Chapter 2: Small

The low swish woke her up again; she didn't dare to move, as she was sure to feel pain again. However she waited for something that never came, as she heard steps on the floor (at least she thought it was a floor), and a gentle touch on her arm. She opened her eyes, hissed and in that second she was already plastered against the wall away from whoever had been touching her, trying to put distance between her captor and herself. Again she expected to feel pain. But nothing came once again.

But when she looked at them a bit more calm, she noticed that they looked nothing a like her captors. She mostly saw white, and some green, and felt a bit… weird. Like something had changed in the room ever since the stranger came inside, she shook her head and kept herself near the wall, hoping this would end soon. Without pain.

Whoever this was stared at her, and she didn't want them to look at her. She closed her eyes as if hoping that would make them go away. She waited and heard a sigh. She yelped as she felt herself being lifted from the floor and the wall leaving her back. She fought and made a tantrum, not wanting to be moved from here.

The stranger said something she didn't understand but they sounded mad, so she stopped, terrified; he seemed angry. She was going to feel pain again. She didn't want to, anything but the pain.

XxxX

Frost hadn't known what to expect when he boarded the Grineer ship. But it wasn't this. This hostage looked like a not diseased Grineer and a prettier Corpus. But certainly didn't have the discipline that both had. And they were really small. He wasn't sure if he believed now what the Lotus had said about the hostage being the key for the 'Grineer salvation'.

When the hostage started to fight back and make a tantrum after he scooped them up, he grew mad. Oh hell no. He thought, and tried to stop them from moving without hurting them, but there was crying and it was escalating to screaming.

"Stop… moving!" He said losing his cool a bit.

The hostage stopped. He blinked surprised and looked at them. He felt they were… trembling.

Frost new better than anyone the power of the cold, and he knew how to differentiate someone trembling from cold and someone trembling from fear. The small hostage was scared. Had he scared them? He didn't know and his train of thought was interrupted as the Lotus spoke.

"Good. You have them, go to the extraction point, but beware, there are Grineer marines incoming."

"When are they not," Frost said mostly to himself, and carried the hostage, their stomach resting on his shoulder. He sprinted, not sure if this would hurt whoever he was carrying, and right on queue, the Grineer were on his heels.

"Tenno, be careful, they seem to be getting reinforcements from another ship," the Lotus said quietly.

"Nothing new," he said putting down the target and quickly moving to shoot the nearest Grineer with his rifle, right on the face. He got shot back, the Grineer angrily barking at him.

Frost sighed, taking cover behind a wall, not before feeling something funny on his leg, he turned down and looked at the small being clinging to him, the little organism was crying. They were definitely scared. Not sure of what to do, he knelt a bit and gently patted the little one's head. The little one got startled and looked up.

"It'll be fine, you'll see," he said, and turned quickly to shoot another Grineer, this time he wasn't as accurate and managed to wound their arm. He hissed in anger to himself, and groaned as he felt bullets from his other side piercing his shields. He groaned in anger.

The little one screamed. The Grineer were approaching quickly and Frost was running out of bullets on both of his guns. He could switch to melee any time but that would mean living the little hostage alone and possibly back into Grineer hands.

"C'mon, Frost, you are way better than this," He heard over his comm link, and internally smiled at the well-known voice, then he chuckled, earning a well deserved confused look from the little one.

"Points for making me laugh," he said.

"What's the situation, Frost?" Another voice, with a more serious tone, joined the conversation, Frost heard groans and screams of pain from this voice's comm.

"The usual, really, hostage rescue mission and the Grineer really want this one," he answered not bothered by the sudden voice on the comm link, the little hostage clinging to him as the Grineer closed in, "Alive."

"Ordis detected another incoming ship, they really want this guy, huh?" A voice with a motherly tone to it joined in, Frost readied his Bo staff and grabbed the little one from the waist, picking them up, "What did this guy do?"

"The Lotus didn't contact you?" Frost asked, protecting himself and hostage from the incoming bullets with his Bo staff and readied himself to move.

"No, Ordis told us," answered the first voice that spoke, "He was freaking out because you weren't coming back."

"Figures." Frost muttered. He heard a giggle from the comm. The little one didn't fight his touch this time, as Frost sprinted across the room, giving hell with his weapon as he sprinted and picking up what supplies he could to reload his weapons.

"You still haven't answered Banshee's question, and I for one am curious." Frost scoffed at the tone but indulged them anyway.

It took him while to answer as he took cover behind a while and placed the little one right alongside him. Frost reloaded his rifle and started shooting back once more at the Grineer, taking a bit more care of how many bullets he used. They shot back and he took cover again behind the wall.

"Before I answer that, what's your position?" He asked patting the hostage's head again; it seemed to calm them down. "For all three of you."

There was silence in the comm for a while, and Frost kept shooting back at the Grineer from his cover.

"Banshee and Vauban are closing in your position," He sighed a bit relieved, "I'm trying to make some noise on the other ship to try lower the load of Grineer."

"How close are you two?"

"We are almost in the room, just a handful of fire spitting Grineer are holding us back." Vauban answered, and Frost heard a dying Grineer from the other tenno's side of the comm. "Well, they were at least."

"Good." That was the only thing Frost said before he heard Grineer dying behind him, and looked from his cover.

There they were. Banshee and Vauban bringing hell on the marines, and the Grineer were dying like insects as the two Tenno moved to where he was located. Frost felt a tug on his side, and turned to the hostage, who was crying again. Once again he tried patting their head as means of calming them, but this didn't help. At loss of what to do, he really just gave up and turned to the room, just to find the Grineer slaughtered and Vauban staring at him, well not at him, but at the little organism next to him.

So that's why the little one was crying. Vauban just scared them, and with good reason. Being the tallest of the Tenno, many did not mess with him. Not even Loki and Mirage. He looked past Vauban and Banshee merely waved at him. Frost sighed and grabbed the little one again, not quite ready to give an explanation of this hostage, but not really having another choice.