— Behold, For I Am
Confused.
Cold.
Fear.
All three sensations ravaged his mind, the stars around him the only things keeping him from completely breaking down.
His eyes swiveled around, trying to figure out where he was. But he already knew it was pointless.
It was space, after all.
What could he even do?
He was floating, drifting to God knows where.
Only fragments of memory remained, flashes of what had happened before he ended up here.
—
"Damn it!"
He grunted in pain, quickly blocking an attack from his flank.
He was surrounded on all sides, amalgamations of flesh and technology filling his vision.
"Amir! What the hell is going on?!"
He shouted, ducking a swipe aimed at his head before firing a few shots straight into the attacker's face.
"I-I… I don't know! The Techrot is going haywire, it's like something's forcing them out of passivity!"
The voice came from the speaker attached to his chest. He gritted his teeth before letting go of himself.
Whirr.
He faded into pure void energy, his form replaced by something else.
A Warframe.
Machinations of biological and technological science. Golems of raw, unfiltered power.
Crackling energy surged through the Warframe's arms. He slammed both hands together, releasing a blast of intense heat.
The wave of fire gave him the space he needed, halting the Techrot's advance.
"D-Drifter! The others are on their way, just hold on a few minutes! They're coming to get you out of there!"
The Drifter simply grunted. Communication was limited while using transference.
He crouched, engines revving to life before he vanished in a blur.
Redline + Mach Rush.
He reappeared in front of a Techrot Skuzzi and kicked its head clean off.
Screech!
He spun, reacting instantly to an attack from behind, and threw a punch so fast it ignited the air from sheer friction.
It was a slaughter.
The Saint of Altra was far too fast for any of the Techrot abominations to react.
His punches were like lightning, his kicks like jets tearing through the air. The Techrot simply couldn't withstand blows that moved beyond the speed of sound.
And in a pool of biomechanical corpses.
He stood.
Unmoving. Unshaken.
Gauss, the Warframe, piloted by the Drifter, was single-handedly pushing back the tide.
"Drifter!"
He snapped out of it, focusing on the communicator now somehow linked to his Warframe. He never questioned why that happened anymore.
"Change of plans. Reconvene with the others. I'll ping your location—Victory Plaza. The number of Techrot you're aggroing is getting out of hand. You won't last long with twelve Eximus Babau rushing you."
The Drifter grunted in agreement. He wasn't dealing with another round of repairs to shield capacitors and armor plates from the Helminth, those Babau released way too many magnetic pulses.
"Lose their trail while you can. We don't want them following us to Central Mall. So move, get out of Rampart!"
And move he did.
It didn't take long to reach the plaza, though it was nothing like before. The once-beautiful architecture had been reduced to a crater by Scaldra.
He scanned the area before spotting three familiar figures.
Whirr.
He dropped out of transference and waved.
They saw him and jogged over.
"What the hell is going on, Drifter?"
Arthur's rugged voice cut through the air. "We heard Amir going crazy in the control center. Civilians were panicking. He was calling for reinforcements, I thought this was just reconnaissance."
"I don't know," the Drifter replied. "Amir didn't either. All we know is the Techrot went insane. They started popping up out of nowhere, like their propagation suddenly spiked."
"Well, at least you made it out safe!" Aoi said cheerfully.
"The Techrot was goin' wild, yeah? Saw it from over here. Got a sharp eye for these things," Quincy added, holstering his sniper.
Arthur ran a hand down his face. "Yeah, well your 'sharp eye' doesn't explain why they all decided to dogpile him."
Quincy shrugged. "Maybe he's just got that kind of face."
"Not helping," Aoi muttered.
The Drifter stayed quiet.
That was the problem.
It was targeted.
Not random. Not chaotic.
Directed.
A simple reconnaissance turned into a full-blown fight out of nowhere.
"Do you feel that?" the Drifter suddenly asked.
"Feel what?" Aoi replied, all three turning to him.
He grimaced.
Something was wrong.
Something… familiar.
Cold.
Apathetic.
His eyes widened.
Something was watching.
Waiting.
"…Drifter?" Aoi leaned forward slightly. "You spaced out again."
He blinked. "Oh.. Sorry, just had something to think about."
Silence.
Arthur stiffened. "Thinking about what?"
"I don't know. Those bastards were unnaturally observant, it was pretty difficult to beat them down even if I was overpowering them. They moved like they had thought..."
Quincy let out a low whistle. "That's new. And bad."
A crackle burst through the comms.
"G-guys—" Amir's voice came through, strained and distorted. "You need to—"
"There's something wrong with the signal grid—"
"Something's piggybacking on it—"
Static cut him off.
"Amir?" Arthur snapped. "Amir, come in!"
Nothing.
"That didn't sound like interference," Aoi said.
A distant sound echoed.
Screeching.
But not chaotic.
Synchronized.
"Tell me I'm imagining that," Quincy muttered.
"You're not," Arthur said, already reaching for his weapon.
Shapes emerged from the far side of the crater.
The Drifter's chest tightened.
At the center stood something larger than the rest, a fusion of metal and flesh, veins of dim violet light running across its body.
Its head tilted.
Studying them.
Then it pointed at him.
The swarm shrieked as one.
"Yeah," Quincy muttered. "That thing hates you."
The Drifter exhaled slowly.
Void energy flickered in his hand.
"…Guess I pissed something off."
Arthur stepped forward. "Doesn't matter. We deal with it together."
"Like always," Aoi added.
The creature stepped forward.
The ground cracked beneath it.
Then everything moved.
The swarm surged.
Arthur shouted.
Quincy fired.
Aoi dashed.
And the Drifter.
Whirr.
Slipped back into his Warframe.
Gauss ignited, red energy roaring as the world slowed around him.
Redline.
"Let's see…" the Drifter muttered, eyes locked onto the towering figure.
"…if you can keep up."
And then he ran.
—
He couldn't remember anything after that.
He tried, but nothing came. No matter how hard he pushed, there was just… nothing.
But he knew one thing.
Something deep inside him was certain.
That wall-obsessed bastard had something to do with this.
The Drifter sighed.
No Archwing. No Orbiter. Nothing.
At least he still had a Warframe to survive the unforgiving void of space.
He spun, adjusting himself into what he assumed was a normal standing axis.
Gauss surged with energy once more before releasing it, propelling him forward in a straight line into nothingness.
"I hope this works."
—
Zis, is nothing but a muse, and also a practice to get my writing up to snuff for my academics ehe.