Not one side dared move. Grineer crosshairs met Tenno scopes and sights, each invisible pair of eyes staring into the other. Hek stood proud in front of his soldiers with a black-toothed grin on his repulsive face. Those beady little yellow eyes found Orion, who leered back with the dozen Tenno that were left behind him. The air found a rare stillness despite the battle of stares being fought in it.
"What is it, Tenno? Nowhere to hide? How more will you run, before you realise your helplessness?!" Hek's barking voice thundered across the hall. He began to stride towards them, each one shaking the ground more and more.
We hold our ground. Umbra spoke to them with a strange calm.
"Do you think your Lotus will help you?! Do you think that anyone, ANYONE, will come to save you?!" His monologue seemed to have its effect on the troops around him; the soldiers now murmured amongst themselves with rising confidence. Orion didn't like it.
"This was all your doing, Tenno." His burning eyes found Orion and flashed with a glint of recognition. "You, the Ash, this is what YOU DID!"
Now the Tenno started to have their own quiet utterances of doubt; all eyes bore into him. Orion felt sick. He knew what was to come.
"That's right, Tenno. He led me right here. Did you not listen, Ash? Didn't I tell you that I would pay you a little visit?"
Horrible memories sliced into him. Death, swords, blackness, blood... Fire. He felt his blood ice over.
"Quiet, you... you bastard! My friends are dead, by your hands!" Orion's temper crackled, nearing the brink ever so quickly.
"Do I upset you? Is it the fact that you are useless, that this is all for nothing?!" Hek jeered at him, laughing that horrid laugh every so often. "You've lost, Ash, accept your fate with this so-called Tenno honour. You can't change what will happen! I win. You. Lose."
"No... this will not..."Orion was losing his voice. All thoughts flew from him. His resolve crumbled. They couldn't die, he realised. He didn't care if it seemed cowardly. To think of one's death as a good thing, that was insane. He wasn't crazy.
"Tell me, Ash, if you will not defend your home, what will you fight for? What do you believe?!"
What... is this?
"Why do you continue? What is it? Tell me!" The soldiers were gaining resolve, slowly coming out of cover and following their leader across the landing, who crunched dead bodies under his feet.
"I..."
The Tenno readied their weapons, but didn't fire. Some unholy force stopped them. Fear.
"How long will it take? Answer me!"
Hek's shotgun waved dangerously close. The other Tenno took cautious steps back, rifles still gripped anxiously forward. Orion was rooted to the spot. His legs would not obey him.
"Ash, move! He'll kill you!" Someone urged him over the voice-link. It didn't matter.
"You... what are you...?" Orion went down on one knee, one hand steadying him. The memories drove through him again and again, repeating the gruelling torture of witnessing the Rhino, the Oberon, Fenrir, again and again. The intel room... The prisoner...
"Shit. Get back! Find cover, everyone. If he wants to die, then so be it."
Umbra hissed to the rest. They fell back all too eagerly.
"I am what you will never have, vermin. Power." Hek's thunderous footsteps came to a stop. His shadow covered Orion's defeated expression. His heavy shotgun forced Orion's head down.
Orion, I believe you are ready.
Ready for what, Dust?
I was the Nyx that held this sword. My spirit lives on. I can search your mind and see things you never could on your own. You were blind before, but I believe you are now ready for what I have to show you.
I can't move, Dust, I don't kno-
Hush.
Time halted. The metal clicks that chambered another shell into Hek's shotgun rang all around Orion's head. His vision drew him from where he knelt and threw him back to the scene he knew all too well. His eyes stung. Tears immediately welled in his eyes as curtains of smoke draped his vision. He could breathe through it, he realised.
His naked toes curled on the burning earth as he walked through, but to his surprise, his feet did not burn. The ground felt lukewarm, like the soft embrace of the baths back home. But where was home? For some absurd reason, Orion felt some sort of attraction to this place, even though it stank of death and scalding smoke. The smoke. It cleared within moments. His eyes relaxed and lifted their teary veils. The edges of the buildings, the outlines of the bullets, the after-smell of carnage; each as crisp as snow. But the only snow here was black; the floating remains of paper screens and charred splinters of wood. Orion slowed his footsteps. A figure, with white, glinting teeth...
Not this time.
Orion found himself running, and he realised then that he could run. Whatever previous binding had broken loose and shattered. This was his reality. The figure was drawing closer to him, step after step. Nothing else mattered. Orion must have run a mile, but that silhouette was right in front of him, hidden only by the strangely hazy smoke that plumed from the leaking canisters and bodies alike that littered the ground. Orion stopped before the wall of black. It licked at his feet and reached for his face. He leapt into it and slammed into something he couldn't see. He tackled with the stranger and tumbled down the hill. Smoke let go of both of them and Orion strained his red eyes open.
The fires stilled. The world stopped. The man at his feet, with hatred etched into his face. Orion stared with horrid disbelief as he felt bile creep up his throat. He couldn't breathe. The man, although different, younger, slimmer, with a human body and still a slightly healthy colour to his sadistic smile, was unmistakable in his identity. Orion clasped his chest and got to his legs. He tried to fit air into his lungs. The world slipped away. The shark-like smile could only belong to one man, one disgusting excuse for a man.
"Hek."
The world came back, but it was not the same. Colours were empty shades of black and white. Edges were sharp like knives. The gaping barrel of a shotgun met his face when he looked up to face it.
"Your friends scatter, Ash! It appears you will die with no one by your side." Hek chuckled deeply as he pressed the shotgun to Orion's head.
I thought you should know the truth before you die.
Thank you for telling me, Dust. I know what I must do.
What is your plan?
You'll find out.
His heart burned. His muscles ignited, like the blazing fires of his homes. His lungs drew bitter, hate-filled breaths, like the toxic smoke that choked the lives from his family.
"Hek..." His voice rasped.
His anger bled into reality through his left arm, which hissed with grey vapour like the chemicals that liquefied the lungs of mothers, children and men alike.
"Do you know why I fight?" He found his footing and drew Dust from its scabbard. The runes trailed with ethereal white. The vapour darkened into a near-impermeable haze through every vent in his warframe. Any unnerved observers would see nearly nothing but the crimson red of his eyes striking through like hellish lanterns.
"It's not for money." One leg behind him.
"It's not for the Lotus, either." The other bent in front.
"Do not delay me, Ash. Stop with this!" Hek growled, and slammed a huge fist into Orion's ribcage. He was sent back a few metres, but kept his footing.
"I'm not running from you, not anymore... Hek. My friends, my family. You slaughtered them, like mere cattle." Orion stepped forward, receiving all the gun barrels to his face that he would ever need.
"But the past is the past. You're a twisted man, if I can even call you that. I've found a new family, Hek. Can you say the same? Do you have ones who you love?"
"Love is weakness! It is what killed your father, your whore of a mother, everyone who you ever knew!" Hek roared at him, firing several rounds at Orion but striking none. They clattered into white-hot halves on the floor.
"You're wrong. But I'm not here to argue philosophy with you, filth."
"How dare you?!" Another salvo, another flawless dodge. The smoke spread faster, to every fingertip.
"You may have taken my last home, Hek, but I'll die before I let you destroy this one!" Orion yelled and charged straight at Hek. Hek bounded forward and fired off four shells at once, but hit only empty air. Orion had vanished.
"Strike now, Tenno!" yelled Umbra into the voice-link in the moment's silence.
Orion blurred into view. Not as one, but as many. A storm of blades, he teleported across the room in seconds and tumbling vortexes of smoke. His blades did not even register sound with their speed; the marines died with whispers and whistles of sinister steel. Blood spattered across Hek's yellow frame while soldiers died around him.
When the last of the Grineer fell, the Tenno focused their fire on Hek. Their bullets pattered uselessly off his shields like steel raindrops.
The Nekros, not daring to engage Hek in melee combat with his scythe, reached for an Ogris and yanked it from the cold gripping hands of a Bombard's corpse. He shouldered it and fired three rockets that screeched to their target. The first barely registered, the second staggered and the third nearly knocked Hek to his side. Hek grunted and swivelled back to his assailants.
"Kill them, all of them!" Hek screamed. Rocket pods appeared from his back and fired into the supports holding the roof together. The great stone collapsed in front of the rest, blocking any way through.
No battle cry replied. Hek was alone. He snorted and looked to his soldiers. They lay dead. The Ash... where...
Orion dissolved into the air, right in front of Hek. The Grineer general had his weapons pointed elsewhere; he was defenceless. Orion cut down and across, but Hek managed to jump back within an inch of his steel. Orion disappeared again. Hek brought his mask up and jumped backwards again, landing hard and shattering a fallen column. In the corner of his vision the shadows shifted. The piercing screech of steel rang through Hek's ears. He looked round and saw Orion in front of him. He brought his cannon up, but stared in horror as it fell to the ground, parted cleanly in two. A Loki reappeared beside him, a Kama dangling at his side.
"You... I killed you!" Hek yelled in disbelief.
"Evidently not, mise'rum, or your gun would still be intact." Fenrir sneered back.
Hek growled and spat at the ground.
"Do you think you are WINNING?!" He roared as he swivelled his shotgun round.
Fenrir reacted first. Orion jumped too late. The shrapnel shattered on his body and blew apart his shields. A stray sliver caught the top of his eye. He bit into his teeth as he tried to pick it out. The gash went deep. Orion flicked the shrapnel out and carefully wiped away the blood pooling in his eye socket.
"Did you really think it would be this easy?!" Hek yelled once again.
Orion's lip lifted into a snarl, and he jumped up again. Dust guided him to where he needed to strike, but the cuts never made a scratch.
"You can't kill me, Ash!"
Orion winced when the sword connected again. The force sent an invisible wave down Hek's frame and rippled his strike back through him. His arm flew out wide, and he fell, flailing like a puppet in the hands of its manic master. Orion landed on the ground with a pained groan. Fenrir reached under his chest and hoisted him back up.
"You are not alone, brother. Figure it out. Deep breaths." Fenrir's voice was unerringly calm, one hand on Orion's shoulder. Orion had rare doubt at the back of his eyes. "I'll keep him distracted, don't you worry."
"Alright." Orion breathed, once in, once out. In, out. The world found a bit of its colour again.
Orion shut his eyes, ignoring the pain from the wound in his forehead. Words from what seemed like eons ago trickled warmly into his mind.
"Close your eyes. Steady your breathing." One foot in front
Remember, Orion.
"Your eyes merely show you what happens."
You were there.
"Every footstep, every tiny movement."
You saw.
"My mind's eye is now open, and I will help you open yours."
The inconsistency. The buckle in his joint, the imperfection. So the bastard hadn't thought to fix it. Under his arm, just remember, at the small point, in that small measurement of time.
"Ash! I'm here!" That voice, the one that called to him, he knew that voice. Auburn hair, lilac eyes...
"Ilene." The light blinded him at first. He squinted slightly to see a warframe draped in white, with streaks of red and blue, speeding towards him. It landed gracefully, with almost no sound, next to him.
Air. So this is the Zephyr I've been hearing so much about.
"You are not supposed to be here." Orion watched Hek's movements as he expected his pupil's reply.
"I'm so sorry, I just woke up and I knew I had to help and they killed everyone an-"
"Hush, now. You chose to fight by me, so I will treat you with the same respect as anyone."
She picked up a Karak from the ground and listened intently. Orion began to move, hands on his sword. His legs carried him into a run.
"There is a flaw in Hek's design. One chink in the armour, where the shields do not work as they should. The tunnel in the wall of Troy." He pointed.
"I... Yes, I see it." She carried on behind him. They were close and felt the heat of Hek's rage.
"You control the air. Fenrir will give you an opportunity. Send a squall into that joint and tear it apart. I will follow."
"You got it." He felt her beaming under her helmet, then that furrowed brow of determination she always wore to impress him.
Fenrir sensed her coming. He flipped over one of Hek's joints and slashed across him, causing his arm to raise. He swung at the Loki, who seemed to be feeling the effects of his distractions. Ilene dashed forth and created a turbulence of wind in her hand. It raged through her fingertips and screamed forth, straight into the joint. It buckled straight away. Hek yelled in surprise and staggered back. Orion carried through and shoved the sword up into the metal framework. Dust whispered through the metal. Wires came loose and sparked like fiery spitting snakes.
"You... you haven't won yet."
Two small limbs unfolded from his hulking torso. Hek leaped forward and crashed down in front of Orion. There was a smile playing across his diseased teeth. Orion tried to evade, but his legs would not respond. The two lightning rods on Hek's arms coursed with snakes of violent electricity that arced and hissed round Orion's legs, constricting him and shackling him to the ground. He couldn't move.
The shotgun came round. All Orion remembered was cold steel, an eardrum-shattering gunshot, and the feeling of oxygen still in his lungs. The feeling of air, ruffling his unkempt hair. Fenrir lay where he had lay, blood spurting from his back and his warframe ripped to shreds.
"Fenrir!"
"Orion, listen..."
"Fenrir, you fucking idiot, you didn't have to-"
"Don't be a fool... Orion. That's... what I'm here... for..." His breaths left him soon after. Orion heard no whispers in his helmet. Dead silence answered over the voice-link.
Those were his last words. Orion hated to hear them. Fenrir didn't have the right to die now. Not now.
"Ash! Hang on just a bit longer! We can get round this!" Antheia's welcome voice entered his helmet. He winced. He wiped his eyes of grief and looked round, no expression in them. The debris was piled high, offering no means of entry or, for that matter, escape.
"Leave, Antheia. Now." Orion felt no obligation to make conversation. Hek was recovering. A shotgun chamber snapped behind him.
Orion drew Dust. Light shined from its every opening. The runes spoke their ancient warning with trails of smoke. He soared through the air, eyes narrowed. The flare of shotgun shells flickered by his right, but he paid it no heed. Hek raised his arm to defend against Orion's onslaught. One time he struck, twice, three times. On the fourth the sword cut clean and severed the metallic joint, which dangled uselessly from fraying cables. The shotgun clanged to the floor. Two arms left.
Orion landed softly on the balls of his feet, and then bought himself distance through a graceful handspring. No longer did his blood pump with the raw adrenaline that his body craved. He felt in control. The sword in his hands felt part of him. An extension of his will.
Make this count.
I will.
Orion ran straight for Hek's legs and slid under his groin while running his blade along the suit's towering metal legs. Sparks cascaded down as he struck again. The third time, when Hek swiped at him, Orion vanished in a wisp of smoke and materialised before Hek's blotched face. What made Orion frown was that Hek's face wore nothing but a smug grin.
It happened in moments. His gut exploded with pain as Hek's arm ran straight through and hooked itself into him. Hek's grin grew wider.
Hek brought Orion closer to his face, and snarled.
"Your bloodline dies with you. No one will have to bear you filth-ridden blood in their veins."
Orion, now the puppet again, was swung round on the point to face out to the battlefield. Bodies, Tenno and Grineer alike, carpeted the floor. Debris was scattered across the halls like petals. Fire ate through the remains of a charred body lying in a crater. The Nova's pure white helmet was shattered, revealing the fiery red hair underneath.
"Look at who you let die. Look at what you couldn't save. You are pathetic, just like the rest. You will die a failure." With that, Orion could hear the whirring of a blade behind his head. His neck buzzed with sick anticipation.
Orion didn't cry. He knew what was to come. What could he do? A final act of defiance, perhaps. Hek would not kill him. It was a stain on his legacy.
He looked down to Dust. Hek was right behind him. Perhaps, if he...
I see what you want to do. I cannot stop you.
One last request. Please.
Very well. You will live on in me, Orion.
He reversed the grip on his sword and positioned it in front of him. Only a moment. His chest burned as the sword quivered in his fingers. Fond memories came to mind. He decided against dwelling on it. The whirring was right by his head now. He grasped the blade tighter. He plunged it in. Pain flooded through every part of him. He felt his heart rupture, his lungs fill with blood.
End it.
Even his eyes hurt as he looked round to see the beady eyes of Hek roll back into their skull, gazing forever at the blade shoved in his forehead. The Terra frame buckled at the knees and collapsed. Orion felt a final wave of pain that nearly sent him under when the titan fell to the floor. He held on just a bit longer.
"Antheia..."
"Orion, you bastard, why? You-"
"I remember what you said. About how life is... funny. La vie est drôle."
She stayed silent.
"Do something for me..."
"I hate you." She sobbed.
"When things are back to normal... have that drink... but leave me some. I might come to-" Violent coughing racked his frame. Blood trickled from his mouth.
"To finish it off."
His vision faded. The last thing he saw was the lone sword, lying among a hundred broken blades.