Chapter Text
The drifter…
No. He was Drifter, right now.
Today, he let that be his name, not just his title, because he needed to be more than just the drifter, for them. For all of them. They deserved so much better than what he’d offered thus far.
For the Lotus, he’d be a champion. For his twin, a sibling. For the people of the origin system, a revolutionary. For the children of the Zariman, a savior. For Duviri, a king. For the Hex, a meteor. He’d bring them change. He’d bring them hope. He’d bring them a gods damned way out. He had to, because the Indifference had to be wrong about him.
He couldn’t let himself be a monster. He couldn’t let himself let go. He couldn’t stop caring.
If he stopped trying to love, then there was nothing left to justify his existence. Love was time, time was motion, and motion was action.
All along there had been other ways to bypass his pain and give, and he’d just been too god damn bullheaded to see them. The Hex deserved better. The Lotus deserved better. Hell, even Thrax deserved better than what he’d done.
It was easier to see all that now, it was so easy to see all the ways he could improve once he’d been forced to take a step back and stop for a minute. Playing songs in the sunshine, Umbra by his side, plucking tunes with no story or thought attached. Just for fun. Sitting by a campfire, listening to old soldiers swap stories while stew cooked. Soldiers from opposite factions who’d found their way to the camp he’d set up an eternity ago on earth, and now smiled and laughed. He’d even taken to sparring with Dust and Umbra both, sometimes Dust controlling, sometimes the warframe itself.
Dust was always methodical, full of memorized stances and perfectly practiced strikes, but Umbra ran utterly wild, fighting for the sheer joy of a battle he didn’t have to fear losing; leading Drifter into thinking he understood his tempo before throwing in feints and lightning fast strikes that threw him for a loop every time.
The man thought it was funny to see him panic, and had laughed and laughed and laughed himself silly with what gravely voice he had left the first time he’d taken Drifter-Gauss down. He could still remember the sheer embarrassment of it, he’d practically disarmed himself in his haste to block a strike he thought was coming, only to be hit on the other side, his own anticipatory motion making him trip over his own feet and go sprawling in the dirt.
It had been fun. He’d been having fun.
He could have stayed.
He could have just stayed in his little camp, keeping the fort in check whenever the operator was off on a mission. He could have played music, eaten stew, sparred, laughed, told stories, relaxed, and never gone back to the past.
But then Arthur had called for him, and…
They’d shared some faint connection ever since his first experience transferring into his body. It was like that with all the warframes and the protoframes he’d slipped into, but it wasn’t strong enough that he could drag himself back thousands of years into the past and through their body. Not normally, anyway, despite the loop being attached to his progression through time, now.
However, in that moment, Arthur had been marching to the beat of destruction, singing a song of absolute love. For a brief time, their souls had sung matching songs, and the harmony was pure enough that he could have grabbed it and traced it through eternity.
But he hadn’t been ready to go back. He hadn’t wanted to. He wanted to stay and listen to Kahl’s tales. He’d wanted to stay and help the refugees that were setting up in the area, he’d wanted to be there to protect them, so that they could, for once, just be. Maybe he wanted that for himself, too, as selfish as it was, even if he’d known that he would need to leave eventually.
And then he’d felt the song stop.
He’d been playing his shawzin, trying to capture that melody, playing an ode to the things people did for each other, and the song had just stopped.
He’d felt Arthur die. He’d felt him die, he’d heard the beat spasm and it just… It hadn’t started up again. He…
So he’d rewound, waited, and he’d reached, diving headfirst into the void to grab hold.
And when he failed to save him, he tried again.
And when he’d failed again, he tried again.
And when Arthur still died, he’d just kept trying.
And when there was no other option, he’d made a decision.
It was better that Duviri repeat than the Zariman. He would rather be hated by those he loved, than lose those he loved. It was better to be hated than to be alone. Thrax had killed him every day for a millennia, but at least the Drifter hadn’t been alone.
Even if Arthur hated him, he would only be able to hate him because he was still alive.
The cost was worth it.
It was worth it.
So he’d gone back, for love. His love of the Lotus for what she’d done for his twin, and her unknowing assistance in breaking free of his spiral, and for his love of the Hex. Each of them were masterpieces of art, beautiful snippets of humanity at its best. Broken, twisted, torn, but still trying anyway. They had to survive. They had to. He… He needed them to, because for all his bitching and whining and self pity, he really did love spending time around each of them. They were his friends. His. He claimed them. They were his. He did not own them, nor did he deserve their friendship or care, but he would not let them suffer alone. He’d been selfish enough.
And so, the Meteor stood tall, determined to earn his place among the stars. He held out his hand, decreed, and his Azothane sang back to him as it grew to its full size in a snap of energy. He called, and Gauss came. Arthur would need time to recover from such a brutal set of deaths and the mental toll of his rough treatment. Drifter would give him that time. All the time he needed. Anything he needed. So long as he was alive.
The tank was already prepping another shot, which meant he had a moment to get the frame to its full capacity.
The Scaldra infantry and heavy units recovered from their surprise and lifted their guns, what few vehicular turrets that remained rounding on him.
His engine hit a fever-pitch, vents opening and roaring with heat.
His heartbeat quickened, a mental decree focusing the oxygen to his brain and nervous system. He’d killed archons with a bow and arrow, he could focus for long enough to kill the staggered remains of an army.
He kicked forward, exploding into motion, blade held in a two handed grip. Today, he would give his best. Bullets bounced off his shield, deflecting harmlessly. Mounted turrets revved up. He needed to give Arthur cover. He went for the armored vehicle closest, and swung, the impossibly sharp blade trailing icy blue light as it cut through metal and flesh as if they were paper.
A heartbeat.
He twisted, and kicked, the vehicle’s frame no match for the reinforced flesh-steel of his leg, and it bent willingly, crushing, slipping apart, bodies caught in the momentum.
A heartbeat.
The top half flew, sent spinning lazily over and into the oncoming forces, like a flower petal caught by the wind, shedding shards of metal and car innards as it went, crushing bodies beneath it like clay beneath a fist. He twisted, tossing his blade high into the air, and grabbed the bottom half of the vehicle.
A heartbeat. He would give them his best.
His grip crunched the ferrite armor plating, making it brittle, but between the metal splinters he caught the steel frame beneath.
A heartbeat, sending pure strength and speed through every muscle and synapse, as he decreed it.
His engines flared, and he pushed, straining with everything he had.
A heartbeat.
What remained of the truck flipped, limbs, boxes, ammo, all flying out with abandon as the entire thing went rolling, side over side, once, twice-
A heartbeat.
He was there along side it, grabbing it by its now accessible bed, and slamming it back to a stop some ten feet in front of Arthur. He still huddled, clutching his head, but he was watching now.
He wasn’t entirely sure what emotion was on his face.
A heartbeat.
Cover in place, he turned back, and ran, propelling himself once more into the fray of bodies and bullets.
A heartbeat.
He leapt, soaring high, and snatched his blade as it flashed on its way back down, light falling like smoke.
A heartbeat.
He put his feet through the head of a dedicant on the way back down, crunching efervon armoring, then skull, then ribs, and then everything else in an explosion of energy. A quick death. The acid didn’t have time to dissolve the pseudo metal, it merely burned, sublimating into noxious gasses as it came into contact with his white-hot body, and the flesh scalded off quite the same.
Drifter exhaled, releasing the focus decree, muscles screaming from not quite enough oxygen, but that would be remedied quickly enough. He rose from his crouch among scrambling, panicking soldiers, adjusted his grip for maximum range, and.
He.
Danced.
All was blood, fire, and death, played out to the rhythm of his heartbeat. The song didn’t last three minutes, and the tank he saved for last. It had fired at him. He’d taken the blast head on, just for the hell of it, and kept dancing. It had fired again. He’d deflected it into a small pocket of troops that still dared to fight. He didn’t let it fire a fourth time, simply driving his blade through the sliver of contact between the gun and main body, sliced off a vent, and used the opening to strike through the engine.
The explosion was his grand finale, his crescendo and encore, and although he didn’t bow there was a vainglorious whelp -ish part of him that really wanted to. Someday he’d earn that title, and Hunhow would be unendingly smug about it, he was sure.
“ Dios mio, Drifter,” Lettie breathed, landing lightly beside him from where she’d been perching above, eyes turned to the charred and bisected bodies he’d left behind, efervon steaming as it ate through mounds of corpses. “ Dios mio, ” She repeated, blinking once, “It is… different to see you dance with La Flaca in person. I hoped you would return to us.”
Drifter-Gauss slapped a fist to his chest, and nodded, and they both turned as Arthur stalked up.
The sheer force of the glare he wore pinned Drifter in place, and colors began to deepen, shadow going blue.
“Get your ass out of that thing right the fuck now, Drifter.” He snarled, and…
Drifter’d known this was the cost. He’d known. It was better to be hated, than have Arthur be dead.
He slipped from the cage, manifesting in front of Gauss, and the soldier had him by the vest in an eyeblink, yanking the Drifter down to an awkward half kneel and looming over him, faces barely four inches apart, hand still bunched in the fabric to keep him there. The Drifter couldn’t hold his gaze, and let it drop, waiting. Lettie began to say something, but was silenced with a raise of the finger.
He’d known the cost. His heartbeat stuttered in his chest, every thump sending a phantom blade through it. He would accept this. He would accept that Arthur was alive. He could only hate if he was living. He would be happy that this could happen at all. He would be. No running, not this time. Arthur deserved to be able to be angry. Deserved to be able to take the power back, in some small way, after having his entire body ripped out of his control so brutally.
“If we weren’t in the middle of something very important,” the words were hissed gritted teeth, “we would have a talk. But we are, so it will happen after. Is. That. Clear.”
The drifter nodded. The gaze that froze him in place only intensified. “Out loud, Drifter.”
“...Yes.” He said, because Arthur deserved better, even though his pride reared up and bared its teeth at being made to kneel. It wanted to call Gauss and snap the man’s wrist for daring to try, wanted to stare the man down until he was forced to back off and acknowledge-
“Try again. I am your commanding officer, and you will treat me as such.”
“Yes sir.” Because Arthur didn’t deserve to have to deal with a monster, on top of everything else.
“ Good. ” And Arthur released him, letting him fall to his knees, pacing in a tight circle and exhaling, pinching the bridge of his nose. After a moment he was facing the drifter again. “Thank you for coming back, and for your help. You were a much needed boon, even if your methods leave much to be desired. Lettie, please debrief him on the current situation.”
Lettie shot him a look, and he shot her one back. She sighed.
“Scaldra are targeting a set of blocks not too far from here, its a civilian holdout. Aoi and Eleanor are evacuating, Amir and Quincy have set up a perimeter of receivers and jammers to catch anyone getting too close and throw off communications with external troops. They found something odd beneath the complex, and are investigating. We were buying them time to finish evacuation.”
The drifter nodded again, remaining on his knees for the time being. He’d been so… relaxed, and now his ears were faintly ringing, sweat beading on the back of his neck. His hands trembled, body trying to shut down in anticipation of what would come, only made worse by the sheer emotional whiplash of the last twenty minutes. He’d deal with it like he always did, one step at a time.
So he forces his chin up, and meets Arthur’s gaze.
“Tell me where you need me, and I’ll go.”
--
Amir ran, Quincy as hot on his heels as he could be, their footsteps echoing sharply through the empty tunnel, rancid water lazily flowing through the middle of the corridor. He wasn’t at his top speed, he could have been out of here in a literal dash, but that meant leaving the closest thing he had to an older brother behind.
He’d been shot before, he’d rather just get shot again, thank you.
And yeah, Arthur had been right, something was definitely wrong. They’d checked the whole area where the jammer had been tripped above ground, and there’d been nothing. Eleanor had her eyes on them, but hadn’t been able to see anyone either anywhere near their location, so they’d gone below.
Like the Not Teenage Mutant Ninja… Toasters they were.
They’d begun a nice trek through the sewers in search of that signal, and had, eventually, with significant help from Eleanor, found the room the signal had come from. It hadn’t really been much to see, just a large circular control area, split in half, one side overlooking purifying chem-vats and the other set up with monitoring and control equipment. And, for some god damn reason, a single boxy television on a rather nice stand in the middle of the room.
Quincy had been about a hair’s breadth from shooting it, and Amir couldn’t blame him.
It was unplugged, so he’d gone over, taken the prongs, slotted them between his fingers, and powered it up.
Static.
He could have sworn there was more.
He almost saw...
...Himself?
And then they'd been jumped by Scaldra. One had even dug a deep gash into his thigh with a hooked blade, but that had healed up just fine. The weapon had been tossed to the side in favor of a gun, after that. Smart choice. It should have been an easy fight, but…
Gunfire from behind them, bullets pinging off the concrete, bouncing by, and Quincy grabbed him by the hand and yanked him into a side tunnel, leading, now. He was a bit better at directions than Amir, thank god.
There were three options.
Either they were facing robots, zombies, or some secret third thing from actual hell.
The scaldra unit rounded the counter behind them, smashing into the wall, efervon bubbling letting the thing bounce right off and keep on going, eyes ablaze.
His money was on the third option.
Two more followed, snarling to each other in heavily distorted voices, lifting guns.
“ Keep going in that direction,” Eleanor’s voice, trying to lead them out of this delightful death maze. “This map must be outdated, you took a turn that shouldn’t exist, but you’re headed towards Aoi.”
Amir threw a wide spray of energy in front of them, and it coalesced into a flickering shield that adhered to his palm, letting him spin it behind him to block the next cascade of bullets. Faintly, he could hear Aoi yelling, banging something metal against something metal. At least it gave them something to follow. If there was any time to burn through what little strength he had left, it’d be now.
Still holding the shield in his free hand, the other in Quincy’s, letting the taller man drag him along, he focused. Or… Tried to.
He’d learned recently that the little trick he used to speed up himself could work on others, if he did it right. The drifter had told him how, though his explanation had been convoluted and confusing as shit. Something about holding a mental map of the soul-songs that existed nearby, pushing the energy outwards, and decreeing it to maintain its original planned purpose alongside those other songs. He loved the guy, but sometimes Amir wondered exactly how big the pile of loose screws was. Had to be more than just, like, a few, right? He’d even asked Eleanor, and she’d said that ‘yeah, he really does always hear music, like, all the time,’-
Amir’s train of thought got cut off when a bullet ripped through his shoulder, his shield having been angled just a little too far to one side. It hurt like hell, efervon acid hissing inside his muscles, and he bit down hard to stop himself from screaming. It was just a bullet. The rest of the Hex took bullets all the damn time. It’d heal.
Quincy glanced back at him anyway, dark eyes flicking to the sizzling chunk ripped out of his flesh, and they kept running. “We’ll patch that up when we get out of here, yeah? Can’t have our techie down a comfy hand.”
Another tunnel, another turn, Aoi stood at the end of it, frantically waving them over. All three Scaldra troopers turned after them. They really needed to go. So…
This time he really focused, grabbing that eternal ball of lightning in his chest and sucking power out of it like juice through a silly straw, feeling it light up his very nerves, quicken his muscles and thoughts. He exhaled, imagining the power puddling around his feet, as a nice big old aoe of speed. If… When the drifter came back, he had to drag that man into a game of Fables and Frontiers. With what little he’d shared, living in a fairytale realm, fighting off a mad king every day, then going on to dethrone a god, it sorta just sounded like something he’d have fun with. He was basically an FnF character already, give or take some serious rule bending.
Quincy nearly tripped when the effect hit him, then laughed, gave his hand a squeeze in thanks, and they were sprinting fast enough that Aoi was within range in seconds.
She started as her body got kicked into overdrive, and grinned. “C’mon! This way! Made us a way out!” She turned and ran with them, pointing down another main tunnel, and they both followed, letting her lead them down another side tunnel, which connected to massive metal sewer pipe. Techrot was already starting to pulsate along the walls here, but, more importantly, it was something Aoi had been able to use to just… Drill a hole up to the surface, peeling metal off the walls and spiraling it upwards. His feet crunched and cracked over shards of concrete and pats of dirt, and all three of them hit sunlight.
It only took Aoi a few seconds to re-seal the hole, drawing the metal back up with a grunt of effort, peeling the metal from below off thin strip by strip and weaving them together like you might make a grass basket. Her fingers flexed, and the metal weave melded, seeping into the cracks in the concrete and leaving a shimmering manhole some four feet in radius.
“Out? Good. I’m going to check on-”
Eleanor cut off. Probably had been meaning to say ‘check on Arthur.’
Amir took a moment to catch his breath, willing his heart to slow down so it wouldn’t just stop altogether.
“Scaldra’s gotten some new toy soldiers,” Quincy groaned, straightening up again, hands sliding up from his knees. “Eleanor can’t see em, and Amir’s lightning does the dodgin’ so they don’t have to. They’ve got heavy weaponry too. Chain bombs n’ shi’.”
Aoi blinked. “What? Why didn’t you say something on comms?”
Meaningfully, pointedly, he lifted both hands to gesture at his communicator, which had been melted, his tactical webbing singed, ash greying his jacket. “As I said. Chain bombs. Didn’t even see them get thrown, shit just blew up. They were aiming for 'em.”
Aoi looked to Amir, who winced. “Dropped mine in the sewers trying to say something about it. Bastards shot it right out of my-”
A screaming whine, growing in intensity. Amir’s attention was on it in a half-second, and he flared out another shield just in time for the cover to get blown sky high. Fire erupted from the hole, heat blasting them all backwards, the shockwave of force shattering glass. The shield absorbed most of the knockback, though, thank god, which let them all stay on their feet.
The scaldra units stepped out amidst the heat, one still trailing smoke and steam and tucking away a heavy canister back onto its belt. All three rounded on them, and lifted their guns. Not firing, just waiting, one with a hand to its head. Rasping out muffled words.
Oddly, there was a faint… shimmer about them. Something delicately silver-blue-green that whirled and twisted like mist. It was eerily familiar, though he couldn’t quite place-
“Lettie and Arthur are… fine. Evacuation’s almost done. You three alright?”
“We’ve got sm’ new over here, Eleanor,” Quincy said softly. Amir picked up his shield, keeping it between them and the soldiers. “Bullets keep boucin’ off these fucks, and none of our abilities work, either. Took me three shots through the skull to take the last few down, and I’m about out of ammo.”
Aoi frowned. Raised an eyebrow. Glanced at a nearby lamp-post. Amir glanced at her, followed her gaze. They made eye contact. She grinned, put her hands behind her back, and flexed a hand.
“We give you one chance to surrender.” One of the soldier called out, his voice significantly deeper than he’d expect, gravelly and rough like he’d decided that chewing rocks was a preferable pastime to drinking water. “You give up, you come, you will not be killed. Is simple. Will hurt less.”
“Sure, sure. But only on one condition.” Quincy lifted a finger, a slight swagger to his step as he moved forward.
“What is your condition?”
“You go fuck yourself.”
Silence from the soldiers.
Amir leaned into the other two, half whispering. “I mean, I think we have several conditions at this point…”
Quincy didn’t smile, but it was close. Amir could see it in the twitch of his eye. Aoi snickered, and her fingers flicked to the side.
“Your deaths…” Said another one, a cool, feminine voice, “...will be-”
They’d never figure out what their deaths would be, because fascinatingly, it was difficult to elaborate on a threat when you were being assaulted by hockey-puck sized chunks of a lamp-post. The first one hit and bounced off, the silvery teal mist coalescing more firmly, the second bounced, the third got closer, and the fourth broke through. And Aoi hadn’t sent four, she’d sent somewhere around twenty, which thunked hard against, into, and through the soldier’s skull, slamming into the next.
He threw up another shield as Aoi’s assault continued, the energy catching the bullets that came for them in much the same way as that shimmering mist did. Sucking the energy out, dropping them to the ground. The third soldier sprinted back, snarling, unloading clip after clip in their direction, cracking Amir’s shield. He was… tired, they’d already taken down some ten of these strange shielded mini-bosses already, but he could make one more.
Except Aoi didn’t need to pick up bullets, her strikes weren’t stopped when they bounced off, she could just loop them around and keep on going. The last one fell.
“Nobody else following you?” She asked, frowning at the bodies.
“Nah.” Quincy shook his head. “We killed the rest. How’s the evacuation?”
“Before I left it? Eleanor was getting the convoy back to HQ. There were… A surprising amount of people who didn’t want to leave, and couldn’t be convinced.”
“They were afraid,” Eleanor’s voice chimed in, “ Not of us, but of the Scaldra. They were in the area some few days ago, and were handing out vague threats like candy. Something about dissenters being next in line for testing. Nobody knew what ‘testing’ meant, but nobody also wanted to find out anyway. It might have something to do with these invisible soldiers. They're... really rattled. The Scaldra have been taking folks already.”
“Oh, and also.” She added like it was nothing, “The drifter’s back. He’s on his way to me to help with the convoy.”
Quincy held out a hand.
Aoi sighed, deep and long, and fiddled around for her wallet. She opened it with a dramatic snap, and counted every Hollar like it hurt her to part with them. She held them up, wistful, sighed again, and then slapped them into Quincy’s waiting palm.
He pocketed them with a grin and a wink.