Animals

Matril stared down at the scene that had suddenly unfolded below him. He didn't dare move despite the height of the duct and the fact that it was far too small for anything human sized to enter. For a moment, none of the Forgotten moved. The golden shades stood there, waiting. Finally Chroma spoke.

"You know who I am." The long dead Tenno said quietly. None of the shapeshifters moved and he sighed. "This doesn't need to end in blood."

"You will serve." The voice from one of the shapeshifters was subtly wrong. Matril wasn't sure how it was wrong. He just knew it was.

"I do serve." The Chroma countered. "But what you are doing is wrong. I realized that. So can you. It is not too late. Not yet." Was he begging? None of the shapeshifters moved and he shook his head slowly. "Do you even know why you do what you do?"

"We are what we are." The Forgotten replied as the others spread out a bit. They were going to do something, Matril realized. But what could they do against ghosts?

"Are you?" Chroma snapped. "Do you even remember what you were? What happened to you and why?" The Nyx laid a hand on the Chroma's arm and the Chroma slumped a bit.

"You will serve." The Forgotten said firmly as the door behind it opened and another shapeshifter carried a piece of machinery into the room. Matril did not recognize it, but the mind that had been helping him did.

That is a soul catcher! The tower systems that had been created to stymie the Forgotten nearly screamed. They are going to try and hold the shades! But, this other energy... Oh no! Matril! RUN!

The cat tried. It was too late. Before he could even turn, sickly looking brown energy flared from the machine. It flowed to where the two shades stood calmly and...

Later

Matril hurt. Every fiber of his being hurt. It wasn't physical, but all he could do was curl into a ball and sob. He jerked as hands picked him up and held him.

"Easy." The voice was female and kind. "We didn't know you were there." Matril stared up at... a Nyx Prime warframe. He hands were gentle as she stroked his fur. Something seemed to pass between them and he relaxed as the pain ebbed and faded. She continued to pet him. "Sorry."

"What..." Matril stopped. He hadn't meant to speak. What was going on?

"We are trying to avert a bloodbath." The Nyx said calmly as if Matril's words had been audible. Maybe to her, they had been. "We didn't know you were there. We didn't plan on bringing you along for the ride."

"Ride?" The tiny fur covered recon trooper asked, dazed. "I don't understand."

"I know." The Nyx said calmly. "What is your name?" She asked. "Mine is Nyx." She continued to pet.

"Nyx?" Matril asked, confused. "The First?" Nyx nodded and Matril sighed. "Matril... I... This is all wrong."

"I know." Nyx said sadly. "The others want blood for what the Forgotten have done. I can't really blame them. But the Forgotten are not evil. Not for the sake of being evil anyway. They are simply doing what they were bred to do."

"Seem pretty evil to me." Matril said sourly as his body relaxed in the First Nyx's hands.

"Yeah, I know." Nyx agreed sadly. "The thing is, they evolved. They do not know how or why. But they did. All they knew for the first parts of their existence was fear and pain, anger and loss. They are not human, they never were. Then they were confused and when they sought answers, people attacked them. Humans and Tenno alike." Nyx heaved a sigh. "I did too."

"You did, but you were different." The voice of the Chroma came from nearby and Matril looked to see the other warframe striding close. "Nyx, we were animals. We had the potential of sentience, but we were animals. You know this."

"I..." Nyx bowed her head. "It feels wrong, Chroma."

"I know." Matril's eyes went huge as the Chroma warframe faded and... a human stood there who wasn't one. He looked close to human, but he wasn't. He looked like one of the Forgotten! "Matril, is it?" Chroma asked calmly.

"Yes." Matril said cautiously. "You are one of them."

"I was. Once." Chroma said softly. "I changed. We hope they can. If the Tenno charge in, many will die. Humans that have been enslaved and Forgotten alike. Probably even some Tenno. They do not understand, so we are trying to make them understand."

"How?" Matril felt faint. Was the Nyx doing something to him?

"You are hurt." Nyx said sadly. "We didn't know you were there. I am easing you."

"How bad?" Matril asked, worry trying to rise. It faded.

"Your mind was ripped from your body." Nyx said sadly. Matril felt fear, but it too faded. "We knew they would try to trap us. They are single minded in their needs. It took a lot of power to reverse the entrapment, but we have been saving power for a long, long time. The field was attuned to them, but you were too close." Chroma petted him as well, his hand awkward, but the comfort clear.

"What will happen to me?" Matril asked after a moment.

"If we can finish this quickly? Nothing." Chroma said softly. "It will be a fever dream. A fragment of nightmare. I will get started." He retracted his hand and strode off. Matril lost sight of him. That shouldn't have been possible for the tiny soldier's trained and augmented eyes, but it happened.

"And if you can't do it quickly?" Matril asked. Nyx slumped and Matril had his answer. "Then don't rush." He said firmly.

"Matril..." Nyx sounded almost in tears.

"Nyx, I am a solder." Matril said softly. "The Feline Corp knows about duty."

The Feline Corps had begun as an Orokin experiment. For many, the sheer lunacy of putting human scale sentience into something the size of a house cat would have stopped the plan in its tracks. But not the Orokin. Oh no. It hadn't been one of the bad experiments. The cats had been well treated, given educations and allowed to do anything that they wished. Up until the Empire as a whole had discovered them anyway. The public outcry had been extreme. The uplift program had been shut down. But not entirely.

The surviving cats had been... annoyed. As anyone who had ever owned cat could tell you, that was never a good thing. After all, dogs had owners. Cats had staff. Suddenly, the cats were without their staff and it was heading towards a meltdown of cat-astophic proportions when one of the sons of the reigning Emperor had gotten involved. Many thought that Prince Grodin had been bored. Or looking for something to distract his parents from something he had done. Or something. But he had gotten involved and with him, the Royal Family. He had promised the cats to find something that they could do.

He did.

The Feline Corps did not exist. Orokin bioengineers had created all kinds of creatures better suited to living in environments away from Earth. Cats were relegated to the history books. Mostly. No one saw them. That was intentional. They were the best trained reconnaissance troops in existence. They could go places and do things that no human sized form could. They were smarter than even the smartest AI and they were as adaptable as humans. Add a touch of technological augmentation and they became scary.

None of that had helped when Orokin fell. During the collapse, the Feline Corps had been left on Earth, their remit to watch and wait for their commanders to return. To develop intelligence and work to protect the world as best they could. For such tiny forms, they did a wonderful job, especially considering that their augmentation allowed them to hack most electronic systems from a distance as easily as a trained being might pick an ancient lock. The Grineer never did figure out why so many arsenals had a tendency to detonate with no warning whatsoever on the continent that had once been Europe. But in the end, they were cats.

When the Grineer had begin large scale defoliation with the Cicero toxin, the Feline Corps' base had been exposed. Their augmentation had allowed them to survive the toxin, but the clones with guns had been far more problematic. Over a thousand Feline Corps operatives had called home the nest that Matril had been born in. Five of them had survived the Grineer purge. Two of those had gone to Avalon to start a breeding program. The other three had gone to war. The Grineer had learned to fear the tiny shadows. The cats' augmentation was not just for hacking.

"Matril." Nyx hugged the cat to her chest gently. "We will do what we can. They need me though. They are going to see the past as it happened. Hopefully, the other Forgotten will understand. Let us explain. You will see things and hear things that will bother you. I know you are good. I know you are Feline Corps and secrecy is what you do. But there are limits. If you cannot continue, I will make you sleep. And..." She gave a sob. "If worst comes to worst, you just won't wake up."

"Thank you." Matril snuggled closer to the armored chest. It didn't feel like metal. It felt alive. Stood to reason. Warframes were bioarmor.

She held him as the world shifted around them.

Memory

He was aware. He was strong. It was what he was. He knew he was the strongest, that all other life was his prey. He hadn't always known. Things had been...unclear before. Fear and pain predominated. A call. Someone had demanded his presence. He had fought it of course. He was no one's plaything. But the call had been too strong.

For a time, it had been all right, if vexing. The lesser forms had made way for him. There were several forms who he shied away from instinctively. One that was huge and liked to jump around. One that had an odd sharp thing in the place of her arm. Another...felt familiar. That one wasn't hostile to him for some odd reason and he felt something for it. It turned invisible when he tried to pursue, tried to find answers and he had been unable to find it. Then he traced the being's dim scent to a place where prey had congregated. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew that the prey had trapped the odd thing that he felt kinship to. The prey had taken it! He had howled his grief and rage and others had joined him.

His anger had known no bounds and the prey had fallen before him in droves. He fed and killed and fed more. But it did not sate his rage. He was savaging another prey when it happened. There was no warning. One moment, he was striking with his claws, tearing into the bleating thing at his feet, the next, he was on the ground. An odd whirring sound came as he rolled away, screaming as pain flared in his shoulder and side. He rolled away as something struck the dirt beside him and flew away back to the hand of...

Another predator! But...it looked like prey! Then a part of the predator flew and another of his kind fell, cut in half as the predator turned to face him. As hurt as he was, all he could do was flee. He jumped into running water, but another pain flared in his back. A loud sound came from behind him and he fell into the water uncontrolled. The water was deep and carried him away. Her fought it of course. He lost.

When he woke, the call was gone. He tried to move and could not. Pain came from his back. From his shoulder. From his side. He stared down at the blue blood that seeped into the dirt around him. Was he dead? Dying? No. But he was hurt. He managed to scramble up and into a forest that was just off the beach. He would recover.

Time blurred. The forest was his home. He knew every tree, every rock. Anything that entered was his prey. Four legs or two, he ate well. It was... peaceful when prey was not there. When no loud noises disturbed him. When hunger did not wake him to stalk and kill. He was... He had no words.

Then it happened. He was watching as a tiny golden thing came to rest on the beach where he had woken so long ago. The two forms that stepped were prey. But... not. He hissed as he recognized the predator who had hurt him so badly and backed away into the forest. But that one did not enter his domain. No, what entered his domain was fascinating. He watched as the prey that was not prey walked around. She... He was certain somehow that it was a female, although he had no idea how he knew that. It made noises like the bleating of prey, but they made no sense to him so he ignored them.

Wait a moment! Why was he on the ground? Why were his limbs not working?

The prey that wasn't stepped up and her hand came down to his face.

I am sorry. The words thundered into his mind. The feelings. The worry. The fear. For him? The compassion. He stared up at the golden visage that bent over him and tried to hiss, but it wouldn't come. The voice that wasn't one from the prey that wasn't prey came again. I won't hurt you. Rest now.

Something he couldn't define swept over him. It felt... good. He relaxed and slept.

"Nyx, it is an animal!" The words came to him as if from far away. The words... made sense. The bleating of prey had been some form of communication! They had been trying to communicate! It hadn't made sense before. Now it did.

"Do not try to argue that with me, Hayden." Somehow, he knew the voice. It was the one who had come into his forest. The one who had caught him. "We are all animals. Every one of us."

"You didn't see what they did in Lasria, Nyx." The other voice stopped suddenly. He sounded wary now. "I am sorry, Nyx. I had no right to say that."

"Get. Out." The voice of the female was suddenly sad. He didn't like that. She shouldn't be sad.

"I will be watching, Nyx." The other said firmly and then a hiss sounded. But not a snake. Nothing he knew.

"Damn him." The female sounded as if she were grieving. He knew grief. He had felt grief when others of his kind had fallen to prey. But it had always turned to rage quickly. Why was this odd female not angry? Something touched his arm and he jerked. A noise came from her, not fear -he knew that noise well-, but something similar. "Dang. We woke you. I am sorry." The touch... stroked his arm. He couldn't move and fear blossomed. "It's all right. Don't be afraid. We won't hurt you. Or... I won't. I just need to know where you came from. You are nothing like any of the other Infected we know of. The Stingers and Chroma. We need to know where you came from. I swear it won't hurt."

He didn't understand any of this. Curious. He had always been curious. He had observed in his forest. It wasn't all hunting prey. Sometimes after he had been sated, he had just watched. Was she prey? Not prey? She wasn't acting like a predator. Was she with kits? A mother? No, no smell of that. Mothers were dangerous to be around, even the tiniest. The slightest provocation would see an unwary predator torn limb from limb if they got too close to the littlest ones before they were weaned and let out. He had seen a tiny winged creature battle a huge four legged form that had encroached his territory. He had been stalking the four legged one to kill it, but the tiny winged form had driven it away before he could do so. He gave that tiny winged form's nest a wide berth.

"You feel..." The female voice said slowly. "This is... I thought I felt you in the forest. But this?" The touch moved to his head. He tried to bite, but his face was held in something. "No, no. Don't struggle. Easy."

He was not prepared for what happened. It was as if a floodgate opened. Inside his head. From her sudden gasp of fear, the female didn't expect it either. He whimpered as pain flared, inside his skull. But there was nothing he could do but ride the pain.

"What the hell?" The female sounded scared now. But not for herself? For him? "What have I done? This isn't right. I was just trying to read... Oh no." The flow stopped abruptly and he jerked in whatever held him. It felt...right and wrong.

He lay panting. He was... it was... His mind was awash in images. In feelings. He wasn't...It wasn't...

"Please." The female was begging him. How did he know that? "Please be okay. I didn't want to hurt you! It isn't your fault!" She was crying. He didn't like that sound. He forced his mouth to move and it did, sort of. But it was closed, he couldn't open it. He snarled a little, but not in anger. In worry as the female cried.

It wasn't her fault! He had to tell her that. It was something in him! No one's fault. Something had happened. He had to tell her.

But how?