He was alone. Even though his capsule had no lights to illuminate the blackness, the feeling was apparent when it crept up his back and across his shoulders, making his hairs stand on end and his throat tighten in invisible hands. This added to the urge to choke back curses at Hek, who had killed his comrades; the Nekros, for not looking for alternatives and being so negligent and ignorant towards the Trinity, who had tried her best to save him; to the Lotus, who has sent them on the mission which was doomed to fail from the start. Rage scalded and burned his skin, making his hand clench into a fist. He slammed it into the wall of the capsule, which sent a shock back into his body in response, making his now healed wound throb painfully.
His breathing stilled and his fist unclenched, aching slightly from his small outburst. He exhaled and opened his eyes.
The only light he had were faint rays from the distant curtain of stars that twinkled and glimmered over the eternal blanket of nothingness that embraced them with gentle arms. He felt a strange calm invade his spirit when he looked out towards the heavens; it was a sudden stillness that toned down the crescendo of noises that played across his mind constantly to one, single note.
He hadn't felt a peace like this for as long as he could remember, no matter how much he scoured over his few, shattered memories. It almost seemed fitting, he thought, that he should die of something like lack of oxygen instead of a bloody fight of fists, nails and teeth in the heat of battle. He had searched for a peace like this all of his life, yet he found it right before he was going to die.
"La vie est drôle." He repeated a phrase the Saryn had said once on a mission, after she had poisoned a Corpus crewman with hallucinogenics and watched him eagerly as he turned on his comrades.
This "fond" memory made Ash chuckle; he, of all people, would die a peaceful death thinking about the woman who he had convinced himself that he hated.
Maybe he had been too harsh on her. She had, after all, saved his life on more than one occasion, as he had saved hers in turn. As much as he hated to admit it, they did form an excellent team through mutual love of bloodshed, however much they bickered and spat at each other when they returned. It was a harsh and uncomfortable truth, but one, Ash realized, he had to accept. And, with that, he closed his eyes and waited for death to sink its scythe into him and, at last, take him to the hell in which he belonged.
"My, my, this certainly is interesting." said a voice that sounded somewhat normal, but was lined with a sinister edge that was nearly indiscernible.
Ash opened his eyes after what seemed like a lifetime of breathing in tranquil silence and waiting for the oxygen to run out. Around the windows of the capsule frost had crept its way across the glass, reducing the lights of the stars to dim shimmers. He shivered, this time out of cold, for his warframe was just repaired and functional, and so barely managed to keep up essential life support.
He remembered that he had heard a voice from somewhere. He looked to his left to see blackness; his right only showed a few twinkling lights. Ash looked up and nearly yelled from surprise.
There, blocking out any light, was crouched a black figure, rooted to the spot with his head cocked to one side. His suit seemed almost jet black in the dwindling light of the stars, but the blood-red trim of its helmet glowed dimly and illuminated just enough to see that the ominous figure was wearing what looked to be modified warframe armour. In one hand it held what looked like a Spectra-pattern laser cutter; the other held a double-bladed scythe with one end crooked at a small angle. The weapon plucked a small string of memory in his mind; he couldn't remember where he had seen it, but the weapon held a distinct familiarity in his shattered memories.
The figure spoke again, somehow managing to break into Ash's voice-communications.
"Why are you here? You seem awfully far from your little dojo, Tenno." A row of perfect white teeth appeared on the figure's face turned crimson under the helmet's light, turning an unnerving smile into something out of a nightmare.
"W-Who are y-you? H-how do you k-know who I am?" Ash managed to make out the ragged whisper over his uncontrollable shivering and lack of oxygen.
"I know many things. And one of them is that all Tenno wear warframes, even me. Well, I'm not exactly Tenno; I abandoned your futile cause centuries ago, but you get the idea."
"Y-you haven't answered my question."
"Neither have you."
Ash exhaled sharply in reply, before shivering again and saying "M-my name is Ash. I was i-implanted with a Grineer tracker when I was mortally wounded, so they c-c-casted me out here in a bid to save everyone else on the s-station."
"You have been betrayed. I can at least relate to that. Anyway, I don't think that you'll be joining them soon, no?"
"The t-tracker will kill me if it gets r-r-removed. I can't g-go back."
"Understood. Now, firstly, let's turn the oxygen back on, shall we?" The figure proposed as it slammed the palm of its hand on the outside of the capsule, making the lights turn back on and artificial air hiss through a vent on the floor. Ash took a deep breath, allowing himself to fully awaken and let oxygen back through to his fingertips and feet. Warmth flooded back into the capsule, caressing Ash's body with gentle fingertips and stopping his shivering.
"Now, Ash, I have a proposal for you. You may board my ship and accept my offer, or die in the cold vacuum of space. What do you prefer?"
"What offer are you talking about?"
"I'll take that as a yes."
As soon as the syllables passed its lips, the figure brought up its scythe and sliced downward through the metal. It carved through the glass capsule, letting the freezing nothingness if space into the capsule and causing a red light to flash repeatedly above Ash's head. An arm came down through the slit and tore the metal outward, making the fissure even bigger. The figure reached down again, this time with its palm out and the arm extended a lot further down.
"Grab on, Ash. You don't want to die even quicker, do you?" the voice asked.
He shook his head and grabbed its wrist, bracing himself for his exit. This came a sudden jolt that yanked Ash out of the capsule and into space, leaving him, quite literally, breathless. He watched as the capsule floated away, the red light flashing meekly every few seconds or so before snuffing out. The nameless Tenno, or whatever allegiance he had sworn himself to, looked down at Ash and opened up two scales along each side of his armour. These gaps blasted white gas out into the vacuum, propelling the two forward into what looked like utter blackness. He then made a quick, swift movement of is fingers over his right thigh, which lit up by the faintest amount in response.
Within a few moments a rather small yet somehow intimidating slender ship uncloaked in front of Ash's eyes. It was slim down its front and back, with a small divide that came back round in the middle. The back of the ship housed engines that spat green flame into the airless void and struggling to stay alight. No lights could be seen from within the windows on the centre of the ship, leaving them eyelike and vacant. The front of the ship was whittled down to a point, leaving the entire vessel with the guise of a blade that seemed all too familiar to Ash; his Nikana.
My Nikana.
His heart leapt into his mouth as he smacked his hand into the side of his hip to feel for a holster that wasn't there. He swung round, tearing free of the stranger's grip to look back at the capsule. He zoomed in onto its interior, but his search yielded nothing. He had lost it.
"We have no time for grief, Ash. Time is pressing." He said, as if to read Ash's mind.
Ash's heart felt deader than it ever had before as he re-joined the stranger; to lose a weapon was one thing, to lose something as bonded to his soul as that sacred sword was different. It was like losing a limb, a connection severed by the cruel scissors of fate. He felt slightly detached; as if the broken piece of him had latched its hooks of sorrow into his soul and refused to give without tearing chunks out of it.
Slithers of insidious orange light crept through the eerie blackness of space as a door opened to the vessel, compelling Ash to turn his head away from the distant metal glint of the capsule. The pair landed softly on the metal grating of the ship and waited for the airlock door to slam shut. Once it did, the lights turned on and white gas hissed from small vents in the walls, illuminating a room with a pale green light that made the pervading gloom even more oppressing on the mind. Ash opened his helmet and breathed air again, wheezing a few times and ridding himself of the nasty chemicals used in the warframe's artificial air.
He followed the mysterious stranger down the metallic corridor into what looked to be helm of the ship. Unmanned consoles poured walls of text across their screens with no one to read them; the three chairs at the front for observation and ship navigation were also deserted. The wall on Ash's left bore a rack where a bristling assortment of weapons hung on rusted racks. He recognized nearly all of them, some not of Tenno design, but distinct nonetheless: the Braton, a solid, all-round efficient rifle still in use with all Initiate Tenno all throughout the system; the Jat Kittag, a Grineer hammer that brutalized piston-driven forces to pummel enemies into the ground with immense force; the Dera, a plasma Corpus rifle that disintegrated matter on contact; the Paris, a bow that used magnetic polarities at its mouth to fire bolts at nearly the speed of sound. All of this weaponry must have come from some Tenno armory, but how? This stranger was supposedly not of his kind, so it must have been bought some way or another.
He looked across to the centre chair of the helm, where the figure had already sat down and reclined in, spinning around and opening his palms out. A bow and quiver leaned against the wall next to him, what looked like modified Kunai lay scattered across the desk in front.
"Welcome to my domain, Ash. How do you find it?" The stranger asked with what sounded like genuine interest.
"Rather empty, as I would assume you know." Ash answered blankly.
"A looted Corpus snub fighter. It is nothing remarkable, but it has served me well for these past decades."
"Why did you bring me here?" Ash said abruptly, wishing to change the subject.
"Here is my offer. I would like you to join me in my cause, in return for saving your life."
"I don't even know who you are."
"You don't?" The stranger sounded almost hurt.
"Am I supposed to?"
"One would assume, yes."
"That's no matter. Why do you want me?"
"To seek redemption against those who have done harm to my kind."
"Doesn't everyone?"
"Yes, but I get paid for it. But lately, Ash, I have been losing clients. The market has gotten too advanced too fast, and I have no way of keeping up. I need your expertise in assassination and combat to help me on my contracts, and eventually to exact revenge on those who have done wrong in this wretched system."
"What contracts? Why not just join the Tenno cause?" Ash was getting impatient.
"I despise them. They have betrayed their creators, and so I hunt them." The stranger's tone darkened into a desolate, cold murmur.
"Yet here I am." Ash lifted his eyebrows, unimpressed.
"But they cast you away. You have been betrayed."
"What's your point?" Ash said after a moment of contemplation.
"I ask you to hunt everything in this system. Rid it of impurities, so we may walk out unscathed and clean. You have no one to call friends in your clan, no? Why fight for them anymore? I can see that you have no desire to, they've just left you for dead without a second thought." He let the words sink in before asking with a gravity Ash did not expect to hear, "So, do you still consider yourself a Tenno?"
Ash thought back to his fellow Tenno; the Saryn, who he despised for her constant aggravation but tolerated for her playful spirit; Umbra, who had sat through months of mental temperament on his mind just so he could be sane, but who had always scorned him for his sadistic thoughts and actions; Fenrir, who now lay dead in Nekros' sacred burial grounds, as if to have answered Ash's silent prayers for him to die. He looked back up at the seated figure, and shook his head.
"Then let us get started." The stranger replied with a shark-like grin.
Ash winced as the operation table's restraints clamped down on his elbow joints and knees. The stranger stood over his pale frame and, with surprising delicacy, picked up a diamond-tipped scalpel from an operating table. Ash was suspended in antiseptic fluid prior to the operation, so the stranger patted the incision markings on his side dry and began to cut. The scar that was only closed a few hours before was opened up again, making Ash grab the cushioned surface of the operating table and clench his fists until his knuckles went white. He let a small cry of pain loose from his lips, resulting in a mocking smirk from the stranger.
The small pain inhibitors implanted along his spine and neck instantly kicked into action, resulting in a soothing blanket of anesthetics and muscle relaxants flooding through his body and reducing the searing pain from his side to a dull throb. The stranger noticed his relaxation and began to work with more haste than care, working slim fingers round muscle tissue and inserting what looked like wires into his side.
"What are you going to do?" Ash demanded, but his voice lost its alarm through his drowsy state.
"Not much. I'm surprised your former colleagues could not see the solution to this problem." He began with a clear look of disappointment on his face. "I'm inserting a false transmitter of vital signs into the tracker. The tracker itself was disabled at your dojo, but the explosive is still primed. Running this transmission through it will make it believe it is still part of you; we can dispose of it safely afterward."
"Hmm. Just remember you die too if you fail." Ash stirred.
"Don't remind me, Ash." The stranger replied with an eye roll.
The two fell into silence once again, leaving the hushed drone of the bed and the whine of the scalpel to fill the air once more. The stranger grabbed two wires and, with great precision, guided them in through the divide. A small spark from inside made Ash nearly jump, but then the stranger took his hands out and held up a spherical metal ball with strands of sinew hanging from it up for Ash to see. He went over to a console and quickly tapped in a code, letting the cold void of space reach its hands into the operating room. Air rushed out into the blackness outside, taking the tracker with it.
The stranger then slammed a button on the side of the window and waited for it to hiss shut. When it did, he gestured with a brief point of his hand toward the window for Ash to look at. There was nothing for a few tense moments before an explosion tore through the vacuum and smothered the small operating room briefly with blinding blue light. Ash felt its shockwave ripple through the room and rattle a few instruments, and looked down at his side, wide-eyed.
"I… That was inside me?" Ash managed to make out, shocked, as he sat up.
"Yes. I think you understand now why those 'expert' surgeons of yours would rather not have taken the risk of removing that tracker."
Ash felt a retort rise up in his throat, but this was cut off by an uncomfortable tug at the opening in his side as the stranger sowed the wound shut with several thin threads. He sat up, facing the stranger, who had now gotten up and gone to inspect the servo-arms repairing his warframe.
"What now, then?" Ash broke the silence once again.
"Now? We go to see how you fight."
The dueling arena was reminiscent of Ash's chamber, with high, domed walls; the small platforms and ledges that were built high up on the walls; the small fissures in the ceiling that only allowed the most narrow rays of light through.
The stranger had decided upon using his scythe for the duel, giving Ash a small variety of stolen weapons to choose from. Ash browsed over his choices, which were hung upon a rack on the wall: a Prova sizzled with electrical energy, but its weight was unbalanced and ineffective, so Ash decided against it; a Fragor hammer, which used seismic force distributors upon landing a hit to deliver maximum energy, was also out of the question, for it was too heavy; a pair of Fang stilettos that struck a chord within his heart, making his chest hurt with painful recollection of Saryn; and finally, a rather peculiar looking sword that lay rested against the wall, not hung up on the rack like the others. This particular sword boasted a lean, slim edge on its blade, which had only the slightest of curves. Although unpowered, the sword radiated an aura of seemingly forgotten expertise of its previous owner. The groove along its blade had imprinted Orokin runes across its surface that could, under the more observant eye, be seen to be translated as:
"Until death do us part."
Ash stared with a keen interest at the blade; he gripped the handle and brought it to level with his eye, before cutting into the stale air a few times to test the balance. It handled well under Ash's speed, but, like with his old sword, there needed to be a connection. When he had connected this sword to his warframe AI, it had snapped its technological manifestation for jaws at him and coiled back against his will. It fought constantly, whispers scratching at his ears and seemingly supernatural energies pulsing against his hand and through his body.
Who are you?
A voice rasped harshly from all around his mind; he couldn't seem to pinpoint it to one specific location, it seemed to come from everywhere at once; it was as if the black, looming walls were talking themselves.
Ash found himself looking at the sword with stark interest, gazing at its silver, glistening edge and the faded runes in the groove near the hilt. He closed his eyes and reached out with invisible arms towards the weapon.
I am Ash.
You are not my master.
Your master is dead. For now, I am.
You are a fool. You are… troubled.
That is no matter. You will obey me.
The sword snapped its invisible jaws at him before drowning itself into the sea of whispers that scratched at Ash's mind. Ash turned to the dueling arena, where the stranger was sat, kneeling on something that looked to be a prayer mat.
He had taken his armour off and replaced it with some sort of ancient gown that cropped at his thighs and was tied with a black belt at the waist. The stranger had a ghastly white hair and even paler skin, which reminded Ash of his own reflection. However, where Ash's eyes were a shadowy grey, the stranger's glowed an insidious scarlet with a slight tinge of shrewd cunning. On his face he bore a large scar that ran across the centre of his forehead and behind a curtain of ashen hair. His lips curled ever so slightly into a frown as he looked up at Ash's selection.
"The Pangolin sword, I see. I would be careful with that, if I were you. It belonged to a Nyx who I had assassinated near the Phobos catacombs; that sword has something inside it that I would rather not allow to taint my mind." He explained, being careful not to look at the sword itself.
I guess I'm too late, then.
Ignore his words, corruption has taken him. He should not fear me, but himself.
I am to lock swords with a madman?
Remember which sword you wield, Tenno.
"It will have to do." Ash answered.
"Very well. Shall we begin?" The stranger asked with an unerring kindness.