Unending envisioning enveloped in shatterproof folds
[Published Aug 28, 2018]
‘What are the objectives,’ the warframe growls, and Warren bounces back to the mission director’s signal – still silent.
‘I don’t know…’ Warren sighs, ‘they seem to have gone dark now.’
The loki keeps its distance from the market settled just meters from the resting transport carrier, even as the Martian dust whorls around the comforting invisibility. And Warren allows them, merely presiding over the mission as they wait for the mission director to return. Small paws pad through the dust as the warframe eyes the transport ship, waiting beneath its massive shadow as the cloak persists – impatient.
Warren’s thoughts choke, this is his chance. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Does it really matter?’ the loki snaps back, turning over a shoulder as they feel the teenager’s presence float over his nerves.
Warren sulks, turning away from the merging senses, he berates himself as he waits for the passive voice of the director to guide him. Following orders is so much easier than forcing himself to be pro-active… mind holding his sensory cheek in resentment. He observes as the loki snaps his cloak back on as they wait, a shiver shaking down their spine.
Silence…
‘Sorry,’ the warframe returns, heaving a sigh through their dark blotched vents, glancing over the abandoned Martian architecture surrounding them. Barren and laid waste with blast marks, the adobe structures sit smoldering and splattered with blood and gory remnants of the small colony. The loki’s dull cerulean eye slits browse over the landscape, hoisting the catalyst between their arms.
▬▬▬▬
Jade Shadows epilogue - Teshin's Refuge (excerpt)
There is a child in my head. Not you, my love. Some battle-shattered thing, a ghost, a dream. She calls me by a name I do not choose.
Who are you? I ask.
"Your operator," the child says, "C'mon."
What did they DO to you?
"Let's go! We're being called up! Time to fight!"
My hand raises of its own volition. It is trembling. I hear the unvoiced tears in her thoughts.
The systematic war claims many victims; from the captivation of child soldiers and bodies turned into machines are war – there’s no external hope for them, disposable soldiers for the might of the Orokin Empire, battered and bruised. Restrain, dismiss, collect… repeat until the war is over.
Mature | Graphic Depictions of violence
Tags: Loki (Warframe) | Operator (Warframe) | The Orokin (Warframe) | Operative Jacob Warren | Transference Project – Freeform | Somatic Link – Freeform | Pre-Canon | Canon relevance | Imprisoned Tenno | Restrained Warframe | Merged pain | Horrors of War | Father Figure | Emotional Stress | Mass evacuation | Lasting injuries | Massacre | Orokin Empire Collapse - Freeform
[ Link ] or continue beneath the read more!
Claws angrily snap against Orokin binds, flexing and scratching, limbs jolting held behind a back plastered with healing welts. A growl rumbles behind sneering teeth, snapping and bent down as a mind peels through their anxiety – trapped, trapped; no escape.
And electricity shears through their spine as their transference bolt prods in the back of their neck, burning and aching, straining to connect as he shrugs off the mental assault. An attempt to interlink, to take his body from his own discretion. Pilfer his fraying sense of control left as he tries to shrug off the pins digging into his neck, tugging him down to the ground as a presiding guard shouts.
Obey.
‘Obey.’
Such is the Orokin way.
The loki snaps back with a rumbling hiss, slits in his face filtering through the overwhelming volume of feedback sensors. Another jolt meets his spine.
Again….
And again…
His will taken away for their own empirical needs. Where blood stains upon his tongue, and a childish voice commanding his motions relinquished for their own objectives.
It’s a mild discomfort of sensory invasion as he feels the young teen’s presence pervade his thoughts, drifting down through T’viska’s nerves and lungs as he rolls his shoulders. There’s only so far that they can move however, given minimal range as his arms still lie trapped behind his back, golden claws divided together against the cushion. Service crew mumble around him as he patiently waits for the vessel ‘distributing’ him, catching their nervous glances as a single Orokin guard hovers above him.
The loki can feel as the preteen tries to shuffle off the restraints, giving up once he recalls through T’viska’s own thoughts. ‘Welcome back, kid,’ the warframe chuckles, ‘you sure showed up early.’ Glancing back casually to the guard that holds the key to the meager restraints – well, meager if they weren’t cast with energy draining mechanisms.
Warren is quiet, thoughts furrowing as the warframe so casually waits to disembark on their next mission. There’s a pain surging against the loki’s cheek that wasn’t there before… and the warframe’s barely formed, and muffled, mouth frowns. ‘You alright?’
‘They punished me again,’ is all Warren cares to mention, winching as he tries to shuffle off the full-arm restraints pressing the warframe’s arms against his back, the surge of pain that follows as he tries to channel the small swell of energy still ebbing through T’viska’s chest.
‘Easy, easy,’ the warframe hisses, wrestling his movement away from the anxious Warren. ‘I’m okay, I’m fine,’ T’viska sighs, looking away from the floor meeting him to the other occupants of the small ship – a pin collar keeping his body tucked close to his thighs. ‘Don’t worry about me; this is just their standard protocol.’ He can feel tears welting against his cheeks – on Warren’s cheeks as he just follows through with the jolting of turbulence, listening to the shouting around him as distances are called out.
T’viska sighs as his body is tossed back and forth, people rummaging around and shouting as a projectile makes the ship shutter. He can feel as an armored hand yanks the leading of his pin-collar, unlatching it in the frantic fray. Behind him, the restraints around his arms begin to unlock, the engineering hiss of the mechanics made mute by the shouting pervading the ship’s small cabin – it’s time for them to go.
‘Hold tight, Warren,’ the warframe sighs as he draws his muscles to flex beneath his tough hide, standing to his full height momentarily as the ship creaks. Aching muscles stretch as the Orokin guard shouts at him, screaming commands directed to his operator, Warren, to jump through the open airlock door. Where the wind kicks through the ship, where smoke billows and explosions light up the withering night.
Inside his mind, T’viska can feel Warren coiling, withdrawn and quiet. The warframe snaps off the makeshift muzzle, yanking the small weapon holster from a safeguard compartment. Golden claws curl against the sealant structure of the airlock, inhaling the noxious smells – and lunges into the darkness, carried by the loki’s placid calm as the operator’s ring anxious.
Following down into the fogs of war, armed merely with a pistol and a stained blade.
Ichor black drips down the loki’s palm as he sits among the wreckage of the small provincial ruins decorated with the veracity of corpses and blast marks, eyeless sight watching the skies as archwinged compatriots follow the sentient combatants into the skies above. The aching blue of the slitting heat pits follow their motions, relaying them through Warren and to the command center controlling their platoon of disposable warriors. T’viska’s lungs wheeze as hands yield at his gut, shuttering as fingers grip and yank another inch of the sentient spear from his torso.
Jaws clench as he holds around the souring wound, steaming heat in a growl. It fucking hurts.
‘How are you holding up,kid,’ the loki questions, golden claws dividing around the injury pinning him in place. Half sat on rubble, half leaned – he’s hard pressed to move anytime soon. Black stains his chin and throat, body left battered and bruised.
‘This shit, fucking sucks,’ Warren growls from within his somatic cradle. ‘If I just got you out of the way fast enough-‘
‘Now, stop that,’ T’viska hisses, glancing from their melding injury to the skies above as a collage explosions rings. ‘shit already happened, and we’re just meant to deal with it.’
‘Sorry…’ the teenager mumbles, withdrawing in the warframe’s senses even as he winces from the transferred pain. His sensory hands hold over the loki’s physical own – sad and sullen as there’s nothing much he can do.
‘You stop that too, Warren,’ T’viska grumbles, leaning back against the structure with a hiss. A fist punches the structure’s metal coating in anger, forced to wait for the pain to subside, to give the teen a breather before he tries again. ‘Sorry doesn’t change anything. We’re going to get out of this mess; though, not anytime soon,’ he briefly laughs, hands grasping around the remnants of the sentient that gored him. He can feel Warren’s discomfort as he tries to wiggle another notch from his torso, maw snarling as his head arches back into the wall. And within his nerves he can feel the operator force his hands to withdraw, steeling them back from the burning pain dug into their merging torso.
‘You sound like my dad,’ Warren hisses, their hands melding into a single motion as they push the javelin-shaped chitin from T’viska’s scarred chest – the leading edge prodding against his heaving lungs before they shove it out completely. It lands with a sloppy thump, sentient blood and muscle still drooping from the opposing end. Their hands meet the gushing of slick black blood, staring up at the volley of sentient countermeasures blooming in the sky above.
T’viska groans as he reclines against the bloodied structure, an arm wrapping around the pulsating wound as he feels the operator do the same. A merging of nerves to transfer pain. Leaned against rumble decorated with the gore of a sentient, the loki sighs, exhausted. ‘Tell me, what was your dad like?’ He looks down at his blood-stained hand with a grimace, ‘this’ll take a bit to heal up…’
‘He always… tried to keep me calm. To stop worrying about other people.’ His emotional projection rests him beside the wounded warframe, unable to help in any other way than to distract him. ‘That people need to deal with their own problems, that there’s only so much I can do… to stop pushing myself all the time.’
‘Well, sounds like you haven’t followed his advice,’ T’viska laughs dry, wincing as he shuffles. ‘What happened to him,’ he mumbles, sighing as he tries to relax.
Warren slums through their somatic link, half listening to the transmissions echoing through the platoon commands. ‘He tried to choke me… on the ship. He just, went mad, that there was something watching us…’
The warframe wheezes a sigh, heat billowing out of his lungs and vents. ‘What happened to him…’
T’viska can feel the teenager’s nerves echo against his side, coiling arms into legs, a wince against the transferred pain prodding in his side. ‘He died… just like the rest of the adults. I’ve got no one… of course you know that now.’
‘Well, Warren,’ T’viska sighs, his left hand rising to pat his own shoulder. A motion of sincerity as he pats against the teenager’s senses, hugging transferred nerves. How very odd he must look to outsiders, hugging himself while clinging against a seeping wound, covered in vicious gore from his squad members and the sentients eviscerated among the ruins. ‘I’ll be your father now, how does that sound?’
Against his own cheeks the loki can feel a hand brush away idled tears, and Warren hisses, still holding a mirror of the angry wound against his own, safe body. An idle sob, a crooked smile, barely holding it together as phantoming limbs grasp around him – a transference hug that presses into the wound – and T’viska hisses. ‘Sorry,’ Warren mumbles, adjusting the motions to not irritate the bleeding gap in the loki’s torso. ‘That… sure,’ he stumbles to speak, holding tight in a clasping hug. ‘Sounds good… dad.’
T’viska pats his shoulder again as their nerves dissolve their melding motions, letting the loki hold his tender wounds as the isolated operator hugs his signal tight.
With a sigh, the loki stares into the maw of the sky, where smoke and debris floats in the wind. The fighting has ended, and it’ll be a while for the resource scavengers to show up and pick up what remains of the frontline combatants. Across the way he can spot an ember struggling to keep themselves conscious, clawing against their jaw as they lie beneath a heavy structure slab. Another screaming somewhere in the far distance, a rolling scream that makes the ambiance of bleeding energy and the sparkling of nervous electricity.
Against his side, the loki can feel the operator’s senses sleeping, exhausted.
T’viska remains vigilant, watching and waiting, clutching the signal tight.
He won’t let him go.
Although he had a choice in the matter.
But he stays with the teen as long as he’s able.
The loki cringes as electricity sparks through his mind as their connection is severed again, barely hearing a brief departing ‘I’ll be back’ from the teenager as he waits in the belly of a cruiser.
Restrained again, imprisoned among the ranks of other nestled warframes that growl and hiss mindlessly. Few remain quiet – either out of instinct or their own conscious choice. The ember from before growls down the row, rustling their chained restraints until electricity sparks. T’viska looks away as they scream hoarse. Hoping that Warren is okay, pressing his stinging cheek against his shoulder – smacked again.
Silence… long and exhausting.
T’viska can only wait to hear back from the teen, enveloped in darkness as the ship hums beneath his bowed shins, throat pinned down as he listens to the echoes of radio chatter. Another battlefield awaits them, the transport slipping into a disrupting mask as they slip into another gate that makes all of them jolt and sway. The more aggressive of the ‘unoccupied’ warframes snarl as the ship shutters, alarms blaring as it makes an invasive maneuver and slams him against the wall.
Against his mind he can feel a jolt, burning through his transference bolt as Warren is throttled back into the somatic cradle, picking at the restraints holding his adoptive father down. ‘The ship was hit, I need to get you out of there,’ the teen stammers, wrestling with the restraints, yanking them as he takes hold of T’viska’s arms and legs, a foot pressing against the pin collar tether. ‘Come the fuck on,’ Warren hisses, and the loki sustains him, growling vocally as others around him make similar, anxious motions.
Shouts clamor from the room above, radio waves surging and alarms blaring. Heavy boots kick down the short stairway, nearly stumbling as a crew hand throws back their fist into the emergency release. They’re safe behind reinforced glass as the restraints snap loose, the cargo door to their side falling open as the ship shutters again.
‘Sentients, a whole lot of them,’ Warren panics, his motions followed through by T’viska as they shove off a manic nyx as they slip down the slope, down to the distant field of ground combat. ‘We’re on our own, defensive.’
‘Great,’ the loki grumbles, yanking down a tonbo from the arsenal rack above the open chamber, paws slipping as the ship shutters and theres a sudden jolt. Others have already started to make their scrambling escape as their section begins to plummet – cascading into free fall and barreling down to the ground. T’viska’s strong leg muscles pivot him up the dividers as other stunned occupants wrestle with their fault restraints – and the loki can feel Warren choke. But Warren pushes the loki to ascend out of the separated compartment.
A building catches the loki’s gut and golden claws scramble against the architecture has he follows the tumbling cargo hold, as it tumbles into a fireball, colliding into Orokin structures as bodies are tossed against the ruins, a sentient behemoth stepping over the remains. A simple tonbo won’t be enough to take it down.
As T’viska clambers over the railing, Warren combs through the transmissions intruding his thoughts, prying through the screams and shouts for reinforcements and the hum of sentient presence. The loki’s paws kick up debris as he moves higher, searching for a good vantage point of the battle waging against the sentients overtaking the once ‘pristine’ Orokin city. Fire ignites the sky with their brilliant blaze, rippling off sentient shell bombardments
Far in the skies above, they watch as an Orokin heavy class vessel explores, fire bursting from its halting thrusters, descending down through the choking smog to the tune of armament fire. Railgun fire booms through the harrowing low light, making the sky quake as the ship tumbles and collides with the sentient behemoth, crowded beyond the smoke. The ships reactor detonates as it crumples into the landscape, blowing out the gilded towers, thundering as heat blasts, nearly tossing T’viska behind a support strut within an Orokin Tower. Once a living quarters, they both figures as glass shatters around them, dust kicked up through the lavish interior.
T’viska snarls before coughing through his chest-bound vents, curled back against the column as he listens to the commotion on Warren’s end – his head still ringing. ‘Warren,’ he coughs, glancing back, fingers slipping down the tonbo’s shaft where it flutters over glass. ‘Any orders from those assholes?’
Through their synthesized nerves the loki can feel Warren’s brow furl, squinting as he fields through the tremors in the transmissions. ‘I… there’s nothing. They just want us to fight the sentients.’
The loki huffs, throwing away the shatter of a once very expensive vase, turning back to the sky alight in the tremendous fires, the beaming of orbital laser fire and the singing of sentient energy. Air stings in his lungs, carrying himself and the nerve-hitching tenno along with him.
Golden claws divide through the senses of hair as the loki releases a heavy sigh, his claws dancing up his arching horns as his head lies back against the carrier wall. Legs lied crossed beneath him, he cements himself back from the footpath of screaming survivors, dismissing the mild gratitude of the lower castes as they’re huddled deep into the cargo ship converted personal carrier. Voices of various distinctions inflex around him, shouts and conversations, meandering to and fro as the last of the survivors make their way up the ramp – even more standing beneath, held back by guards as the door begins to screw itself shut.
T’viska barely nudges at himself, kneading against his blood-soaked shoulder as he briefly sends a courtesy call to Warren on the other end of the somatic link. Through their nervous meld he can feel the teen shift in his somatic cradle, uninterrupted by the frantic broadcasts screaming in his ear… The loki sighs, resting back against the hull as people collect around him, families nestling down yet still give him a cautious spacing.
Looking around, he can only spot a few other warframes beside himself, vastly outnumbered by exhausted Orokin Soldiers, ones that take their post in the form of bend over heaves, throwing off armor through their anxious dread.
The loki frowns as he watches the civilians jolt, fear plastering as the ship heaves and sways, swollen to capacity with its fearful occupants. His sight falls to a father ushering his son beneath what seems to be the remains of their possessions – covered in soot and spattered with blood. And drifts from it as the father looks up, whispering beneath the cries of young children displaced.
T'viska listens intently on the broadcasts above him and through the somatic link, hoisting whatever semblance he can gather of the exhausted teen at his side. A phantom weight heaving emotion against his side, a sensation of a sleeping coil clinging to him… He’s been through so much, the warframe muses to himself; what would happen to them after the war? What use would they have?
His mouth splits as he attunes to the stammering broadcast his adoptive son was subjected to; the bombardments of the panic in cargo pilot’s voice, the alerting of straggler sentients materializing aboard ships and slaughtering radio contact to cease. Whispers of words flake through him, the transmissions more aptly calm and collected, letting the mimicry flow low enough to not alert the traumatized civilians huddled around him. Even then, he receives cautious stares, his voice projected guttural and scratching.
As he shifts, he can feel Warren flinch; their melded leg fractured in the shin, barely held in place by a haphazardly wrapped blanket. The vibrant colors stand out against his pale coloration, a child’s blanket wrapped by curious hands before they were ushered away.
T’viska huffs and yanks his leg to perch in his lap – and promptly stops.
Warren, in the depth of an exhausted nap, hisses in pain.
The loki heaves breath through his lungs, head collapsing back against the wall as his horns arch up against the slate grey of the cargo hold. His thoughts lie drowned in the commotion around him, the pips of conversation and the spontaneous claims of aggression – him and so many stuffed together elbow to elbow.
A brief reprieve from the throes of combat… and he lets his sensors drift muted, dulled from the commotion as he strives for a notion of sleep.
He’s bound to need it.
Their melded sensors scream as a serrated lance carves through their forearm, throwing them off-kilter as ammunition clamors to the ground beneath where they roll through the notion. Breath hisses as the gashed forearm is forced beneath the opposing armpit, staring up through slitting eyespots to the sentient that caught their motions. Its jagged, battle-damaged chitin glints in the flicker of a dying flame as it lunges. It’s bladed limp thrusts towards the stunned warframe – but both warframe and tenno roll from the motion, scampering back to their feet just behind with a hiss. Their focus splits as T’viska catches a rounding smack hand over tattered palm, golden claws digging into the hard shell as Warren’s sight adverts to their surroundings.
Deep behind the sentient lines.
Fingers flicker over the hilt of a bloody dagger before it snaps into gaps in the sentient’s chitin shell, twisting and yanking forth as the attacker’s core shimmers with aggression. It’s mass easily throws T’viska off his feet, paws digging against soot coated soil as a laser beams where his chest once resided – jumping back behind a pillar as the sentient ignites a chorus alert.
T’viska gasps as his arm trembles, nerves bleeding anxious as his fingers can barely grip the dagger’s hilt, his hand reinforced by Warren. “I’m fine,” T’viska verbally growls, tucking the hand beneath his opposing arm, swallowing as he waits for the sentient’s circulating beams to flutter faint. And, as it begins to dissipate, he shakes out his numbing nerves, shaking out beads of sickly black blood.
‘Dad, don’t lie,’ Warren groans, peering through the loki’s sight to where the ammunition lies. ‘Forget the sentient, just get supplies to the dropzone.’
“Agreed,” the warframe hisses, still getting used to the act of verbal conversation – even though it lies somewhere within the somatic link, its still something as he snaps into his cloak. He’s running dry of energy, he has to move fast.
It’s nice to have someone to talk to, someone that cares for him still.
He huddles the crate against his chest as the sentient bobbles and sways, dripping luminescent blood as T’viska hurries past.
His heart surges in his chest as he crumples along the hull’s pylons, concentration deafened by the rumble of the ship’s engines and the constant bombardment of shouting commands. Breathing labored, his exhale is strained, letting himself fall back into a structural recess as he swats away a curious soldier. T’viska coils back within it as he fights his anxious breathing, stuck with metal shards and broken glass. As exhausted as the loki is, it’s Warren that gives him the strength to pull the protrusions from his shoulder, discarding them with gritting teeth and through the merging pain. It’s the teen’s persistence that makes T’viska adjust, sitting up straight, swallowing air before he pulls a bleeding leg to prop up. His claws pinch against a glass fragment embedded in his thigh, one of many as the trembling fingers toss them out of sight.
Together they disregard the commotion of shuffling bodies, to focused on black-blooded injuries to pay any mind to the accumulating stack of corpses. Collecting the dead, the less fortunate personnel at the tail end of an overly long skirmish. Orokin soldier or warframe remnants, the distinction doesn’t matter as the body count rises.
T’viska props himself up as one of the few still ‘operating’ warframes that are gathered on the grisly ship, one of many decorated with blood and gore, skin split and bleeding. Others like him lie merely desolate or unresponsive, very few disheveled frames collect in groups, fringing themselves as loners with only a few scant warframes collecting close to the linking airlock. As the number of corpses grow, so does their numbers as more ships connect to the vessel, and their reclusive isolation draws Warren’s attention.
None of them look visibly hurt unlike those that stumble past.
Even as the coms link within the somatic cradle blasts encouragement, that the tides of war have shifted, and the sentients are on the retreat, it drives a pit into the teen’s stomach. Why are they gathering? ‘I don’t like this,’ the teen mumbles, intently focused on the gathering group on the fringes of the cargo space. They leer around the ‘other’ warframes, glancing reading accusatory in their silent conversations.
T’viska only stares down an Orokin soldier as they motioned towards him, releasing a guttural growl as they scuttle pass.
‘What’s the matter, Warren,’ T’viska sighs, his exhaustion bleeding through their connection as he lets his head fall back against the wall, arms lying lax against his propped knees. ‘Wars over, can finally catch a break,’ he breathlessly heaves, body still lying marred with dark scars of injuries unhealed, spotted with his own blood and spatter of sentient gore.
Over the ship’s broadcast system, the news spreads rapidly.
‘Those warframes over there,’ Warren motions through their merged sigh, ‘I don’t like how they’re gathering and looking at everyone…’ T’viska catches sight of a gazing pair.
They look away without incident.
Above them, a voice held in a chipper tone, announces that the fleets are collecting near mercury and that their course is deviating from the collection procedure.
Standing not a few feet from where the loki lies exhausted, a soldier brings up hopes that the Orokin hierarchy will be there. Another notions their disgust, “they better be, we don’t know how much of the empire is left.”
The ship hums beneath them as T’viska remains in his recess. Finally granted a reprieve, he doesn’t hesitate to let his senses draw close, lying back with a hearty sigh. His skin seals out the small pricklings of glass fragments as his skin begins to mend anew, ever so graciously as blood still clings to his features, blood tinting his cream pelt into rust as he slips into a partial sleep. He tugs the teen’s signal tight; checking that he’s still there.
While his father figure finds rest, its Warren’s turn to stoop in on the conversations, filtering through whatever nonsense the soldiers converse among themselves. They dismiss the ‘tin suits’ around them as they pass, some spitting down with a slurring curse.
With nothing else to do, he can’t help but to listen in; and still as ever vigilant about the clustering warframes as they migrate away from the airlock hatches. He tries to beam a cross communication towards them – but their signal has been drawn tight, more established as their presence stings against Warren’s tongue within his somatic cradle. He wonders if they’re a part of the ‘Margulis’ clutch – rumors he heard from other kids the few times he was allowed to wander among them.
Warren draws himself through T’viska’s nerves, merging with the diluted sense as the loki remains in his partial sleep. The warframe pulls the somatic signal close in the mock of a hug, a gesture the teen returns as he remains alert, watching the carrier’s bumbling activity as the soldiers turn more celebratory… and aggressive towards the stacked pile of corpses. He winces as he watches them kick long dead bodies, talking amongst themselves their hatred of the war machines.
He’s almost startled by the trinity hovering over him and his adopted father, their head turned half cant as their energy swarms across their transparent cranium. Their silence lingers as they look over the resting loki, almost curious before a somatic signal scrapes against Warren’s own. Its pitch drives him to flinch, ears ringing as he cautiously draws the loki to shuffle in his exhaustion driven sleep. Hopeful that they’ll leave T’viska alone.
And they do, collecting back to their hushed clustering.
‘Warren,’ T’viska whispers through their meld of thoughts, ‘don’t push them.’
‘I wasn’t…’
‘I know,’ the loki sighs, striving to draw a gesture to comfort Warren’s trembling concentration. ‘Just get some rest…don’t push yourself too much.’
Warren draws himself silent, drifting down to the loki’s firm hold. ‘Alright… I just… don’t know.’
‘Worry about it later,’ T’viska breathes, ‘we’ll be fine.’
They remain in that state until a pilot sets up a live transmission, letting the voice of the Orokin high consul speak loud and clear, presiding over the vast network of ships surrounding the half-carved planetoid. The soldiers had already begun grouping themselves in a rounding collection, hooting and hollering as the last fragments of the warframes sit back and watch their future play out.
Warren watches the ones from what he remembers as Margulis’ clutch fiddle, nervously glancing, a scant few pacing as the voice above resounds their gratitude for the metal warriors that defeated the sentients. The lives lost were not in vain, the vast contributions of manpower and metal vessels granting them this victory – a voice coopting the warframes with the ships now left in ruin.
‘Dad,’ Warren whispers, only half listening to the speech carving into his stomach, more attentive to the grouping of warframes that stare down the grouping of soldiers. As though their gaze was their blades, as the Orokin speaker praises the warframes for defeating the sentients – an emotionless statement as it disregards the dead wasting away. Truth buried beneath bureaucracy.
‘It’ll be over soon, Warren,’ T’viska sighs, motioning through their somatic link a fainting reassurance. ‘Its just the Orokin announcing their bullshit, it’ll be over and done soon enough.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ Warren sighs in return, ‘but those warframes over there… they’ve been staring at the soldiers. It’s like they’re waiting for something.’
Through the transmission, the appraisal turns to remorse; acknowledging the colonies lost, that the empire’s people are left suffering in the aftermath of war.
‘Could be just waiting for the shit show to be over with,’ the loki briefly shrugs, easing himself back against the structure as he stretches. ‘I know I am.’
‘Yeah… I guess.’
Instruments resound through the speakers above them as the speaking Orokin returns to their triumph as an empire, and T’viska turns his sight to the fidgeting frames. ‘They could just be nervous,’ he suggests, ticking a finger to the tune of the naga drums. ‘They don’t look too torn up,’ he muses, churning back to Warren’s somatic sig-
There’s a snap.
T’viska hisses as electricity sparks through his thoughts, a hand digging against his head as heat bleeds along his spine. Around him, there’s vicious growls, others making similar motions.
The gathered, and still standing, warframes make no such motion.
Static courses through the loki’s thoughts as he tries to find the source of the burst, shuffling forward and searches for Warren’s signal, to make sure he’s alright. ‘Warren?’
No response.
‘Warren?’ he hushes through his mind, golden claws digging beneath his horn as he tries to browse through the remnants of their somatic connection. “Warren?!” he growls, pulling himself to sway on his feet, sight tilted down as he tries to find something to grasp in his mind.
He’d always respond; but he’s not there.
Warren’s gone.
T’viska’s head snaps up as the beat of the naga drums slam into vicious screams, torn into garbling gore that cast the once jubilus soldiers to freeze and their booze filled festivities to dawn silent. It’s sounds that twist through T’viska’s stomach as he stands on the edge of the ship’s occupants, looking amongst the screams of other warframes and other stunned occupants.
His sight lands on the group Warren had been watching.
And they stare back.
Fingers imbed themselves into T’viska’s skin, yanking him back in a frantic heave as he’s forced to turn into the garbled scream of a frantic frost. His attempts to pry himself free are counted by their bulking strength, digging against his skin before their attention turns – watching eviscerating ribbons of red spatters across the cargo hold, body parts slouching down as the soldiers scream a choir of fear.
The warframes Warren was worried about tear through the soldier’s undercoats with ease – their armor long forgotten in turn for their celebration. Evisceration paints the stunned occupants as claws twist into anxious abdomens, carving through skin to let organs flow free.
T’viska shoves the frost away, slender legs letting him dodge around an anxious grapple – their voice rumbling a pleading confusion. Above them, the unhalted transmission continues to ring an alert.
Lua is gone, and so is the Orokin hierarchy.
‘Warren was on the moon,’ T’viska dreads, his features twisting into a scowl.
He’s gone…
He’s got no one…
T’viska’s stupor is winded out of him as hands yank his arm, caroling him between one of the assaulting warframe and the young man clinging against his side. He pleas against the loki’s back as the massacre plays out, a barren observer turned shield as a trinity knocks him out of the way – reactively, the loki keeps himself between the sword-wielding trinity.
Their energy bleeds into accusation as words hiss through their throat, tossing an elbow towards T’viska’s gut as he steps back, yanking the scared soldier behind him as though he was Warren – his emotional restraint bleeds, catching the blade in his forearm.
“What’s going on,” he growls to the trinity; and their response is another flurry against his arm, hissing as his black blood coats the ground.
Another frame yanks him away from the soldier, claws digging into his forearm as he’s thrown into the open airlock.
It snaps behind him as he tries to find his legs; before they’re sucked out beneath him, ejected into the depths of space as air bursts out his lungs. His ventilation systems snap shut as he falters through space, clawing through the tethers drifting from another vessel, trying to find hold as his thoughts race.
Despite his predicament – he can survive this, looking back to where his body drifts.
Caught smuggling weapons to rebelling colonies, there’s nothing left to look forward to. Fastened into a chair, needle dug into restrained veins; an interrogation to end with a bloody snarl.
[ Link ] or continue reading beneath the read more!
The rattle of shackles signals his consciousness as the overhead lights bloom, surging in electric hums as the door opposite to him slips closed – their status lights beaming red. Locked. There’s nothing between him and the administer … a cheeky name given to those presiding over interrogations. In the rattle of sturdy metal Trey tests his restraints; but for what end? The golden cuffs chafe around his wrists, spurs digging into his exposed paled skin trembling in the coercing cold. Where he once wore a uniform, he lies bared – saved only by raggedy pants stained by blood.
“Are you ready to talk, 20964?” The hooded figure smirks beneath the fabric hiding their eyes – their features twisted by augmentation and golden orokin gilding chest down. A hand gestures over towards a side wall as they sit within a seat across from him – sitting beside vials of inky red fluid in tear-drop containers.
He struggles again, pulling his throat against the restraint forcing his upper body flat against the grating sensation against his spine – hissing as fragments of memories kick in. Blood still oozes from a dent in his forehead, a pain blinding his memory as he hopelessly seeks relief. “Why would I?” He growls, settling back into the pain digging into his spine – centering at the base of his neck.
“You see,” the other starts, heaving themselves to sit comfortably in their cushioned chair, their brilliant robes draping ever so elegantly over the delicate carved arm rests, swaying on a soundless swivel. “You got yourself in quite the predicament, 20964.”
“It’s Trey,” he hisses, pain-squinting eyes darting around the room – no escape. A sealed room with only one exit behind the Orokin Administer.
“That name does not matter,” their blue-toned lips curl, brilliant against their gently greyed skin. “All traces have been scrubbed from the manifests.”
Within the debilitating chair, Trey still searches, grazing over the pre-scratched edges of the well-worn seat – shards prodding into his sides and back. Damages baring hints at the results of others put within the same chair, of wounds that pooled beneath the grinding swivel locking him into place and staring at the Administer and their daunting array of devices.
And Trey says nothing, throwing his head to the side to merely brush hair from his eyes.
Defiant.
The Administer stares, a sigh, rising themselves to a height modified for grand statue, to impose dominance over those to be interrogated for crimes against the Orokin empire. A smirk crosses their features, a grin twisted by re-arranged teeth to be hauntingly flawless and gleaming. They take Trey’s chin in their gilded hand – enrapturing and sharp it presses at his shivering skin, cold metal slicing a bead of blood from his throat. “Poor little smuggler, you don’t even exist anymore;” they start, their once covered eyes gleaming from beneath the brilliantly embroidered hood, “you’re nothing.”
In an attempt to snap his head away the metal slices him again, letting blood drip down his captive throat. Trey growls, glaring at the imposing Administer as they stand at their full height and push the chair backwards – his feet dangling from the floor. Helpless. “I don’t care, Orokin.” And the chair snaps back, causing him to gag and choke, straining to hold himself as the interrogator returns to their comfortable chair.
“I don’t think that sentiment will last long,” they smile beneath their hood, drawing one of the vials from their side table. “Do you know what this is?”
“I don’t care,” the former courier hisses between choking coughs, knuckles straining against the rough edges of his chair.
“I have – excellent – knowledge, that you do, 20964,” they dance it between their palms, drawing up a transparent manifest salvaged from the wipe. “You know about the gardens; you personally delivered these canisters yourself under our behest.”
It was true… carrying the canisters to drop points around malnourished colonies, told that they’d make the population flourish. An order from Executor Ballas to deliver to the so far neglected outposts that he was already supplying with aid he could manage around the system. Their weight, ever so heavy as the Administer balances them carelessly between their palms.
Matter made to transform, give new life to the poor and neglected … was about as correct the material was described as. It did transform matter it contacted, given the downtrodden people beneath the Orokin Empire new life… They flourished together, a conglomerate of flesh and blood oozing and chiding in a mass of organs and tissue, blooming in sickly flora on his return.
In his hands, a small case of stagnant nutrients to help the colony in their spiritual ceremony, a clawing in his chest as a town lies twisted in an ill mass amongst dilapidated buildings torn to shreds. Cloth lingering stained with the blood of a massacre and the oozing flora lingering and stinging the air with miasma. A scent digging through his inflight respirator as he stands beneath his courier ship – the makeshift basket dropped at his feet….
“I don’t recall,” Trey bites his lip as the pain in his spine surges, shoulders seizing as it sparks between and aches against the scratching knobs at his back. “I only delivered things; I can never recall which I delivered where. Scan and drop, that’s what I did.”
“I hear what you are saying,” they sigh, pulling up the tube digging into Trey’s inner elbow. It makes him hiss, the inserted needle affixed into place by spires. “But there’s no reason to believe someone that doesn’t exist anymore, isn’t it?” Trey’s eyes spark with fear as the Administer slide the canister open, easing the ill sack into their palm and inserting the spout end into the drip.
“I heard Ballas’ gardens were magnificent,” they chide, sitting back as their hands knead the ill fluid down the tube. There’s only a gentle sway as Trey tries to pull away, yet he’s kept firmly in place by wrist and neck, fighting against the chilling cold restraints in desperation. “They make for such fine experiment grounds, those colonies. We have to at least thank you for the service of keeping them alive for so long,” they laugh, tilting their brilliant golden sight as the courier writhes in pain, veins engorging with the sickly fluid oozing into his veins.
“You know how hard it was to remove someone as hard working as you from the manifests?” the Administer scolds, pushing the agonizing fluid to swarm into Trey’s veins, kneading another agonized choked cry from Trey. It blooms through his nerves, overloading his senses as it burns through his elbow and shoulder, fingers digging against the arm rest as he tries to pull away from the pain – much to the Administer’s amusement. “You were instrumental to so many tests on our subordinate populous; why now do you choose to rebel when we’re in the middle of a war?”
Teeth gnashing, breath heaving as his veins strain to absorb the virus that begins to course through him; it’s too much, he wheezes, head thrown back as it crawls through his heart and chest. It swarms through him in a torrent of unassuming agony, like daggers tracing through each individual nerve ending, sparking him into silence as the Administer’s words fall onto ears made deaf – the pain is too much.
There’s no solace for him as the bag drains, his nerves crawling with microscopic prickles of pain, jolting him aware and agonized as his eyes remain shut. A hand cups his face downwards, forcing him to stare at his tormenter with a stern glare. “I’m not telling you anything,” he hisses, coughing as his throat tightens up in pain. And, to his defiance, their dagger sharp nail digs into his heaving stomach, cutting into his gut.
“You -will- talk, 20964, but I’m certain that you’ve already made your choice at the start,” they sigh, yanking his insides towards them, making him agonize and writhe. “That fluid, is not the same as what you delivered,” they grin beneath the hallowing hood, “it was specially crafted by dear executor Ballas’ command. You’re not suited to become a blooming garden… at least not yet.” And they release his side, letting Trey ache and strain, blood dripping over his pants as he heaves.
“You Orokin, are tyrants,” Trey snarls, trying his best to itch the crawling beneath his skin, the agony sparking in every muscular movement as he tries to find an unyielding comfort. “I know how you fucks operate,” he growls, hissing as he arches from the crawling inside his veins. “Everything is just paneling for the next greatness, even you –“ and he bites his tongue as pain surges through his stomach – a blade sticking out of his middle where it’s been jammed into his guts.
“Shut your mouth,” sternly states the administer, twisting the knife with a self-assuring twitch. “There’s nothing left for you to achieve, traitor. This fluid,” they motion to the other five canisters, filled with the same illing liquid that churns Trey’s stomach – though he can’t feel it as much with a knife twisted inside his guts. His legs contort below him as he tries to kick the Administer away, faltering as their armor is flawlessly sleek, bare feet sliding from it as he’s pushed back once more.
And he shutters as the chair falls forward again, gasping as blood pours from the stab wound over his pants – overlapping the other soak stains that decorate it. The blade glides against his arm, smearing his blood against his skin, removing it completely from the blade as the Administer returns to their comfortable chair, letting it lie against their robe as they pop another bag from a canister. “The coordinates of the suppliers, where are they?”
“I’m not telling,” Trey gasps, watching as the fluid begins to ooze through the IV again.
“Who are your contacts, to smuggle the weapons from?”
“I’m not telling,” Trey writhes, feet and hands twisting as the burning fluid courses through his nerves.
“The location; the weapon storage,” where is it?”
“Fuck you,” Trey hisses, aching as his nerves are alight again by the jagged feeling, his veins bulging as the infested fluid coats through his body, drawing him to gasp as it strikes through his heart and the pain contorts. He growls as the pain surges through his organs, hammering in his throat, burning through his cortex and making him queasy.
And he throws up, choking against the restraint around his neck, throat burning as any meal he once had spreads down over his bleeding gut and stained pants. It’s never-the-less another result of the agonizing pain, his eyes squeezing shut as he contorts, legs pushing against the floor as his blood begins to fizzle, sparking his nerves again senseless as his thoughts go blank.
There’s nothing but pain. Jagged and stabbing as he can only endure it as sickly fluid drips against his skin – his blood and sick making him queasy yet again as the pungent smell festers.
The Administer continues to sit there, kneading the fluid into his veins, staring and bored.
He doesn’t wait for the initial pain to subside as the bag runs empty.
“I will ask again; where did you get the weapons?”
“I said,” Trey gasps, choking as his stomach rolls over – at least it felt like it did, “fuck. You.”
They sigh from where they sat, picking up another canister. “You know, this is disappointing. You had such promise,” they chide, turning their frown towards him. “But you had to go and get soft; now did you?”
Trey only glares back, breath huffing as he tries to restrain himself in the restraints.
“Why don’t you explain to me, what you think this might do?” And Trey at first says nothing, only glaring, “come on, don’t be shy.” And pops the third bag of viral liquid into the IV connector.
“Another Orokin bioweapon,” is all Trey curses, spitting in the Administer’s general direction. “Go ahead and turn me into a pile of goo; I’m not saying anything.”
“Oh, this won’t turn you into a pile of goo,” they grin, gently squeezing the bag of fluid to rush into Trey’s veins. “You’ll become a tool once more, a frame for war under Orokin control.” And Trey’s teeth grit, features twisted as the matter plunges through his veins, writhing as veins burst from the overloading fluids. “You will not think for yourself anymore… what was your name again?”
Trey’s unable to speak, his voice cracking as his organs begin to puddle in his abdomen, sickly grey fluid gushing from the stab wound in his gut.
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t have a name!” They laugh, “You’re nothing! But, at least you will still be of use,” they smile, pushing the bag against their knee, pushing the fluid through the straining IV. “But, there is still time to say where you got the weapons from, 20964. Fess up, and I’ll end your suffering.”
Barely conscious, swarmed in agony, Trey grits his teeth, staring down beneath his sweat coated bangs.
“FUCK. YOU.”
The Administer frowns. “So be it, then,” picking up their knife. “That was your final choice; either to ‘volunteer’ or not. You were a good pilot, it’s sad to see you come to this.”
A bold-faced lie.
Trey’s helpless as they grab his jaw, forcing his head backwards as the knife spreads his mouth wider – tears dripping over his slopping teeth as his muscles slop beneath his control.
As he stares up – the Administer’s eyes are glowing, “open wide.”
And he can’t fight it, helpless as his jaw trembles wide, his cheeks split and bleeding.
The blade dances beneath his tongue, jamming itself between his teeth and throat as it cuts and slices – eyes watering closed as the pain in his mouth is nothing to the fizzling in his gut.
There’s a flop against his lap; his mouth bleeding no matter how much he tries … he can’t spit, only able to drool as his head hangs lull.
Saliva and blood oozes over the restraints, dripping over hands trying to cradle his head steady as the blade dances further up his face.
And prods against his eyes.
Noise is nothing as fluid drips down his cheeks – eyelids sagging as objects once holding them sink into their sockets empty of fluid.
“Fak oou,” he whimpers, trembling beneath the resurging pain.
Nothing.
He can see nothing.
His eyes are fucking gone.
Hands knead against the arm rests as he hears the Administer step away, their knife sliding again against his bare arms as they mumble beneath their breath.
“Now I’ve gone and gotten my robes dirty,” they complain, tinkering with objects on their side table.
Another bag, is all he can figure, listening to them fumble, ready for the agonizing rush through his liquidating veins.
Again, it hits like a hammer, feeling his body contort under the viral bombardment, senses twisting as he can only dripple whatever is left in his gut. Writhing, agonizing, he can feel his body go numb and burning, kicking against the floor as tries to push it all away – useless. “Try all you might,” the Administer musters, “but you made your choice.”
His body…. He can’t feel his body as he tries to twist in the restraints, until his bones begin to snap.
Then it’s nothing but gargling screams, haplessly struggling as bones snap like twigs, skin stretching and tearing as the infestation takes his flesh as its own. Inside his elbow he can feel the fluid oozing again – was it the final bag? He’s uncertain as all he can feel is unrelenting pain, blooming him jagged and anxious, burning for any solace, any peace as he can hear his body contort in putty metamorphosis. He can feel the Administer’s presence – they’re just watching him, watching him suffer.
Watching his body blooming hollow and angry, what remains of his voice gagging and twisting, agonizing as it turns from whimpering cries to guttural growls – his mine reading blank as all can be felt is the unbridled pain. What did he do to deserve this? He can’t even remember – not like he was in any state to as he pulls against the restraints, struggling as the other voice just laughs.
How Orokin of them.
How very Orokin.
And it echoes in his mind as his body shells itself, snapping the restraints, hands digging through soft and malleable.
How very Orokin they taste.
Metallic. Bitter.
Claws, sharp and jagged, dig into fabric and jaw, scooping through fragmenting skull bones as his back cracks and bones snap into place. Its not done, he can feel as the pain corrodes through his spine, reaching back for the shape embedded at the base of his neck. Yet all is found is skin, skin twisting under his transformation as all his mind can bend is to pain, the suffering, the anger boiling through his gut as his claws dig through the flesh of Orokin tyranny.
But were they really Orokin?
It doesn’t matter, his senseless mind concludes, engorging himself on their face, tearing through their chest rending their fabric.
Anger.
Rage festers through him as he yanks through the bones, picking through the remains.
He’s so hungry.
And plucks through their flesh, peeling strips from the bones before biting through to the marrow.
His stomach aches, burdened and yet…
So hollow and empty.
It festers inside him as he picks through the messy fabric, frantic as he picks through the devices laid upon the table beside the chair – no flesh to eat.
It collides with the side wall, crashing as he snaps himself around the room for a means to escape, to feed the burning starvation inside his gut. Claws find nothing against the sleek walls, scratching helplessly as he’s left blind, driven by instinct to eat – escape, escape from here.
His mind rings silent as he digs against the structure, finding the door and wailing, screaming to be let out.
But there’s nothing.
And pacing doesn’t help – as his legs wobble beneath him, crawling and scratching as he incircles the room, jumping towards the lighting fixture for any crack – and nothing.
There’s nothing to eat, his mind fines folly, his only sense of direction being a mental map, the sound of things clattering on his body as it finally begins to settle around a mind ringing null.
Where is he… his mind slurs, only a figment of wording as senses run recesses, looping in confusion as he tries anything, biting through the fabric remains of a body left with him.
And there’s no questions where he is.
No quandary about what happened, as his stomach aches for food.
Not even as a pressure tightens around his chest, squeezing his arms against his side, struggling to fight free of sudden captivity. His voice neither cries or asks, only screeches and growls, mind numb to the noises around him, the banter he’s unable to concentrate on. The conversation about him as he’s held in restraints and lashes out with a serrating mouth – snarling like a mad beast.
“There’s nothing left in this one,” a voice sighs, forcing weight down onto a dark tan back while avoiding the curled horns lashing back. “What a fucking idiot, locking himself up while administering the serum,” and barely prevents the freshly metamorphized warframe from rolling over – straining to take a bite out of their shoulder.
“What should we do with it, any idea who it was?” Another spits, tying up legs striking out towards the trio.
“No idea, manifest has already been wiped. Just get them out to the next transference transport, might find some use there,” the first sighs, watching the loki struggle and hiss, claws tied behind his back and snarling.
enveloped in shatterproof folds - lingering alone and forsaken.
SUMMARY
The somatic link; a mental surge to connect a void tainted mind to a receiving body molded into living puppetry. Senses matched, motions matched, perfected down to the smallest, inexcusable detail… transmitting the puppet’s death one to one. Phantom pains ache against healthy nerves, organs askew as they remain in place… one can only take so much.
Testing a new post structure; either read directly at [ Ao3 ] or access through these links - the work is posted in two portions: [ Part 1 ] and [ Part 2 ]
As a preemptive warning; this has visceral, graphic content with a teenage operator. This fiction is overtly long; 10,128 words, thus the new posting structure. If you choose to reblog, reblog this post.
