Thunder
Jesse did not know the game. It was obviously Orokin and loosely based on a form of chess that Jesse did know. But the pieces were nothing like anything she had seen and she could not discern the rules. Add to that some pieces phased out occasionally, only to appear in other places at other times. Jesse could not feel anything in this place, her code was disabled. All of Gemina's powers and weapons would be as well. The board was perfectly balanced.
"Jesse!" Gemina called. "Listen to me! We can both get out of this!"
"Why would I want to?" Jesse asked as her hands moved without her will. But the other had no access to her mind apparently or they would know how scared she really was. She didn't want to die. But if that was what it took... She would. She was Tenno. She served.
"Because one of us has to die here, Jesse!" Gemina snapped as her side of the board lit up with something. Two of the pieces there vanished, but so did three of Jesse's.
"So?" Jesse asked calmly as her hands flew. The board had fewer pieces now. She wasn't sure, but it seemed that her handler was laying a trap. At least, that was what it would be on a chessboard. Here? She had no idea.
"You do not want to die." Gemina declared. "I have touched your mind, girl. I know you don't."
"No, I don't." Jesse replied offhand. "But I want you and your owner to win even less. If that takes my life, then so be it. I am Tenno even if you are scum. My mother loves me. Yours? She will throw you away when she tires of you or finds a better tool."
"You are wrong, Jesse." Gemina said sadly. "So wrong. You didn't see what they did to her. The insults The degradations. The petty and no so petty pain that they put her through when the Emperor had his final heir and set her aside to pursue his whims. You do not know her."
"No." Jesse admitted. "And I do not want to. I have a mother thank you very much. I love her."
Gemina did not reply and Jesse focused on what she could see. She could see patterns in the game piece movements now. The one running her was setting a trap and there was nothing Jesse could do about it. She felt a tingle of anticipation mixed with glee in her mind, but it was far way, the connection that had been forced on her diminished here along with everything else. The glee spiked and then Jesse jerked as Gemina screamed.
"No!" The Equinox cried. Jesse stared at the board as half of it vanished. Her half. Somehow, Eliza had countered Helena's cunning trap with one of her own that sprang faster! The Equinox warframe across from Jesse jerked. "No! I won't!"
"Yes, you will." Jesse said quietly. "For what it is worth Gemina Horati -not much- thank you for the Ninkondi lessons." She did not move as Gemina slowly raised her pistol. "I will see you in hell."
A flash.
The main virtual environment
"NO!" Helena was screaming as Gemina returned from the game zone and Jesse fell to lie still. "You cheated!"
"And how did I cheat, pray tell?" Eliza's voice was sad as she stared at Jesse's crumpled form. "I mean, you kept trying to get Gemina Horati to do things other than I wanted. But that wasn't cheating, was it, because it was you doing it? I laid a trap, you walked right into it. Not my fault you haven't been practicing."
None of the onlookers had moved. The Lotus slowly knelt beside Jesse, her visible mouth a thin line.
"Mistress..." Gemina begged as her arm raised, the pistol in it ready. She was obviously fighting the compulsion and losing. "No!"
"You cheat me as they cheated me!" Helena ranted. "No! I refuse to accept this!" A flash of gold and Helena vanished along with Gemina, Fred, Siri and Samuel. Jesse and the four shades did not move.
"Girls?" Eliza's voice was worried now.
"We are okay, Mom." Sina said as she too knelt by Jesse along with the energy forms of her sister. "But Jesse..."
"She ain't gone." Nikis said softly and everyone looked at her. He chuckled. "Do you have any idea what Janet would do to me?" Everyone looked at each other and then at Eliza who slowly smiled. "Not easy, but then again, who wants easy?"
"What do you need, Grandmaster Nikis?" Eliza asked calmly. "Her logic bomb rescued my daughters. Anything I can give."
"Careful saying things like that, Empress." Nikis said quietly. "Girls. Time to go to sleep." All of them nodded. They smiled at Eliza and then vanished. Then he laid a hand on Jesse and sighed. "I need some platinum."
Every single Tenno in the virtual room raised a hand. Nikis looked around and then at the Lotus who nodded.
"We are going to disagree, old man." The Lotus said with a smile as a piece of metal appeared in her hand. Nikis grunted as he took it. "You keep right on jerking me up short. I am not perfect." He ignored her and she sighed. "I will tend her until she recovers. Draco?" She asked and the shadowed warframe stepped into view. "Get her body home."
"It will be my pleasure." Draco said with a feral chuckle.
"And if you can, save Cathi's body." The Lotus asked softly. "We can help her, but the rest of her energy would be a great help as well." Draco nodded. The Lotus looked at Eliza who chuckled evilly.
"I feel a quote coming on." Eliza warned. Everyone looked at each other and then at her. She smirked. "'Now go do that voodoo that you do so well!'" She and her guards vanished.
"Oh, she did not just quote 'Blazing Saddles' at me..." Nikis said in shock. He gave himself a shake. "Right." Nikis said as he rose from Jesse. "Jesse will be fine, just wake up with a hell of a headache. Let's end this."
A hungry growl from many throats followed him from the virtual world. It resounded like thunder. The Lotus sat beside Jesse's still form and shook her head.
"Sun and Nikis together... Almost makes me pity them, Jesse." The blue and purple garbed not-human woman said with a sigh as she stroked Jesse's virtual head gently, soothing the girl's spiritual hurts with her own energy. As a mother would.
"Almost."
Reality
"Move!" The small group ran through the derelict, Helena in the middle. Fred carried Jesse's still form and the others warded the two. The Orokin woman was in fine shape after her long captivity, but the warframes did have to slow down so she could stay with them.
"We cannot outrun them." Gemina said with a growl from where she ran. "What do we do with Jesse? I mean... Jesse's... I..." She trailed off, looking at the still Cyberlancer.
"She is Tenno." Helena said firmly as she ran. "We can find a way to bring her back. It just may...take..." She trailed off as the odd quartet entered a large plaza and an odd sound was heard. Singing?
"He rode a blazing saddle! He wore a shining star!" All four of them came to a sudden halt as a black warframe appeared at another door. Nikis. Singing! "His job to offer battle! To bad men near and far!"
"Oh no..." Helena swallowed, casting out with her mind, but what met it was a cacophony of emotions, thoughts and other things that threw her back. "He... some kind of jamming! Telepathic!"
"Down!" Gemina commanded and Helena did not argue. She ducked for cover behind a the solid metal planter of a holographic shrub. Fred laid Jesse's body beside her. "We do not want to fight!" Gemina begged the Nekros as he stopped singing. "We just want to leave!"
Normal Tenno powers did not usually work on other Tenno. The renegade guards might able to use some, but not all of their powers. And even if they could? Nikis knew how to counter. They had faced him before and he had ignored them to take their mistress. Talk about a slap in the face!
"Too bad." Nikis sounded... jovial. Oh dear. His arms were crossed, not near his pistols. "You are not leaving."
"You are very good, Grandmaster Nikis..." Gemina said evenly as she and the other spread out. "But..." Her words choked off as the other doors of the plaza opened. All six of them. Tenno in warframes filed in through each and every door. Four -five!- from each door. "No..."
Four renegades. Twenty furious Tenno now aiming at them. Plus Nikis and whoever he had with him. Uh oh...
"Your evil ends here." Nikis declared sternly. "You in warframes, drop your weapons and live to stand trial. She stays here." He nodded to Helena who paled.
"No!" Helena produced a pistol and aimed it at Jesse's head. "You will not imprison me again!"
"No." Nikis sounded calm now. Almost serene. "I won't." He shook his head. "And... really?" He snickered. "Threatening a corpse? How low can you get, woman?" He asked snidely. "She won't feel it. She is already dead."
"And you can bring her back." Helena snapped.
"I already have." Nikis retorted. None of renegades moved as the other Tenno took up position around the plaza, all taking aim with various weapons. A bow with slicing head arrows, a Tigris, a Torid, a Vectis Prime. So many others. "She is out of your reach. All that is... is a shell. She likes that body, but we made her that one. We can make another. Your evil ends here."
"You have no right to judge me!" Helena snapped. "I did what I had to!"
"Nah." Nikis shrugged. "You did what you wanted to. The whole 'woman scorned' thing is overdone, ya know? You were not the only one treated that way. You were the only one who did what you did. And then your kin got the bright idea of doing the same to all of the Tenno." He sighed deeply. "Old saying... 'Ya reap what ya sow'. You sowed evil. Guess what? Time to reap it." His hands moved to his pistols.
"I will destroy this form!" Helena snapped, as if she hadn't heard him.
"Go right ahead." Nikis said with a growl as his hands slid to his pistols. "You are not leaving this derelict. And when we are done? I will destroy every last little bit of your energy. This time, there are no courts, no appeals, no mealy mouthed politicos to get in the way. This time? It's just you and me, ya evil bitch." A shotgun roared and Nikis looked to where Gemina had fired her Tigris at him. He shook his head as she stared at him in shock. "Thank you for starting the dance, darlin'."
Nikis... vanished. In his place, a holographic Loki Prime stood! A Decoy!
The renegades had a bare moment to gape before the Tenno surrounding them opened fire.
"Nikis..." Jasmina's voice was strained. "We... we can't hold her..."
The Caretakers had demanded to be part of this and their shields against telepathic compulsion were the only thing keeping this battle from being a rout. If Helena took control of any of the Tenno now battling her followers... it would be bad. Nikis' ad-hoc command group was watching the battle from a balcony. None of Helena's followers had bothered to look up. And now, they were pinned in cover. But that worked two ways. Anyone trying to get close...
"Anyone who gets close will run the risk of her dominating them." Sun said from where he stood, a white shadow near one wall. "Or being cut to pieces. They are accurate."
"Then we don't get close." Nikis said with a snarl. "Aeron! Status?"
"No shot from this angle." The reply was calm from somewhere nearby. The Loki sniper was seriously sneaky. "She is cowering behind Jesse."
"Can you bank one?" Nikis asked. The others looked at him and Aeron replied very slowly.
"I can." The sniper sounded a little dubious. "Nikis, you know ricochets rarely act the way we want. If I hit Jesse,... She isn't armored." Such a high caliber round as Aeron fired hitting unarmored flesh did horrific things.
"That body is dead. We can repair it. Weapon free." Nikis said firmly. "My authority. Take the enemy out."
The report of Aeron's Snipetron was muted and impossible to trace. Which was the idea. A scream sounded from below and Nikis snarled in triumph as Helena fell to the side, her arm a bloody mess. The Snipetron fired again quick as thought and she collapsed in a heap as the sniper did what he did. Headshots made such a mess. But they were effective. Helena fell in a heap and Jasmina relaxed as the pressure on her mental block suddenly vanished.
Three screams of pure rage sounded. Nikis and the others stared down as Siri, Gemina and Samuel all charged the Tenno who had been pinning them down. Fred... did not. He crouched beside Jesse, his weapons thrown away as he tried to stem the flow of blood from a hole in her side.
"What the-...?" Nikis said softly.
"Grandmaster Nikis!" Fred shouted. "Hurry! She is trying to download into Jesse's body! Stop..." He screamed in agony and curled up in a fetal position beside Jesse.
"I want to talk to him." Sun said quietly. "That one alive."
Nikis grunted and threw himself from the balcony. Sun followed close but arced away to where Gemina was engaged in melee with another Tenno. The Vauban's Tipedo flashed as he fought Gemina's berserk attack back, then Sun was at his side and the Equinox was overmatched. Staff and bladed staff drove the Equinox away from her fellows towards where two other Tenno waited with weapons ready to join in.
Siri and Samuel as well were faring badly against the teamwork of the others. They gave as good as they got, or better. Royal Guard, even renegades, were no slouches. But they were heavily outnumbered and despite their berserk rage, they were being overmatched. A crimson and royal blue Excalibur Prime engaged Samuel, driving him away from Siri long enough for the Nyx to be engaged by three others. A Loki dashed in, striking deep with twin Fang Prime daggers and Siri fell, her weapon falling from her suddenly limp grasp.
"No..." The Nyx had time to gasp and then the Loki struck again, silencing whatever she was going to say permanently. Her killer and his allies stood wary over her, ready in case she revived. But she did not.
"Siri!" Samuel screamed and redoubled his efforts. But four Tenno attacked him as one,, synchronizing their lunges and slices with the skill of long practice. He screamed again as a Glaive arced in to slice through the armor on his arm like it was made of paper. He was screaming epithets as his attackers closed in, blades flashing. The cursing cut off with dreadful finality and the Oberon fell to lay still, head half disconnected from his body.
"I will kill you all!" Gemina screamed as she fought.
"No, you won't." Sun replied, his voice sad. Every strike she made, he deflected. "I had such hopes for you once, girl. Pity you had to think with your lusts rather than your brain."
"You know nothing!" Gemina screamed as she focused her attacks on her former teacher. The other Tenno drew back a pace as Sun countered each and every attack as if they were no more than air. "I will kill you!"
"No." Sun said softly as he spun his staff and deftly trapped Gemina's Ninkondi. Only for a moment. Just long enough. She jerked and stared down at a small piece of metal that had sunk right through her chest armor and the hand that he was withdrawing. "Goodbye Gemina. I did love you once, girl. But you decided not to love me. I was your teacher and you learned well. But I didn't teach you everything." He shook his head. "I failed you, girl. I didn't teach you well enough and that is my fault, not yours. But this ends now."
"I..." Gemina reached up a slow hand to touch the metal.
"Step back." Sun commanded the other Tenno surrounding Gemina and they did hastily as the interrogator retreated as well. "Goodbye, Gemina Horati."
"Master... I..." Gemina swallowed hard. "I am sorry." Then the small triangular dagger buried in her chest exploded. Gore flew everywhere. More than one of the surrounding Tenno gagged as her warframe -what was left of it- fell over in a heap.
"So am I." Sun replied evenly. He shook his head, turned his back on the fallen renegade and strode to where Nikis was working on Jesse's body, tending the horrific wound in her side. All of the others Tenno made way for him. The Nekros' Dark Sword -Mortis- pinned Helena's corpse to the ground and fell energies arced all around it. "Nikis?"
"She was trying to go into Jesse's body all right." Nikis said with a grunt. "Got her though. Deleting now."
"The boy?" Sun asked looking to where Fred lay still.
"Alive." Nikis grunted. "You gonna do what I think you are gonna do?" Sun did not reply, scrutinizing the fallen renegade. The Nekros shook his head with a groan. "I don't want to know."
"No, you don't." Sun agreed. "Jesse?"
"Would have killed her if she wasn't already dead." Nikis said with a shrug. "But had to stop her." He nodded to the fallen evil woman. "Jesse would agree."
"You do realize that Janet will have it out of your hide, right?" Sun asked. Nikis just grunted again and Sun bent down hefted Fred's unconscious form and carried him easily. "We done?"
Nikis looked at the Loki Prime and then at the fallen woman who had caused so much pain. He reached out and yanked his sword from her. Her body disintegrated. Every Tenno present would be checked for mental hitchhikers, Nikis and Sun included. But... it was finally over.
Draco appeared, lifting Jesse's body easily and carrying it gently. Nikis nodded.
"Yeah. We are done. We clean up the mess and then get the girls home."
"All of them."
Nikis was singing the theme from 'Blazing Saddles' watch?v=z-HRbsejTyw