The Lotus Academy was quiet. Aside from the soldiers stationed outside as guards, the corridors and rooms were silent. Everyone was either sleeping or at least in their rooms. Everyone except for one solitary figure, slowly making their way down a corridor.
Hiro was having trouble sleeping. Even at 2 'o clock in the morning, sleep still eluded him. Too many thoughts running trough his head.
Which was way he was slowly, as silently as he could, making his way down the deserted corridors. He hoped walking a bit would help him clear his head.
His first week at the academy had been… interesting. Meeting his fourth and final teammate during his first breakfast had been uneventful; after having met the hyper-energetic Annalisa and the mess of colour that was Carlos, Ai Wang was not as traumatic. She was a rather calm and collected girl of Chinese descent, with jet black hair kept short for minimal maintenance and a severe looking face. According to the other two, she was a bit of a stickler for the rules, which the girl didn't even try to deny.
While his three partners each had a lot of quirks, he did feel very welcome in their small group. Carlos was a very warm person, and his calm demeanour combined with his affable personality seemed to both draw Ai into conversations and relax Anna. And all three seemed to be very excited to finally have a fourth member, accepting him completely from minute one. It was a new albeit welcome experience.
His first lesson, on the other hand, was intense. Their homeroom teacher, Jack Vandham, was tall, muscular and imposing. Looking like a walking army man stereotype, he also had the buzzcut, severe expression and dogtags to match. His mere presence commanded respect, and his experience in using a warframe was obviously far superior to that of his students.
And of course, with Hiro having arrived at the Academy two weeks after everyone else, he had dropped on him all the reading material they had covered in that time, telling him to get to the same point as quickly as possible. Aside from the usual languages, history and mathematics, the boy also found various books and reading materials about war, strategy, survival and the like. The teacher also had "reassured" him, saying that advanced xeno-engineering and bio-neurology were only taught in second year, when they would have to maintain their own warframes.
The other teachers were instead far more distant. Where Professor Vandham spoke to his students as equals, the other teachers (with the exception of Professor Hinata) treated the students almost dismissively, as if teaching them was a waste of their time. One of them had actually gone as far as wondering out loud what was the point of teaching math to cannon fodder.
According to rumour, he had not showed up for his next class. Or for any class after.
Even though most of his time was spent with his team, Hiro had gotten to know other members of the Prime class as well. Most of them only shared a few words with him before going back to their own teams, but a couple had stuck around enough to leave an impression on him. The first had been Ash Smith, a pretty American girl who seemed to always have a different instrument whenever she was in the common room. She had actually only told Hiro her name, her accent betraying her origin. The reason she stuck in his mind so much was because she played beautifully. The boy had spent several hours just sitting close by while she played, not saying anything and just enjoying the music.
Another one who was a bit more amicable was Ketora Sanaka, a French young man who dyed his hair a bright red and sported a goatee. He also had heterochromia, so his right eye was grey while his left one was blue. He could usually be found around the common room reading one book or another.
Lost in his thoughts about his new academic life, Hiro eventually found himself in the Arsenal room, which was a huge hangar-like space, filled with small stations where the students kept their warframes and assigned weapons.
The dark-haired boy walked to his station, sitting in a small stool, and stared at his warframe.
The thing looked like a relatively large human, except for the head, which sported a horn with a golden effigy on it, and the head itself had a golden circle where the face was supposed to be.
During the prior week, he and the rest of his class had regularly linked up with their frames, to get used to the connection and reduce the disorientation it caused in first-timers. It was mostly just getting linked up, walking around, maybe do some light stretching and some push-ups.
The first time they had done this, Hiro had been scared of feeling the same pain as the first time, but it never came. Professor Vandham had explained that the pain was a side effect of a 100% synchronisation, caused by the brain not being able to understand which body was actually the correct one and therefore firing off nervous endings randomly. This was the reason they usually kept the level of synchronisation at a stable 50%.
His thoughts were interrupted when he heard the sound of footsteps coming up behind him. Fearing he had been caught outside the common room after curfew, he immediately rose up, maybe to attempt a quiet escape. However, he stopped when he noticed that the person who had joined him wasn't a teacher, but a young man as well. Probably a student, he thought.
The newcomer was tall, dressed in black trousers and a black jacket that went to his thighs. He had reddish brown hair, that went down to his shoulders, framing and bringing attention to his emerald green eyes.
Hiro was almost sure he was not part of the Prime class.
"Hello" the red-haired boy said.
"Hi" replied Hiro. He didn't really know what to say.
"Sorry to disturb you, I was just taking a walk" the other boy said; "I can leave you alone if you want".
"No… no you can stay" Hiro said, and then added: "I shouldn't really be here either. We're supposed to be in our common rooms".
"I doubt someone will die just because you went for a walk at night" was the reply, "I'm Rylus by the way".
"My name is Hiro, pleasure to meet you" Hiro said, doing a small bow out of habit.
Surprisingly, the other boy brought his palms together, as if in prayer, and then bowed as well. It was a gesture Hiro was not familiar with.
"So, what dark thoughts bring you here tonight, my friend?" asked Rylus.
"Tomorrow is my first training exercise" he replied. "And I'm afraid".
"Fear is normal" said the red head, moving forward to examine Excalibur Prime more closely. "Fear is one of our most important instincts. And our greatest tool for growth. Without fear, there is no courage. Without fear, there is no change".
"Sounds philosophical" was the reply.
"Indeed. But if you want something more concrete, I could say that your own fear is your greatest obstacle. Fight back against it, overcome it, and you will find that you are stronger than you ever believed".
Hiro thought about it while his companion walked around, examining the other prime warframes after he was done looking over Excalibur. He could see the point of what he was saying, but at the same time he could still feel the fear festering in the back of his mind. The sheer terror that he had felt the first time he linked with Excalibur, when that voice had echoed trough his head, its dark presence running trough his mind like fire, burning every other thought away.
"Hey kiddo..."
the voice resonated trough the Arsenal room, scaring Hiro out of his thoughts. For a moment, as he jumped to his feet, he could almost see it: the oily shadow covering everything, and then a red light, as if far away… two burning red eyes staring at him…
However, even trough the fear, Hiro could feel a burning anger. Those eyes and that voice had tormented him ever since his first link, visited him in his every dream, appeared to him every time he closed his eyes.
"Fight back against it, overcome it, and you will find that you are stronger than you ever believed"
"I will not run away" he said. "I will stand my ground… and I will fight!"
Hiro turned around and walked out of the Arsenal, his head held high. He was done being afraid. He never noticed the shadow melting away behind him.
The mood was sombre on the tram. This was the first time any of them was on a live-fire exercise. For the first time, their warframes would be used in combat, even if just a simulated one, and everyone in the class was nervous. Everyone, that is, except Anna, who was turning on and off her Valkyr's claws in excitement, and Hiro, who had an almost palpable aura of determination around him.
"Hey, you okay?" asked him Carlos, currently piloting his Oberon Prime.
Everyone's body was actually in the arsenal, in a small bio-bed next to where their warframes were normally stored, neurally connected to their warframes trough the somatic link and being closely monitored for signs of danger. All the warframes had then grabbed their weapons and gear and went on the tram that would bring them to the dark side of the moon, where the training field was. Hiro was in his Excalibur Prime. Carlos was in his Oberon Prime, which looked sort of like a medieval knight, except that from the head sprouted imposing looking horns, woven together almost like branches. Annalisa was in control of Valkyr Prime, a streamlined, almost cat-like warframe with what looked like a crown of spines on her head and heavy gauntlets on her arms. Finally, Ai piloted Mirage Prime, a warframe looking like an harlequin. Curiously, many warframe that the teachers refereed to as females had the outlines for breasts and hips, even though warframe were just machines and there was no real purpose to a male/female distinction for them.
"Hey, you okay?" asked Oberon to Excalibur.
"Have you ever had a revelation that made you change the way you look at things?" asked back his teammate instead of answering. It was the first time piloting his warframe made him feel empowered rather than trapped.
"I know I have" piped up Anna from next to them, while still playing with her claws.
Oberon was a bit taken back. When he had left his teammate to go to sleep last night, Hiro had been full of doubts, still scared that his warframe would turn on him and eat him or something. But this morning, he looked almost like a different person.
"Also" continued Excalibur, turning to look at him now; "Do you know of a guy from our or another class called Rylus?"
"Can't say I ever heard of him. Why?"
"Met him the other day. He talked… differently than most people our age. I guess I was curious about who he was."
Before anyone could reply, the tram slowed to a stop. As soon as it had fully stilled, the door opened and Professor Vandham, now piloting Inaros, walked in, fully armed.
"Get off and get ready" he ordered. "We start in five."
The training field would look rather ordinary to anyone who would look at it when it was not in use. It was just another area of the moon, about a hundred square kilometres large. Just another collection of dunes with some rocks scattered about.
But if you were to turn on the combat simulation system, the dunes would come alive with hard-light construct resembling Sentients, pieces of cover resembling topped building would come out of the sand, and sometimes even holograms of civilians would appear under the rubble.
On another setting, it would become a holographic forest. On another, a dense jungle. On another a coastline. And dozens more. All one needed to train young warframe pilots to be ready for all situations.
And right now, Excalibur, Oberon and Valkyr were behind cover in an urban setting, letting Mirage scout ahead with her stealth abilities.
As soon as their five minutes of preparation had ended, Inaros had grabbed his class and briefed them as if it was a real situation. Sentients had attacked the city, all civilians were considered dead, they were to split off in their teams and clean up the city, each with their own sector to take care of. And right now, their sector was positively crawling with Sentients.
"We have a few hostiles in that alley up on the right" reported Ai, jumping down from a building close by next to them. "We could go that way, and there is a plaza further on where we could prepare a killzone using the lure. But the plaza is full of Sentients already, which means we might end up in a killzone ourselves if we go in without a plan."
"Then we'll have to find another way trough" said Oberon. "We can't risk it when we have almost the entire sector still full of enemies."
"Wait" said Hiro.
"What? You got a plan?" asked Mirage.
Hiro's mind was going trough the abilities his teammates had, and a plan was indeed forming in his head.
"Valkyr, you make us as fast as you can when we get there. Oberon, you create those energy plants on the ground and use your regeneration power. If then Mirage creates her solid illusions, we can use those as shields and make it to a safe area before getting completely swarmed by Sentients. I'll use that light explosion I can do to blind them as often as I can."
"I like it" declared Valkyr.
Oberon shook his head. "You're crazy. Both of you." He was still preparing his Braton assault rifle and checking his ammo reserves though.
"This is a simulation" mused Mirage. "If there ever was a time to try out crazy tactics, this is it."
Without another word, the squad moved. Entering the alley, they came upon two Sentients, who immediately raised their arms, ready to shoot.
However, as soon as they had come into view, Excalibur had raised his blade and a blinding flash went off, disorienting the enemies long enough for Valkyr to jump onto one and Oberon and Mirage to lay waste to the second with a barrage of Braton fire. As their Sentient went down, its hologram flickering out, Valkyr ripped the core off hers, dispatching it.
Continuing down the alley, they were rather surprised not to find more hostiles, but Oberon reasoned they might have moved towards the plaza. Moving as quietly as possible from cover to cover, with Mirage cloaked and acting as a scout, they rapidly reached the end of the alley.
While Mirage would go in for a quick second look, the others were readying themselves for a dash trough what was sure to be heavy enemy fire.
However, as Mirage returned, she was baffled.
"All the enemies in the area were terminated. There is another warframe in there, one I don't recognize."
In the control room for the training field, Inaros was watching live-feeds of his students moving trough the field. He was rather satisfied.
Of course, for a first time, they had not made the enemy particularly smart. Where the real Sentients were capable of communicating with each other over vast distances without saying a word, the ones his students were facing now were fully isolated, only able to work together when in direct visual contact. They had not even enabled their adaptive resistance, so their students could literally just waste them by hitting them over and over with the same weapon. Today was not about clever tactics or suicide scenarios. Today was all about getting used to their warframes in a combat situation. The rest could come once they were familiar with these new bodies.
Inaros had been observing various team at random during this. He would watch each and every team later, once the exercise was over. But for now, he was just catching snippets here and there, just like he would during a real battle. This was as much an exercise for him in leadership as it was for his students in battle.
He had caught Banshee's team earlier, the girl using her sonar to find a safe passage to higher ground, then attacking with the heavy positioning advantage this afforded them.
On the other hand, Rhino had used his nigh invincibility to act as a meat shield for his team while they eliminated hostiles using their Boar shotguns. A terrible tactic had these been real sentient, but he could give him credit for his team-oriented mentality.
Frost, on the other hand, had done exactly what was expected. He had created a blizzard, which was probably close to the absolute zero in temperature, all around himself and his team, leaving only a small safe zone in the middle of it for them. This made the sentient slow as molasses, making them easy kills. Again, not very useful against real Sentients, what with their adaptation skills, but it was a good start in learning how to incorporate his powers in combat situations.
"Intruder in zone 16!" called one of the operators in charge of the simulation. "Unknown warframe is on the field!"
This snapped Inaros out of his musings and focused him on the live feed of Excalibur's team, the cold hands of fear clamping on his guts.
Hiro had shown himself a capable strategist in class. He was good at quickly analysing threats and using what was available to fight back. But he was such a scaredy-cat that he was afraid it would take the boy months to become capable of being of any use in a combat situation. Today had been a revelation though, seeing him fighting the Sentients without hesitation.
However, he was not even close to being ready for the scarf-wearing warframe Inaros now saw on the feed. Neither was his team.
"I'm going on the field, recall all other teams. Once I'm into the field, seal it. Nobody in or out till I'm done."
Excalibur, Mirage, Valkyr and Oberon stood still, weapons at the ready, staring at the lone warframe standing in the middle of the plaza, surrounded by the flickering holograms of Sentients that were slowly fading out of existence.
He looked like an Excalibur Prime, but the golden details were different in shape and place, and he was black instead of white. He was wearing a long black scarf on his neck, and was resting his left hand on the hilt of a long curved blade that was sheathed at his hip. He was not even looking at them, choosing instead to stare at the sky.
The team slowly moved to surround him, as it had been taught to them to do in case of an unaware enemy. Once they were all in position, Valkyr slowly moved in front of him. He was now in the middle of their formation, their weapons aimed squarely at his face. When he moved, it was not in the way they thought he would though.
He started slowly clapping.
"Well done. It would seem they actually do teach you some form of tactics in that school of yours. I'm now surrounded on all sides, your weapons on me, your fingers on the trigger… was I a normal opponent, I would have no way to get out of this without getting either heavily injured or outright killed."
He slowly turned to look at Oberon, who had to suppress a shiver when the faceless mask turned towards him.
"But I have to ask you a question" he continued; "Did you think I was a common enemy?"
Suddenly, there was a shift, and all four teammates immediately started unloading their rifles at him. However, it was for naught, as he had jumped behind Oberon before the thought of shooting had even fully formed in his head. A kick to the back of his knees had him on the ground kneeling, where a strike to the back of his neck with the hilt of the strange blade was enough to trigger an automatic link-cut and awaken Carlos back in the Arsenal, his warframe falling to the ground like a puppet with their strings cut.
This had taken a whole 2 seconds to happen, during which Valkyr had decided to forgo her rifle and jumped at him, claws extended, forcing her two teammates to hold their fire or risk hitting her.
Valkyr had expected her opponent to unsheathe his blade and engage her, sword to claw, but he didn't. He placed his blade back at his hip and simply waited for her attack. As she attempted to strike him with her claws he simply dodged her with minimal movement or redirected her strikes with almost gentle slaps of his hands to her wrists.
"You have a lot of rage in your steps, little kitty" he said, infuriating her. "I wonder, does all of your passion come from your anger? Or is it the rejection of your own fear that drives you?"
He grabbed her wrists, forcing her immobile. "Is your childish act the truth, or just a mask you use to deceive everyone, including yourself?"
Enraged beyond coherent thought, Valkyr attempted to kick him to force him to release her, but instead he grabbed her leg and swung her away, making her go straight trough a wall.
As soon as she was away from him, Excalibur and Mirage started shooting again, but their opponent was enveloped in golden light and dashed at them, engaging them in swordplay.
Abandoning their Braton, the two grabbed their Skana from their backs and got ready just in time for the curved, golden blade to clash against them.
What followed was a dance of the two attempting to strike at their opponent from various angles, while he masterfully moved his blade in slashes that always managed to deviate their swords just enough to make them miss. A couple times, they had managed to get into a lock-down between their blades, but all this had accomplished was showing them that the two of them combined were just strong enough to hold against him, bringing to either them retreating and trying another attack or him moving his blade in a quick slash and forcing them off-balance.
It took very little for the two teammates to realize that their enemy was not taking them seriously.
However, at a moment when the two had retreated a short distance away to catch their breath, a wall of sand rose and fell down on their opponent, obscuring him from view and, they hoped, binding him in place.
"Get out of here!" ordered Inaros, arriving on the scene together with his sand. "Leave your teammates' warframes. They are safe, we can recover the frames once this situation is dealt with."
Before either student could reply, an explosion of golden light freed their opponent.
"Clever trick" declared the black Excalibur. "I salute you for this ingenuity. I doubt it will work a second time though."
"No need for it to work again. I will end you here and now!" replied Inaros, readying his Skana.
Without another word, he charged into battle. But upon reaching his enemy, he noticed that the other warframe had sheathed his weapon and simply jumped back out of range of the attack.
"I'm not here to fight you" was the declaration, before the black Excalibur raised his head and an otherworldly howl resonated trough the battlefield, completely freezing the teacher in place and making the two students fall unconscious.
Hiro woke up back at the academy, in what he recognized as the infirmary. Turning his head, he saw Carlos and Anna quietly talking on the side, sitting at a table, while on his other side he saw Ai, still unconscious, on the next bed over.
"You're awake" called Carlos, noticing the movement. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I just got my ass kicked" was Hiro's reply. "Who was that guy?"
"No idea, but he was on a whole other level compared to us" replied the green haired boy, while Annalisa just got sulky.
It took about another half hour before the nurse came back, during which Ai also woke up. Once they were all checked up, they were let go.
"We should go to the Arsenal" proposed Ai. "All of us have had our link forcefully cut, we should check our warframes are back and in good condition."
Nobody had a better idea, so that's where they went.
Upon reaching it though, they found their teacher, Vandham, sitting next to Excalibur Prime.
"I thought the four of you would come here" he said, rising from his chair and moving towards them; "We need to talk."
"What you met during this exercise is someone we have codenamed Shadow" he started, "me and Reo… sorry, professor Hinata, first met him on Mars, accompanied by someone else. His partner looks about your age, has reddish hair and green eyes. They are both considered to be extremely dangerous, and we know nothing about their objectives or the full extent of their abilities."
He then turned to Hiro, noticing he had gone pale during his talk.
"You okay there Yamamoto?"
"I think I met one of them the other night." said the boy.
Immediately, the professor grabbed him by the shoulders.
"What happened? When? Tell me everything!"
"I was having trouble sleeping last night" commenced Hiro, "so I went for a walk trough the corridors. Without noticing it, I arrived here at the Arsenal. I sat down at my station, thinking about things, when he arrived. He was like you described: red-brown hair, to his shoulders, green eyes… he said his name was Rylus. We just talked, while he was looking at the frames."
"What did you talk about? What did he do to the warframes? Which ones?" asked the teacher, filing away all the informations. Command would want to know this stuff to the last detail.
"We just talked about generic stuff, he didn't ask anything about us or the academy" replied the dark haired boy. "And he didn't do anything to the frames, not even touched them. He just looked at them." Hiro did not mention his vision of the darkness and the red eyes. He didn't want to look crazy.
Professor Vandham took a deep breath, and let it out in a long sigh.
"Okay..." he said; "okay… now, you kids go back to your rooms, and rest. Your warframes are safe. Do not talk to anyone about what we discussed here. If you ever see this Rylus, or Shadow, immediately retreat and sound the alarm. Do not ever engage either of them. Am I clear?"
Hiro, Carlos and Ai immediately nodded. They were not interested in getting their ass kicked again anyway. Annalisa on the other hand glared in the general direction of her warframe.
"Am I clear, Miss Gatti?" repeated Vandham, now looking straight at Anna.
"Yes sir" she replied, unhappily.
Orbiting around the sun, hidden away in void echoes, a large ship opened its hangar in order to let in the landing craft coming back from the moon. As soon as it was inside, the black Excalibur dropped from it, and right as it touched the pavement Rylus appeared in a blue flash in front of it.
"That went pretty well, even if I do say so myself" declared the Tenno to nobody, walking away from the liset and leaving Umbra to find his own way to the Arsenal.
"Operator, I do not understand the purpose of this provocative actions" called out Ordis trough the ship speakers. "Is it not your objective to destroy the sentients?"
"It is, but these people are not ready" was his answer. "They still need a full team of warframes to take down a single Sentient soldier. Most of them are not even able to fully access the powers of their warframes."
"Can you not teach them?" asked the AI, eager to offer solutions. "You are a Tenno Master after all."
"I could. Most of them would probably be open to it too" replied Rylus as he entered the bridge; "but their leaders are just like the Orokins, though not quite as corrupted as them. Drunk on their own power, believing they know better only because they have more authority. I won't be able to teach anyone anything unless these abusers of power will be made to tremble and fall by their own hubris. Just like the Orokin before them, they will need to fail, over and over, before they are willing to accept they need the Tenno."
He then grabbed a cup full of a warm liquid that appeared on a console nearby, drinking a sip and opening the console to check the information he had acquired in the last couple days all organized and put together.
"In the meantime, I might have to do some damage control and stop these children from killing themselves" he finished, moving to the navigation console and leaving the screen he had been using on a picture of Annalisa.