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Chapter Text

Prologue

Gauss is knocked back into the wall by Grendel wielding the great Galatine longsword. His large, round gut with a maw loomed menacingly over Gauss. Grendel’s grand stature casted Gauss into a shadowy darkness, and the only thing he could see when he tried to come back to his senses was the sight of a mammoth. Grendel’s stout horn glistened in the artificial light of the arena. Its prominent grayness stands out from the rest of his metallic brown body. Gauss tried to stand his broken body up against the wall, but the behemoth of a Warframe pummeled him back to the ground with a resounding thud. The roaring cheers of the crowd dampened Gauss’s sense of hearing even more, clogging his non-existent ears. The next thing he saw was the flaming orange fire crackling in the open maw of Grendel’s stomach. 

“So this is it? You’re just gonna devour me in your furnace of a stomach? Burn my metal body to be food to another Warframe?” Gauss scoffs. “After all this time we were best friends, and now you want to throw it away in the name of winning in this stupid arena run by the Grineer?” 

Towering above, Grendel gives Gauss a narrowing look that was prevalent even through his face and body of metal. “If it means I get to leave this wretched place, then yes.” He takes a swing at Gauss’s head with the Galatine, but he ducks. It misses, and instead, leaves a gash in the metal wall behind. With this window of opportunity, Gauss powers up his Hermes heels with kinetic energy and zips right past Grendel like a racecar, leaving a trail of dust in his wake. Grendel swats the dust away and turns to face Gauss bouncing up and down full of vigor at the opposite end of the arena.

“Too slow, Grendel, you foolhardy fat-man!” Gauss quips. 

“You savvy speedster!” Grendel retorts. 

His knuckles pop as he grips his longsword with gorilla strength. He sheaths the grand blade to his back while composing his body into a sumo fighting stance. “Only one of us will make it out of here alive, and it's gonna be me!” 

At this assertion, Gauss kicks his heels into overdrive, revving them up like humming little jets in his ankles. “Then catch me if you can.” Gauss sneers before racing off in random directions around the arena. 

Shortly after, Grendel grunts and leaps in the air like a dolphin. His metallic body curls into a giant brown boulder, and makes a titan smash upon hitting the ground. He sets off rolling in pursuit of Gauss shuffling around the arena like a water skate. The crowd watches in awe as Grendel’s body would bounce off the walls upon Gauss turning a corner. Their seats would rumble and quake beneath them, sending the lightweight folk flying a few inches up from their seats. 

Gauss ran like the flash. His round, golden visor deflected the air as he sprinted, making his particular frame more aerodynamic than most other Warframes in the Origin System. The rest of his body was accented with a cobalt shade of blue, with small hints of a greyer shade around his forearms and thighs, with some extra gold plating here and there. His feet were built like cinder blocks; being just laterally thin pegs that’d extend up to his calf. He glimpsed behind himself, seeing that Grendel, looking like a brown dung boulder, was getting closer. The whole scene looked like Indiana Jones from the audience's perspective. Gauss looked back ahead, and in front was a wall that was rapidly approaching. In one swift motion, he slowed down to jump off the wall and super glide over Grendel. He crashed straight into the wall like a deceived bull in a bullfighting ring, sending a wave of surprised hollers from the adjacent crowd. Grendel reverted back to his form of the metal behemoth and shook his head back in order to unscramble the loose spaghetti of his brains. Gauss starts to zip around the concussed meatball from all directions tauntingly, leaving to Grendel, only the ephemeral sight at a trail of blue and gold.

“Tired of rollin’? Perhaps you are getting a bit dizzy?” Gauss taunts.

Grendel, in his daze, tries to grab Gauss but to no avail. He was just too small and fast compared to his enormous and slow nature. “Stop running and fight your best friend!” He grunts. “The tiny mouse runs away at the threatening sight of the cat.” 

“More like the towering sight of an elephant!” Gauss ripostes as he zooms past him. 

“Well cease this coward-mouse behaviour, and give the audience the performance they really want to see on the grand stage of Rathuum!” Grendel extends his arms out, grandiosely. The crowd erupted cheering at this statement, but those cheers quickly turned to oohs and ahhs when he was met with a torrent of smacks across his metal face, sending him to his knees. 

“Really? For Rathuum, Grendel?” Gauss utters out, full of disgust. He stands still a few feet away from Grendel with a prominent look of disappointment. “We are Tenno; the protectors of the Origin System sent by the Lotus, not barbaric gladiators for the Grineer.”

Grendel stood up one one knee. “The Grineer are our gods now.” He shuddered. “The Lotus no longer watches over us, only the eyes of the Grineer. Rathuum is our divine stage, where the Grineer gods make their judgement.” He gazes at Gauss with a thousand-yard stare. 

Gauss grits his non-existent teeth behind the metal mask. “You’ve become a traitor to the Lotus, and all other Tenno. Do you devote yourself to the Grineer now, huh? Is that it?” He roared. 

Grendel picked his thousand-ton body up, and stared Gauss down with his arms to the sides of his bulbous stomach. “I am devoted to…survival.” He murmured. As fast as a cheetah, Grendel quickly sprang up in the air and curled himself into a boulder, plummeting straight for Gauss. He quickly shifts to the side. Grendel’s gargantuan body of metal bounces with a resounding thud , and in one swift motion he uncurls himself and unsheathes his Galatine longsword, unleashing a spinning, sweeping strike at Gauss’s bulb-shaped head. Like the speedster he is, Gauss quickly dodges. Grendel raised the grand blade and tried to slice him down the middle. A heavy clash of metal echoes throughout the arena. Gauss catches the blade right between his palms, and stares daggers deep into Grendel’s hollow soul. He reciprocates the piercing gaze. 

“A devourer of worlds such as myself must continue to eat in order to survive. In nature, it is eat or be eaten.” Grendel springs back and raises his longsword to strike again. Gauss again blocks the razor edge of the blade by sandwiching it between his palms, but this time Gauss looks at his hands with a concerned glance, as a rivulet of crimson starts to ooze down his wrists. “You say I’m more of an elephant in the cat and mouse chase, but you forget that the elephant, despite its massive size, is scared of the mouse. I AM NOT SCARED OF THE MOUSE!” Grendel roars. 

Gauss shifts the blade to the side, jerking Grendel a tad bit forward. A metal patella makes contact with Grendel’s tin chin, releasing his grip on the Galatine sending him stumbling backwards. He looks forward to see Gauss pointing the blade at Grendel like it was a massive magic wand. 

“Look at what this place has done to you! It has turned you barbaric. We’ve been Tenno for hundreds of years, and now that Tenno honor has been thrown away in just three months of being here.” Gauss divulges with utmost repulsion in his voice. He makes a quick glance at the Grineer camera orbiting around them, then returns his focus to his long time best friend. “We must remain strong. We’ll find a way out of here soon. There’s still the chance to leave with the both of us out of here alive.” Gauss tries to assure Grendel.

Grendel wipes a fist across his face. “That’s what you told me the last time. And the time before that, and the time before that, and the time before that. When will you accept that the death of one of us is the only way out for the both of us?”

“When I get my best friend back.” Gauss replies.

“Then that promise will remain futile for the rest of eternity.”

Fury seethes through Gauss’s metal veins. He kicks himself into overdrive, forcing his limits past the redline. His whole body starts to rev thunderously like a rocket engine. Parts of his metal face, arms, and legs start to protrude out profusely shifting in and out like pumps from the surface of his Warframe. A scorching red aura starts to form behind him. 

Grendel unleashes a massive stomp to the ground, leaving a small crater where his foot landed. His gut’s sharp maw contracts and expands like a hungry beast, where an eternal inferno flashes orange in between.

With a resounding grunt, Gauss leaps forward with immense speed, with the Galatine drawn back to deliver a skewering strike to Grendel’s monstrous gut. But Grendel’s gut, a strong, untamed rabid beast with an immense hunger, closes its jaws in on the grand tip of the blade, and Grendel swings himself around, sending Gauss tumbling to the ground having relinquished his grip on the Galatine. Grendel’s car crusher of a gut chomps down on the Galatine like it was a saltine cracker, breaking it into pieces as the longsword disappears into the furnace of his stomach. Facing Gauss who laid weakly on the ground, he unleashed a maelstrom of shrapnel from the discarded bits of the Galatine from his gut, shredding him significantly. Gauss yelled in immense pain, as each metal shred took a chunk off of his metal body. Afterward, he looked as if he was put into a blender. His blood oozed from every minute crevice of his Warframe. Every inch of his body stung as Gauss made an attempt to crawl away. Approaching from behind, Grendel’s shadow overcast his broken best friend, making his wounds feel cold.

“The mouse is eventually devoured by the cat.” 

Grendel’s infernal maw juts open, its fire scorching over Gauss. His Warframe was sucked into the eternal pits of hell that resided the other side of those metal fangs. Gauss yelled as he was pulled into his friend’s monstrous gut. His cries were silenced upon a metal bang as the jaws closed in swiftly upon his neck. Its teeth and the arena floor were stained in blood, as the head of Gauss rolled out in front of Grendel past his shadow. The lights and cameras focussed on the severed head of a Tenno, and the crowd exploded in a deafening cheer. A charismatic warlord voice on the arena intercom spoke.

“We have our first ever Tenno winner of Rathuum: Grendel!”

The crowd grew louder in their cheers, chanting Grendel .

Chapter Text

Adaro

The booming screech of the Warframe, Banshee, the silent steadfast manipulator of soundwaves, sends the oncoming wave of infested chargers galloping with their four legs back into the caves of flesh from whence they came from as their eardrums burst in their freakish skulls. They howl in pain like an old man with a throat dryer than the arid deserts in the Hellas of Mars, but with a much more alien reverberation to it. With her panel-shaped head, Banshee watches through the non-existent eyes of her Warframe as they writhe in pain, trying to use their disfigured legs with vestigial Grineer appendages protruding out randomly throughout their disgusting body to cover their ears. Their writhing is soon stopped when a wall of inferno runs through their suffering bodies, instantly turning the infested creatures to a carbon black char. The Warframe, Ember, the harbinger of fire and flame, emerges onto the scene. Her mohawk of still flames burns bright from the rest of her metallic and curvaceous body. She turns to the fleeing horde of infested chargers and envelops her body into a bright orange aura of flaming energy. She levitates for a moment like an angel of flame, and flaming meteorites appearing around herself come smiting down on the retreating chargers, crushing their bones and burning their infested skin and synthetic. From behind, an infested brood mother and her pink, grotesque, rat-like spawn come charging toward them. Banshee drops herself to the floor, and sends a powerful sound quake into the ground through her palms. The brood mother stumbles back, and her maggots burst into pink and purple confetti with a nasty pimple-popping sound. The tentacle-y dark purple top of its head started to pulsate, meaning it was about to produce a fresh batch of new spawn. Thankfully, Ember put a stop to this by launching a fireball at it, burning it alive and creating a molotov area-of-fire that would detonate the rest of its maggots that were able to pour out like lava from its volcano shaped head. Suddenly a loud, monstrous roar erupted throughout the whole derelict Corpus ship. The female Warframes turned around to see a four-legged beast of armored flesh that made it look like it was made of stone, with salami-pink tendrils that protruded out from its spine. It was a juggernaut. Its stone pillar of a front leg winded up like a bull getting ready to charge. In the blink of an eye, it began charging toward them like an angry bull. Ember stomped to send a wall of fire its way, but it charged through the flames untouched with ease. Banshee tried to shake the ground with her sound quake, hoping it would stagger it out of its charge, but it kept on going like it was on a smooth, newly paved road. The width of the juggernaut took up the entire width of the thin hallway, leaving them with no choice but to run. The girls hurry to the other end of the hall, but they eventually hit a dead end with nowhere left to run. Quivering in fear, the both of them hold each other as they face the raging, bull-coded, infested stone charger, thinking that this may be the last time they would be alive. But unexpectedly, the juggernaut’s stone body bursts into an outbreak of toxic green spores. Some grew on its eyes, causing the infested beast to lose direction, sending it crashing into the sidewall of the hallway. Was it a miracle that this beast had suffered the effects of some virulent disease at this exact moment? No, it was another Warframe. Standing tall a few meters behind the concussed beast, was the venom of a snake encased in a blooming flower that concealed a deadly nectar. Saryn, the bringer of deadly disease and toxin. Her head represented that of a flower, white and unbloomed with the rest of her body enveloped in a light purple and pink. In her hands were a shiny, white pair of throwing daggers shaped like unicorn horns, with red ribbons strung from the ends of the tiny hilts. She threw it with precision, slicing through many of the juggernaut’s tendrils on its spine, severing them from the stone beast. It let out a deep wail that could even make Banshee wince at its ear-piercing sound. The juggernaut focussed its attention to the uninvited she-frame and started charging at her, headstrong. She stood still while the infested beast charged at her, not daring to move a single muscle. But when the beast caught up to ram her down, she exploded into a cloud of toxins, leaving the juggernaut disoriented and full of rage as it huffs and puffed clouds out of its nostrils. From the shadows, Saryn appeared behind it and leaped in the air with her elegant Tenno katana, the Nikana, and plunged its sharp, silver blade into the fleshy back of the juggernaut. It bellowed a final wail of pain and fell to the ground motionless. The spores spread across its body burst, enveloping the dead beast and Saryn into a cloud of green, toxic smoke. 

“Saryn!” Ember and Banshee both yelled to Saryn, full of worry.

Just then, Saryn emerges from the cloud of toxins, sheathing her Nikana. 

“Thank Lotus you’re okay!” Banshee exclaims.

“It’s my own toxins, of course I’m okay.” Saryn replies to the worried Banshee.

“Always here to show up and steal the show, huh? Just like always.” Ember said, giving Saryn a slightly jealous look.

“It looked like you gals were about to be crushed by the juggernaut. Thought I’d step in and contribute a spore or two.” Saryn said with her chin held high. 

“We had it under control. We could’ve easily beaten that juggernaut without you.” Ember said, snarkily.

“Oh really now?” Saryn pulls out a candid photo of Banshee and Ember holding each other in fear moments ago. “The yellow stream running down your drawers says otherwise.”

“What? Really?” Ember snatches the picture from Saryn. “Aw there ain't no yellow spilling out from anywhere you liar.”

Saryn and Banshee both erupt, laughing. Ember growls angrily at the two as she burns the picture in her hand.

“You were supposed to stay in your own sector and clear all of the infested there. Did you at least manage to do that before you went off to play superhero?” Ember asked.

“Yep, not a single living thing to be found within a 300 meter radius.” Saryn proclaimed.

“And how did you manage to do that so quickly? We’ve only been here for 5 minutes.” Ember inquired.

“Like this,” In a moment’s notice, Saryn expelled a toxic miasma that proliferated and permeated every inch of the derelict Corpus ship, travelling quickly through vents and cracks in the walls to reach its next victim. Small green mists of poison hover around them, creating a noticeably thick and uncomfortable atmosphere. Soon after, the howling cries of the remaining infested life harmonized in a chorus of pain and agony throughout the derelict ship. Once the noise died down, the lady-frames all received an incoming transmission from the Lotus, the Queen Mother of all Warframes. 

“No signs of life detected. Great work Tenno, head to extraction.” 

Ember and Banshee stared at Saryn in utter shock. 

“Welp, mission complete. Let’s get out of here!” Saryn said, striding forward. But after a few steps, something catches onto her leg. She looked down at her heels to see a Corpus crewman with the lower half of his body enveloped in a black and red flesh-like polyp in the wall. His arms were wrapped tightly around Saryn’s leg as he begged for help.

“P-Please. Help me.”

Saryn really didn’t know what to do. She’d already thought her toxic miasma would’ve killed him by now. She can see the pain in his teary eyes, so desperate to make it out alive, but guessing by the hardness and size of the infested wall polyp, it’d be too late to cut him out as it would’ve fully absorbed his lower body, leaving only his remaining upper half to be salvaged. But even if they found a way to rescue him without him immediately bleeding out, he would still pose the risk of turning into one of the infested. 

“Just hurry up and kill him already!” Ember exclaimed, impatient. 

Saryn ignored her and turned back to the crewman. Even if she wanted to save him, the Corpus is an enemy of the Tenno, being an organization fueled by their greed and unwavering willingness to do horrible things to Tenno and other innocent people in the Origin System to make a quick gain. Who would’ve thought they’d still have to fight radical capitalism and robber barons in this futuristic day and age? But yet again, she didn’t want to leave a man to die in this derelict ship, despite being one of the few Warframes to bring a lengthy and painful death to her enemies. 

She knelt down to the trapped Corpus crewman, and clasped his hand with both of hers. 

“Shh. Hush now, I’ll make your suffering go away soon.”

Saryn releases a hand from the crewman’s and pulls out one of her Spira Prime throwing daggers, its sharp unicorn horn tip tantalizing his long awaited mercy. The crewman looks at it, terrified. Saryn holds the tip up to his neck, and the Corpus man shudders in horror. 

“The only way you’ll be at peace is through mercy.” Saryn tells him.

The man understood what needed to be done. He looked Saryn in her non-existent eyes and nodded, flashing her a look that signified that he was ready for what was to come next. Saryn reciprocated the nod, and held her Spira a hair's length across his neck. Before she would follow through with this act of mercy, the crewman said one more thing.

“T-Thank you…Tenno.” 

After giving his final words, Saryn swiped the Spira across his neck, slitting his throat open like a zipper. The man didn’t resist, and instead of holding his neck like any other individual, he kept holding on to Saryn’s hand as he continued to look at her in her featureless face. The man choked on his blood, but even through the rivulet of crimson pouring out of his mouth through his teeth, he gave Saryn a big smile as bright as Lua until it eventually dimmed out when the remaining life left his body. 

She closed his eyes and took out a polaroid camera and snapped a quick pic. The camera buzzed as it printed out a freshly taken picture. Saryn took it out and waved it around. Once it was finished, she absorbed the memory that would be forever ingrained in her mind to hold for eternity. The Smiling Crewman , she called it. Even though the grandness of his smile was no longer prevalent in the picture, she would never forget his beaming smile as he held her hand and looked at her in bliss during his final moments. Saryn’s bittersweet moment for herself was swiftly interrupted by the mocking cackle from Ember.

“Don’t worry mister crewman, mommy Saryn is gonna make you feel all better!” She mocked.

“Hey, show some respect! Mercy killing that crewman was a hard thing to do.” Saryn responded, irritated.

“Yea, sure. Killing one guy was the hardest thing to do, all the while you wiped out the entire tileset.” Ember retorted. “C’mon, we’re Tenno! Super cool awesome space ninjas with world ending powers, not soft spoken nurses in a hospital.” 

“Neither are we heartless barbarians either.” Saryn remarked. 

“Hey! I’m not heartless. I’m so full of heart! In fact, all my skill and proficiency come directly from the heart.” Ember stated.

“Then it looks like you’re skill-less and incompetent then by that standard.” Saryn responded, full of wit.

Ember gritted her non-existent teeth and grunted. “Whatever, I’m heading to extraction!”

She stomps away like a toddler having a tantrum, leaving small trails of fire behind. 

“You know, she does have a point.” Banshee interjects.

“What do you mean?” Saryn looks at her in surprise. 

“I mean, we shouldn’t be hardcore killers like you said, but we also shouldn’t become too soft, especially toward our enemies. I mean, for all we could’ve known, the crewman could have had a dagger somewhere ready to take you down with him. We’re not exactly invincible you realize?” Banshee lectured.

“I guess I see it from your perspective.” Saryn sighed. “But hey, look how it turned out! I’m still here without a scratch on my Warframe, and I've got another beautiful memory ready to hang up on my Adventure Wall.” She gestures to the picture in her hand.

“I guess, but you should really be more careful, that's all. Anyways, we should get going to extraction. Ember’s probably waiting for us there with her fastidious self.” Banshee acknowledges. 

“Yea, you’re right.” 

The girls head off to extraction where Ember waits impatiently with her arms crossed.

In her orbiter, Saryn is greeted by her cordially chipper and earnest cephalon, Ordis. 

“Welcome back, Operator! Tell me, did you make the infested scum beg for their lives? ” Ordis uttered out another one of his aggressive outbursts. He is usually calm and sincere to the Operator, but sometimes these little moments of bloodlust and rage seep out. 

“I couldn’t tell. Their screams are unintelligible, and they died too fast to leave any adequate time for them to murmur for mercy.” Saryn answered. She took out a photo in her hand and stared at it. 

“Ooh! A new bloody memory for the Adventure Wall?” Ordis catches notice of the photo in her hand.

“Not quite a bloody memory, but a bittersweet one.” Saryn responded. Her non-existent lips smile, matching the sunny grin the crewman had given her in his last moments being on that derelict ship.

“Let me see,” Ordis requested. 

Saryn held the picture close to one of the many cameras scattered throughout the orbiter; they served as Ordis’s eyes to see what was going on with the operator inside.

“Hmm, interesting.” Ordis said intrigued. “And what will you call this one?” 

“The Smiling Crewman.”

“The Smiling Crewman? All I see of the cadaver is just teeth, not a fully fledged out grin!” Ordis discerned. 

“Trust me, he was smiling. To me, it would be a smile only I would never forget. Only for me to remember.” Saryn said, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. 

“If you say so, Operator.” Ordis replied rather indifferently. 

Saryn’s metal heels clicked against the marble floor of her orbiter as she descended down to a lower floor in her ship. Once the door had shifted open, she was met by the energetic bustling-about of her turquoise kavat. The feline creature jumped up and gave Saryn a wet lick in her metallic face. If it wasn’t just a smaller kit at this time, then a lick from it would have her feeling like the Niagara Falls. Saryn wiped the sticky saliva of her kavat from off her face, and knelt down to give it a pet on its silky, turquoise, fur. It meowed and purred as it rubbed its body against Saryn’s kneeling leg. Suddenly, the kavat noticed the picture gripped in Saryn’s left hand. It jumped up trying to take a chomp out of the photo. Fortunately, Saryn and her ninja-like reflexes were able to move it away from the kavat’s eager maw. 

“Woah now, Angie! This isn’t for you.” Saryn chuckled as she waved the picture around in the air. 

Angie and her finicky self kept trying to leap up to get a nibble out of the photo, but Saryn just continued to chuckle in amusement as she’d lift it higher and higher. The fun was over when Angie let out an agitated hiss and meow at her and pounced on Saryn, knocking her to the ground.

“Okay, okay. You win!” Saryn places the photo back into her pocket, and pulls out a kavat treat. Angie’s pupils dilated. Her green and yellow eyes reflected the irresistible sight of a raw stick of Kuaka meat from the Plains of Eidolon on Earth. 

“Eat up, girl.” Saryn tosses the stick of meat in the air, to which Angie quickly leaps up to catch it in her whiskered maw. She takes it to the corner to devour it in private. 

Saryn gets up and walks past Angie into her arsenal. There, she deposits her signature Spira Prime and Nikana for Ordis to beam it up and place it into storage. Even Saryn wonders where in the ship the stuff is stored, if it even still remains within the walls of the orbiter that is. In her arsenal, it contains many weapons. Ranging from rifles, knives, swords, longswords, whips, katanas, bows; you name it, and she’s probably got it…somewhere.

After relinquishing the heavy weight off her Warframe, she turns the corner to reach her lounging room where her Adventure Wall resides: A massive portion of the wall where various memorabilia and pictures hang diligently with their own unique title, plunging Saryn into little episodes of nostalgia whenever she comes to reminisce on her past Tenno adventures and conquests. The door slides open, and the magnificent view of her memories in the Origin System all hit her like a ravishing flashbang. She walked over to the next untainted empty space in the wall and hung up the new picture by piercing a pushpin through the top. She took out a black marker and wrote on the wall, titling: The Smiling Crewman above the picture. She gives the memory one final nod and heads back up to the upper floor of her orbiter to listen to the Nightwave Bounty and News Broadcast of the Origin System. 

“Good evening all you pure people of the Origin System! Tonight, Nora Night’s got an interesting story on the mysterious disappearances of various Tenno in the last few years. * Audience gasp sound effect* That’s right! The sworn protectors sent from the Ex Sentient, Lotus, have begun to start disappearing all over the Origin System like a man who didn’t want to pay lil ol’ Nora her monthly child support. * Audience laugh track* Haha! But for real now, these occurrences ain't got me sitting right. If there’s something out there powerful enough to make someone as powerful as the Tenno disappear, then the Origin System’s gonna be in real trouble. So all you Tenno listening in on this broadcast, stay strong y'all! And speaking of staying strong, I’ve got for y’all a few bounties to take on to keep those mechanical parts of yours moving. Take a look at this!” A holographic projection projects out a selection of bounty missions. One in particular catches Saryn’s non-existent eye. For a reward of 20 million credits, was a mission to sabotage a Grineer galleon off to the side of the planet, Sedna. Saryn had never visited around Sedna before, but the opportunity to seize the chance to explore the unknown was right in front of her, awaiting the possibility for another prized memory to be made there in the orbit of the unknown planet of Sedna. 

Chapter Text

Rusalka

“Tell me again, why are we here?” Ember asked with utmost exasperation in her voice.
The lady frames exit their orbiters and infiltrate the Grineer galleon. Saryn drops down from a vent a couple meters in the air, sending a clashing echo through the vast unpopulated space from the top piece of her high heel.
“We are here to sabotage this ship. We’re gonna find and destroy the reactor core and bring this puppy down! And then, we’ll make a grand escape to extraction.” Saryn explained.
“But still, why here?” Ember asked. “Couldn’t we have done a different sabotage mission on, I don’t know, somewhere closer like Ceres or Mars? Sedna is quite distant from anywhere else in the Origin System, and besides, none of us are familiar with the planet itself. Heck, I don’t think any other Warframes have even set foot on the planet!”
Saryn rolled her non-existent eyes. “We’ll be fine! And plus, we aren’t even going on the planet. The mission will just take place here on the galleon.” Saryn reassured.
“I guess, but it’s really cold out here; so far from the sun and all.” Banshee complained.
“Guys, it’ll be okay! Plus, Nightwave’s offering a score of 20 million credits! Imagine all the things we can get with that!” Saryn told them.
“What? Like a million new polaroid cameras for your freakish wall back in your orbiter?” Ember teased.
“Oh, don’t be like that, Ember. Maybe we could purchase a new orbiter. That way, you wouldn’t have to be my roommate anymore.” Banshee suggested.
“What’s wrong with sharing an orbiter?” Ember asked.
“Well, as a connoisseur of silence and still sound, having a hotheaded roommate, literally, often does intervene with the stillness of the moment.” Banshee explained.
Ember’s flaming mohawk grew taller in its still flame, turning her head flaming red in its growing aura.
“Settle down, girls, we can think of ways to spend the money later, but for now, we need to complete this mission.” Saryn interjected.
She pulled open a holographic projection of their mission guide and progenitor of all Warframes, The Lotus.
“Lotus, we’ve infiltrated the galleon. What’s our next move?”
“Tenno, I’ve pinned down the location of the reactor on your map. Reach it undetected and destroy it.”
“Got it.”
Saryn set a waypoint to where the reactor was located on their map, given its location from The Lotus. Through her vision, a yellow triangular marker marked their next location.
“Okay, ladies. Before we set off, we need to do this especially quietly, since we don’t know what the Grineer may be up to this far out in the Origin System.” She pointed at Banshee. “Banshee, could you make a field of silence around us?”
Banshee nodded. She casted their Warframes into a thick aura of silence, making their every move and attack as soundless as the vacuum of space. If they were close enough to enemies, their screams would be muffled by the atmosphere of silence.
The ladies set off into the next room, the door slid open without a sound. Saryn imbued her Nikana with her deadly toxins, and sneakily, she assassinated a nearby Grineer lancer by skewering them through the heart. The lady frames all leaped to the next door with a combination of twisting bullet jumps and Zero-G frontflips. Once they reached the panel controlling the door, a concealed blade jut out from Saryn’s wrist and she thrusted it into the panel. With her parazon, she hacked into the panel and unlocked the door. On the other side, numerous Grineer soldiers focussed their attention to what should've been a locked door, and once the door slid open, they were met by the faces of lady death. Saryn launched her Spira Prime throwing daggers. Its pearly white unicorn tip lodged deep in a Grineer soldier’s jugular, staining the blade crimson as a fountain of blood came rushing out making a puddle on the floor. The rest that stared were quickly turned to char when Ember let out a powerful stomp, sending a wave of inferno their way. Saryn gave Ember a look that clearly signified that she was calling her a “show off”. But Ember gave her a slick side-eye and continued as she held her chin high.
The next room, the Grineer soldiers didn’t even have a moment to blink when they were instantly crushed by flaming meteorites. Saryn let out an exasperated sigh that went unheard by the aura of silence, annoyed at Ember for trying to “steal the show”. The next room they entered, Saryn was quick to act and unleashed her toxic miasma, filling the room and lungs of the Grineer soldiers with death. Ember socked her in the shoulder and emoted from her Warframe that told Saryn, what the hell are you doing? Saryn returned the gesture back that said, Me?! What are you doing? Ember gestured back that told her, You wanna go, girl? Because we can go right here! Don’t think I won’t knock your punk-ass out right here on this Grineer galleon! Banshee facepalmed herself and shook her head that had her murmuring to herself, These two were really beefing in sign language. Unbelievable. They continued to argue in silence, until they noticed a surviving Grineer soldier crawling toward the door panel to set off the alarm. Ember was quick to act, sending a fireball their way. But in her rash action of trying to silence them, the fireball exploded on contact with the soldier, destroying the panel, causing the alarm to be set off.
A loud boisterous siren rang throughout the ship with yellow and red flashing from the lights. The sound of the siren hit the lady frames like a truck when Banshee’s silent aura timed out. Saryn yelped in pain, covering her non-existent ears, yelling at Ember.
“Dammit, Ember. This is all your fault!”
“Me? You’re the one trying to show off!”
They continued to bicker for a moment, finally verbalizing their trapped thoughts that were brewing through their minds in the atmosphere of silence. But it was Banshee who quickly put a stop to this childish squabble.
“Guys, stop! I don’t know if you girls realize, but there’s a Grineer squadron en route to our location!” Banshee interjected.
“She’s right. We need to prepare ourselves, and hurry to destroy that reactor!” Saryn agrees.
Despite their previous dispute, Ember reluctantly nods in agreement, setting aside their momentary conflict.
“Incoming!” Banshee hollers. She quickly gets to the ground and sends out a sound quake, sending the incoming Grineer squadron flying backward.
Ember equips her Boltor assault rifle and starts firing at the Grineer, sending a torrent of thick bolts their way, nailing weaker armored units to the wall like a thumbtack. Saryn casted a spore onto one of the Grineer lancers, protruding out like a tumorous abnormal growth, where Banshee, with her sniper rifle, would pop it open with a well placed shot. Its toxic contents burst out, contaminating the rest of the squadron and covering their bodies in many tumorous spores. To finish them off, Ember launched a fireball from her palm, where they all combusted in toxic gas and flame.
Banshee tried to open the door, but it was kept locked with no way to hack into it now with its controlling panel destroyed. Saryn spied around and spotted a fan vent.
“Ember, blast that vent open!” Saryn commanded.
Ember launched a fireball at the fan, shattering it into a million pieces. Saryn vaulted up to it and gestured for them to follow her through the vent. On the other side, the ladies reached a prisoner holding room with cells lining the edges of the dark brown walls. After they carefully exitted out from the vent, a psst spooked them. They turned to see a tan-colored human in a jean-blue jumpsuit call out to them.
“Psst. Hey! Can you guys let me out?” She asked the lady frames.
With the alarm blaring in the background, it was hard to forget about their main objective. Saryn really wanted to save her, but did they really have the time to save her along with themselves? With that, Saryn made her a promise.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of here as soon as we finish sabotaging the reactor.”
“But why can’t you get me out of here now?” The prisoner asked.
“Well, we can’t guarantee your safety past this point, so it’d be better to get you once we pave a safe way out.” Saryn responded. The prisoner understood with a resigned nod.
The reactor was just past the door from the prison. All they had to do now was hack into the system to expose the reactor, and then destroy it. Ember had a fireball charged in her hand, ready to release it at the volatile core. She and Banshee stood below while Saryn made her way to the reactor’s control panel from a station above. Saryn quickly jabbed her parazon into the control panel, exposing the reactor's bright yellow core. The protective metal shell encased around it cracked open like an egg, and was hauled into compartments within the ceiling and below the ground. Saryn yelled.
“Now, Ember!”
Ember released her charged up ball of fire like a baseball, pitching it into the dead center of the fragile glass of the reactor. It exploded in a huge bang that sent Ember and Banshee both tumbling back.
“Are you guys alright?” Saryn yells from the upper station.
“We’re fine!” Banshee replies, hollering back.
“Yep! Now let’s ditch this place.” Ember says.
They all reconvene at a large metal door on the other side of the room.
“C’mon, let’s go!” Ember opens the door and books it to extraction on the other side. But then, Saryn realizes something.
“Wait!” She extends an arm out, halting Ember. “The prison girl, I promised to free her!”
“There’s no time! We’re gonna be blown to bits in a matter of minutes!” Ember said. She was right. With the destruction of the reactor, this Grineer galleon is set to blow up in a matter of time. Saryn knew this, but she was always one to keep a promise.
“I have to!” Saryn exclaims.
Disregarding her teammate’s warnings, she rushes off to free the prisoner on the other side of the reactor. The prison wasn’t too far, her cell was just beyond the door from where they entered the reactor.
The door slides open with Saryn rushing in from the other side. She hacks into the cell’s control panel and soon, the door slides open. The prisoner walks out rather calmly, strangely with one hand behind her back. She utters something.
“Thank you, Tenno…for being such an idiot!”
The prisoner unveils a makeshift shank in her hand that was concealed behind her back and lunged viciously at Saryn. With her ninja-fast reflexes, Saryn grabbed her wrists and tussled with them; her metal back against the slim wall. The shank was less than an inch away from Saryn’s head where her eyes would be.
“You Tenno think you’re so strong with those metal machines you call Warframes! You think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t you?” The prisoner shouted at Saryn. Saryn swiftly yanked the woman’s wrist to the left, sending the shank flying as she loosened her grip. Then, she swung the woman’s body around, thrusting her to the wall.
“That’s enough out of you!” Saryn said, giving the woman a disapproving look through her non-existent facial features. Suddenly, a robotic voice emerges from the galleon’s intercom.
“Imminent reactor failure in 3 minutes!”
Saryn was caught off guard from the announcement, subconsciously loosening her grip on the woman’s wrists. Feeling the blood circulation back in her hand, the woman releases her fist from Saryn’s grasp and clocks her square in her metal face. As Saryn stumbles back, the woman makes a run for it.
Standing beyond the large metal door, Ember and Banshee spot the prisoner woman booking it out of the prison room door and making a sharp turn to the left into another room within the galleon. Saryn stumbles out trying to pursue after her.
“Where did she go?” Saryn hyperventilated. They were about to say something, until they were interrupted by the robotic voice again on the intercom.
“Imminent reactor failure in 2 minutes!”
“Forget about her, Saryn. We have to go! Now!” Ember hollered, stern. Saryn stumbles out farther, grumbling angrily.
“That cinnamon-toast cunt tried to attack me, talking about how the Tenno think we are stronger and better than everyone else.”
“I mean she’s not wrong! Now c’mon, I don’t know about you, but I don’t wanna be turned into a crouton!” Ember replied, callous. Saryn stared daggers into Ember’s non-existent eyes, upset at her for being unsympathetic. Banshee flashed a look between the both of them, but focused her gaze on Saryn and gave her the contemptuous, "I told you so" look before briefly switching back to an expression of worry.
“C’mon Saryn, we gotta go.”
Saryn rolled her non-existent eyes, and let out an annoyed “ugh” before rushing toward her team to make their way to extraction. But before Saryn can pass the threshold of the opened door, it slid shut with an even stronger layer of metal blocking her way out.
“Saryn!” Banshee yelled. She banged on the door in hopes it would magically open, but no matter what she did, the door didn’t budge.
“It’s no use! I’ll have to find another way out!” Saryn acknowledged. “You guys head off to extraction. I’ll see if I can break open a window and you guys could collect me from there!”
“But you’ll freeze in space!” Banshee remarks.
“Not if you guys are fast enough.” Saryn responds.
“Fine! Go and try to follow that prisoner chick, she went to your right.” Banshee tells her before she heads off to extraction.
“Okay.” Saryn springs towards the door the prisoner had run through.

Ember and Banshee quickly board their shared orbiter, but Ordis quickly expresses his concern when he detects that Saryn didn’t make it back into her orbiter.
“Wait? Where’s Operator Saryn? She’s not in her orbiter!”
“She’s still on the galleon.” Ember answered.
“What! What is she still doing there? Operator Ember, Banshee, you must go back to save her!” Ordis demands.
“Don’t worry, we’re gonna try to pick her up from one of the galleon's windows. Surely she’s-” Banshee tries to reassure Ordis, but is interrupted by Ember and her deadpan tone.
“No. We’re getting out of here.”
“What do you mean? Saryn’s still in there!” Banshee was shocked by Ember’s coldheartedness.
“The ship’s about to blow. We’re gonna get cooked being that close trying to save that arrogant waste-of-space Saryn.” Ember said, contemptuous.
“But she’s our friend! I won’t let you abandon her!” Banshee stood up with utmost defiance. “This is my orbiter, and I say we rescue her!”
The next thing Banshee knew, she was tumbling down a flight of stairs like clothes in a dryer. Ember had pushed her down into the lower levels of the orbiter, and locked the entrance so she couldn’t get out. Ember activated the orbiter’s lightspeed thrusters, zipping them away from Sedna.
“Operator Ember, how could you? I won’t allow this! Activating cephalon override-” Ordis was cut short of the overriding process as Ember had switched his input to off, shutting him down momentarily. The orbiter zipped off further and further away from the galleon.

Bursting into the room the prisoner had escaped to, Saryn saw her putting on an Archwing.
“Hey! Wait!” Saryn calls out to the prisoner, but why would she stop for her?
The woman quickly cracked open the window, sucking her into space where she activated the Archwing like a jetpack, zooming her off into the starry void of space for Saryn to never see her again. Before Saryn was too, sucked into the cold vacuum of space, she anchored herself to the rim of the circular window the prisoner had broken, using her arms and legs. She was hesitant to jump out into the cold, vast, vacuum of space, still not having spotted Ember and Banshee’s orbiter, but the robotic voice on the intercom had gotten her to start weighing her options.
“Imminent reactor failure in 30 seconds!”
With no other choice, in the last second, Saryn leaped out from the window into the vacuum of space, sending her body floating about into its chilled environment. But with it being during the last second, the explosion had brought warmth to her body one final time, propelling her further away into space and causing her to pass out.
Moments pass, and Saryn could start to feel her body turn colder when a gigantic, light brown Grineer galleon sails over her, blocking the faint warmth of the sun. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she could feel herself being lifted by a gravity beam carrying her toward the ship before she’s sent back into her slumber. The next time she snapped back to life in a rather hallucinogenic daze, through her fuzzy vision, she could make out that she was inside of a ship, with her surrounded by Grineer lancers with a larger, pale-skinned, Grineer woman towering above her in the center. She was layered in a synthetic, thick brown, Grineer armor, with a hint of cybernetic augmentations in her lengthy arms, legs, and body. Another thick synthetic patch of white and black sat upon her shoulders like she was wearing a fur coat. Her eyes glowed in an amber yellow, and on top of her head was a patch of black hair similar to that of the infamous Earthborn dictator, Adolf Hitler. A thick, rectangular streak of black ran down her lower lip and chin like she was constantly salivating motor oil.
“We’ll send her to the wolves and watch her squirm in Rathuum.” The woman spoke.
“N-no.” Saryn managed to softly utter out before slipping back into unconsciousness where everything to her turned black again.

Chapter Text

Rathuum

Saryn woke up in a panic, darting her non-existent eyes across the room. She found herself sitting in a corner inside of an unfamiliar vessel. She tried to get up, but she was sharply yanked back by a rusty metal chain tied around her neck like a dog collar, trailing into a dark slit in the wall. Saryn tried to feel her neck, but she discovered that her hands were cuffed and chained to another slit in the floor. But she wasn’t constrained with any ordinary cuffs, they were of pristine Orokin technology, having an ability nullifying effect on those whom they clasp on to. Saryn grunted, as she struggled and rattled with the chains and cuffs violently.
The commotion Saryn made as she scuffled with her restraints must’ve garnered her captor’s notice, as the door in front of her slid open. Emerging from beyond the door was the colossal sized Grineer woman whom Saryn had the displeasure of seeing during her drift in and out of consciousness. The woman strode in with her giraffe-neck arms behind her back, staring at Saryn piercing her with her amber gaze with an evil smirk spreading across her disgustingly pale face. The unpleasant sight of her made Saryn grit her non-existent teeth in anger. She turned her neck to face away from her, the rusty collar slid uncomfortably against her metallic neck. The Grineer woman’s heavy steps shook the room while she walked over to a wooden crate sitting close in front of Saryn. Her toothpick torso plopped down on the wooden crate, her synthetic body harboring a rather powerful and commanding posture. Saryn continued to focus her gaze away, even with the woman’s heavy hoarse breaths invading her ears. The woman continued and sat there smiling. A few moments of awkward silence accompanied by the woman’s heavy breathing and the din hum of the vessel pass, until the woman’s uncannily warm smile contorts into an angry, frowny grit. She snatches the left side of Saryn’s face with rapid speed using her large synthetic hand, her long, black, spider fingers digging indents into the head of Saryn’s metal Warframe. At breakneck speed, she yanks Saryn’s head to make her face toward her, causing Saryn to let out a petite yelp. The intense rattling of the chain resonated throughout the room.
Saryn’s non-existent eyes were forcibly met with hers, her piercing amber gaze burning a hole right through Saryn’s soul. After their momentary one-sided staring contest, the woman resumed shining her charismatically warm grin.
“You’re finally awake, Tenno.” She said warmly. “Tell me, how’s the first-class seating?” She mocked.
Saryn growled at her.
“Yeah, I know. It could be better.” The woman jested.
Saryn really wanted to spit in this burly Grineer woman’s face, but without a mouth, or even the ability to cast her miasma, the thought would just be left tantalizing in her mind. Despite Saryn not wanting to utter a single word to this woman that was toying with her, she at least took the courtesy to want to know who this woman she oh so dearly wanted to hack up a toxic loogie at.
“Who even are you?” Saryn asked with a coldness in her voice. The woman’s thin eyebrows lifted up, intrigued.
“Oh, Tenno. It’s such a shame you don’t know who this is.” The woman gestures to herself. “But I’ll enlighten you.” The woman released her grip from Saryn’s face, sending her head recoiling to the side. She stood up, striding toward the center of the small room.
“I am, the glorious, most formidable Grineer Warlord, exalted in status blessed by the Grineer Queens, and Queen of Rathuum on Sedna, yours truly: Kela De Thaym!” (Pronounced: kay-la-the-fame) She presents grandiosely. “So now you know, Tenno, the pretty face that presents itself right in front of you.”
“The Queen of Rathuum?” Saryn inquired. The words Grineer Queens and Sedna rang a bell to Saryn, but Rathuum was unknown to her and it sounded like some sort of monster truck derby to her.
“Yes! The Queen of Rathuum. As in me, Kela The Thaym!” Kela’s expression widened open in surprise. “Wait, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the famous Grineer bloodsport of Rathuum.”
Saryn shifted uncomfortably in the corner. Was she about to see this egotistical Grineer warlord cry had Saryn hurt her feelings by being unaware to what her “apparently famous” Grineer bloodsport ran by her was? If it really was famous, then Saryn should’ve heard about it with her travelling all over the Origin System and such.
“Oh, Tenno, you’re missing out! But don’t worry, you'll be lucky to experience it firsthand soon.” Kela said. That last part sent shivers down Saryn’s spine. What does she mean by experiencing it firsthand? Just then, Saryn remembers the last thing she heard before she drifted back off into unconsciousness. Kela, towering above her through Saryn’s fuzzy vision, said she’d send her to the wolves and watch her squirm in Rathuum.
Hearing this made Saryn more frightened and full of wrath. Would she have to fight for her life in a bloodsport soon for the Grineer’s amusement? She wanted to prepare, but she couldn’t feel any of her weapons on her. Her pouch on her hips where she’d store her Spira Prime throwing knives was missing, and her back where she’d holster her Nikana felt bare. She knew she mysteriously felt lighter when she woke up, and it’s now confirmed that this sudden lightweight feeling was not just in her head. She tried to glance past Kela to try to find where she had taken her weapons.
“Where are my weapons?” Saryn demanded, furious.
“Your weapons?” Kela replied back, genuinely confused.
“My Nikana and daggers; they look like little white unicorn horns.”
Kela let out a boisterous guffaw. “Oh how cute, Tenno. But you didn’t have any of those when we took you on the ship.”
Saryn’s non-existent facial features lit up in horror, as her prized Nikana and knives were gone to the void of space.
“They must’ve fell off after you…blew up one of my galleons.” Kela said, giving Saryn a piercing look. The sudden seriousness in her face petrified Saryn, causing her body of metal to quiver like a wet, stray dog in the blizzards of Orb Vallis on Venus. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you’ve done, Tenno.” Kela told her in a resonant, deep, grave tone. She reached behind the wooden crate and pulled out a polaroid camera. “The only thing we found on you was this…strange doohickey.” She fumbles around with Saryn’s camera. She held it between her thumb and index finger like a dice. It was especially tiny compared to her large hands.
“Be careful with that!” Saryn exclaimed, worried that Kela and her massive gorilla hands would crush her camera into dust. With the flash on the camera facing toward her, Kela accidentally presses the button to take a photo. The camera clicks as she is flashbanged by the sudden eruption of light, and she lets out a surprised holler. The camera buzzes as a small photo prints out. Luckily for Saryn, Kela only winced at the flash and kept a light grasp on the camera between her fingers. Kela’s amber eyes blinked rapidly as they recovered from the flash, and once they did, she immediately noticed the thin square that laid on the ground in front of her.
“What’s this?” She picked it up off the ground. Once the picture settled, Kela stared at it in bewilderment, seeing herself printed on a rather thick piece of paper. “What kind of soul-catching device is this?”
Saryn bursted out in laughter as she couldn’t help but find Kela’s befuddled reaction at her polaroid camera to be a little hilarious.
“What are you laughing at, Tenno? What have you done!?” Kela became enraged at Saryn’s mockery.
“It’s just a camera.” Saryn explained.
“A camera? I’ve never seen a camera do such a thing!”
“That’s because it’s a polaroid camera; it instantly prints out the picture once you take it.”
“Curse your strange Tenno Orokin tech! A camera is supposed to capture the good parts of me.” Kela stares at the image, being a capture of her shielding her face from the camera’s flash with her eyes closed and mouth wide open, revealing her disgusting Grineer mouth. She sits back down on the crate. She inspects the camera a little more and discovers something at the bottom written in black marker. She squints her eyes and tries to sound out the writing.
“S-Sar-Sar… Sar-ryan?”
“Saryn.” Saryn corrects.
Kela unsquints her eyes and looks back at Saryn with a delighted smile.
“Saryn…is that your name, Tenno?” Kela asks. Saryn nods. Suddenly the vessel starts to a heavily audible whirring sound. Kela glances out of the window and her expression turns to that of an eager child arriving at a theme park, glancing at the wondrous rides through the window of their mom’s sedan.
“Looks like we’re here, Tenno! Come, take a look.” Kela yanks out a few more inches of slack of Saryn’s chain from the wall slit with her strong, synthetic arms, and holds Saryn’s face to the window. Outside, she can see them entering the atmosphere of the brown and reddish planet of Sedna, the large celestial body that was just watching her from a distance, sitting idly by when Saryn and her team had infiltrated the Grineer galleon. Once the view had cleared up, Saryn could see, looking out from below, a circular arena that was lined in mostly bronze, Grineer metals. Her heart sank as they descended closer.
“Welp, looks like we’ve taken the time to get to know each other. And it looks like we've learned something new about each other today!” Kela spoke. “I got to learn that the little Tenno I’ve captured here is named, Saryn. And that she loves taking photos! And you got to learn who I am regarding my status within the Grineer and a little bit about Rathuum. But you’ll get to know more about the wonders of Rathuum real soon.” Kela stood up and inspected Saryn’s camera in her hand once again. “You won’t be needing this anymore, Tenno.” She crushes the camera between her fingers as Saryn would’ve hoped for her not to do.
“My camera!” Saryn exclaims, pained that her beloved camera was destroyed by the heartless Kela De Thaym.
“Relax, Tenno. You’ll be on bigger, better cameras soon.” Kela grabs Saryn by the back of her neck and unchains her from the wall and floor. Her neck and wrists were able to breathe free again with the constraints of the rusty chains and cuffs lifted from her. “Ready to become Rathuum’s next superstar?” Kela said, feeling pumped up as the spirit of Rathuum runs through her veins.
She guides Saryn, pushing her from the back of her neck into the room next door. In the middle of the floor was a circular hatch that Kela shortly opened with a press of a button on the wall. The wind sprang up from the hatch and blew heavily in Saryn and Kela’s faces.
“Get ready for Rathuum, Saryn!” Kela hoists her up by her neck, and holds Saryn over the opened hatch with the arena sitting below. “Say my name.”
“What?” Saryn murmured.
“You heard me, Tenno! Say my name! I want you to vocalize who your new god is! It isn’t The Lotus anymore, but who?!” Kela grinned a toothy smile.
Saryn didn’t want to say her name, let alone remember it. She realized without the nullifying cuffs no longer blocking her abilities, she could deliver to Kela a toxic goodbye gift before she was tossed into the arena. She secreted a toxic ooze from her body that would give Kela an acid burn to the hand that chokes the swan. Kela yelped in pain, and violently tossed Saryn down from the open hatch and into the arena.
Saryn was sent free-falling down toward the surface of Sedna into her new prison. She landed hard onto the metal surface of Rathuum, enough to create a shockwave sending debris everywhere. Luckily, Warframes are strong enough to withstand such a great fall. Saryn slowly picked herself up, and tried to swipe away the cloud of dust that clouded her vision. When it eventually faded, Saryn looked around to find herself surrounded by a circle of Grineer lancers with their submachine guns pointed at Saryn. The ship flew over the arena, and shortly, Kela jumped out from the galleon from a great height and into a viewing booth in front of Saryn, allowing her to watch the bloody games from above, with her shielded behind a thick layer of reinforced glass. She walked closer and stood from the edge of the window, and reached for the arena intercom.
“Ladies and gentlemen! I, Kela De Thaym, Queen of Rathuum, has brought home a new Tenno challenger to the arena: Saryn!” She introduces her. The Grineer audience sitting on the sidelines, also shielded by a strong layer of glass, erupts cheering.
“Look at what this little gal did to me,” Kela held out her corroded palm for the audience to see. “This little flower’s got fangs!”
The audience fills the arena with oohs and ahhs seeing the damage Saryn had caused to their leader.
“Without further adieu, let Rathuum commence!”
The audience erupted cheering again, and the lancers surrounding Saryn began to start firing. Before the wave of bullets could even graze her, she initiates a quick roll and casts a spore onto one of the lancers. It sprouted on his face, resulting in deadly inhalation of the spore’s toxic mist, causing him to die in seconds. Saryn leaps over to the dead lancer and picks up his Grakata Grineer-grade submachine gun. Before the rest of the lancers could lock on to Saryn, she turns one of them into Swiss cheese as she empties the rest of the clip into them, each shot that rang out leaving rapidly from the Grakata’s muzzle pelted through Grineer armor like paper. The rest of the lancers began to shoot at Saryn once again, this time, the bullets made contact with Saryn and she exploded into a cloud of green gas. The audience gasped, while Kela, watching above, lifted a brow. Suddenly, Saryn appeared behind one of the lancers, and latched onto his back with one of her hands around his neck. He immediately started coughing up blood as Saryn ripped her hand from his neck with a severed piece of his throat in her hand, melting and stringing off from the rest of his body like mozzarella cheese. She swiftly snatched his Grakata and reloaded hers, and rode on the lancer’s shoulders while unleashing bullet hell on the rest of the lancers like she was a turret. Once the rest of them fell to the ground, lifeless, she executed the lancer below her and sprung up from off his shoulders and landed elegantly upon her high heels, facing Kela. She pointed a Grakata at her and unleashed the magazine into the glass. The audience gasped. The bullets bounced off the glass like they were little stones being thrown at a window to garner the attention of someone’s crush. Once the empty tick of the gun’s depleted magazine echoed throughout the arena, Saryn hurled the gun at Kela, thunking against the protective glass. Throughout the whole bullet shower and throwing finisher, Kela still stood behind the glass, unphased, not even flinching at whatever pieces of lead and metal Saryn launched her way. Saryn stared daggers at Kela’s unfazed amber eyes, puffing heavily in her ill-tempered wrath. Kela returned a cold gaze. After their impromptu staring contest, Kela reached over to the arena intercom.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have today’s winner of Rathuum: Saryn!”
The crowd erupted in a cheer, chanting, Saryn. Saryn continued to stare Kela in her ugly, pale face, growling silently under her metal mask.

Meanwhile, back on the explosion site of the Grineer galleon in Sedna’s orbit, an orbiter comes treading through.
“Saryn, are you here?” Banshee searches around anxiously looking through the cockpit window of her orbiter.
“That girl’s probably dead.” Ember said, nonchalantly.
“And it would be your fault!” Banshee erupted, pointing an accusing finger sharply at Ember.
“Look, it was her choice to save the prisoner and get left behind by playing Superman. If she was smarter and ditched that brat, then she’d be alive, wouldn’t she?” Ember acknowledged.
A looming atmosphere of guilt washed over Banshee, as she felt that she could’ve done something on that mission that could’ve changed the outcome, allowing them to all have escaped in time. Whether she should’ve acted quick to snipe the surviving lancer to prevent Ember from destroying the control panel, setting off the alarm, or whether she should’ve done something, anything, to get Saryn to opt out of trying to rescue that prisoner, or whether she should’ve stood up to Ember and regain control of the orbiter to collect Saryn from the window like she said.
Banshee glanced over at Ordis’s screen, it read, Cephalon Rebooting…time until complete: 72 hours. She focused back out of the orbiter window. Then, she spotted something glistening in the distance.
“Over there!” Banshee gasps, pointing. Ember flies them over to where Banshee pointed and upon closer inspection, they found Saryn’s signature Nikana and Spira Prime throwing knives drifting through space, but with no sign of Saryn.
“Doesn’t look like she’s here.” Ember said.
“No, it can’t be!” A surge of panic travels throughout Banshee.
“That girl… Saryn rescued her, just for it to all be in vain when it turns out that she was a radical advocate for human dominance in the Origin System.” Ember said emotionlessly.
Banshee gazed out at the big brown planet of Sedna; a big brown eye that stared back at them. “Dammit, Saryn. Where are you?”

Chapter Text

Hydron

Saryn’s wrists were back in nullifying cuffs, constricting around them like an anaconda. She was dragged to a holding cell by an escort of Grineer lancers where she was thrown behind rusted bars. Before she could even get herself up from the dirty floor, one of the lancers flipped a switch and a wall of blue energy projected from the dilapidated rusted bars. Saryn sprang up and started banging on the energized wall with her cuffed up hands, but upon contact, she immediately felt a painful surge of energy rattle throughout her metal body. She screamed and fell back to the floor where its mystery substances stained her metal body more brown. The lancers walked away from her cell, leaving her alone to listen to the echoing drip of water from a distant busted pipe where its drip, drip, drip, started to drive her insane as the sound bounced off the iron walls and into her metal skull.
Saryn took a brief glance in both directions outside her cell. When she saw that no one was watching her, she withdrew herself deep into the corner and attempted to contact The Lotus, trying to summon her through a holographic projection in her palm.
“C’mon Lotus, please pick up!” Saryn whispered, urgently.
But it was to no avail as the signal was blocked, assuming not only from the ability-nullifying wall in her cell, but possibly by a larger interference extending to all of Rathuum and Sedna. Saryn grunted, squeezing her palm shut, closing her failed call for help to The Lotus. She huddled herself in the corner as she let out a faint sob that would be left unheard by anyone outside of the prison area. This was probably what that girl felt like. She thought to herself, reminiscing on her past mistake from an act of compassion that led her here to rot in Grineer filth and listen to the endless drip that drilled into her brain with its insanity-driving ring. I should’ve listened to you, Banshee.

After what felt like to her a century, Saryn hears a door slide open. Kela’s big, black, synthetically augmented, high heels clicked thunderously on the hard floor, sounding like meteors falling from the sky. She stopped in front of Saryn’s cell and deactivated the energized wall. When it faded, she saw a rather unsettling sight before her as she saw Saryn rocking back and forth in the corner murmuring.
“Drip, drip, drip. Think you can get away with being so strong, Tenno? Drip, drip, drip drip.”
Kela put her out of her psychotic daze by pounding loudly on an adjacent wall. Sending the temple-splitting sound of the drip dissolving from Saryn’s mind. Saryn shook her head and looked up to see Kela’s 8-foot tall body towering in front of her.
“Time to get up, Tenno!” Kela said, full of charismatic energy.
“Is it morning already?” Saryn asked as she slowly stood up in her cell.
“Maybe…maybe not; I don’t know, I don’t sleep. And besides, it looks all the same here on Sedna.” Kela responded. How could this woman be so energetic all the time working off of no sleep?
“Don’t those amber eyes of yours burn from being awake for too long?” Saryn inquired rather humorously.
“Oh don’t dwell on it too deep, Tenno. When you’ve got the spirit of Rathuum constantly pumping its sweet, sweet, bloody wrath through your veins, these eyes will never have to close for more than a second ever again!” Kela said, cheerfully. “Enough chit-chat, Tenno. It’s time to get that metal body movin’ and ready to unleash its wrath onto the grand stage of Rathuum!” Kela reaches inside and grabs Saryn by her neck, not even having to take a single step inside her cell, and drags her off into a different room.

After some time being dragged around by a synthetic noose around her neck attached to a mole rat rocking a Hiter-fro with a motor oil malfunction dripping down to her chin, Saryn is placed into a large, arena-like area where rotating panels circle clockwise from the walls, moving targets frolic across the concrete floors hoisted up by a metal rod, and a field of weapons sit in an even row across the floor looking like flowers in a meadow ready to be picked by Saryn’s grubby metal fingers. Seeing this made Saryn’s non-existent pupils dilate like a camera zooming in to get the perfect picture.
“Warm up, Tenno! Pick your favorite pair, and maybe you’ll get to use it in the arena tonight.” Kela told her. She took out a key and uncuffed Saryn from her nullifying cuffs. But she still felt weak in her power as the room still radiated a nullifying energy. Kela released Saryn from her grasp and she quickly rushed over to the field of weapons; the scene looking like a mother standing idly by watching as her excited child ran over to play at a fast food restaurant’s playplace.
Saryn dug through the weapons, trying to find the pair of weapons that had always spoken out to her the most: a katana and some throwing knives, specifically a Tenno Nikana and Spira Prime. Her eyes shifted around trying to spot the silver glimmer of a katana’s blade and a spiral white tip of a small unicorn horn. In the corner of her non-existent eye, she spotted a red ribbon protruding out in the room’s artificial light. She hurried over to it, hoping for it to be attached to a pearly white unicorn horn, but to her disappointment upon reaching closer, it was the unprimed, bland, variant of her treasured throwing knives, the Spira. It was just a regular razored knife with a red ribbon tied to the end of the hilt, but it lacked the tasteful unicorn horn aesthetic that Saryn was longing for, as it delighted her to see the twist of the horn drill into the necks of her enemies, drawing blood from such a bodily appendage of a peaceful, mythical, creature. Even with its plain, untouched from the void and unblessed by the Orokin state, to Saryn, it's still better than nothing. Kela stood there intrigued by Saryn’s fastidiousness toward the boring blade in her hand.
“Knives not to your liking, Tenno?”
“It’s just that…nevermind. These will do.” Saryn replied with notable dejection in her voice.
“C’mon, tell me. The queen of Rathuum’s right here to help you perform your best in Rathuum.” Kela insisted. Saryn sighed.
“Fine. It’s just that I miss my primed Spira and Nikana.” Saryn divulged. Kela looked at her as Saryn unsheathed a rusty katana blade from its deteriorating leather sheath. Kela gazed at her solemnly.
“Hmm. I’ll see what I can do.” Kela said as she turned away to exit. Before she left, she turned around and said one last thing. “In the meantime, get yourself booted up and ready for Rathuum tonight!” After that, she shut the door locked with a resounding bang, but shortly after, the door creaked open again.
“I almost forgot to ask, do you need to eat, Tenno? Because I’m gonna have you locked in here all day till Rathuum at dusk.” Kela asked, peeking through the crack in the door. Saryn responds violently by throwing a Spira into the wall, landing inches from her head. “I guess not, then.” Kela says, still remaining chipper as she finally leaves the room and locks the door.

Saryn focussed on getting her Warframe ready for what’s to come in Rathuum that night. She picked out the visually dull Spira throwing knives and a rusty katana that looked like it had been through every single match of Rathuum from the beginning of the game’s creation. There were better weapons of course, but Saryn refused to use any weapon other than a katana and throwing knives as they were her forte in using them for swift combat. She’d hoped that despite her fastidiousness, she wouldn’t end up being the one to have their blood spilled on the grand stage of Rathuum. She started to practice her throw with the Spira by focussing on a moving target that slid side-to-side depicting a Grineer lancer by its bulky silhouette. Saryn knew exactly where its jugular was; a little bit above the center of the lancer’s wide frame. Her non-existent eyes narrowed as she drew back her arm with the Spira in hand, and with precision, she striked. The knife launched toward the target as fast as a speeding bullet, whistling in its wake. But the bland Spira variant bounced off of the target and ricocheted across the room, bouncing along every corner until it almost hit Saryn in the center of her face. Fortunately, she quickly ducked and it went into the wall behind her instead. Despite having no facial features, Saryn was visibly frustrated, grunting and throwing the knives at the target like a toddler throwing their toys in a tantrum. They all bounced off of the target, leaving small dents and nicks in its cardboard structure. These throwing knives probably couldn’t even slice butter, even if they were used under Kela’s colossal strength. When she was all out, she extended out her arm, trying to cast a spore. However, the room nullified all of her toxic abilities, leaving her looking like a child playing pretend; trying to perform telekinesis. After accepting that trying to use her abilities while in the room would be as effective as a helicopter trying to take off with no rotating blades, she grabs the rusted katana that left brass flakes sprinkled on her Warframe every time she would even so much as touch it. She lunges at the target and unsheathes the rusted blade from its deteriorating leather scabbard. But as soon as the blade made contact with the cardboard target, it bounced off like it was a trampoline. In its bounce, a wave of brass flakes pelt out and season her Warframe. Saryn becomes enraged, letting out blood curdling warcry. She repeatedly beats at the cardboard target with the rusted katana blade like a mother disciplining her bad child with a broomstick, until it eventually snaps, sending out a cloud of dust and rust that enveloped Saryn. She swears she saw the life essence of the katana’s lifelong wielder pour out from between the blades and tell her thank you in a hoarse voice as his aged spirit is freed to move on into the afterlife.

A couple of hours go by. It is almost time for Rathuum to commence. Saryn is sitting on the ground, gloomily, shooting at some targets around the room with a Grakata in one hand, while the other rests on her face. The door to the room creaks open. Saryn looks over to see Kela holding a long box in her enormous hands.
“My troops on their little void expedition were able to bring back a little something.” Kela slides the parcel over to Saryn. The box was white with a gold top. She quickly lifted the golden top open like it was a box of chocolates, feeling giddy to find out what was inside. Upon the top’s removal, a dazzling light blinded her. She opened her non-existent eyes to see the pearly white sheath of a katana with the corners lined in gold. Her focus rolled from the bottom of the sheath to the hilt, where its slender, white, grip ran down and was capped off by a circular Orokin sigil that looked like a gold medal hanging at the end of the hilt. From there, a thick red sugatra, just like the ribbon on her Spira Prime, dangled and flew with the flow of the wind like a little magic carpet. Saryn unsheathed the blade, and its refined silver razor edge at its tip was more rounded out like a machete. Saryn gazed at it, admiring its utter beauty and elegance, just like her Spira once had. She sheathed the blade and took a look at the writing etched in the top of the box. Nikana Prime, it read, written in a dark shade of abyssal black. “I know it's not like your Spira you oh so yearn for, but it’s surely an upgrade from that old Tenno katana you had.”
Saryn didn’t know what to say. She almost wanted to hug Kela, but the thought of embracing her captor almost certainly made Saryn want to throw up from a non-existent orifice. Good thing it was Kela to be the one who spoke next.
“Now get ready, Tenno. It’s time to rumble in Rathuum!” She shook her fist enthusiastically in the air and left. But before Saryn could get a chance to swing her new blade at a practice target, an escort of Kela’s lancers marched into the room, ready to throw Saryn into the pits of Rathuum. One of the lancers snatched the Nikana Prime from Saryn’s hands, causing her to try and lunge at them in fury. The other lancers held her back, and escorted her to the arena.

Soon, Saryn was thrown back into the same arena. Kela was up in her booth behind protected glass, looking at Saryn below. The lancer that had confiscated Saryn’s Nikana Prime had thrown it at her after she was tossed to the ground by the escort. It’s rock hard sheath hit Saryn in the arm, and it would’ve left a nasty bruise if she wasn’t made out of metal. She unsheathed it briefly again to check for any damage to the blade. And if there was, Saryn would promise to herself to kill that lancer when he and the escorts came back out to bring her to her cell again.
Immediately, groups of Grineer warriors armed with various melee armaments poured out from other entrances to the arena, surrounding Saryn. The intercom rang through the walls of the arena.
“Tonight! Yesterday’s Tenno winner of Rathuum, Saryn, is back again to unleash her fangs onto 30 of the most well-experienced Grineer warriors! (Specially trained by me of course) Let’s see if Saryn can hold her ground during tonight’s match of Rathuum!” Kela hollers over the intercom. The crowd cheers as Rathuum commences.
A warrior begins to charge at Saryn, holding a Sydon trident in his hand. It was time for the Nikana Prime to show Saryn how good it really is. Saryn focused, and when the time was right she lunged at the warrior, unsheathing her blade like she did back in the training room. And then, with a singular swipe, a shink echoes from the blade and into the walls of the arena. Instead of bouncing off of the target like the rusted blade before, it sliced through the warrior like they were paper. The Nikana Prime’s machete-like blade dripped with crimson, and behind her, the warrior was stopped in their tracks. Slowly, they knelt down on one knee and anchored their trident into the ground, trying to use it as support. The warrior held their abdomen, and then slowly, blood started to pour down from it like juice from a squeezed fruit. Soon, the circumference around their abdomen started to ooze red, and then the lower half of their body fell over like a grapefruit sliced open. From their upper body, still standing erect hovering over with the help of the anchored Sydon, their guts and intestines started dangling down like noodles being held by some chopsticks, pink and meaty.
The audience gasped, and even Kela’s expression opened up. Saryn cleaned the blood off her blade by sliding the silver blade of the katana in between the metal hinge joint of her left elbow, and sheathed it back into its white and gold scabbard. She left the whole arena petrified, as the remaining warriors, and even the audience, didn’t dare to move a muscle. Saryn felt warm from the silence, having only sat through the headaching sounds of drippy pipes and cogs from spinning targets. Saryn didn’t want to move either, finally feeling the tranquility of the moment. But then, the wrathful snake came out of her when the sound of a drip echoed through the arena and went back to screwdriving Saryn in the head. Saryn looked hastily for the source of the noise, twisting her head to look behind her like an owl. From the warriors hanging upper half, droplets of blood start to drip from their guts like a drippy faucet. Another droplet of blood started to fall.

Drip. …And another.

Drip. …And another.

Drip. …And another.

At lightspeed, Saryn zipped over to the dripping corpse and instantly dissolved it with toxic touch. She looks up, staring around the arena with feral rage pooling up in her non-existent eyes. Pure toxin secretes from her metal body, running down her metal frame like raindrops.

Drip…Tsss
Drip…Tsss
Drip…Tsss

The droplets bubble and start searing through the ground upon hitting the metal floor of the arena. As fast as she went over to the warrior’s corpse to dissolve it in one touch, Saryn screeched like a siren echoing her crazed cry to the whole population of the planet Sedna, along with spewing out a storm of her toxic miasma. The fog of toxic mist gusted out from her body, racing to the lungs of the Grineer in all directions. The warriors didn’t have time to react, and soon, they all started coughing, convulsing, and leaked blood from every single orifice, until they all eventually fell over and succumbed to Saryn’s deadly nectar.
After a few moments of more petrifying silence, the crowd erupted in a booming cheer, and Kela went back on the intercom.
“Congratulations to Saryn! She finished off all of those experienced warriors in a slice and one fell swoop catching them in a storm of the reaper’s sedative. Truly a unique, historical event for Rathuum ladies and gentlemen.”
Saryn stared at Kela as she walked out of frame into the back of the booth.

Kela was speaking with other high-ranking Grineer personnel on the other side of her booth.
“Saryn is quite the entertainer!” One of them said, amazed.
“She’s the most skilled challenger Rathuum has seen in a while.” Another remarked.
“Quite so,” Kela spoke. “Which is why we need to heighten up the challenge.” The room fills up with various murmurs. “If we continue feeding that snake teensy-weensy goons that she could easily take out in one move, then it’ll just get boring when Rathuum is over in five seconds.”
“Why not disable her Tenno abilities?” One of the personnel asked.
“If we do, then it would take out the interesting aspect about putting Warframes into the arena.” Another person answered. “It’s the abilities that get the crowd cheering in awe!”
“Abilities…Tenno…Warframes!” Kela contrived a million dollar idea. “I’ve got it! You all get on the phone with Alad V and see if he’s got some old machines sitting in the garage.” She ordered her personnel to do it at once.

While they went off to make a business negotiation with the high-ranking member and head of Grineer relations of the Corpus, Kela returned to her booth and glanced down through the glass to see Saryn being seized by her Grineer escorts. The same lancer reaches for Saryn’s Nikana Prime sitting on the floor.
“Be careful not to put a scratch on that! Or else the next thing it’ll be cutting through is your head.” Kela warns the lancer over the intercom, telling him off in front of everyone.
Afterward, they picked it up with great care, as he now holds the instrument that would be used for his forthcoming execution one day.

Chapter Text

Charybdis

Saryn is brought back into Rathuum the next day. Again, she is tossed into the arena by her Grineer escorts, with one of the lancers, now assigned as the “Swordholder” carefully placing Saryn’s Nikana Prime on the ground for her to pick up and use on whoever she is destined to fight today. After the lancers leave, Saryn gets up and hastily grabs her katana, holding it at her left hip ready to make her opponent look like they had made a bad day’s visit to the deli. Saryn looked around, searching for a contender, but there wasn’t a single soul, other than hers, inside of the arena. She glanced over to Kela’s spectating booth, but to her surprise, there was nobody beyond the indestructible glass. Where is Kela? Saryn pondered to herself. She knew it would be unlike the charismatic Queen of Rathuum to miss out on a day’s blood spilling in her self-led bloodsport. The only others around were the coliseum of the Grineer audience sitting around also having the same thoughts as Saryn, wondering where their leader was.
Just then, a massive Grineer galleon hovers over the open, red, arena sky overhead, casting Saryn and the audience in a chilling darkness with the oppressive sound of its running engines making Saryn’s non-existent ears flip inside out. It was probably the same galleon Saryn arrived in, recognizing its specific obnoxious hum. She guessed that this would be where her new challenger would emerge from, but this time, she was the one already on the stage, ready to commence the execution instead of a circling squadron of Grineer.
A small hatch from underneath the galleon opened, shining down on a small spot of the arena like a ray of angel’s light. And like the fallen angel, Lucifer, being cast into Hell, plummeting from the hatch emerged another metal figure. They fell down into the arena, but with a feline’s prowess, they landed perfectly on their feet just a few meters in front of Saryn, landing with a sound less than a tiny metal clink.
Saryn stared at the individual that stood in front of her, gripping the hilt of her Nikana Prime tight. But the more she got to absorb the features of the hunk of metal standing in front of her, she noticed something. Their body was as orange as a sunset with teal veins running from various white nodes scattered throughout their body, and from each of their feet protruded three wolverine-like claws scratching into the arena’s metal ground. Saryn shifted her focus higher, noticing a thick, teal, rubber cord dangling from near each of their elbows, plugged into grey restraints embedded into the metallic flesh in their forearms. Protruding from their fingers were the unsheathed claws of a feral kitty cat, like little knives ready to rip into Saryn’s metal Warframe. Looking at their head, Saryn noticed that her ghastly skull looked like that of the fictional villain, Two-Face, while also resembling the mask of The Predator. The left side was rather normal being shaded in a shiny metal teal, but the right side was what made them look like a monster. Inhabiting the right side of their face was some unfinished metal framework that fastened onto her skull like a spidery leg rib cage. The carbon-black synthetic secured behind it resembling membranes also had veiny streaks of teal running to the back of their skull. And finally, looking slightly below, Saryn saw their neck being hugged asphyxiatingly tight by a hexagonal Corpus collar like they were some sort of vicious beast needed to be tamed. With all these features, Saryn knew that this wasn’t some ordinary Grineer contender, it was a Warframe, a fellow Tenno.
The galleon hovered over Kela's booth, where she jumped out of the same opened hatch and into the confines of her VIP seat as Rathuum’s overseer. With a grin from ear to ear on her face, she spoke over the arena intercom.
“Good day to all of you, beautiful spectators of Rathuum! Today is a good day to be tuned in for this match in Rathuum, as we now again have two Tenno contenders!” She announced, grandiosely.
“Two Tenno contenders?” Saryn pondered. “What even happened the last time that took place?”
“It’s been quite the millennia since we’ve seen Tenno v. Tenno action on the divine stage of Rathuum, so let’s savor every moment as we watch the Lotus’s blood spill onto the metal floors of the arena! The skin of their own flesh!” An orbiting camera appears and starts to circle around them. “We have the two-time, toxic, Tenno winner of Rathuum: Saryn!” Kela announces, sending the audience into a cheer. “And as for the new kid on the block, sent here as a gracious donation from Alad V, fresh from the Corpus labs of Jupiter; we have the vicious, tameless rabid kitty-kavat, who is ready to rip you to pieces: Valkyr!”
The crowd cheers louder at the grand introduction of Saryn’s opponent.
“Now it's time for you to put on a show, and fight, Tenno. Fight your best, and let Rathuum commence!”
Saryn narrowed her non-existent eyes at her torn-apart Warframe opponent. She could only imagine the horrible things the Corpus had done to her in the name of profit. Now she felt terrible for giving that crewman mercy, for Corpus scum like him doesn’t deserve a quick and painless death.
Saryn didn’t want to fight, let alone kill another Warframe of her own Tenno kind. But the same can’t be said for her opponent. The ferocious feline frame known as Valkyr went into a stalking crawl, staring predatorially into Saryn’s non-existent eyes like she was prey. When Saryn took her eyes off of the circling she-frame for a split second to glance at Kela, Valkyr, with her kavat-like prowess, began to pounce. In one swift motion, she quickly sprang up into the air and unsheathed from her gauntlets a glowing orange pair of talons. They pronged out from Valkyr’s already razor sharp claws like long orange karambit knives, ready to shred Saryn’s flowery face. With speed, Saryn held up the sheath of her Nikana Prime, blocking Valkyr’s attack, where the Orokin-blessed white and gold metallic scabbard clashed with Valkyr’s orange talons, sending a powerful shockwave throughout the arena. Looking non-existent eye to non-existent eye a few inches away from each other, separated by a barrier of orange, white, and gold, Saryn spoke.
“I’m not going to fight you!” She stated as she desperately tried to hold off the wall of knives inching toward her face. Valkyr responded by aggressively relinquishing her grasp on Saryn’s katana, and unleashing an ear shattering warcry of internal anguish. The warcry sent Saryn stumbling back from its organ-shattering sound waves, and Valkyr casted out an neon orange rip-line behind her, grappling her away from Saryn and into an opposite corner of the arena.
“Is she…listening to me?” Saryn said to herself, thinking that her oppressor had ceased her thirst for Saryn’s blood. But Valkyr’s talons were still unsheathed, glowing orange in the arena’s artificial light, meaning that the hunt was not over. Valkyr sprang up into a bullet jump and grappled onto a nearby wall, its sharp hook somehow not piercing through the tempered glass but still able to swing her over. The audience watched in amazement as she bounded across the arena walls on all fours. Valkyr truly was a rabid beast, being able run across the walls like some sort of spider-cat. Saryn could barely keep up with her as the moment she was able to spot her, Valkyr grappled from her rip-line into an opposite wall on the other side of the arena.
When the orbiting camera, broadcasting the whole escapade, had flown directly overhead of Saryn standing at the center of the arena, disoriented and bewildered, Valkyr made a move. She casted her rip-line onto the bottom of the camera and hung like a vampire upside down from the base of the orbiting camera, hanging above Saryn like a chandelier. Then, she dives at Saryn, pushing up against the camera with her clawed feet, sending it launching high into Sedna’s brown-red sky with a bang, zam, straight to the stratosphere, ma’am.
Valkyr pounces from above, her talons ready to grab and rip Saryn’s neck out. Saryn tries to block the strike with her Nikana Prime again, but upon Valkyr crashing into Saryn like a missile, her katana comes flying out of her hands, leaving her with no other protection from the feral Valkyr, as she’s pinned Saryn to the ground just as her kavat, Angie, did days before. One of her talons poke deep into the metal ground with her hand gripped tight around Saryn’s neck, locking Saryn in place under her. If only Saryn had a stick of Kuaka meat on hand, maybe she could persuade the feral she-frame into not killing her. Valkyr raises a free talon, unsheathing her slender, orange claws from her gauntlet, ready to deliver a fatal slash across Saryn’s metal face until she is interrupted.
“Let her go.” Kela said over the intercom. Valkyr turned her head to the booth above to stare daggers into Kela’s amber eyes and let out another anguishing warcry before retracting her talons and releasing Saryn’s neck. Kela turned to look at Saryn from her booth, expressing a look of disappointment. “Oh Saryn, I thought you were better than this…animal.”
Valkyr growled at Kela towards her remark.
“I see everything, Saryn. I heard you say that you wouldn’t fight her. And oh does it break my heart to hear that my most skilled competitor refuses to engage in the wrathful spirit of Rathuum, all for some other Tenno you don’t even know.” She chuckles at the end.
“I am not your competitor; I am your prisoner.” Saryn asserted. Shocked gasps erupt from the audience.
“Oh pipe down! You guys already knew that.” She dismissed their surprised reaction. “Such an ungrateful daughter you are to me. I even went out of my way to give you that Orokin katana, just for you to cast me out of your life.” Now she was just being dramatic. “Oh how you sliced one of my most skilled warriors in half in cold blood, and poisoned the rest with your toxic breath, but not making a single cut to the ferocious creature in front of you, who tried to rip you to shreds.” She soliloquies.
Valkyr was growing tired of hearing these foul words said about her from Kela’s oil-dripping mouth. She again roared at her with a booming warcry, sending the whole arena into silence. However, the silence was broken by the stomping marches of the Grineer squadron ready to escort them into cells. Valkyr saw red at the traumatizing familiar sight of a group of hostile figures with guns, ready to take her away to a new place of torture. She roared at them, slanting her body as she began to crawl backward away from them like a cat who refuses to be put in a cage. When the escorts began to approach Valkyr closer, she pounced.
She sprang up in the air with her talons unsheathed, and ripped into the neck of one of the lancers and yanked out their vocal cords. She casted a rip-line into another nearby lancer, impaling them like a skewer. Valkyr yanked as hard as she could and their heart came ripping out from their chest with it still attached to the rip-line still beating like a heart-on-a-stick. Saryn just stood there from the sidelines, watching the bloody massacre play out right in front of her. The rest of the lancers tried to surround Valkyr, but she let out an organ shattering warcry that pushed them back. She stuck her sharp talons through another lancer’s face like she was holding a bowling ball, and plucked out another lancer’s eye like she was trying to help them take their contact out. With another lancer, she played a brutal game of got your nose when she dug too deep trying to dig for that Grineer gold lurking in the back of their brainstem, having to rip her whole hand free from their nasal cavity. She played dentist with another, telling them to open wide as she unhinged their jaw and stuck a claw in their mouth as if she was trying to perform a root canal; she only came up with a few teeth in her hand, and threw them at Kela’s glass like pebbles. To the side, Valkyr spotted a cowardly lancer trying to pick up Saryn’s Nikana Prime. She pounced, and gave them a black eye after punching them like she was trying to powder their face with some makeup. Then, Valkyr grabbed the unsheathed blade of the Nikana Prime and dragged the beaten lancer over to the center of the arena. There, she brought the blade down upon their head like a guillotine, where their severed head rolled in place next to the other dismembered body parts of the Grineer escort squadron, being the final piece in writing out a message on the arena floor that read: Ur Ded Kela!
Kela looked down at this, amused. Quite the entertaining show it was, compensating for Saryn not putting up a fight. Valkyr gazed up at Kela, looking intensely into her amber corneas with a raging fire in her non-existent eyes as she performed a cutthroat gesture. She dropped the Nikana Prime blade from her hand, causing it to clash against the metal floor as she casted a rip-line into Kela’s protective glass, grappling her toward the window. Hanging on the wall like Spider-Man, Valkyr bangs on the glass, all the while Kela stares at her, indifferent, retaining a composed expression. The banging kept ringing throughout the arena until Grineer jetpack units came to grab hold of Valkyr and took her off the glass, while a different escort squadron came to get Saryn and her Nikana Prime. Throughout all of this, Saryn couldn’t help but stare in awe at this resilient fighter that had dropped down into the arena today; being a feral Warframe tasked to kill Saryn in the name of Rathuum.

Chapter Text

Marid

Sitting in the cell across from Saryn, Valkyr, like a feral animal, is clawing at the walls and corners of her enclosure. Even without the use of her talons, her base claws on her Warframe are still enough to carve even a little bit into her cell wall. She tried to claw at the energized wall that was laid out in front of the bars, but she howled in agony when she so much as touched it. Even with the wall’s intense pain, it didn’t stop her from trying to pounce at it again, and again, and again. After all, pain was the only thing she knew, and the only thing it did was make her more angry and full of malice. After a few minutes of her trying and trying again to scratch at the wall, with each time she sprang back and let out a painful cry in agony, Saryn couldn’t stand to hear the poor girl’s yelps any longer.
“Just give it up, Valkyr. That wall isn’t coming down anytime soon.” Saryn told her in a despondent tone. But Valkyr just roared at her and continued her attempt at tearing down the energized cell wall. Saryn wondered, does she even speak? Could she even understand what I’m saying? All the while she kept staring at the wild animal. Saryn knew that the Corpus labs on Jupiter were brutal. She’d heard that kidnapped frames would be cut open and be poked by needles all around their bodies, like they were frogs in a science class during dissection day, but at least they gave frogs the decency to have already been deceased before they had things starting to poke into them. She kept staring at Valkyr’s two-faced head, wondering what she would’ve fully looked like had her skin not been flayed on the right side of her head. Saryn imagined that side of her head was super sensitive, that even the passing wind would’ve made it feel all tingly. She grimaced at the uncomfortable thought. She wondered what Kela was thinking when Alad presented her this cat-coded half-skinned Warframe. But she set that thought aside as she knew Kela wouldn’t have cared. Valkyr would’ve just been another plaything for Saryn to showily execute to entertain the bloodlust of Kela and her audience of Rathuum.

The next morning arrives. Saryn had a relatively peaceful slumber, even with Valkyr’s restless clawing as it eventually faded out into the background along with the dripping pipe. She wakes up and glances at the cell across from hers to see the last night’s feral Valkyr, laid down like a cat sound asleep…on the ceiling of her cell. Saryn almost forgot that Valkyr had uncanny wall climbing abilities.
Saryn heard the prison entrance door slide open with heavy sets of footsteps accompanying it short after. Kela stood between their cells with a Grineer escort squadron circled around from both sides.
“Rise and shine, girls. It’s Rathuum time!”
Her booming, charismatic voice woke up Valkyr, and immediately with a hunter’s instinct, she sprang at the cell door from the ceiling trying to pounce on Kela. But like last night, the energized wall shocked her like a bug zapper and had her yelping as she was pushed back from the wall. Kela chuckled.
“I’m sure you’ll put on an entertaining show for us today.” She remarked. Kela deactivated the energized walls and opened their cells, to which afterward, Grineer from both sides began pouring into Saryn and Valkyr’s cells. They took Saryn with ease, as she was calm and remained in ability nullifying cuffs, while Valkyr was literally bouncing off the walls as the Grineer closed in. Keep in mind that the Grineer were rushing to get Valkyr restrained into a cell before she could turn any more of their troops into cranberry sauce, so unlike Saryn, they weren’t able to put any cuffs on her, meaning she had free use of her arms and access to her abilities. Valkyr tried to cast a rip-line to grapple away, but she was quickly stopped in her tracks by Kela, who had grabbed her rip-line and reeled Valkyr to her like she had caught a fish. Kela slid some cuffs on her with Valkyr’s hands behind her back. Valkyr squirmed as Kela picked her up by the back of her neck and carried her to the arena.

Saryn stood on the opposite end of the arena, waiting for her hissy-pissy tantrumed contestant to greet her on the stage. Saryn was left standing there with no weapons as punishment for her refusal to fight Valkyr. Kela hoped that in doing so, Saryn would be left with no choice but to fight back with her toxic fists as she no longer had her Nikana with her to defend herself from Valkyr’s incoming blows. But Saryn promised to herself that she’d stay strong and refrain from laying a hand on Valkyr. To her, she still saw her as another Warframe, not a broken creature in need of mercy.
Emerging onto the arena floor was Kela with Valkyr wriggling by her neck in her hand like a fish out of water. Kela slid the cuffs off her and tossed her to the ground. Before Valkyr could even get a swipe onto Kela’s pale face, she’d leap high in the air like a frog and land into her spectating booth from its opened top hatch. Valkyr’s non-existent eyes peered across the arena staring predatorily at Saryn. She went down into a slanted cat-crawl, ready to pounce on Saryn. Valkyr leaped into the air heading straight for Saryn. Not again, Saryn thought to herself as Valkyr hurled her metal body toward her. Valkyr pinned Saryn to the ground with a resounding thud that rang out to the whole arena. Saryn shielded her face with her hands as Valkyr, thankfully untaloned, started to scratch at her. Saryn swore that if her kavat, Angie, started to act like this every day whenever she came back to her orbiter from a mission, she’d probably become Ember and Banshee’s third roommate, leaving her orbiter to be Angie’s domain.
Thankfully, Valkyr stopped when she noticed, emerging onto the arena, was a horde of Deimos infested, which were far more creepier and eldritch than any other variant of the infested. Crawling out onto the arena like bugs were hordes of Deimos Carnises, centipede-like creatures that were hard-shelled on their backs, with pink, fleshy skin on their underside where dozens of big, spiky, purple, centipede legs jut out creepily, as their large mandibles salivate toxins to incapacitate their prey so they can scuttle over to consume it; Deimos Saxums, with big, broad shoulders and arms that could deliver blows fifty times the force of a sledgehammer, with it being used to hoist up the creature’s large larva-like body in between and move it around bipedally across the Cambion Drift’s infested wasteland; and Deimos Therids, which had a grey, fleshy body with a tumorous growth on its back that takes the appearance similar to that of a conch shell, with a ribcage of arachnid legs encasing it, and hosting a singular large arm that can scoop up things like a baseball glove and spin balls of corrosive gossamer at its assailants.
“Ladies and gentlemen, since you all adored yesterday's gruesome massacre of my Grineer escorts, I decided to bring in some new toys from Deimos for that rabid cat to tear apart.” Kela spoke over the arena intercom. First she was the toy, but now she’s the one getting all of the attention? Saryn thought to herself, slightly jealous that Kela was trying to make her the new star of the show.
Valkyr unsheathed her glowing orange talons mere inches away from Saryn’s face, with Saryn shuddering in horror at the closeness of the karambits to her face. And like a fearless cat unafraid of the spider, Valkyr sprang up to squash the horde of infested. Saryn got up and dusted herself off, taking note to keep her distance from Valkyr at all times.
She watched as Valkyr played with her new cat toys. Valkyr ripped off one of the Carnis’s legs and snapped it, making a crunch sound as she cracked it open like she was about to eat some crab legs. Then, she casted a rip-line into the weak, larvae-like body of a Saxum and fished it in toward her while its sledgehammer arms remained stationary in their place as its body severed from the rest of it. Its amputated body wiggled like a grub when Valkyr dug her talons into it and gutted it. Valkyr played a game of dodgeball when the Therid hurled its corrosive gossamer at her. Valkyr evaded its attacks and switched to a game of jump rope when she casted a rip-line to grapple herself closer to it and tugged on one of its arachnid legs encasing its grey, fleshy back shell. It came off with white, stringy muscles unraveling at the bottom of its severed appendage. Using the muscles as a string attached to the sharp sickle-head of the severed appendage, Valkyr swung it in the air like a spinning helicopter blade, wielding it like a kusarigama. She swung it around like a lasso and eviscerated more of the infested around her.
The audience, Kela, and Saryn watched in awe at the creative disembowelment of her victims. Now this was a show worth sitting down for. But soon, Valkyr started to become overwhelmed by the amount of Deimos infested that surrounded her. Carnises and Therids started to launch corrosive material at her, burning parts of her metal skin and even hitting her in the exposed part of her head to which Saryn could imagine it causing Valkyr great discomfort and pain. A Saxum knocked Valkyr down with great force using their pillar-like arm, and soon, the horde of infested started to close in on her, putting her in a familiar, yet traumatizing, position.
Saryn knew she couldn’t just stand by and let the infested kill her, not because it was supposedly her job to do so, but she again didn’t want to leave someone, especially a Tenno, to die. She began to get ready to unleash her toxic miasma, until suddenly, a Saxum crept up behind her and knocked her to the ground. It towered over her, lifting its heavyweight arm ready to crush Saryn’s head in like a hydraulic press. But as its arm came down to crush Saryn’s head like a pumpkin, she delivered a sweeping kick to its planted pillar arm, knocking its legs (or arms rather) out from under them, sending it to the ground with a quaking thud. She made sure to incapacitate it by grabbing its arm hinges using her dissolving toxic touch, disintegrating its connecting muscles, separating its arms from its body. Then, she quickly expelled her toxic miasma onto the arena, quickly dispatching the rest of the infested that surrounded the cornered Valkyr. She was unaffected by its toxic breeze, as she had no organic orifices for the toxic mist to enter and corrupt her body, although the mist did seem to tickle her a little, as she began to roll around in the bodies of the deceased infested like a dog masking its scent in the grass.
Afterward, she stood up on all fours, and began looking into Saryn’s non-existent eyes all predator-like again. Saryn knew where this was going. I guess me saving her still didn’t warrant her gratitude, she thought to herself internally. And Kela, with her unhelpful self to the situation, spoke again over the intercom.
“Now for the finishing act, will Valkyr kill the single remaining harbinger of toxin?” Insinuating Saryn as the final opponent.
To Saryn’s surprise, Valkyr ceased her pouncing stance and stood up on her two legs. But again, to her surprise, Valkyr started digging around the pile of dead Deimos infested and hurled a Carnis leg at Saryn. Saryn moved out of the way, and the leg landed beside her, splattering red all over the floor to her left.
“Hey! What in the food fight-” Before Saryn could finish her sentence, another Carnis leg came launching toward her like a missile. It made a clashing sound as it made contact with her metal face, hitting her like she got bitch-slapped across the face with a slimy fish. She got bombarded with other various infested body parts being thrown across the arena by Valkyr and her churlish self. Saryn was getting splashed in infested blood and guts as she just stood there trying to deflect the flying parts with her hands in front of her face like a cowardly cousin in a water balloon fight. The audience soon erupted in mocking laughter.
Saryn had enough of this. She went over to the deceased Saxum nearby and took one of its big, bulky arms, and used it as a baseball bat to strike the incoming parts straight to the stratosphere. She swung the giant arm around hit home-runs out of the discarded appendages. This impromptu baseball game went on for a couple of minutes with Valkyr as the thrower, Saryn as the batter, and the deceased Saxum behind Saryn as the quadriplegic umpire, making for spectacular entertainment in Rathuum. But soon, Valkyr started to run out of infested body parts to throw. To which, she ripped off one of the Carnis’s massive centipede legs and began charging toward Saryn like a caveman holding a club.
The baseball game turned bloodsport turned into a one-sided fencing duel when Saryn began to fend off Valkyr using her bat-turned Saxum arm, trying to defend herself from Valkyr trying to bash her brains in with a massive Carnis leg.
“C’mon Saryn, kill her with that big, beefy, arm of yours!” Kela giggled over the intercom.
She used the pillar arm as a barrier, but wouldn’t dare use it to strike. Valkyr and her Carnis club went into a clash against Saryn and her Saxum sledgehammer.
“Enough playing defense, Tenno. Melt her face with your toxic touch! You can probably make the left side of her head become symmetrical to her right.” Kela exclaimed violently over the intercom.
But not a single ounce of toxin came out of Saryn, like before, she pledged to never lay a finger on her, even if she was being attacked by her violently. Valkyr roared, staring daggers into Saryn’s soul as they continued to scuffle.
“Don’t listen to her. I already said I won’t fight you.” Saryn told Valkyr.
Just then, a large shadow cast over them in the arena. Valkyr stops fighting with Saryn as she looks up, petrified, as she sees a gigantic Corpus ship hovering distantly over them within Sedna’s atmosphere. The audience and Kela look up at the foreign vessel with panic spread across their faces. What was going on? Saryn questioned. But then, Kela started shouting on the intercom.
“Attention all Grineer, we are under attack! Everyone, to your stations!” She activated an alarm that blared its ear-piercing siren throughout every inch of Rathuum and Sedna. The members of the audience hurried to evacuate the area to get geared up and ready to fight against the Corpus fleet. Kela gazed up at the Corpus ship in panic, but then her face twisted into anger, and focused her infuriated gaze onto Valkyr.
“You!” She pointed at her accusingly through the glass. “You led them here, didn’t you?!” She accused Valkyr of leading the Corpus to their location by her mere presence. “Escorts! Take them away and search the lab rat for any special devices!” She roared.
Soon, a Grineer escort squadron came pouring into the arena, where they seized Saryn and Valkyr. Saryn was put back into her cell, while Valkyr was taken somewhere else to be searched in possession of any Corpus tracking devices. In her cell, Saryn could still hear the alarm blaring in her non-existent ears, along with the agonizing yells and cries of Valkyr in the distance, as the Grineer must've been doing unspeakable things to her in a surgery room nearby which would’ve left Valkyr more scarred and traumatized than ever, ever more fueling her with more wrath and malice pulsating through her cyan, metal veins.

Hours later when the noises subsided, Saryn could hear Kela having a conversation with someone outside of the prison.
“We’ve found nothing yet on her.”
“Well keep looking! I want every inch and every single cavity of her Warframe searched and swept clean of any devices!” Kela demanded.
“Of course, my queen. We’ll be careful to leave her able to fight in the next match of Rathuum.”
“Good to hear. But, oh, that girl Saryn…she’s one confusing creature.” Kela remarked. “She could take out even a tsunami of my strongest men, but then she draws the line at slaughtering her own Tenno kind. Like what? Does she think she’s too good to fight one of her own kind? Does she think she’s better than the rest of us just because she wants to uphold this so-called Tenno honor?”
The last part sounded eerily familiar. You Tenno think you’re so strong with those metal machines you call Warframes! You think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t you? That’s right! That's what that prisoner on the galleon said when she tried to attack Saryn.
“I need that girl to put up an actual fight, it's unlike the Rathuum spirit to be this passive and cowardly!” Kela grumbled. After she uttered that, Saryn could hear her massive high heels click thunderously away from the prison. In response, Saryn whispered sassily.
“Well in the name of my own honor and dignity, in spite of you, Kela duh lame, as long as I’m still confined to these dirty Rathuum walls, I’ll waste your time by keeping Tenno blood unspilled on your wretched floors, and I’ll work to keep it that way for as long as I am alive.”

Chapter Text

Berehynia

It's been a few weeks since the Corpus invaded Sedna last time Saryn and Valkyr were in Rathuum. Ever since, Saryn was never let out of her cell, and Valkyr still hadn’t returned from the surgery room, and not a single game of Rathuum had been commenced, for the Grineer and Kela were just too busy fighting off the Corpus fleet. Being trapped in a cell for about a month straight drove Saryn crazy. Her legs felt like noodles, and she couldn’t feel her hands with the cuffs biting down on her wrists like an alligator. At the very least, she hoped that the Corpus would win and liberate her and Valkyr from the hells of Sedna. But even if they did, Valkyr would be sent back to Jupiter’s labs, and Saryn would be Alad’s new test subject. Either way, they would still be suffering.
The last few days, it had been nothing but silence for Saryn. No alarms were going off, Grineer lancers weren’t running and marching through the halls, Valkyr wasn’t screaming in pain, and Kela kept her big mouth shut. The only thing she heard then was the echoing drip of that damned pipe. Oh how she felt like it was her first day in Rathuum all over again.
Today would be a new breath of fresh air for Saryn when news got out that the Grineer were able to fend off the Corpus. She would finally be able to fight in Rathuum again, right? The thought of being able to stretch out her legs and use her wrists freely again made her feel all jolly inside like it was Christmas, but then she remembered that in the end, she’d still be pitted against Valkyr to fight to the death by Kela’s want for Tenno bloodlust. But Saryn knew what she said to herself on the night of the Corpus invasion, she would make sure Kela would never get what she wanted, and refuse to spill Tenno blood onto the arena.
Her long awaited recess finally came when a Grineer escort came to drag her back into the pits of Rathuum. She was excited to let all of her built up toxin out onto whatever goons Kela had prepared for them to fight, but more importantly, she was mostly excited to see Valkyr again, having not seen her in weeks.
Saryn waited in the arena, gazing at all of the entrances with an anticipating glance, waiting to see Valkyr emerge from one of them. When she did, Saryn noticed that she wasn’t acting like the Valkyr she knew. Valkyr had crawled out onto the arena slowly and shakily, like she was a stray cat freezing in the rain. Unlike the other times when she’d enter the arena staring fiercely into Saryn’s soul, this time her gaze was barely focused on any single thing as she glanced around the arena in paranoia. Saryn could only have guessed that the time she’d spent, inferably laying restrained on an operating table, had left the poor she-frame more troubled than ever. Valkyr’s talons retracted in and out uncontrollably as she crawled closer to the center of the arena. The pitiful sight of her made Saryn want to cry as it reminded her of when she first found her kavat, Angie, when she was just a little kitten, scared and shivering in fear when she was about to be torn to pieces by a ravenous pack of kubrows. Without Saryn there to step in to drown them in toxins, Angie would’ve been reduced to a single whisker. She recalled how rough and tangled Angie’s fur was when Saryn held her in her arms for the very first time, and her soft, little meow as she purred, feeling safe in her arms.
Saryn’s heartwarming flashback was interrupted by Kela over the intercom, more chipper and ecstatic than ever.
“Ladies and gentlemen, as you should’ve heard by now, the Grineer rules supreme!” Kela announced. Afterward, the arena was filled by the cheers of the audience. “We showed the Corpus who’s boss by handing their asses to them. And today in Rathuum, for desert, we’ll watch our prisoners of war be torn apart by our contestants: Valkyr and Saryn!”
Just then, Corpus crewmen come pouring onto the arena, with their high-tech Corpus weaponry in hand pointed directly at Valkyr and Saryn.
“For the first time since the three week hiatus, let Rathuum commence!”
Saryn glanced at Valkyr. She could tell that Valkyr was seeing red, about to play with the Corpus crewmen’s boxy tin heads like legos. She could only imagine the amount of built up rage Valkyr had racing through her broken kavat-like body. Whatever it was, Saryn didn’t want to get between Valkyr and her unfinished business with the Corpus, so she especially made sure to keep her distance. However, it seemed like whatever cruel things went on in the surgery room for the past few weeks had left Valkyr’s hunter’s prowess led astray from her sharp and agile state she had once before, as she sloppily leaped at one of the crewmen, where they swiftly took her down with a single butt-stroke of their rifle. More started to close in on her, but she wasn’t giving up that easily. With loose control over her talons, she swiped away at a nearby crewman, ripping deep into their tendon, and with another swipe, talonless, she left another with a nasty cat-scratch on their arm. These little cat-attacks, however, weren’t enough to fend them off, as they continued to surround Valkyr closer.
Saryn knew she had to help her, because if she let Valkyr’s blood be spilled onto the arena, she would no less be responsible for her death if she just stood by and watched it happen, indirectly breaking her promise. And Saryn knows, she’s one to always uphold her promises. She was about to unleash her toxic miasma, until another group of Corpus crewmen started to shoot at her with their laser rifles that pewed across Rathuum. Upon being hit by a laser, she exploded into toxic green gas, obscuring their vision and allowing Saryn to slither away to strike. Like an assassin, she jut out her parazon from her wrist looking like a concealed blade, and stabbed its sharp end into a crewman’s spine. She almost forgot she still had her parazon on her, having the use of her wrists useless as they cuffed most of the time. Nonetheless, it was still an improvised weapon for close range melee combat, and the only useful thing it would be for since the place had little to no accessible panels for Saryn to attempt to hack into.
More crewmen started to fire at her, so Saryn, with her parazon still stabbed into the crewman’s spine, swung them around to be used as a makeshift shield to protect her from the incoming laserfire. The torrent of lasers burned many holes into the poor crewman, leaving hole punches the size of golf balls into their skin. Upon realizing that their lasers weren’t piercing into Saryn’s metal Warframe, but instead their fleshy comrade, they seized fire, making for the perfect opportunity for Saryn to take the rest of them out. Saryn threw the hole-filled, blood-battered crewman at the remaining fleet, knocking their compact formation down like pins in a bowling alley, scoring Saryn a strike and ten points to the scoreboard. While they were momentarily incapacitated, Saryn quickly glanced over to Valkyr, where she laid bloodied and weak in the center of the ring of Corpus crewmen, getting jumped and beaten by the greedy gang.
“No!” Saryn yelled, enraged by the act of brutality happening right in front of her. She ran over, but she was struck in the shoulder by a Corpus laser, tearing a large chunk of metal off her shoulder. She fell to the ground, grasping a hand over her wounded shoulder, and watched as the group of crewmen approached her closer.
“I know what you’re trying to do, Tenno.” Kela spoke over the intercom. “And it’ll all be in vain when you both die right here by the grubby, greedy, hands of the Corpus.”
Saryn breathed heavily as glanced over at Kela in her booth.
“Quit trying to protect her, Saryn, and fight for yourself!” Kela said. “You’ll get nowhere by trying to save your Tenno friends. Trust me, it’s happened here before and it all ends the same way!”
Kela tries to discourage Saryn from trying to protect Valkyr, but Saryn knows that in the fight for herself, it is also the fight to keep her fellow Tenno alive and defy Kela and her brutalist game. When the crewman got closer, Saryn let out a warcry and swept the man out from under his feet with a sweeping kick, causing the man to hit the arena floor with a thud. As an indirect result, the crewman fired his rifle when he hit the floor, sending lasers flying at his fellow crewmen behind, piercing them like hole punches on a piece of paper. Saryn quickly sprang up and stabbed her parazon into the downed crewman’s neck, finishing him off.
Saryn turned around toward Valkyr and saw the light about to leave from her non-existent eyes. In that moment, Saryn no longer saw the feral Warframe, Valkyr, but instead her own shivering kavat, Angie, being cornered not by Corpus crewmen, but by the similarly beastly kubrows ready to rip her apart. Saryn shed a non-existent tear from her non-existent eye, and looked at the ring of crewmen in fury.
“Leave that poor creature alone!” She roared, shaking the entire arena with her thundering voice. She grunted, and unleashed the trapped serpentine from within. With fangs, she expelled from her flower-shaped head a sandstorm of toxic miasma that came slithering into the crewmen’s lungs. They all gasped desperately for fresh air, but the entire Sedna sky was polluted in the toxic, green haze. Soon, the toxic serpent that slithered inside their bodies caused them to start vomiting and oozing blood and toxin from every. Single. Orifice. Helmeted units start to drown in their own bile and blood, while the rest of their jumpsuits are stained red, green, orange, yellow, and brown all over with everything inside of them violently erupting out the nearest hole.
In that moment, Saryn reminisces, seeing herself rip apart those kubrows that threatened the life of her dear kavat companion; gutting one of them stem to sternum with her Spira Prime, while covering another one’s body in spores while she wrestled them, waiting to hear their lungs pop from inside. She finished off the last one by squeezing their neck to mush with her toxic touch, crushing it like an apple core.
Valkyr, through her foggy vision saw Saryn in her glory, spewing out her miasma at her assailants in an attempt to save her. She remembered during her time in the Jupiter labs, when she’d be surrounded by Corpus crewmen trying to force her to move to the next testing chamber, often beating her metal body to a pulp before dragging her to the next room to perform the next harsh experiment. Every time, she’d always hoped that one day, a guardian angel came to her rescue when the Corpus put their hands on her once again, and in that moment now, on Sedna, is where she finally saw them defending her right before her non-existent eyes.
Invigorated with newfound hope and strength, Valkyr unleashed an organ shattering warcry, pushing the diseased crewmen back with tremendous force. She unsheathed her talons, looking longer and sharper than ever. She leapt gracefully at the envenomated, soaked in their own substances, foaming-at-the-mouth crewmen, and started to rip them up like paper in a shredder. Green and red liquids started flying like confetti across the arena; a party of venom and blood, a masquerade of mutilation and poison.
Together, the snake and cat both fought side by side in the arena, making it rain red in Rathuum. The ferocious cat dug her claws into the necks and hearts of the Corpus, while the slippery snake slithers behind and bears its toxic fangs into them with a single toxic touch. The cat fails to land perfectly on her feet, when she is knocked down by a crude Corpus crewman unaffected by the miasma and towering above her, ready to blow its little head off. But then, Saryn casts a spore, enveloping the man’s rectangular face into a toxic green bubble. She slithers up behind him and grips the back of his skull and crushes his face into toxic dust with a single hand. Valkyr looks up, and sees Saryn metal Warframe glimmering in the artificial light with a hand outstretched to her. Valkyr takes Saryn’s hand, being the cat no longer afraid of the snake. Her past-self envisioned the snake as a creature of deception, never to be trusted. But now she knows that the serpentine standing right in front of her, is actually on the inside, a delicate flower who devotes herself as a guardian angel to her. Saryn hoists her up to her feet, but then Valkyr, in a toast to her newfound trust and a newborn friendship, still gripping Saryn’s hand, raises their fists together in the air in victorious commemoration like the winning boxer and the referee in the ring. The crowd goes wild, sending an astonishing cheer at the two Tenno winners from the newly formed friendship and for the graceful, bloody execution of their enemies. But Kela frowns at this, and retreats to the back of her viewing booth.
“She should’ve finished her while she was down!” Kela grumbled as she punched a meteor-sized hole in the wall. “Fine, be like that, Tenno. But in the end, there will be a singular winner.” Kela vows as she lays a hand on the severed head of the Warframe, Gauss, sitting on a podium in the back of her booth.

Chapter Text

Kelpie

Valkyr and Saryn are thrown back into their cells. However, Valkyr seems to be in a much better mood than before. No longer clawing at the bars and energized wall, Valkyr seems to exhibit tranquil behavior like someone’s friendly, neighborhood, house cat. With a sudden burst of energy, Valkyr springs along the walls, ricocheting from one wall to the next like Captain America’s shield, until she eventually calms down and rests herself down on the floor. Saryn, gazing from across, is delighted by her no longer feral state, as it satisfies her dearly that she was the one to tame this metal creature.
Although they’ve grown closer to each other, so much still remains unknown about the other she-frame from their knowledge. Saryn wanted to know more about how Valkyr’s life was when she was confined to the labs of Jupiter. She wanted to know how much she would regret giving mercy to that one Corpus crewman on that derelict ship overrun by infested. But knowing how much people didn’t want to reopen those past wounds, she opted for a less traumatizing thing to reminisce about.
“Hey Valkyr, what was your life like before being in the Jupiter labs?” Saryn asked. Valkyr lifted her head up and let out a light roar in response. Saryn wondered, could Valkyr even speak? Ever since she arrived here in Rathuum, Valkyr had only let out anguishing war cries, hisses, and other feline noises; and not a single word had been uttered from her metal mask. Was it that she refused to? Or was it that she couldn't? So Saryn asked her this, “Are you even able to speak? Words, phrases, a letter? Anything?”
Valkyr crawled as close as she could to the energized wall, letting Saryn see her as clear as she could. Valkyr gestured to the thick Corpus collar on her neck, then she put a hand around her neck and acted out like she had ripped her own throat out and crushed it in her palm like she was squeezing orange juice, then she placed the crushed throat back into place and let out a series of roars.
“So let me get this straight?” Saryn tried to put into words what Valkyr had summarized. “You ripped your own neck out and put it back in, damaged?”
Valkyr shook her head vigorously. She again pointed to her collar, then her forearm restraints, and then pretended to hold a rifle then extended her arm out, rubbing her thumb over the tip of her index finger, signaling the telltale greedy pay me gesture. Now Saryn understood.
“It was the Corpus who removed your vocal cords and put it back in, broken, huh?”
Valkyr nodded slightly, but wanted Saryn to know who it was more specifically. She stood up on two legs, hunched over and rubbed her hands together maliciously like some sort of mad scientist, then looked up and arched her spine backward and extended out her arms while slightly curling her fingers as she looked like she was letting out an evil cackle.
“Alad V?” Saryn guessed. Valkyr nodded. “So it was that slimy Corpus grunt who did this to you?” Valkyr nodded again. Saryn let out a sigh. “I’m sorry he did all those cruel things to you.”
Valkyr shifted her glance down at the floor, and started carving circles in the concrete with her claws.
“And it’s probably my fault that you’re here right now.” Saryn sniffled as she started to tear up in her non-existent eyes, curling herself up in her cell.
Valkyr looked up at Saryn and turned her head sideways in confusion.
“I just did too good.” Saryn said, crying. “If I didn’t try to be a show off in my first few days of Rathuum, if I had just let the Grineer kill me, then you wouldn’t be suffering here with me too. Oh, Ember was right.”
Valkyr tried to reach an arm out to comfort Saryn, but remembered the painful shock of the energized wall and retracted her reach.
“If I wasn’t so kind…then none of us would be here. I’d still be going on missions with my friends, Banshee and Ember. And you…” Saryn looked up with a thousand yard stare. “...you would still be in that lab, suffering.” Saryn came to the realization that Valkyr, no matter the outcome, would still be suffering. She started to break out into non-existent heavy tears.
Valkyr let out a soft meow, holding back non-existent tears as well. After a moment, Saryn’s flow of non-existent tears started to slow down. She sniffled.
“But if I wasn’t so kind…then I would’ve left you to die by the hands of the Corpus, and I didn’t want to do that. In the end, you’re not suffering alone anymore, and at least I’m here to protect you.” Saryn said.
Now Valkyr felt bad for attacking Saryn in the first two days of Rathuum. She would forego any trust she had towards anyone, assuming that everyone was out to get her. And even when she knew that Saryn would never try to attack her back, her permanent distrust had gotten to her, leaving her enraged and full of malice toward anyone who dared to get close. But now it all changed when she saw Saryn’s true heart, coming in to rescue her for the second time when she was surrounded by Corpus creeps, about to be battered to death. Just seeing them suffer in pain like she once did back on Jupiter was enough to bring her joy and forever trust Saryn as she saw her as a guardian angel.
Valkyr wondered about Saryn’s life before all this, as she was visibly not used to being a slave of torture like she was for the vast majority of her life. Valkyr inquired by etching two figures in the ground in front of her, naming one Banshee and the other Ember while drawing a question mark beside them. Saryn saw, and began to fill her in.
“Oh, my friends? Yeah, we used to do every single mission together. We’d massacre Grineer and Corpus goons with our awesome abilities and capture targets, rescue operatives, and blow up ships! Those were the good times. Sometimes we’d have our little group squabbles time and time again; mostly between me and Ember. Banshee would always be the middleman of the group and break it up and get us back on track. And with every new adventure, I’d always have my camera ready to take a new photo to add onto my Adventure Wall back in my orbiter.”
Valkyr let out a questioning meow at the mention of Saryn’s “Adventure Wall”.
“My Adventure Wall, it’s a wall filled to the brim with countless pictures of great memories from my Tenno travels throughout the Origin System. I’d take the perfect picture with my camera, and then it would print out then and there for me to hang it up back home on one of the walls in my lounging room. I’d stick it on the wall and then give it its own unique, bold, title.”
Valkyr sat there intrigued by hearing of such unfamiliar activities. She’s never had a hobby, or friends to do anything with. She probably couldn’t remember having any one of those things in the past, even before her life in the Jupiter labs. The most distant memory she has is her waking up, restrained, with Alad V observing her to the side.
“You know, if I had my camera right now, if Kela didn’t destroy it upon first meeting her, I’d take a selfie. Just the two of us. You and me together in frame, gazing at the lens cheerfully as the camera clicks, enveloping us in its bright, white light. Then we’d watch as the camera buzzes and spits out the photo, titled: Number 1 Winners of Rathuum.” Saryn giggled at the end. Then, she sighed. “I wonder how my friends are doing right now without me…”

Meanwhile, back on Ember and Banshee’s orbiter, they set off to fulfill another bounty mission from Nightwave. Their mission: to infiltrate a Grineer galleon just outside Sedna’s orbit to retrieve classified Grineer data.
They burst through a vent, and sneak around in search of the vault that contains the information. Banshee creeps around, and attempts to hack into a security panel. She jabs her parazon into it, and wiggles her wrist around trying to successfully crack into it so its corresponding door can unlock.
“Man, I wish Saryn were here. She’d be able to crack this puppy open in an instant.” Banshee groaned.
“Well she isn’t, so keep hacking!” Ember fiercely demanded, dismissing Banshee’s grieving for their lost friend.
“Why’d we even come here? This is near the place we lost Saryn in that explosion around a month ago. And you already made us take the twenty-million credits from the bounty mission that Saryn organized.” Banshee complained.
“Because I want to kick some Grineer butt, that’s why! And this was the only mission Nightwave had at the time.” Ember responded, brash.
“I don’t feel good about this. First, we steal all the credit for Saryn’s hard work, and now we’re on Sedna coming back here for seconds? I don’t wanna do this!” Banshee voiced her concerns.
“What did I already say? Shut up about Saryn! Say whatever you want, but the past is in the past. She's dead! Gone! Kaput! Talking about her again would only hurt you more. So get that burned through your weird, snow shovel shaped skull!” Ember lashed out at her.
Banshee flinched and returned her focus back on hacking the panel. Like a disobedient child talking bad about their mother under their breath, she mumbled. “No wonder she always argued with you and not me.” Rolling her non-existent eyes, mockingly.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
Soon, Banshee opens the door and they quietly rush through.

Eventually, the pair makes their way to the data vault, and reach the high-security threshold with walls filled to the brim with cameras, many Grineer lancers patrolling about, and laser-gated doors. They had to do this quietly. Banshee took out her Hikou throwing stars, and took out the pair of cameras that surveyed the entrance, making a little whoosh as they pierced into them. Ember quietly sprang up behind a patrolling lancer and snapped his neck in perfect synchronization with the surrounding background noise of operating machinery, drowning the bone-cracking sound into the sizzle of heavy steam. Banshee cast out a sonar of echolocation, pinpointing the other locations of Grineer guards. In her red, infrared vision, she spots a lancer just about to turn the corner and spot them. So she quickly took out her throwing stars and ricocheted one off the corner, bouncing faintly along the metal walls and hitting them right in the neck, preventing them from calling out for help. Afterwards, Ember kindled the bodies aflame to discard traces of their presence.
After taking out more cameras and guards, they make it to the vault door, where Banshee tediously hacked into the panel, unlocking the door and disabling the lasers. Banshee bullet jumped inside to the main panel where the data was, while Ember stood outside with a fireball winded up in her hand, keeping watch for any patrols. Banshee successfully hacked the panel after dozens of jabs and retrieved the data. She flipped through it trying to get a glimpse of what the Grineer were hiding from them. Projecting the data as a holograph from her wrist, she swiped left to a document entry titled: Prisoner 339 // Earthborn // Has an extreme hatred of the Tenno; Caught trying to break into Grineer armory vaults to garner weapons for the Anti-Tenno movement.
Banshee shook her head in utter disbelief and regret. “I can’t believe Saryn died trying to save this bigot.” She swiped again for it to open up another document entry titled: Contestants of Rathuum. “Rathuum? What is that, some sort of monster truck derby?” She wondered. Banshee scrolled down to take a deeper look into the document’s contents. A page down, she could see the picture of two Warframes: one shaded brown with a huge gut, and slimmer looking frame with peg legs and a bulbous metal visor. Rathuum’s first Tenno contestants: Gauss and Grendel it was titled. She read the details, and in summary, it said, after ten months of being captured and reigning evermore victorious throughout their time being “Rathuum’s Main Stars”. The show was over when Grendel finally killed his best friend, Gauss, in their final battle to the death by decapitating him while the rest of his body got devoured into Grendel’s infernal stomach maw.
The description made Banshee feel sick, making her gag behind the metal mask at the goriness of Gauss’s death. Despite having a rather light non-existent stomach, she continued on scrolling. She looked through many documents, consisting of other Warframes that had died in the arena of Rathuum. Most of them had perished within their first battle, while others had barely lived to see the second day as they were brutalized by Kela’s fleet of highly-trained Grineer warriors. Banshee remembered that Nightwave had mentioned some occurrences of Warframes disappearing in the Origin System, meaning that Rathuum was where these frames had disappeared after apparently being abducted. This was big, Banshee had to send this intel to The Lotus at once. While she had initiated the upload of the intel to The Lotus, she kept on scrolling through the document. Upon scrolling through a few entries, her non-existent facial features erupted in surprise when she stopped on one particular entry. In the entry, titled: Saryn: The girl who’d never quit on compassion, it featured a candid photo of Saryn in an arena shooting at Kela’s booth with Kela standing behind the glass, indifferent to Saryn’s actions.
“Saryn…” Banshee gasped. Just then, Ember emerged into the vault.
“Oh what is it about Saryn now? I told you she’s-...dead.” Ember’s non-existent mouth was agape upon seeing the photo of their thought to be dead friend in an unfamiliar environment, projecting from Banshee’s wrist. “I-Is she still alive, somewhere?” Ember trembled.
“I-I don’t know. But according to the other entries in this document, she may not be-” Suddenly, the alarm goes off. The galleon’s sirens go blaring off into their non-existent ears. “W-What?” Banshee stuttered, glancing around alarmed. She looked down to see that the lasers turned out to have only been disabled temporarily, seeing them having appeared again on her feet while she and Ember were looking at their friend in the file. Soon, Grineer lancers come rushing in, guns pointed at them. Banshee and Ember quickly raise their hands in the air.
Afterwards, they could hear the heavy clicks of some monstrous sized high heels coming their way. Emerging from the group of Grineer surrounding the two, emerged the towering sight of a large, pale Grineer woman with a body of synthetic, a hairpiece of a dictator, a mouth salivating with motor oil, and amber eyes that pierced deep into their souls. The woman spoke charismatically.
“Look what we have here, some fresh Tenno meat!” The woman strode toward them. “Oh don’t I have a special place for the two of you!” She quickly reached her lengthy arms out and held Ember and Banshee up by their necks. “Pack your bags, Tenno. You’re going to Rathuum!”

Chapter Text

Yam

Saryn and Valkyr are summoned again to fight in Rathuum. But this time, instead of emerging onto the arena in separate doors across from each other, they stepped onto the arena side by side, and Saryn was given back her Nikana Prime. Oh how she missed its gilded, silver blade. It didn’t look like they were going to be pitted against each other today, but even if they were, then Kela would be wasting her time. After last time in Rathuum, the deadly duo, Saryn and Valkyr, made Grineer headlines with their grand finale of blood, venom, and friendship, being something far more entertaining than the efforts of most previous Tenno in the arena before. Ever since that moment when they raised their conjoined fists in the air, the audience has been demanding for more contenders to fight in Rathuum as a duo to promote teamwork rather than conveying a message of selfishness; something more akin to Grineer honor. Well today would be special since the audience’s voices have been heard, and Kela has brought to Rathuum, a new pair of contenders.
A Grineer galleon hovers over them, again, its massive shadow plunges Saryn and Valkyr into a chilling darkness.
“Looks like Kela’s brought us some fresh meat.” Saryn says rather menacingly. Valkyr roars out in excitement. “What do you think, Valk? Friends, fiends, or food?” Saryn asked. Valkyr responded with a low, bellowing growl. “I’m hoping for friends, but I don’t mind the other two options either.”
Saryn and Valkyr were in a really chummy mood today, acting like best friends toward each other like they were the judgy, popular, cheerleader girls in high school meeting the new freshmen. That same hatch where Saryn and Valkyr fell into Rathuum on their first days slid open from the bottom of the galleon, shining a spotlight onto the center of the arena.
“That darned hatch.” Saryn remarked. “The same one where we both fell into here, destined to kill each other on these metal floors. Now look at us, two Tenno best buds waiting for-” Saryn trailed off near the end of her sentence. Two Tenno best buds, she reflected to herself on that particular phrase. She realized, only Tenno came out of that wretched hatch. Throughout all their time here, only did the first-time non-Warframe contestants emerge onto Rathuum via the doors on the sides of the arena, while new Tenno get a grand introduction by being cast down into the depths with a sole spotlight shining upon them when they fall from the galleon.
Saryn’s heart sank, and felt like the weight of a boulder was sitting at the bottom of her non-existent stomach.
“Stand down, Valkyr.” Saryn asserted as she stepped in front of Valkyr, trying to gatekeep her from getting any closer to their soon to arrive mystery opponent. Valkyr meowed in confusion towards Saryn having flipped a switch in her previously elated attitude. “Valkyr, these might be fellow-” She was cut short of her sentence, when two figures started tumbling down from the hatch into the arena, screaming like little girls as they descended.
The two figures fell hard into Rathuum, making two resounding thuds reverberate through the arena in succession. A mild cloud of dirt, dust, and debris surrounded the fallen figures, but when it eventually cleared, Saryn’s non-existent facial features erupted in surprise where every single one of her non-existent face orifices were agape. Her non-existent jaw may as well have fallen through the arena floor and through the center of Sedna, crashing right through a distant galleon in its orbit, and her non-existent eyes and eyebrows may as well have reached Lua and tickled a wandering operative. Saryn couldn’t believe the sight in front of her non-existent eyes. Upon the dispersal of the debris, she saw the two she-frames no other than her best friends Ember and Banshee, piled on top of each other with their metal bodies intertwined and twisted like a pretzel.
“Get the heck off of me!” Ember struggled as she tried to pull herself from under Banshee.
“Me? No, you need to move!” Banshee grunted as she tried to wriggle herself off of Ember.
Saryn stepped closer. “Ember! Banshee! Are you guys okay?” Just then, the two stopped their childish wiggling, and turned to look at the she-frame who had spoken to them.
“Saryn!?” They both exclaimed simultaneously.
“Didn’t expect to see you guys here. Did Kela catch you while you guys were off snooping around looking for me?” Saryn said, gleeful. Ember and Banshee shot each other a nervous glance, and Ember replied.
“Y-Yeah. Something like that.”
Saryn helped Ember and Banshee untangle themselves, and Banshee and Saryn went into a warm embrace, while Ember reluctantly joined in after.
“Nice katana.” Ember complimented.
“Thanks. It was a gift from Kela.” Saryn replied. Afterwards, Banshee held Saryn out from her shoulders.
“What is this place?” Banshee asked as she glanced around the arena. Saryn took a deep breath, about to reply, but a booming, charismatic voice echoing throughout the arena answered for her.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our new contenders, Ember and Banshee, in the super popular Grineer bloodsport, Rathuum!” Kela announced. The audience erupted in a deafening cheer shortly after.
“Bloodsport!? Are we going to die!” Banshee panicked.
“N-No. Not if we work together and hold out against Kela’s demands to kill each other.” Saryn responded, trying to reassure her anxiety-filled friend.
“In today’s match of Rathuum, we’re going to witness a battle to the death between two Tenno duos!” Kela announces over the arena intercom.
“What!?” Saryn, Banshee, and Ember erupt in bewilderment at the same time.
“That’s right! A battle pitting Rathuum’s number one besties, Saryn and Valkyr, against the new kids on the block, Ember and Banshee! Let’s see which pair is better at working together as a team to brutally rip apart the opposition into thin, tin shreds!”
Saryn and Banshee step back from each other and glance at Kela in her viewing booth.
“Jokes on you, Kela, these ‘new kids’ on the block are actually my friends!” Saryn acknowledges with her chin held high.
Kela sighs. “I suspected so, seeing how you were quick to embrace. So this time, I’ve come up with something that’ll surely raise the stakes.”
“What do you mean by that?” Saryn inquires. Kela licks her lips and holds the intercom radio close to her oil-dripping mouth.
“Whoever wins gets to leave Rathuum.” Kela says menacingly as she lets out an evil chuckle afterward. The arena is filled with gasps from the audience. “The choice is yours, Tenno. Let Rathuum commence.” Kela says softly. The audience starts to chant the names, Saryn and Valkyr throughout the whole arena.
The tantalizing bargain for freedom piques Valkyr’s interest, as she roars and unsheathes her talons, ready to exchange Ember and Banshee’s blood for her and Saryn’s freedom. Saryn sees Valkyr and her karambit claws creeping toward her friends, ready to pounce. Valkyr was seeing red, having waited forever in her life to finally have the chance to be uncaged. All the times that she had been tested, cut into, stabbed, poked, dissected, flayed, electrocuted, and tortured were playing through her mind like VHS tapes. Little snippets of each and every time she’d cried in anguish reran in her mind nonstop like a movie marathon, to which she hoped by ripping the two new she-frames apart like they were those accursed VHS tapes, those moments and memories would be forever taken off the air and reduced to static. She wanted the taste of freedom. She imagined it to taste as sweet as chocolate.
“Valkyr, no!” Saryn points a finger at Valkyr and chastises her like she was a bad kitty. But Valkyr kept crawling closer and hissed at Saryn.
“Is that thing gonna kill us?” Banshee asked, trembling.
“You better get that wild animal under control, Saryn!” Ember demanded.
They both started to walk backwards slowly with their hands raised, like they were trying to defuse a situation of them being cornered by a hungry cougar. Saryn ran up to Valkyr, trying to calm her down.
“These are my friends, Valk! Look, I know that we’ve been waiting for an opportunity to leave this place, especially you, since you’ve never remembered a single day in your life where you were free. But we have to stay strong, together.”
Valkyr growled, and ignored Saryn's plea to relinquish the opportunity. She casted a rip line anchoring behind Saryn, allowing Valkyr to grapple around her. She started to swipe at Banshee with her talons, but before it could connect, Saryn grabbed her arm and yanked her away. Enraged, Valkyr let out an organ-rupturing warcry, causing Saryn to stumble back. She pounced on Saryn, knocking her over causing her to yelp while she hit the ground, while Valkyr, above, narrowed her non-existent eyes at her and growled.
“Hey! Get off of her!” Banshee yelled. Soon, both Banshee and Ember raced over to get the rabid she-frame off of Saryn, with each of them grabbing hold of Valkyr’s arms and pulling her off their friend. Valkyr roared furiously as they pulled her away.
“How could she have become friends with such a rabid beast like you?” Ember remarked aggrieved towards Valkyr as she and Banshee pulled her away. Hearing this made Valkyr explode into a ball of ferocious rage. She was tired of being called a tameless, ferocious, malignant beast, when deep inside, she is still a Warframe just like the rest of them. Just because she was broken, battered, and bruised didn’t mean she was no less than a Tenno. Valkyr erupted in an ear-shattering warcry. She violently elbowed Ember in her big non-existent mouth that would’ve broken her nose if she had one, and aggressively shoved Banshee to the ground, sending her panel shaped head clashing with the hard metal ground of the arena with a resounding clank, as she was pushed with astounding amount of force enough to send debris flying from around her, like Valkyr was a bully at the beach having shoved Banshee hard into the sand. Valkyr focused her predatory gaze onto the downed Ember, and started smiting down on her what a violent vigilante would consider to be well deserved justice. Valkyr sheathed her talons and started pulverizing Ember’s metal face. Every single teeth-shattering blow rang throughout the whole arena like an aggressive toast of two glasses of wine, clinking and sloshing as Valkyr's metal fist beats against Ember’s metal face like was tenderizing some meat, while Ember tried to utter out something in between each blow but just for it to come out as a sloshy, unintelligible mess.
Concussed, Banshee glanced up to see Valkyr violently beating her friend. “Stop it! You’re hurting her!” She cried. Valkyr continued to unleash all of her built up pain onto poor Ember. Saryn got up and also stood witness to the heinous sight before her. Right then and there, Saryn's chest burned as knew what she had to do. Gripping her Nikana Prime, in one swift swipe, she lunged at Valkyr and split one of her calves open. It violently spewed out blood, in the end, leaving her calf looking like a baked potato that had exploded in the microwave. Valkyr screeched in agony, stopping her action of using Ember’s face as a warm punching bag and collapsing next to her, holding the remnants of her calf that were barely attached to her leg. Breathing heavily, she looked up to see Saryn, the guardian angel she trusted, wiping the blood off her Nikana Prime and sheathing it back into its sheath.
“I’m sorry, Valkyr. But I can’t let you hurt my friends.” Saryn said, holding back tears. Just then, Kela erupts cheering on the intercom, elated by Saryn’s act of betrayal.
“My, my, my! Now this is quality entertainment. All this time I’ve been trying to get you to even lay a hand on Valkyr, and all it took was the mere determination to protect your old, Tenno friends, how valiant! However, friendly fire would not be tolerated! Thus, with this act, concludes today's match of Rathuum.”
The audience boos, having their long anticipated 2v2 match of Rathuum terminated by Kela and her fastidious self wanting everything to be perfect. Saryn glances over to Ember.
“Ember, are you okay?” She asks, worried.
“I-I’m fine.” Ember coughs weakly. Saryn helps Ember up as Banshee stumbles toward them. Afterward, they see the arena doors slide open, and emerging onto the arena was an escort of Grineer lancers.
“What are they going to do to us?” Banshee asks, frightened.
“Nothing big, they’ll just put us in some holding cells.” Saryn replies nonchalantly.
“Cells!?” Ember erupts.
Before the three are taken away, they see the escort squadron pick up Valkyr first on a stretcher. She howled in pain as they picked her up and took her away. Soon, the rest of the she-frames are seized by the Grineer, and are thrown into individual cells next to each other.
As Saryn sat there in her cold cell, with her wrists again restrained by ability nullifying cuffs, in her mind, the moment she sliced open Valkyr’s calf replayed over and over again in her head. Seeing herself split open her recently made friend’s leg made her feel tortured inside as she broke her promise to protect her, and let her blood be spilled by her own self. Saryn shuddered as she kept reliving that horrendous moment.
“I’m so sorry, Valk. There was no other way. She kept on repeating to herself in her mind. “I’m so sorry.”
Saryn couldn’t believe that after all her time and effort she made to befriend Valkyr and gain her trust, it was all thrown away on the very next day of finally obtaining it. She looked forward into Valkyr's cell. It was empty. Not a scratch, purr, or meow to be heard from it. Like the last time when Valkyr was being held somewhere else, Saryn felt lonely from the mad cat’s absence. She focussed her gaze down to see the etching in the floor that depicted Saryn’s friends, Ember and Banshee, drawn by Valkyr from last night. How ironic that Banshee and Ember were just depicted as mere drawings etched inside of a cell, to them actually being in one now.
“These cuffs are so tight! They’re squeezing into my parazon!” Banshee complained.
“I’m sure you’ll get used to it. I don’t hear Saryn squirming around in her cell about it.” Ember replied.
Sitting in one cell over to the left and right of Saryn’s, were Ember and Banshee, having at their restless bickering.
“I don’t like this place.” Banshee moaned.
“Me neither, but this is just how I’ve been living for like the past month.” Saryn replied, emotionless.
“Well, we’re sorry, Saryn. We thought you were dead after that Grineer galleon exploded.” Ember said.
“And about that. Banshee, what happened? You guys were supposed to pick me up from one of the galleon’s windows?” Saryn asked, partially angered.
“Well, you see-”
“We tried to come get you, but stupid Orids, that overprotective cephalon, overrided the controls and forced us to flee from the explosion. But you know me, I would’ve dove right into that galleon like it was a burning building to come rescue you.” Ember interrupted, answering for Banshee using a blatant lie.
“Y-Yeah.” Banshee affirmed the lie, nervous. But Saryn hummed skeptical.
“Anyways! We need to focus on finding a way out of here.” Ember proclaimed. “Got anything, Saryn?”
Saryn shrugged. “Nope. I got nothin’. The place is tightly monitored, and most rooms nullify our Warframe’s abilities.”
“Drats! I guess we’ll have to conjure a way out slowly.” Ember remarked. “And we’ll do it first by getting rid of that wild animal.”
Hearing that made Saryn’s head perk up. “What?”
“You heard me, we need to kill that ravenous beast.” Ember declared.
“But why? She’s just a Warframe like the rest of us.” Saryn questioned.
“You saw what she did to Ember. She’s lucky that Ember didn’t set her ablaze.” Banshee interjected.
“Damn, I should’ve thought of that!” Ember snapped her fingers, acknowledging what she could’ve done moments prior.
“What? No!” Saryn exclaimed. She couldn’t believe that her friends, even Banshee, opted to kill off Valkyr in Ember’s ‘masterful’ escape plan.
“She’s a hindrance to our escape, Saryn. We can't efficiently make it out of here with killer kavat on the loose trying to claw our brains out. Besides, you were the one to cut her leg open like a fish a few minutes ago. I’d thought you’d be keen on killing that kavat-coded monster?” Ember tried to prove her point, but Saryn wasn’t done trying to persuade them from doing so otherwise.
“Look, I know it was bad that she tried to lash out on you guys but look at it from her perspective. She’s been tortured her whole life in the Jupiter labs, and she was just scared and confused, that’s all!” Saryn explained.
“That’s no excuse. She should know better than to attack us out of nowhere.” Banshee retaliated.
“It wasn’t out of nowhere, you heard Kela clearly tell her to fight you.” Saryn acknowledged.
“Yes, and she listened to her. Which is why we need to get rid of her.” Ember reasoned.
“But she was just-”
“This is not up for discussion anymore, Saryn!” Ember interrupted. “We’re gonna finish her off, tomorrow.” She said like a mother fed-up with her bickering child.
“No…no!” Saryn started to curl up in her cell and cry.
“It’ll be okay, Saryn. Just think of it as a suffering creature in need of mercy.” Banshee tried to put their upcoming act of murder lightly.
“Yeah. Then you can take a pic and title it: The Smiling Freakshow.” Ember added, snickering.

Saryn sat there and continued to cry throughout the gloomy, Sedna night in response to the upcoming, unnegotiable execution of her dear feline-coded Warframe friend.
“Shut yo bitch-ass up, Saryn!” Ember screeched at Saryn from one cell over. “We tryna sleep!”
Saryn placed a hand over her non-existent mouth, and her crying died down to a trembling whimper.

Chapter Text

Vodyanoi

The following morning arrives. Saryn got barely but an ounce of sleep. All night she kept thinking of ways she could still try to protect Valkyr, while also trying not to break the trust of her friends. But no matter what she tried to think of, it would never give her a happy ending. Either she would side with her friends, Ember and Banshee in killing Valkyr, or she would side with Valkyr and try her best to not let them kill her, but either way, Valkyr would die since even Saryn wouldn’t be strong enough to fend off the both of her friends trying to attack Valkyr at the same time, and it would also strain their relationship. It was like some twisted choose-your-own-ending book, but no matter what Saryn would do, it would inevitably lead to the same fate for Valkyr in the end.
They hear the prison entrance slide open, with the thunderous clicks of high heels following after. Kela strode in front of them and looked at the imprisoned she-frames with a mischievous grin like they were animals in a zoo.
“Rise and shine, Tenno.” Kela looked over at Banshee and Ember. “Are you two newbies ready for another day’s match of Rathuum?” Kela asked, trying to pump them up.
“Yeah! Let's do this.” Ember replied, full of wrathful energy.
“That’s the spirit! See Saryn, why can’t you be more excited like your friend Ember here? She’s got the fiery heart perfect for Rathuum.” Kela praised Ember’s enthusiasm. But unbeknownst to her, Ember was just excited to kill Valkyr in order to apparently start getting her escape plan going into action. Now that Saryn thought harder about it, she recognizes that Ember’s motive is utter bullshit, and that she just wants to get revenge for Valkyr beating her ass in front of thousands of Grineer. “Let’s get your girls geared up for this match. To the armory!” Kela hollers, eagerly. The escorts disable the energized cell wall and release the lady frames from their cells and push them as they march with Kela to the armory.
Ember and Banshee go inside of Rathuum’s special armory for the first time, gazing their non-existent eyes all over the vast space in wonder of what amazing things they’ve been missing out on their entire lives.
“Moving targets? A collection of guns and swords longer than a limousine? Oh, I’m in heaven right now!” Ember exclaims, awestruck by what would be a Tenno’s equivalent to a human’s Disneyland.
“You’re just excited to use every single one of those guns to kill Valkyr.” Saryn mumbles under her breath.
“I thought you said this place was hell, Saryn?” Banshee remarks. “But to have access to all of this, is a whole new level of heaven.”
“I was only allowed in here for one day. I know it may look super cool and awesome, but when you’ve spent more than six hours aimlessly throwing butter knives that identify as throwing daggers at a flimsy cardboard target, you’re gonna eventually lose your shit.” Saryn scoffed.
Kela released the lady frames from their cuffs. “Now go on and choose some weapons to take with you to Rathuum. I’ll be back in a little bit, I gotta go check up on the cat in the vet if you catch my drift.” Kela says before she shuts the door behind her.
“I really hope Valkyr is okay. Perhaps I should ask Kela about her when she gets back. Best case scenario is if Valkyr is out of the arena for a few days from her leg injury, then it’ll surely give me time to think of a solution that wouldn’t involve my friends killing her.” Saryn thought to herself.
“Hey, Banshee! What do you think? A Galatine or a Nikana?” Ember asks, holding a longsword in her left hand with a katana in her right.
“Hmm, I think a Nikana would be better for you, because if you swing the Galatine and miss, it’ll leave you open for that thing to attack you.” Banshee advises.
“Okay. Saryn, what do you think?” Ember asks Saryn, who is currently lost in her train of thought. She doesn’t respond, and continues to gaze endlessly into the distance. “Saryn!”
“What?” Saryn finally snaps back to focus when Ember screams her name.
“You use a Nikana a lot. Do you think I should use the Nikana, or a longsword?”
“Does it really even matter? You’re just gonna use both to cut off my friend’s head.” Saryn said, melancholy.
“Uh, yeah! I want that vile creature to be executed in style, so which one would make me look cooler when I do it?” Ember replied, sassily and impertinent.
Saryn took a deep breath. “Go fuck yourself, Ember.”
“Excuse me?” Ember twisted her neck back like an owl to look at Saryn, furiously.
“You heard me. I said, go fuck yourself-”
At breakneck speed, Ember rushed over at Saryn, and shoved her to the wall like a bully and raised the Nikana blade inches away from her neck. “You better watch what you say, punk! I don’t know what’s gotten into you since you’ve been stuck in this place, but you better get yourself right. Or else you’re gonna end up like your little stray friend in a few minutes from now.”
Saryn didn’t talk, she and Ember reciprocated the narrowing gaze of staring daggers at each other. Until Ember shoved her again and sheathed the Nikana blade.
“You’re right, Banshee. I’ll go with the Nikana. If its primed variant could split open that girl’s metal calf, then it would surely decapitate her with ease.” Ember proclaimed as she walked away.
“I’ll just go with the regular Skana, nothing too hard to handle and it should get the job done.” Banshee said as she waved the flimsy aluminum blade in the air. “C’mon, let's test these out on the dummies!”
Ember and Banshee went off to the other side of the armory raising their swords in the air like they were children about to head off to hit a pinata. When they were gone, Saryn ambled up to the seemingly endless field of weapons and searched for that familiar red ribbon. She eventually dug a few Spira up from the weapon’s pile and took them with her into a corner where she began to sharpen their dull blades with her parazon. She sat there carving at the throwing knives like she was a caveman with two pieces of flint trying to start a fire, while she did, Saryn started to sing softly to herself.

Rathuum’s where the prisoners go
They all come in and they don’t come home
Rathuum’s where the wind don’t blow
You’ll get dust in your eye before you can say “Oh no”

Senda here is hell on Earth
Before you even know it, you’ll be pushed to the dirt
Out on here on Sedna’s globe
The best thing you can do is kill a man you don’t know

Nothing’s more lame than Kela De Thaym
A no-good evil woman who’s too despicable to tame
Her amber eyes and that charismatic smile
Will have you thinking Rathuum is a stay that would be made worthwhile

But I see through her parts, and know she’s pathetic
Every inch of her is made of false synthetic
So one day, in the end, maybe this week
She’ll meet her end and have her life turn bleak

So meet me at the end of my pale fire
Because nothing’s stopping me
One day I hope you bleed
When my miasma clouds your lungs with ease

Upon uttering the closing line of her song, Saryn takes one of the sharpened blades and flung it at a nearby target. It whistled as it flew with precision and grace and went right through the target’s head like it was a ghost. A razor thin cut was made. It was so thin that at first it looked like the blade hadn’t even touched the target at all, but upon closer inspection, a cut thinner than a strand of hair could be felt, upon sliding a hand on the impact area. Saryn heard the armory door slide open, so she quickly and discreetly pocketed the sharpened set of Spira throwing knives. Kela came clamoring in with an ear-to-ear smile on her pale face.
“Are you kids ready for Rathuum?” She shouted excitedly. Ember and Banshee come hurrying back to the armory door to meet Kela.
“Yeah. Let’s get this blood show on the road.” Ember said, cool.
“You’ve picked out your weapons, I see. A Nikana and a Skana, hey that rhymes! A very good choice.” Kela glances over at Saryn, appearing unarmed. “Nothing new for you, Saryn? I assume you’ll be using the Nikana Prime I gifted you.”
Saryn nodded. “But wait.” She said abruptly. “How’s Valkyr? Is she okay? Will she fight?” She asked.
“She better!” Ember interjected, hitting the sheathed Nikana against her palm like a mom with a switch about to deliver child discipline. Saryn glanced at her, annoyed, and returned her worried gaze back onto Kela.
“Hmm, well she’s able to get herself back up on her leg again, albeit, barely able to walk, let alone run.” Kela said, matter-of-factly.
“Phew, good.” Saryn let out a sigh of relief.
“Although…” Kela started again. “...I think she’ll be just fine and fit enough to fight in today’s match of Rathuum.”
“No!” Saryn exclaimed.
“Yes.” Ember whispered, triumphantly as she balled her fist under her chin.
Kela clasped her hands together, making a singular, thunderous clap. “Any who, let’s get going! Don’t wanna keep the audience waiting.” She proclaimed as the Grineer escorts came to seize the lady frames once again.

Saryn nervously grips her Nikana Prime as she anxiously waits as she and the others stand in the center of the arena. Ember absorbs the audience’s cheer with pride, while Banshee glances around, vigilant. Soon, Valkyr is thrown onto the arena, limping weakly as she tries to stand up.
“Valkyr!” Saryn exclaims as she rushes over to help her get up, but Valkyr hisses and swipes her away. “Valkyr, I’m sorry, but you’re in real danger right now so please let me help you up.” Saryn pleads for Valkyr to let her help assist her up, but having all her trust in Saryn crushed to dust, she refuses and tries to swipe at her again. Saryn could feel Ember and Banshee’s faint metal footsteps creeping toward them.
“Ladies and gentlemen, today is quite the special day for Rathuum, as we have four Tenno contestants!” Kela begins to speak over the intercom. The audience, like an applause sign had lit up on the backs of their seats, began to cheer again after every time she utters the words, ladies and gentlemen, all the while Ember and Banshee close in on Saryn and Valkyr, with their blades drawn and pointed toward them.
“Give it up, Saryn. That kitten’s gotta die!’ Ember roared harshly. Saryn shielded her body in front of the injured Valkyr. Kela continued to talk.
“For today’s match of Rathuum, there will be no cooperation, but instead, a deathmatch, battle-royale between the four contestants.” All four she-frames glance at Kela’s booth with surprised looks on their faces. “And here’s this: whoever is the last one standing will be granted their freedom from Rathuum!” Kela motivated them to kill each other so they could finally leave Sedna. How sick.
“What?” The three vocally able she-frames uttered while Valkyr meowed with an inflection that conveyed confusion.
“Let Rathuum begin.” Without another word, Rathuum commenced. The lady-frames were surrounded in the crowd’s deafening cheer; it was like a whale was bellowing right in their ears, making the mind aching situation more unbearable than it already was. Despite them drowning in already loud voices, Ember was the first to speak.
“Well, how the tables have turned. Anyways, let's put Valkyr's head first on the chopping block. Might as well since we’re already here.” Ember stepped closer. Saryn growled at Ember as she approached, menacingly. “Uhm, Saryn. I don’t know if you know this, but you’re kinda in the way of me about to stab the absolute shit out this beast cowering like a fawn behind you, so, just a thought: Move!” Ember commanded. But Saryn wouldn’t budge, she remained standing in front of Valkyr like a mountain, being unmoved.
“I won’t let you hurt my friend.” Saryn muttered, shaking her head in defiance.
“Alright, fine then.” Ember coldly says as she jabs the silver blade of her Nikana into Saryn’s abdomen and pulls it out, sending a rivulet of crimson tricking down onto the arena floor. The audience erupts, gasping.
“What the hell, Ember?!” Banshee shrieked, shocked by her friend’s willingness to go ahead and stab their long time friend. Saryn collapsed to her knees, holding her wounded stomach. Banshee shoved Ember. “Why did you do that?” She asked, utterly bemused.
“Because, Banshee…she is weak. She chose that monster over us, she’s a traitor to our squad. And besides, she’d probably be more happy to die here having got all of the glory and spotlight on her for the past month. Then we won’t have to worry about her being such a show-off whenever we go on a mission.” Ember explained, cold heartedly. Who would’ve known that a harbinger of flame would have a heart as cold as ice.
“The fame…that’s what this was all about?” Saryn coughed, weakly. “You lied about trying to rescue me, didn’t you? Ordis didn’t leave me to die, it was you wasn’t it?”
Ember just continued to give Saryn a cold gaze through her soul, not saying a word. Valkyr seizes the opportunity to grapple herself away with a rip-line, leaping to the end of the arena behind Saryn.
“Oh right, we need to deal with her too. C’mon Banshee, let's put this kitty down.” Ember said, maliciously as she let out an evil grin behind her metal mask. But before she could take a step, Banshee interrupted her.
“But wait, what will we do after?” Banshee begs to question what their next move will be after having murdered their former friend and Valkyr in cold blood.
“That’s a great question, Banshee. What shall we do after we gut this cat alive?” Ember grips her Nikana tightly. “I know, perish.” She swiftly turns around and takes a swing at Banshee with her Nikana, but she parries it just in time with her measly Skana. Banshee jumps back, panting heavily.
“What devilish spirit has possessed you, Ember? Dost thou flame attract Satan’s hellfire?”
“It is not the invigorating flame of Satanus, but the wrathful spirit of Rathuum.” Ember said, calmly.
“You’ve changed, Ember. You’ve gone mad with wrath, and now it has imbued your frame.”
“Oh no no no, Banshee, it’s always been something that had been stirring vigorously throughout my Warframe from the beginning of time. It’s only now that Rathuum has brought out my true fiery spirit.” Ember divulges. “And I think you should feel it too.” Ember charges up a fireball and hurls it at Banshee. She quickly dispels it by sending out a violent shockwave of sound that immediately disperses it. Then, she screeches out an ear-piercing siren from her panel shaped head that sends all of the lady frames on the arena covering their non-existent ears. With Ember staggered, Banshee lunges toward her with her Skana, but Ember swiftly knocks Banshee away with a single stomp, sending out a wall of inferno her way that stops her dead in her tracks. Her metal skin starts to burn. Banshee rolls herself around on the ground to extinguish the fire. While Banshee wiggled around on the ground, Ember enveloped herself into a bright orange aura of flame, and sent flaming meteorites crashing down from the sky, toward Banshee. After she quickly extinguished herself, Banshee enacted a series of swift rolls to the side, causing the meteorites to nearly miss her, almost crushing her like a bug. Banshee drops herself to the ground and sends out a sound quake headed straight toward Ember, rippling in the metal ground like a water drop in a pond. Ember was unable to move out of the way in time, causing the wave to sweep her from under her own feet. Banshee leaps high in the air over Ember, and dives straight toward her like an eagle, with her sword gripped by both of her hands, winded up over her head ready to stab deep. Her metal body clashes to the ground, with her Skana implanted deep into Ember’s cold heart, like King Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone but in reverse. Ember’s heart bled like a cut open tomato, she gasped, staring her non-existent wide eyes at Banshee, as she towered over her, panting heavily like a hyena. But it wasn’t over for Ember yet. If she were to go down, she’d make sure that her assailant would go down with her. With her remaining strength, Ember gripped her unsheathed Nikana and skewered it into Banshee’s neck. She was left speechless, no longer could she screech her loudest wails of a siren. The only thing she could let out now was a little yelp that only Ember could hear. Ember stared contemptuously at Banshee as she fell over to the side, with the blade in her neck making a soft metal clink with the floor, as it held her neck and head up at an acute angle like a stake being used to pitch a tent. Until after she saw the life leave Banshee’s body like water evaporating into gas, Ember closed her eyes and dreamt a happy dream as she bled out from her thawed heart in the middle of the Rathuum arena. Afterwards, the arena was dead silent, much so that the audience could hear the moving machinery of flying Grineer galleons in the far distance. It wasn’t until Kela broke the silence with an exasperated sigh.
“Ugh! Looks like we’re back to square one with just having Valkyr and Saryn alive, and we all know that those two aren’t gonna fight, especially after Saryn shielded her from that devastating blow. To think that this was about to get interesting. I guess there’ll be another time for you two to make true bloodshed. Rathuum’s over!”
“Aww!” The crowd boos, as Rathuum had been concluded again prematurely.
“No.” Just as the crowd and Kela were about to leave, Saryn interrupts, still bleeding from her abdomen. “There won’t be another time.” She grabs her Spira and holds the sharpened blade up to her own neck. “In the end, one of us will have to die, right? Fine then, it’ll be me! Right now!” The crowd and Kela gasps.
“No!” Kela springs out from the top hatch of her booth and jumps onto the arena. She knocks the knife out of her hand. “What are you doing, Saryn? Are you crazy?!” She violently shook Saryn by her metal shoulders. But while her back was turned, Kela seemed to have forgotten that she had entered the cage filled with her captured, wild animals. She forgot about Valkyr who was previously sitting in the corner watching the whole thing go down. Creeping up behind her, Valkyr focused her predatory gaze onto Kela, and unsheathed her talons, ready to pounce on her biggest target yet. Then, with one anguishing warcry, Valkyr leaps onto Kela’s synthetic back and begins to start mauling her. Kela screams.
“Get off of me you rabid, Tenno, animal, you.” She struggles as she tries to rip Valkyr off of her. Kela is eventually able to throw Valkyr off of her, sending Valkyr tumbling into the wall. However, with her back turned to Saryn, the venomous snake ready to strike, Saryn pulls out another one of her sharpened Spira throwing knives and grapples onto Kela’s back, holding the knife up to her pale neck.
“How about this time, it’ll be your blood to be spilled onto Rathuum?” Saryn says, holding Kela hostage. But Kela is able to grab hold of Saryn, gripping her abdomen tight in one hand while using the other to spread open Saryn’s wound like a curtain. She grunts.
“Tenno, you really want this? Fine! Let’s do this!”

Chapter Text

Merrow

With nothing left to lose, Kela begins to further spread Saryn’s wound open with her massive gorilla-gripping hands, causing Saryn to squeal in immense pain. But before Kela could fully tear apart and flay her metal flesh, Valkyr cast’s a rip-line into Kela’s back and swings toward her like Spider-Man. Kela glanced backward to see where the sudden sharp sting had come from to see an angry metal kitty with orange talons pointed right at her. Valkyr swiped at Kela’s face, causing her to release Saryn from her grasp. Saryn fell to the floor with a hard thud as Kela quickly hurled Saryn to the ground like she was spiking a volleyball. Saryn, despite her injury, quickly rolled to Valkyr’s side, leaving a tiny trail of Tenno blood staining the arena floor crimson from the maneuver. To her surprise, Valkyr extended out an untaloned hand to the kneeling Saryn, and offered to help her get back to her feet, something Valkyr herself refused to accept moments earlier. Saryn gave her a slight smile through her metal mask, and took her hand and gave it a tight grip. It was the same two hands that brought together their friendship, Saryn used the same one of hers to break it apart with a swing of her Nikana Prime, and now it was the same set of hands that brought the two back together again.
It looked like the duo were on track to becoming friends again as Valkyr nodded to Saryn and understood the fortitude of her act of self-sacrifice, trying to protect her from the murderous Ember and Banshee.
Once Saryn was back to her feet, she used much of her remaining strength to compose herself in a fight-ready stance. The hilt of her Nikana Prime touched her hip, with her hands seething with venom ready to twist the blade into Kela’s synthetic. Valkyr went ahead and unsheathed both of her talons, making those glowing orange karambits shine in Rathuum’s artificial light as she mirrored the stance of the Wolverine. They steadily focussed their gaze on Kela as she turned around and removed her black hands from her injured face. Like a horrid game of peek-a-boo, Kela brought her hands away from her ugly, pale face and revealed a nasty scar that ran from forehead to chin on the left side of her face. The heavy flow of blood made Kela look two-faced just like Valkyr, and when she tried to wipe it from her face, it smeared all over the left side like tomato paste, although it did make her look more like a warlord. Kela tried to open her eye on the damaged left side of her face, but when her eyelid flipped open like a garage door, behind it wasn’t her usual amber gaze, instead, her eye became pooled with blood and it loosely bobbled around inside her eye socket like a dead fish in a fish bowl being shaken violently by a crying child trying to wake it up. Kela poked her damaged eye and chuckled.
“Oh, you’ve done it now, Tenno.”
To Saryn and Valkyr’s horror, Kela pressed down on the outer edge of her eye like she was getting ready to blow its nose, and like a pimple, her eye popped out and then she ripped it from its socket like it was nothing. Like a special red-amber rock she was fond of, Kela put it close to her working eye and inspected it all around. Every time she twisted it to look at it from a new angle, the stringy bits in the back would whip around and often stick to one of her fingers like a wet tissue, making Saryn, Valkyr and the audience’s stomachs twist and churn. When she was done, Kela let out a sarcastic sigh.
“Looks like I won’t be needing this for now.” Then Kela crushed her eye between her two fingers like a cherry tomato, making a disgusting pimple-popping sound as its crushed and stringy remains burst onto the arena floor. “I’ll just put in a new one, right after I’m finished with you, Tenno!” She said nonchalantly like this wasn’t the first time she’d done something like this, and it probably wasn’t. Considering how long Kela has lived and with the majority of her body being composed of cybernetic augmentations and synthetic, discarding a damaged part or two wasn’t something out of the ordinary to the insane Grineer warlord. Then, without any warning or indication, Kela leaped high in the air like a frog, her massive stature overshadowing the sun that brought minimal light to Sedna and Rathuum. Looking like she was about to dive toward the two lady frames, in response, Saryn and Valkyr prepared to block a potentially incoming aerial attack, but Kela today was like a magician full of surprises. Just like Valkyr can, Kela casted a rip-line from her wrist into an adjacent wall, grappling her toward it where she then hung from it like a spider. Saryn and the audience gasped in surprise.
“You’re not the only ones with abilities, Tenno.” She quipped as she hung. Kela then released a series of rip-lines from her abdomen which went off in every direction, each hooking into the arena walls with their pointed barbs, leaving Kela dangling over Saryn and Valkyr like she was spider in its web above. With silky-smooth control, Kela glided wall to wall with her dress of rip lines, loosening and tightening each and every single line in an intricate manner in order to perfectly sling her over like a zipline.
Kela’s web of rip line’s made it difficult for Saryn and Valkyr to spot her as every time she’d zip from wall to wall, the rip lines would oscillate up and down like a trampoline after someone’s bounced on it. Valkyr thought about grappling herself towards Kela’s net of rip lines, but even she knew that it would be game over if she tangled in Kela’s web. Besides, both Saryn and Valkyr are too injured to hop up to Kela’s level.
“We have to get her down from there! But how?” Saryn pondered, but her thoughts kept getting interrupted by the continuous sharp sting in her abdomen and Kela’s relentless taunting from above.
“What’s the matter? Come and get me, Tenno!” Kela taunted as she swung over their heads like an acrobat in a circus trapeze act. Just then, Saryn got an idea. She whispered something to Valkyr to which she nodded her head in agreement. Saryn took out the remaining Spira throwing knives she had left in her pocket and counted them like dollars. She only had three left, just enough to take down Kela in three easy steps.
Saryn took one of the knives and threw it at Kela in her web. It whooshed at it flew just inches away from Kela’s face.
“You really want to taunt a bird of prey, Tenno? Have it your way!” Kela begins to dive at her like an eagle, cawing, “I’ll take you back to my nest and feed you to my warriors!” Kela reached an arm out to grab her as she dove. In Saryn’s mind, she marked out a box on her three-step checklist. Taunt Kela into swooping in toward me, step one, done!
As Kela was about to grab Saryn to be hurled off into her web, Saryn quickly scooted to the side, while leaving a toxic molt of herself in her wake. Kela crashed into it, causing it to explode into toxic mist. She hacked violently as the toxic mist started to corrupt her lungs. She dangled as the toxic mist started to tingle its burning sensation into Kela’s hollowed out eye socket.
“Dammit, Tenno! *cough* You really think you’re so clever? I’ll show you-” Kela was cut short of her requital phrase as Saryn launched another Spira toward her, this time cutting some of her rip-lines off, plucking off like broken violin strings leaving her struggling as she writhed few feet above the ground like a damaged marionette doll. While she held her burning eye socket trying to relieve the pain, Valkyr took the opportunity to grapple over and strafe pass, unsheathing her talons and cutting down a few more rip-lines as she swung through. Kela grunted as more of her rip lines snapped. Her last line loosening under the sudden transfer of weight bounced her lower toward the ground like a bungee cord as she dangled upside down. Resulting in her cracking her skull against the arena floor. As her dangling body oscillated up and down from the final string, Saryn did the honors of cutting Kela down as she lunged above her, using more of her limited strength, and swung her Nikana Prime in one swift sweeping strike, sending Kela crashing down while Saryn rolled as landed, sheathing her sword. Cut the spider down, step two, done!
Soon, Valkyr grapples in behind Kela as she pitifully tries to get up. She lays on her side, coughing up blood as it spurts out from her oil dripping mouth into a distant corner of the arena. Saryn and Valkyr begin to close in on the downed Kela, but it looks like they’re about to face some outside interference. Pouring out from all entrances of the arena was a combination of heavy Grineer units, highly skilled Grineer warriors, and some newly introduced Grineer Ballistas that had lasers from their sniper rifles aimed right at the two she-frames. Kela started laughing maliciously.
“You see, Tenno. You’ve must’ve forgotten that I, Kela De Thaym, is the crowned queen of Rathuum. And who is a queen without her royal guard? Hahahaha! Grineer, fire-”
But before she could finish her command, Saryn clocks Kela in the face and casts a spore on all of the barrels of the Ballistas’ sniper rifles. Surprised, they accidentally fire their weapons, detonating the spore and clouding them and the Grineer units bunched nearby in toxic gas, killing all of the dispatched Grineer calvary in under a few seconds. Kela tried to execute her escape when she casted a rip line from her wrist into the window of her viewing booth, but unluckily for her, Valkyr sent out a rip line of her own and reeled Kela back down like a fish, and when she tried to hop again, Valkyr casted a rip line into her and pounced on Kela like she was a fleeing bird, clawing continuously into Kela’s synthetic back, partially exposing Kela’s spine and ribs. Looked like the pain in her leg didn’t bother her anymore, as she used every inch of her body to dig into Kela’s synthetic.
To finish her off, Saryn sprang over, again irritating the cut in her stomach, strafing blood across where she leapt. Saryn landed in front of Kela, to which she looked up to see a fierce cobra bearing its venomous fangs. Saryn knelt down to Kela’s face.
“It doesn’t have to end this way, Tenno. I can make you a star.” Kela weakly pleaded as she coughed up more blood. Saryn stared into Kela’s remaining amber eye with a cold expression behind the metal mask. She pulled out her last Spira from her pocket and held its sharp tip up to Kela’s neck. She gazed at it with the same terrified look that the crewman gave Saryn in that derelict Corpus ship, but rather than nodding in acceptance, she began to shake her head in denial. “No Saryn, don’t do this!” Kela begged. Valkyr crept up higher toward Kela’s head from on her back, and yanked Kela’s head up by her Hitler-fro, restraining her and exposing her neck.
“Shh. Hush now, I’ll make your suffering go away soon.” Saryn hushed in a soft tone as she put a finger to Kela’s lips.
“No…No!” Kela shrieked. But she was soon silenced by the reaper’s sedative as Saryn spat her toxic miasma right into Kela’s face, causing her to choke and convulse.
“The only way you’ll be at peace is through mercy.” Saryn stared one final time into Kela’s amber eye, then she slid the blade across her neck, unzipping it and releasing all of Kela’s antagonizing words of charismatic consistency in a fountain of blood spilling onto Rathuum. Purify Kela of her demons, step three, done.
As their leader was murdered in the arena in cold blood, the audience couldn’t help but cheer at Saryn and Valkyr for the spectacular show they had put on, squeezing out one final eventful match of Rathuum before its two best gladiators had to make their departure. Once the stream of crimson had start to die down to a gushing rivulet, Valkyr cast a rip line into the back of Kela’s skull and yanked hard decapitating the deceased warlord’s head from her body sending it smashing into the booth window and exploding like a water balloon.
Suddenly, Saryn felt a sharp pain twinging in her gut like someone was trying to screw a non-existent bolt into her abdomen using a knife. She collapsed to the floor, curling herself up and she writhed in pain. It was only now that the pain of Ember’s traitorous stab had finally hit her in its apex. Seeing her friend collapse and wince in pain prompted Valkyr to rush over, albeit more slowly as her calf was still recovering. It looks like their free trial of ignoring their injuries has expired, and both of them were on their last leg. Valkyr eventually got to her and cradled Saryn in her arms as knelt down with both knees beside her.
“We have to get out of here, now.” Saryn coughed. Valkyr looked around the arena for a potential escape. The arena entrances were locked, but they didn’t want to wait for another wave of Grineer troops to come rushing in guns blazing, especially after they had executed their leader. They needed to find another way out.
Just then, Valkyr spots the now opened hatch above Kela’s viewing booth, with Kela having used it to jump onto the arena to put a halt to Saryn’s attempted suicide. Valkyr meowed and pointed to the opened hatch for Saryn to see.
“T-The hatch? Of course.” Saryn uttered weakly. Carefully, Valkyr held onto Saryn and grappled the both of them to the hatch using her rip line. They swung high in the air like they were on a swing that had swung too high in the air, and tumbled down landing on the soft carpet of Kela’s booth that felt like pure kavat fur. Valkyr stumbled as she walked over to pick Saryn back up, who was bleeding profusely all over the red, carpeted floor. Thinking fast to stop the bleeding, Saryn took the red sugatra dangling from her Nikana Prime’s hilt and placed it over her wound, using it as a makeshift handkerchief to cover her wound and put pressure on it. With Saryn placed back to her feet using Valkyr’s shoulders as support, they hobbled to the door in the back of the booth and continued on with their escape from Rathuum.

It wasn’t too long after their leader, Kela De Thaym had reportedly been killed, did the whole place go into lockdown. Grineer lancers in their squadrons are racing through the halls trying to find and apprehend Kela’s assailants, Saryn and Valkyr. The two lady frames turn a corner, narrowly avoiding the Grineer’s sight. Across the hall, they spot a small storage room that they could take a moment to rest in. Valkyr opens the door and the two hobble inside of the dimly lit room. Valkyr gently places Saryn on the ground sitting up, and tries to tend to Saryn’s wound. She looked around for anything useful, but the storage room was barren of any useful supplies. Saryn coughed.
“Look, Valkyr. I’m too weak right now. Just go and make your escape, I’ll only be slowing you down.” Saryn uttered. Valkyr let out a concerned meow. “That moment I tried to kill myself on the arena…it wasn’t part of some sort of intricate plan. I knew that the only way I would be able to protect you was to sacrifice myself. By pure chance was it that Ember and Banshee killed each other at the same time, leaving only me and you left in Rathuum. And in that moment, I decided to put that knife to my neck in order to leave you as the sole winner of Rathuum, because if anyone deserves to win that freedom, it would be you.” Saryn monologues. “But hey, look at us now; about to be on the home stretch to leaving this wretched place.” She chuckles. “Now leave…and never come back.” She commands Valkyr.
But Valkyr didn’t want to leave Saryn’s side, not again. She was tired of being all alone, and Saryn was the only person she could trust. No one else in the Origin System would have the same shared experience as her, being trapped in a cage to be used for someone’s amusement. She let out a defiant meow, refusing to leave Saryn to die in the cold and dimly lit Grineer storage room.
“Valkyr, no.” Saryn grunted, aggravated. “Don’t risk yourself dying trying to save me! I’ve already lived my life, took a lot of pictures, and got to make one true friend. Now, it's your turn to finally start living.” Saryn tried to get Valkyr to move on from her so Valkyr could finally experience her long deserved life of being uncaged. But Valkyr let out a strong, anguishing Warcry that would have Saryn feeling Valkyr’s tears being shed behind the metal mask with its vibration. It was loud enough to alert the Grineer to their location. They both hear the heavy footsteps of the Grineer approaching. “Valkyr, get out of here, now!” Saryn yelled, but Valkyr continued to ignore her requests. Instead, she unsheathed her talons, and etched down a message into the floor in front of Saryn. Ride together, die together, it reads. Upon reading it, Saryn began to tear up and howled Valkyr’s name one last time in anguish. Valkyr calmly sat down beside her best friend, and spent their last few moments together in the still atmosphere of the storage room in silence as the Grineer would eventually come bursting in and gun them down.
Saryn sniffled while Valkyr purred next to her, as they both heard footsteps getting closer. Then, the door slid open and they both closed their non-existent eyes bracing for what was about to happen next. However, after a few seconds and not a single bullet was fired, the lady frames opened their eyes to see a torrent of razorflies zooming in front of the opened door, with only the pained cries of the Grineer able to be heard as they ripped apart their cloned flesh. Appearing in front of them shortly after, was the Warframe, Titania in her fairy-like glory. Saryn gasped.
“Titania? What are you doing here?” She asked, baffled.
“Saryn? Is that you? I could be asking you the same question.” She responded, full of wit. “You’ve been missing for about a month!”
“How did you find us?” Saryn wondered.
“A few days ago, your friend, Banshee, while on a mission to collect some classified Grineer data, had found some interesting files related to various Warframe disappearances. So, she sent it to The Lotus where she sent me and my squad out to investigate. We were around Sedna when we heard some alarms go off so I thought we’d head over and see what was going on.” Titania explained. “I should go ahead and let The Lotus know that we’ve found you.” Titania began to contact The Lotus. Soon, a holographic projection of their queen mother had appeared above Titania’s wrist. “Come in, Lotus. We’ve found the missing Warframe, Saryn and…” She now noticed Valkyr huddled over next to her. “...some other chick.”

Chapter Text

Epilogue

A few weeks pass since Saryn and Valkyr were rescued by Titania and her team’s expedition to Sedna. Saryn and Valkyr had both recovered and now their story of how they took down the high-ranking Grineer warlord, Kela De Thaym, after they survived being abducted and forced to become gladiators in the brutalist Grineer bloodsport, Rathuum. Tonight on the Nightwave Bounty and News Broadcast of the Origin System, featured Saryn and Valkyr’s story.
“Good evening all you pure people of the Origin System! Coming in at ya with tonight’s story about two brave lady frames who defied their fates and stuck it to that Grineer tyrant, Kela De Thaym. Starting off, apparently, it was one of my nightwave bounties that kicked off this whole adventure! Oops, my bad, sis. *Audience laugh track* Anyways, it all started when something during the mission went wrong, leaving our brave soul, Saryn, to have to find another way out when the galleon was about to blow. From her accounts, she states that “I was just too compassionate, causing me to let out the wrong person from their cell.” And look at this, apparently, the prisoner that Saryn tried to help rescue tried to attack her with a prison shank and all, guys. I guess that’s one unusual way to say thank you. *Audience laugh track* But seriously now, it turns out that the girl she saved was an extreme hater of the Tenno, having ended up in that cell in the first place when she tried to steal some Grineer weapons for her ridiculous movement! Currently she’s wanted all over the Origin System, folks, so keep a lookout. Moving along with the story, Saryn stated that she was caught in the edges of the explosion, and “woke up to find herself chained up in a mysterious ship.” Now that’s what’s gonna happen to you little gullible kids if you take some stranger’s candy, just like Saryn was trapped and chained in an unknown vehicle. *Audience laugh track* Afterwards, Saryn was face to face with the infamous Kela De Thaym, and boy did she hate her guts. She added that she was thinking of spitting in that ugly woman’s face, but the problem was that she didn’t have a mouth! *Audience laugh track* And then, she was thrown into the pits of Rathuum. At first, at the sound of it, I thought it was some sort of monster truck derby, but nope, it was a Grineer bloodsport where they have some people fight to the death in an arena where other Grineer would watch. How barbaric! By using her swift, Tenno moves, she was able to kick the Grineer’s asses in just under a few minutes. Afterwards, Kela gifted Saryn one of those Primed weapons only found deep in the crevices of the void. And I was like: Well damn, Kela! Could you be my sugar momma? *Audience laugh track* But that gift came at a price…a price of blood. And not just any blood, but Tenno blood. Alad V from the Corpus volunteered one of his freaky Warframe test subjects to be Saryn’s new contender, and that's when she met Valkyr. She was like a feral kavat upon first entering, and tried to rip Saryn’s face off, twice! Meow, that is one bad kitty. *Audience laugh track* At first, Saryn said she felt bad for the poor she-frame, and refused to fight her. Then, after a few days of rustling and tussling, the Corpus invaded, talk about an inside job am I right? Poor Valkyr was taken away, while Saryn sat in a cell for about a month straight. I’m surprised she came out from all of this still sane. In the battle afterward, they finally became best buds after they tore apart the greedy hands of the Corpus. Soon after, she says that her friends were abducted and taken into Rathuum. But get this, folks, apparently, her friends had left her for dead when that galleon exploded. Talk about karma! Her friends tried to murder the new one she just made, and in the final battle, Saryn, like a true hero, shielded her friend and took a nasty stab to the gut like a true badass. The two friends, Ember and Banshee, got into an argument after and then killed each other right there, and they both died at the same time! Talk about unlucky. Saryn attempted to off herself with a knife after, but Kela wasn’t having none of that. So she jumped onstage and slapped that thang straight to the stratosphere. And that’s when they attacked. Saryn and Valkyr were able to take Kela down by slitting her throat, having her own blood spilled on the bloodsport she invented. As the saying goes: Live by your bloodshed, die by your bloodshed. The two escaped and a Tenno squad investigating those weird Tenno disappearances all across the Origin System found them hiding in a storage closet. Now, The Lotus had ordered for Sedna to be further uncovered by the Tenno, to see what else the Grineer may be hiding. In a few years, maybe it’ll become Nora’s new vacation spot! *Audience laugh track* As of now, the two who were able to overcome this adversity are now a fearsome duo in the Origin System, fighting off all sorts of evils together as one, like Yin and Yang. That’s all for tonight’s story with the Nightwave Bounty and News Broadcast of the Origin System. Tune in next time for upcoming news on Vay Hek’s tyrannical reign on Earth in his conquest to keep people from breathing his air!”

Saryn turns off the Nighwave news broadcast, and heads down to the lower level of her orbiter to hang up a new photo. As the door slides open, Saryn tosses a stick of kuaka meat to Angie.
“Not this time, Angie.” Saryn remarks as she holds up her new photo. Angie quickly catches the stick of kuaka meat and takes it with her into a corner to devour it. Upon entering the lounging area of her orbiter, Saryn tosses Valkyr, relaxing on the ceiling of the room, a stuffed kubrow plushie, distracting her from whatever else Saryn may have in her hands. “You too, Valk.” Valkyr leaps at the plushie from the ceiling, and playfully attacks it. Saryn walks up to her adventure wall to hang up a new memory. Next to The Smiling Crewman, Saryn puts up a new picture with her and Valkyr together in the photo, and she pins it to the wall as she skewers through the top with a pushpin. She takes out a black marker and titles it: Number 1 Winners of Rathuum, as she, and Valkyr, now standing up next to her, smile at it through their metal masks.

Meanwhile, in an orbiter stationed outside of the Origin System, Grendel finishes listening to the Nightwave news broadcast, and promptly shuts it off and lets out a deep sigh as he stares into the vast eternity of space.
“...Gauss…”