[Fanfiction] The Lone Sword (Completed)

[FiveHours]

Woah, spoiler!

[FiveHours]

Good LORD, I havent been here in a while! Alright, two things have been happening:

1) Edits. I've been reading back through the story and felt very iffy about some things I've written, just the general style some nonsensical sentences. Huge edits to the prologue, 1st chapter, 4th chapter and some will also be made to chapter 9 and 8. This is mainly because the story that I was writing at the beginning has kinda taken an unexpected turn, resulting in gaping plot holes at the start of the story.

2) I've begun to write the third part, which should be finished by the summer. The latest "chapter" is finished, and I'll release it once the edits are complete. I apologise for the abysmally long wait, my friends.

[FiveHours]

Huh, look how time has passed. I guess I didn't quite finish it by the summer. Hell, the final chapter hadn't even been started.

Anyway, I'm going to show you the fruits of my efforts. I've looked over the story, and there are enough plot holes to cover the moon, so edits have been made. I highly recommend reading over te story, because I think things will make more sense and hopefully bring a tiny bit more enjoyment.

[FiveHours]

Hey, Chapter 16 and 17 Have been written, and my editing process has (hopefully) been completed, so there won't be hiccups like this in the future. Happy reading, guys!

 

Chapter 16

You could almost drown in the near-silence. Not a word was said. The air rested, and even the ever-present drone of the engines seemed to quiet. Tosh tapped his hand on the floor incessantly, gazing into the marble of the pillars, lost in it. The Ember’s claws scraped faintly across the floor as she paced this way and that. Ilene rested her delicate head on her sister’s shoulder, staring blankly forth. Umbra’s pale face was hidden behind a Nyx helmet, but under it her eyes were moist with nothing less than what felt like betrayal.

 

No one dared bother the Saryn, who was stood, leaning against the wall and biting at her scarlet nails. Her expression was hollow, emotionless, a husk of the vibrant, young woman that they had known not long before. Her cheeks were bleached ivory white, but her eyes were surrounded by swollen, angry red. Her pupils seemed to swallow the empty air. The amaranth colour that shone in her irises before was now a smouldering crimson, burning into whoever held their gaze with hers. She herself, much to her surprise, felt next to nothing.

 

The scene replayed itself in her head, again, and again. Her thoughts led her nowhere but to the gut-wrenching sight of Ash, sword in hand, staggering out of the room. What shocked her still was that she did not follow him. He... he tried to kill her. She remembered the lost look in his eyes as he came to. There was nothing left of the Ash she knew. Something had changed him.

 

It’s not him. She repeated to herself. It’s not him.

 

She heard the scraping come to a stop. The Ember looked to her, somewhat uneasy. Antheia didn’t look back.

 

“Well?” was the demanding question, spoken from behind the fiery helmet. The others looked up, ears pricked.

 

“What now?”

 

“We leave this place.” She stated, simply.

 

The Ember stared back in disbelief.

 

“What about Ash? Isn’t that what we came for?”

 

“He’s gone.” Her voice cut like the Fang she spun in between her deft fingers.

 

“No, he’s not!” Ilene jumped up, exclaiming loudly and even grabbing the curious attention of Antheia. Her sister looked up with worry in her eyes.

 

“What do you think we’ve come all the way here for? Haven’t you forgotten what he’s done for you, or for me, for that matter? Don’t you appreciate anything?!” Anger and hurt fuelled the wave of psychic energy that flew from her hand, reaching Antheia and scattering a few golden strands of hair across her face. She stared at the ground, ears burning with shame.

 

“We’ve come to finish this. He comes home with us, alive or... or dead.” Her face crumpled when she finished and she broke down, rejoining her sister, who embraced her with gentle arms.

 

“She should never have come.” Regret lined the Ember’s voice, but Antheia felt it was an accusation.

 

She stayed her tongue; they needed to set aside their quarrels for now. Ilene was right. How could she leave him? He was not the best to deal with, at times, but he was still her brother in battle, and she his sister. The Tenno never left another alone. Loneliness was a familiar enemy, and she knew all too well the pain and anguish it brought in its stride.

 

“I’m sorry, Ilene. I was wrong. I know he was your teacher, and a bond between sensei and student is not a weak one. We’ll find him.”

Antheia spoke the words with the utmost tenderness. The past few hours had left her a wreck. She’d only just been cleared.

 

Antheia almost felt like the visitor from all those years ago, giving noting but kind words of consolation and hugs filled with rose-scented hair. It gave her a kind of pride, to see herself how far she had come from the nervous wreck in an entirely different world, much like the one in front of her.

 

But none of it without him.

 

Doubt left her, and the previous determination rushed to replace it.

 

“I’m going back for him.”

 

The light returned to Ilene’s face as she looked up. The Ember turned too, but she was not happy in the slightest.

 

“In case you haven’t forgotten, Saryn, I’m the one who makes the decisions. This trip of yours has nearly killed us, and I don’t think staying here will help. We’re going home.” She ordered, trying her best to keep her authority.

 

“Fine.” Antheia said flatly.

 

“I’m going after him, whether you like it or not. You two can come with me if you wish. But, seeing as there’s no Beacon, it seems that we’ll be here a while.”

 

“Come back here, Antheia! I’m not letting you leave!” The Ember snapped.

 

But she did.

 

Chapter 17

The floor met him, smashing into his nose with a sickening crack and painting itself with the blood that followed. Only then did he wake up, and with a muted cry of pain. Orion grimaced and sat himself up with one hand, the other delicately, and not without some discomfort, clicking the cartilage back into place.

 

Once the divine anaesthetics had taken their effect, he stood up and drearily looked at the Tenno in front of him. The eye stared back.

 

A loathing filled him, something so indescribably destructive that even fear itself did not escape him. His hands trembled with the rage that radiated from his chest and out of his fingertips. His fingers dug into his palms, involuntary, and he soon heard the all too refreshing sound of his blood dripping onto the floor. He found himself drawing the sword from its holster and across his palm, bloodying its edge a dark red. It drank, and drank, with such a ravenous thirst, it shook him. Immediately, he snatched his hand away, shivering, and held it still, at the ready.

 

"Finally awake, hmm? Sweet dreams?" Oculus did not seem too interested in the answer, already beginning to pace by the wall and muttering to himself under cold breaths.

 

Orion did not bring himself to answer. He needed... release. His bloodied hands gripped the hilt tighter, yet he felt himself slipping.

 

"Come, let's walk." Oculus started to whistle as he turned on his heel, padding away into the darkened corridor.

 

Whatever held him back now left him. Orion leapt, crying out in rage, and landed with a heavy thud on the Tenno in front of him. Oculus turned in shock, mouth open in terror, but no scream came out. Orion plunged the broken sword into the Tenno's back and twisted, then ripping it out, spraying his lifeblood across the floor and walls like some sick work of art.

 

He attacked the neck next, carving deeper and deeper into the muscle tissue and eventually the bone, before slicing through completely. More blood, so much blood, gushed out onto the floor, filling the air with the all too familiar pungent smell of death. Decapitated, the body of Oculus twitched and shuddered weakly, before finally lying still.

 

Orion keeled over and groaned. He had killed. He expected this hunger, this yearning for slaughter, to cease. It never left him. He had murdered. But still, as he kneeled in a pool of his kin's blood, he felt a void inside. There was something wrong. Incomplete.

 

The body moved. It twitched and shuffled in momentary spasms under him, before a growth, putrid and infected, began to swell from the blood-caked stump of Oculus' neck. It crept along the aged stone floor, sprouting several fleshy appendages that inched their way to the messily severed head of Oculus. Orion jumped to his feet, sword still in hand, and backed himself into the wall. The growth had now joined itself with the head, and began to pale into the chalky colour of skin from diseased yellow and carmine red.

 

Bones snapped back into place, and the brutal wounds cut into his back sowed themselves shut, leaving naught but a scar. His legs bent themselves forward and stood up, as his spine straightened itself upright with a sickening crack.  Orion could not help but shiver.

 

Its head turned, and stared straight into him. Orion froze. The mouth opened until the jawbone broke from the skull, and kept opening. The skin began to tear apart with inhuman fragility like the silken webs that lined the hallway.

 

"That... did not... hurt. You... cannot... hurt us." It spewed the words with the blood that trickled its mouth.

 

"What are you?" Orion's voice held, but only just. It knew.

 

"We... were... you." Was it sadness that rode on its vile tongue?

 

Oculus.

 

The Tenno has been infested. How horribly wasteful.

 

Quiet.

 

The time for mourning is not now, Ash. You must go. You are not safe.

 

I'm not running. His torment must end.

 

I have warned you.

 

Good. Now leave me alone.

 

No reply came. Orion stole a glance at the Pangolin sword resting on his leg. White, ethereal smoke poured from its edge. More than usual. There was something at play here.

 

"Become... us."

The voice changed. No longer did it wheeze with the worn rasps of the Oculus, but now purred with the insidiously playful voice of the Saryn.

 

Orion stifled a jutted breath when he turned round, coming to face whatever, or whoever, it was.

 

“How can you just leave us, Ash?” It mimicked her, making a wet, squelching noise with its newly carved fleshy mandibles.

 

It took a step forward. Orion took one back. One forward. One back. The wall met him again.

 

“We... need.”

 

Wait...

 

“We?” Fearless he was, but the terror he felt was nothing he could have trained for. It was on a different level. Primal instinct, nothing more, nothing less.

 

It grinned at him. A hellish groan trembled from its chest, turning into a piercing shriek. Others answered it. Common sense overrode this unwelcome fear, and his legs took flight. He ran, and kept running, as the hallway filled with the lights of a million white eyes.

 

Edited March 8, 2015 by TheDeathofThem

[fishworshipper]

Dayum.

[FiveHours]

Dayum indeed.

[FiveHours]

Phew, Chapter 18 up! This one was a tough one to write, a surprising amount of thought had to go into this.

Chapter 18

She paced along the spots of blood that covered the floor and the smeared footprints that followed behind every two steps. She didn’t expose her Fangs just yet, and kept only her Sybaris under her arm with its polished grey muzzle pointed downward. She didn’t want to have to pull the trigger. The death of another Tenno at her hands would be a scar she would bear for the rest of her days and one that would bring her inescapable, bitter distrust. She had to get him back.

Her steps slowed as she approached a darkened hallway. Sinewy webs lined the entrance and the intrusive, damp smell of wet earth circled her, making her feel light-headed as she stepped in. She shook off the feeling and rolled the blood back into her arm, which had grown tired from the jogging. She flipped her flashlight on which shone into the oppressive gloom with barely a few meters in front of her reflecting the weak light. A web of green cascaded down her helmet that pulled taught and exposed much more than the primitive reaches of the flashlight allowed.

With her vision somewhat restored, she continued. Dripping, she noticed, constant dripping, echoed from some way down the hallway. The pit-patter of tiny footsteps scraped down the wall and scurried away into a secluded crack in the floor. It was only the dripping and the anticipating click-clacking of her heels against the floor that escorted her ears, as her eyes gave her nought but blackness and her mouth nervous breaths. It was now that she silently regretted her choice in footwear; it may have kept up her reputation for bringing an aspect of style to their work, but in these dark hallways, with no one to appreciate it, she realised their utter uselessness as they continued clicking with each passing step, sending dull echoes through the halls.

The darkness grew thicker. It enshrouded her vision, letting her only barely see the ends of her fingertips and the ever-present golden shimmer from the magazine housing of her rifle. She squinted, trying to pick apart any details from the blackness. She found nothing. One final drip rang across the halls as she came to a cautious stop. Her feet stood parted, one behind the other.

Something indiscriminate, hiding from her in the shadows, came to her attention only now. It was the sound of footsteps. Footsteps that didn’t belong to her. Footsteps that were coming closer.

Instinct brought her weapon into her shoulder, and guided her hands to the ready. She flicked the safety off and hugged the wall. A breath in, a breath out, and she looked round the corner. It was coming nearer, yet she saw nothing. She recalled the familiar sensation of fear, the inescapable dread that gripped her on her first sighting of the Infested. Her determination cast it away and she looked down the sights. Nothing. Yet it was near.

She heard the breaths as it ran, the sound of rapid footsteps coming down hard and fast onto the ground as it came closer, and closer. Her heartbeat steadied, and she closed her left eye. The ever-present mist stilled...

And it revealed. Led by a long flash of silver, something struck her down and punched the breath out of her, pinning her to the ground. She felt the cold touch of steel on her quivering throat, trying her best to keep her breathing steady. She drew a breath, along some relief in that she wasn’t dead.

But for how long?

The form upon her was humanoid, definitely. It drew harsh breaths which came wounded and ragged, like some poor game shot just off. The pressure on her throat eased as it lay motionless on top of her and the mist trailed into the air, uncovering its bone white visage. The Tenno stood up and offered a shaking hand. Antheia took it with equal tentativeness, never averting her gaze away from the Ash in front of her. Antheia took a comforting step back, eyes widening as it clasped a blood-spattered hand over the faceplate and undid the locks, sliding it off with ease and slotting it on the back of the helmet. Her heart beat twice when she saw his face; once for relief, once for fear. There was no mistaking the owner of those shadowy grey eyes.

He immediately bowed his head and brought his hand to his chest. Was it in guilt, or was it orderline respect?

“I apologi-“

She didn’t stop her hand striking him, and again after that. No tears came to her eyes. She loathed the shameful satisfaction that came to her and quickly stopped herself before she struck again. Once he’d recovered, Ash returned her vicious look, but kept his thoughts to himself.

“I can’t forgive you.” Her voice shook very slightly. He didn’t seem to notice.

Not yet.

“That is your choice to make. We need to go, the others are in danger.”

A screech attacked her ears from some distance down the corridor, but its horrid nature was enough to snap Antheia out of her bitter mood.

“Yes, we... we need to go.”

Ash replied with a brief nod and hastily led her through the invading eerie darkness of the catacombs. He stopped for nothing, never breaking his stride. It made her question how he managed to see so well, even without any helmet to assist him. However, she found herself keeping shut her suspicions, for what reason did she have to doubt him?

The pair took the next few turns, and down another stretch of corridor filled with that same, repugnant smell of wet earth, before a sudden sea of white rushed to flood their vision. It ebbed almost immediately, revealing the somehow comforting gold-adorned halls of the Tower.

Ash didn’t stop, only affording a few looks this way and that, and the odd sideward glance at Antheia. She followed suit, glad at least to be with another Tenno, regardless of who it may have been.

But still, amidst all her relief, she felt a little tug against her skin like a hook in her gut, one that would not relent, however much she tried to remove it. Their somewhat peaceful reunion had been a weight lifted off her slender shoulders, but she sensed something behind it that she felt she needed to know if she were to trust him.

“You’ve been awfully quiet.” He lent a comment over the voice-link. Was it him that started the idle conversations between them now?

“What did you expect?” Somehow she felt it impossible to stay angry at him, but she kept a tinge of sourness in her voice as she replied.

“Well, I’ve been gone for the past week or so, have I not? I certainly haven’t been enjoying it, I thought I would receive somewhat of a warmer welcome, don’t you think?”

“I would have, if you didn’t try to kill me earlier.”

He didn’t reply at first. They started down a long stretch of grand hallway, being whisked through golden doors as they ran.

“That was someone else.” He said, finally. She cocked a quizzical eyebrow and waited until the Tower ceased its beastly growling and slumbered once more.

“Someone else?”

“Yes.”

It was her turn to not give a reply. Her eyes settled on his free hand, which hung in a loose grip on the handle of his blade. The blood that was there before had gotten lighter, and there was more of it, much more. Her voice was strung taut when she dared ask.

“Whose blood is on your hands?”

He only gave her a glance and reply monotonously, “It is not a ‘who’. I don’t know, either. Something not of this place. I tried to kill it.”

“And?” She pressed him.

“I failed. Death escapes it, somehow. I’m not one to fight something I can’t win against, so I ran. Into you.” She could imagine his smoky eyes eying the walls as they ran, lost in the maze of the Tower and the fog of his thoughts.

“We can’t stay, then.” She decided.

He gave a dry laugh, one she had come to miss, and shook his head.

“No, we can’t. What I fear, however,” his voice dropped to a miserable tone as his paces slowed to a halt, “is that they won’t believe me.”

Ash flung the doors open with one hand, staggering in with the other hand on his blistered side. He took a moment to catch his shallow breath and looked up.

A gunshot violently shook the air, leaving a gaping hole in the floor right where Ash was prepared to take another cautious step. He wasn’t entirely surprised that it was the Ember who pulled the trigger.

“So that’s what its like, is it?” Ash forced a chuckle.

“What makes you think you can show your wretched face here again, Ash?” She growled, smoking like the barrel of her pistol, which she held much more accurately now.

“At ease, sister, he’s not here to hurt us.” Antheia held her hands by her head as she turned the corner and lowered them slowly and calmly. The Ember’s aim wavered upon seeing her but still did not come off Ash. Antheia stood her ground by his side, hands loosely hanging by her hips.

The Ember’s claws rasped against the stone floor, ending with a final, ominous consecutive click as she stood before him, Lex pointed firmly to his helmet. He didn’t move a muscle.

“Ember, what are yo-“

“Quiet. We’ll talk later.” She didn’t even turn her head, still staring at the worn paleness of Ash’s faceplate with her own eyes of fiery loathing.

“Now, as for you. Kneel.” A small downward gesture with her Lex was all she needed to bring Ash to his knees. Antheia made no effort to quell the ever-increasing dread that crept up her throat like a centipede.

“And why, may I ask?” He irked her with a wry smirk.

“Keep quiet. It might save you a lot of pain.” She stared him down, burning through his composure.

“Embe-“

He didn’t finish his sentence. A shell sprang from the magazine housing, blood burst from a freshly made wound in his leg and a cry erupted from his throat. Ilene gave a stifled whimper, silent until now. The Nyx grimaced under her helmet, and turned on the noise filtering to drown out his pained howls.

He clenched his leg and pressed down hard on the wound with his thumbs. The blood flow slowed, and eventually stopped as the warframe dissolved the bullet and replaced the old flesh with rejuvenated, new skin.

“Apology accepted.” She jeered over her shoulder as she made her way back to the group. When she passed Antheia, though, she opened a secure channel between the two and said sternly: “I hope you’ve come to your senses now, Saryn?”

She gave no answer. She didn’t need to, since her throat was already choking on the pity she held back so dearly for him. Why she felt it, she did not know. But she couldn’t leave him alone, not again.

“Come on, Ash, we’re going home. And with you coming with us, ok?”

He turned to her and rose, coming up just over an inch from the top of her head. They stood, sharing nothing but silence, but that changed within a moment. She found herself peering over his shoulder under his embrace, eyes wide with surprise. Her heart beat twice again, but this time no fear came. It was a warm feeling, a feeling of summer rain, a feeling of fresh grass, a feeling of comforting warm sunlight, a feeling of... affinity. In this moment he brought his mouth to her ear, and spoke in the voice of a different man:

“Thank you, Antheia.”

But it was only the moment. He left her there, slightly light-headed, and stalked over toward the rest of the group, staying particularly clear of the Ember. The Nyx looked wary, but seemed more attentive to her mental injuries than anything else. Ilene looked at least somewhat cheerful for his return, giving him an anxious pat on the back and a merry welcome. He did not return the gesture to his pupil, much to the disappointment plastered across her face, and instead went over to the Nimda, who was toying with a cubic gadget of some sort in his hands and paying no heed to Ash’s arrival. Ash whispered a few words in his ear, to which Tosh gave him a worried look, then stepped away a few paces, dropping whatever he held in his hands to clatter onto the floor.

The Nepthys rolled her eyes and began to walk over to him, scowling all the while. “Come on, Ash, stop terrifying him, he’s-“

“Infested.” The word stopped her dead in her tracks and silenced the air between them.

“What do you mean? He’s fine.” She gestured her hand towards him, a puzzled yet concerned look on her face.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I swear. I just want to get off this Tower. Nothing more.” Fear was apparent in his voice; Ash could smell it souring in the air.

“Don’t lie to me.” Ash ignored the Nephthys, staring right into the Nimda.

“Ash, stop it!” Ilene’s exclamations had started to get the unwarranted attention of the Ember and Umbra, who both eyed him with furrowed brows.

“He is not fine.” His hand was creeping to his sword.

“To you he may not be, but he’s proven useful to us so far. On the other hand, you’ve been nothing but a burden to me, Ash, so I suggest you keep your wretched hands off him until we return home.” The Ember scolded him over the voice-link, and made a point of keeping her hand on the hilt of the small cannon hanging off her hip. He backed away, but not too far.

From the back of the scattered group, Umbra observed with caution, and questioned why she hadn’t searched the Nimda’s mind upon their first meeting. She cursed through her teeth at her amateur’s mistake. Dismissing any further thoughts, she instead looked into his. What slowed her steps was the fact that there were none. Blackness. Not a single thread, not a single cognitive, free thought. Behind the ever-present throbbing of his heart, she saw nothing.

Wait, she had missed something. Its shape shrunk from her sight, but what she saw she didn’t quite comprehend. Like a raging blizzard, white and clouded, it was an eye.

***

They had been walking for hours. The Tower stretched out forever, an endless blur of brazen gold and ivory white. There were some beautiful features of the Tower that met them along the way, notably the proud pink spring blossoms that adorned the hallowed shrines of the old gods, and the sparkling fresh waterfalls that flowed indefinitely from deep wells inside the walls, and the unassuming trees that stood tall, their arms reaching for the heavenly white suns that hung above all that bathed the rooms in cold white light.

Umbra kept her distance from the group, still processing what her eyes had shown her. Questions swarmed like tempestuous hornets in her mind. Why did she not detect a single thought in his head? Was he truly Infested? What was that eye?

She studied Tosh again. His movements didn’t seem to have anything particularly unusual in them, and he had nothing but help to offer from their first encounter. Ash didn’t move from his side. She found comfort in that, somehow.

“Sister.” Ilene’s inquiring voice filled her helmet.

“What is it?”

“We aren’t getting anywhere. This is a dead end. We arrived here.” Her concern was apparent, and it spread all too quickly to Umbra.

And she was right. The pillar which Lissandra had to weakly lean against after the jump, where Antheia had fallen, the barely perceptible markings of the portal warping the ceiling’s material. They were back at the beginning.

“This is the place.” Umbra spoke to all, commanding their attention immediately. They were all too happy to return home, it seemed.

“About time.” Lissandra sounded relieved, for once.

“There’s no psynapse link here. The Beacon doesn’t work. How do you expect to get us through?” Tosh spoke up, louder and bolder than he normally did. Why did she feel desperation forcing his words?

“There are still dregs of rift energies displacing space and time above us. We may be able to use it to our advantage and boost our jump. A pseudo-psynapse, if you will.” She explained.

“You had better hope we can, I’m not staying here to rot.” Lissandra’s brash tone was not like her, which lifted a few eyebrows from the other Tenno.

The burden of responsibility was once again upon the two sisters. Ilene looked to their comrades, and then to Umbra, who gave a comforting, simple nod. They sat facing each other, cross-legged, on the cold floor, and closed their eyes. Their minds wandered, floating up to the ceilingn, where small gashes that hid incomprehensible, mysterious energies shimmered and blurred in and out of existence. Umbra caught such a sliver and worked it apart with tiny, invisible arms, threading and unthreading the tiny lattices of time and space interwoven to create the tapestry of the Void. It was truly beautiful.

Ilene must have noticed this too, for stars shone in her black eyes like the twinkling moon on a midnight sea, and her mouth hung open, stricken with awe. She looked back down to Umbra, truly pleased, and grinned.

“Are you ready?” Hope shone with the stars in her eyes.

“You know I am.” Umbra returned a weak smile.

The two then began to stretch the threshold, gripping it with powerful arms of psychic will and tearing it into reality. A rip opened before the eyes of the Tenno, sucking in small pebbles and odd globlets of water from the nearby fountains, then loose pieces of aged bronze, then entire sections of the masonry. The field intensified in its unrelenting strength, the Tenno only managing to withstand its incredible pull and at the same time dodge the fist-sized chunks of rock flung by their heads.

And just when it seemed they would be sucked into the Void, the rift stabilised. It now gave a mellow, mysterious glow, fracturing into the air in tiny shards of shimmering glass. Lissandra impatiently nudged Antheia out of her trance and beckoned for her to follow with a forward shrug of her shoulder. Her eyebrows furrowed under the blazing crest of her helmet as an unwelcome sensation of doubt and suspicion formed at the back of her mind. She kept it at bay and reached a hand through, then a leg, then the other, and soon her whole body. The silken end secured by a steel brooch of her Uru syandana fluttered behind her footsteps, held aloft by the cold cosmic wind of the Void, before disappearing as well. Ash, with some incredibly unlike eagerness, stepped through after her, followed by an equally eager Antheia.

Now it was only the three of them. Umbra let off a small disturbance in the psychic flow, enough to show her sister she was going through. The portal shook when she stood up and walked over, but it held. Umbra vanished into the shadows as she went onto the other side. Two were left. Ilene took great care to keep the rift steady as she came alongside it. Tosh stayed near, looking round every few seconds, perhaps in fear of some kind.

“You have nothing to fear. Come on, after me.” She spoke reassuringly, but held an authoritative tone. He had grown strangely timid. Her eyes narrowed, but she carried on through. Colours blurred into another as the dark blanket of space draped round her helmet, and then soon formed back into the familiar shapes of the Tenno she knew. She was through. Well, not entirely; Tosh was still on the other end. She tried to step through again. But she couldn’t. Panic rose from her chest, rising up to grip her throat as she looked back. The others had noticed. He wouldn’t let go.

She tugged and pulled, but the hand clamped down, and pulled her back in. The Ember rushed to her and fired into it, but it only shook slightly. Ilene shrieked and grabbed her Zauber, plunging the barrel into the vile flesh and pulling the trigger. The energy orb inside devoured its flesh, and set her arm free. She staggered, off balance, before something even worse closed around her legs, pulsating with putrid black blood pushing against the arteries covering its surface. It dragged her screaming across the ground, held back only by the Tenno grabbing her arms. Her limbs and joints burned with pain as the two sides pulled her this way and the next. Her warframe pulsed with energy, sending small shocks to try and ward off her attackers, but to no end. She was being sucked through, even with the might of three Tenno behind her.

Whatever had latched on to her was something worse, for she felt her own mind being pulled away. The psychic essence inside the webs of her intellect began to shatter and break free; flowing into whatever had her in its grip. Her grips with consciousness were slipping, but she tried all the harder to reign them in.

Something horrible spoke to her, something else, only a hint of a male human voice left in it:

“You cannot leave. We will not let you. You belong here, Child of the Void.” It tempted. She refused.

“Do not oppose! Submit!” It punished her with another psychic onslaught, draining her of her already spent energy reserves. Her muscles weakened further, barely holding against the imploding gravity of the cosmos.

“Close the portal!” Umbra screamed over the howls of the air flying past her, into the rift.

But... but I’ll- She hesitated, sobbing as new pain tore into her legs. The hands gripping hers were slipping, and tears filled her eyes.

“You need to close it! NOW!” Umbra’s voice was raw, and desperation flooded through.

I... She couldn’t hold on.

Her eyelids closed, sowed shut from the pain, and the portal closed with them. She knew nothing more.

Edited April 21, 2015 by TheDeathofThem

[fishworshipper]

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.

[FiveHours]

:D

[FiveHours]

Chapter 19 is written, thank you to all my readers. The end comes near for our heroes.

Chapter 19

They found him in his quarters, the Wraith perched by his side, whispering and muttering into his ear. The Frost didn’t seem to notice their unwelcome arrival at first, but Thanatos certainly did.

“Intrigued. Our lost sheep find their way home, it seems.” He lowered his tone, perhaps out of regret, or even fear. He looked, of course, to Orion. “And this one still lives.”

“Indeed they have.” The Frost ignored Orion’s presence in the room, purposely not offering him the satisfaction of being noticed. He knew how to play him.

“And here they stand, with such audacity,” he rose from his kneeling to face them, “as if nothing has happened, as if they haven’t abandoned their brothers and sisters in such a dire time, as if they could all not have perished with him.” He pointed his gloved finger at Orion, one Orion had come to long recognise.

“You left me to die!” He exploded, instantly going for his sword. The Wraith was faster. The icy air flew around the scythe which came to meet him and rested gently beneath his jaw. The others didn’t dare intervene.

“That would be most unwise.” A human voice stated from under the hood, through the amber eye. Ash relaxed his grip, but his hand did not stray too far.

“This is not over.” His words stabbed daggers at the Nekros, dripping with poisonous loathing. He would find somewhere for their eventual ‘discussion’, but here was not the place, now not the time.

The Ember showed genuine humility and knelt down on one knee, too which the others did the same, apart from Ash, which surprised no one. “We apologise, Clan General., but it was a mission we had to take. We needed-”

“I don’t need your petty apologies. What is done is done.” He looked pitifully down at the Ember with those icy grey eyes. Air hissed through his teeth as he exhaled. “And what of the Nephthys? She was just cleared as a Silver Initiate! I would expect you as her sister, Nyx,” he swept his steely gaze to her, “to think more sensibly than this. Evidently my trust was misplaced in you. In everyone in front of me.”

They dared not answer back to him. Silence hung like a noose under their throats. The Wraith took his leave, scythe held at his side.

The Frost turned back to the icy altar, which glistened and sparkled in the White Sun’s light. It lit up the room, shining against various battleaxes and war hammers that hung in ceremonial wraps of dark blue and painted with words of ancient tongue. The stars which they had come from not so long ago twinkled outside the viewing gallery.

“I have no time to speak on this matter any longer. Prepare your arms and your warframes, and give anything you may need repaired to the Vauban. The Grineer come in their thousands to this sector, led by General Vay Hek. The tracker that was implanted in Ash must have sent out a signal to them, and now they swarm us like hornets.” His anger was already quelled, and now his face looked of nothing but pity.

“You may have brought about our destruction, Ash. I surely hope you can help us avert it.” He shook his head as he knelt back down.

“Now go. I must pray for His blessing; maybe then we may see tomorrow.”

***

Umbra wanted nothing more than sleep. But sleep would never come until she saw her sister safe. She couldn’t even look upon her when she first brought her into the medical bay and lay her down on the linen sheets. When she couldn’t hold back the tears, she had gone outside and let them flood through. Her hand still hurt from hitting it against the wall in a small fit of anger; anything to let the pain out. Then waves of sorrow racked her body, destroying any defences she might have had. After what seemed like eons later, once she composed herself and her eyes were dry, she approached the Trinity and Vauban with a meek smile, as if she had left her terrible bereavement outside the door.

“Will she wake up?” She asked the dreaded question.

The Vauban spoke first, gruff as ever. “Of course she will, nothing to worry about. Her body has simply gone into shock. However, whether she wakes up the same, which is another question entirely.”

“The same?”

“Whoever – or whatever – grabbed her through that portal destroyed her psynaptic link. Her brain has suffered no lasting damage, but she will not be able to wield a Nyx, Nepthys or any other psynapse-based warframe again.”

His words were fists, hitting her harder into the wall with every passing second. She felt her face flare up again, and the waves of grief started to crash against her, like the sea throwing itself at her high cliffs, chipping away a bit at a time. She covered her face with her hands and sank into the wall.

“I’m sorry, Umbra.” The Trinity softly placed her metal hand onto Umbra’s shoulder, barely whispering.

The Nyx shook off the futile considerations with a shrug of her arm. She mumbled another useless question through her fingers.

“What about her legs?”

The Trinity immediately looked away and walked back to the machine threaded into Ilene. Vulcan also averted his gaze, evidently made uncomfortable by the subject. And he had every right to be; her legs were severed from the waist down, cauterised by the maw of the Void.

“I have a few ideas, of course, but nothing right now, nothing that would work, unless...” The Vauban let his thoughts spill from his mouth. It was a horrible habit he had and one Umbra detested.

“Unless what? Can you just tell me without blathering on about it, Vulcan?” She snapped, perhaps too harshly.

“Right, right.” He scratched the iron grey stubble salted on his chin as he keyed in glyphs on a control panel, built next to a large empty frame imbedded in the wall. “Here,” he paused as the outlet came forward and whirred round, revealing a Warframe coloured in streaks of pure white, and a small slivers of sky blue peeking from in between, and proud red banners adorned down the sides and across the front. A beak with a slight crook at the end was crowned on its head, and graceful wings unfurled at the arms and legs. “is our latest creation. The ‘Zephyr’. Lighter than air, fully operational and combat ready. All we need now is someone to pilot it.”

Despite the grand entrance, and the ‘stylish’ colour choices, Umbra was left unimpressed and with a near frown on her lips.

“Tell me how this will help her. I’m not interested in your new toys, Vulcan.” She grumbled.

“Well, Eir and I have been running a few tests and scans, and Ilene should be a perfect fit. She’s in a good shape, so to speak,” He got a sharp glare from Umbra with that, but she didn’t interrupt, “and the suit will not require much movement with the legs, as you may imagine. Besides, we can fit prosthetics in place, and then she’ll be ready to go back into the field in no time at all.”

“I don’t want her in the field, alright? I want her safe.” Umbra ordered, not sparing the Trinity any spite. Eir wrinkled her nose and went back to her incessant tapping at the keyboard next to Ilene. She slept so peacefully, it was almost alien to her. Umbra looked down and shook her head, once again burying her head in her hands.

“Give her legs again, but I don’t want her near the fighting. She isn’t ready. Keep her down here, or in the Mechanicus, or even in the Dead Hallways, I don’t care; as long as she isn’t harmed. I can’t see her hurt again.”

She felt her face grow hot again, and her vision blurred from the tears welling up inside her red eyes. Umbra closed her helmet and headed towards the door, pausing only to force herself to look at her sister. She couldn’t do it, she realised, as her face crumpled and she fled the room a sobbing mess.

***

The ravens were restless. Their unwelcome screeches pierced his eardrums. They flew round the room, sometimes perching on the dead trees, or they swoope through the metal catacombs under his feet, but their songs – if you could call them that – never stopped. Any normal Tenno wouldn’t last it in this chamber two days. But Thanatos was not a Tenno. No more.

“Request. Brothers of the Wraithguard, share with me your omens. My Eye does not see in this realm.”

They kept to the shadows, cowering behind the ravens that circled him.

“Order. Do not hide, brothers. I do not come to harm.” He began to pace round the candle-lit room, looking to the flickering shadows. There, it moved. A serpentine form, one of many, flitted in-between the shadows like a puppet behind a screen.

“Noszh ret’kire sak’erdosz.” They spoke in a cursed tongue, forgotten to many, and for good reason. The ravens fell unerringly silent.

“Accepted.”

His hand was a snake itself, shooting out and back in within an instant. In its skeletal grasp returned one of the ravens. He drew a dagger with his other hand and plunged it into the wretched thing. The blade went through his hand, but he paid it no mind; he was beyond feeling pain in this body. Its cries died with it, but the few of its brethren that defiantly remained perched in the trees chorused even louder. The blood of the raven trickled through the gaps between his fingers and dripped onto the floor, drip-dripping out the seconds before the others’ reply.

“Ka’vel tak arsine. Esch ma’lek naves, Thanatos. Voszh izch bet’ikraser.” They hissed like snakes, slithering in the shadows of the shrine.

“Annoyance. You know I do not speak that tongue here. You know the consequences of those not of Nyktagün to hear such words.”

“Very well. We will share with you what we see, but expect nothing more.”

“Accepted.”

“Heed.” They ordered. “Darkness comes to this place. With it rides corruption, decay and death. There will be many who will fall, most insignificant, most unimportant. Your fellow Tenno will be among them.” Their sinister voices clambered on one another, but they all spoke the same, ominous words.

“Warning. You are not to disregard my kin as insignificant. Know this.” The Wraith’s voice showed a flare of anger to it. This was new to them.

“Unimportant. They will die, like the rest. Among them: a phoenix, a wolf, a jester, a mother.”

“Confusion. A mother? I do not understand.” A stray raven swooped down to perch on his shoulder, digging its cold claws into his armour. It did not bother him as he stared quizzically at the loudest voice which stalked him round the room.

“Advised. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Thanatos. Know this.” They cackled at that, jeering at him from all sides.

“Demand. I wish to know more.” He stopped his pacing and tried to find them again through his Eye. They evaded him, but didn’t stop their intrepid taunting.

“Denied. Seek your own knowledge, for you will not find it from us.”

“Unacceptable. There must be a way to averting this.”

“Laughable. Your search for salvation is futile. We have been curious, brother. Why did you leave us? It puzzles us still.”

“Answer. I have my reasons. I was... bored.”

“Query. Was her embrace not enough?” Snake eyes narrowed behind him.

“Agreement. It was not. My death was not the end for me. It was a beginning. This body is a vessel of my journey. Easily replaceable. My soul is not.” A dull tinge of emotion flashed in his eye before being lost to the ever-present darkness of the mist swirling in his hood.

“Pity. The mortal coil does not show promise to us. Your potential is limited. We prefer a life of consideration, and thought.”

“Disregard. I show no care for your selfish desires. Your pity is misplaced; you should bear its shame for such cowardice.”

“Denial. You swim in a black sea of ignorance, only saved by the beacon of knowledge that we behold. We waste our time. Trouble us no more.”

“Curse. You shall rue this day, Arta’kas. This is unacceptable.”

A snake’s hiss and a diseased cackle was all that answered the Wraith before the candles were snuffed out by a single hand of shadow.

The air had become notably thicker and more humid and reeked with the smell of the blood. Thanatos held the bird’s corpse a lot more gently now, holding it close to his chest. A few uttered words escaped the black confines of his hood as he strengthened his grip. Black energy trailed from his arms and ran like blood across his fingers into the gaping wound in the bird’s chest. He spoke the final rites as he drew its wings over its ruined body like black feathery curtains. A moment passed as he finished, but it had worked.

A weak caw rattled from its chest as Thanatos felt its tiny heart beat in his hands. Before long it could flap its wings, and then it was all too eager to escape his hands and to join its friends, seemingly ungrateful and unknowing of its recent trip to whatever raven hell it had been damned to.

“Apologies. They will not join you just yet, Arta’kas. Not until I will it.” Thanatos stared up to the smoking candles. Under the hood, he would quite probably have smiled.

***

The past few days had not been kind. He’d lost more blood than he could think of, spilled even more, and seen a thousand living nightmares he never should have. Exhaustion did not come often, but he was starting to feel its effects. He wiped some of the tiredness off his face with his hand and yawned a rare yawn.

He was sat on a crudely built bench, nailed together with several stray planks of oak from the main training platforms around the room. He wasn’t one for the art of carpentry. He was made for something different. The split Nikana was held loosely with his fingertips, the point of the blade touching lightly on the stone floor. He spun it slightly and caught it again when it started to teeter and fall. With it he spun the web of his thoughts, trying to unmake the mess of memories spread across his mind like spilled cans of paint. Red was a most prominent colour, one of blood, one of rage, one of flame. It spoke of past regrets and memories he wished he’d forget. Then, of course, there were the fires. He couldn’t rip them from his mind. Again and again he would see the red-haired woman dead on the ground and the Stalker and Father and the killing and th-

“Ash? May I come in?” She startled him. He snapped out of his hypnotic spinning of the sword and sheathed it again behind him. She invited herself, followed by the clicking of her heels. Her helmetless face hid some personal intent. He eyed her suspiciously.

“What happened to inhospitable?” Orion inquired.

“I might have gotten used to it.” She had changed the paint on her Saryn warframe, he noticed. A shade darker on the cream, and now her apple red ripened into a bold vermillion, complimented by deep shades of purple that drank in the light and let the rest of her colours bloom. She invited herself to sit above him on one of the lower scaffoldings. She was hiding something behind her back.

He grew tired of asking the same question. “Why are you here, Antheia?”

“I brought something else to cheer you up. It’s been a hard few days; I’d imagine they aren’t over, so why not celebrate the moment while it lasts?” She suggested.

“I’d be amazed if you could. Lift my spirits. I guess it’s no worth being a miser for my last hours, is it?”

“That’s exactly what we don’t want. Here, take this.” She held out a bottle with strange writing on it, marked with a black label. Oak brown liquid sloshed around inside as she gave it a small jiggle along with a pearly smile.

“I’m not interested in whatever biological horror you’ve made this time, Antheia. You’d better take your ‘gift’ to someone deserving of it. Maybe the Vauban might like it.”

She chuckled at that. The smile stayed on her lips as she unscrewed it and brought it to her nose, to which she wrinkled her nose in a marvelled type of disgust and amazement. She held out the open bottle to him. He took it unsurely.

“Don’t be daft. It’s alcohol. ‘Visky’, I think it’s called. I certainly haven’t tried it yet, but I’m curious. Anything’s better than the factory standard ethanol they serve to the Lancers on Ceres, surely?”

“Right. Where did you get this from, may I ask?”

“Not from the Lancers on Ceres, I can tell you that much.”

“I guess that’s good enough then, hm?”

She giggled adorably at that. He loved it when she did, it was a shame he couldn’t hear it more often. Recent times didn’t allow for such things.

“Very well. I’ll try it.”

She held a light smirk as he held the bottle to his lips, swishing it around for a bit and letting the sharp smell of the liquid rush through his nostrils. It was quite refreshing, but not like a dive into a lake, or a cool drink from the fontis in the shrine; this was a more savage, raw type of refreshment, like electricity jolting through his veins. He took a daring mouthful down, cautious but intrigued. It burned his throat like acid and tasted venomous, but there was a dim, buzzing pleasure to it afterward. He found himself smirking with this pleasure, which encouraged Antheia all the more.

She grimaced as she took her mouthful down, but eventually they both got used to the taste. They shared another two or three awkward sips, accompanied by vulgar coughing and hushed giggling, mostly on Antheia’s part. Orion kept his composure and denied the bottle when she offered it back to him. They had barely gotten through a quarter of it. He set it down by his leg, where Dust lay in a worn leather scabbard.

“You know, Ash, you aren’t so bad when you aren’t out in the field. You become somewhat bearable.” She offered the comment with less tact than she usually did; the alcohol may have been stronger than she thought. Nevertheless, she came down with that heavenly grace that preceded her, feet barely making a sound as she landed on her delicate soles.

“What’s your point?”

“I’m saying that you should try and get out of this shell you keep yourself in. Start fighting for what is right, you know? Be more like... this.”

He didn’t answer.

“And maybe then, who knows, you could do something good for once.” She gently laid her hand on his shoulder. He twitched slightly but didn’t shrug her off.

“For once?”

“You know what I mean.”

Her rose-scented hair enveloped him as she leaned in and pecked him on the cheek. The harsh smell of the drink clung to her lips. He didn’t quite know how to react, but she didn’t need a reaction, for she was already gone and making her way towards the door.

“Antheia, your ‘gift’? I don’t think I’ll-“

“Keep it. We’ll finish it sometime, ok? After all this is over.”

She left him with a playful wink and the same hiss of the doors. His head bowed to stare at the floor.

“Of course.”

Edited April 24, 2015 by TheDeathofThem

[FiveHours]

As we approach the end, I'd like to ask if there might be any criticisms or comments on the story so far, as I'd like the story to be in good condition, so to speak, before I release the final chapter(s).

 

Feel free to offer anything, good or bad, as I don't want to be under the impression that I'm writing not up to standard.

 

Thanks once again to all my readers.

[FiveHours]

Hmm. I must say I'm a bit disappointed with the replies, of which there were not, but no matter. I guess no criticism is better than some, right? Anyway, for those that still read this, I've started the final chapters. This one isn't done yet, I'm just very anxious to release more!

 

 

 

Chapter 20

 

There were twenty-eight. Twenty eight Tenno against countless Grineer, with nowhere to run. Umbra thought it both a curse and a blessing that the last of the shuttles were now leaving; Ilene would soon be safe, and would carry on without her. It still stabbed a dagger of wrenching sorrow into her chest whenever she even thought about Ilene. How she would be alone. Part of her wanted to go on the shuttles as well, to join her sister so that they could be together once more. But, alas, the universe did not allow her such luxuries.

 

She readjusted her crescent-bladed Tipedo on her back so that it didn’t jut into her shoulder blades, and then headed to the small handful of Tenno congregating in the centre of the lobby. She took notice of the beauty of the Clan’s main lobby; glorious red banners adorned the sides and glass staircases wound like snakes into the upper levels. Several statues guarded the doorways, sculpted in striking poses of battle and considerate thought alike. A particular piece appealed to her, placed in the middle of the room. It was a hawk, posed in mid-flight with a screeching visage, the thrill of the hunt in its eyes. It was a remarkably built sculpture, one that brought the clan of the Diving Hawks great pride. She stepped into the small crowd and quietly and uninterruptedly made her way through to the front, coming to a stop next to Antheia. She swore she could smell something like alcohol on the Saryn, but she kept her comments to herself.

 

They all felt the same, it seemed, for the same listless expression was written on their faces like morose grey paint. Several of them she had not seen for many months and some she did not even recognise. She felt somewhat curious as to their origin, but she avoided any queries into the matter with the Frost; they took any help they could get. As soon as he came across her mind, she noticed him step onto the stone boundary of the hawk statue and give a curt ahem to catch their attention. Their silence was immediate. His helmet was tucked under his arm and his eyes were colder than ever.

 

“Greetings, brothers and sisters. I am sure that you know what danger approaches us. That is not important. We face dangers every day of our lives; now is merely another. You are not the type that flee, that dwell on the past, the type that look for excuses. You were chosen for a reason, Hawks.” The crowd beamed with new pride, chests a little more puffed out and eyes a little wilder. The Frost had obviously made some sort of preparation; this was no half-hearted speech, this was a rally, one that would rile them up unlike any artificial drug.

 

“And that reason comes down to today, and to every day after it. The Grineer come in their disgusting masses, here to corrupt and destroy what we hold most dear. Will you allow this?” Unruly words, maybe a scattered few ‘no’s were heard from the group. “I said, WILL YOU ALLOW THIS?!” He roared.

 

They roared back in their defiance, a chorus of voices united, brother and sister. The Hawk had spread its wings, and its cry for war resonated through the galaxy.

 

***

 

Skarlaggh was hungry for blood. The crazed rattles on the cages around him rang through the metal hangar of the Gruzh-Nakaal. Hek had brought in as many platoons for the assault as possible, as well as his brooding Fomorian battleships to shatter any defences that might impede them. He didn’t have any place among them, though.

 

They called him different, they called him crazy. They gave him a name: the Manic. He no longer had a number, either; the Grineer did not want to associate themselves with him, but his usefulness kept him from the firing squad. He licked his diseased gums, feeling the metal spikes of his teeth with his tongue and tasting the salty taste of blood that followed when he cut it. He giggled and began to drool in his helmet. The saliva cooled in the air-conditioned chill of the hangar and trickled down his sweaty neck and onto his surgically tormented chest. It had been way too long.

 

“How much more?”

 

Mokraggh chose to speak the Common Tongue, even if it was garbled and rotten. Skarlaggh had no idea how he had learnt it, but the months spent in his cell would allow him to overhear a few snippets here and there, and often from the fearful sobs of the civilian population left slaughtered on their Hunts.

 

“Quiet. Count. Do not care.” Skarlaggh’s wasn’t any better, but as pack leader he got his point across well enough.

 

“Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleventwelvethirteen...”

 

The corner of his lip twitched. “Quiet.”

 

“Twentytwentyonetwentytwotwentythreetwentyfourtwentyfive...”

 

“QUIET.” Skarlaggh’s claws slammed into the cell to his right, biting deep into the metal and slicing out onto the other side. One of the guards turned round and yelled something at them. Skarlaggh’s tongue whipped round his lips again and he snarled.

 

Mokraggh fell silent to the cell on the right. A dog-like whimper teetered through the holes opened by the claws in the wall.

 

The hangar doors were opening now. The other soldiers clung to the sides, guns hugged to their chests. The locks on Skarlaggh’s cell swung open and they cuffed him immediately, one electric rod poised to his neck. His brothers were taken out in the same way. They were the same. They were hungry.

 

And they would all feast. Very, very soon.

 

***

 

BAM!

 

The door rattled again, giving only a bit more. The Tenno had taken up positions all around the room; an Excalibur stood guard behind a pillar, his Latron’s sights poised at the entrance; Umbra preferred her trusted Orthos and her mind and kept closer to the doors with her staff slowly swaying in her hand; the Banshee lay prone across the top of the golden gate into the main lobby with her Vectis locked on the ever-giving doors.

 

BAM!

 

She ran another sonar scan. Thirty-three marines, five Gunners and an Arctic Eximus. She didn’t need sights on her rifle to see that it was nothing good.

 

BAM!

 

The constant battering of the door was interfering with her sensors and shook her “vision” with each strike. She grimaced.

 

BAM!

 

The next one was worse than the rest and created a huge dent in the door. The metal bent into a grotesque likeness to Hek’s face.

 

BAM!

 

The doors were flung open, and out poured the Grineer. Time slowed to a near-halt, and sound rippled like soft waves lapping at the shore. The Banshee knew these things, but she wasn’t sure from where. That will be a thought for another time.

 

The room exploded as a flurry of adrenaline, hearts pounding, bullets flying, Grineer dying. Umbra plunged the staff’s blade into the nearest marine’s head then sliced the mechanical torso off another. Her weapon dictated her movements, guiding her through gunfire and weaving in and out of combat. Her style was flawless, her movements unbroken. The blades rang with the screams of dying Grineer, who stood nought of a chance.

 

Green energy surrounded her as she took upon a meditative pose, the Flowering Lotus. Petals became blades of pure energy, and all the bullets fired at her, no matter how many, turned against their masters and flung themselves at them. Ten Grineer died in a flash of jade, and four more burned into nothingness from the crystalline spikes imbedded in their bodies. The Gunners were next, falling in a cascade of shimmering blight and lead rain. One of them, before their violent death, slashed down at the Nyx with the bayonet on its rifle and slicing into her warframe and bare white flesh. She groaned as its brute force slammed her into the ground and punched the air out of her lungs. She drew the Pyrana from her hip and fired until the pistol couldn’t fire anymore. The Gunner, now a mesh of smoking shrapnel and shredded bloody flesh, crashed down next to her.

 

The Banshee terminated the other group of marines, but it did not appear to be the last, for more swarmed in between the prominent silhouette of the Eximus. The Banshee swore when her sonar gave her a moment of solitude to observe the scene.

 

The Eximus was going to be another challenge entirely. The Excalibur, only supporting with Latron fire until now, came out from behind the pillar and drew his iconic Skana. It flashed a brilliant flash from its tip, scorching the eye lenses of the Grineer who dared look his way. He slammed his front foot forward into the ground while putting the weight on his heel and driving the sword behind his back. His warframe pulsed briefly and the gunfire seemed to stop for a millisecond of time. In this small frame the Banshee loaded the last round in her magazine and found the centre of mass on the Eximus. She fired.

 

The Skana left a white-hot trail through the platoon, encountering only the slightest resistance at the Arctic Eximus, where it left a gaping hole in its side. The bullet from the Vectis screeched into this gap and shattered the Gunner in two. Its Gorgon roared its owner’s agony as it fell to the floor, dead. The remaining Grineer, now without the bittersweet cold of the Eximus to protect them, quickly fell to the Banshee’s unrelenting fire and the beautiful mêlée between the marines and the Excalibur and Nyx.

 

It was not long before the hall fell silent and the smell of gunpowder had descended. The Nyx suffered a nasty-looking gash running down the left side of her back, but her warframe was already looking to repair the damage over it as it softly fizzled over the wound. The Excalibur silently checked the fresh corpses for any signs of life, making swift thrusts and twists with his Skana before drawing it out to go on to the next body. He showed no sign of injury.

 

The Banshee took the peace of the moment to look out to the rest of the Dojo with her sonar. The Saryn’s group had already engaged a much larger enemy, it seemed, but she had an equally powerful entourage of the Volt, another Excalibur, two Mags – one, sadly, had fallen – and Palatinus. She held no worry for their survival; they were all able students of hers.

 

The Frost led the main defence, wielding the full power of both Rhinos, the Nova, another Nyx, Vulcan and Eir. Several Spectres had been summoned from old debts, it seemed, as the the Corrupted swelled the ranks of the defence. She could hear the chatter of machine guns, and the deathly cries of men answering them. The Frost yelled over the noise, rallying them once again as the next wave of Grineer thundered in through the narrow doors.

 

She chuckled to herself. Odin sure loved his war cries, something to get the troops all riled up. But as the chuckle died in her throat, she realised she still was laughing. But... this wasn’t her laughter.

 

The pattering of footsteps resounded somewhere far away, down at the entrance of the chamber where the Nyx and Excalibur talked as they continued checking the bodies. The laughter didn’t go away. Her right ear twitched. She slowly brought her hand from the rifle to her hip. The laughter got louder. The others must have heard it, surely? Her heart beat faster. Her hand still crept down her side, just a few more inches until-

 

She felt a coldness of a blade pressing down on her neck, only just drawing blood.

 

“Found. You.”

 

 

***

Death truly was beautiful. The black mistress never lifted her ashen veil to the Wraith, but he sensed a serene, definite beauty under it all. Here he felt at peace. His path to take. His ground to tend for.

 

Blood met steel in a crimson red wedding across the battlefield, and its praise was sung by the screams of the dying and the pounding of the planetary defence cannons beat with the drums of war. The hundreds of corrupted, tortured souls, encased in their eternal camouflaged tomb, were set free by his hand with each passing hour like heavenly doves.

 

The scythe found its mark with every stroke and swing. He did not like pain. He had suffered enough to know its power. This power he administered with almost no leniency; every swing of his scythe had to connect, it had to cut them down without hesitation. Such was his expertise, one that he had fine-tuned into perfection like the sharpened ethereal edge of his scythe.

 

And they would know death. Their numbers thinned, but more approached from the entrance. Several were larger than their grunt counterparts, and wielded biomass-infected weapons that oozed a saliva-like liquid from their maws. The Ogris and Torid; the twins of destruction and waste.

 

The Bombard, Ogris in hand, fired off a deadly salvo at the rubedo-plated doors while the Torid-wielder launched his payload of toxic canisters. Thanatos did not need to breathe, but the effects of the gas were having an effect on his allies, who coughed and became sluggish in their movements. The Vulcan, who had taken to his machete for combat, mis-stepped a wide chop, and the force of the alloy blade sent him staggering to the side. The marine he faced swung with the butt of its gun into Vulcan’s face, connecting with brutal force. The Vauban reeled back and caught his footing somewhat haphazardly. He took one of the metal spheres attached to his armour and twisted it. It lit up and beeped a few times, changing colour from blue to red. Vulcan gave a grunt as he lobbed the sphere at the marine, which landed with a heavy clunk and caved in the front of its helmet.

 

It beeped one last time before it exploded in a flash of brilliant white light. This light cleared and the sphere hopped off the ground and started to suck in everything nearby. The marines meshed together as flesh and metal, tumbling into an infinitely small vortex of unimaginable force. The pallid mass of meat left on the ground filled the air with a fresh wave of blood. The Nova only had a moment to gag before the Grineer launched their assault once again, launching salvo after salvo of explosives and horrific chemicals alike.

 

The defence was weakening. The Nekros heard those serpentine voices in his head, cackling as their dark prophecy neared. Something needed to be done. After the momentary deliberation the combat allowed him, he regrettably decided what he had to do. The Word of She would be uttered, a silence he had not broken for a century. He separated the blade of his scythe from a marine’s body and swept his free hand across the incoming waves of camouflaged green.

 

One word he whispered: “Morti’sker.”

 

***

 

“This area is clear. The gates have been breached, but I’ve put up a psychic barrier to-. Yes. I said YES. All accounted for. Fifty-six. I know. Yes. Good luck, Prelate, Lotus guide you.”

 

The checks were finished. The Excalibur had occupied himself with religiously cleaning his sword on the hard metal gauntlets on his forearm and seemed more determined wipe it clean of blood than to listen to Umbra’s politely ignored attempts at conversation. She frowned and crossed her arms, specially putting her weight on one prominent hip. The Excalibur chose to ignore her and keep cleaning.

 

She scowled and yanked his torso across his shoulder, leaving him sprawled on the floor. The Skana clattered down next to him. The Excalibur straightened up and gave her a hmmph in reply before picking up his newly-polished sword. He followed behind her, observing how she carried herself, how her feet never seemed to touch the ground.

 

Probably some psychic bullS#&$, as always. Stuck-up little c-

 

Keep your thoughts to yourself, Apostle. On second thought, don’t think them at all.

 

He gulped. “Apologies, ma’am.”

 

No need to be so formal. I’m not “little” either. Just over six feet.

 

He gave a polite chuckle and looked up to the gate. The Banshee’s Vectis poked out from behind it, but no sound came from it. The air was thick with the stench of blood, but that had already settled in his nose. This was something else. He stopped, and Umbra slowed her footsteps when she heard his were not following.

 

“What is it?”

 

“The Banshee. She’s still there.”
 

Umbra narrowed her eyebrows under her helmet.

 

“Ayasha?”

 

No reply.

 

“Ayasha, what’s going on?”

 

Nothing.

 

Umbra reached out to the Vectis and pulled it very slightly. Perhaps the sounds had overwhelmed the Banshee and rendered her unconscious. Not entirely unheard of. That was it. Nothing else. But when she pulled, it was much heavier than she anticipated. She gave it one hard tug and it came loose, but so did a hand. She kept pulling, and she felt bile rising up her throat and scalding her until she couldn’t breathe. She kept pulling. Her eyes shot open. She shrieked and let go, letting the body of Ayasha the Banshee to smack onto the floor.

 

The Excalibur didn’t have a comment to give, nor did she want one. Her helmet separated to reveal her reddened eyes as her hand caught another shriek from escaping her mouth. She tried to inhale, but the horror that squeezed her lungs did not let her. The Banshee’s back had been rended apart, the ribs sliced down on both sides and her lungs ripped from the front of her chest. In the mind of the most tormented of them, they looked like wings of flesh.

 

She could not bring herself to touch Ayasha, as if the contact would break the wavy screen of tears in front of her and make the Banshee really dead. She didn’t want to believe it. Her reluctant, trembling fingers finally found Ayasha’s neck in the futile search of any pulse. She only felt her own, which seemed to race at a million beats per minute. The tears would not come. Her face was on fire, her heart cold; her body was being torn apart from the extremes of the torments unleashed upon her.

 

“Pick her up.”

 

The Excalibur obeyed without question, softly cradling her head and her knees and forcing himself to look away to the Nyx. Umbra clenched her teeth and shut her eyes for a second. Grief nearly overtook her, but she fought and stayed strong.

 

She barely found the words.

 

“Bring her with us. She will not be found among them.”

 

***

 

“This will not hold.”

 

The planetary defence lances were firing more than ever at the incoming shower of drop pods as the second Fomorian battlecruiser to dock alongside them exploded into a destructive display of fire and plasma. The vivid yellow and fierce red flashed across Orion’s torn face, and his lips bent into a slight frown. The first waves of Grineer lay dead around him, creating a fine path to tread on for the forces that followed, which now came, and they appeared to be double – no, triple - its size.

Antheia was playing with her Fangs again, flicking each one across her slender fingers, spinning them on the back of her thumbs and starting over again. She had noticed the approaching foe with worry in her eyes. They narrowed so very slightly. She sheathed both daggers with a simultaneous click.

 

“I think we all know that, Ash.” Her hair was dishevelled and loose strands fell across her face, which she blew away and gave up when they drifted back down. Dried blood was flecked across her cheek.

 

He regarded the scene with a bit more attention. There was incongruence behind it all, behind those exploding streaks that spread themselves across the blackness. There, there it was. It was the way the ships moved. The one destroyed just now, it came alone. The others were mere iron-grey specks among the white stars in the distance.

 

“This is intended to be our last stand, Antheia.”

 

“How in the name of the Old Earth do you know my name?” She turned her head to face him, looking comically shocked.

 

“I have my ways. You should know that by now.”

 

 She half-smiled as a forlorn look entered her irises. “Hm. I guess I will never know them, will I?”

 

“That’s why we aren’t fighting. That was merely a scouting party.” He stated very simply.

 

“Excuse me?” She placed a questioning hand on her hip.
 

“Not them, anyway.” He said, gesturing with a nod to the pods, which were coming closer by the minute. Thick smoke poured from their chemically-fuelled engines.

 

“Then what do you propose we do, Ash? As much as I’d like to,” she stepped toward him and set a finger on his arm before putting it to her Fang, “I’m not standing idly by while my brothers and sisters die around me.”

 

“Don’t be absurd.” He stepped towards the gallery’s viewing screen and pressed a sharpened metal claw on his index finger into it. It squealed as he tracked it across, following a much larger pod that seemed to eclipse the others, now that he had noticed it. “That is what we want.”

 

Antheia afforded him a small laugh as she resumed her knife spinning routine.

 

“You want to go straight for Hek? Didn’t your own sword teach you that lesson well enough already?”

 

He ran his finger along his abdomen; underneath the armour was a scar that prickled when he touched it. “I’m better now. His guard won’t be able to defend him, now that they have an ample distraction.” What worried her was the shark-like smile that crept along his mouth.

 

“This won’t work, Ash. Four of you couldn’t handle him, what makes you think you can take on him alone? You can’t let him win like this. We go,” she took his hand and clasped it in hers, “as one.”

 

He let out a sigh. The pods were only a few hundred meters from the Dojo’s exterior. Time for chat was not something they had. He spun on his heel and set for the elevator to the main lobby.

 

“Well, we’d better get going then, hm?” He proposed. She followed him in, and they descended, with nothing but silence between them.

 

Edited May 15, 2015 by TheDeathofThem

[fishworshipper]

Honestly, the reason i didn't leave anything is because I don't really know what to say. I like your writing and the story, though I disagree on some points of lore. I still like the story, though, and am attached to the characters.

[FiveHours]

Honestly, the reason i didn't leave anything is because I don't really know what to say. I like your writing and the story, though I disagree on some points of lore. I still like the story, though, and am attached to the characters.

That is all I needed, thank you :) I'm glad you like the characters, I was having doubts as to if they were that interesting. I can understand if you disagree with some points in the lore, it's supposed to be non-canon, but just out of curiosity and the sake of story integrity, what did you disagree on?

[fishworshipper]

That is all I needed, thank you :) I'm glad you like the characters, I was having doubts as to if they were that interesting. I can understand if you disagree with some points in the lore, it's supposed to be non-canon, but just out of curiosity and the sake of story integrity, what did you disagree on?

Mostly on the structure of the clan and how much authority the clan leaders (I think) have over the other members.

[FiveHours]

Mostly on the structure of the clan and how much authority the clan leaders (I think) have over the other members.

That's basically the biggest risk I took in putting this out, by I think that Tenno should be separated in a hierarchal structure like in the Army, for this system exists in game with the Generals and Warlords and whatnot. Another factor is the experience since the "Awakening" that the Tenno acquire; the longer they've been 'awake' for, the higher their place in Tenno society and they are respected, and thus Ilene was kept in the Dojo for a while until she was promoted to her Silver Initiate status. Naturally those with more experience would have more authority over other, less-experienced Tenno, such as the Frost, who presides over the entire Clan Wing.

[FiveHours]

Chapter 20 updated. 

[fishworshipper]

...Dayum.

[FiveHours]

The last part of 20 had been added.

[fishworshipper]

Yesssssssssssssssss

[FiveHours]

My thoughts exactly.

[FiveHours]

The penultimate Chapter 21. The end begins.

Chapter 21

 

 

The thundering of the pods resounded through the gallant halls, round the golden archways and into the ears of the awaiting Tenno. The air round the gates shifted and dust was thrown up onto their helmet visors as the thundering continued, but this was not the landing pods anymore. This was the sound of marching, the sound of a thousand half-men pounding their steel boots into the ground to die their inevitable deaths in battle. What mattered was if any survived see victory. The numbers could always be replaced.

 

Umbra and one of her fellow Sisters were pressing their hands to the shimmering air in front of them, creating a barrier that denied any viewers knowledge of what was waiting on the other side. It fell like a waterfall on their side but to any onlookers it looked and sounded exactly the same.

 

“Well, here they come. Not exactly a bunch of lookers, are they?” The Ember stretched, arching her back in a feline way with one hand loosely gripping her Strun. The charred body of a marine lay shredded under its maw

 

“This wasn’t how I planned to die.” The Volt was badly wounded, with one arm broken and limp by his side. A Sicarius trembled its silver head in his hand as he tried to keep it from shaking. Electricity drizzled along the sides of his frame like a leaking spigot.

 

“Oh, and what would be better than this, Alessandro? In your sleep?”

 

“I prefe-“

 

“You know what? I don’t need to know, because you aren’t dying here. I’ll get you some of that Corpus-imported stuff from Venus later to help with the arm, if you want.”

 

“I... That would be nice.”

 

“Come on.” She beckoned with her hand and lightly slapped him on the back. He managed a small smile.

 

Orion stared at the entrance down the hall with narrowed eyes. Shadows marched with the sound of incoming marines on the walls, but they were bigger tenfold, and seemed to multiply the sound. In the heart of a normal being, terror may have gripped him. Normality disgusted him.

 

“They should hurry up. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

 

“Let them make their move, I say.” The Frost spoke from behind him, for once paying his full attention to Orion.  “We can show our hand once they show theirs; this is a game that Hek plays. He delays the main advance to peel through the cowards. He wants us to be demoralised. He wants us to be reckless.”

 

“He can try to do whatever he wants, but I’d rather not keep my executioner waiting.” Ash injected as much cynicism into that sentence as possible; he didn’t want the Frost to hear his last words to be honeyed and warm. It was the alcohol.

 

“Perhaps they are not so eager. Learn patience, brother.” Was that a wink that momentarily graced his grey eyes?

 

The marines came into view at last. Ash drew Dust its scabbard just as the sword’s runes started to glow.

 

Here comes the marching band.

 

It’s about time.

 

You seem almost eager to meet your end.

 

You don’t listen much, do you, Dust?

 

More than you think. The Stalker’s ship was not one of great interest, so I found listening a good way to pass the time.

 

Sometimes I pity you.

 

Have you grown fond of my presence, Orion?

 

Somewhat. Don’t take it too seriously, I’m still not myself.

 

You’d be surprised.

 

And what do you mean by that?

Ignore me.

 

 They marched in columns, guns robotically tucked into their huge shoulder pauldrons. Umbra was trembling slightly, still visibly shaken by the dreadful murder of the Lieutenant, but she held herself together. Her Sister paid her no heed, instead staring straight at the ever-closer approaching Grineer.

 

The hall rang with the sound of feet hitting the ground as a single crunch. The Tenno’s conversation died into the silence as the two sides stared each other in the face, locked in a contest of nerve unknown to the Grineer.

 

The Nyxs backed slowly into the walls, hands still raised outward. A particularly grizzled Grineer sergeant with almost human-like grey stubble peppered on his jaw stepped into the alien light of the Dojo and sniffed the air. His grey tongue traced round his greyer lips, moistening them like a fox padding behind a mouse.

 

“Garsch noves tresk!” He barked to one of the grunts at the back, who timidly jogged over, taking small steps.

 

The marine was shoved forward before the barrier. The Frost mimicked his movements, coming to a stop right before the shield and drawing a Bolto pistol from its worn holster.

 

The marine looked round; taking a few nervous steps spurred on only by the sergeant’s distancing yells. It rolled its shoulder and readjusted the Grakata in its arms, taking another couple of steps. It was right before the barrier. It must have sensed something, for it took one hand and reached into the barrier, then a foot. The Tenno held their breaths as it stepped through fully and gazed into the sight of the barrel.

 

“Tenno, sku-“

 

The pistol bucked three times. Three bolts about a hand-width in size flew from its barrel.

 

On the first shot, the marine’s skull shattered as the bolt tore a new hole in the back of its head. The psychic shield went down, and the Tenno weapons came up. The first beats of adrenaline pulsed through the marines’ hearts.

 

On the second, feet started moving. Grineer legs, trained by instinct, began to run and adopt firing positions. The sergeant’s vocal chords only just started to strum his ferocious orders.

 

On the third, triggers were pulled, swords drawn, grenades grabbed from pouches and flung with pins raining down like metallic snowflakes. The air only now started to whistle through the grooves of ancient swords.

 

Battle erupted. All around the hall, Tenno leapt into battle, slashing apart squadrons in moments. Bullets streaked through the hall, whistling past Orion’s ears and pattering against the stone columns that he ran across. He bent his legs into the wall and sprung at a Gunner, Dust poised in front of him. Smoke trailed his movements as it poured forth from the shining runes along its blade. Orion shoved the sword through its armour with a grunt and gracefully leaped over its head. As expected, a shielded Lancer timidly crept behind it, firing short bursts with its Viper. Orion slammed both legs into its face, crushing its helmet and puncturing the shield with the blade imbedded in the Gunner. The pair, stuck together by Dust, wriggled to try and escape, but the blade wouldn’t budge. Orion jumped onto the Lancer’s neck and snapped it with one foot, the other driving the towering Gunner’s face into the ground and leaving a large crack in the floor. He wrenched the sword free, whipping blood against the walls. His eyes found naturally found his next target. He continued.

 

While Orion fought in the fray of it all, the Ember relied on the brutish power of her Strun to raze her enemies to shreds. Her rounds were modified with a sticky phosphoric solution mixed with the pellets as well as an improved bullet chambering mechanism, resulting in a hellish storm of fire that blew apart anything that entered her range. This, coupled with her frequent fireballs that she threw from her fists that shattered like molten boulders on their targets, gave her the destructive, flame-licked presence of an erupting volcano.

 

Lightning shot through her side. She barely had time to react before she realised she was being dragged into a group of marines by a Scorpion’s harpoon, like a fish with a hook through its cheek being reeled in. She tumbled across the floor and landed flat on her face. The world spun for a moment as she regained control of her limbs. The Ember pressed her hands into the ground in an effort to get up, but was immediately stopped by a savage blow to her shoulder. Her Strun fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

 

She could feel the blood welling and trickling down her back. She needed to get help. The marines around her chuckled as the Scorpion pressed a gun barrel to her neck and forced her head into the floor. She clenched her teeth and waited for the gunshot.

 

BANG!

 

She... She could still feel her breathing. Now, when the Ember’s heart beat out of her chest and sent shockwave after shockwave through her body, she felt still. Then it dawned on her, breaking like the smile she wore when she felt metal rapidly cooling on her skin.

 

“Ker dam?!” The shrill voice of the Scorpion sounded off in confusion behind her. “Nekar se!”

 

A shot entered her abdomen, another in her leg. Her shields barely deflected one that was aimed for her head. The gunpowder-filled breath she took was punched right back out again, and she looked round from the floor to her surroundings. No Tenno were nearby. That was good. Only Grineer, more and more closing in. The battle seemed far away now, on a distant plane. Her chocolate hair was draped across her blood-filled right eye like a closing curtain.

 

Flames enveloped her, slithering from her ears, her nose, her eyes, her mouth, from every pore in her body. They purified her skin, searing away her eyebrows and setting her hair alight. The bullets in her wounds melted away and dissolved into her burning blood. Her scalding skin stripped her body of her warframe, leaving just her naked, pure, charcoal black figure floating in the middle of a fiery sun. A fiery tornado of flames and wind whipped round her . She hugged herself with blistering arms into a ball as the flames raged and the heat grew and grew. With a final burst of energy, her entire being was consumed by fire, and along with it, her world.

 

But from the dying star came something greater; a blizzard, white and feral like the wolves of the Arctic. The Frost stood in its centre while violent winds raged around him and blew the Grineer apart, scattering them like mere ragdolls. Some he impaled into the ceiling and walls with gargantuan shards of ice; no blood dripped from their bodies as they died, for it had already frozen in their veins. The globe of ice around him deflected any attempts to breach into the main Tenno formation. The winter’s chill embraced the wounded Tenno around him, numbing their vicious pain and allowing the blood to flow slower in a bid to prolong their fleeting breaths. The Trinity rushed to and fro while the Frost gunned down any incoming forces with precise shots from his Soma.

 

Ash seemed to know where the Frost was to fire, for he effortlessly weaved and ducked between short bursts as if it was a mere reflex. It almost scared him, how Ash managed to kill so efficiently with every stroke, and how he did so without a moment’s thought. He needed not to be asked, just given a motive. When he came in he had nothing to him but hatred. Now he was given the tools to embody it. The Frost’s almost regretful eyes found the Vauban, who was busy yanking a machete from the shoulder of a Butcher.

 

Vulcan, what have you done to him?

 

Laughter sounded over the gunfire somewhere from down the hall. It sounded like something otherworldly, something not quite human, or Grineer, for that matter. Black forms, suited in obsidian with claws protruding from their hands too thin for their arms. They scampered towards the Tenno on all fours, claws scraping over the rattling of guns and the ever-presence of their cackling. One of them bore a bloody crest painted on its shadowy helmet and had torn and stained rags flapping from in-between its armour joints. The faceplates of its fellow Grineer covered its back. It seemed to laugh the least, doing something worse altogether when it leaped at Orion. It growled, like a dog, and slashed its claws at his face. Orion ducked just a fraction too late and its hand smashed into the side of his head, taking half his faceplate with it.

 

Orion slashed upward with Dust and caught its shoulder pauldron with a satisfying shower of sparks. It swung at him again and smashed the sword out of his hand, sending a buzzing shockwave through Orion’s arm. This was no ordinary Grineer. He tried to will Dust to him and cursed when he realised what sword he fought with. His Nikana was still lying among planks of wood in his chamber.

 

No matter. His gauntlets were sharpened to needle points, so he somewhat stood a fighting chance. The clone pounced; hand outstretched to Orion’s throat, and vanished. Orion whipped round. His eyes frantically searched for something. The laughter rose again. Nothing struck him. He felt timidly weak. He dove straight for his sword. His fingers found the grip of the hilt and he rolled over. The maniacal laughter filled his ears as it screeched at him from the ceiling, tumbling down and claws outstretched. It slammed into his ribs, no doubt breaking a few, and began to tear into his armour. Fire branded his skin as it slashed again and again at his chest, now starting to penetrate bare ghost-white flesh. Dark red lined its claws. Any effort he made was in vain, instantly forced aside by the primal strength of the clone.

 

The pain stopped just as blood started to trickle into the sides of his vision. His eyelids cracked open slightly to stare at the grey blade of a serrated Kama dripping with biological fluid. It was wrenched out and the body was kicked to the side, rasping and spluttering.

 

Against the harsh light of the Dojo Orion saw the damned, most recognisable helmet of a Tenno he would ever see, one that snatched away his breath in disbelief and relief at once. He would have laughed if his chest didn’t hurt so damn badly and if the battle did not still rage around them. The hammerhead-helmeted stranger offered him a hand.

 

“Too long, my friend. Too damn long.” The cocky smile was practically visible from under his helmet.

 

“Fenrir... how di-“ Orion brought his trembling hand up to the Loki’s.

 

“I think you’ve grown beyond asking why or how, Ash. Decoys, to save you the trouble. Very useful. Come on, up and at ‘em.” He patted Orion on the back and motioned over to Antheia, who Orion had failed to notice almost dancing through the squadrons of crazed bionic nightmares that were hunting them.

 

“It’s rude to keep the lady waiting, Ash. Go get her.” He winked and disappeared into nothingness. Two frantically reloading marines quickly lost their heads while peering from behind a slab of broken masonry.

 

Orion plunged the blade into the dying Grineer and allowed the life force to drain into him. His chest wounds closed up and his warframe sizzled back over his scars. He grasped the broken edge of his ceramic faceplate and ripped it from his helmet. His blade sucked in fresh air as he pulled it from the still body lying next to him.

 

I saw him before, following you. I thought it would be better for you to find out this way, though. Any other time and you would have killed him.

 

Is that so?

 

I expected a different reaction. You’ve changed.

 

Don’t tell me. We’ll talk later.

 

Later, then.

 

Orion ran and ran through hellish flames and vulgar spouts of rage onto the other front of the seemingly never-ending battle. Antheia seemed to be having trouble , only barely managing to stave off the two Butchers that chopped and swung at her feeble-looking daggers. Their only mistake was their ignorance, not that they could be blamed. He managed to make it to her just as she ducked under a clumsily-placed swing to her head and plunged the Fang into the weak spot under the Butchers arm. She nimbly stepped round and behind it, taking the dagger with her. Its hot flesh steamed in the air as it collapsed, entrails spilling out pink from under its armour. Her other dagger she threw into the remaining Grineer’s chest and looked to finish it off, but she noticed Orion watching her and she stood up to face him.

 

His hand relaxed on his sword.

 

“You missed one.”

 

“You sure?” She didn’t even have to look as the Butcher stared in horror at its chest, which began to slowly fall apart in a gooey mess of blood and flesh. Orion smirked.

 

 The Grineer numbers thinned, but so did the numbers of the Tenno. Orion could barely count half of who had started the battle. He knew definitely who had died; he had seen their deaths, all too painfully. The Nova, Umbra’s fellow Sister, an Excalibur with sheens of metal scraped on his gauntlet... Too many. But now was not the time for grief. He noticed, however, that there was an increasingly large gap in the Grineer defences. A gap that was to be filled by something. Orion rolled his shoulder and gripped Dust more firmly. But so far the real threat wasn’t here. He hadn’t had fun in a while.

 

“Antheia.”

 

“Yes?” She replied as she yanked the Fang out of the liquefied Butcher’s chest.

 

“Care to dance?” He asked with a coy smile.

 

He could imagine her smiling with perfect white teeth as she laughed.

 

The two found the main battle in the center, near the trading post on the second floor. A Prosecutor was making short work of the Disciples that attempted to strike it, quickly burning away appendages and searing away the courage that once defended them. It cackled under its muffling helmet. Flames roared at the Tenno, forcing them away every time they dared come near it. The sickly sweet smell of fuel choked their breaths as the pair bounded up the stairs. Four marines came to greet them, Grakatas and Karaks raised. How many shots did they manage to fire? Four? Five? Orion didn’t care to count. Neither did Antheia. A swift slice across the throat and poisonous shot into the neck from her Tysis took two down. Orion crouched under their barrels and spun round, letting the full force of his legs carry him through and slice them both apart with one fell stroke.

 

“Brothers, step aside!” Orion barked at the remaining Tenno that hadn’t fallen to the Prosecutor’s flame-wreathed Amphis.

 

They reacted instantly, simultaneously flipping back into safety with swords poised.

 

“Shall we?” She offered with a hidden smile.

 

He didn’t need to answer. The two sprang at the Prosecutor as one, Orion to its left, Antheia to its right. More hellish cackling escaped the confines of the metal grilles it had for its mouth as it raised the cudgel. They jumped for its undersides, both dancing round its every swing and blow. The Amphis spewed fire at them as the Prosecutor’s limbs groaned to match their elegant waltz. A nick of armour here, a slashed wire there, but it was getting weaker.

 

There! Antheia saw an opening in its underarm, where the metallic joints creaked under the force of its massive swings. Under that was a bright yellow light that glowed hotter and brighter as the Prosecutor swung and swung again. Its core.

 

“Ash!”

 

“I know.”

 

She found his eyes for just a moment as the Prosecutor brought the Amphis down on him. He sidestepped the clumsy attack and rushed under it. Antheia did the same. She leapt first. She willed the Tysis to fire, and it responded with violent squeezes and pulses as spines whistled out. These spines latched onto the Prosecutor and began to flood its entire system with liquid. The titanic Grineer tried to bat her away, but it found that its augmented limbs did not allow him. They were stuck. The liquid had entered the motors and solidified, freezing the Prosecutor from the inside out with solid bone. Armour plates broke off and exposed its spine and its mouth grille fell apart to display its agonised grin.

 

Orion took his chance and reversed the grip on his sword as he soared over it. Gravity pulled him down along with Dust, which tore into the Prosecutor’s back and broke apart the bony mass that entombed it. With its metallic spine exposed, Orion shoved his clawed hand into its back and ripped the spine out. With a fading croak, the Prosecutor slammed into the ground, dead.

 

Orion, with the flaming Amphis now extinguished, swore that he felt a little colder.

 

***

 

The Frost was busy fighting his own battles. His Orthos blades clashed time and time again at the daringly ferocious attacks of the Grineer Manic with resounding rings. Sparks flew as the one of the tips nicked its armour plate. It was weakening. Small relief found him in-between his strikes as he found another one at its abdomen. However, even though he was slowly winning this idle slashing of steel, the battle started to tip against the Tenno. The golden gates shook once again as Bombards with Tonkor grenade launchers took up positions at the back of the main formations and tossed pulsing grenades forth. They didn’t give yet, but his intuition had taught him to look further than just the present. But his intuition was what now betrayed him.

 

His concentration had drifted for a split second, and he paid the painful price for it. A powerful sweep at the Orthos cut deep into his hand. He was forced to hold the staff with one hand, the other gushing blood from where the rusty claw had cut into him and sliced through his glove to the white underneath. He held the Orthos with a trembling arm; he had been fighting for too long. He had been warned before that his zeal would be the death of him someday; he just never thought to take it to heart. His ignorance, it seemed, was another regret he would take to his-

 

No. I’m not dying here.

 

The Manic reared on its jackal-like legs and sprung at him. It batted the Orthos aside with ease. The Frost skidded across the floor, tumbling in a strange embrace with the Grineer half-creature. It tried to go for his throat, but he immediately willed the suit to exhale all the swirling air underneath. It hissed and sprayed deadly liquid nitrogen all across his attacker. Its limbs froze to its armour as it realised in wide-eyed horror that it couldn’t move. However, one of its claws was still buried in his gut. Only the cold had kept the pain at bay, until now.

 

The Frost grimaced as he held its face away with his injured hand; his good one drew a Karyst dagger and plunged it into the helmet, yanked it out, then plunged it back in again. Charcoal black fluid covered his torso as it poured from the Manic’s bionic throat and its life rattled away with its breaths. His lungs heaved.

 

Maybe we’ll get through this.

 

He looked at his bloodstained hands. His knees crumpled forward. His vision swam at the edges and the familiar blue tinge that covered his helmet was now gone. His shields would not hold.

 

Just... maybe...

 

Someone yelling at him from a battle a million miles away.

 

“FROST!”

 

***

 

Something hit her in the head, this time a lot harder. Her body was awake before her mind, and when her head caught up, she was splayed across the metal grating with her face hugging the floor.

 

Ilene sat up. Her fingers dabbed her head and she check for blood, finding none. She rubbed her head and looked up at annoyance at the surgical machine that whirred back and forth, broken. Her fingers felt cold. But at least her fingers felt. Her head was numb, save for a constant dizziness and nausea that stuck to her like the ERI fluid slick on her shaven scalp. Her feet were trying to stand up on their own but- oh god! Her legs were not hers - they were white plated metal, shimmering on the sides with lilac energy. She tried to find a memory of any such change, but she found she couldn’t remember much at all, except that...

 

The eye.

 

It was terrible. It stared into her, unblinking. Ilene grasped her head with both hands. She groaned. She rid the memory from her head and breathed to calm her rising panic.

 

Ilene heard voices. Voices that talked in a language that wasn’t hers. She frantically looked round as the metal clanking of Grineer footsteps got louder. Something to defend herself with. Scalpels? Too thin. Laser drills? Too weak.

 

“S#&$, S#&$, S#&$, S#&$!” She cursed under her breath, uncaring for any formality that she was supposed to keep. No one would hear it, anyway. The ward was empty, save for the machines that buzzed and whirred in her ears like flies.

 

Her eyes found a warframe, unlike anything she had seen, but it looked to be her size. Hawk’s wings were unfurled at its wrists, with a fearsome beak that adorned its helmet. She scrambled to her artificial feet and laid her hand on its chest. She spoke with haste.

 

“Lotus, open yourself to me. My feet shall carry your message. My hands shall guide your vengeance. My blade shall hold true, and my gun shall sing your praise. May you never wither, and may your petals bloom forever.”

 

The warframe edged away from her but opened up nevertheless. The footsteps were right outside the door. Ilene stepped both feet in, then shoved her hands into the glove parts and slotted the helmet hood over her head. The warframe rushed to every part of her body, even down to places that made her squeal in surprise when they slithered over.

 

The door quietly whispered the marines’ arrival. She gritted her teeth as the warframe moulded itself around her lithe body. When it had wrapped itself around her fully, she quickly tapped the button outside the frame holder and stepped back in. It whirled her into blackness and the smell of grease.

 

The marines took their time, and they didn’t seem to have intention of leaving. Ilene couldn’t seem to control them, no matter how hard she tried. Her fleeting hopes were dashed, then; her psynapse was gone. But this warframe, what was it? She tried to read where the marines were in the room. One on the operating table, one checking the cabinets and mumbling something. She breathed in, then out, then in again. She wasn’t sure if it was the warframe tightening on her throat or just her nerves. The light of the ward nearly blinded her as the panel swivelled round and threw her out. She immediately launched herself into the air towards the marine at the operating table. Her foot landed square on his helmet. Glass shattered in its helmet and it crashed into the table. Ilene landed with nothing but a soft hiss. Remarkable.

 

The air seemed to hold her and cushion her as she punched the marine in the torso and again in its face. Her strikes never really connected with it; the air seemed to hold the most force as it swam in and out of her warframe. Her fists were a flurry, chopping and smashing with brutal force into its throat. Her confidence grew with the force of her punches and kicks; soon the marine staggered with every blow. The warframe didn’t shrink as much now. It was warming to her.

 

The other marine had noticed the commotion and rushed to its Grakata. It took up aim and fired a few bursts with her in the sights. She didn’t react in time, only barely managing to bring her arm up, but the warframe did. A nearly invisible barrier of wind shielded her from the bullets, which floated uselessly in mid air. The marine, now realising the futility of his weapon, dropped it and ran to the door.

 

The door immediately shut, locked in place by the air vacuum Ilene somehow managed to create.

 

So it isn’t all gone. I can make this work.

 

She dropped the lifeless body in her hands and glided over to the marine by the door, who slammed the door again and again with fear-fuelled strength, crying for comrades that weren't there. It whipped round in terror as Ilene approached it. She rammed its head into the door and willed energy in through her hands. The air obeyed her, swirling round her feet, through her body, around her arms and into her fingertips. The sheer force of the gales that she conjured rushed forth into its helmet like a column before a city’s gates, destroying anything that might have been inside. The wind snatched away its dying screams.

 

She unlocked the door and stepped out into the hallway. This shuttle apparently never made it out. The pilot lay dead next to the entrance to the ward. Ilene looked out to the entrance into the Dojo. She knew what she had to do.

 

I’m coming, Ash. Her eyes flashed lilac as she began to fly. Just hang on.

 

***

 

Grahs’tor grinned with giddy glee as her bullet found its target. The bullet entered just through the small slit in that vermisker’s helmet, just like she had been taught. This was not grunt she had killed. A high ranking one. Probably the Warlord. Oh, as she stared down her gritty gun sights, she thought about the promotion she would get, about how her genes would be prized over a million others. She grinned a toothless grin again.

 

But as she stared into the mesh of camouflage, crimson and flashing steel, she noticed something glittering, moving very, very fast...

 

The last thing the Grineer sniper heard was probably a faint whispering, then a definite ringing in her oral sensors, then a screaming of razor-sharp metal. A second was all it took. Her partner also lay dead in her own blood, Marelok lying next to her cold bionic hand.

 

Even though the battle had been raging around him, gunfire painting the room with yellow flashes and blood carving itself into the floor, it only came back to him now. His arm was stretched out from him. He had killed through only instinct.

 

Orion stared down at the Frost’s corpse. He found it hard to imagine a face under that hood, lying dead, cold as it ever was. Those eyes, those eyes the grey of wolf fur, now dead, along with all the others around him. A bullet shattered into his back. He calmly sheathed the Karyst and looked out to his attacker. Another grunt by itself, revolting like the rest.

 

This grunt was brave, certainly, perhaps under the drug-like influence of heart-pumping carnage and the bravado it felt after finally fighting with its comrades. But Orion had no care for these things.

 

Orion closed the distance within two clicks to the automatic on its gun. He cut the marine once, just a little, so that it would bleed. Then he slashed off its forearm, so that it bled more. He sliced off its other arm, ignoring its screams. His face held no expression when he separated its torso from its legs. The cut was clean, so the marine stayed on its legs for a few more agonising moments. When Orion deemed its screams too bothersome to listen to, he smashed his fist into its helmet and shattered its brains across the marble floor.

 

A silence snatched the sound of gunfire from the air and shrouded their ears with a curtain of nothingness. The loudest thing in the room was the absence of anything audible; just the vague ringing in the back of their heads and the drumming of their heartbeats in their chests.

 

The cowards run.

 

And they did. The Grineer had, with incredibly unlikeness, actually held formation and sprinted further down to the landing pavilion a few hundred metres away. They scurried off behind pillars and dislodged slabs of metal. Not one dared to show their heads.

 

They’re not running. They’re regrouping.

 

Instead of feeling what should have been a welcome throb of victory in his chest, Orion sensed only dread. The Tenno immediately began to tend to the wounded and to themselves, picking out bits of shrapnel from their skin and fraying warframe fibres. The Trinity diligently planted wells of life in the bodies of the dead which embraced the Tenno around them and healed those most injured.

 

I feel that this is not the end of your battle.

 

It’s almost as if you can read my thoughts.

 

Don’t waste time with your petty jokes, Orion.

 

I may need to teach you about sarcasm some day, Dust.

 

I understand your attempts at humour.

 

Oh, do you, now?

 

I simply do not find them funny.

 

As they ran, Orion found himself entertaining the thought of surviving. Hope curved his lips into a slight smile. But the worst was still to come.

 

The distinct clacking of Antheia’s shoes sounded from behind him. He turned round. Any lightness of mood dissipated immediately as he set his eyes on the scene before him. Blood, although not an unfamiliar sight, drenched the halls, and bodies were littered like dead leaves. The putrid stench snaked into his helmet. Antheia stood among them, Fangs dripping, like a thorn-covered rose in a garden of shrivelled weeds.

 

He had to tread carefully to avoid stepping on any bodies in the field of dead Grineer that surrounded him. One of the bodies was not as deformed, dark or bloody. A rather small figure, with coils round its arms and electricity sparking across its torso. The Volt. Orion kneeled down and tucked his sword behind his back. The back of his hand found the body cold and long gone. His brow furrowed. It hadn’t been long since he saw the Volt alive. How long had this strange world of his taken to change? A week? It shocked him still.

 

“Who’s next in command?” Orion sounded very tired. It worried her.

 

“What do you mean? The Frost-“ Her voice faltered when she turned to his corpse. Her grief seemed to radiate through her fingertips, for she fidgeted and clasped and unclasped them constantly now.

 

“I see.”

 

“Well? Who gives the orders?” Orion asked again.

 

We carry on with the plan. We defend to the last.

 

Umbra’s familiar voice did not seem so familiar anymore. It was drunk with the opium-like after-dream of adrenaline and the pangs of regret she felt for all the dead around her.

 

The air blew across Orion’s ashen hair. His eyes found the disturbance, thundering down the corridor with metal claws for feet. He recoiled when he realised who it was. He barely caught himself. As starkly yellow as the sun’s light, with a mask a black as death, it was Hek.

 

Edited May 31, 2015 by TheDeathofThem

[fishworshipper]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWsJcg-g1pg

[FiveHours]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWsJcg-g1pg

Lol'd

[ROSING]

Well, just read the whole thing today, dunno why I haven't before.

Anyway, I am a terrible critic and an even worse reader, so only take the criticisms that make sense.

 

The first couple of things are largely irrelevant to the story now, like for one thing I was a little surprised that the Firstborn died so easily, though if that's just to underscore how powerful Orion/Ash is then I got nothing on that. There are a few other things that surprised me story wise, like how Orion/Ash was able to tell that Occulus was infested and how Ash and Saryn's relationship improved quicker than I thought (that one is debatable though, you're probably fine). But apart from that the story is excellent and I am excited to see more!

 

Otherwise, your writing style is very descriptive and very entertaining to read, and I really can't say too much about it because it's a lot better than mine. Maybe if I read it again I'd have something to say but I could tell that it got better as the chapters went on. I'm not sure how exactly, but it felt like it did. It's kinda like seeing manga artists drawing their characters in the beginning of the series and then seeing the improvement by the end of the series. So whatever you're doing, keep doing it?

 

EDIT: I really liked Occulus as a character. The insanity was very well done. Also your characters in general interact well with each other.

 

This has all come terribly late most likely, but I hope it comes to some helpfulness.

Edited May 25, 2015 by ROSING