Unending envisioning enveloped in shatterproof folds [1]
Pertains to the transference project and the somatic link
Content Warnings: Imprisoned tenno, Disassociation and depersonalization, Post-traumatic stress disorder, Telepathic connections, Suicide mission/Survivors guilt, psychological/physical trauma, emotional stress/mental instability, anxiety attack, panic attack
Static flourishes through his mind, creeping through bleed anxious nerve endings as the notions of sliced flesh blooms. Fingers clutch around his stomach as evisceration cascades through him, metallic chitin scrapping through a reinforced hide as the pod hisses and concedes – dulling the pervasive agony as the somatic connection snaps. Teeth grit beneath a gilded mask, contorting in the lingering pain back against the reclined cushions. Warren's thoughts run muddied as the semblance of warframe and personhood merges – disassociation blinding him as he lashes out at the figures above him – sentients or Orokin guards?
He was just with them a second ago, his thoughts lurch; his stomach balances between phantom lacerations and nausea, grasping the edge of the somatic container to find something to stabilize his mind. A notion that only lasts for a moment, a clawed metallic hand yanking his collar over the edge and lands on his side.
Evisceration still rings in his mind; sentient claws digging into his warframe's gut, dagger-end limbs piercing chest and leg – the piercing ringing that carried through the somatic link as he lies curled against the floor. "Put me back," his consciousness swells – he can't just abandon them, his heart aches, reaching for the edge of the somatic cradle. "I can handle it," he barely snarls, clutching his stomach as it lurches.
An Orokin gauntlet yanks his wrist away.
He just needs a few seconds to retrieve them, pull them back from the brink.
Warren's void imbued fist strikes the guard in the shin.
And agony digs through his cheek as his head throws back, fumbling back to the floor with a his; his hands hold against the mask held over his mouth and the digging barbs within. Digits poke against the junction beneath his eyes where streaks of tears already make their mark.
A firm 'no'.
His gaze narrows beneath his tussled hair soaked by sweat, crawling into a half-kneel.
"Get up," the guard commands.
No hope, resounds.
They're dead.
His vision fogs into a dissociative mess, clutching his aching stomach as pain prickles through his nerves, reminding him of the visceral trauma taken blunt by the warframe on the other end. Their life sacrificial, a means to the end as he only guides them at the behest of the Orokin presiding as he pulls himself back to his feet. The barbs prod against his cheek as he strains to hold himself together, body trembling beneath the resurging pain transmitted from the warframe to himself.
A mild conversation between the guard and the director bounces aimlessly through his fragmented focus. Purely muddied by the agony of letting another frame to rot and be horrendously torn apart, to the despondent and uncaring guards tasked to keep him in line, the brutal hidden punishment concealed by a mask kept around his face. His sight remains downcast even as the guard brushes his shoulder – too exhausted to care. "Demon, answer." They repeat.
Warren can only exhale, motioning off to the same direction he's pushed every time he's yanked out of the somatic cradle. All to occurring, the static in his head begins to mitigate; cursing him to listen in blistering apathy. Receptive, but unresponsive.
"Any signs of nervous damage, this time?" the guard questions behind the teenager's back, keeping an eye on him as the tenno stands quiet.
"Only temporal, as usual," fingers tap across the translucent screen and the vital signs. "He's lucky that he's resilient to permanent nervous damage; at this point any other of them would've stopped being a valuable asset." Warren can only bare to listen to their motions, hands hoisting around his stomach against the occasional spikes of pain, head held downcast in aggressive submission. "A few hours in a waiting rooms should repair the somatic damages."
No medication. No consultation. Only time and patience.
The guard shoves Warren forth, and he obeys.
They never have time for patience.
As he's escorted past open terminal chambers, he can catch the chatter from the other somatic links; difficulties in a mission, the overwhelming of sentients on a prospectively important facility – all relayed in the vaguest of terms. Drop and go, the mentality carried through mission command as the guard directs him towards the individual isolation chambers, or more properly termed 'waiting rooms' by the Orokin 'tending' to the operations. As long as the objective was complete, minimal damage dampening their 'assets', it was all that mattered; the warframes as mere tools for the precious obedient soldiers.
As the chamber locks, Warren nestles himself against the brilliant cream of the small room, burrowing his head between his knees as his body trembles and shakes, restraint buckling as he finally takes pause. 'Calm down…' he tries to assure himself, goading hopeful that it might work this time. Pain blisters in his gut as he slumps, feeling the armored lances piercing his phantom flesh in every adjustment, cringing and grasping against the sensation of shattered healthy bones. He sighs, head rolling back against the wall as he attempts to sooth the ache through will alone. Eyes squinting at the tingling ache, staring up at the expanses in the ceiling.
Stark white living nerves hum far above his head, too far from where he relegates himself.
All he can do is wait…
And his body agonizes as his mind lulls with apathy.
Void tainted eyes fixate on the barely shifting arboriforms weaved beyond the ceiling ventilation, beaming in exhausted interest. "What secrets do you hide," he whispers, letting his legs kick out from beneath him to a twinge of pain. There's a sense of shrapnel in his hip that wasn't ever there, bones screeching as he tries to stretch his aching muscles as he tries to rest. "How the fuck do you manage such pain," he huffs. Speaking to living circuitry… his only solace for companionship.
Especially… given how many warframe's he's directed to their deaths.
Eyes cast down again, hand enrapture his knees, tugging them close in strained meditation.
Keep himself as small as possible… disperse the pain by coiling it centered. Draw agony once straining in his joints migrate through his nerves, crawling through to nestle inside his chest. To transfer it, compress it to be manageable not just to fast-track his recovery. His head lies back as he listens to the endless noise coursing beneath the wall and above. Idle, he tries to adjust the biting barbs digging into his cheek, each flinch drawing it worse.
Copper streams against his tongue – all he can do is swallow.
"That's not good…" he complains to himself, releasing a sigh as he stares into the distance. Beyond the arboriforms weaved into the ceiling, past the reinforced struts holding everything together… and further into obscurity.
He does the best he can to adjust the punishing mask held around his face, careful not to let his fingers drift too far back less he desires the bite of razor barbs. Beneath his uniform gloves the mask barely shifts, smudging it back and forth from his skin in hope it'd detach from his cheek.
Even then… he lies back as the pain coils within his chest – the piercing, the broken bones, the lacerations and disemboweling sensation. A scalding as he tries to direct his focus away from the balling in his chest… even as tears welt over the remaining trails. Words like 'asset', 'repair', demeaning to operating mindless golems with bare simmers of intelligence. The flux between operating and non-function, overwork until faltering into a mission critical.
His hands burrow through his hair, leaning elbows onto knees.
A body wrecked with nervous trauma trembles, hands digging and clutching, hiding himself from the omnipresent hum of the white plants lingering above him. And his mind meanders from agony to agony; a warframe torn in half and eviscerated by a serrated blade, another gored and forced to endure as a timer runs out; eviscerated limb from limb, crushed beneath the rubble of a hopeless escape, coerced to listen to the last gasping of a survivor before slaughtering them on command. Brutalized by way of mental torment, punished for disregarding commands by a blow to the cheek.
Anger streams down the mask as gloved fingers grip his hair; he hopes the sentients win.
The nervous ache in his chest eventually dilutes beneath the beaming arboriforms situated above, contained in self-defeatism as he waits. A reason to keep going, burrowing himself into a well wounded ball as he falters into anxious self-hatred. If he was stronger he wouldn't be here. If he was stronger he would be somewhere else. If he was stronger he'd already bust his way out already… a reminding as he stares down at his hands catching his tears.
By the time the door hisses open, there's nothing left to cry about. Empty, devoid.
Disassociation ringing strong as he just moves.
Huddle in the isolation chamber, give self a chance to breathe, then its back to the somatic link; a pattern never ending as he watches another Tenno take the room in his place. "Get a move on!" the guard grumbles, pushing Warren into the somatic chamber as the mission director taps through his narrow field of 'specialization'.
Suicide missions, he figures, as he steps into the somatic cradle with his sight down cast.
Mist billows as the envelopes fold above him, nestling him in the dampening somatic field as his mind drifts. The same flexes in his mind, the same discomforts as before, the same depersonalization feeling as he drifts between his body and a warframe currently assigned to the pod.
As he lulls between the sensory deprivation and the metal beneath transference palms, the director's voice rings through his mind. "You must deliver the payload to the specific location on the sentient spire, 50 kilometers from your current location." Gravel scrapes beneath armored palms as he finds his feet, mind melding with the warframe's erratic thought patterns. He can feel anxiety bleed through their enigmatic nerves, sickle slim fingers testing their dexterity as he stares out into the projected path.
He jostles the container onto his back as empty sensors graze over his surroundings, tugging the mere strap tight as arch-wing pins clutch around his waist. Powerless, they pull him down as he waits for the voices to fall silent around him; sudden motions make them tremble – if their visors were up he'd guess they'd be bulging. With a quick glance behind him, and a confirmation, the arch-wing surges to life.
The warframe's delicate feet recoil from the ground as the machinery hums, throwing the debris as he makes one last adjustment to the payload against his sensory back.
Checked, sturdy, he slips forth through the warframe's joints.
And Warren cuts through the force-field, leaving the scratched cryopod in his wake.
As he slips around wreckage of forgotten carriers he loses himself in the expanse of the warframe's sullen mind, guiding them formless through the jagged metal as he follows the directed path – the director coaxing him through every malignant detail. Find the location, drop it, and go; an ease of instructions consulted as he drifts through the aftermath of the war between sentient and the Orokin Empire.
He tunes down his reception to the director; "can you hear me?"
The warframe's mind slips through the notion of his guidance, lulling neutral as he draws the hosting body forth beneath an eviscerated hull, senseless, unreceptive as he tries to call through their nerves again. Slim fingers rest against their chest as he barely follows the instructions of the mission director, vanishing into the debris field as sentient drones canvas he bloody wreckage. Bodies lie crumpled in the vacuum as he waits, feeling muscles flex within the region of the enigmatic body. "Can you hear me?" he tries once more; their shoulders shuffle as he loosens his grip in the somatic link – blood surging through distant veins in haunting agitation.
Warren echoes his mind through the occupied warframe as he watches the crustacean drones bobble through the remnants, clawing against the corpses lingering from the busted hallways. Within, he can feel the warframe tremble under the tension; fear, terror, any mix of emotions that casts their blood to hammer anxious, their breathing vent flexing as he tries to coax them calm. "You're okay…" he whispers through the connection, mind to mind, unobserved by the commanding mission director lording over his every move.
Against his carefully constructed mannerisms, the warframe's mind lingers in muddied thought patterns; contorting, fragmented, abstract, prodding against the operator's own as he guides the body forward and into the vast chill of space. Their thoughts strain to answer him, figments of words choked by an addled mind buried in confusion. "My name is Jacob Warren," the tenno barely smiles – hopeful they can understand. "Do you… remember your name?"
In the empty expanse, he blinks towards the husking shape of the still distant, enormous sentient – its chitin shimmering in sol's distant glow. Crimson aches adorned by violet battle scars in his telescopic sights.
Not seen… yet
He ducks beneath a drifting fuselage, pulling a janky corpse to drift sullen as he digs into the machinery's guts for a temporary reprieve. The arch-wing's storage bank prongs dig into the host body's back, digging into their spine as he struggles to force the warframe still… Too far to back out now.
Deep within the somatic link his arms tremble – the warframe's erratic thoughts pound against his temples, surging an anxious beat he struggles to ignore. Hands draw against his temples – briefly bringing him back to the mist sullen tube of the somatic cradle. No good, he fusses, cascading himself to hold the frame from bolting. "Return to the mission," the director tries to enforce – even as Warren draws himself to hold the warframe's anxious nerves stable.
"Scared…?" he whispers through his thoughts, ghosting his movements through the warframe's limb in signaling reassurance. A hand holding against bicep, coiling in a hug as the arch-wing revitalizes its energy reserves. "I'm scared too…" he muses, fumbling to find some reassurance. It aches in his chest… the possibility of another dying.
He lingers his transference override, letting the warframe curl around their knees, sightless head pressing between their knees. Their heads rolling back and forth as the director chides him – back to the mission, there's no time to lose. Warren diminishes their tone, choking as he tries to motion a comfort to the trembling warframe lingering in space, a device strapped to their back. An arm wrapping around them, perspective askew as he tries to make contact again. "What do you remember?" he tries, nerves coaxing against the warframe's anxiety in hopeful calm.
Their mind flickers between a featureless family – a mirroring of a murky face – ruin – the sentient hordes – and a return of the featureless family.
"You… volunteered?" he whispers. It's not complete memories, fragments of the remaining consciousness… an incomplete transformation the Orokin would call them. Their head nods his own, slim fingers sliding against their face; concern.
Warren can hear the director berating him in the background of his thoughts. "Defiant brat; force it already."
His thoughts coax against the warframe's, hoisting them to their feet within the barreling waste of the fuselage. "We have to keep moving," he whispers, "the item on our back…" he muses. He was never told what it was. "Needs to get to the giant sentient."
The warframe trembles.
"I know they're… scary," his mouth turns downcast within the quiet capsule. "You're in good hands," he tries to fake confidence… he doesn't know what the payload is.
He hates how level-headed he's taking it… biting back as he lies.
"We'll make it out of this, I'm certain." Phantom hands hold around the warframe, hugging their center as the arch-wing hums, outstretched for flight.
An image relays through his temporal recollection. Two boys, kids. He's unable to gauge their age.
Warren pivots the arch-wing into its blistering sprint, rolling through the debris as he directs himself to the unassuming sentient.
Echoes of mangled voices recall from the warframe, growling through their chest as their blood fumes.
"You've got sentients, take care of them," the director calls – and Warren lies stunned in disbelief, casting the warframe to tumble through the remnants of a shattered ship. A burst tumbles flames to lick against their merged senses, rolling out of another sentient blast.
He was never given a weapon.
He bites back, concentration twisted. "I… I wasn't given any weapon."
"Oh, apologies then," they state so nonchalant, careless as they await his arrival to the designated drop zone.
Beneath Warren's direction the warframe growls, hands digging against the payload strap – mind relaying in bitter anxiety as it swoops beneath a lancing sentient.
A questing projectile digs against the warframe's leg as Warren strains to endure. Keep the warframe calm, direct them towards the small notch the director keeps referring to, managing the pain as it surges through his leg within the somatic capsule. He careens themselves to and fro to avoid the beams, churning the arch-wing to blink forth as he pivots around debris – the enormous sentient's back to him.
"Does… does this thing have a timer?" he cringes, diluting his thoughts as the warframe swerves beneath a blazing beam.
"None of your concern," is the only reply.
Within the somatic link Warren bites his lip, surging the arch-wing into overdrive – tensing through the pain as a sentient beams the warframe's leg. Even then, beneath his consciousness, the warframe follows, curling the payload to reside against their chest.
Figments flicker across their thoughts as the sentients pursuit them – a lying promise, a relaying of shapes barren and repeat. The form of the warframe, landing on the gravel surface left so far behind, the blurring memory of a child's face. "You'll see them again," Warren hazards to proclaim with as much faux confidence he can manage…
They're holding a bomb as they fly through the rear defenses, the objective so very close.
Warren bites back as he feels the mission director's gaze against his senses, forcing the warframe forth as the transference connection remains adhered. They careen over the landscape of the sentient's scarred back, twisting around flexing chitin spires as the notch in their nape falls into view.
If he's quick, he can get them out of here; a notion he chokes back as the warframe touches ground on the hard crimson, motions held focused and sleek as the warframe presses the bomb into an open wound.
"Mission successful," bleeds over the com-link.
His form contorts within the somatic link; arms, legs, torso – screaming, aching.
"Warframe has been lost," he can barely hear, eyes floating in the blooming pain as he feels the warframe's mind draw a blank… drifting.
Static blooms through the somatic link, forcing him back into the somatic cradle as his body lies trembling, hopelessly lying in agony as the somatic cradle's envelopes spread. Hands drawn against numb skin, burrowing through dampened hair as his throat rings numb, senseless as he coils and contorts.
Mist soaks against his skin as he balls around himself, ensnared in anguish, blooming in the burning and tearing and rending of skin from muscle and bone, tattered by metal and heat as he lies in the cooling chamber of the somatic cradle. Blazing, scorching, clawing against his sanctified bones safe beneath his flesh and skin. Organs surging in zero-g simulation, torn and tattered connections as his efforts to recollect them run innate – and pointless.
He holds himself in a tense ball, and a hand pulls him by the collar out of the mystifying chill.
The guard restrains Warren from lashing back, gauntlets holding his hands against his sides as he recoils and wanes, voice gasping and anguished. "What did you do," the guard curses – but to Warren the words are muddied, malignant as he stares down at the floor where his legs contort, straining to pull himself back together.
"I… I detonated the bomb when I was supposed to – " the mission director creaks, static and onlooking as the guard holds the anguish teen from scooping phantom guts back within himself – arms held against his back. He's trembling, contorting, writing in agony as he feels flesh slosh against his legs, senses blinded to the featureless floor staring back. "Right where the board claimed it'd disable the sentient outside of Neptune…"
"Did you have to detonate it right on top of him?" the guard curses, yanking Warren up to his feet as the teen's mind lulls in the belief his body lies in ruin, shredded in the blast. Gore spread downwards, chest burst open to the flourish of blistered lungs. He crumbles to his knees, quaking as his stomach tries to evacuate against the mask; arms fight against the guard's hands, trying to hold his face. "You better fucking hope he recovers," they growl back, lifting Warren back to his wobbling feet. Only his breathing evacuates from his mouth – stomach long made empty, bitter against his tongue.
His thoughts contort between the swirling sensation in his phantom gut, against the pain diluting in his spine as he fights to find his footing through a sensory fractured pelvis. Warren's mind writhes as he barely is able to hold himself upright, his focus made only though his furrowed brow, staring angrily as his head lulls. The guard forcefully assists him through the doorway, quick to parse him through to the waiting rooms.
Warren's mental mapping rings inside his head as he tries to direct himself to look, barely glancing through his tear-stained peripheral vision as he stumbles forward. "Fucking…" is all his voice can manage, nerves reverting to the aching stun that echoes through his body. Beads of tears prelude his stumbling steps, all to use to the silence following him.
The shift of conversations to mute, the feeling of observing eyes as his broken body struggles to find itself in the nervous confusion. Legs wobble as though a bag of organs dangle from his stomach, shuffling as though his healthy bones are fractured and torn from his body. Warren bites his tongue as he hisses, arms twisting in the firm but cautious golden gauntlets.
"You okay, kid?" he hears the guard whisper; Warren still unable to turn and face his safeguard assistance – at least there was someone that cared in this wretched place.
"I'll… live," Warren heaves, coughing as his lungs strain between their rightful place and torn and displayed. Nerves strain under the load of his body, stumbling against the guard's armor for a moment before forcing himself to stand on his own again. "Not… thefirstime," he chokes, "abombhasgoneoff," and lurches, stumbling forward and barely down to his knees.
Warren's relieved as he lies within an isolation cell again, staring at the winding arboriforms within the ceilings as his vision drifts between then and nows. His hands coil against his stomach, gripping the standard uniform as he echoes his motions to draw phantom guts back within his body. Cold air tickles against his tear-stung eyes, sight obscured by his sweat stained bangs. His breath is heavy, quaking as he tries to force it slowed and controlled. Panic had already enveloped him as he stumbled into the locked room, coiling fetal as his senses try to process the reality of his health.
His impatience has drawn thin, lying numbed within his chest as he only aches for peace, a semblance of comfort as his body tries to resound damage that isn't there. Lungs breathing outside of his chest cavity, bones shattered and jutting free from stunned muscles. Bleeding out in the silence of space…
Arms wrap around his half-covered face, sighing within the mask as fingers crawl through his damp hair.
"When will this war be over…" he whispers, watching the meandering motions of the arboriforms, their steady and firm structure weaving in intermittent pulsations. His eyes slip close as he listens to the tunes beneath the floor, the hum of the arboriforms barely audible as his thoughts are adrift. "What do you know…?" he questions empty, hands clutching against his face as he strains to shut out the hurting in his chest. They've always interested him… their weaving so near similar to the energy tendrils of the void, their connection to the somatic cradles that pivot his mind so agonizingly far away.
Leaving bodies in his transference wake… stunned and alone.
Between his fists and bangs, welting eyes stare at the stark white foliage beyond the gaps in the ceiling.
Forced between cradle and isolation, barely able to catch conversation with other children before a hand shoves his back, a hand swatting his covered cheek.
Gloved fingers trace around the mask as his thoughts contort, ailing in thought.
Beneath it can feel blood flake, oozing against his skin and separated from the piercing prods.
Vision down-cast, turned away, Warren crawls into a sit, motions stunted as his body aches from the blazing of transference pains. Bones still feeling misaligned, organs shifted; his hand reminds his nerves that he's okay. Heaving a sigh, he lets his two-toned eyes drift closed, tainted with blazing orange and gentle blue – a brilliance he doesn't deserve, he relents.
The walls, emotionless cream. The gilding, uncaring gold that marks Orokin designation. The barren grey of barren care.
Warren's legs crawl against his chest, choking beneath the bright mask – a hand holding against it.
A punishment coverup.
Welting tears press against his knees, coiling forth against the numbing ache in his stomach.
When will this all end, his mind doubts.
Will this ever end, his anxiety entertains.
Suffer through to relive it again, blown up and torn apart, tattered and pulverized back into a pained unfeeling mess. A useful asset, his thoughts strain, what if he wasn't useful? What if he wasn't able to survive the suicidal pains, the anguishing of living another death, abandoning those dazed and confused.
The other tenno; they noted he was resilient to permanent damage. What happens to them?
Warren strains to recollect distant memories, when it wasn't eject and replace, when a mere slap wouldn't make him recoil in blistering pain. What did he do. What in the fuck did he do back then?
…
…
Why does it even matter…?
His head lies back against the minimal cushion of the bench build into the wall.
Eyes sit in half-aversion as he stares at the ceiling far above. Emotions running numb; he won't break the cycle on his own. Between his subservience and aching empathy… he has no hope. Beaten again and again in empire desperation; perhaps, if he could manage, he could prevent them from disconnecting him, remained mentally fused?
No, his anxiety aches.
They'd just abort the connection again, leaving another left in his wake.
Fingers press around his brow, curling against his crossing brows.
And they pull themselves around his body again, forcing himself in a heavy sigh.
It's not like he has much to lose.
He doubts they have much sympathy for him, more useful to them alive than dead.
Stop thinking…
Warren head buries between his knees.
Just stop it.
He strains, starving to think of something else to delay the apathy filling his heart. Eyes turning to fixate on the ceiling once more, watching the weaves and the sways, to concentrate on something to pull himself once again centered before his mind falters again into self-decay.
Eventually, his body will mend the nervous damage, his body again reclining in a somatic cradle to link with another warframe … and unfortunately, devastatingly, with the possibility its for another deemed suicide mission. Others can't handle it, but he can… the only mentality for why it's okay for him to endure as he leaves another broken body behind into his own bitter agony in the mystifying safety of the somatic cradle. Fingers dig against his legs, squeezing his face between his knees.
He's exhausted by this, mind battered and in disarray; the same feelings again and again.
Air creeps through him as his mind banters between revolt and the repeating lie – that it'd get better on its own. If he doesn't do something, nothing will change. If he doesn't at least try…
If he doesn't try…
Why should he even bother…?
He pulls his hands away, ebbing with void-infusion, and punches his opposing open palm.
"Hmm, that hurt," he barely complains, shaking his barely bruised open palm. "Fuck," he grumbles, cradling his hand against his still simmering gut. "Oh, Warren you fucking idiot," and sighs, hand stinging from the hardened punch.
He's got to at least try. And his gaze returns to the arboriforms above him, questing to bring back his fragmented resolve.
The Orokin have already taken so much from him; its time to fight back.
Warren's hand throbs against his stomach, blowing an annoyed sigh as he lies back.