden interest. His eyes narrowed and his scarlet irises shrunk, his lips parting slightly in final realization. This then turned into a cunning smile, one that unsettled Ash with its shark-like features.

 

“It was about time. I was starting to think that you had lost your edge, brother.” The Firstborn chuckled.

 

“Brother? Brother?!” Disbelief rushed unwelcome into Ash’s voice.

 

“Why do you act surprised? I am your kin, after all. For what other reason would I be the Firstborn?” The stranger said blankly.

 

“Firstborn?” He lowered his sword.

 

“Oh, you don’t know?”

 

“Know what?”

 

“No wonder your clan wiped you.”

 

“They… what?”

 

“Oh, this is VERY interesting. I think I know what’s going on.” The Stalker crowed as he shouldered his scythe, pacing slowly along the wall to Ash, like a tiger stalking a juicy pig with ravenous hunger. 

 

The bastard is enjoying this.

 

“Well, allow me to explain. You’ve been lied to, my friend. You’ve been lied to a lot. By your supposed ‘friends’, your leaders, everyone.”

 

“But how…” Ash’s mouth hung slightly ajar, barely whispering the words.

 

“Very simple. They wanted to ‘protect’ you from your memories, so they wiped you. But you know what? I remember what you saw. Because I was there.”

 

No…

 

“It wasn’t hard. Our people ran, instead of fighting. The few that did, I cut them down with ease. Their blood was weak. I felt it.”

 

Was that a tear, which trickled so painfully slowly down Ash’s cheek?

 

“Yes, Ash, how does it feel? Hmm? That all the people you called kin are dead? At my hand?”

 

You…

 

“Do you want to kill me now? I bet you do.”

 

You’re insane.

 

“Come on, then, Venator. Bring your worst.”

 

“You are not worth my worst, you twisted F***. I can promise you something, though.”

 

“And what is that?” The stranger inquired, scythe now scraping

 

Ash did not answer. He merely reached out to his newfound ally, and told it one thing:

 

I will kill him.

 

The sword didn’t answer in speech, but more so in itself. Small slithers of smoke began to trail from out of the runes, which had started to shine with a light of their own. A pale grey shimmer ran over the edge of the sword, making small arcs of electricity fire and dance across the surface. Ash looked down at the sword, and back at the Stalker. His eyes narrowed to slits, and he charged, sword poised to strike. Ash slid

 

The Stalker had blocked his attack with the tip of the scythe, and now the two had locked blades that spat energy at each other under the immense pressure of both the warframes’ strength. The Pangolin sword strained under the force, but its spirit buckled and fought with flashes of power from the runes along its groove, not giving one inch.

 

“Honestly? This was your plan?” The stranger asked through clenched teeth, unimpressed.

 

With this, he threw himself forward and cut across the sword, leaving it to clatter on the floor next to Ash. Ash tried to reach for it, but this was stopped by a white-hot dagger that imbedded itself right into the floor in front of his hand. He recoiled back and looked up at the Stalker. Those insidious, scarlet eyes piercing his mind were the only things he saw when the scythe came down; the rest was pain and blackness.

 

***

 

As Ash knew, the universe did not afford him such luxuries as dying. He awoke a few seconds after the scythe had come down on some part of him; he couldn’t see with through all of the blood spattered across his torso, the blurry shapes that mixed together in his vision and the wracking pain that sent uncontrollable shudders through his body.

He struggled to remember why he had charged in the first place. Surely it was… it was something he saw from outside the window.  A small glint. A tiny twinkle of a long, gleaming blade spinning out into eternity, so very slowly. He remembered the augment installed into his gauntlet, but he couldn’t quite remember what it was for.

 

While he lay there, on the cold oaken floor, Ash saw the Firstborn slowly turning round and freeing his scythe from the wound in Ash’s body; Ash didn’t look down to see, for it would probably remind him of the blinding pain that was only just being withheld with anesthetics.

 

He knew that he would not have another opportunity to kill the Stalker; he felt the black claws of death already pulling him down. If only he could remember what he was supposed to… The gauntlet, yes, there was something about it. Something that joined him and the Nika…

 

My Nikana.

 

So it wasn’t lost. He merely needed to call out to it. But how? The Vauban hadn’t elaborated on the subject; it wasn’t something that he could will for, like his warframe components.

 

“Warning, heart rate falling far below expected levels.” A soft female voice spoke from his earpiece; somehow soothing, considering the dire situation, Ash thought. He thought of letting his body bleed white and leave him to die on this ship, forgotten and cast away. It seemed fitting, that he, the seventh son of Apex, would die alone; he would be the lone hunter, the slayer of the Ares prototype, the lone survivor of the Invictus project. The man who saw Hek’s damned face and live. But Ash had no time for legends. His time to die was not now.

 

He stuck out an open palm toward the shining blade that was tumbling away further and further by the minute. He steadied his shallow, ragged breathing and wiped his wet brow, focusing on activating the gauntlet’s energy. He willed for the sword to come, to return to its mortally wounded owner and do him one more deed. He tried to grab it with invisible arms, but it was futile. Nothing seemed to work. Disbelief, frustration, anger and desperation mixed into one vile cocktail in his throat, making Ash splutter blood over his warframe and cough from the nausea in his chest.

 

He nearly whimpered then, he nearly cried. But Ash immediately pushed away those pathetic emotions and impulses and started to repeat the mantra passed down through the Venatii for whenever they were in peril, disbanded, alone, or even on the verge of death:

 

“Dominus noster, venator animarum nos protegat. Educ nos una, quia cadamus quando nos separati sunt." He muttered in low, wheezing words. He opened his eyes to the light once more, and looked out; past the Firstborn, who had begun to pace slowly towards the weapons rack by the window, dragging his heavy scythe on the ground behind him as he went; past the huge, tattered curtains that waved and drifted over the twinkling lights of the distant stars; and out towards the light glimmer that spun and spun towards the endless corners of the universe.

 

It shuddered as he softly spoke the words, and began to slow its tumbling through nothingness… and turn towards him. Yes, it was moving faster, coming and flying directly to him. Now all he needed to do was to…

 

“Firstborn…” He uttered hoarsely.

 

“Oh? You’re still alive? Would you like a quicker death?” The Stalker got up, somehow not revealing any surprise in his voice at all.

 

“Hah. Do your worst.” Ash spat.

 

“Oh, but of course. You don’t deserve to die of mere blood loss. How about I cut you into pieces, and feed you to the Void Stalkers?” The Stalker asked, as if out of genuine curiosity.

 

Ash merely rested his head against the wall and looked up at the ceiling, counting the slow, soft steps of the Stalker coming towards him and the ominous, harsh grinding of his scythe; louder and louder. Palm still raised, he repeated the mantra and waited for the crash.

 

And sure enough, it came. Not as destructive as Ash had hoped, but it sufficed enough to burst through the blast windows in a shower of glass, fly across the room at impossible speed and run straight through the Stalker’s body, leaving his chest cavity a shower of murky black blood and broken bone. He stared in horror at the shining sword that sang a single, beautiful note across the high, domed walls of the chamber; it seemed to block out the sound of the rushing air at the window or the blaring sirens that screeched across the ship.

 

What the Stalker did next, however, was something that Ash both admired and abhorred. The Stalker’s expression turned from surprise, disbelief and horror to a small smirk, then a nervous chuckle, then a roaring, insane cackle. He grabbed the blade with both hands, seeming to not care for the immense damage being done to his bare hands, and broke it.

 

It splintered across the middle, the tip dropping out of his bloody left hand and leaving the rest of the blade a jagged, broken slant.

His sanity, broken as the sword in his chest, left him after that. He collapsed, laughing and hacking up blotches and masses of black liquid and globs of gored flesh. Ash watched this horrifying display of a truly destroyed man die for many minutes, before the Hunter of the Tenno, the Stalker, the Firstborn of the Venatii, fell to the floor, borne a still corpse.

 

Ash shuddered and stared at the body of the Stalker, not quite believing in the nightmares that his eyes had offered him. He exhaled and swallowed, allowing moisture back into his hoarse, dry throat. His senses seemed to return to him now, for the pounding in his head had begun to intrude upon his thoughts once more, and the same, repetitive, wailing noises that came from the alarms had-

 

“S#&$! The oxygen!” Ash swore.

 

He jerked his head quickly from one corner of the room to the other, trying to frantically find the failsafe catch. After some time, he found it situated next to a group of lockers with heavy Corpus suits on the other side of the room. He sighed wearily at this and looked for a solution. He spotted an ornate-looking revolver strapped to the arm of the pale corpse not a few meters from him.

 

He prepared himself to move, clenching his thigh muscles and allowing the last few liters of blood to pump round his body. After some preparation for the worst, he slowly turned and grabbed at the oaken floor. Slowly, but surely, he managed to get within reaching distance. Ash grabbed the leather holster and closed his weak fingers around the grip. The gun itself was incredibly hard to hold straight; whether this was because of his rapidly deteriorating condition, Ash did not know.

He trembled once again and took aim at the flashing button near the lockers. After a few shuddering breaths, he fired. It kicked up high in his hand, striking his forehead with the barrel.

 

After shaking his head a few times to get rid of the persistent whining in his ears from the loudness of the gunshot, Ash sighed in relief as he saw a large metal screen close over the breached window and hissed shut.

 

And, as the light from the stars was slowly snuffed out, one by one, Ash’s world fell into the same darkness. Perhaps, was his last thought, he wouldn’t ever see the dawn again.

Edited March 2, 2015 by TheDeathofThem

[Not_Oliver]

Aight, this is what has been written so far for Chapter 9, I will finish this tomorrow or sometime in the near future. Didn't want to keep my hordes of fans (man that joke never gets old) waiting, so here is Chapter 9 (Part 1):

 

 

Chapter 9

 

Ash landed hard on the cold, oaken floor of the dueling arena, sweat dripping from his forehead and a rivulet of blood trickling from his mouth. He winced at the pounding pain emanating out of his shoulder and through his skull. His suit pulsed and crackled with energy as he pounded an enraged fist into the floor and pushed himself up. He groaned as he stood up on shaky legs to face his opponent, who, with a satisfied grin, rose from an upward strike. Ash let what power remained in his warframe to trickle feebly into the sword, resulting in an even weaker response. He closed his eyes briefly to try and console with the spirit inside the sword, but to no avail. It said nothing, but its anxious, bloodshot eyes bore holes through his spirit entirely.

 

He raised his sword somewhat reluctantly with slithers of doubt beginning to shadow over his tired mind. The stranger had turned to face him, fingers drumming impatiently on his left hip and his scythe grinding back across to his right. Ash gritted his teeth and crouched, muscles tensed and waiting to strike. His sword sizzled with the same nervous anticipation.

 

“You aren’t as fast as I had expected you to be, Ash. What’s the matter? Giving up?” The stranger said, disappointed, as he leaned on the neck of his scythe.

 

“I’m… fine. Let’s continue.” Ash rasped with heavy breaths.

 

“Very well.”

 

No sooner than the words passed the stranger’s lips, Ash pounced, sword raised. The stranger looked up in surprise and brought his scythe up in defense. Ash landed right before him and swung his sword upward, clipping a shoulder plate with a small spark. The stranger jumped back and raised his weapon once again, hands clenched. Ash charged with a raised sword, ready to come down with a two-handed cleave. The stranger offered his scythe up for a parry, but Ash side-stepped and kicked him in the side with a brutal connection. The stranger stumbled and brought his weapon round for another flurry of attacks. Again and again, Ash cleaved and swung at his opponent, again and again missing by hair-widths and millimeters.

 

“Damn, he’s fast.” Ash thought in silent frustration.

 

Upon one of his many inhumanly fast attacks, the stranger stopped the sword with his scythe’s handle and parried the strike with savage force. Ash recoiled and flipped backwards, catching himself with a somewhat graceful handspring. He landed on the balls of his feet with a small grunt, the Pangolin sword trembling in his fingers and thrashing about supernaturally. In a bestial rage, it snapped,

 

“You have no control. No discipline. You are exhausted, and you will soon lose this duel and die if you do not focus.”

 

After a moment of deliberation, its voice softened but lost none of its sinister edge.

“Do not leave me here, Ash. This man has an even more disturbed, twisted mind than you do. His mind is on the edge of insanity.”

 

Ash felt somehow surprised by this; the sword’s spirit had offered him nothing but curses, psychological pain and torment for his brief conversations with it; its voice sounded like it was begging, an apologetic plea for help that didn't seem to be answered for however many forsaken years it had been left in this place. He felt pity for a reason he couldn't quite feel, but some force urged him on.

 

The stranger had now managed to steady himself and regain most of his strength, but, under the ghastly white light, he saw that the man before him had suffered lacerations down the abdomen and a few slashes across the arms. Chest heaving, he swung his scythe backward and ran forward. Ash tried to block the outward strike with his sword, but the force of the charge knocked him down on the ground and punched the air out of his lungs. He tried to stand back up, but this was met with a swift bash in the face with the butt of the scythe’s handle. Ash looked up with weary eyes at the stranger, shapes and colors mixing in a viscous pool of grey and white. He saw the faded shape of the scythe raising against the blinding white light of the ceiling, it’s crooked end glistening with a single filament that…

 

Suddenly, his vision went white, then blood-red, veins pounding from the sides of his eyes. He suddenly remembered hours of agony on a cold operating table after being struck by the weapon that sang its damned name across the stars themselves. The crooked end, the edge of the blade, the daggers, the bow, the armor; the shattered memories began to fall into place. He finally had relieved the itch that was digging its way into his mind. This was the Firstborn. The Stalker.

 

“Wait.” Ash wheezed, at last.

 

“You don’t look like the type for mercy, Ash.” The Stalker lowered his scythe, but only slightly.

 

“I know…” Ash hesitated.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Who you are…” Ash said as he slowly stood back up, his sword pulsating with newfound energy.

 

The “stranger” lowered his scythe, eyebrows raised in sudden interest. His eyes narrowed and his scarlet irises shrunk, his lips parting slightly in final realization. This then turned into a cunning smile, one that unsettled Ash with its shark-like guise.

 

“It was about time. I was starting to think that you had lost your edge, brother.” The Firstborn chuckled.

 

“What did you say? Brother? Brother?!” Disbelief more than anything rushed suddenly into Ash’s voice.

 

“Why do you act surprised? I am your kin, after all. For what other reason would I be the Firstborn?” The stranger said blankly.

 

“You mean, the Firstborn of the…”

 

“Yes, the Venatii of the Old Earth.”

 

“You do not deserve that title. You have betrayed your kin.” Ash growled.

 

“Yet you agreed to join me.” The stranger kept his unnerving calmness.

 

Ash opened his mouth to reply, but quickly closed it and looked away in burning shame. He remembered why he was here in the first place. In exchange for his life, he would lead one of betrayal and cold-blooded murder. Not that it bothered him, but slaughtering his kin was one of the few things that, even by his morals, he knew he could not do.

 

“I realize what I’ve done wrong. You, however, are beyond forgiving.”

 

“You speak as if you know how to redeem yourself for agreeing to side with the First Hunter.”

 

“I have much to repent for, but I do know one thing I must do.”

 

“And what is that?” The stranger inquired.

 

Ash did not answer. He merely reached out to his newfound ally in the form of a blade, and asked the simple question of:

 

“Well?”

 

The sword didn’t answer in speech, but more so in itself. Small slithers of smoke began to trail from out of the runes, which had started to shine with a light of their own. A pale grey shimmer ran over the edge of the sword, making small arcs of electricity fire and dance across the surface. Ash acknowledged this small display with a smirk, and charged.

 

The result was just like Ash expected it. The Stalker had blocked his attack with the tip of the scythe, and now the two had locked blades that spat energy at each other under the immense pressure of both the warframes strength. The Pangolin sword strained under the force, but its spirit buckled and fought with flashes of power from the runes along its groove, not giving one inch.

 

“Honestly? This was your plan?” The stranger asked through gritted teeth, unimpressed.

 

With this, he threw himself forward and cut across the sword, leaving it to clatter on the floor next to Ash. Ash tried to reach for it, but this was stopped by a white-hot dagger that embedded itself right into the floor in front of his hand. He recoiled back and looked up at the Stalker. Those insidious, scarlet eyes piercing his mind were the only things he saw when the scythe came down; the rest was pain and blackness.

 

***

YES FINNALY :D 

[FiveHours]

YES FINNALY :D 

Your enthusiasm is very flattering :)

[FiveHours]

Hey everyone! Chapter 9 is complete and has been posted up in the post I did earlier (post 34 if I'm not mistaken), so please read!

This story is just getting started, so if the ending did confuse you, don't worry, it's not the end. The next chapter will be done by this weekend, so look out for that! Thank you as always for reading, Tenno!

[FiveHours]

Chapter 10 postponed until further notice, a rather private issue has been raised and I need to attend to it in a few days, so no writing until that finishes :(

Edited May 19, 2014 by TheDeathofThem

[Spikey844]

The pains of RL.

[FiveHours]

The pains of RL.

Tell me about it :/

[FiveHours]

I think it's time to do a perspective change. This is a bit of a small chapter as a result of the recent issues I've had, but things should get back to normal in 2 weeks or so after the exams and this big storm cloud passes over.

In this (small) chapter, We switch to the view of the Saryn, and see things from her perspective for a bit. Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter 10

Antheia hadn’t cried for a long, long time. It had been nearly decades since she had done so. Her ‘enlightenment’ had consisted of many different drug trials and organ augmentations, all but the most vital surgeries made in tight, choking operating rooms with a feeble anesthetic. She had cried for days on end - sometimes making her throat raw from sobbing and wailing, the skin around her red eyes hurt from the slightest touch and her body succumb to an endless, helpless trembling.

The pain had simply been too much; both the faded scars down her pale skin and horrible afflictions on her frail conscious had all done their damage. Of course, when she had been reawaken from stasis, her memories and pain had been forgotten; a blank, white slate just ready for whole new feast of horrors from the new universe she had been thrown into. But, as all wounds untended go, they were reopened. It had happened upon her psychological examination from one of her birth clan’s Nyxs. She had thrashed and kicked once the memories were reopened – and she cried. She wept until her mind could not hold her fragile body together and let her loose to the unconscious. It was many months until she received a visitor. This visitor had given no introduction, no forewarning, no letter in advance. Antheia did remember one thing, however: the visitor had given her a gift.

It was a small Venus flytrap. It may not have seemed to the others like a commodity or a luxury, but in the dark, brooding atmosphere of the psych ward it was a solace from her daily tortures, a salvation to keep her troubled thoughts at bay. The visitor, with a kind, sympathetic voice that could have only belonged to a mother, softly said with a warm smile,

“Keep him safe.”

Antheia had gazed up with huge, innocent eyes that seemed to shine with a new light, one that radiated with hope and disbelief. She had said nothing, simply running to the woman and hugging her with all her feeble strength. The visitor had chuckled at the sudden affection and embraced Antheia. She lowered her head and whispered into Antheia’s ear.

“Just promise me one thing, alright?”

Antheia looked up once again, and nodded quickly.

“Don’t cry.” said the woman, with a warmth and compassion that Antheia could barely even believe.

Antheia struggled to contain her tears, and eventually started crying again; this time from happiness. After a long moment of pleasant silence, Antheia looked up, wiped the tears from her brow and whispered her first weak word since her wakeup.

“Okay.”

The visitor had given her one more angelic smile before the door shut behind her, and then Antheia had been alone again, apart from the small plant in a tiny porcelain pot sat in her fragile palms. She curiously tried to touch it, only for it to snap its jaws suddenly and clamp down on her finger. She cried out, but didn’t drop it.

After that, every day, she had nurtured it as her own mother nurtured her, feeding it and slowly watching it grow. Before she knew it, it had surpassed her height and nearly reached the ceiling of her chamber. When she had been cleared of psychological illness – and her recurrent nightmares – she had been moved to her own chamber, allowed to finally don her Saryn warframe once again. The flytrap, which had grown to impossible size, followed her through the ventilation into the room. It had somehow developed consciousness through the altered growth control of Antheia’s biological augmentations, and now it gave her a small cocoon in its mouth where she slept, safe from the outside world.

Antheia fondly remembered these faded recollections with a wet smile as she sat on the head of the huge flytrap and looked out across the jungle that was her chamber. She had even forgotten the reason why she was crying, for a single moment. Then it came back to her.

The news that had been delivered with next to no emotion by the Nekros. She had punched him out of anger and frustration before he had even finished giving her the details of Ash’s farewell to the Void. She didn’t know why she hadn’t yet apologized, but her mind was still too clouded with black grief and anger to think as her normal self.

Then, after the door had shut, she had cried again; just like when she was a lost young woman entering the new world from cryosleep.

Antheia sighed, wiping her red eyes and patting the flytrap on its head. It obeyed, lowering its head and allowing her to step softly onto the mossy floor. She cradled it and pecked a kiss on its head before turning on the ball of her foot and stepping through the hanging plants and branches guarding the path to the door. They reacted instantly to her presence and bowed down, as if servants before their queen’s arrival.

She stuck her hands through the plants on either side and smiled when they reacted, caressing her fingers with gentle strokes. The mellow artificial sunlight in her chamber reached through the canopy and down onto her face, making her smile broader and broader. She giggled slightly as she walked through; all this fauna and flora had been of her creation, of her hands.

They had been her sole sanctuary against the irrepressible gloom that pervaded upon her mind for the countless days she had spent in the Steel Fury wing. Being here had not been her choice; the Clan Warlord had decided, and his decision was final. He covered his reason to move her in the guise of “improving teamwork and sense of self-awareness”. Indeed, it had been taking five bullets through the abdomen that had landed her in the Medicanum for nearly a month, and so giving the Warlord a reason to move her. She knew that the Warlord saw her as a liability, so it was all more the reason to fight.

She thought back to her initial deployment to the wing as she strolled down the never-ending corridors of the sleeping quarters. As with all redeployments, it had been nerves and mostly loneliness that had met her in the beginning. Her garden had been her only acquaintance for the endless days pacing about her chamber and drifting aimlessly about the dojo until she had been given her first mission involving sabotage.

It had been the Banshee, who led the squad; an Excalibur, who had also been transferred to the wing, but had eons more experience in comparison; her, although her superiors had had doubts on her abilities and skills in stealth; and Ash. It was the same Ash that had been cast away not hours ago; but it seemed like years. Everything had been going to plan on the mission; the guards had been eliminated and the console to the reactor had been cracked without any particular hassle. The problem came when Antheia had caused an error in the system by inputting the incorrect password. She remembered the sinking feeling of dread and the quickening of her breath as she panicked.

Alarms flared, turrets rose from their dormant states with guns bristling. The Excalibur had barely escaped, the Banshee had been wounded and she, a mere recruit in comparison, had been given the heavy burden of leader responsibility. She crumpled. It had been too much at once. She almost felt like surrendering, but a firm grip on her arm stopped this thought. She looked up, expecting to see the grim mask of a Grineer Lancer. Instead she found the emotionless face of Ash frowning down on her, somehow filling her with relief in place of burning shame. She remembered how he shoved her sub-machinegun on her chest and merely nodded, before running back into the fray of Grineer marines. She watched eagerly as he killed and murdered without hesitation, without ambivalence, without delay. He was made for this. She did not even have to fire her weapon afterward. She had carried the Banshee to safety with absolutely no hindrance. The only thing she had to look out for was not stepping in all the bodies and entrails Ash had left strewn across the halls.

After that, she had clung to him, despite all of his indigenous protests and complaints. She had looked up to him, and he had always looked down on her; this, she realized as she sat down, no matter how much she pushed away the thought, was the cause for so much grief and sadness when he had gone. She rested her tired head against the wall as she breathed out, letting some of the pent-up stress and sorrow spill out into the still air of the dojo. Then, after futile attempts to stop the sick feeling in her throat, her tears hit the ground once more.

***

“Antheia?”

A voice echoed from around her, her head trying to follow it in surprise. After realizing who the voice belonged to, she sighed half in relief and the other in embarrassment before hanging her head in her knees again.

“Leave me alone.”

She mumbled meekly.

“You know me enough to know that I won’t stop pestering you, Antheia.” The voice replied warmly.

“I said, leave me alone.” Irritation started to rise in Antheia’s hoarse throat.

“It’s something you would probably want to know.” The voice kept her reassuring tone, if not only becoming slightly sterner.

Antheia thought to herself on whether she should continue with her introverted, apathetic guise – it wasn’t that she had forgotten her reason for crying, but the voice had enticed her enough to lift her head with interest.

“Make it quick.” Antheia snapped, although she regretted her sudden harshness immediately afterward. Before she could apologize, the voice merely replied with ‘Of course.’ seemingly ignoring it completely.

After a small pause, Antheia felt the air move so very slightly across her ears. She opened her eyes to see that she no longer sat in the cold corridor of the resting quarters, but in a dark room lit only by the dim, lilac-colored lights pulsating slowly across the walls. The room had an aromatic smell about it, especially the definite tinge of jasmine that tingled her senses.

The lights rose again to illuminate a figure to her right she had not seen before, which made her jump slightly when it approached from behind her shoulder. The curved backward arch of the Nephthys helmet made her smile in relief as the figure came to face her. It placed two fingers on its temple and drew a couple of circles, engaging the release catch. When the light brightened again, Antheia fully saw the sleepless features that dragged on her old friends face.

Rings hung under her tired eyes, which matched the color of the lights and were partly covered by loose strands of unkempt auburn hair. Her face seemed rather sullen and distant, but apparently the presence of Antheia brought some life back to her face. She seemed almost frail, and the skintight warframe armour hardly made her look any less so.

“What on earth hap-“

“Never mind, I’m fine.” The Nephthys cut her off with more impatience in her voice than anything.

Antheia opened her mouth to reply, but decided against it. The Nephthys continued.

“You’re not the only one who is affected by Ash leaving us. Not just him, but the other three as well.”

She paused.

“He was my mentor, you know?” She shrugged as she sat down.

Antheia simply nodded in respect, although this was all news to her.

After more uncomfortable silence, she spoke up again.

“So, what was it you wanted to tell me about, Ilene?”

“I couldn’t believe it myself when Ash left us, so I focused my psynapse to try and find any signs of life. I looked near the void space in which we left him, but there was nothing. I did, however, catch a glimpse of a fleeting Corpus ship going in no particular direction. Naturally, I thought this as out of the ordinary, so I decided to look into it.”

Antheia smiled slightly at Ilene's curiosity; she was just like her sister.

“It took me several days to follow it into the void, which might explain why I haven’t slept in two days.” She said wearily as she drew half-circles under her eyes.

“Anyway,” She continued. “I found life. Not surprising, but it was only one life form, and there was a weak trace of autonomous signal coming from an unspecified warframe. It was too early to make assumptions then, but I think now, with further psynapse scanning, I’ve found him.”

Antheia didn’t reply; she simply smiled, then chuckled, and then laughed out loud. She knocked the air out of the Nyx’s lungs as she embraced her. She began to cry, this time out of pure elation and joy.

“Thank you… so much.” She managed to make out through her sobbing.

“You…too, Antheia. But please, let go of me; I think you might be killing me now.” Ilene wheezed.

“No, no, of course.” Antheia apologized as she let go, wiping her tears. “It’s just good to have something good to hear through this whole nightmare we’ve been through lately.”

The Nyx simply smiled impishly. Antheia got up and, rather too eagerly, grabbed her wrist.

“What are you-“

“What do you mean? We need to rescue Ash. He might not have that much time left!” Antheia urged.

Ilene hesitated briefly before nodding and getting up to face her.

“Let’s do it.” Ilene said as her lips began to curl into a devilish smile, to which Antheia did the same.

Edited March 9, 2015 by TheDeathofThem

[FiveHours]

Chapter 10 updated.

 

11 will be a lot longer, and will probably be out in a couple of weeks time.

[Not_Oliver]

these are really good lol 

[FiveHours]

Thank you :)

[FiveHours]

Some minor spoilers about the warframes in chapter 11, best not touch this if you want full obscurity.

I've read over my past chapters and I realise that there needs to be some clarity on the two warframes I've mentioned. The difference between the Nyx and the Nephthys ( who are both named after goddesses of the night, by the way) is that Nyx can do mind-control and minor telekinesis, whereas the Nephtys is an experimental warframe that uses more power, but instead of mind-control it can "summon" different weapons, open doors through space(over short distances) and generally use telekinesis a lot better and extensively than a Nyx.

Anyway, chapter 11 is about 2,700 words in and is being (slower than I thought) completed.

Edited June 17, 2014 by TheDeathofThem

[FiveHours]

Well, looks like chapter 11 has come along faster than I thought. We meet Ilene properly and things spiral out of control when they meet a certain someone...

Chapter 11

“No. The mission you propose is too dangerous, unreliable, and most of all, has no proof of any reason to consider. Besides, the Ash has already been cast out towards the Void for over twenty hours, and the pod only supports life for five. I apologize, but the risk far outweighs the reward; assuming there even is a reward. You are dismissed, Tenno.” The Clan General said flatly, his grey irises piercing straight through Antheia.

“Bu-“ Ilene began to argue.

“Dismissed.” He repeated, this time it came out as an order.

Antheia felt the last dregs of hope leave her system and be replaced by tongues of hot fury as the Frost finished. The sick feeling of disbelief and betrayal rose immediately to her throat once more, making her choke back a spiteful insult. She wanted to scream at the expressionless face of the General for reasons she could not find; she felt she had to let the emotions pent up inside her gush out like free waters from a floodgate, uncaring for any of the consequences that might follow. Her amaranth eyes seemed to glow for a moment and small wisps of pale green smoke clutched at her trembling fingers. But, out of the few small shreds of respect that she had for the man stood before her, she kept her wicked tongue and her powers at bay.

She grabbed Ilene by the arm and marched out of the cold quarters of the General, leaving him only an infuriated glare before the doors hissed shut. The Nephthys shook off Antheia’s hand and leaned against the opposite wall, sinking down to the floor and burying her face in her hands. She let out an exasperated sigh and looked up at her.

“What do we do now?” She seemed to plead more than ask.

Antheia simply did not know how to answer her, so she kept her stormed silence and dwelled on a plan. The Clan General was the highest authority in the entire Forward Attack division of the Clan, so there was no asking anyone of higher authority to help them on a minor mission such as this one. She thought of turning to any of her friends, but a sharp stab of hurt intruded upon her thoughts when she realized, with a horrible sinking feeling, that there was no one to turn to apart from the young Nephthys before her.

“Ilene,” She began suddenly, the Nephthys raising her head from her folded knees. “I have a plan. But it involves someone you might not want to see.”

“I don’t follow.” She replied with a confused expression on her face.

“Have you spoken to your sister in a while?” Antheia asked, dreading the answer.

“Why would I ever do that?” Ilene looked more offended than anything.

“Well, it’s been so long since I’ve seen either of you talk, let alone be in the same room as each other.”

“That $#*(@ is the reason why I’ve been grounded in this dojo for nearly a year. She’s always stealing contracts and being recommended for promotions, whereas I stay here and collect dust in my chamber!” She raised her voice, becoming angrier as she spoke.

Antheia kept her calmness and simply asked:

“Do you want Ash back, or not?”

“Well, o-of course.” Her cheeks flushed red as she stammered. “This wing would be boring without someone to talk to.”

“I know how you feel, but you two need to set aside your childish, petty differences if you want your mentor back.” Antheia scolded. They might have all been through a hellish experience in the Void before they had donned these suits, but extensive mental wiping of such awful memories really managed to show the human before the war, she noticed; Ilene was still just an adolescent.

“Whatever. Let’s go.” Ilene murmured, defeated, as she placed a delicate hand on Antheia’s shoulder and the ground fell away before them.

***

“Well, this certainly wasn’t something I was expecting.” Umbra smirked as she turned her head to the two visitors by the doors.

After getting up and turning to face the pair, the easy look on her face to one of irritation and abhorrence. Immediately, the rims of her warframe started to glow faintly green, with small tails of psychic energy whisking round her arms. She jabbed her finger straight at Ilene and stared Antheia straight in the eyes.

“Care to explain?” Umbra demanded, only just restraining the anger in her voice.

“Umbra, I need you to listen to me. I can only do this if you calm down and listen to me.” Antheia pleaded.

The tendrils that had circled around her arms before now slowed and faded, but the pulsating psychic energy around her helm still thrashed and kicked violently.

“Fine. What was so important that you had to bring her into it?” She spat.

Antheia let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding and took a step closer, creating some space between the two siblings.

“As you probably know already, Ash is supposedly dead. I say supposedly, because your very kind sister,” she smiled briefly to Ilene as she said this, “managed to find life traces in a ship nearby to where we last tracked him. The trace is coming from an Ash warframe, and there isn’t anything for hundreds of miles that comes close. He still might make it if we hurry.”

A tense silence followed, neither parties saying a word. Ilene was the first to break it.

“She’s tells the truth, sister. Look inside my mind. Tell me I’m lying.” She said bravely as she placed two fingers on her temple. After some hesitation, Umbra reluctantly did the same. The two sisters stood in silence for several moments before opening their eyes and resuming their psychic duel.

“She speaks the truth, for once.” Umbra spat the last part with particular revulsion, as if it were poison on her tongue.

“Shut your mouth, you’re the liar here, you, you-!” Rage began to take over as Ilene shouted straight back at her sister. Before she could finish her sentence, her mouth immediately clapped shut and her hands went to her throat.

“What is it, Ilene? Can’t think of something to say? Having trouble breathing?” Umbra grinned with savage, giddy glee as Ilene collapsed.

“Let. Me. GO!” Ilene screamed as a wave of air streaked at blinding speed towards Umbra, throwing her like a ragdoll against the wall and into the shallow water, which released the grip on her throat. The force knocked Antheia back as she tried to stand between them, knocking the air out of her lungs and sending her tumbling into a corner.

The air seemed to shake as the two minds struggled and fought with equal force. Four-legged lilac forms began to take shape on the water while transparent green daggers streaked towards Ilene. The forms ducked under the daggers and ran straight towards Umbra, claws beginning to form from their smoky legs. The daggers dissipated like sand when they hit Ilene, as did the familiars with Umbra.

The two sisters rose to face each other once again. Psychic energy trailed from their eyes, which now glowed with fury. Their warframes pulsated and throbbed with newfound strength, both forming smoking, rune-painted weapons. Ilene’s grew a pair of huge serrated blades running from the forearms and well over a meter past her fingertips, whereas Umbra’s revealed a fan of deadly throwing knives.

A single, silent moment passed before the two sisters broke loose, unbound of their psychic chains. Energy bled across the room, making the air shake every few seconds as they fought. Umbra let loose her endless streams of daggers at Ilene, who sliced and hacked them apart until both of them were left catching their breath, exhausted. Then, after gulping down their tiredness, they continued with new strength, found only through some demonic fury.

Ilene side-stepped as the first dagger flew towards her and leaped across the chamber at Umbra, who barely managed to continue with her constant stream of psychic fire. Ilene landed not a foot in front of her, one of the blades barely touching her throat. Umbra stared down at the huge sword extended at her with wide eyes, making Ilene smirk. The blade grew ever so slightly; burning a small incision in Umbra’s throat with a sick, sizzling sound that made Umbra wince slightly at first, then cry out in pain.

“You may have your fancy mind-control, but remember that I can do things which even the mighty Nyx warframe can’t. Think about that next time you try to choke me, you good-for-nothing bi-“

“What the hell is going on in here?!” demanded a furious voice from the other side of the room.

Ilene turned her head to the approaching Ember by the door as she lowered her sword. Umbra saw her chance and swatted away Ilene’s sword before sending an almighty kick into her solar plexus. The gap in between her ribs and her abdomen amplified the force, leaving her sprawled across the stone-cobbled pathway. Umbra instantly summoned a knife to her hand and lifted her arm to throw it, only for the knife to explode into a ball of white flame. She gasped as the flame ate through her armour, leaving only bare skin as it went out. Cradling her hand (which was, out of some insane stroke of luck, unharmed), she looked up at the Ember, who had her hand on her hip and a furious flame glowing in her eyes.

The warframes clawed feet scraped across the wet cobblestone as she advanced slowly toward Umbra, never averting her searing gaze. The Ember stopped right before Umbra, barely over her height but still managing to extinguish her bravado and bow her head in submission. The Ember’s dark skin smelled of burning coal and her amber irises burned holes through her, but under all this she somehow exuded a subtle aura of friendliness, which had often been overlooked.

It was this hardened exterior that came with the rank of Lead Exarch; a position which was earned through extensive mastery of multiple warframes and, indeed, acts of incredible bravery. She was well known, however, for being very impulsive, which had often been somewhat of a mystery to everyone in the wing.

“Well? Are you going to answer my question, or do I need to burn your hand off completely to get an answer?” The Ember’s voice was laced with hot fury, which still had not died down since she had entered.

Umbra knew anything she said would be to the detriment of her and, as much as she hated to admit it, her sister. She instead tried to reach into the Ember’s mind, but she was instantly attacked by searing hot whips that lashed across her mind and made her grimace in pain.

“Don’t try any of your psychic bullS#&$ with me, Umbra. I want a straight answer.” The Ember said sternly.

“It’s alright, Ember, I can explain.” Antheia winced as she got up from the corner.

The Ember turned her head towards Antheia with raised eyebrows, gesturing her free hand outward.

“Go ahead. Make my day.” She replied with a shark grin.

***

“So it’s Ash we’re trying to find then, huh?” The Ember spoke up after Antheia finished.

“Yes. But now that you know, I guess it doesn’t matter now, does it?” Ilene huffed from the edge of the water pool.

“Actually, it does.” She replied, somehow sounding surprised at herself.

“What do you mean?” Ilene asked, puzzled.

“That bastard owes me over 20 grand in credits, and if he thinks he can fake his death to get away, then he has another thing coming for him.” She laughed.

“That’s all and good, but we don’t have official approval. There isn’t any sort of transport we could take there, either. So unless any of you have any bright ideas, we’re well and truly grounded here.” Umbra grumbled from atop a ledge on the other side of the room, as far as she could get from her sister.

Antheia took this silence as an opportunity to mentally slap herself for such incompetence. Maybe it had been the blind grief, or perhaps the naïveté when she had formulated the plan, but she had never considered what would happen if their idea was rejected. This invited the common, poisonous jealousy that all the Tenno had for each other into her heart; the envy of each other’s powers. Antheia often, in extreme cases, resented the Nyx for her manipulation of the mind and superior intellect.

To her, it was unfair that the Nyx was able to so powerfully use her mind as a weapon, and the Nepthys to conjure things into existence and manipulate the very fabric of space-time itself to teleport through the void of space in seconds.

“Wait a second…” Antheia’s eyes widened in realization and her lips began to curl into a devious smile.

“Umbra, how far is your effective range for any sort of psynapse connection?” She called out from her corner.

“Huh? Umm… I can travel about a kilometer; anything further takes too much power. Why, exactly?” Ilene sat up with a confused look on her face.

“And Umbra, how far can you reach out for with psynapse?” Antheia ignored her question and turned her attention to the Nyx sat on the ledge.

“Well, about 15 kilometers, but that can be extended if I use the Beacon atop the Dojo to about half the system. Why is that important?” Umbra replied with equal puzzlement.

Antheia’s smile simply grew into a grin, after which she asked rather too proudly: “What if you both used your abilities at the Beacon to get there? Psychic symbiosis, if I’m not mistaken.”

The Ember looked at her somewhat blankly before she came to the same realization, with the same smirk coming to her.

“I like your thinking, Antheia. I forgot that siblings could do that.” She praised.

The sisters, however, reacted less fondly to this news. Umbra blew away a drifting lock of hair as she looked round to her sister, who faced in the other direction and sulked. Antheia sighed.

“Both of you, come here. I don’t care if you don’t like each other, but this is for the best.”
They both exchanged uneasy looks before returning to their sulking expressions. Ilene disintegrated and re-formed right of Antheia, whereas Umbra, rather reluctantly, jumped down and sat by her left. Pleased with at least some kind of response, Antheia closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she let the gas hiss from her collar outward.

The sisters’ reaction was unsurprising; they recoiled and tried to run, but as soon as they took the slightest of breaths, their frantic escape was slowed to a sluggish, trance-like shuffle. Antheia stood up, chuckling to herself, and placed a finger on Ilene’s forehead, then Umbra’s.

“I hate to ask, Antheia, but what did you do to them?” The Ember broke her silence, not quite wanting to hear the answer.

“A simple alternative to chloroform; instead of knocking you out, your mind goes blank, as do your memories; perfect against someone with mind barriers as thick as these.”

“And what good does that do you?”

“My warframe can specifically engineer gases to my needs, so this one makes people come under my control if they breathe this in. Something I wanted to mention, actually: you might not want to breathe for the next thirty seconds or so.”

And with that, Antheia continued with her work. Her hands passed over the eyes of the sisters, making them cloud over with a grey film. Satisfied, she leaned their heads in close to hers and whispered slowly but clearly.

“You are sisters. You will work together. You will activate this beacon, or so help me, this will be nerve gas next time.” She said with a voice that couldn’t have been warmer.

And with that, they collapsed.

“Are they okay? What the hell did you do to them?!” The Ember exclaimed as she jumped from her ledge and rushed over to the bodies of the two sisters.

“Shh, sister. They’re simply unconscious. Just don’t go near them when they wake up; they’re going to have a massive headache.”

***

The viewing gallery from the Beacon at the top of the dojo was something truly beautiful. Nowhere else, Antheia thought, could you stare out into the wide emptiness of space, seeing the marbles of planets slowly rolling by. The blanket that enveloped the Void was littered with stars; shining bright and clear like lighthouses upon a dark sea. Apart from the distant hum of the dojo’s generators, it was perfectly quiet. Antheia breathed out, casting away the stresses and frustrations that the past few days had given her into the air.

The Beacon itself was something else entirely. The golden spire slanted towards the dark heavens above, reminiscent of the huge mountains of the Old Earth. It pulsed with wild energy at its peak. Three rings, held together by this unseen force, levitated around the Beacon and spun lazily. Four chairs sat facing towards the spire, each with their own mind uplink terminals with large cables winding and twisting into the golden obelisk in front of them.

A slow groan rose from the wall behind her. Her hand went to her hip for her sword as she turned round. Antheia found herself relieved somehow, for it was merely Ilene stirring from her drug-induced sleep. The Nephthys’ eyes fluttered open and her head lolled for a moment before her eyes snapped forward and she doubled over with another pained groan. Her sister started to wake as well, though her reaction was somewhat more controlled to low moans and coughs.

“Wha… Where are we?” Ilene finally managed to make out.

“Yeah, what are we doing here?” Umbra stirred.

“Wait, I think I remember.” Ilene seemed almost drunk, much to the amusement that both the Ember and Antheia desperately tried to hide.

“Yes, it’s all coming back. We’re here to help get to Ash. That’s…That’s what we’re here to do” Umbra nodded sleepily.

“Come on, you two, wake up. We don’t have much time.” The Ember snapped, losing her humorous mood instantly. Antheia sighed at this; it was hard to see the Ember in a good way, no matter how hard she tried.

The Umbra got up and helped her sister up before rubbing her head and grimacing. The two slowly made their way to the seats surrounding the Beacon and slumped into the ones sat opposite each other. Umbra straightened up and engaged the eye cover over her psynapse helmet, as did Ilene. The Nyx breathed out calmly before letting her fingers glide over a holographic keyboard, on which there were runes inscribed which Antheia failed to understand.

“Initiating psynapse uplink to Origin System mainframe. Scanning warframes present.” The unnerving feminine voice of the dojo echoed from the vast walls of the viewing gallery. It paused every few seconds, sometimes between words, which unnerved Antheia even further.

A bright light flitted rapidly up and down Umbra, then Ilene. After more momentary clicks and whirrs from the Beacon, that had started to emit a low growl from its dark matter core, it spoke again..

“Nyx warframe detected. Nepthys warframe detected. Psychic symbiosis possible,” It stopped abruptly mid-sentence.

“But not recommended.” It finished.

The last sentence filled Antheia’s heart with doubt, an uneasy pull that tempted her mind into veering back to the safe sanctuary of safety. But in life, as she perfectly knew, there had to be risks.

“Do it.” She said with newfound confidence, catching the momentary turn of the head from the Ember and the two psychics sat at the golden spire.

“Please confirm.”

Antheia let out a breath and paused. Was it really worth it?

Of course. She reassured herself.

“Do it.” She said flatly.

“Affirmative. Nephthys, prepare for rift jump.”

Ilene flexed her hands and grabbed onto the hand grips in front of her. The tower gave another rumble before a bright light shone from its peak. The orb grew to the brightness of a small star, making Antheia cover her face and turn from the blinding light from atop the Beacon.

“Rift jump imminent. The Lotus protects, Tenno.” Was the last thing that sounded across the chamber before the lights filled her vision and the ground fell into blackness.

Edited June 10, 2014 by TheDeathofThem

[Defguy]

This is so good! 

[FiveHours]

Thank you very much, Defguy :)

The next chapter will take some time, because I'm at a bit of a fork in the road on how to continue, so please feel free to offer criticism.

[FiveHours]

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Edited March 5, 2015 by TheDeathofThem

[FiveHours]

Just hit 1500 views on this thread! I know that 1500 people haven't actually viewed this topic, but it still amazes me that at least some people have taken the time to read my writing :)

On another note, Chapter 12 has gone into writing stage, meaning that I've written 30,000 words in total. That's the most I've ever actually written on one project, so I'm really happy that you guys get to read it, of all people.

Thanks for the compliments and criticisms, they are both appreciated :)