The passenger section of the extraction vessel was silent on the journey back to the dojo. Not one word was spoken, and breaths were taken in quiet, low drags. Scenes of bleeding eyes and weeping faces flashed through their minds over and over again. Panicked screams and desperate whimpers seemed to ring off the walls, making any breaths tremble with frightened recollection.
The magnetic locks holding the Tenno in place disengaged with no prior warning, leaving Ash sprawled on the floor. He got up with an annoyed grunt and rolled his bruised shoulder.
"Biological signatures from external environment detected. Allegiance: Tenno. Bacterial contamination detected. Decontamination sequence initiated." An automated voice stated flatly on the speakers.
An alarm blared from above their heads, joined by swiveling red lights. Small nozzles slid out of the walls and began to spin rapidly. The unnaturally clean alkaline smell of disinfectant filled Ash's nostrils, making him snort repeatedly. When the decontamination process had ended, air quickly blew away the liquid off their suits and the hangar exit swung open.
"Welcome back, Tenno." The voice said with an unnerving friendliness as the four stepped into the silent tranquility of their home.
Apart from his chamber, the baths were the only other place he could find peace in the dojo. He had stripped from his warframe and given it to the Vauban for repairs and augmentations and made his way down here to clear his mind. It was appropriate, he thought, that anyone who saw what he'd just seen would need time to unburden such awful memories. He stared at his pale, white skin in a mirror. When he had begun his training, his skin had looked somewhat healthy. Now it was ghostly white, and the only thing that told him apart from a cadaver in the Trinity's morgue were the muscles that rippled underneath his skin.. Rage and anger had fuelled his ruthless re-training routine; the Lotus expected no less. A long, faded scar ran down his left side; touching it brought painful memories of his first experience with the Firstborn, the Hunter. The Stalker.
He preyed upon the Tenno, and used cruel, custom made weapons that were specifically designed to breach Warframe armor. One of these weapons was his scythe, the Hate, which had tiny microscopic barbs on its mono-filament edge that tore through the armor with ease. The real damage was done to the skin, however. The barbs pulled and ripped apart the sinews holding the muscles together, leading to irreversible and horrific internal bleeding.
One such ally of Ash's had faced the Hate's full fury. His leg had been torn off in chunks and sliced apart, and he now served in the Mechanicus with the Vauban, unable to run to the speed of his comrades. The Tenno lived in fear of the Stalker's watchful eye, and it was his predatory presence that kept the Tenno alive and together.
Ash remembered the searing agony as he ran his fingers over the scar. Casting away such unpleasant thoughts, he turned towards the small pool of faded-green water, steam wafting lazily over its surface.
Perfect.
He dipped his feet slowly into the inviting pool, making a warm sensation swim up through his body. Ash slowly sank in, letting the hot water wash away the dark burdens that weighed him down like hooks in his shoulders. He breathed out and allowed himself to be absorbed by this moment of perfect peace and qui-
"Ash." A female voice was speaking to him. Not from one discernible location, but from everywhere at once.
He groaned and leaned his head back, closing his eyes to try and block out the voice.
"Do not try and stop me from getting into your head, Ash. Your psychic barriers are weaker than a desert skate's." The voice said patronizingly, with what sounded like slight irritation.
"What do you want, Umbra?" Ash replied.
"Meet me in my chamber. I must speak with you."
"Why not talk like this?"
"I cannot sustain psychic communication without my psynapse link. You know this." The annoyance grew in her voice.
"No." Ash replied, in a teasing manner.
"Do not test my patience, Ash."
"Or what?"
Her reply was a slight pinch at the base of his spine that crawled slowly, very slowly, up and up to his head. His muscles locked in place, and once the psychic energy had reached his brain, the torment began. His vision turned the sick colour of rotting flesh, with wide, yellowed eyes staring at him from the walls. Inhuman shrieks seemed to emanate from the walls themselves, driving into his ears like frenzied maggots.
A deformed creature, one only from the most hellish of his forgotten nightmares, erupted from the water, knocking Ash down onto the side. Its eyes messily gouged from their sockets and skin, ruptured and gored, it swiped madly at him, broken nails coming within inches of his face only stopped only by Ash's withering strength. The water, before a faded green, darkened into a thick, black sludge. Ash kicked the creature into the pool where it thrashed about violently, barely managing to scream as water entered its windpipe.
"Fine!" Ash screamed as he closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was on his knees on the stone floor, arms barely holding him up off the floor. The welcome warmth of the bathhouse returned, but he still shivered. The water became steamy and pleasant once more, and the walls stopped watching him. He got up and walked back to his locker, where he got changed back into his robe.
"I'll go. Just don't ever show me the twisted shit that you have in your mind again." He said with a pained breath.
"I'm glad we understand each other." She replied, sounding pleased with herself.
Ash readjusted his belt and stepped into the Nyx's chamber. Green-blue light brightened and faded slowly on the walls, draping the room in a slow, peaceful atmosphere. A clear pool reflected burning candles, flames skipping across the surface. A thin trail of smoke wafted through the air from a glowing stick of incense which filled the air with pleasant lavender.
In the middle of the room was a seated figure, legs crossed onto opposite knees and arms resting on the legs with fingers making perfect circles. Her eyes were closed, her fair hair tied in a bun yet letting a thin strand escape and hang loose. As the door gave a serpentine hiss and shut, she let slip the slightest of smirks on the corner of her lips.
"I didn't think you would actually come." she finally said after a long period of silence.
"I didn't plan to, before you stuck those visions into my head." Ash replied with small pricks of annoyance stabbing at his voice.
"Beautiful, isn't it? Chaos at the click of my fingers."
"Yes, but it takes a special kind of cruelty to do something that awful." Ash remarked.
"You talk as if you have a heart of gold. Get over yourself, Ash." she bit back with a condescending smirk.
"Point taken." He took another step onto the wet stone path. Cool water lapped at his feet, making the hairs on his legs rise.
"Anyway, Umbra, what do you need from me?"
"We need to talk." She said as she rose from her meditation.
Her feet gracefully stepped across the water, levitating slightly above the surface but never touching it, like daring birds swooping low to the lake but never meeting its embrace.
"It appears everyone needs to talk to me these days. Has the Saryn lost the courage to speak to me herself?"
"As much as I would like to scold you for your attitude towards your fellow clan members, there are more pressing matters that need to be discussed."
"I beg to differ."
"That's irrelevant. There is something that's been plaguing me for a while, and you are somehow involved."
"That somehow doesn't surprise me."
She ignored him. "Do you remember when you came here? When they first cracked out you of the capsule?"
Cold, so very cold.
"Not much. Why?"
"I've been looking through your memories – well, what's left of them – and there seems to be a complete cutoff from your inoculation. No trace of any memory cells, just… blank space."
"You've been…?"
"Don't act surprised, Ash. Like I said, your mental barriers are not exactly hard to break."
He huffed, and leaned against a nearby moss-covered rock.
"Anyway, what intrigues you so much? I'm sure I'm not the first amnesiac you've screened."
"True, but they at least have some memory of pre-birth response, or some sort of language development. Yours is like a blank slate, completely wiped." She explained as she reached onto a shelf on the tips of her delicate toes, coming down with a crystalline bottle in hand.
A clear liquid with a slight emerald tinge sloshed about inside. A gathering sense of curiosity began to overcome his unease, willing him to take another few steps into the chamber.
"What's your point?" He began to circle round the chamber, looking round at the domed ceiling and the lights that ebbed and flowed so softly across its surface.
"I think it might have been done on purpose."
He stopped at the edge of the pool, leaving only a slight ripple where his foot had gone in a fraction. He turned to her. Her face was one of almost terrifying gravity, hard and immovable as stone.
"You truly think so?"
"Yes."
"Is there any reason for such suspicions? Besides, who do you think is responsible?" Ash replied, still looking unconvinced.
"I can't say anything yet. I think this," holding up the bottle in one hand and two small glasses in the other, "will help."
"Somehow, I don't trust you."
"I think it would be better for both of us if you did." A voice sounded from all around, but her lips stayed drawn.
She sat down, cross-legged, levitating slightly off the ground. She set the two glasses down in front of her, filling them and carefully putting the crystal ball back onto the neck before it floated back up to the shelf.
"Come, join me." She spoke much more softly, almost alluringly. Her fox-like smile erased the last of his doubts.
He sighed, and sat down in equal fashion across from her. He picked up one of the glasses, as did Umbra, and waited.
"Drink it quickly, it will take effect sooner."
"Very well. To good health?" He raised the glass.
"Why not?" She smiled. She drank it down and meticulously set the glass down again, Ash with slightly less grace, for it had already taken its effect.
Stars trailed across the top of his vision, and he felt his hands lose feeling. His head sank forward, caught by gentle hands. She grasped the side of his head, and focused. He felt energies, otherworldly, indescribably eerie in their nature, running through his mind like the first waters of spring through a mountain stream. He was sinking, dissolving into her fingers and running through the spaces in-between. He didn't feel particularly human, either, as if he was on some other abstract plane of existence, floating between dimensions. It wasn't something he could put his finger on; he felt somethingthathe couldn't feel. He was… elsewhere.
Slowly, so very slowly, did he begin to see something. Formless shapes floated around aimlessly, spreading random colors across the screen of his vision, some coagulating and creating entirely formations and patterns, extending all the way to the furthest corners of this new world he was in. He now realized he was standing, standing on solid ground. The sky was turning to some dark shade of grey, and tall, towering objects rose all around him, grinding like stone against stone and covered in overgrown, aged, graying moss. The space around him appeared to distort slightly, human-shaped, but not quite. These shadows walked around, never touching him, or each other. Ash reached out to them, but they passed through his fingers like desert sand on a light wind. Everything seemed very ordered in this world. These shadows behaved very calmly, drifting, with no particular hurry, to their next insignificant task.
Within an instant, everything changed. Vivid, high fires blazed forth, igniting the structures around him in their hellish embrace. The shadows fled immediately, scurrying away towards the welcome darkness. Another blurred explosion of light destroyed the structure next to him, yet he didn't feel a thing. Further down the ash-covered road did he see tall machines striding on three, stilt-like legs that crushed the tiny huts they stepped on, all the while spraying death from the cannons protruding from their bodies. The shadows began to soak up colour, revealing them to be people, people that were screaming, people that were running. People that were dying. Ash looked on, lost in the malefic scene before him.
A walker strode over a building, ripping apart the wooden frames and turning the brickwork into dust. Its leg, pointed into a fearsome spike at the end, pinned a woman into the ground and twisted, making her let loose a last, wrangled scream. She spluttered and coughed up a hunk of bloody tissue, before hitting the floor. Ash could not see her face, masked by her flaming red hair, which was fierce as the flames that burned around her. A name was breathed from her lips before she passed.
Orion.
The name resonated out to him, but was quickly stolen away by the wind. It seemed to ring in his mind for a moment. He wasn't sure why. He looked on, to the machines, which were already passing onto the other side of the hill. He could already hear the distant rattles of their guns.
Bodies, cut apart by the bullets, lay scattered across the dry earth in front of him, soaking it anew with the blood that flowed from flagrant wounds torn into ghost-white flesh. He turned his head to down the hill, where, out of the rising plumes of smoke, he saw a small group of soldiers running up towards him, following the machines. Behind them was a black figure, still partly obscured by the smoke. Ash squinted, but the man did not seem to be moving. In fact, everything seemed to slow down. Ash began to run, ignoring the cacophony of dying screams that played endlessly into his ears. But, no matter how fast he ran, the figure only went further away.
Ash took his next step, but could not take his next. He was frozen. The fires were gone. So were the screams. The heat cooled on his cheeks. He felt again. He felt Umbra's hands withdraw from his head, and he sat up drowsily to face her.
It seemed like any life underneath those forest-green eyes had been drained from her. She looked dead to the world, and only barely managed to keep her head straight at him as she began to slur her words.
"Ash…I need you to go. Don't tell anyone what you saw."
"What did I see, exactly?"
Her look turned sour.
"Did you not hear me?" She would have sounded annoyed if her voice showed any sign of emotion.
"Yes. And I want answers." He stood up, offering his hand to Umbra, who took it with some hesitation.
"I know you do. But right now, I need to study what I saw. Hell, maybe my sister may be of some use for once." She joked, but no smile came to her face.
"I see." was all he said. He blew a floating strand of hair from his face before turning to the door on the ball of his foot, stumbling somewhat awkwardly.
"Goodbye, Ash. Vulcan requested your presence down at the Mechanicus. He's getting impatient."
"Vulcan?" He said, ignoring the last part.
"The Vauban. Now go. I need rest. Looking into your mind can take its toll on mine." She shivered slightly with those words.
"You have no idea." He whispered as the door whistled shut.
Ash stared blankly at the floor as the elevator descended. What had he seen? The visions had definitely been his, he knew not even Umbra could dream up something like that. But he remembered none of them. Unease began to crawl through him, making him shiver as he remembered. The walkers. The woman. Him.
The figure sparked something. Something familiar. Ash knew this man. But, however much he wracked his brain for answers, they did not come. Determination overcame his unease. The fire was lit.
If it costs me my life, I will find him.
The elevator stopped and its doors slid open. Ash swallowed and stepped into the narrow hallways of the Mechanicus. The walls muffled the droning sound of machinery that pounded into Ash's ears. Momentary blue flashes sparked from under the door at the end of the hallway. Cracks filled the air as Ash stepped in front of the door. It slid open, exposing the full reaches of the Mechanicum Primaris. The room was lit with only a few white lights that rose out of the wall. The walls themselves were black, and glowed with electrical energy every few seconds.
Wires were scattered all over small desks and tables which looked more akin to operating tables. Servo-arms jolted and twitched in no particular pattern, welding and repairing old machinery and damaged warframe armor. A hunched figure clothed with only a brown robe draped over his skinny shoulders slowly placed silvery scales onto what seemed to be a prototype warframe. The head was pointed and streamlined with what looked like a bent beak sticking out the front of it. The torso was streamlined in the same fashion, with wings rising from the shoulders and ending fully opened at the wrists.
Ash walked carefully and slowly over to the figure, which seemed almost as robotic as the servo-arm that worked opposite him. He cautiously stepped round the crooked man, who didn't even lift his head from his work. The warframe in front of him actually levitated slightly, he noticed. The fibers linking the armor together were tied down by nearly invisible threads, which seemed to be straining against some unknown force.
"A marvel, isn't it?" A gruff yet friendly voice sounded behind him.
Ash spun round in surprise to see who had managed to speak normally over the cacophony of the workshop. A figure clad in navy blue armor stood before him. Eight black spheres glowed a light-blue light from both sides of his torso. A thick metal strip sat on level with his chin with the facial part of the helmet raised to expose a hearty, gleaming grin. He had crinkles round his eyelids and on the corners of his lips and a thick faded gray moustache, with an aged blue eye that showed little life but gleamed with wisdom. His other artificial eye shone a distinct red. Rings on the short barrel of the eye spun and stopped momentarily, focusing, scanning and examining their environment. The Vauban had already begun to betray signs of age, but his knowledge of technology was unparalleled, which he was prepared to even modify his own body to expand.
"The new Zephyr warframe blueprint was added to the Clan's research archives only a few days ago. Infused with Oxium, this suit is lighter than air. Can't imagine anyone crazy enough to want to pilot such a thing."
"I can name a few." Ash replied with a rare glint of humor.
The Vauban chuckled to himself. He walked to a room with a holding area similar to the ones on the extraction dropship, Ash following behind. Ash's warframe hung on it, with his Nikana suspended by magnetic forces on a glowing desk in front of it. Small cables were connected into the warframe at the back of the head, making it pulsate with energy every now and then.
"Well, here's your new warframe, all good as new. I've added on modifications to the suit, your blade and the throwing knives. I think you'll like it." He said with a wide grin.
Ash answered with a grin of his own, perhaps slightly more uneasy than the Vauban's.
"Well, let me show you what I've done. Firstly, your Kunai. I've had them fitted with small motors on each blade. When they are drawn from their holsters, they vibrate at incredibly high frequencies. So high, in fact, that when they hit something, they start to go through it. You know, with molecular displacement and all that."
Ash merely nodded and listened.
"Next, we have your warframe. I've done some polishing on the armor, tweaked the suit's energy usage and efficiency and reinforced some vulnerable areas. But most of all, I've upgraded the AI. Normally, warframe suits use small computers that are linked into your brain, and these transmit nervous signals into the suit almost instantly. Very efficient." He paused, and pointed at the arms of the suit. These had faint lines that glimmered weakly every few seconds running down the sides.
"This, my friend, is the REAL improvement. You see these lines here? They are small uplinks to an improved AI in the warframe suit. You can choose to have this turned on or not, by the way. When an enemy fires a bullet at you, the suit will automatically calculate the trajectory of the bullet and see if you are in danger of being hit or not. If you are, your suit will raise your blade and deflect or even slice through the bullet. Very useful, no?" He asked proudly.
"I commend you for your efforts, Vauban. Please, continue." Ash replied respectfully. Rather pleased with praise from someone as introverted as Ash, Vulcan carried on.
"Now, I've added some modifications to your sword. Firstly, something minor; I've added a magnetic link between your gauntlets and the hilt of the Nikana, so you can quickly recover it if you manage to be disarmed." Vulcan's eye lit up at his next sentence. "Now, here's the star of the show. Normally, your blade is controlled by you, but the AI in your suit now responds to combat in a very different way." He grinned.
"This is what I call the Lone Sword. Your Nikana links into your brain via your neural ports that connect you to the warframe, pretty much fusing you two together nervously. The suit now does three things when you have your sword drawn. Firstly, it releases combat stimulants and adrenalin into your blood, allowing for faster strikes and movement. Secondly, your warframe AI can detect weak points in enemy armor, which the blade will pick up and guide towards when you swing. And thirdly,"
He paused to clear his hoarse throat. "is something I like to call the Life Strike. If you have suffered some sort of injury in battle, striking an enemy with your blade will trigger absorption of red and white blood cells and platelets, making your hyper-regeneration accelerators will kick in. Essentially, you will heal faster if you land strikes on enemy flesh. The blade itself has been fitted with a single-cell silver filament that can break incredibly tight bonds on a molecular level. Sounds good?"
Ash gazed in wonder this modified katana, which now seemed to shimmer with unearthly power, waiting to be released.
"The Clan thanks you, my friend. I look forward to testing your creation in the field, and I'm sure you will not be disappointed to hear of its performance."
"Please, do tell; I need know how my modifications will fare in battle if I am to make any I am to make further progress."
"You've done enough already. Thank you, Vauban. Now, please, let me be alone so I may try this new warframe on."
"Of course." Vulcan replied humbly. And with that, Ash was left alone.
He slowly traced his pale fingers down the dark grey body of his new weapon of war. They tingled and twitched eagerly, hungry for new, unlocked power. He quickly pressed a few buttons on the console, allowing the small pod to close over and zoom upward into his chamber. Ash turned round and looked at the magnificent blade suspended on the desk.
The air around it seemed to shimmer with violent energy that broiled in the hate and anger that seethed within its owner for so many years, only to be amplified with the new modifications that Vulcan had put in places. Ash released the blade from its magnetic bonds with anxious, excited fingers, balancing it a few times to get accustomed to the lighter design. He drew a long breath, and let it out. He imagined the figure behind him, the one from his visions, who eluded him just barely, running to the farthest, darkest parts of his memories, refusing to make himself known.
I'll find you. And, when I do….
A head rolled onto the floor. Ash smirked. He opened his eyes to see the damage the blade had done. No longer did the blade leave cuts and gashes in metal; now the sword went through without as much as a whisper. A corner of the desk clattered onto the floor, the inside edges still yellow from the heat. Ash glanced at the desk, then the Nikana, then the desk again.
I'll kill you.