[Ic] Of Ash And Fire V2.0 - Roleplaying Thread

[SilverBones]

OF ASH AND FIRE V2.0

In Character (IC) Roleplaying Thread

 

 

 

Welcome to the Of Ash and Fire V2.0 Roleplaying Thread.

 

This story started off as a way of players to write about their characters and how they viewed their Tenno, but has slowly grown into an expansive, long-term Roleplaying Thread which has seen many threads, plots and characters over the course of its existence.

 

If you are a new player and want some information about the storyline and current players, you can find the original RP thread and OOC FAQ and Discussion by using the following links;

 

Original Of Ash and Fire Thread

 

OOC FAQ and Discussion Thread

 

It is highly suggested that you read the FAQ before posting.

 

Please remember that all posts in this thread should be IN CHARACTER and OUT OF CHARACTER chatter should be kept to the OOC thread.

 

 

Thank you for playing!

[Sayfog]

Ok se here gos first post on the new thread:

She fell onto the floor with a thud.(i edited the story on pg 428 of the old thread) She slowly picked herself up and flopped on to her bed doing a system check of her new and shiny Nova Warframe. Her neck still throbbing dull pain because of the fresh neural link.

After having picked herself up she went through how her powers worked and how to use them. Once she had figured that out she opened up her weapons rack and chose her favourite and fun weapons the: Drakgoon complete with a 90% chance of firing two shots from one barrel, the Castanas which could and do make tiny wings on others backs and the Bo which she liked to call the Queen of Staves. She then went to the duelling area in the Aequitas and waited for a duel.

When she got one it was against a Saryn. (Switching to first person) I nodded to the Saryn that was versing me and nodded she did likewise. When the duel started i tried out null star as a lance of pain went through me the Saryn shot me in the leg grazing the femoral artery. That round was over "okay pay attention Aero you can't feel the air anymore". As the second round started i was already flying towards the Saryn casting Null Star mid-stride as the motes hit the Saryn I felt triumph and success with the motes hitting the toxin glands in the shoulders where the toxin was produced. When i got to her i threw a quick upper-cut but feinted and instead went for a quick triple stomach punch effectively winding her. I had defeated her once and she has defeated me once so we were tying. When the third and final round started the Saryn had learnt from her mistakes and instead ran for the energy orbs and quickly cast Miasma as i cast Molecular Prime. When the two mixed the caused an explosion left both parties coughing and gagging in the med-bay for the next week.

When Aero got to the med-bay she was quickly told to avoid mixing Anti-matter and highly corrosive toxins. I was put next to Saryn which she had duelled with learning that her name was "Cyanide" a fitting name I felt as i slipped into the depths of a coma which was filled with toxic explosions.

--------------------------------------------------------

Link for the previous story: https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/74088-temporary-ic-of-ash-and-fire-pre-seperation-rp/page-428

[khimera]

(Continued from Ein's Redesign on page 441 of the Original Thread)

_____________________________

 

Word spread with a swiftness that seemed the norm for any sort of rumor. Of course, it also got blown out of proportion to the point the general consensus via whispers was that Ein had challenged Khimera for his seat on the Council. Ein could, of course, do so just that it didn't interest him in the slightest. If anything Einherjar didn't want to fight someone he considered his teacher, someone who was in essence family. Sparring was a different matter, but this was a serious fight testing powers he had yet to even fiddle with. While there were plenty who had better things to do than watch a match between two Tenno, there was an equal amount who had gathered in the Dueling Room, waiting behind the barrier area.

 

It was unnerving for Einherjar to be watched by so many. To some he was an object of expectation: a prototype of a new Warframe as the story went. Now that he was 'complete' he had to work effectively. While fighting another Tenno was not a proper test of this, he could still feel the eyes upon him expecting something...useful. Looking down at his hand a moment, Ein took a moment to inspect the detail and care that had been put into his body. Quinn could have made a statue of him and every detail would be as perfect. It was a shame it could not remain so; combat was not such a forgiving place for pretty things. Clenching his hand into a fist the newly complete Tenno looked up to see the Oberon kneeling in his place. Already the arena felt too small to contain the power and expertise of the once-Volt. In his mind Einherjar envisioned a coliseum far more vast than this small room. War games fitting for skilled Tenno, but not a place of death as the ancient coliseums were, a place of contest and ability. The ocular lights on Ein's helmet dimmed as he sat across from Khimera at last, drawn from his too-human daydream to focus on his current situation. A moment later his face changed to its combat state, ready to receive the challenge.

 

Khimera watched calmy as Ein lost himself for a few moments before their duel. It was a good sign, it meant he was neither too nervous to continue nor too eager to fight. It meant Ein was still himself, especially with how he glanced about at the spectators for a second, being made more anxious by their presence. Looking down at the floor Khimera smiled behind his helmet and let out a long, relaxing sigh. It was a match of powers and melee weapons if only to be fair since Einherjar hadn't gathered his ranged weapons yet. "Calm down." Looking up, the older Tenno chuckled softly as he saw Ein's combat face on. "Show me what you can do." There was a silent countdown as the barriers went up, both Tenno standing slowly. Khi drew a pair of Dual Ichors which was a bit of a shock. With how much Khimera despised the Infested one would think he'd revile such things. It was a testament to their effectiveness if he was willing to overlook their origin. Quietly the white and pale blue Oberon whispered under his breath as the countdown ended. "Begin."

 

What happened next was a flurry of swift movement, though for the two combatants time seemed almost too slow. Khimera lunged forward with both Ichors to bear down on Ein who stood where he was, lifting a hand as if to stop both blades with 'flesh' alone. A single moment dragged for eternity between them, Khimera inching closer in the slowed perception of time. Then light; a tall shield of light projecting in front of Einherjar that blocked the incoming attack, forcing Khimera back from the impact of his deflected blow. Ein felt relief the power worked, though he'd figured he'd bring up more shields than that. Letting the hard-light construct fall, Einherjar swept his arms out, the four duster tails briefly splaying as eight drones detached from beneath them, training their sights on the Oberon. "I told him he'd find a use for the tails." Tilting his head slightly Ein had what could be described as a smirk on his face as he folded his arms, having not moved from where he'd started.

 

"Aw now that's not fair." Khimera faux-whined, grinning behind his helmet as he drew his arm back, charging his fist with energy. "This was supposed to be MELEE!" Throwing his arm forward Khimera tossed a bolt of spiraling energy at Ein and his drones, hoping to down at least one of the eight and catch a few more with the fragments of energy after the initial blast.

 

Ducking down Ein drew the drones low with him, their ability to distance themselves from their controller having been taking in return for different abilities. The barrier of the arena, however, served against Ein as it bounced the bolt off, hitting the younger Tenno square in the back. Letting out a cry of pain Einherjar felt himself get knocked to the floor, bracing on his hands. He didn't even need to look up to tell Khimera was attempting a leaping attack. Allowing himself to drop completely Ein rolled, using two drones to fire piercing white lasers at his opponent. The Oberon's shields flickered as they came down, but that was only half the battle.

 

"I said only melee Einherjar." Khi chided as he wagged a finger at Ein who was still technically  an initiate compared to him. Rising up Khimera brought the Ichors with him, making a sweeping upward strike at the still-down Tenno. Even if this wasn't a really serious fight, there was no holding back. It was a good feeling, somehow, to feel the Ichors rip through Ein's shields. Somehow they didn't feel as powerful as he'd gauged. Perhaps some changes had been made to the main systems? For a Tenno, keeping their foe in the dark, keeping them from information was one part of combat. "New everywhere." Khimera mumbled as he moved back, giving Ein a chance to stand and defend himself.

 

Shaking his head, Ein got up, the drones still hovering around him, staying mostly near his back. "Ugh...okay, okay, gimme a minute. The Saggita are for ranged attacks." He admitted, polite enough to inform everyone of the drones' actual name. It took only a few short seconds of thinking before Ein came up with a substitute for an actual melee weapon. Moving into a more feral stance, Ein channeled his power through the drones, each one projecting a white blade of hard-light energy. Now it was an even field...aside from the fact Khimera had two blades and Ein had eight. However this didn't seem to daunt the Oberon, who switched to wielding the Ichors backhanded instead.

 

Another flurry of movement, though this time there was more grace than savage ferocity. Whirling around Khimera brought an Ichor about to cut at his opponent. Ein swept his arm out, the eight blades following the movement in a neat line, clashing with eight resounding rings against the Ichor's edge, the hardened bone-like material not even nicked in the slightest. The first Ichor drew back even as Einherjar swept around, his arm held high guiding the Saggita swords, snapping it down with swift motion to draw them into a cleaving strike. As if foreseeing such a tactic Khi braced his knee on the floor and drew up the second Ichor, blocking the heavy blow even as Ein took steps back, drawing the blades with him even as seven more strikes rang out. There was not as much power as a heavy weapon behind them but the multitude of blows was the advantage Ein was afforded. Khimera rose up from where he knelt before, this time aiming the Ichor in his hand at Einherjar's chest. Backstepping further Ein splayed the fingers of his controling hand and clenched it into a fist, the Saggita spiraling around Ein's person and above his head, deflecting another blow in the process. The frustrating was clear by the Oberon's growl as he jumped back in time for the eight Saggita blades to stab into the floor around Ein as if to protect him from further assault.

 

To onlookers, the series of attacks was no more than a few moments of a dance filled with the ring of weapon-on-weapon. Were there any actual dust in the area it would have needed a second to clear. Both combatants now stood and stared at each other, the eight swords of hard-light making slow circles around their controller. In the silence that followed it felt far more tense than the actual series of blows had been. All Einherjar had been doing was defending himself for the most part, but it was easy to see if he tried he could send Khimera on the defensive as well.

 

The silence ended as Khimera threw up a wide Hallowed Ground, leaving half the arena inaccessible for Einherjar so long as the field was in place. He narrowly stepped out of the way, feeling the burning flames lick at his leg, searing him with radioactive heat. Khi stepped easily through his own field of holy fire, starting to spiral about with his blades outstretched, once again breaking down Einherjar's shields before he could bring the Saggita to bear and parry.

 

Growling, Ein swept his arm out again as before, forcing Khimera back before drawing his arm out, making the Saggita circle into a wheel of blades. Without hesitating this time he moved forward, pushing his teacher back with two back and forth swings with the spinning saw of swords. A backflip by the Oberon left him too far away for a normal strike by Ein, though Einherjar intended for a more far reaching strike next. With his next step forward Ein propelled himself into a flip, the veritable chakram of Saggita following him in the air. Khi moved beyond his burning field, crossing his Ichors in defense even as the younger Tenno came down bringing all eight swords with him. To the normal observer this would seem a foolish move, the length of the blades in their current configuration would not reach across the Hallowed Ground, let alone strike Khimera. Ein was already thinking ahead, the wheel of Saggita unfurling as he landed on the floor reaching further as each blade stabbed down, the last one scraping across Ichors as it came down almost too close for comfort for Khi. Any further and the blade could have easily stabbed him through the shoulder.

 

Panting softly Ein drew his arm back, the hard-light swords projected from his drones flickering out of existence as they returned to their place to recharge. His ocular lights changed from combat configuration to their regular shape. Going down on his knees, Einherjar bowed down in respect to Khimera, admitting his defeat. "I could attack all day with a thousand blades and I wouldn't beat you." He said loud enough for all to hear. "Sensei, I only wish for your approval."

 

There was a small bout of awkward silence before the white and blue Oberon sheathed the Dual Ichors, dissipating his Hallowed Ground as he walked over to his student, holding out his hand. "You have always had it, I just wanted to see what's new. Too bad this isn't a good place to show off. Had I realized you'd possess longer-ranged powers I would have at least brought my Lato Vandal." Khimera chuckled as he helped Ein to his feet, taking some time to appreciate the detail ingrained into every inch of Ein's new body. "Einherjar, to acknowledge your ascension from initiate to Tenno, I present three weapons for you to choose. While they're nothing like your swords of light, I hope you will take one as a gift." Motioning with his left hand for his Wyrm to bring over a case magnetically attached to its body. It looked heavy and definitely impaired the poor Sentinel's flight. With his right hand Khi patted Einherjar on the shoulder. "Go ahead."

 

Without words to give to this sudden proposition, Ein looked at his Teacher then to the case reaching out at the case before looking at Khi again. "Y...you mean you consider me Tenno?" He asked, knowing that Khimera was rolling his eyes behind his helmet by the way he moved his head. "Apologies, Sensei." Tapping the case, Ein watched as it opened up to reveal a Dakra Prime, Scoliac, and Nami Skyla.

 

"I couldn't get all the stuff for all prime stuff, I would've offered you a Glaive had I one on hand." Khi admitted, rubbing the back of his neck as he saw Ein's awe at the three melee weapons.

 

Taking his time, Ein considered each one presented before him. Easily he could pick any one and be happy, he couldn't use the Saggita as weapons all the time, but he didn't want multi-strike weaponry. Nami Skyla were nice, but he didn't want to have to focus on more than one weapon at a time in his hands normally. The Scoliac looked interesting, and a whip could be useful in dragging enemies closer, but that conflicted with his purpose in battle. Reaching out again Einherjar took hold of the Dakra Prime, tracing his gaze along its elegant edge. "Perfect. There are no words to express my gratitude sensei." Sheathing the gold-edged weapon Ein turned back to Khimera and bowed again.

 

Nodding, Khimera took the case and left the dueling room with his Wyrm, leaving the spectators to swarm Ein and ask questions. Too bad he couldn't stay and watch the show.

[bejuizb]

Alright, so this is part 1 of a lighthearted chapter I'm working on. I felt the need to do three things with this one: develop Lily's character, provide a means to summarize Aiden's journey so far, and let my hair down from all the deep, dark stories that I've been writing for months. I'm working on part 2 as we speak, so stay tuned.

 

Also, I'm going to give some disclaimers. Even though this forum is supposed to be for mature audiences, I'm giving a profanity warning as well as some sexual conversations. No smut/slash stuff, just people talking dirty.

 

Pervy Jackson

“So Arina,” chimed in Lily as they walked down the gangplank to the Station. “Know any good watering holes around here?”

 

Aiden had decided to rest here for a few days, and get Lily up to speed. But the Ember clearly had other plans.

 

“Watering holes?”

 

Lily smirked. “Let me try telling that in another way.” She walked right up to Arina, leaning towards her ear. “I wanna get wasted,” she said in a sultry whisper. She grinned widely as she felt the Trinity shiver from the proximity. Lily turned around to see Aiden laughing maniacally from the entrance to their shuttle.

 

“Now now, Lily,” he smiled. “We're here to get you reacquainted with the world. Not to get drunk.” He walked down the gangplank, dragging her away from a shocked Arina.

 

“You killjoy!” Lily pouted, and she leaned in conspiratorially. “And I was just trying to get in her pants.”

 

Aiden sighed. “Lily. You try to get into everyone's pants.” He turned around to look at the blushing Arina. “Sorry about her...antics.”

 

“No...its okay. I don't mind,” she whispered, blushing even more when she saw Lily ogling at her.

 

Why is she so shameless?

 

Aiden sighed again. “The only way we're going to be able to get anything done is if we get her what she wants. So, even though its counterproductive...do you know any bars on this station?”

 

Arina thought for a moment. “There's one, in the south sector. Pretty old looking. Last I heard, it was supposedly run by humans.”

 

Aiden looked to his right, where Lily was staring back at him with baleful eyes. “Please?” she asked, with a mock pleading tone to her voice.

 

A third sigh. Then, “Fine. Let's go get you a drink.”

 

Everyone in the docking bay jumped as Lily let loose a screech of glee, pumping her fists in the air. She gave Aiden a quick hug. “You're awesome! What are we waiting for? Let's go already!”

 

She walked back to Arina and grabbed her by the right wrist.

 

“Lead the way, hot stuff,” she said, once again in her sultry whisper.

 

Arina was a shade of pure crimson and Aiden sighed yet again.

 

Damn that girl, he thought, grinning inwardly. I missed her though.

 

 

 

The walk to the bar was barely met with silence. Aiden and Lily were gawking at the various sights and sounds of the Station, while Arina stayed behind them, lost in her own thoughts. Hundreds of Tenno went past them, mostly in their Warframes. They gave the trio a wide berth, seeing that Lily was waving and shouting like a maniac. Tenno were supposed to be the epitome of calm and composure. Lily on the other hand...was not.

 

“He looks hot!” she shouted, unabashedly pointing towards an Oberon, who looked back at her with a frown. “Fine. Grumpy bastard doesn't know how to take a compliment. And look!” she shouted again, pointing to a Saryn. “The knockers on her are breathtaking!”

 

Her jovial mood was infectious, and soon Aiden was laughing alongside her. It had been several months since he'd laughed so much. He turned around, looking at the downcast Arina.

 

“What's wrong?”

 

She looked up. “Oh...nothing. I'm just confused.”

 

Aiden walked back to her as Lily squealed and ran into a nearby shop. “What's wrong?”

 

She sighed. Tonight's a night of sighing it seems.

 

“I'm just confused with Lily's behaviour. It's not-”

 

“Tenno?” Aiden's eyes twinkled.

 

How did he...?

 

“Yes.”

 

He laughed, patting her on the back. “That's something unique to Lily and I. We don't fit in with our kind. Hell, most of our time was spent fighting alongside the humans, and because of that, we enjoy their company.”

 

“Besides,” chimed in Lily, toting a Tricorn hat over her red hair. “Tenno in general are uptight pricks. Killjoys, the lot.” She grinned at Aiden. “And this guy here seems to be in the process of becoming one.” She twirled around, ogling a Nyx. “Doesn't matter. I'm here now.”

 

Aiden merely shook his head smiling, beckoning Arina to walk ahead of him. “Talk to her. You'll like her, I promise. And you!” he shouted. “How did you get that hat?”

 

“I bought it.”

 

“With?”

 

“Your money.”

 

“My...wait. When? Where? Wh-”

 

Lily shook with laughter. “I nabbed it off of your pocket while you were checking out a pretty shopkeeper.”

 

“I wasn't checking anyone out!” he said indignantly, but he grinned inwards. Observant girl.

 

“Fine, fine,” she waved him off, inhaling the sweet smell of fruits as they walked through the market district. “I know what I saw. And besides, I wanna talk to your girlfriend.”

 

“She's not my girlfriend. Kid,” he said the last word with a smirk.

 

“Whatever. Care to chat, Arina?”

 

Arina nodded and walked faster to catch up with the bumbling redhead.

 

Alright. Why are you so nervous? She's just a goofball. Nothing to worry about, Arina.

 

“So...Lily...”

 

The Ember twirled her hat in her hands as she looked at Arina with a serious expression. “You sleeping with Aiden?”

 

That elicited a shout of surprise from the both of them. “What?!” she shouted, afraid for some unknown reason. “Why would you think something like that?”

 

The playful smirk returned to the redhead's mouth, as she scrutinized both her and Aiden. Seemingly satisfied, she put the hat back on her head. “You passed the test.”

 

“I...what?” Arina asked, turning towards an equally confused Aiden, who merely shrugged as they rounded the corner to the bar. Lily whooped in joy as she saw the name of the tavern.

 

Billy's Brauhaus.

 

“The finest ale on the Station,” Lily read the small text that was painted underneath the sign. She smiled with glee and practically ran into the bar, not bothering to hold the door up for Aiden or Arina.

 

Chortling, he held the door open to let a bewildered Arina in. Noticing her expression, he laughed.

 

“Welcome to the insanity that is my little sister!”

Edited April 25, 2014 by bejuizb

[ensignvidiot]

Survivor

 

 

Dera fire echoed throughout the golden halls. Golden blasts of super-heated energy traced lines in the air of the opulent room. The majority carelessly struck against the ivory walls and ebony floors of this Ancient Orokin Tower. A well placed few found their mark. A red, lightly armored form fell on the ebony floors in this grand hall.

 

"Trinity is down!" Rasped the Excalibur through the com. His breathing was ragged, and his sword arm burned with exhaustion. "Mike! Give me an opening!" He yelled between cuts. The Skana in his right hand flashed and darted through each Corrupted that stood before him, the Boltor spat curses at those that didn't dare to get within reach. "Help me! I need to get to Chandra!" 

 

The Iron clad form said nothing in response, he nodded at his Cellmate, and let out a primal Roar to bolster his allies resolve. The Excalibur's blade began singing with renewed vigor has he cut his way to his downed companion, the Volt covering their flank renewed his assault against the mass of foes. The Synapse in the Volt's hands spat out death with increasing efficiency, as the Tenno directed the bio-electric discharge to weaknesses made by the Neural Sentry when the Orokin Implants took hold. The Rhino set his empty Gorgon back on his back, exchanging it for a greatsword called The Galantine. As he hefted the weapon up, his boot slammed down with enough for to crack the immaculate floor, and send several dozen enemy spiraling helplessly into stasis. Enemies that weren't long for this world.

 

The three honored all that is Tenno with their combat. Each peerless, deadly, able to fell hundreds of enemies without tiring. The Excalibur finished cutting his way to the downed Trinity, and began to resuscitate her while an unknown ally watched from beyond the shadows. The Volt fried and literally cooked Corrupted in their armor. And the Rhino scythed through the enemy, cleaving flesh, blood, and bone.

 

-=-=-=-=-

 

A lone Loki struggled to keep his emotions in check. Every moment Rachim recited the mantras in an effort to calm himself enough to complete the mission. One hour ago, The Lotus asked that he enter this tower to retrieve data from an ancient terminal to recover long lost data. She did well in isolating him from the 4 man cell that entered the tower as a distraction. The Neural Sentry was unable to act directly against his efforts event after he was discovered. She had done well, the section of the tower he now moved through was so isolated, he only had to deal with residual Corrupted Guards. It didn't mean the Tower's Will could not strike at him. While he was free from physical danger, the tower did everything in its power to attack his mind, especially since it knew what he knew: he could not directly assist his Brothers and Sister from where he was in the tower. It used holographic emitters to project the chaos unfolding in the lower levels to the lone Tenno as he moved through the upper levels towards his objective. He had stopped moving when he saw the trinity go down.

 

It was like a nightmare, every possible thing that could go wrong was unfolding in front of his eyes, and he was absolutely powerless to stop it. He counted the numberless ways he could be supporting his fellow Tenno in battle. He moved through them in his head, over and over and over again. He repeated them again when he saw the Drones rise out of the mass of enemies. He repeated them again when he tried to use the communicator that had been jammed long ago when he was discovered. Yet again he reverently whispered the words  as 5 drones lined up above and behind the Excalibur desperately trying to revive his fallen comrade. Again he repeated them as the Volt was sent flying by a Corrupted infested, leaving him vulnerable to the Heavy Gunners that were tracking his limp form through the air. And he all but screamed them at the holographic display as he watched the last shards of the Rhino's Iron Armor flake off underneath unrelenting gunfire.

 

His heart, his lungs, all of time stopped as his mind continue to race. He remembered James, the Excalibur sharing a final drink with him before going into cryo prior to the collapse. He recalled the Rhino, who had called himself Mike, pull him out of the Cryo-pod all those years ago. And he remembered Chandra and Chris, the Trinity and Volt that joined him 10 years ago in his journey to rediscover the Origin System. He recalled the Joy he felt and reconnecting with his lost comrades. And see saw every moment of triumph that his small 'family' had shared together.

 

And then, he felt every bolt of energy that pierced each one of their Warframes.

 

Whether it was 10 minutes, or 10 hours, Rachim wasn't sure. Honestly, he couldn't be bothered to care. He collapsed to the ground in front of the display, his eyes never leaving it. The Corrupted cleared the area where the 4 Tenno had been fighting moments prior. They left 4 unrecognizable husks in their wake, bodies shredded to pieces by bullets, and charred to the bone by plasma fire. Bodies that where left as if to say there was no honor, or dignity in an end such as this.

 

A lone Loki remained in the tower, he sat and quietly and mourned the loss of the only people he had ever called family.

 

-=-=-=-=-

 

The mission timer read 12 hours before Loki stirred.

 

A metallic, feminine voice buzzed in his ear for several of those hours, Rachim seemed beyond cognitive thought at that point. He rose seemingly without his own volition.

 

He walked the golden halls, feet dragging along the floor, to a position that said 'Objective' on his helmet's display. He didn't bother masking his presence, or using stealth, such things seemed trivial to him at this point.

 

He trudged his way to a room, walking up to a terminal and downloading its contents without considering the nature of its secrets. The 'Objective' marker moved, and changed to 'Extraction'. The Loki began moving towards this marker, then stopped when a new way-point appeared over a case in the room. Walking up to it he discovered a small white and gold baton, each blade on the end of it gave a faint blue glow. The voice once again tried to talk to him, it urged him to take the weapon. He did it just to shut the voice up.

 

He did, however, took the time to inspect the weapon and discovered that the baton could twist in the middle. This caused it to extend to a full six feet in length. An Orthos Prime, any other Tenno would be awestruck and this discovery. Many Tenno would be amazed that they found an intact Orokin weapon, instead of fragments of one or part of a blueprint. The Loki, could not have cared less at that point. He set the weapon onto the mag-point on the back of his Warframe, when the sound of metal hitting metal temporarily knocked him out of his solemn revere.

 

He checked his back, the staff had come in contact with his Ether Dagger. It was one of 5 that had been forged together at a foundry. His family created these as their first weapon to celebrate their union.

 

Rachim stared at his dagger for a while, and then moved to leave this Tower.

 

 

-=-=-=-=-

 

 

A lone Tenno approached a Grineer outpost on Earth. An Excalibur Prime soared into the air above the unsuspecting patrol. He slammed his Orthos into the ground, rattling the nearest squad of Grineer to their core, and X begun to work his deadly craft, parting body and limb from his nearest foes.

 

A suppressed shot whispered through the air over the battle down below, a mounted Grineer gunner went slack in his turret with a large hole in his chest, though the Tenno down below didn't take notice, focusing instead on the growing pile of bodies he was leaving.

Sight, Squeeze, Cycle, Chamber

Another shot whispered from a catwalk overlooking the battlefield. Another turret gunner bore this bullet

Sight, Squeeze, Cycle, Chamber

Round after round, coming from a Grineer Facility that towered over the battlefield. Grineer Ballistas and Vulkar Rifles lay in pieces along the catwalk where this sniper was firing from

Sight, Squeeze, Cycle, Chamber

Another whisper from a Vectis, another Heavy Gunner dead. Rachim put his Vectis on his back as he vanished back into the facility, he drew out his Orthos Prime and felt is way along 4 engraved words on hits grip. He slipped into invisibility, tracing those 4 words with his right thumb.

 

James, Mike, Chris, Chandra

 

[bejuizb]

I remember saying that part 2 would be the end for this story, but its going to need one more part, since this one was too long. But I think you all are going to like it. I know I love writing it.

 

A few notes, to both new readers and thread vets. 

 

Firstly, a language warning. Its supposed to be a mture forum, I know. But Lily is supposed to swear just like I do in real life, and if anyone knows me in real life, I swear. A lot. I mean it. A LOT. So if its not your thing, sorry. 

 

Secondly, I mention a few pre-Collapse events that tie in to my Silver Fang storyline, so for the sake of the thread's integrity, ignore it if you want. Its not going to affect anyone here except Aiden and Lily. 

 

Thirdly, I just frickin hope you all enjoy reading this one, and please give me feedback. its been five months since I joined the thread, and in those many days, this is my first attempt at a lighthearted "family themed" Tenno story. I'll work on the next bit ASAP.

 

Enough of the chit chat. ON TO READING
 

Hot Stuff

“Your sister?” Arina sputtered, walking into the dark bar. Although tavern would be more appropriate. She felt like she had stepped back in time as she took in the sights and the sounds of the place. The floor, and tables were made with wood, the polished surfaces glinting from the roaring fire in the corner of building. She couldn't help but smile as she saw Lily gawking with an open mouth as she spun in circles.

 

“Not by blood,” he said, closing the door behind him, smiling broadly “But that's a story for a bit later.”

 

She nodded, and within seconds, Lily had latched onto her arm and boisterously dragged her off to the bar, chattering away about drinks.

 

“I wonder what someone like you would drink?” she spoke to herself.

 

“Someone like me? What do you mean?” asked Arina, clearly annoyed.

 

Lily giggled. “You just proved my point. An uptight person like you could sure use a drink.”

 

Aiden took in the patrons of the bar. It seemed to house several men and women, all silently drinking and watching the boisterous newcomers. The sounds of raucous laughter and the warmth of the place made him feel alive and happy for some reason. He turned around to see a grizzled man walk up to Lily from behind the bar.

 

“Oi! Barkeep! Get me a drink for my friend here!”

 

“Sure. What does your friend want?” he asked, looking at a now nervous Arina.

 

Lily looked at Arina with a mischievous twinkle to her eyes. “Something that can pull the stick right out of her a*s.”

 

That sent both Aiden and the barkeep into snickers as Arina turned a shade of green and then red. The barkeep didn't seem to notice. “I've got just the stuff you're looking for. And what do you want, Red?” he asked, looking at her hair.

 

“A Bloodless Mary. Suck her real dry,” she said with a wink.

 

The barkeep grinned. “Coming right up!”

 

Lily turned around and leaned against the bar, staring at Aiden and at a fuming Arina. “What's wrong?”

she asked the Trinity.

 

She vaguely saw Aiden's palm slam against his forehead as Arina exploded.

 

“What's wrong?! Everything!” Lily stiffened as the whole bar turned quiet to witness the spectacle. “First, you plan to get drunk, second, you ask me if I'm sleeping with your brother! AND THIRD! You keep treating me like a freak! And you have the gall to ask me WHAT'S WRONG?”

 

Before she could continue, Lily calmly raised a hand. “Firstly, I have no idea what the hell 'gall' even means. I'm assuming that I'd understand you better if I knew what it meant. Second, I'm not treating you like a freak. You're just too orthodox to understand me. And look! It's booze time!”

 

The barkeep returned with their drinks, one of which Lily pushed towards Arina.

 

“I might be a silly idiot in your eyes, but I know one thing.” She pointed to the drink. “Liquid courage. The great-f**king equalizer. Drink up, and we'll talk, hot stuff.”

 

She immediately smiled and turned to Aiden, who was nervously looking at Arina. “I don't see a drink in your hand.”

 

“Lily...I'm not in the mood for a drink.”

 

The redhead let out an exasperated sigh. “BullS#&$! The Aiden I know would never refuse a drink!”

 

He crossed his arms, smiling lopsidedly. “People change.”

 

She stuck her tongue out at him. “You're acting like I'm giving you a choice. BARKEEP!” she bellowed. “Whiskey for my brother. On the rocks!”

 

The man shrugged at Aiden. “Coming right up. No offense big guy,” he added, turning around to uncork a glass bottle. “The little lady here scares me a hell of a lot more than you do.”

 

Lily puffed up her chest in pride as Aiden accepted his drink. “None taken. How much do I owe you?”

 

The man raised both his hands. “I've been keeping bars my whole life. So don't doubt my judgment when I say that you three will be drinking more than just a glass each. Don't worry about paying yet.”

 

“But-” he started, but was quickly led away by Lily, who simply smirked at Arina.

 

“No buts! We sit and we drink! And that's final!”

 

The three of them sat down in a booth near the far end of the bar. People stared at the trio of strange people as they sat down. Unceremoniously, Lily squeezed herself between Aiden and Arina, lazily swirling her drink as she eyed the two of them.

 

“What?” asked a clearly irate Arina.

 

“Hm?” replied an equally smug Lily. Aiden sighed in the background, taking a sip of his amber coloured drink.

 

“Damn it Lily!” Arina swore.

 

“Don't f*cking swear, hot stuff. Its not good manners,” snickered Lily, immediately pointing towards her drink, which was green. “Drink up, and I'll tell you what I've been thinking about.”

 

Arina couldn't have taken a sip of her drink any faster. It tasted like acid, but she immediately warm inside. This isn't that bad, she thought as she turned towards Lily.

 

“Alright. I'm drinking. What do you want?”

 

Lily propped her legs on the table, sitting awkwardly while twirling her hat in her hands. “I want to know how you met my brother. And you!” she shouted, startling Aiden. “You're going to tell me what the hell I've woken up to.”

 

Despite Arina's smoldering gaze in his peripheral vision, Aiden couldn't help but grin. Wow, Lily. Didn't even wait before you started acting up, huh?

 

“Lily, if you think about it, it should be the other way around. Arina should be telling you about this place and I should be telling you about what happened to me.”

 

Lily screwed up her face in thought for a moment before shrugging. “Well f*ck me! I guess I didn't even need to be drunk to blabber nonsense this time.”

 

Aiden chuckled and fondly ruffled Lily's hair. “No, you didn't.”

 

She frowned. “You calling me stupid, old man?”

 

He grinned. “Not at all. Kid.”

 

She flipped him the bird and chugged down her whole drink. Smacking her lips, Lily turned to look at a shocked Arina.

 

“What? I was thirsty alright,” she shrugged, before shivering. “Oh baby! That hit the spot.”

 

“So Lily,” started Arina. “Want me to begin?”

 

The redhead nodded, looking up at the wooden ceiling of the tavern. “Yeah.”

 

Arina cleared her throat and began to recollect everything that had happened. How the Tenno had woken to the voice of the Lotus, how she had guided them and organized the disoriented warriors into a fighting force. Lily listened quietly, frowning in concentration. Aiden also sat in silence, occasionally nodding or grunting in understanding. He himself didn't know too much about the system's condition, even though it had been nearly four months since he had woken up. When Arina was done, Lily cleared her throat, looking at Aiden pointedly.

 

“Have you seen this Lotus woman, Aiden?”

 

He shook his head. “I haven't.”

 

“And you're just trusting her?” Lily looked furious. Aiden had almost forgotten how rapidly Lily's mood could shift.

 

“I don't have a choice.” he echoed his conclusion from an earlier reflection.

 

“That right there just skyrocketed on the bullsh!t-o-meter, Aiden, and you know it.”

 

He sighed. “I know.”

 

Lily looked at her brother, and she realized how much older he looked. Wrinkles around the eyes, more gray strands of hair, and a goddamn BEARD! I'd best speak to him alone.

 

“Fine! Fine! FINE!” she shouted to no one in particular. “I'll go along with you and believe this Lotus chick. What next?”

 

He took another sip of whiskey, only to find that his glass was empty.

 

Damn.

 

“Time for a refill!” crowed Lily, leaping out of the booth, almost kicking Arina in the face as she jumped out. “I'll go get some refills. You two lovebirds can have fun!” she said with a wink and traipsed off the the bar again.

 

The moment Lily was out of earshot, Aiden looked at Arina with pleading eyes.

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

“For what?”

 

“Lily. She's a bit...”

 

“...Enthusiastic?” she added helpfully, trying to find a good word. Don't want to appear tactless now, Arina, she told herself.

 

Aiden grinned. “Batsh!t crazy.”

 

Well, so much for tact.

 

“Um...I wouldn't say that.”

 

He laughed, a deep rumbling sound. Arina hadn't seen him so relaxed ever since she saw him for the first time. Was it because of Lily?

 

“Aiden,” she asked tersely. “Mind telling me a bit more about Lily?”

 

He rolled up the sleeves of his fatigues and leaned back. “Why not? Let's see. Where do I begin?”

 

“Lily was assigned to our squad when we were assigned to Earth, about six years after we joined the Warframe program. She was the sole survivor of an Infestation outbreak on an Earth town. She was part of a civilian family, Tenno who didn't want to participate in the war and instead opted to live with humans. She had gone through two years of training herself, and Cathy, Damien and I were tasked with helping her acclimatize with other Warframe pilots.”

 

“She was...different. The loss of her mother and father had left her with very conflicted feelings. She's terribly bipolar, and as you noticed, extremely mischievous. But let me tell you this: give that girl a Glaive and she will destroy anything that gets in her way. She was a very good soldier. But she was frail as a person. When me and Cathy got together, the little girl bumbled in, tears in her eyes.”

 

“Why?” asked Arina.

He smiled wanly. “She thought that we would be leaving her, instead focusing on us as a couple. She broke down, begging us to not leave her. It was heartbreaking,” he said, clearly lost in his memories.

 

He took a deep breath, and continued. “She wanted me and Cathy to be her brother and sister. People she could call family. And we obviously accepted. The little devil gave us a big hug and cried again. Took us the whole damn night to calm her down.”

 

“So...I've been watching over her ever since. Compared to what she was, Lily's grown up a lot, and that's just made her more an outgoing personality. After Cathy...”, his breath hitched, but continued nonetheless.

 

“After Cathy, well, she vowed to have as much fun as she could. Every single day would be full of joy. And that's why I decided to come here tonight.”

 

Arina was shell shocked. She thought that Lily was a bratty kid whom Aiden had a soft spot for. But her crazy antics are a defense mechanism. The girl's not doing it to torment anyone.

 

She was broken out of her reverie when a tray slammed onto the table. On it were twelve shot glasses. Arina looked up to see Lily grin at her with a devilish smile, her red hair masking witty eyes.

 

“Ready to get wasted, hot stuff?”

 

Play along, Arina. She means no harm.

 

“Sure, Red,” she said, smiling as she saw Lily's shocked expression at her using that nickname. “But I'm warning you. I'll drink you under the table.”

 

“Like hell you are!” Lily shouted, scooting into the booth, this time sticking to Aiden's right side.

 

“Missy, I'll have you know. While you were out doing whatever you were doing during the War, me and big guy here were drinking our collective as*es off on Earth,” she bragged.

 

“Is that so?” Aiden asked, mockingly staring at the grinning redhead. “The way I remember it, you were the one getting...oh how did you put it...sh!t faced...that's right, sh!t faced every day, and I was responsible to drag you off to the ship.”

 

She waved her hand absently. “Same difference.” She pointed towards the tray.

 

“Now we drink. Four shots apiece.”

 

“Just four?” Arina asked mockingly. This was completely new territory for her.

 

Four glasses of whatever the hell is in it. Will that kill me?

 

Probably.

 

Is it worth dying to get in Lily's good side.

 

No.

 

Then why am I doing this?

 

No damn idea.

 

Sighing, she took a glass of liquid and held it up to her nose. It smelled foul.

 

“What's in it?”

 

“Barkeep wouldn't tell us. He said that, and I quote, 'we'd get our sh!t kicked in so hard that we're going to have to crawl back home'. I OBVIOUSLY had to say yes.”

 

Aiden laughed. “Alright then. Time to say goodbye to my liver.”

 

“You do that. I, on the other hand have a drink with my name on it.” Lily quaffed the drink, hissing violently as it burned her throat and mouth.

 

“Son of a $#*(@!!! That stings!”

 

Aiden looked at Arina and shrugged. Together, they both drank a shot. Arina yelped in surprise as the liquid burned its way down into her stomach, where it settled warmly. She knew that she was a light drinker, but she was shocked that she was feeling pleasantly buzzed.

 

Goddamn that's strong.

 

And what do you know about booze?

 

Enough to know that you don't get buzzed so fast.

 

Wimp.

 

“So, hot stuff,” Lily leered, licking her lips seductively. “Feeling your inhibitions unwinding?”

 

Time to have some fun.

 

“Yes, actually. I'm suddenly not opposed to being with you.”

 

Lily harrumphed. “You're a snarky $#*(@ aren't you? But hey, you're improving!” She leaned out of the booth, clearly staring at Arina's bottom. “I think I can see a bit of that stick making its way out of your a*s already! Go on! Keep drinking for f**k's sake!”

 

Aiden was grimacing. “That was strong.”

 

Lily giggled. “Once a softie, always a softie.”

 

It was Aiden's turn to harrumph. “I'm not soft. Besides, you've not heard tales of my daring endeavours since I woke up?”

 

Lily snorted. “Like what? And hang on a minute,” she said, trailing a finger lightly across a scar on Aiden's right cheek. “That's new.”

 

He drank another shot, shaking his head as the buzz grew stronger.

 

Whatever it is, I love it.

 

“A battle scar,” he said, not bothering to let some pride mix with the words.

 

“Ooh!” Lily gushed, looking at Arina. “Let me guess, since you're a Trinity, you know what happened to him? Because it takes a hell of a lot of work to get through a Rhino's helmet.”

 

The Trinity nodded. “I did heal him afterwards. Do you want to know what happened to him?”

 

Lily nodded eagerly, her eyes bright as stars. “F**k yes!”

 

She nodded. “So lets see. There was a distress signal given to all Tenno of Aequitas, that's the clan where Aiden's currently staying, and your brother, being the victim of hero-complex that he is, decided to go along.” She was surprised at the last bit, and from the looks of it, so was Aiden.

 

Damn, it really is liquid courage.

 

Lily grinned, looking behind her towards the entrance of the bar. “We've got some entertainment too.”

 

The three of them watched as a small band of humans talked to the bartender and proceeded to set up a small musical stage. This seemed to have gotten the attention of everyone in the bar, and a wave of eager whispers rushed through the establishment.

 

“What's the big deal? Why the fanfare for musicians?” asked Lily, her interest piqued by the change in the demeanor of the crowd.

 

“Musicians are a rare breed in our system. Musical instruments themselves are a rare sight. We're really lucky.”

 

“F**k, music is rare now?”

 

Aiden nodded glumly. “Looks like it. Probably art, and all the fun stuff as well.”

 

Lily slammed her fists on the table, sloshing a bit of the drink. “God-f**king damn it! Why the hell couldn't I have woken up in a peaceful time or something? Just my sh!tty luck that I woke up smack dab in the middle of a bloody war between not two, not three, but four races. Sh!t. F**k! T!ts!”

 

Aiden chuckled. “Now, now. You'll scare Arina away with that mouth of yours.”

 

Lily looked up with traces of what Arina thought was...fear?

 

She's afraid that I'd leave?

 

“Sh!t. I mean damn! Don't leave. I'm sorry,” she managed to sputter out before burying her nose into the empty shot glass.

Aiden gave her a knowing nod, and Arina's mind was set.

 

“Don't worry about it, Lily. I won't leave.”

 

She looked up at her with a look of wondrous joy. “Really? You won't?”

 

Arina chuckled. “Of course not. Besides,” she added, “I'm quite used to your foul mouth already.”

 

Lily pumped her fist in the air, shouting loud enough to startle a few people. “F**k yes!”

 

She quickly downed another shot, gasping at the sensation of warmth. “Continue the damn story before the music starts, hot stuff!”

 

They all laughed at Lily's enthusiasm. “Sure, I'll try my best to make your brother look like a badass.”

 

“You don't have to try. Aiden's always been a badass,” Lily quipped, looking at him with a warm smile.

 

“I guess he is,” admitted Arina. “I just have a question. How old are you exactly?”

 

“Why?” she asked, looking down at her clothes in confusion. “Something wrong?”

 

“Oh no, you just look much younger than Aiden. That's all.”

 

“Ah,” sighed Lily, the aura of nervousness deflating almost instantly. “I'm 24.”

 

“And you, Aiden?”

 

“30.”

 

“Six years, and you both get along just fine. Quite surprising actually,” said Arina.

 

“We're both freaks!” exclaimed Lily, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “So its f**king common sense that we both would gel together.”

 

“I guess so. Mind if I start now?”

 

Lily raised her hand, using the other to push some of her red hair behind her ear. “One question.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I remember you mentioning that you healed Aiden after his supposed 'great battle' or something.” The last bit of the sentence was emphasized with air quotes.

 

“Yes, I did heal him.”

 

Lily cackled with glee and leaned in.

 

“So that means you saw him naked?”

 

Edited April 27, 2014 by bejuizb

[Jeahanne]

So here's a new installment of back story for my Zephyr character, Peregrine. For those of you not familiar with her, she's a bit unconventional in that she grew up blind and deaf, and even in the current time-frame remains sight-blind. Because this all takes place post-collapse there hypothetically shouldn't be any canon issues with posting her back story here. However, because this does have its own thread, if people request I stop posting it here, or ask that I remove this, I shall.

 

Regardless, I hope you all enjoy it! And if you want to see the rest of it, you can find it here https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/208166-fanfiction-wings/?p=2585832. Thanks all!

 

 

____________________________________

 

Beginnings

 

 

Peregrine loved sound. She hadn’t at first, when it had been so new and terrifying, but once she’d become adapted to it the freedom it had given her had become intoxicating. She still had to memorize her physical world, like the layout of the small, but comfortable room she’d been assigned to stay in, or the various twists and turns of the Dojo’s halls, but she could understand so much more about the world around her now than she had ever been able to by touch alone. She could hear the buzz of the intercom when someone, usually Kyoko or Isaac, were asking to come in. She could hear footsteps, and the low, indistinct murmur of conversation as Tenno walked past her room down the hallway… or the pursuing strides of her current partner in tag.

 

Peri squealed in delight as she rocketed around a corner in the dojo, sliding her fingers across the walls as a guide and giggling excitedly as she evaded her “pursuer” for the umpteenth time. She didn’t need to peek around a corner to know that her reluctant playmate wasn’t far behind her; her ears told her everything she needed to know in place of her still blind eyes.

 

“Stop!” Kyoko yelled from behind her, trying to catch up. “Peri! Peregrine!” The healer, had she been in her warframe, could easily have caught up, but the child was fast, and the Tenno was getting winded trying to keep up with her boundless energy. “This isn’t a game… How the Warlord talked me into letting you stay here with me as your baby sitter I will never know!”

 

The healer turned a corner, running almost at a full sprint, and was just in time to see a somewhat small figure with a shock of short, blonde hair, bolt through a cross connecting corridor and disappear around another bend in the hallway, her laughter echoing off of the pristine white walls. The Tenno put on a burst of speed as she pursued her quarry, only to turn the same bend and nearly run face first into a large, armored form. Hiding behind him, with a large grin plastered all over her face, was Peri, her grey eyes bright with mirth and mischief as she clung to her protector.

 

“Well, hello there Kyoko,” Isaac’s voice rumbled, a grin hidden under his helmet, “I see you’re getting your exercise.” Absently, the Rhino reached down and hefted the girl onto his shoulders, where she giggled as she clung to him.

 

“Easy for you to say, you’re not the one chasing her through the hallways and trying to make her stay in one place for longer than a minute. How can I teach her to talk when she won’t sit still?”  She shot a hassled look at the source of her frustration which was gleefully ignored by both the blind and sighted alike.

 

“Then maybe we need a different approach, and an outlet for all of her energy perhaps,” the Rhino’s voice was flawlessly innocent, almost suspiciously so, as he stood stoically in the hallway despite the impishly smiling girl on his shoulders.

 

Kyoko glared at him. “No. I know what you’re thinking, Isaac, and it’s not a good idea.”

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he told her blithely, brushing past her as he walked down the hallway, “What do you think Peri? Want to go have some fun?”

 

“Fun?” a small voice asked him, testing the word out as she said it, and using one hand to sign what she thought it meant.

 

He nodded awkwardly, trying not to dislodge his small companion with the movement, “Yes, exactly. Fun. Let’s go!” Gripping her legs tightly so she wouldn’t fall, he jogged down the hallway and out of sight, with Peri’s squeals of delight lingering long after the two were gone.

 

By the time the healer stood before the door to the small Dojo’s training hall, the large, bulky warrior, helmetless so he could better be understood by his pupil, was leading the petite girl along the racks of weapons and various other objects scattered around the room. When he found one of the less dangerous items, like the Bo Staff the girl was holding awkwardly at that moment, he would kneel down to her level, state its name, and have her repeat it back to him several times until she had it right before moving on to something else.

 

Peregrine herself was more than happy to comply with the lessons, and far preferred them to the ones where she was stuck sitting a chair with nothing to do but kick her heels against her seat and repeat back the words she was shown in Braille on a tablet. Here she happily parroted back anything told to her as she skipped around the room, following her teacher around with something akin to hero-worship and dancing around giddily whenever she got something right.

 

The girl had no way of knowing the healer’s appreciation for how quickly she learned, despite not wanting to sit still long enough to study. She had blossomed remarkably in the short time she’d been in the dojo, her newfound hearing and growing familiarity with both her surroundings and the people in them leading her to new and greater feelings of freedom and confidence than she’d ever known previously in her life. Added to that the fact that she was picking up the spoken word with astonishing rapidity, and most Tenno in the small clan she resided with quickly forgot about her disability and began to treat her the same way they would any other child who had managed to worm their way into their hearts; by spoiling her rotten.

 

The clan’s cook had quickly discovered the girl’s sweet tooth, was always slipping her small dainties, much to the child’s glee and her caretaker’s chagrin, as the sugar only added to her hyperactive nature. He so enjoyed her delight at his creations that he had recently gone so far as to research old recipes to find more things that she liked. His most recent concoction was something called “cheesecake”, which didn’t sound appetizing but ended up being delicious. No one quite knew what the ingredients for it were, or were sure that they wanted to ask, but the old Tenno always smiled an indulgent smile and ensured at least one sweet thing was on the menu specifically for Peri, regardless of how much else he had to do. Despite Kyoko’s protests, there were also those that taught the girl off-the-curriculum lessons whenever they got the chance; such as how to properly throw a kunai knife, where the best places in the dojo were to hide, and Grineer swear words, among other things.

 

She’d also already had to confiscate at least one “pet” sentinel that had been toted around by the girl for a week before Kyoko had been able to catch up with her long enough to nab it. By then, the girl had already named it “Jay” and wreaked an enormous amount of mischief without even realizing that she’d become invisible thanks to her new friend. The healer strongly suspected Birch, the resident Foundry master and Loki of the clan, for being responsible for giving it to her. Trying to find the girl normally was a nightmare, and giving her a Shade that cloaked her whenever people got near only increased her already expansive talent at hiding to a point that was simply evil. It would be very much the kind of thing typical of the outwardly sober and responsible Tenno, especially now that he and practically the rest of the clan were wrapped around the little girl’s finger.

 

And yet, of all of the people that indulged and spoiled the child, Isaac was, by far, the worst. Anything the girl wanted that he could provide for her, she received, and the Rhino was smart enough to come up with very good sounding reasons for all of it. A great example was the “lesson” he was giving her in the dojo’s training room. Despite the fact that anyone could tell he had ulterior motives for taking Peri there, if Kyoko had bothered to confront him about his actions he would only have glibly explained how the exercises were a great way to increase the girl’s vocabulary and encourage her enthusiasm for learning speech. However, no matter how much the healer tried to maintain a stoic demeanor (since no one else in the clan seemed to want to), as the lesson progressed from words and moved to the center of the room in a sparring area, even Kyoko couldn’t hold back laughter.

 

“No don’t hit me! Ah!” Isaac said, quailing with faux sincerity as a small figure chased him around with a Bo staff larger than she was, whacking him with all the force, aggression, and efficacy of a kitten attacking a Great Dane. “I swear! I didn’t mean to insult Jay’s honor! I swear! Mercy!”

 

“Mercy! Mercy!” she parroted him, still thwacking him.

 

“No Peri, it’s ‘No mercy,’ not ‘Mercy’,” Kyoko corrected the girl, cracking a smile.

 

“No mercy?” the elfin child asked, turning to face the healer and temporarily pausing in her merciless hunt; the Bo staff still held comically and somewhat awkwardly over her head as she paused mid-blow.

 

“That’s right, no mercy! Get him!” The healer grinned wider as the girl gave a gleeful cackle and continued her hunt.

 

“No mercy! No mercy! No mercy!” Peregrine chanted, warming to the sentiment as she chased her quarry and battered him with blows that carried all the menace and threat of a pillow.

 

Eventually, the Rhino, still in his warframe, slowly and theatrically collapsed to the floor, making ridiculously absurd death noises as he fell clutching his “injuries”.  

 

“This is it, I see the light… it’s all over!” He yelled out, struggling to hide his grin as Peri continued to giggle, poking him with one end of staff as he lay splayed out ludicrously on the floor, still making farcical noises between lines as he “died”.

 

As the Rhino made the last of his dramatic end, another door leading into the training room opened and a Tenno in a Loki warframe walked in. “I see the great Isaac has fallen. What did he do to incur the almighty wrath of Peregrine this time?”

 

At the sound of the Loki’s voice, Peri’s eyes lit up and she instantly dropped the heavy staff on the floor with a loud clack and clatter. “Birch!” she chirruped loudly, taking off and making it halfway across the room to cling to the soldier, signing wildly, before the staff had even come to rest.

 

“I insulted Jay’s honor,” Isaac explained, agilely springing back up to his feet, “And slow down kid, you know that he doesn’t know too many signs yet.” The girl’s hands stopped fluttering crazily at his words as she checked herself, and she politely clasped them in front of her to let the warriors talk.

 

“Well no wonder I found the little guy moping, then,” the Foundry Master retorted as the Rhino made his way to stand nearby, “And you know I don’t mind you talking Peri, you just have to slow down. Now, I think this little guy missed you.”

 

Peregrine cocked her head to one side, listening, as a Sprite model Shade sentinel hovered into view from behind the Loki. It burbled in a manner that sounded happy when it caught site of her, and descended to the girl’s level before promptly plopping itself down on her head, radiating an aura of possessive contentment.

 

Kyoko groaned as she made her own way from the doorway she’d been standing near to the others, “Birch, please tell me that you at least disabled its cloaking precepts?” At her approach, the sentinel made a noise halfway between contempt and an objection before both it and the girl winked out of sight. “Oh no you don’t,” Kyoko muttered as she plucked the machine off of the oblivious child’s head, causing both of them to instantly reappear in the visual spectrum. It made noises of alarm and protest as it struggled futilely in the healer’s hands.

 

“Why would I inflict that upon the poor thing?” Birch asked, the picture of innocence, “I did tweak his programming though; he should act as a better navigator for her now when she needs to get around unfamiliar sections of the Dojo, and he can even act as a locator if necessary. Now let him go or you’ll give him a complex.” Birch looked mildly at Kyoko and she released the small machine, which quickly plopped itself back onto its charge’s head to be received with a contented pat. If the sentinel could have purred, he would have at that moment, sitting there looking for all the world like a self-satisfied cat atop its favorite perch.

 

“It better have a locator, or I’m locating you to run after her next time.”

 

The Loki just grinned, “Sure you will. Speaking of locating things; Isaac, that stuff you requested is done building. You can drop by the foundry any time to pick it up.”

 

“Things?” Peregrine asked, looking up at the group of Tenno.

 

“What kind of things, Isaac?” Kyoko glared at the Rhino suspiciously.

 

“Oh nothing too important,” he waved one hand dismissively, “We simply had some leftover materials sitting around that I put to use to make some new items for Peri. She doesn’t have much you know, considering how she got here and all.”

 

“For me?” the girl asked, her grey eyes wide.

 

“Of course, little bird,” he ruffled her hair affectionately, a mischievous smile on his lips, “Considering you’re living with Tenno, it only makes sense that you’d get some of our toys, right?”

 

As the girl jumped up and down and clapped her hands in delight, the sentinel wobbling dangerously on her head as he resisted being thrown off, one word echoed through the halls of the Dojo in an exasperated female voice, “ISAAC!”

Edited April 28, 2014 by Jeahanne

[QuinnsWing]

Here for all of you, the back story for your dear foundry master Quinn(again and it had some more tears shed as i went through)

 

AND!! a new character to join ze ranks. (more or less a small intro for them)

 

--------

The bottle of vodka almost slipped from his hands as he relaxed in a chair. He was getting drunk, something hard for him, Quinn’s mind was getting fuzzy, and he started to remember a past he wanted to forget, but never could. 

 

--------------

He had to wake up early every day, not because he wanted to, he had to because if he didn’t, the old man would start throwing things again. Stretching and with a large yawn, he got out of bed. 

 

“YOU UP YET??!?!?!” A rough voice yelled at him from bellow.

 

“I AM OLD MAN, SO SHUT UP!!!!” He yelled back, the reply he got was a loud laugh.

 

“THEN GET YOUR &#! DOWN HERE AND GET TO WORK!!!!” The old man yelled back happily. A smile played on the young man’s lips as he got around. Pulling a shirt of his scarred back, he shuffled down stairs. The foundry was fully running and the heat from it made him squint. Looking around he saw the bowl of rice.

 

“THIS IT?” He had to yell over the noise.

 

“WHAT YOU EXPECT, COCKY YOUNGSTER? A FULL STEAK DINNER?” The old man yelled back without turning from his work. ‘Sometimes i do’ he thought as he ate the rice and tossed the bowl into the sink to the right. ‘Working at the foundry is tough work.....and not as rewarding as i had thought’ still thinking to himself the young man began the days work. He was responsible to sort materials for the old man along with running errands, and buying goods, he also was the one who disposed of the garbage, which there was a lot of. 

 

This day was no different, the garbage had pilled up since yesterday, no surprise, so he took it out like usual, leaving that old man to do his work. Looking up into the blue sky, he wondered why he chose to work in a foundry, he didn’t remember, he just remembered the old sword his father had kept, a Skana prime polished everyday to perfection, so sharp it could split a hair it two. Maybe making things so perfect was what he wanted, to give happiness to people who could not make it themselves.

 

“GET BACK IN HERE!!!” The old man yelled, interrupting his thoughts.

 

“WHAT DO YOU WANT THIS TIME?” He yelled back as he re-entered the foundry. The old man had stopped working and had prepared a list. ‘oh great....’ He thought as the old man handed him the list. 

 

“Go, get supplies for the week, and dont take more than 10.....errr 20 minutes.” The old man said turning away slightly with the pause. A smile had appeared on his face and he did not want the apprentice to see. A huge grin was across the young mans face, as he grabbed the money and headed for the door. 

 

“DONT FORGET MY WINE!!!” The old man yelled after him as he shot through the door out in the glorious afternoon sun.

 

---------------

 

The town the he lived in was large by most standards, it had 3 districts, The Market, The Working and then The “Rich”. He was part of the Working District so he had access to the Market all the time while having restricted access to the “rich” district, for deliveries. Running through the streets the apprentice was yelled at multiple times, but no one really tried to stop him. 

 

He launched him self up a set of crates and climbed onto a roof. The Market District spread out before him, the light smoke of bakeries, the sounds and smells of animals, hundreds of people walking, buying, selling, trading, a place that he loved. Though those were just a few reasons. A laugh echoed close by. Looking around the apprentice saw the person he was looking for. 

 

Gold hair flowing in the afternoon breeze, shone in the light, and a kind face, always smiling. He grinned like an idiot, ‘there she is!. Jumping down he ran through the market. Sliding and dodging the crowds of trades and merchants, he hurried to the last place he had seen her. ‘Where did you go this time? he pondered, for she was not where he had thought her to be. Looking around quickly he searched for a merchant he knew. ‘The Baker’, he turned and looked for the older man. The smell of bread caught his attention first. The smell of rye bread. No one else was able to make rye bread like this “old” man for it was his families secret. 

 

Running through the network of streets, with its winding turns and sharp corners. After a few moments of running the apprentice came upon the shop. The smell of bread wafted through the square that the shop was located in. Walking over to the shop he entered the door. The “old” man was busy baking. 

 

“I have no time to talk, daughter. I must complete this order quickly.” The baker said without turning. 

 

“Well I never thought I would be called someone’s daughter before in my life.” The apprentice said with fake astonishment. Turning slightly the baker saw who it was, a smile spreading across his face. 

 

“Well well, lost are you young man?” He asked mockingly. 

 

“Not at all, im just wondering where your daughter is” The apprentice said turning away slightly, blushing. 

 

“You are always looking for you my girl, aren't you?” The baker asked. 

 

“Of course i am!” The apprentice said, looking the “old” man in the eyes.  There was a strange gleam there, a knowing look. 

 

“hmmmm, fine, she is a couple squared south, selling the bread.” The baker said turning to continue his work.

 

“Thank you,” The apprentice yelled as he turn to go, “Old man!”

 

“Watch it!!!!!” The baker yelled without turning, a sad smile on his face and a knowing look. He knew his daughter was growing up, but not this fast.

 

Running as fast as he could the apprentice dodged and turned constantly to avoid the crowds. As he made his way south, he remembered going to that shop for the first time. 

 

About a year ago when he began his apprenticeship.

It was a somewhat cold day, no snow, just cold, and windy. He walked with the Foundry Master, he was being shown the route to pick up the food and things that were needed each week. They were almost done, they only had to stop the bread shop, then to the winery. The Foundry Master pushed open the door and slipped inside with his apprentice hot on his trail. The bakery was warm and the aromas which wafted through the room were amazing. The baker noticed them and motioned them farther into the shop. 

 

“Welcome back”The baker said while kneading some bread, “What is it toady?”

 

“Nothing much, just showing the new apprentice the route for things.” The Foundry Master said, motioning to the apprentice. He nodded at the baker but kept looking around the shop. Something caught his eye, gold, gold strands of hair? His eyes widened when he saw a beautiful girl around his age close the door she was peaking around, quickly.

 

“Come on out, Joanna” The baker motioned to the door, “They wont bite, well not the apprentice, this old brute might.” He continued, pointing to the Foundry Master. He chuckled and went into the back. The girl slowly opened the door again, and slid out into the light. Her gold hair shone, and her face was somewhat sharp but her eyes were soft.  The apprentice stood there and stared, the foundry master looked at him and laughed. 

 

“Love at first site?” The master asked laughing. The apprentice shook his head, blushing and looking down to let his hair cover his face. The girl, laughing spun on her heals and walked to the back. 

 

“The same as usual?” The bakers asked from the back.

 

“Yep.” Was the only answer from the master. 

 

A few moments later they were on their way to the next stop. A few second after they left they heard the door open behind them. The girl ran out with something in her hands.

 

“Here....” She said shyly, blushing holding out the package, to the apprentice.

 

“...Thank you...” He said, taking the package, then the foundry master grabbed his collar and began to drag him away. She looked on smiling and laughing at the apprentice.  

 

--------

 

The cold metal which bumped against his skin broke him out of his trance just in time. He had almost run into a merchant carrying boxes. Dodging that catastrophe, he walked into the square and saw a small crowd of people. 

 

“Please get in line!” A clear a crisp voice almost yelled above the square’s noise. The people almost immediately got in line, next to the few who pushed and shuffled about. When the crowd moved about, the apprentice caught a view here and there of who he was looking for.

 

“Joanna!” He yelled and began to walk towards her. He could see her hair swirl about as she looked for who ever called her name. Smiling to himself, the apprentice decided to sneak up on her. He was able to slide and twist between the people and get behind her. Leaning he looked over her shoulder. 

 

“How is the bread today?” He asked, right in her ear. Jumping she turned and pushed him away. Shocked, she didn't do anything as he almost fell backwards. She began laughing as he caught his footing and stopped himself from crashing into a bunch of crates. 

 

“What was that for?!?” He asked with mock innocence. She smiled, grabbing his hand and pulled him into a hug. 

 

“Is this a good enough apology?” She asked him.

 

“I don’t know...” He replied still hugging her. Pulling away she smiled at him with a deceptive look in her eyes.

 

“Ok then, after i’m done selling this bread and your done with your chores, meet me at the bakery.” She said, then turned and began to sell the bread again. Raising an eye brow he watched her for a few moments.

 

“What do you have planned?” He asked suspiciously. Turning just enough, she caught his eye and smiled.

 

“Your going to treat me to dinner.” She said then made a shooing gesture, “Go go go, i need to sell this bread and you need to do your chores. If not, then we cant have dinner.” She smiled innocently as he looked at her. 

 

“Fine...” He gave in, rolling his eyes, “Ill be back later!” The apprentice went off to finish his chores. 

 

 

The apprentice returned to the foundry somewhat late. I had taken his sometime to get back, seeing as the crowds of people had slowed his progress. Opening the door he was immediately confronted by the Foundry Master. Dark blue eyes meet grey eyes. 

 

“Your late.” Was the only thing the Foundry Master said. 

 

“Uummmmmmm..........well the crowds of peop-” The apprentice tried to explain but he was cut off.

 

“No excuses.” The dark blue eyes narrowed “Did you at least get my wine?”

 

“Yes i got everything that you asked for.” The apprentice said handing over a sack of goods. 

 

“Fine, your punishment will not be as harsh then.” The Foundry master said, taking the sack and pulling out the wine. “Now get out back and activate you warframe!” The wine bottle was opened and the days training began. The apprentice’s warframe was a Vauban, he didn’t have much of a choice, he was given it because he was young and the warframe was newly discovered. Walking into the training room the apprentice activated his warframe. It slid out from the back and spread out across his body, the helmet slid on last covering, his face, just in time because a rubedo bar decked him from across the room. 

 

“Get ready!” The Foundry Master said taking a long drink from the wine bottle. ‘oh...god......not this again!’ the thought ran through the apprentice’s head as more rubedo bars started to fly at him, some of them weighing over 10 pounds. The hours passed, the training switched between the rubedo bars being thrown to weapons training, like melee practice and gun play. The sun had begun to set when they stopped. The only reason they did, the apprentice was knocked onto his &#! as the Master smacked him across the face with a pole arm. 

 

“Go get cleaned up.” Was the only thing said as the Master went back into the foundry. Picking himself up, the apprentice let his warframe contract. His body was covered in bruises and cuts. Walking to the outside shower, the apprentice took his time getting clean. After bandaging the major cuts he walked back inside. The Foundry Master was passed out on his work bench with an almost empty bottle of wine in his hands. Taking the bottle the apprentice drank the last of it in a few gulps. 

 

He left a note to the Master, saying that he was going out for the night. After he had slipped into clean cloths he headed out. He had a slight limp but he kept walking, this was nothing new. Taking his time the apprentice walked to the bakery. The Trade district was mostly empty of people at this time, seeing as most traders went home. The empty streets were quiet and it was unnatural for it to be this quiet. But the apprentice enjoyed the break, the peace, the night sky. He had made it to the bakery faster than he thought, he had picked up his pace somewhere along the way. He didn’t know why but then this urge struck him, the urge to protect, like something horrible was going to happen to the people he cared about. 

 

Shaking his head, he dismissed the thought, then knocked on the door. He heard quick, light foot steps and the door opened a crack. Soft green eyes peered at him for a moment, then the door was flung open and he was embraced by Joanna. He could see the baker through the door, and he was smiling. Embracing Joanna quickly.

 

“So where do you want to go?” He asked taking half a step back. Smiling she grabbed his hand. 

 

“Lets go!” She said leading him away, through the twisting and winding streets. 

 

“Really, Joanna, where are we going?!” He asked her as they walked through the streets. Turning she looked him in the eyes.

 

“Where ever i want to go, remember?” She said happily as he rolled his eyes, then she continued to pull him along. It took about 10 minutes for them to reach where she wanted to go. It was a small cafe, nothing that stood out among the 20-30 that were in the district. 

 

“Here?” he asked her and all she did was nod. They walked into the cafe and sat at a table in the corner. There was almost no one there, only 3 or 4 people scattered about. They ordered drinks and something to eat when a waiter came by their table. They ate in silence making eye contact now and then. They finished relatively quickly and he paid for the meal when they got up to leave. Taking her hand he turned to walk her back to the bakery. But she stopped him, and pulled him in the other direction. 

 

“Huh?” He asked but she just pulled him along. They walked for awhile in a comfortable silence. Then they came upon the river. She pulled him over to a lone tree and sat down laying against the tree. Smiling, he sat down next to her. They sat there watching the night sky and the black river. She laid her head on his shoulder and embraced him. 

 

“How much longer is your apprenticeship?” She asked quietly, as if not to break their quiet peace.

 

“Only a year and half left.....” he said, turning to her slightly. She looked up and ran a warm hand slowly across his jaw. Looking into her eyes he could see how much she cared about him, how much she loved him. Her hand stopped on his cheek and she smiled. 

 

“Though you are scarred, i love you Quinn.” She said looking into his grey eyes. 

 

“I know you do Joanna,” He replied, “I love you too.” Her green eyes were moist and he leaned forward and hugged her tightly. Her embrace was warm and welcoming, leaning back a bit he looked out across the black river. Her warm hand again touched his cheek. Turning to face her, he was meet with her eyes meet inches away. Her kiss was gentle and quick but full of her emotions. 

 

They sat in silence for awhile longer before they both got up to head home. Walking her back, Quinn touched the amulet around his neck. It was a hand made swan, made of rubedo and gallium. Removing it as they got closer to the bakery, Quinn stopped Joanna. 

 

“Here, a gift.” He said laying it in her hand.

 

She looked at him with bright green eyes, a smile played on her face

 

“Thank you Quinn.” She said quietly, hugging him once more “I love you” she wispered the last part in his ear.

 

“I know, i love you too.” He said opening the door for her.

 

“Goodnight” She said smiling.

 

“Goodnight, Joanna” Quinn said. 

 

 

------------------

 

Walking back to the foundry, Quinn was not at peace. His thoughts were at war with each other his instincts telling him to stay and protect, but he knew nothing was wrong. By the time he got to the foundry it was cold and he was glad for the warming furnaces. The master was still asleep so Quinn threw away the note and went up stairs. He wasn't tired, so instead of just laying in bed and doing nothing, he got out his weapons to clean and take care of. The sobek shotgun was shined and loaded, his twin vipers the same. Pulling out his fangs, Quinn began to sharpen and hone them. Doing all of this took close to an hour and by the time he was finished, he collapsed into his bed. He dreamed, but he dreamed of the past. 

 

The medical room was cold, and the white lights gave him a headache. He was going to get a warframe. He was going to be a hero of the people. But something had gone wrong, horribly wrong. 

 

The “doctors” had said it was going okay, that nothing would go wrong, but they were wrong. His warframe was rejecting him. 

 

He lasted a few days after getting his warframe before collapsing. After being examined by the “doctors” they said it would be ok, but it wasn't. They knew he would be killed if they could not stop the rejection, and he knew this also. 

 

His back hurt so much! But they could do nothing. No one could. He fell, into darkness, into pain, into despair. But there was light, be it only a pin prick, there was light. He didnt know it but he fought to reclaim his warframe, the thing that did not want him. He fought for what? A future, a past, a present.......a life.

 

Weeks........Weeks had passed since his collapse. His warframe continued to destroy his body, but he fought, with what little life and strength he could muster, he fought. 

 

Light, bright burning light. Opening his eyes, Quinn could see the white room around him, the bright lights. He.....was ......alive. 

 

No one believed it happened, know one knew how. His warframe’s rejection process had stopped. He had been accepted. But he was scarred beyond measure, almost crippled. They wanted to “fix” him, he declined, he would live with these scars as a trophy of his first victory over rejection. Because this was not the first thing to reject him.

 

 

He woke abruptly. Something told him to. Something dark, evil, dead but living, was here. He knew, but he didnt. It was here, to destroy everything they held dear, everything they knew, loved, cared about. It was here to take over. Getting up, Quinn looked out the his window which overlooked the trade district. Nothing was wrong, it was all at peace. His mind still at war, Quinn turned away and tried to sleep again.

 

He couldn’t. His mind would not let him sleep, let alone rest. Getting up again, he headed down stairs. The foundry was dark of course, except for the workbench. The Foundry Master was sitting there, taking care of his weapons. 

 

“You feel it also, dear apprentice?” The Master asked, not turning from his work. 

 

“What do you mean?” Quinn asked, somewhat confused. 

 

“You feel the horror, the darkness, the evil.” The Master said finally turning to face Quinn. The dark blue eyes were tortured and sad. 

 

“Yes” Quinn said turning away from those sad eyes. “But what is it?”

 

“Something you should not of had to worry about for years.” Was the only answer.

 

“What can i do?” Asked Quinn, turning to the Master again.

 

“You can do nothing, they will flood us, destroy us, we will fight, die and kill, but we can never win.” Said the Foundry master sadly. 

 

“There must be something!!!” Quinn almost yelled.

 

“There is noth-” The Foundry Master tried to say but was cut off by an alarm. His eyes widening he looked at the monitor. “They are here.” He whispered

 

“Who?” Quinn asked desperate, he could feel the hate the evil the anger, “WHO?”

 

The dark blue eyes turned to the apprentice, sadness and despair deep within.

 

“The Infested.” Was all he could say. Shocked Quinn stumbled backwards. Picking himself up, he started up the steps.

 

“Where are you going?” The Master asked desperately.

 

“To save my future.” Quinn said coldly, turning to face the Master with cold eyes, “Because who else will?” 

 

 

Quinn looked out the window as he readied his weapons. The trade district was active, light were everywhere, and fire everywhere. Concerned for Joanna, Quinn packed less ammo then he usually would of. He quickly modded his fangs with fire, the purge the infested, he had learned about those abominations. Brought back to “Life” by the Technocyte virus. The horrors they brought, the horrors they are. Looking out the window one last time, Quinn walked down stairs with his sobek on his back, the twin vipers at his hips, and the fangs leaving a burning trail behind him. At the bottom of the steps Quinn say the Foundry Master. He was stooped over, in his chair looking at his hands.

 

“I cant stop you, can i?” He asked quietly.

 

“No, you cant, no one can, this is something i must do.” Quinn replied. 

 

“Then so be it,” The Master said, standing, “May your gun never run out of ammo and your blades always be sharp.” Extending his hand the Foundry Master looked at Quinn. Taking his hand slowly Quinn shook it, then letting go walked towards the door. Right before he opened the door, it burst open and a guard stood there, breathing heavily. 

 

“Your both needed in the “rich” district, immediately.” The guard said when he had caught his breath. 

 

“HAHAHAHHAHA!” Quinn let his warframe activate, covering all but his head, “Who said i would help them?” he asked the guard.

 

“Ummmmm...ummm” The guard mumbled trying to find an answer.

 

“EXACTLY!!!!” Quinn yelled pushing the guard forcefully out of the way, throwing him a few feet. The Foundry Master watched with sadness but said and did nothing.

 

“You have to!” The guard who had gotten up grabbed Quinn by the shoulder. He was promptly thrown to the ground and faced with a burning blade.

 

“What do i have to do?” Asked Quinn, staring at the guard with cold, calculating grey eyes. 

 

“ummmmmmm....nothing.......” The guard scared, mumbled and looked away. 

 

“Good” And with that Quinn ran, fast, hard, and with purpose. Through the working district into the trade, the screams and fear of the people could be heard and felt. He ran past burning building, dieing people, past infested, past ancients, past everything. He was after Joanna. Nothing stopped him, he charged through the infested shooting, cutting destroying the Virus with everything he had. By the time he made it to the square where she lived, he had ran out of shotgun ammo, and was dangerously low for his Vipers. His warframe abilities had no effect on the infested, they were resilient to electricity. He slowed only a little and when he did he noticed what was happening in the square. The baker was trying to fight. As Quinn ran forward to help the baker was overrun and taken down.

 

“NOO!!!!” Joanna’s scream echoed across the town, she was watching from the second story of her house. Looking up Quinn saw her tears, her sadness, and with that in fueled his rage, his anger, his hate for these abominations these horrible THINGS! Running forward he used what was left of his viper’s ammo and throwing them to the side ran in fangs spinning.

 

The baker was dead, along with the infested. Quinn was cover in the stuff the infested had as blood, the fangs sizzled as they burnt away the flesh and blood. Looking up, Quinn saw Joanna watching him. Then she was gone from the window. Shocked Quinn ran to the bakery and kicked the door in. The door blasted off its hinges killing the infested behind it, who had gotten inside from the back. Her scream echoed off the walls, sending chills down his spine. Running up the stair he was confronted with a horrible site.

 

She was pinned to the wall, a Toxic Ancient held her. The blazing fangs spun, cut, burned, destroyed. As the Ancient fell Quinn caught Joanna, as she fell limply to the floor. Looking down at her he knew, he knew he could never have the life he wanted. She smiled at him as she opened her eyes. Her beautiful green eyes. She reached out and placed her hand on his bloody cheek.

 

“I love you,” She said quietly, taking shallow breaths.

 

“I know,  i love you too Joanna” He said as tears began to trace divots out of the blood dried on his face.  She reached up wiping away a tear, and placing her hand on his cheek. 

 

“Goodbye, Quinn.” She said as her hand fell away, her body going limp, her green eyes closing, her life slipped away. He held her like that, he didnt move. Then standing with her in his arms he walked her to the bed. Laying her down on her bed, he arranged her hands nicely and made sure her eyes were closed, then covering her with the blankets, he took a step back. Tears were streaming down his face, but that did not stop him. Leaning over he kissed her on the forehead, leaving a few tears on her face. Turning away, his eyes were cold, and senseless, yet filled with a deep sadness. 

 

He could not be stopped, they tried, and failed. His warframe was pulsing electricity which lit anything it touched on fire. His anger and sadness fueled his attacks, his life, the only purpose he had now, Revenge. The Infested fell before him, burning, shriveling, exploding. Their twisted screams filled the trade district. What was left of their twisted corpses, filled the streets, the squares, the buildings. 

 

He fell. His warframe was out of energy, his scares burning, he could not go on, why should he, he should die here, like her, the one he could not save. But that was not his fate. A Rhino landed before him, strong, and able. But who was behind the frame surprised him. Dark blue eyes looked at him with understanding and sadness. 

 

“I am sorry, but this is the only thing i can do for you now, i was useless, a spineless fool, i left you because of my fear, while you ran in blindly.” His Master said, activating Iron Skin, he pulled all of the infested away taking them away, being the bait, dieing for him. Quinn didnt want anyone else to die for his sake. As tears began to run down his face, Quinn knew that he could never be happy again.

 

 

 

He was saved hours later, by a group of Tenno, they found him propped up against a wall staring into space, battle worn and unresponsive. The lotus organization healed him of his physical wounds with years of cryo sleep, but they could do nothing for the mental ones. He took up the role a a foundry workman, working his way to the top, the Foundry Master. But no matter who it was who talked to him, working with him, they saw the haunted expression in his eyes, the expression of loss, of defeat, of death. Things changed when he left the lotus organization. He was a loner, a hand for hire, he worked for thousands upon thousands of dojo’s, until he came upon a single one, which called to him. 

 

Aequitas

 

-------------

 

 

Inde

“Sometimes looking is the best thing to do, because touching....well......lets just say curiosity killed the cat. “

 

 

A rasping sound filled the hallways of the Grineer galleon. But the sound of running gears and machines drowned out the sound, letting its maker pass by the patrols with ease. The figure within the shadows paused ever so often to eye the Grineer and contemplate killing them all. 

 

It would be so easy, she thought as she passed by the 5th patrol. Her mission was to simple re-route the ship to clash with an astroid belt, nothing more, but the temptation of killing the helpless Grineer was starting to wear on her self control. With a sigh she turned and continued with the plan. It was too easy, just sneaking by these idiots and putting in a data chip. 

 

Maybe i can kill some as i leave, she mused to herself as she re-routed the ship. With a sharp spin,her heels acting as pivots, turned and stalked towards extraction. She let her cover slip here and there, along with making some extra nose, but the oblivious Grineer continued their patrols, undisturbed.

 

THESE IDIOTS!!!!!, She raged within her head and she angrily glared at a Grineer butcher, willing it to exploded. With an angry hiss, she turned and left the Grineer to their violent and sudden death. Stepping into the snub, and after locking in, let it drift into space and head towards the thing she called “home”. 

Edited May 2, 2014 by QuinnsWing

[Jeahanne]

This is the beginning of a little collab that Bej and I are working on that takes place before the mission that my Nova and Zephyr are currently in. I hope you all enjoy ^-^

 

_________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

The bar was a close, stuffy place, and crammed full of loud, boisterous people when Peregrine finally stepped inside. She’d been to the place before, although she’d always been alone. This time was going to be a little different.

 

“Old man,” the Zephyr said, as a greeting to the barkeep as she made her way up to the polished wood bar, “You seen a Tristan here?”

 

The man raised a bushy, graying eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t do the whole ‘Drinking in the company of others’ thing. Someone finally catch your fancy?” he teased.

 

She snorted, “You seen him or not?”

 

The deep-set laugh-lines in the man’s face crinkled up as he chuckled. “Third stool from the end.”

 

He watched her with his usual sense of admiration as she made her way unerringly to a seat next to who she was looking for. The Loki, his helmet off and sitting on the counter next to him, looked up as she sat down, but said nothing.

 

Peregrine left her helmet on, its enhanced sensors allowing her a finer sense of what was going on around her, and angled herself so her back didn’t face the door when she faced him. “Tristan?” she asked. When he nodded, she slid a data pad across the polished wood counter to rest near the drink he seemed to be nursing.

 

He glanced at it, but made no move to pick it up. “Look, you’re not any happier with how things are than I am, but I…” here she switched tack, moving to sign instead of speech, <I know you’re not fluent with this.>

 

He sighed before picking up the tablet and tapping out an answer. “What do you think you can do? There’s no fixing this.”

 

The Zephyr shrugged, “I can teach you new ways of speaking. I lived without sound for a very long time. The Lotus only asked that I offer. You refuse and I can leave.”

 

He grunted, and signed something she didn’t quite catch. Unable to physically see his hands, and with the chaotic air currents of the close, stuffy bar, making her unable “see” the finer movements of his hand in her usual way, she wasn’t able to make out exactly what he was trying to say and reached out and grabbed the hand she could tell he was signing with.

 

When he flinched and tried to pull away, she growled softly, “I can’t see you, idiot. Sign now so I can understand you.”

 

He glanced at her, the pulled his hand away and typed something out on the tablet to slide over to her. She ran her fingers over the screen to read it, the data pad’s unique programming changing the friction over the normal letters shown on the screen and mimicking Braille letters invisibly over top of them. “Great,” it said, “A blind woman teaching sign language, because that’s going to work so well.”

 

She frowned, <Fine, I’ll leave. But keep that,> she pointed at the data pad, then kept signing, not really caring if he knew enough of it to understand her, <stubborn as you are, you’ll need it.>

 

She stood up abruptly, only to have another woman walk up to them, tilting her head lopsidedly to look at Tristan and then at Peregrine. After a quiet moment, Tristan was startled as the redhead giggled.

 

“Ooh, lover’s spat?”

 

She turned her head towards him and Peregrine again and again, but they remained silent. That didn't seem to faze her.

 

“Don’t worry handsome, I’m sure it’s nothing some drinks with me won’t fix. You're going to join us too cutie, you aren’t too bad looking yourself.”

 

The woman reeked of alcohol, and had an arm draped around both Tristan and Peregrine, preventing the Zephyr from leaving. Without waiting on either of them to answer she began dragging the pair from the bar to a table in the back corner of the room where two other Tenno already sat, yelling at the top of her lungs the entire way for the bartender to bring her more drinks.

Edited May 2, 2014 by Jeahanne

[FatViking]

I held my breath as I aimed my Vectis at the head of the commander, my trigger finger kept at the ready just above the trigger. I had waited so many days in the clock tower, Just for this single chance to take out a high ranking official in the Grineer military. Rain poured and thunder roared, signaling the end of my target and absolute chaos down below. My breath held, I moved my finger onto the trigger, waiting for the next thunder. I didn't have to wait long.

 

With the noise from my gun masked by the thunder, I took the shot. The results were spectacular, as I could clearly see what was left of the commanders brain splattered all over his personal vehicle, as he fell, almost in slow motion, the remaining parts of his torn apart head visibly flapping all over the place, spreading even more blood on the ground. My shot, as predicted, had flown true.

 

I had to move before I got spotted. Depositing my rifle underneath some boards near me, I sighed and started to climb down the clocktower ladder. As my feet landed on the wooden floor of the ex-Corpus church the tower was connected to, I could hear the targets bodyguards barking orders outside of the church. I had to think fast, I had to hide or something. They were trying to break open the door. Jumping on one of the benches, I proceeded to lie down as if sleeping. Once my eyes closed, I could hear the door breaking followed by the grating sound of the Grineer language. How they could call this noise language was beyond me. I listened to the footsteps all around me, how the iron soles practically crashed on wooden floors. They ignored me for the most part, I could tell. The torn clothing of a plague victim was not the prettiest of disguises but it was doing its part for the first time in ages. After what seemed like hours, I heard all but one of them leave.

 

He came close to me, his rancid breath almost making me sick as he shook me violently. I opened my eyes in response, putting my best effort into looking like a person suffering from the plague that had swept this colony and been a major factor in the Grineer gaining hold over it. I could hear him say something in his guttural language and see him aiming the gun at me. I could guess he was asking me to stand up, as he soon made a sign with his hands that clearly stated he wanted me standing. I obliged his wishes. Getting shot was not my objective. As I stood in the most sickly posture I could fake, he turned around and got ready to communicate with his headquarters. This was my chance to pull out the Ceramic dagger I had been hiding, and stab him three times, once in his neck to sever the vocal cords, once in his shoulder to paralyze his gun arm and the final stab through his eye and into his brain, followed by the twisting of the blade to kill him fast and efficiently. I almost smiled as he dropped dead, my paranoia getting the better of me in this situation. As I hid the body, I thanked every god I could remember for the windowless Corpus church.

 

I waited for a few minutes more in the church until I presumed all was safe, then I walked out. Thankfully, my hunch had been right. The commanders body had been removed, and most of the vehicles were gone. There were no patrols and life was resuming in the colony. Making a beeline for the nearest alley, all I could do was smile. The objective had been completed, I didn't die and the coast was clear.

 

From alley to alley I traveled to an abandoned warehouse. The doors were rusted and the roof was broken, showering the insides in the golden rays of the sun. In the middle of the room, a silver crate raised on one end waited me. Just the sight of it made me feel somewhat more comfortable as I quickly got out of my disguise, letting my silver colored arms and legs soak in the golden rays before opening the crate. Within, my Hydroid waited for me, already open to let me quickly get in. Happiness came over me as my 'frame enclosed around me and a familiar voice greeted me.

 

''Welcome back Kris, how did the mission go?''

[MandoKarla]

  Morlan let out another hiss of air through his nose as he nursed his drink. The bar was not quite empty but it was close. The only other patron was a squad laughing and enjoying themselves at a table. He glanced over at them analytically. Four Tenno, one of which had his back to Morlan. The squad consisted of an Ember, a Rhino, an Excalibur, and the one facing away from him, who seemed to be a Loki. They seemed to have some sort of disgusting matching primary color scheme. The Ember was yellow, Rhino red, and the Excal blue. But the Loki was primarily blood-red with an immortal skin…. Huh. That didn’t fit in with color scheme. The more he saw, the more this seemed weird. To have an Immortal skin meant he had to be a high level Tenno. Yet the other three seemed relatively new. Still skilled as Tenno went, but nothing special.

 

  He mentally sighed, as he felt his body ache. His scar, his leg, his heart, they all were burdened with immense pain. He didn’t care if the Loki seemed to outclass his squadmates. He didn’t care about revenge or finding Adrazi, if she lived. He could just let it go, maybe find a new frame, and start over. He would change his name, his past, his choice of weapons, everything would be different and Morlan would die with the rest of his clan. “Except…..”

 

  He looked at the other Tenno again. Their camaraderie hurt. Their laughing made him bitter. Their joking made him angry. His ire rose, piercing the deathly calm that was over him, slicing through his defeat and regret. It churned in his gut, and set fire to his heart. The beast was clawing its way out of the prison in his mind. The Tenno, still laughing, donned their helmets headed towards the door. Morlan put his helmet on.

 

  The Excalibur heard a crash and turned around just in time to get his face grabbed and smashed through the nearest table. “One down..” thought the vicious being which Morlan had become. The Ember in front of the now unconscious Excal twitched in shock as she was knocked aside by a chair Morlan swung. This left him open to get body slammed by the Rhino, who seemed intent upon smashing Morlan through the bar itself. Morlan used this to his advantage when they reached the bar. He held onto the Rhino, then lifted his legs and planted them against the bar, and pushed off, the force bringing him and the Rhino onto the floor as they started grappling. Morlan realized his disadvantage, but the Rhino held him there, nothing more.

 

  He heard a voice, and it became clear that the bartender had just called the station’s security. Rage boiled up once again, as he concentrated the energy in his hand, ripped it free of the Rhino’s grip, and flicked the spinning blade of pain into his oppressor’s shoulder. His opponent bellowed and staggered up and off of the malignant Tenno, and collapsed in pain against the bar. Morlan slowly stood up, still in a fighting stance and dodged a flaming punch from the Ember. She overextended with her punch and he countered by moving in and slamming an elbow against her temple. Despite the helmet, she was went down. He sighed as his visage fell back into a dreary pose and walked out, right into the barrels of an SSF squad made up of a Volt, a Mag, and two Excaliburs.. His smile returned.

 

  One of them spoke, “Put your hands behind your head, now.” Morlan responded by activating his teleportation. In the time it took him to reach his destination, the squad had instantly changed shape so they were all touching backs. “Cute..” was the lone word that ran through his head has he reappeared 5 feet off the ground in front of the officer point his rifle at where Morlan was. Morlan kicked with both his legs, one driving the rifle downwards out of it’s owners hands, the other kick went into the officers head. His snapped backwards with his body following as he crashed into the officer opposite of him. As the Mag and Volt crashed to the ground, the other Excals lept to either side of Morlan and snapped into firing positions and let loose with their tranq rounds. As Morlan landed, his blades slid out of his arms and began a deadly dance, spinning, leaping, slashing, and ducking away from the incapacitating projectiles.

 

  His smugness grew until he found himself slammed into a wall by an unseen force. The Mag had recovered, and she held Morlan in place while the Excals reloaded. Morlan shouted at his captors, “Fools! Do you really think tranque rounds, of all things, will stop me??” A male voice answered, “Not really, no.” The Volt fired a bolt of electricity into Morlan, and Morlan clenched his teeth at the burning agony his nervous system was singed. The attack was short, and the Mag let go of Morlan, allowing him to slump to the floor. “Cuff him” was the command from the Mag as she and the Volt turned to leave. The smile stretched even further.

 

  His teleport relocated him to right behind the Mag, and he grabbed her head, smashing it down into the floor as he landed. Still holding on, he pulled her back up several feet into the air, let go, and then landed a double hammerfist into the base of her neck. The Volt spun around and fired another bolt, but Morlan teleported parallel to the floor level with the Volt’s head. He spun, slamming both his knees into the Volt’s head, dropping him to the floor. Morlan charged the now hesitant Excaliburs with his armblades out. His arms shot forward, intent on drawing blood, when something solid created an explosive pain in his side. The Trinity from the infirmary slammed into his side to intervene, and she would pay a costly price.

 

  Morlan got to his feet, retracting his blades and raising his hands in a stance. The Trinity was crouched, legs wide, one hand on the floor. The pose seems strangely familiar, but at any rate, she clearly wanted to take the fight to him. “Morlan, stop what you’re doing, please…. You’re out of control.” He scowled, Why does she speak in such a familiar manner to me? I suppose I’ll inquire when she’s bleeding out on the floor.”

 

  Adrazi charged and leaped, bring her right leg in a powerful kick that Morlan easily ducked. She followed through with the kick by sending her left leg backwards into his chest, although he blocked that with his arms. But before she even landed he was upon her, his claws fingers intent on rending her life. He fired off to stiff-hand blows, one to her midriff and the other at her thigh. He would gut her, or sever an artery.

 

  But she was as fast as Morlan. Knowing his armblades could come out at any moment, she couldn’t easily grab his arms. So instead, she landed and rolled backwards onto her shoulders, and kicked at his head with both her legs. Unfazed, Morlan planted his hands on her feet and used her kick’s momentum to launch into the air, and his left blade came out, intent on skewering her head. Muscle memory kicked in, and at the last second she rolled to the side and Morlan’s unattended blade shattered against the metal floor. He turned kicked at her, a violent and unaimed kick that would shame any martial art. Unrefined and ugly proved effective as Adrazi took the blow to her side. Morlan leapt upon his prey and seized Adrazi’s throat and began to squeeze. Than he noticed the Lex pressed against his own throat. She choked out, “I suggest you let go, Morlan. I don’t want to kill my last living clanmate.” Adrazi let go of the hand gripped against the hand was slowly squeezing the life out of her throat, and clumsily tugged at her helmet till it came off. Morlan’s eyes widened as he saw the teary violet eyes and silver hair of his clanmate and dear friend, Adrazi. Morlan spoke quietly, almost unhearable, “Are you going to stop me?”

 

 Tears seemed to well up in her eyes, and she took a breath before speaking, her voice cracking. “To the death Morlan, to the death, I will protect those of my race I could not protect before.” Morlan’s right hand blurred towards the pistol aimed at his vitals, and Adrazi closed her eyes as she pulled the trigger, removing tears and accepting the pain of Morlan’s death. The crack of a hand against metal was bullied into submission by the boom of the Lex, Morlan’s reflexes more honed than his opponent. He successfully backhanded the pistol far enough to the side to leave only a gash on the side of his helmet, instead of a hole in his throat. Morlan’s arm reached full extension, and his remaining blade slid out. Adrazi’s tears, returned and fully formed, flowed out her eyes and down her temples as she realized she would die to the one person she lived for.

 

  

  He had returned to the Station with his companions to refuel and restock his supplies. But he had heard whisperings of a fight between Tenno that was becoming more troublesome by the second. He managed to pull a Frost Lieutenant aside and attain the location of the fight. He made his way there just in time to hear a gunshot and see a battle-damaged Ash knock away a gun from a helmetless Trinity he was strangling. A second Trinity was healing a downed SSF Mag and Volt, while two Excaliburs stood by, apparently guarding there downed companions. He did not know why they were not helping, but he knew he need to, to save a life.

 

                                    Aiden, the golden warrior, entered the fray.

 

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Aiden charged. Within seconds, faster than any onlookers would have imagined possible, the Ash was suddenly in range of the Aiden’s blade. With both hands he unleashed Harbinger in a left-to-right two handed swing, aimed at Morlan’s head. One shot, on kill. But Morlan was no pushover, and seemingly without looking, hopped up and over Harbinger, even using it as a boost to get higher. But dodging a charging Rhino is a different matter. The smug satisfaction was wiped away from Morlan has Aiden shoulder-checked him, sending him tumbling. The Trinity was looking at him expectantly, with a hand extend up towards him. He grasped her hand and pulled her up. She immediately slumped over, bracing her hands on her knees. Still gasping, she looked at him. “Thanks, shiny boy. I’m Adrazi. I appreciate the help, he’s become a better fighter than me.”  Aiden noted that she apparently knew him. “My name is Aiden. Am I correct that you know him?”

“Great circumstances, huh, Aiden? Yea, he used to be a clanmate, before our clan was destroyed. Long story, save it for later. Let’s just stop him for now.”
“I can do that.”

 

  Aiden held Harbinger upright, in a loose two handed grip, preparing for any attack. Morlan teleported right behind Aiden, extending his right arm in order to impale the Rhino through the back of his neck with his armblade. The sound of crystal rapidly forming prefaced Morlan’s blade shattering against Aidens Iron Skin on his neck. Aiden spun and swung around with Harbinger as Morlan rebounded from Aiden. He backflipped away from the giant blade only to be shoulder slammed by Adrazi for the second time. Adrazi kept with Morlan as she tried to pin him down in time for Aiden to get there. But Morlan was growing angrier and angrier, and with a burst of rage and strength, threw off Adrazi, and teleported to the Cronus of one of the fallen SSF Tenno. “You want a swordfight, Rhino? YOU GOT IT!!!”

 

  He lept at Aiden, Cronus in hand, but was knocked to the side blocking a horizontal slash from Aiden. Morlan was continually forced back as Aiden advanced, probing and striking against Morlan’s weaknesses.  Morlan twisted to the side as Aiden thrust with Harbinger, embedding it in the wall behind the Ash. Morlan smiled, “You’re a careless fool, Rhino.” With the Galatine stuck, Morlan ran at Aiden, and stretched out his arm to pierce his chest with the stolen sword.

 

  Too late, he noticed Aiden bringing out a pair of Fangs. The Cronus was batted aside as Aiden once again became the aggressor, holding the one Fang forward and the other in a reverse grip. He attacked, feinting with one while attacking with the second, making use of his elbows and fists as well. Time to change tactics. Teleporting to the observing Adrazi, he applied a  chokehold. Aiden, not even pausing, threw one of the Fangs. Adrazi caught it, and slashed, slicing into Morlan’s arm, causing him to release her and back off. Adrazi initiated with a right hook. Morlan backhanded her to the side, “Get lost”.

 

  Aiden saw Morlan smack down Adrazi and pulled Harbinger out of the wall to attack. He had landed many hits on his opponent, but he had very good endurance. Aiden could feel himself tiring. He was bigger and stronger than his opponent, but he couldn’t last as long. He should finish this fast.

 

  Morlan turned to face the Blade wielding Rhino advancing towards him. He would crush this Rhino, and then Adrazi, and then the foolish SSF Tenno who thought they could stop him. The two Tenno charged. Aiden stabbed with Harbinger, and when Morlan lept to the side, turned it into a diagonal slash. Morlan lept on the blade and jump kicked aiden in the chest, making him step back. Morlan followed up double hammerfist, which Aiden blocked with his left arm. Morlan could see Aiden becoming slower and flattened his hand out. With his taloned fingers, he now had a dagger to puncture Aidens throat. Adrazi threw the Fang at Morlan, but with his enhanced situational awareness, he was able to avoid it, leaving Aiden in its path. Catching the dagger forced Aiden to be unable to use that hand for defense, and activated full Iron Skin. Morlan struck, knowing he could pierce through Aiden’s skin with his talons. Suddenly, Aiden began to glow, a sparkling, rippling glow like sunlight on pristine water. Adrazi was blinded and deafened as Aiden seemingly exploded, knocking Morlan back. Morlan struggled to his feet, now missing most of his armor on his hand was gone, and his front was smoking and charred. Aiden was standing, but was breathing hard.

 

  Both Tenno moved within striking distance, knowing the next successful hit would end it. Aiden could hear Adrazi walk up behind him, ready to support. Morlan took a step forward, Aiden could feel his muscles tense up, expecting an attack. Adrazi groaned collapsed on her hands and knees, with one hand holding her side. Aiden turned to help, and in that instant, he realized, Morlan could kill him. Adrenaline surged as he jerked back towards Morlan just in time to hear a crunch. Adrazi, despite her pain, looked up in horror at the sound. It was the same sound as Jeny, when her helmet broke fighting the Grineer years ago. Morlan was completely upright, now helmetless, as a Loki held one of the Fangs against Morlan’s chest, and a Brakk against his face. Apparently he shattered Morlans damaged helmet by hitting him with the Brakk.

 

  The Loki had his four-pronged helmet clipped to his side, and he had a fiendish smile on his face. Morlan felt fear. This Loki had sneaked up on him, something few did, and now had two ways of easily killing him. Looking upon the grinning Loki, Aiden felt a greasy chill worm its way throughout his body. Two things made him extremely uneasy about this Tenno. The first were a couple of his facial features. Firstly, his mismatched eyes, one all white, even pupil, with a black iris, and the other all black with a white iris. Second, his sharp teeth, still frozen in a predatory smile as he stared through Aiden. The other item of fear also brought anger. And that was the Brakk. Some Tenno, rumor had it, like to inscribe images representing how many of Grineer, Corpus, and/or Infested they had killed on their weapons. This Loki had two lines of such images on his Brakk, one line was pictures of the Stalker, and the other, well, were pictures of various Tenno. The Loki finally stopped smiling. He dropped the Fang and reached into a pouch and pulled out.. candy? He popped it in and said in a surprisingly kind voice, “I think it’s time for a little chat about this mess, how about you?” Another thud as he slammed the Brakk into Morlan’s temple, rendering the world to blackness.

[NyghttheClassy]

I apologize for not posting in so long, tied down between assignments, games, reading fanfics, etc....

BUT I MAKE A RETURN! And plan to keep stuff going... Unless all the ideas for RWBY stuff take charge... anywho...

 

Droplets ran and fell as the frost slowly thawed from the long, charcoal grey furred cloak. The exhausted Tenno within slumped against the wall as the powered hatch to the outpost prefab hissed shut, the overhead heaters kicking in to replace what had fled into the chilling outside atmosphere. It almost reminded him of the area he grew up in, some immeasurable time span ago.

   He drew back the heavy hood of the cloak, unveiling the helm to his midnight blue & ice white Excalibur Prime, whilst the patterns of an immortal could be made from between the sides of the cloak.

 

An entire week out here. That was all it had been so far, ‘overseeing’ the recovery operation for the wrecked Ark project. ‘Overseeing’, it seemed, equated to directing packs of lower skilled initiates & various persons assigned as some sort of ‘penal service’ for petty misdemeanours. Overall, they made about 70% of his mismatched workforce, the other 30% being he & a handful of skilled non-combatants, from technical hotshots to medical experts. A grand total of about 35 Tenno, sharing a hastily setup array of prefab structures deployed as a basecamp on what could be adequately summed up as a glacial hell of a planetoid.

 

As ever, things hadn’t been progressing as hoped nor planned for Nyght.  The master swordsman, or ‘Blade Dancer’ as his title had used to be, was assigned a ‘task group’ to comb through and salvage what they could of the shattered & ditched ship he had managed to track down.

   The operation wasn’t at all helped by the state of the wreck; one third, the easy to reach part, had already been picked clean by Corpus scavengers, which was where he had been found originally. The 2^nd portion, which Nyght had uncovered & obtained a ship from, was well underway with salvaging. Most of it had been swept, producing many useful resources & perhaps more importantly, at least to him, several more surviving cryopods, the last remnants of the home he once had. According to the few experts he had on station, waking any of them could take a long time, with little to no chance of avoiding heavy amnesia. Being sat running on the fumes of a ruined ship’s reactor for millennia wasn’t exactly the recommended environment for full functioning pods.

 

The third & final segment of wreckage was proving… a handful. It appeared that despite all the time, many of the sections systems were still operational, if in rather awkward ways. It just so happened this cluster of decks & sectors housed a large number of heavily restricted & sensitive zones to the ship: namely gun batteries, hangars, armouries & an overly fortified archive. As such, the ‘systems’ still active were largely the type built to keep things on their sides of the walls, from simple sealed doors to wisely placed traps, hidden sentry guns & even the odd ‘Ghost’ or ‘Spectre’ of a long dead Tenno.

 

That last one had apparently been guarding something particularly special, given the cost it had exacted; a pair of younger excavators had strayed off their assigned exploration route, ending up at some form of elaborate vault door. When they had managed to bring it online and unlock it, with the help of several others, they found a fairly small and Spartan looking room. All it seemed to contain were a few firearms mounted to the walls, ammo below them, and pedestal at the centre. Then someone had stepped inside.

 

Nyght stalked through into the debriefing room of his budget cut base, a faint trail of melt water tailing behind him. Four wounded operatives, two dead & another comatose. All because someone hit a pressure plate, materializing a Spectre before them. He was going to have so much fun handling the paperwork for this. He was a fighter, a warrior, and yet he had to deal with recruits & initiates skipping rules and orders, woefully under-prepared for the consequences.

 

Another hiss of powered doors, and Nyght’s found himself with the debriefing room, a couple of his ‘lieutenants’ already present and awaiting him.

 

“Something really good better have come out of that room Valaric. I’m getting sick of overconfident rookies hospitalising each other with the old security systems…”

 

The Tenno in question, an obvious non-combatant & designated as ‘Logistics officer’ could do nothing but gulp as his throat grew tight under the glowering presence. It took the 3^rd being present, a yellow coloured Trinity, to rescue him.

 

“Calm down, you know as well as I do that he can’t take your ‘glare’. And something did get pulled out, besides the firearms, our people & that Spectre.”

 

The overstressed attention of the blue Excalibur turned to his chief medical officer, whilst the Logistician finally drew breath again, before seemingly shying back to avoid further ‘glares’.

 

“And that would be…Amy?”

 

“Well…”both of his subordinates turned to each other, before Valaric produced an ornate box, continuing “we simply don’t know…”

 

The box seemed to be finely gilded, a careful mix gold with pearl white. Running along what seemed to be a seam or join, a set of cryptic & not easily recognised symbols… to most.

 

“A good number of the icons are common with those from derelicts, towers and even our dojos, but that line there, I just c-.”

 

“That’s because it’s not, nor ever was, a common Tenno dialect.” Nyght cut over his co-workers, his eyes never straying from the one line. “That… is what we used within my old clan’s honour guard, and only we knew it. Derived it from the language most of us used where we grew up, before becoming Warriors & later said Honour guard.”

 

Both Valaric & Amy seemed to be locked in silence, staring at their ‘boss’ as he was drawn into reverie. Eventually, the trinity spoke up.

 

“Can you translate it?”

 

“Hmmm… yes.” He took a short pause before pressing an open palm over the centre of the inscription. “But that would break a much older oath than I dare risk.”

At that, he muttered something that neither could quite hear nor understand. The case responded immediately however, whirring & clicking before the top lifted itself free and open. Amy & Valaric subconsciously leaned forward, eager to grab a peek, whilst Nyght simply reached both hands in.

  Steadily, he raised his artefact, both hands underneath at far ends. Atop them, lay a masterpiece in old age smithing; a pristine, perfect specimen of a Dragon Nikana, a deep blue sheath leading to a pearly handle and ending with a pair of long, white ribbons. Shifting his grip, he drew the first half of the blade forth, revealing its exquisite edge, sharp and gleaming, as well as further symbols, inscriptions & runes at the base of the blade.

 

Nyght broke the stunned silence with a few soft words

 

“Hello old friend.”

[Pyjamalama]

Ok, so I've been swamped with school stuff for a while, choking up my creative fluids, but I decided to do something to get Az at least back into the dojo and stuff revolving around it.

 

“DAKKA!” Could be heard repeated again and again in the dojo’s firing range, being said faster and more often without breathing so quickly that no living organism could have been the source of the roaring.

And indeed, no living organism was the source, as the sentinel Dakkacube was not a live one.

But that didn’t stop him from shredding the targets of the firing range, producing general unease for the initiates that happened to be in there to test out their weapons, the majority of them wondering what kind of barbaric brute could ever think of having the sentient dethcube as a sentinel.

 

 

By then, after consecutive fire for over five minutes, thanks to a live feed into the dojo’s ammo stockpile for the firing range, Dakkacube reached the absolute theoretical and practical maximum firing speed for him, shouting “MAXIMUM DAKKA!” as a target was shredded down completely in less than five seconds from the barrage.

 

Both his exhaust and gun barrel glowed white hot from the overheating of almost ten clips of shrapnel-bullets, two hundred shots a piece, and to the initiates relief he stopped firing and started revving down the gun, which took a whole minute.

 

Dethcube then disconnected itself from the live feed and hovered to a corner of the room, where a new frost had created a large slab of ice earlier that day to test his powers, and he plopped himself down on top of it, the sheer heat of his barrels causing him to melt cleanly down into the slab’s center, the steam produced giving him a….. good feeling?

Well, at least he was content with accomplishment for now… until a few seconds later that he decided that he would have to increase his maximum dakka.

 

 

And at that moment, a green-based Mag walked into the firing range and called “Dakkacube! Come!” in the same way a human colonist would call for his dog to come.

Dakkacube, to the surprise of the initiates that had tried everything they could to get the sentinel to listen to them and stop what he had been doing earlier, hovered out of the ice-block and made his way towards the Mag.

“IS IT TIME TO IMPROVE DAKKA?!”

the cube roared at her, flying right in front of her face, well, if her helmet hadn’t been on.

“Oh stuff it, you’ve had enough dakka for today, now come.” The Mag said and turned around, walking out of the firing range.

 

The initiates started whispering to each other questions about who that Mag was, as Dakkacube had listened to her and even obeyed her order, as he had flown after her like a normal sentinel would fly after their Tenno-owner.

 

-----

 

Az walked through the dojo, Dethcube following her silently for once, as she walked through the massive dojo’s halls.

She was heading towards the dojo’s hangar facility, where she knew there was a certain brown Oberon waiting for her, because she had asked him to come.

 

She walked through the sliding doors and scoured the area, noting Mike sitting by the entrance of his snub, a couple of initiates trying to get out of him who he was and why he was here.

Mike noticed her as well, standing up and looking towards her, surprising the initiates as they spun around, seeing the green Mag walk towards them.

 

“I’ve been waiting.” Az said, walking past the trio of people and into the snub, followed by Mike as the snub closed on the curious initiates.

“You’re lucky Lotus let me come here.” He responded to her, holding his left hand out to her. “Your arm.” He then instructed, opening his helmet, revealing his scarred face and short hair, and uncovering the writhing flesh of his right palm.

 

Az sighed as she sat down in a seat in the snub, placing her right hand in Mike’s guarded palm, opening her suit to reveal the festering scar running down her arm. Even now she could feel it pulsing… feel it writhing…. was this how Mike's hands felt all the time?

 

Mike slowly ran his palm over her scar, closing his eyes and focusing on his work.

He was no longer just touching the scar, he was around it, within it, as his nanite-like ‘blessing’ worked his will on Az’s arm, staving off the infection… the infestation… for at least another month.

 

He had done this around six times now, and with every time he did it, he felt more confident and his work showed more progress. If he didn’t have that ‘gift’ from his birth, he knew that Az had succumbed to the infection a long time ago.

The only part about this that he disliked was having to do it quickly and little at a time in order to make sure he wouldn’t contract it himself.

 

“There. That should do it for now Az. I estimate I need about… three more runs over the scar, and then you’ll be in the safe zone.” He said, closing his armour over his palm, smiling as he opened his eyes and looked at her helmed visage.

 

“Thank you Mike. And like usually, we do not alert any of the others about this. They’ve probably been through enough on their own, adjusting to this new world.” Az replied to him, closing her armour as well. “When do you think you will be ready for our next run at this?” She then asked him.

 

“Eh… really… the old times never had it so… hostile. This thing isn’t the usual type, it’s more like someone took it and tried to mutate it into a more resilient form. It’ll take me about a week to prepare for this again and change my own method to keep it from adjusting to the treatment. Just don’t get wounded and let Trinities discover this.” Mike told her, scratching the back of his head as Az stood up.

 

“Thank you.” She said as she opened the door of the snub and walked out, leaving him alone and agonized over not being able to strike a more meaningful conversation with her. ‘Am I really prolonging the treatment for her sake?’ he asked himself, sitting down and sighing as the snub’s airlock closed again and he went out into space towards his own dojo.

[khimera]

It was exceedingly quiet in the holding area, and the Wardens knew this all too well. They had heard the alarms in the distance from their fellows, but held no camaraderie with them, assuming each time the alarms were shut off either the other Grineer had perished or had defeated the invading Tenno. Of course it would be Tenno, what other faction was allies with the Red Veil? Still, regardless of the outcome of the alarms that rang, they would not err from their duties. As one the trio circled the holding area, taking only brief moments to look around at corners and other stopping points. Should they spot a Tenno, they held the power to execute the prisoner within 60 seconds. Not even a Loki could hack through the door and get the hostage free fast enough. What if the Wardens should fall, however? What if it wasn't standard Tenno coming after this particular hostage? The Tenno would then have to face an onslaught of Grineer forces then; fighting tooth and nail to get to their precious extraction point.

 

Standing high above the holding area, Einherjar move slowly down into a crouch, his optics zoomed in at their highest settings to observe the Wardens and their positions. He had been given the chance to lead a cell for this mission and prove his worth not only to Aequitas, but to the Red Veil. It would mean twofold praise if he brought the entire squad to success, but this also brought on twofold pressure to succeed. In an effort to keep stealth, Ein had changed his energy colors to the newly acquired black setting. This black energy attunement had pleased many Tenno upon its recent discovery and spread of use. For many it was merely an aesthetic thing, but to Ein it worked in his favor. While his optic lights became invisible on his helmet, he could also use his powers to now conceal both himself and others or blind their foes: the Wardens in this case. Reaching two fingers up to his helmet Ein activated his comm link, speaking out to the rest of the squad. "Begin."

 

Earlier in the mission it had been decided that they would approach with stealth and avoid barreling through the ship like Infested hunting for prey. Other squads had done so with success, but only Ein was a good hacker in the group and he was necessary for distanced attacks this time. So the plan became thus: Sandalphon would distract a great deal of the Grineer forces, using his Galatine to cut a swath of death through the armored foes and draw their attention from the holding area. Searc and Nova-Quinn would remain at opposite entrances to the holding area until Ein gave the signal, dispatching any stray Grineer with absolute and delightful prejudice. Of course Searc's Helios had to interject with something about killing all barrels, to which Ein replied that if the sentinel did as asked he would allow the Helios to kill its very own Warden-Barrel, which made the psychopathic device obscenely happy and extremely quiet.

 

Back to the present, both Searc and Nova-Quinn snuck in through their respective entrances on either side of the prison area, the Wardens at these points facing away from their imminent and obvious doom. The first to act, to no surprise, was Nova-Quinn. Casting Null-Star she struck the Heavy-Gunner Warden with no fewer than ten shrapnel shards of antimatter, effectively erasing the existence of the Warden without giving the heavy unit any chance to make a sound. With that job done, Nova-Quinn forged a Worm Hole into the area with the terminal to be hacked in order to get to the cells. It was excruciating not to blow everything up like usual, but Nova-Quinn had been promised cherry-flavored snacks upon her return if she was good so she was doing her best to follow orders for now.

 

Searc was equally silent in her approach, though she had only brought her Penta with her today and with good reason. Having recalled how Grineer on Phobos reacted to a certain line in her soundboard inventory, she intended to scream it as loud as her vocalizer replacement could manage when the flood of Grineer actually came in. Still, she was precise, dragging the next Warden to her hidden location with Rip Line, her Helios tucked under her arm to stifle the mad giggling it was making for being so excited for killing a special 'Warden-Barrel'. When the Warden was close enough the tiger-colored Valkyr kicked away the Grineer's weapon, stomping on the armored chest of the momentarily stunned clone. "I hate you so much." It was a bland, almost neutral line from Searc's favorite voice selection, but perfect. Without any ceremony she held up her Helios in both hands and proceeded to slam the sentinel down on the Grineer's head like a bludgeon until it was nothing but a bloody pulp. Messy, but effective, and it momentarily dizzied the barrel-obsessed Helios to prevent it from giggling more. Now for the sentinel's reward.

 

Ein watched as the final Warden continued to circle, making its way around to the point where it would be able to see the corpse Searc had produced just as desired. From afar, it was like Einherjar was moving chess pieces on a board against an unseen foe, and at every turn had triumphed. This would be the final, humiliating checkmate. When the Warden finally took notice of the corpse on the floor it looked around frantically, speaking curses in Grineer. It was only when Searc and her Helios came out of hiding that the heavily-armored Warden lifted its hand to activate the execution sequence. Jumping down from his perch Ein commanded a single Saggita to fire at the panel on the Warden's armor that contained the activation device, destroying it while leaving the foolish Grineer mainly unharmed. As he landed, Ein was granted great satisfaction as his heavy impact mod sent the Warden flying, slamming up against a heavy metal crate.

 

Nova-Quinn came out of hiding, giggling light-heartedly as she looked down at the Warden. "Oooooh, you're gonna geeeet it mister barrel!" She continued to giggle, holding her sides to try and not bust out laughing.

 

Similarly, Ein came to stand over the Warden, appearing as a demon silhouetted by the bright ceiling lights. "I'm afraid we've promised our little friend your life, at least you're only a disposable clone, right?" Motioning as if he were looking at his nails to inspect their cleanliness, Einherjar would have been smirking had he the correct facial features to do so.

 

Searc was quiet, letting her Helios float right up into the Warden's face, though the Grineer was still quite dazed. "BARREL! So we meet at last, disguised barrel. You thought you could fool me but ha HA! NO! No, no, no, my friends have told me your true face! FACE THE WRATH OF YOUR SCRAPPER, BARREL!" The three Tenno had already moved away to begin freeing the hostage even as the Helios began to speak those words. Needless to say, the Warden suffered tremendously before...and after death.

 

It hardly took Einherjar 60 seconds to break through the main door blocking off the cells and the correct cell door, the coding behind Grineer cyber locks being incredibly weak compared to his own processing capabilities. He got an odd look from the Red Veil associate, but merely reassured the man that he was, indeed, among capable Tenno. What happened next, however, was not part of the plan.

 

"So...Ein..." Came the voice of a very familiar Excalibur Prime who was standing over the broken corpse of the Helios-beaten Warden. "...I kinda need backup." Chucking nervously Sandals rubbed the back of his helmet, jogging past his fellows on the way to extraction leaving them confused. The confusion was short-lived, however, as a swarm of Grineer came through the entryway Sandalphon had not moments ago. Even the Helios rolled its optic light at Sandalphon's lack of aptitude.

 

Now came the fun bit for Searc; behind her helmet was the most malicious grin she had made to date. Pulling out her specifically colored Penta she turned up her volume to its maximum for her battle cry. "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I'M THE MAN WHO'S GONNA BURN YOUR HOUSE DOWN! WITH THE LEMONS!" Had there been a proper evil laughter line in her inventory the Valkyr would have used it as she rained down oblong yellow grenades upon the reckless Grineer, exploding many of the distant ones though those closer to the Tenno were safe from her maniacal destruction...for a few seconds.

 

Nova-Quinn was bouncing on the balls of her feet as she looked at the crowd of Grineer, Searc, and they to Ein and back again. Once Einherjar nodded and waved his hand dismissively, taking the hostage toward extract, the red and black Nova let out a squee of delight, jumping past Searc and igniting the closest Grineer in a fabolous set of crimson explosions. "Ahahahahahaaaa! Let's play! Tag, you're it!" She was giggling like a little girl as she threw an Antimatter Drop toward a set of heavy gunners, slowing it to a crawl that forced other Grineer to move around it in order to get to her only to find themselves obliterated by a Helios screaming barrel-based obscenities at them. When Nova-Quinn finally let go, the explosion rocked the entire vessel drastically and the shockwave actually forced both her and Searc, not to mention Searc's Helios, to go skidding back toward the door on the other end of the room. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA CHERRIES YOU MUTHA****AS!" Flipping the remaining Grineer the bird with both hands Nova-Quinn started making her way to extract as well with her fellow female Tenno not far behind.

 

____________

Red Veil Operative Report

My rescue was successful and the prison ship was damaged severely, so we won't have to worry about hostages being taken there any time soon. There are still many other locations our kin are being held at, but I have little to worry about if all Tenno are as...capable...as the squad that came to my rescue. I doubt the Grineer Queens will make any move on us for some time if this continues to progress.

 

[separate Document Enclosed]

____________

 

Upon opening the separate document enclosed in the report given by his operative, the leader of the Red Veil Resistance was surprised to find profile-like images of three Tenno and one image with a question mark on it, likely from lack of data on the individual. Beneath each picture was a name and a comment.

 

[Red Nova Picture]
Given Name: Nova-Quinn

Comment; She likes that we wear cherry red. Please by the Lotus do not ever leave me in her hands alone. She's completely insane! You know the explosion on the prison ship? THAT WAS HER! SHE DID IT ALL BY HERSELF! For the love of all that is holy don't let me get assigned to help her on a mission!

 

[Yellowish Orange and Black Valkyr Picture]
Name: Searc (Shark?)

Comment: Vocal chords ripped out, has a vocalizer with a particular set of voice recordings on it. Possibly mentally unstable, but very efficient in her killing methods. She seems to possess a Sentinel obsessed with cylinders that could come under the descriptor 'barrel' and said Sentinel was eager to destroy every storage cylinder on the path to extraction.

 

[Green Striped Excalibur Prime Picture]
Name: Sandalphon

 

Comment: I heard him being called Sandals a lot and getting reprimanded by the group leader for not killing more Grineer infantry before running for extraction. Amiable, but somewhat inept with firearms if commentary holds true. Notable for wielding a Galatine with one hand at all times. Personally I think he's a bit of an idiot, but he's better than the Nova.

 

[black box with white question mark inside]
Name: Einherjar

Comment: Explained himself to be using a prototype Warframe, which I both believe and do not believe. Along the way he caused a group of Grineer to suddenly become blinded and disoriented with the snap of a finger. Possesses eight drones with high-accuracy long-ranged attacking capability. Extremely capable compared to his squad-mates and the obvious tactician behind my escape. I would recommend looking out for him in the future.

 

Raising an eyebrow the leader set the attached file aside in a folder marked 'Notable Tenno' before leaving his personal terminal. Two wild cards, an idiot, and one capable Tenno. Eh, one out of four wasn't so bad.

[EddyPM]

The darkness recedes… The cold is drawn out of the extremities of the arms and legs… Slowly, the vision begins to clear. From allmighty blackness to… all consuming white. The head hurts, the limbs ache, and the back… It feels brken by the cryosleep. How long ahs it been? 100? 200? 1000 years? It seems like more… Or maybe less…

 

Suddenly, a voice. Not loud and aggressive, as Sable (Sable… Was that his name?...) thought it would be, but at the beggining, deafened and quiet. As if the other person on the other end of the noise was gently beckoning him from the sleep he had been submerged into…

 

The voice kept with it’s whispered buzzing for a bit more, stirring him awake, until it began to get louder and more… alive. He began to distinguish the words…

 

“Who are you?”, uttered by a voice that was decidedly feminine, yet had such gravity and imposition within itself that it made Sable instatnly realize that she was in comman of something.

 

Who are you? Who was he? Well, that answer was easy enough.

 

“I am Tenno…” he responded, with his slowly awakening brain.

 

A hiss. A brush of air against him. His eyes opened… and revealed naught but green. Sluggishly, Sable rose from his icy coffin, his hands reaching his face. Gravity beckoned him, and with a swift motion and a loud thud, he was lying face first on the ground.

 

Soft… Soft and wet. Slowly rising from the ground, which he identified as having an eartly smell, he saw that he had fallen in a clearing. Blades of grass shot up from the gorund, pointing at him like inquisitive fingers. He touched his face… Only to have his fingers blocked by a smooth plating. Looking at his hands, he saw that he had the same white, smooth plating through his body. There were green lines as well across the suit… His Warframe…

 

Ah, all was coing back to him now. But why was it with the wrong colors? He didn’t like white in his Warframe…

 

Sable looked up, the familiar displays of energy and shields displayed on the corner of his vision. He felt various pinpricks along the skin as the suit interfaced with his nervous system, slightly more uncomfortable than what he remembered. Once that protocol was finished, the small red bar appeared near the blue bar representing his shields.

 

“All systems optimal.” the voice said. “Welcome back, Tenno.” she said. Sable smiled under his helmet. Back on the frontlines again, it seemed…

 

Looking up, Sable realized the planet where he was. Only Earth had that much floral wildlife. Cracking his neck, Sable thought that maybe his weapons were up in his previous casket. He looked up at the cryopod, wedged on a tree. He could see the a faint glimer of black amongst the whiteness of his previous bed. He allowed himself a small smirk underneath his helmet.

 

Finding a path to the casket again was the easy part. Getting there, with his still slightly numbed body, was another thing entirely. He put one knee under his body, wobling his way to his standing position. He put one foot in front of the other, fumbling a bit. Suddenly, he felt like a children taking his first steps again.

 

Once he had the movement in a horizontal plane part of the job straight, he looked at the branch he had chosen to begin his climb. Jumping up, he grabbed the branch, pushing his legs to propel himself to a piece of the trunk that would serve as a good platform. Landing, he attuned his weight again, finidng his balance.

 

Looking up, he decided that his balance was good enough to continue. As he jumped forwards from branch to branch, he made sure to remind himself of what to do. First thing he had to find: more Tenno. Next... Well...

 

"Let's leave the tomorrow to the tomorrow." he told himself, as he climbed near his cryopod. Looking inside, he sighed.

 

"There we go..." He said, reaching into the cold coffin and grabbing his sheathed katana.

 

Unsheathing a few centimetres of the cold, hard steel, Sable couldn't help but smile. Sheathing the Nikana again, he strapped it to his waist. Reaching inside, he got the rest of his weapons: one Attica Crosssbow, and a set of Akstilettos.

 

Jumping from the tree, this time falling nicely on his feet, Sable thought it was the time to fix himself a way to get out ofthis planet. He needed to go… somewhere.

 

Walking through the dense forests of Earth, the Oberon dissapeared amidst the foliage...

 

Edited May 6, 2014 by EddyPM

[KittyShark]

i love that helios.... and Searc... and Nova quinn and Ein xD

[Entari0]

The female is Saichra, a Mag who recently had some medical issues that needed to be remedied. Entari is an Ash

 

It was quiet. The Shade on Saichra’s head hummed quietly, barely perceptible in the ominous silence. Her Galatine shined on her back as she raced to the reactor with a corrupted cylinder in one hand, and a Vasto in the other.

“Wake up!” she hissed at her Shade, which promptly began to float over her left shoulder, and quickly cloaked her form. Not ten seconds later, a platoon of corpus rounded the corner, looking right at where she stood, cloaked. “Don’t stand so close to each other,” she smirked as she started focusing her energy to crush their bones into dust. Her vision blurred for a moment, just as the crewmen and MOAs in front of her floated into the air and, with a gut wrenching scream, they were compressed into spheres of flesh and metal. Then there was silence once more.

“Keep moving, no detection from enemy sensors.” No emotion was visible beneath the Mag’s clouded mask, but there was a barely perceptible sigh of relief. Her shields were weak from the ice, and the last thing she needed was the ship to be on high alert.

She checked her displays inside her helmet. There were two more platoons of crewmen between the reactor and her, and both had technicians. She grimaced. The tech’s Supras would tear through her shields like nothing else, and their rigid Kevlar armor would make crushing them ineffective. If only there was a Volt here. Then she saw the map, and a devilish grin curled her lips.

The platoon was directly in front of her, but her Shade was hiding her from view. The corrupted cylinder was placed on the ground with barely a sound, and she slowly unhooked the Strun Wraith from her back. She moved to the threshold of the room, and shot a single shell at the window. It shattered, and the blast door closed just as she saw the whole platoon pulled with the air into the harsh vacuum outside. Twenty seconds. The door opened, and her heart stopped. There, at the door, was a tech, Supra trained squarely at her. Silence. Time seemed to slow to a snail’s pace, as the supra whirred to life, and plasma began to spray from the muzzle. The hall rang with the sound of gunfire, Saichra’sStrun Wraith tearing into the tech’s body, but to seemingly no avail. Then her gun clicked, and there was silence. Thump. A body hit the floor. Seemingly in a state of shock, the tech was lying on the floor, his helmet barely covering a now blood covered face. His eyes grew wide as Saichra took the heavy sword off of her back, and lifted it above her head. The last he saw was the bloodied Mag bring the sword down toward his neck. She hefted the cylinder, and continued to the reactor.

In another five minutes, she was off the ship and heading home.

 

The dojo was quiet, abnormally so. Her Shade once again perched atop her head,Saichra began to wander the halls until she found the common room. It was empty. Unnerved, she slowly took her Vasto from its holster, and engaged her Warframe’s systems, modified to show all energy signatures, friend and foe alike. The map showed signatures all around her, but they were invisible.

The lights went out, and her Warframe systems cut out. “You can't run from your past.”

“Oh you MUST be kidding me”

The dojo somehow got darker.  “The murder of Saur will not go unpunished.”

“I didn’t kill him!” she hissed

“You shall not leave this place!” the lights came back on and a tall black and red figure shrouded in smoke stood before her.

“We’ll see about that,” she smirked.

Saichra reactivated her systems and attempted to polarize the shields of all shielded units in the area, weakening her enemies, strengthening her allies. At the same time, her Shade cloaked her.

“Your Tenno powers are useless.” The apparition’s shields were untouched, and the Shade’s cloaking field fell with her Shade to the floor.

She stared at the smoking lump of metal and plastics on the floor next to her. “Your first mistake was showing up here. Your second was breaking my hat, and your third was thinking I would let you live long enough to make a fourth!” Saichra dropped her Vasto, yanked the Galatine off of her back, and without thinking charged her opponent. He charged right back, and she grabbed his scythe out of his hands. Spinning it around, she brought it crashing down on his arm, and grinned manically as she watched the blood stain the floor around her and her enemy. “Not so fun when you are on the receiving end, is it?” she asked mockingly.

“I… Have failed… Saichra remains… Unpunished…” in a cloud of smoke, the apparition disappeared, the only remnant of the encounter the bloody scythe in her hands. Inscribed on the shaft was a single word: Hate.

 

 

----Unpublished----

 

The adrenaline had worn off a while ago. Saichra had explored the whole dojo, only to find that no one was there; it was abandoned. Her Shade had whirred back to life, but it would require the skills of a foundry master to repair fully, skills she did not possess. She retreated to her room, fell onto her bed, and slept.

She woke with a start. Somewhere, nearby, something was very wrong. She grabbed her weapons, and ran from her room, her Shade smoking slightly over her shoulder. She ran through the dojo, but could find nothing.

“What is going on?”

As she neared the view port in the great hall, she looked out, over Mars, floating in the inky blackness far below. A wave of grief hit her, almost knocking her over. She had to get down there NOW.

Her ship could not go fast enough. She knew she was too late when she landed, but she had to find out what it was. Another wave of grief. She lost control of herself, and expended all her energy, crushing the life out of the MOA’s, sawmen, lancers, crewmen, everything that she fought against. There was only death around her, as she began to swing her Galatine wildly. For every one that stood, her sword swung once, the ringing blade bringing damnation and death to any enemies of Tenno near her. She could feel the grief, and cut toward it, the same as she felt when Saur died. She broke the ring of enemies, and her blade fell from her hands. She saw what had happened: on the ground lay a Frost. Ajkrumen had fallen.  

 

 

The loss of Ajkrumen hit Saichra like a ton of bricks. She remembered when she had first met Saur, and how he told her it was for him.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The battle raged outside, yet within his cryopod was only silence. Wave upon wave of corrupted grineer, corpus, and infested ancients swarmed the raised platform that the cryopod and four Tenno occupied.

 

His eyes snapped open. Outside the pod stood a dark grey and teal Mag, levitating and crushing the life out of a veritable army of the attackers. No sound came through the walls of the cryopod, but from the way she almost collapsed, he knew she was exhausted from her attack.

He saw the button to release the lid of the pod and hit it, getting a shocked look from his defenders. Standing, he took the Galatine from the casket from which he rose, and asked how he could help.

 

The Mag muttered into her helmet, something about needing extraction, and unforeseen circumstances. Almost instantly, five ships, each with a humanoid shape hollowed out of the bottom, flew overhead and hovered several meters away. “MOVE!!” she yelled.

 

Acting on impulse, the black and blue Excalibur climbed onto the fighter and piloted it after the other four.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Who are you, and what was going on just now?”

 

“Me?” the Mag asked. “My name is Saichra, and I think you should know what was going on. We were protecting your helpless a**.”

 

“Much appreciated, but I could have defended myself once I got up. My name is Saur, by the way. Thanks for asking.”

 

“I didn’t ask, but thank you for sharing,” she retorted.

 

“As I recall, when I activated my cryopod, there was something called respect. Did that die with the Orokin?” he thought he could see the girl blush under her swirling mask.

 

Then she punched him. Hard. Her Kogake almost cracked his helmet, and he fell backward, spluttering. “WHAT THE HELL?!?”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Smiling sadly, she continued to wander the halls of the clan called Aequitas.

 

 

Gold and ivory.

She had been exploring the Orokintowerfor several hours now, searching for parts to improve her warframe. Periodically, she would find a room guarded by turrets or laser plates, but no corrupted, a rare sight in the void. The sound of a whirring gorgon roused her from her musings.

Saichra cursed under her breath. Behind her stood the single largest army of corrupted grineer and corpus she had ever seen.  Well more than one hundred soldiers, all with their guns trained on her. All shielded by the corrupted equivalent of shield ospreys from above, and a phalanx of corrupted shield lancers in front.

She fired her Vasto six times, each time a small explosion and burning shrapnel rained on the assembled corrupted. They simply stood there. Getting frustrated, she began to gather her energy, and focused her power, into a mighty magnetic wave. Limbs were magnetized unevenly, and flew from the bodies to which they were once attached. Nothing survived, save the shields themselves. Strolling over to them, she magnetized one to her back.

As she prepared to continue, something on her HUD caught her eye. Several pieces of forma lay on the floor. Gathering them, she found four, an Orokin cell, and a blueprint for a prime warframe.

“Lotus, I’m ready for extraction.”

 

 

The bodies of Grineer lay around him, killed by blade and gun alike. He felt what seemed to be a pang of remorse. It was gone an instant alter, before he even recognized its presence. Preoccupied with his ruminations, he failed to realize the Scorpion that was stalking him. Suddenly, he felt a sharp impact on his back, and was being dragged toward the female clone, and the squad of Grineer surrounding her.

Enraged, he began teleporting to his enemies at random, letting his rage guide him, and stabbing them with the blades extending from his wrists when he arrived. He only stopped when they stopped their shouts of alarm. By then, there was another pile of bodies, the only recognizable one being the Scorpion who made the mistake of pulling him over.

As the carrier above him began to collect the ammunition that now lay strewn about, Entari began to reload his Soma, preparing to mow down anything that got in his way. Placing the Soma in its mag sheath, he took several Kunai from the holsters on his thighs, ready to hurl them at any Grineer that crossed his path.

 

 

FLASH BACK TIME!

 

It had been several weeks since Saur had awoken form his cryosleep. He and Saichra had steadily been growing closer together, working together frequently to complete missions. More often than not, they were charged with the assassination of high value targets, working as a single unit in two parts once they arrived.

In training as well, they were inseparable. Saichra teaching Saur to use smaller weapons, like the Ether Daggers, and he taught her to use heavy weapons, including his own Galatine.

“Pick up the sword and swing it at me!”

“I can’t, it’s too damn heavy!!”

“You’re a Mag! The sword is metal! FIGURE IT OUT!”

The normally grey blade began to glow a pale blue, and she hefted the blade, having to hold it in both hands to keep the tip off the ground, even with her magnetic abilities helping. “Excellent! Now then, defend yourself!” charging at the Mag, he unsheathed his Scindo, bringing it in a sweep, toward her torso. Blocking with a polarized field, she hefted the blade in her hands and swung toward his head, magnetizing the air around it to accelerate her swing.Despite being swung toward her side moments ago, the Scindo appeared directly in her swords path, blocking it form its intended target. The block was so sudden that she lost her grip and concentration, letting the heavy sword fly from her. Before the sword landed, she was on the ground, the axe at her neck.

“Dead.”

Moving the axe from her throat, he offered his hand. “Thanks, I think,” she said as she took it to get back up.

“To be honest, I’ve seen worse. I’ve seen better, but you aren’t the worst,” the Excalibur said as he retrieved the Galatine. “Now, let’s do that again, but only use your abilities to be able to hold the sword. Don’t use them to block.”

Grumbling, the Mag readied herself again.

 

Just remembering training with Saur made her whole body ache as she walked back to her room in the station. When she got to the door, though, she continued right past it, unconsciously going to the training room. It was always crowded, but she just wanted to fight something.

As soon as she got there, she saw an Ash. His warframe was black and white, with the lotus emblem emblazoned on his chest. On his back there was a Soma, colored similarly, and a pair of crystalline Ether Swords. On his thighs were twin holsters of Kunai.

“Hello, are you new here?” he asked her

“Me? Yes actually, the clan I was in seems to have been disbanded, and I had nowhere to go, save here,” she realized as she said it that she could have likely joined Aequitas, but something had stopped her. “What is your name?”

“I'm Entari, and you?”

“Saichra. Actually, would you like to spar with me? I feel like I'm a bit rusty.”

“Sure! Follow me.”

Finding an area to spar proved to be far more difficult than she had expected, but after fifteen minutes of searching, they found a pair of initiates that had just finished sparring.

“Ready?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“Very well then. Defend yourself!”

He charged at her, his Ether Swords drawn. “You want to come to me? Let me help!”  Focusing her energy, she pulled him to her.  He attempted to backpedal, but too late. Once in range, she unsheathed her Galatine and threw him across the dueling floor with the flat of the blade.

Jumping back to his feet, he deployed a smoke bomb, rendering him invisible to the untrained eye.

“Over here!” he said from behind her as the smoke cleared. Swinging the longer of the two Ether Swords in a wide arc right at her head. Dodging the swing, she brought the Galatine to bear against her opponent, knocking his legs out from under him, causing him to land face down. Once he rolled over, he saw the point of a Galatine at his throat.

“Dead.”

 

 

“Where did you learn to fight like that? No offence, but I didn’t expect that Galatine to be going anywhere but the ground when you started swinging it.”

“An old friend taught me to use my powers to make it lighter to swing… He’s gone now, though.” She responded with a sigh.

“Ah…” he responded half dejectedly. “Hey, want to come with me on a mission? I need to kill something after getting beaten so badly.”

“Sure, why not?” the Mag replied, slightly taken aback by his forwardness.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Heads up, Grineer platoon dead ahead.”

“Duly noted.”Saichra activated her shade, and, deploying a cloaking field, ran towards the humanoid soldiers.

“Oh S**t!” he realized, too late to warn her, that among the squad of fifteen Grineer, were two Napalms and at least one Heavy Gunner. Doing the only thing he could to stop them shredding Saichra, he shot the nearest barrel of volatile liquid, causing a violent, and loud explosion.

They all looked directly at him, and within a second, began to fire their Grakatas and Hinds. He heard the telltale sound of a Gorgon winding up, and dove behind a nearby storage crate, knowing that it would stop the barrage of bullets that were flying at him for a little while, hopefully long enough for Saichra to gun down the heavies.

Three shots rang out over the cacophony of the Grineer’s, and Entari knew that the heavy Grineer had fallen to Saichra’s heavily modified Strun Wraith. The noise grew louder with the siren that alerted the whole asteroid base to their presence, and reinforcements joined the already formidable platoon of Grineer.

The odds were severely against them, and Entari’sWarframe was very low on power; too low to even summon a pair of shuriken. Suddenly the shooting stopped. Peeking around the corner of the crate, he saw all of the Grineer that were in the room, at least fifty, floating, surrounded by the same teal glow that emanated from Saichra’s mask.

“I’m over extending myself,” she thought as she brought her hands together to crush the life from the Grineer floating around her, and, as they died, she collapsed with a thin grin on her face.

“Lotus! We need immediate extraction. The other member of my squad just collapsed. We need to get out NOW.”

“Sending a snub to you now. I have marked the extraction point on the map.”

“God you’re light!” he thought as he lifted the unconscious girl onto his shoulders, and began to make his way to the extraction point.

“What do you mean you can’t handle this kind of injury here?!?!” the Ash roared at the Vauban.

“Exactly what I said. The medical bay here at the station is not capable of handling injuries of this type. What did you say your name was, by the way?”

“I'm Entari, and you are?”

“Kris, and I can refer you to a clan where you can get some help. I'm sorry, but we can’t help you here.”

“Fine, where can we go to get her helped?”He was calmer, but his voice was still dripping with venom.

Saichragroaned. “Gah, what happened? The last thing I remember happening was crushing a bunch of Grineer. Did I miss something?”

“Apparently your frame shut down after that, and you went unconscious,” answered Entari. “I called for immediate extraction, carried you to the snub, and that basically brings us here.”

“I would suggest you go to the Aequitas dojo, and get that frame checked out. If you don’t, and that happens when you are running solo,” Kris let the sentence trail off.

“Alright. Then that is where we will go.”

“Wait, WE? You aren’t the one with the faulty frame,” responded the Mag. I am perfectly capable of getting myself to their dojo. I’ve been there before, so I really not worried.”

“Do you not want me to try to help?” Entari asked, sounding hurt.

“Listen, you have done way more that you needed to. Most other cells would have just called in and left me for an extraction team. You have a great heart, but I'm going to be fine on my own.” As she began to walk back to the docking bay, she suddenly swayed, and collapsed. “Ok, on second thought, you can come with me,” she said smiling.

 

 

“We will be leaving in 10 minutes, so you know.”

“Good to know. Tell me; why are you so insistent on coming with me? I get that you want to be helpful, and I very much appreciate it, but beyond the fact that I can barely walk at the moment, it is really unneeded,” the grey and blue Mag replied.

“I don’t really know. I guess I just need a friend, and the Station is not the best place for that. I assume that you are planning on staying there?” The Mag was packing her things, and filling out a large form as she did so.

“Yes, I am. If I keel over again, I want to be able to get medical attention immediately, rather than having to navigate to their dojo again. I need to be able to get help in a hurry if I need it, and they can give me help if I need it,” Saichra responded. “I pity whoever has to file this. There is a lot of paperwork here,” she muttered.

The last thing she grabbed was a blue and grey shade sentinel, and, after putting it on her head, grabbed her bags. Smiling, the Ash asked “ready to go?”

“Yep, I think so.” On their way out, they passed the Vauban that had told them that they should go to the Aequitas dojo. “Here, this needs to be filed. I’m withdrawing from The Station. The Vauban took the paperwork with a grumble, and pointed them to the Snub docking bay.

“Walk down this hallway for about five minutes, and turn left.  Your snub will be near the air lock.”

“Thank you again, you have been very helpful,” Entari told him.

“I try. Now get going, you don’t want to miss your opening in the line.”

When they arrived at the snubs, Saichra saw a small pile of bags on the floor near the Snub. “let me guess; you’re staying too?”

“I am indeed. You are going to have to deal with it, as I am not going to be convinced to stay behind.”

“Fine. Let’s go then.”

OPERATION BURY KRIS IN PAPER WORK IS GOING!
I REPEAT:OPERATION BURY KRIS IN PAPER WORK IS GOING!

 

 

The flight from The Station to Aequitas was an uneventful one. Saichra and Entari mostly kept to their own thoughts, and the only noise in the quiet was the hum of the engines.

“Do you remember anything?”

“From what? Before Cryosleep?” was her response.

“Yeah. I was just wondering.”

“Not really. I can barely remember anything from the first few weeks after I woke up. You?”

“The only thing I remember is a monument. There was a death camp I visited, as a little girl. At the end of our visit, there was a massive monument, full of ash. They said that the ash was the cremated bodies of the people who died there,” She shuddered.

“Identify yourselves!” A voice came on the Com line.

“Our names are Entari and Saichra. We are coming from The Station, for medical aid. Saichra fainted in the middle of a mission, and The Station was unable to provide assistance. May we land?”

“You may land. Stand by; I’m opening the docking bay doors.”

“Thank you, standing by.”

It took another fifteen minutes for the Docking bay to open enough to let in the Snub, and several minutes more to pilot the craft into the Dojo. Upon entering the Flight Deck, they both noticed one thing; it was practically empty.

 

 

It had been several weeks since her arrival at her new home. Having been immediately moved to the medical bay, she had little time to learn the layout of the dojo, so, upon her temporary release from the hospital, she set about exploring her surroundings. It did not take here long to find most of the major locations, yet she almost always found herself drawn to the Memorial Hall. There were often other Tenno standing or kneeling in the hall, but almost never any chatter. It was as if a Banshee had casted silence over the area, and it had never ended.

 

As she wandered the halls near the Memorial Hall, a voice asked from behind her, “Are you feeling better?”

 

Startled, she turned around to see Entari with his helmet down and grinning like a fool. “Would it kill you to stop doing that? You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

 

“Oh come on, I’m bored, and you must be bored from not doing any missions or even training for the last few weeks. I'm just trying to cheer you up and give you something to do.”

 

His impish smile was interrupted by a fist flying past his face, missing by inches.

 

“Ach!! What was that for?”

 

“Damn near giving me a heart attack. I’ve explained this already,” she responded with a smile on her face. “The treatment is going well, by the way, and thanks for asking.” She added sarcastically. “They think that I have been over exerting myself, and carrying weapons that I shouldn’t be using, namely my Galatine. I think I will get whole new set of weapons, and just start fresh for my new home. How are you settling in?”

 

“I’ve been doing well, settling in nicely. The Tenno here are quite easy to get along with, as a general rule any way. Anyway, I'm going to go get food. Care to join me?”

 

“No, I should probably head back to the medical bay.  But first, I'm going to get some new weapons.”

[DraikoHunter]

Enjoy! (it's been way too long.)

Reunion

 

Aktos grabbed his Orokin Derelict key and stared at it.

 

“I haven’t used one of you since the Nekros Warframe was rediscovered. Well, let’s see if you can’t assist me once again.”

 

He pressed his thumb onto the center of the key and it pulsed with light. He took it and placed it in a tube next to his nav screen, and shot it out into space. After a few seconds a portal materialized in it’s place. Aktos steered his snub into it and was soon looking at pale, overgrown vessel, with infested biomass covering most of the ship. Aktos sighed.

 

“A relic from our past, tainted by the Infestation that we have harnessed. If only it could be permanently cleansed from this universe.”

 

He continued to steer his snub around the vessel, looking for the source of the distress signal. He eventually found another snub hovering next to a hole that was surrounded by plants. The plants looked withered, with green slime dripping from them.

 

“Seems like it’s a Saryn I’ll be saving. Better hurry”

 

He grabbed his Supra, his Glaive, and Magnus he had built. He then re modified them to take down the Infested horde. He then steered the snub to the hole and ejected from the snub and into the hole, once he was inside the ship, he dropped like a stone and landed flat on his face, very unprofessional for a Tenno like him.

 

“Ow…….damnit. I think i’ll just lay here for a while in shame”

 

“HELP!”

 

Aktos jumped to his feet, Supra at the ready, the barrel spinning

 

“I’m coming! Hold on a little longer!”

 

He holstered his Supra and pulled out his Glaive and began to channel energy into it, making it glow and hum with power. He then took off running, following the frequent screams for help.

 

“Hold on sister, I’m coming”

 

He turned a corner and saw a group of Infested Chargers and Leapers running toward him.”OUT OF THE WAY!”. He threw the bladed disk and when it returned to his hand, he began a dance of death. The heat augmented blades connected with rotting flesh, warping the already twisted forms of the Infested. Whatever the heat didn’t kill, the serrated blades finished off with clean precision, and whatever survived slowly bled to death. Once the horde was finished, he kept running, not even out of breath. The piercing scream rang through the air again.

 

“HELP!”

 

He put on a quick burst of speed. moving nearly as fast as a Loki modified for speed, turned a corner and saw something that no one would ever want to see. A huge horde of Infested were surrounding a figure on the floor, shots from a firearm rang out from the center. Then he heard the scream again.

 

“HELP!!!”

 

Aktos snapped out of his stupor and threw his Glaive. The bladed disk severed many of the beasts from their torso’s and as it returned to his hand, he unsheathed his wrist blades and sprang into the air. His body started to smoke and he disappeared from sight, and then bodies started falling.

 

 

 

Eeva couldn’t see anything.

 

She couldn’t see past the Infested crowd in front of her, ready to assimilate her body into their ranks. She loaded her last clip into her Magnus and fired off a few more shots, the rounds pierced Infested flesh and bone, killing some and wounding others. Soon, her Magnus clicked empty.

 

I’m spent, and I’m too weak to fire my Gorgon, I guess I’m out of l- the hell?

 

The Ancient closest to the wounded Saryn suddenly burst into flames as a burning Glaive sprouted from it’s chest.The Infested backed up, unsure of what had caused the disturbance. Then they found themselves being consumed by flames, and with limbs missing, some were decapitated all together. The Glaive then vanished from sight, and then two blades erupted from a Leaper, severing it’s head from it’s body, then a Charger was felled by multiple stabs to where it’s head would be. Eeva watched in awe as the Infested around her fell, she could only catch glimpses of the Ash that methodically cut the Infested down. She then got a full look at him as he finished his Bladestorm. He rushed to her side.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“Yes….I am fine…..but i need medical attention.”

 

“I’m not a professional, but i have some healing supplies on my snub, can I carry you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Aktos picked her up and ran back the way he came.

 

 

 

Aktos breathed a sigh of relief, so did his patient. When they had gotten back to the snubs, he teleported to the top of the hole and saw Infested biomass covering her snub, it almost reached his, but he took out his Magnus and fired a few rounds into the mass. It slowed it down enough for him to get inside his snub and fly back to the solar system. He then took his patient to a bed and laid her there while he got a First Aid Kit.

 

“Now, I’m not a professional but i’ll try my best to patch you up. I never did catch your name by the way.”

 

“My name? Oh! It’s Eeva.”

 

“Nice to meet you Eeva, you can take off your Warframe, I can’t help you if I can’t see the wounds.”

 

Eeva proceeded to take off her Warframe, retracting the suit into a section along her spine. Upon seeing her, Aktos almost dropped the Kit. Behind his helmet, his jaw dropped.

 

“Is something wrong?”

 

“N-no. Nothing’s wrong. Just a spasm is all.”

 

“Oooookay.”

 

Aktos, proceeded to wrap her leg in bandages. All the while he was very distracted.

 

“She can’t be…..but she looks like her, just much older. I-

 

“Ummm, if you don’t mind me asking…..could you take off your helmet?”

 

“Huh?”

 

“I’ve uhhh…. been searching for someone/ A brother, i saw an image of him during one of my meditation sessions. I had been screwing around in the Derelicts just to let off steam.”

 

“It’s fine, I don’t mind.”

 

Aktos took off his helmet, revealing his face to her. This time it was Eeva’s turn to be shocked.

 

“It’s you! This is….what are the odds?”

 

“Odds of what? Am I who you were searching for?”

 

“Yes! There’s no mistaking it. You’re my brother.”

 

“Well, I had been searching for someone too, my sister. And if I’m your brother, then you’re my sister. Now come, I can take you back to my dojo, you can get real medical attention there.”

 

Aktos steered his snub in the direction of the Aequitas dojo. In a better mood than he ever had been in a long time.

[bejuizb]

A small A/N before you read: I have a few personal issues in my life at the moment, so the quality of my work is going to seem quite bad, just an advanced warning. I'm also desperately trying to reignite my inspiration to complete the Silver Fang series, as well as the last segment of the bar chapter with Aiden, Arina and Lily. I'm just gonna ask everyone to give me some time to finish all of those chapters on my own pace, I'll add them to the OPs of the respective posts with notes mentioning the continuity of the stories in the thread.

 

Sorry if I'm screwing up timelines and such, its not my intention. I decided to kick off the Siege of Ceres collab. I have added the names of all the members interested, and crafted this chapter to give you all a chance to review the mission and make your characters drop out of it. No harm done if you do decide to leave. Craven and I had a lot of back and forth talks and we came to the conclusion that Galen will not be a part of the collab. 

 

So without further ado, here you go...

 

Beginning the Siege

 

The giant of a man cleared his throat, and began to speak.

 

“Thank you all for coming here.”

 

Dark blue eyes observed the small crowd of Tenno. He recognized most of their faces, both from his mission to rescue the girl called Sophia and his own research into the clan's elite Tenno.

 

There was Heus, a vicious warrior, new to his Rhino, but deadly nonetheless.

 

There was Nyght, death defying dancer of the blade.

 

There was Acantha, a deadly archer, and a person he owed his life to.

 

There was Peregrine, a newfound friend, a free spirit.

 

There was Kris, a trusted comrade. Water was his domain.

 

There was Qarin, a quirky little construct, but good in heart.

 

There was Aigloblam, watchful guardian of all in the dojo.

 

There was Zel, graceful mistress of plasma.

 

There was Morlan, a vicious fighter whom he respected greatly.

 

There was Ghost, backbone of the team, manipulator of minds.

 

There was Idhren, apprentice to Ghost but just as deadly.

 

There was Sable, calm and collected, a new warrior amidst their ranks.

 

There was Aero, cheerful and armed to the teeth.

 

There was Tristan, master of the shadows, rarely visible to his foes.

 

There was Arina, tireless guardian, of both body and mind.

 

There was Lily, last of his family, queen of the Glaive.

 

And then there's me. Aiden. Able bodied, but broken internally.

 

He chided himself mentally. Weakness is NOT tolerated.

 

“I made the call to make a proposition with you all. Be forewarned that you are not obligated to join me on this mission.” He decided to be frank and blunt with them.

 

“Although, I won't lie. Help would be welcome.”

 

He cleared his throat yet again.

 

“Yesterday, I was contacted by a member of the Red Veil Resistance. If you do not know, it is a human resistance effort that is opposing both the Grineer and Corpus, just like us.”

 

“Ballsy,” said Heus.

 

Aiden nodded. “Very. It was recently brought to my attention that the Grineer have captured several humans and are using them as slaves to build their Fomorian class ships.”

 

“How long?” asked Kris.

 

“Four months. The Veil has been making rescue attempts themselves, but their efforts have been in vain. They abandoned physical attempts since they lost many people while trying.”

 

“Where exactly are they being held?” asked Acantha.

 

“Ceres. As we all know, that's one of the sectors of the system with the strongest concentration of Grineer forces, with their Fomorian assembly lines and the like.”

 

“What's the plan?” asked Kris.

 

Aiden was taken aback when Lily spoke. “Kick those #@*&amp;&#036;@s's asses.”

 

There was a small ripple of chuckles from the crowd at Lily's exuberance.

 

“Pretty much,” he continued. “As my sister eloquently put it, my plan is to disable Grineer operations completely in at least one sector of Ceres. The asteroid is quite small, so any major blows we deal to a small sector, should ripple out to other sectors as well.” Through the corner of his eyes, Aiden could see Lily beaming at him telling everyone that she was his sister. “Mind if I continue, big guy?” she asked him.

 

At his nod of approval, Lily cleared her throat. “We plan to sabotage the reactors for the big, scary spiked potatoes the Grineer are making. I don't remember the name off the top of my head. Whatever, who gives a damn! To do that we need to get in silently, set up a base of operations, and then case the joint.”

 

She paused, deep in thought. “Oh, I remember! Yeah, we need to disable Grineer anti air batteries across the base, or they will shoot all the ships down and our whole plan will go to sh!t. So anti air batteries: big no no. Then me, and the big guy, mostly me,” she added, “will be heading out to um...reduce the Grineer numbers by means of explosions and giant swords. Just like badasses should.”

 

As she spoke, the room visibly relaxed as the generally battle hardened soldiers were amused at her excited expositions.

 

“Let's see. We'll need a team to go rescue the humans, and you might want to carry more guns with you . Hell, we'll be lucky if we had a few more gun barrels spitting lead at the cloned f**ks! So while we're kicking their asses, a team will need to get them out of the hunk of rock. If they encounter any aerial resistance, remember. WE HAVE BIG &amp;#&#33; GUNS!” the last sentence was nearly a full fledged shout.

 

“If that's all we need to do, why are there so many of us here?” asked Heus.

 

“I don't plan to stop the operation there,” said Aiden. “Ceres is a small asteroid, with many interconnected bases and assembly plants. I plan to sabotage the reactors to their Fomorian class ships and possibly borrow a few for our people to research.”

 

“By, borrow, you mean-”

 

“Steal,” said Lily.

 

“Understood.”

 

“That's the general gist of it. I can only plan more once we actually set foot on the assembly plant. I won't lie, this is going to be a tough fight, so I understand if anyone wants to back out now. I won't bear any ill towards you.”

 

He paused for a good two minutes, but no one left. “I wasn't expecting many to stay, but I'm grateful.”

 

“Let's all assemble tomorrow at the docking bay,” said Lily with an air of finality. “Suit up, mod your frames to dish out and take in f**ktons of damage, and most importantly...”

 

“What?” asked Heus, impatient from her sudden pause.

 

“Get laid, get wasted, do whatever it takes to relax,” she said with a wicked grin, looking pointedly at Tristan. The Loki simply stared blankly at her.

 

Is she being serious?

 

“The fight's going to be long, and so grab whatever R&R you can by tomorrow. Anyone acting up during the mission will get a foot right up the &amp;#&#33;!”

 

Aiden sighed. “I guess that's about it. If you have questions, just stick around and I'll try answering you.”

 

[Sayfog]

Note this is just to get Aero to the meeting and maybe some more stuff thrown in.

When Aero awoke from her coma she found herself in a white rectangular box with several Spectres milling around talking. She overheard one snippet of the conversation between to Spectres this was what she heard "She is not the one she uses the Zephyr frame normally. Omicron usually uses the Nova frame". After hearing that snippet of conversation she started to wonder. Who was this "Omicron" and why is it so important. She blacked out then and woke back up in the Med-bay fully healed and rested. Once she got back to her room and reclaimed her Zephyr she saw that a siege operation on ceres was happening so she sent a message to "Aiden" saying that she was coming. When she got to the briefing room she found that some other more high profile Tenno were there. So she stepped in line looked cheery and patiently waited.

Edited May 13, 2014 by Sayfog

[NyghttheClassy]

Quick bit to fill in time gap between my last piece for Nyght and his involvement in the 'Siege'.

Nyght sat quietly at a bench to the side of the room, leaning against the wall whilst he tended his relic of a blade with polish. His thoughts began drifting, pondering what he had just got himself signed up for; just a couple of days ago, he had been handling the fallout of initiates in a recovery operation stumbling upon a less than friendly Spectre, all the whilst living & working from a makeshift outpost on a frozen rock, slowly losing his mind to mundane paperwork.

 

And then a glimmer of hope. A small message, pinging into his message box, a request for aid, a summon to arms. From a recent friend no less. Naturally, there had been some protest from his subordinate officers, but the Blade Dancer had used his status to it's persuasive extent.

 Taking his newly re-discovered Dragon Nikana, along with one the recovered Burston primes, he boarded his personal ship and set off. A day & a half later, the 'Snarb' came in to dock at the assigned meeting place.

 

There had been some familiar faces & frames as he dis-embarked, namely Tenno from the 'Rescue' operation he had been roped into. Alongside them, a number who he did not recognise, but would assuredly end up doing so.

 

And then there had been the briefing. It started off looking like another serious military operation, a mixture of resistance rescue & Grineer sabotage. But when a energetic & fiery Ember took the spotlight, he couldn't help but smile. Nor it seemed could many others in the room, a whole assembly of Tenno warriors chuckling & grinning. Life and energy, even in the bleak and desperate universe they had awoken to.

 

This was going to anything but boring. And it was just what he wanted.

[Spikey844]

Beginnings of an End

 

 

It was too quiet.

 

Sophia crept through the Corpus prison ship, her Grinlock held up and ready, heading to where there was supposed to be a Red Veil operative trapped in a cell. The only problem was the ship itself. All systems were active, except the internal sensors. The cameras were off, no doors were locked, no MOA fabricators were on, laser barriers were deactivated. She could not detect any life signs or robotic signatures.

 

Something was wrong.

 

But she wasn’t sure what.

 

None the less, she had to continue. She had already rescued a dozen Red Veil operatives, and she wasn’t going to leave one because she felt uncomfortable. She would have rescued more by now, but she had decided to take each one home herself to prevent whatever transport they would use otherwise getting captured. The reunions with families brought tears to her eyes.

 

She pressed on, moving towards the prison ward. No matter how hard she tried, she could not shake the feeling she was being watched by… something. Several times she had turned, expecting someone to be there, but no one was. She carried on, entering a lift to head up to the detention level. She did not see the glowing points of light that leapt into a vent behind her, following her up to the detention level.

 

As she headed up, she thought back to her time on Earth. She had meditated for a long time, considering her every action since she had come out of cryo. She had been forced to ask herself some painful questions considering her actions at times. She had only left two days ago when the rescue request had gone out, but had been forced to fight her way through an infested horde before she reached her ship. It had been close. Whilst she had not been hurt that badly, just some cuts and bruises, her warframe had been very badly damaged, so badly she had been forced to swap to her spare that she had constructed in case of just that happening whilst it was repaired. The downside was that this frame had low shields and not much power capacity.

 

The lift stopped, and the doors hissed open. Sophia took a step forward, then paused.

 

No wardens.

 

Sophia placed her rifle on her back, and drew her Magnus with her left hand. With her right, she drew her Magistar, holding it halfway up the handle for better control with on hand. Something was really not right. She walked, ever so slowly, towards where the prisoner was pistol going from side to side, searching for targets. The magazine hummed slightly with magnetic energy.

 

She stopped outside the cell. All the cells were open, but only one had its door shut. The rest stood gaping open, like the many mouths of some nightmarish monster.  She took a step towards the closed cell.

 

And another.

 

And another.

 

Her breathing increased in speed, the end of the Magnus began wavering more than normal. The Magistar felt heavier than normal. Her heart was pounding.

 

On three, she thought to herself.

 

1, she steadied her arms.

 

2, her breathing slowed.

 

3

 

She opened the door.

 

SCEEEEEEEE!!

 

Sophia stumbled backwards, barely dodging the claws of the Harvester as it leapt from within the cell. She swung her Magistar weakly, clipping the proxy’s leg, causing it to stumble. It recovered before she could follow up, and its plasma guns spun up, unleashing a hail of bolts that tore through the warframe’s weak shields. Sophia screamed as the bolts left searing wounds on her torso. The proxy leapt forward again, and battered the revolver from her hand when she tried to raise it, sending it spinning across the floor. It crashed into her, pinning her to the ground. She managed to get the mace between them, and heaved it off her, before scrambling upright. The wounds on her stomach screamed in protest at moving so quickly. She fought down the pain, and held the mace ready for the next attack.

 

The Harvester just kept its distance and growled at her. Sophia frowned, why wasn’t it attacking? An alarm bell went off in her head.

 

Behind you!

 

She spun on the spot, Magistar coming around in a great arc, energy glowing around the head, to land a thunderous blow on a second Harvester. It was sent flying, coming to the ground with a crash ten metres from her.  She had no time to press the attack as the first robot unleashed a hail of plasma bolts, leaping forward as it did so, tearing through her shields in seconds before crashing into her back. Sophia lost her grip on the mace, and it went flying into a wall, making a dent the size of a melon in the plating. A claw slashed across her back, biting into the thin armour and puncturing her skin. The cut was not deep, but it hurt like nothing else. She cried out in pain.

 

Sophia began to panic as her muscles began to freeze up, starting at where the cut was. She tried to throw the Harvester off, but the paralytic toxin continued to spread at a vicious rate, freezing up her muscles. Her major organs were unaffected, but any muscle that was used for movement was sent into a spasm. She could breath, her heart was still beating, but she might as well have been encased in stone, so complete was the toxin in cutting off her motor control. She could only watch, helpless, stiff as a statue, as the Harvester began to apply bindings, and drag her from the ship. As they reached the hanger, where a Corpus shuttle was waiting, a Crewman strode towards her, his Prova crackling, and struck her in the head, knocking her out in a quick succession of blows. Her last thought was, ‘Why is it always me?’

[MandoKarla]

This happens a dayish before the Aiden's meeting.

 

Morlan jolted as a pile of clothes were thrown onto his lap. He looked up to see Adrazi leaning against the entrance of the cell. “You should put those on. We’ll be going to your ship, and it would be best if people don’t recognize you. You caused quite a stir.”

Morlan began to change, “Does that mean I’m free to go?”

She smirked as she replied, “Well, you’re broke now paying for the costs of the SSF troopers recovery and the damages to the bar, and I think it’s time you see the kit that our squadmates left you. By the way, that Kris Hydroid guy was not happy to let you go so easily, but Aiden seems to know him, and the Loki… well, he has quite a bit of authority.”  Morlan finished dressing. He looked at Adrazi with a frown. “It’s not a surprise, seeing he’s her personal hitman.” “Morlan, we don’t know details, we shouldn’t judge.” Morlan sighed. “I agree, but it’s troubling nonetheless. And he left with the intent of hunting someone. He seemed slightly obsessed with whoever it is.”

 

  Adrazi passed over a slip of paper to Morlan. “Also, Aiden told me to give the location of the meeting room to you. He’s planning something, and he wants you to be a part of it. He offered to let me tag along, but we’re probably going to have wounded soon. Another Phorid manifestation nearby. You two are similar, you know. You both hurt inside. Maybe the reasons are different, but the pain is there. I think you should go.”  “I think I will.” He shook his head, clearing his head. “Alright, let’s go.”

 

 The walk to Morlan’s snub was a quiet one, but once the the door closed behind them, the talking resumed. Adrazi walked around, exploring, letting the memories flood back into her. She stopped in front of a sealed locker. She smiled, “Ready Morlan? It needs your fingerprint to unlock it.” There was a knock on the snub. Morlan rose to open the hatch. “I’ll get it, don’t worry. Open it up.” “Fine….”. He closed his eyes, took a breath, pressed his finger against the scanner, and opened his eyes in sync with the hissing of the opening locker.

 

  

  Inside was a Frost Prime with the Immortal pattern, crowned with a jagged crystalline halo. It was white and blood red, with blue trim. It seemed distant, harsh, and yet soothing. Morlan was entranced, and it called to him. Without a thought, he shed his outer layer of clothes, leaving him in only his bodysuit. He pulled it out of the locker and donned it. He leaned against the wall, feeling drained as it linked up with his neural patterns. It hurt, but his mind felt, clear, calm, more than he had in a long time. He could feel his anger, his rage, his pain, but they were controlled. The suit felt heavier, and because of his leg, he’d most likely be permanently less mobile than before. Not that it would be a problem. He was an assassin no more, but a warrior. He was now a dark knight, whose purpose was to destroy sources of danger.

 

   He picked up the other item in the locker, a Braton Prime. He attached it to the mag clamp on his back, then turned to face Adrazi. She held out his Vipers, and he took them, holstering them on his side. He then noticed the item by her side, a blade with an archaic design. She answered the question forming in his mind. “It’s a Dragon Nikana. New research from the Lotus, and it’s for higher tier Tenno. Superior craftsmanship that the standard Nikana’s, or so I’m told. Anyway, one hit, one kill, seemed like your kind of weapon.” “Yea, definitely. Thanks Adrazi. For everything.” She smiled at him, then they both donned their helmets. “Let’s go train Morlan, and get you up to speed with your new toys.” Morlan attached the blade to his side. “Gladly. Because then, it’ll be time for me to make my mark in Grineer history. I’m not stopping until their empire lies broken at the feet of the Tenno. This time though, I’m doing it right.”

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

  Morlan arrived last, and took a seat at the back of the prep room. He had trained as hard and fast as was possible, and he was still tired. But he had gained enough control over the suit that he would not be a liability. He watched as Aiden stood up and began to explain the plan. Morlan leaned back and smiled.

And it was the smile of a predator.

Edited May 15, 2014 by MandoKarla

[Sayfog]

If any of this is canon-brealing just let me know and i shall remove the offending statement.

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Omicron threw herself into the Kubrow den as the squadron of grineer hellions flew over head bombarding where she just was. When she left the Kubrow den she came out with an entourage of wild Kubrows behind her.

When the grineer platoon came around the corner the row of mines that she had placed there blew dozens of lancers to bits right as the Kubrows breached the rear of the platoon eating several napalms and heavy gunners. Once the initial slaughter had finished the grineer had been effectively shattered and broken with only 10 squads of 5 lancers left. When they re-grouped they climbed to the higher ground in a valley which had only one entrance.

Omicron chuckled to herself as she heard the grineer setting up on top of the flat bit of land down the end of the valley. Omicron stayed underneath for 2 hours until they had all fallen asleep, when they had she burst up from the ground propelled by an explosion of anti-matter waking them up in the process, hovering above the hole her Kubrows ran out from under her slaughtering all the grineer except for the appointed leader. Who she kicked his face, she then realised one squadron of Ballistas were un-accounted for.

She then felt multiple pricks on her back penetrating her Nova warframes this armour. She realised too late how exposed she was when the anaesthetic kicked her making her fall over. She watched from the depths of the anaesthetic her kubrows shot and killed starting a fire of hatred and revenge inside her a fire that can never be put out until her Kubrows were revenged and the Grineer eradicated.

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Edited May 16, 2014 by Sayfog

[PandaKing11]

Character- Despan the Red Veil operative with a power-fist robotic arm and multiple personalities 

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Despan sits motionless inside a dark pipe aboard a Large Grineer ship. The Grineers troops footstep's echoed as Desapn weighed out his options. "Oh man oh man, they didn't say there would be THIS many troops....ah what the hell am I gonna do." he mumbled to himself. A Grineers voice spouted something from nearby. Despan instantly shut up and began to listen. "The two Grinner were standing at the end of the pipe, just outside the fan at the end of the pipe. "The data mass is in the weapon room?, ah damn...thought it was in the med bay..... well hears my chance I guess." Despan thought. Despan crawled through the pipe until he get very near the two Grineer troops. Quickly he jammed his robotic arm through the fan and grabbed the first  Grinner and hurled it into the second. Jumping out of the pipe. Despan landed on the two downed grinner "this is my vengeance!" Despan said in a different more threatening voice. He punched his arm straight through the two solders torsos and killed them. "Alright, time to go" he said in his original cheerful voice. Despan ran silently though the Grineer complex. his syandana flapping about behind him. Soon he reached the arms room. Strangely there were no guards. Confused Despan approached the room. Upon opening the door, the room held several dead grinner bodies, all riddled with bullets and arrows. Every locker was opened and looted and energy orbs layed on the ground. Despan looked around to discover that the datamass was gone. "ah what the fu-" BEEEEP BEEEP, the alarm set off. Despan sped off. over the speaker a Grineers voice said "The data mass has been stolen, find the intruder." . Despan dashed around a corner to see several Grineer charging him dead on.

 

     Despan turned and sprinted the other way bullets whizzed passed him but as he ran he caught the gimps of a Tenno in front. "TENNO, HELP!!" Despan exclaimed. with no response. As Despan fled the army of Grineer behind him a door closed and locked right in front of him. Despan took a deep breath and gathered his 'dark' side. As the Grinner came around the corner Despan stood ready. The Grinner stopped and pointed all their weapons at Despan. A large Grinner commander stepped out of the crowed. "I see we've caught ourselves another rat." the commander laughed.

The commander approached Despan and stood tall before him. "Perhaps we could dis-arm you again hahahahaha" the comander said. Suddenly the door behind him opened to reveal two tenoo standing on the other side. the commander gasped and  switch-teliported with another solider behind him. Despan ran into the fray, as the Tenno mowed down the small army of Grineer. The commander was fleeing but Despan was close behind. As Despan caught up, he delivered a quick punch to the back of the commander, sending him flying into the wall.  Despan grabbed the commander by the collar, trust me, you dont whant me to have two of these arms" Depsan said. Before the commander could respond Despan uppercut the commander rocketing him up in onto the ceiling, killing him instantly. But as Despan turned around the Tenno were gone and more Grinner aproched.

 

Before Despan knew it he was captured and locked up in the prison....waiting once again for a Tenno to rescue him.

 

to be continued