Chapter Text
Varzia Dax had it pretty good ever since coming out of that long slumber. Maroo's Bazaar was a thriving business, but that was just a happy side-effect of working with such a flirtatiously flighty thief. She owed Maroo for popping her out of that popsicle stand, but she would have been happy just to work with such a pretty face.
Dax were meant to serve, after all.
She would think that bitterly when watching in silence as the Orokin did their gold-tinted atrocities with pomp and flair. On the bright side, she would also think that when she was on her knees, worshiping at a human altar, hands sliding down from their waist—
Varzia decided to put a pin on that thought as Tenno began filtering into the Bazaar. The Tenno were a colorful collection of motley killers, but if you were to take the time to truly observe them, some oddities. For one, most of them were decked out in differing variations and shades, none of them looked the same. Even if warframes weren't naturally so terrifying — even the "silly" ones like Yareli or Grendel — it'd be confusing to see why these powerful 'frames were so inundated with strange fashion choices especially by such skilled killers that resided within them.
But she knew. Most Tenno didn't like to be called kids, but the truth of the matter was that they never got a chance to grow up. Not quite adults, not quite children, but warriors all the same. These kids — half of them amnesic from overthrowing the Orokin pricks, the other half were complete mutes, but all of them deadly killers.
She owed the Tenno, not just for saving her from Erra… She owed them, because just about everyone either used them and failed them. Even if the Tenno had killed the people she cared about during the whole mess after the Old War… even if she had been left behind in the long freeze… how much of the blame could be assigned to the Tenno? They weren't so much following orders as being stuck in some pretty shitty circumstances with few choices to make. Did the Tenno even know what happened to Varzia after they saved her?
Nobody was innocent. Not her, not the Tenno, but that wasn't today. The time to wallow in old grudges was over. Today, she was going to help how she could, just as the Tenno did.
The first Tenno that approached was in a Mesa Prime. This one retained the standard white and gold color scheme with a Montesa Helmet.
Now, that took her back. There was a Tenno that kept messing around with their Mesa Prime's hat out of annoyance, before eventually ripping it off. Repeatedly. Of course, there was function to the forms of Warframe. The Orokin made the impractical work, creating gaudy and flashy bits that had purpose. Though Varzia wasn't sure what the hat did, but it did annoy the Tenno's handler to such a degree that eventually action was taken. Though it wasn't so much making the warframe less effective as making the Orokin look bad by association. So the Orokin drafted up the Montesa helmet with a shorter and smaller hat, looking far more trim. It was a fashionable look with a small slit right underneath the rim overlaid with gold down the middle.
But it was no reward. Once the Tenno was forced to stop fiddling with the hat, the Orokin promptly sent the Mesa Prime into the worst of the Old War, in a clearly futile attempt to slow down Hunhow's rampage. The Tenno went without question and the chaos of the War meant that Varzia never got any clear answers about their fate.
She wasn't sure if the Tenno before her was the Mesa Prime user that she knew or only possessed the frame. Would the Tenno give a clear answer? Or did they even remember? The Mesa Prime reached into their inventory and pulled out a pouch, dipping fingers into it. There was a rattle of coins and other metals as they searched for something.
All the signs that the Tenno were kids were always there. It was a fucking mystery on how it wasn't all that common knowledge. The Mesa pulled out three Regal Aya coins: stamped into shape with a shiny seal and refined Aya underneath, light blue in color.
"Got some Regal Aya, ay, Tenno?" she asked.
They nodded vigorously and Varzia could almost imagine the operator's beaming face behind it.
The Regal Aya felt lighter than air and she turned to her Foundry. Her Foundry was vastly different than the standard Orbiter Foundry, being able to reconstruct weapons and warframes from Aya — the Orokin sequence memory. With "refined" Aya, the Foundry essentially pulled them straight them from her time. Even with regular Aya, it could find and conjure Void Relics that possessed the necessary parts. But the problem was that the Foundry was subjected to "waves of availability" that made for a limited and time-sensitive selection. Memory was a fickle thing, after all.
"Got something in my mind?" She threw up a holographic screen for the Tenno to navigate. "It seems that the Foundry is focusing on Limbo Prime —" The quietest of huffs came from the Tenno. "— and Trinity Prime."
She didn't know the Tenno was annoyed with a Limbo Prime. The 'frame had a very dapper hat, after all, but before Varzia could get any answers there was a collective "thump!" across the entire Bazaar. The light started to flicker and a spot of massive turbulence pushed Varzia against the table next to the foundry. Several Prime weapons slid off and fell down to the lower levels of the Bazaar. The Regal Aya rolled across the floor and was stopped by the heel of her left boot, while she focused on holding.
"You okay, Maroo?" she shouted once everything settled.
"Just…" A strained groan. "Peachy!"
Varzia took a few uneasy steps, noting the slight slant to the floor. All the warframes that had been coming and going, as far as she could see, were slumped down on either their knees or backs. Not one stirred; all were inert. Lifeless and cut from Transference. One of the Bazaar workers laid dead by a broken neck, sprawled in the center next to the tree.
"Orphix field?" Varzia shouted.
The New War was supposed to be over and while Narmer was still a problem, they lacked "ground" in the Origin System. And the Tenno dedicated time every week to hunt down their Archons. They were a threat, yes, but they were not quite a problem.
"No Orphix readings on my end!" Maroo answered.
Whatever this might be, it could be totally and utterly new. She picked up her sword and only hesitated as her hand hovered over Teshin's old Orvius. Maroo had managed to scrounge up the old standard Dax glaive while trawling through the wreckage of the New War.
It made her feel strange to recognize the fact that she really was the last Dax in the System, but she set aside those feelings and slotted the glaive onto her back. As she went up the steps, she spot Maroo crouched low next to a warframe. Her very lithe form with her rear practically jutting out made Varzia commit another image as a core memory.
Maroo, in her tight blue and black spacesuit, glanced back. Maroo, despite having her helmet with an eye-covering visor, was quite the looker — Varzia only had to look at her luscious lips to know this to be true. Despite with how infatuated she might be with Maroo, she still loomed over the thief in a disapproving and chiding fashion.
"Now, now, I know you're a thief, but there are right people to steal from and I'm sure your clientele isn't one of them."
"Got movement on the motion tracker. My rinky dinky pistol isn't up to snuff." Maroo pulled out a Vasto Prime — a white and gold revolver. Judging by the shimmering air near the barrel, it was modded for heavy radiation.
"Kept you safe during the New War, didn't I?"
Maroo smiled and raised the revolver, pointed at the ceiling. "Doesn't hurt to be extra safe."
"Right you are. Safe word is Hayden. Call it out if things get too dicey and I'll get you to extraction." Varzia nudged her head back. "But this is your Bazaar."
"And I don't let anyone roll over me. I don't bow to the Grineer or the Corpus. And I won't bow down to whoever dares attack here."
There were cries and screams from the hanger attendants before they drew silent. Maroo hopped down the stairs and took cover by the tree. The sealed doors began to spark as something began cutting through. Varzia cracked her neck both ways and started to limber up, stretching left and right. At the end of the tight and compressed movements, she held her sword by her side. With a flick of her wrist, her sword surged with energy, becoming infused with a cold chill. Frost permeated the air and she fell into the Crimson Dervish stance.
What did Teshin quote at her one time?
Sun at mid-heaven,
Sovereign above all;
Mind in firm action
Commits without reflecting.
It was a good thing that she didn't bother dwelling on that too much, because the nature of the enemies could have made her hesitate. And hesitation was death. Instead as soon as the inlay of the door was pushed down, she launched forward in a Coiling Impale. Three were already cut down by the spinning, cutting twirl, and the one in the lead was stabbed in the face. The final one was brought low, wrenched onto their knees as Varzia jerked the blade out.
At first, she thought them some strange variant of the Infestation, but they were wielding weapons, wore armor, and were far more uniform in shape. They bled a reddish purple color with some strange gas spilling out as well. All of them had four eyes and masks that were clearly meant for breathing in. Two of them only had two arms, while the rest had four, but on closer inspection, the others had nubs in place of arms.
Curious, but the whys of everything should be put on the backburner. The obvious conclusions, however, racked at her brain. Not Infested, not Sentient, but alien… probably from beyond the Outer Terminus.
"What… the fuck…"
She didn't have much time to mull this revelation over as a veritable tide of these aliens started to stream in. Their guns brought forth a torrent of both shrapnel and electricity shocks. Varzia swung her blade in a clockwise motion, switching the cold to electricity.
Varzia backflipped back, launching herself from one hand and as she flung backwards, the Dax met the attacking trajectories with precision blocking. The aliens continued to fire, filing past the checkpoint and into the Bazaar proper, but that was part of the plan. Well, "plan" being the favorable, resultant consequences of well-honed instincts, because it gave her more maneuverability.
Once a good amounted of distance was established, she threw out her Orvius into the crowd of aliens. They all dodged it, but was once more part of the "plan" which was the instinct to further dive in instead of scattering the foes and making it harder for the Dax.
The glaive was in their midst and she pulled on it. Green energy tugged at her, pulling her right after the thrown weapon, and she emerged in a Twisting Fury. Cutting and dancing, sword singing and legs kicking, she cleared a space out to work her magic —an oasis fighting a storm. A lone blade meeting many, forcing her to be an artist in motion. They were scrappy and furious and full of hate. One didn't truly fight someone else without getting some manner of measure from them. Whatever they were, they hated her for what she was.
Not her being a Dax, but human.
Those further back were cut down, choking and burning with radiation, but then a much larger one swatted at her with two arms. She was thrown back, slamming against the tree. This one loomed over the rest. Not so much the leader as a lieutenant of sorts. He-she-it-they took charge and the rest of them scampered toward the warframes, dragging them toward the door. There were about fifteen inert warframes and that was fifteen too many to lose to enemy hands. Warframes weren't invincible — though they came pretty damn close — but with the right equipment and right skills in the right situation, the Tenno could be brought down.
It didn't happen often, but it didn't need to be. The consequences were more than problematic: Zanukas and Archons, were the products of Corpus and Sentient tampering. She didn't want to see want to see what alien hands would do with a warframe.
The Dax surged forward, throwing out the glaive to interrupt the aliens from making off with the warframe, but the big one wasn't idle. If the Dax was a harsh wind, then this one fell like a tidal wave. She ducked under the blow, slicing at its stomach, but it possessed shields overlaying its skin. With one of its lower arms, it backhanded her and destroyed her shields. Both of them got each other's measure and could feel how out strong each other's shields were. She was at the disadvantage and the big alien knew this.
It, with surprising quickness, fell upon her, striking with such fury that it knocked her sword out of her hand. She slid under the follow-up, catching the returning glaive with her left hand. Twisting back around, she fell inside the alien's guard, using the glaive as a makeshift, bladed gauntlet. She struck again and again, forcing the alien back through sheer ferocity. The crack and shatter of the shields left it vulnerable and it lashed out, forcing her back.
Varzia smirked and shot out her hand, recalling her sword. It spun through the air, cleaving through the alien's sword arm. It hissed and could do nothing no else as the Dax met the blade halfway. Hefting it in her hands, she cleanly separated the head from the neck. Several shots rang out from Maroo who took down the last few aliens. She glanced back, seeing that all the warframes were still here.
Maroo gingerly stepped out of cover, revolver pointed at the door.
"What do you think this is?" Varzia asked.
"I don't think they came to us. The coordinates for the Relay are no longer near Mars. I think we came to them." Maroo sighed loudly. "All this fancy, alien, and new loot they dropped and we aren't anywhere near a place to pawn it off."
"Might explain why the Tenno got disconnected. Transference can only reach so far—" System-wide, in fact. "— but it makes sense that it won't totally work if we're beyond the Outer Terminus."
There was just one flaw in that theory. Most Tenno moved on from using the Somatic Link and started using a deeper level of Transference. The increasing scale of the enemies necessitated that the operators themselves to make an appearance on the battlefield. If the Transference was cut somehow because of distance from the Origin System, then they should have been either booted out of the warframes or barely be able to move.
Maroo went over to a nearby console and started typing away. "Well, I will admit to knowing jack about Eternalism, but unless you got a better idea, I'd say we traveled back in time. Not going to an isolated pocket of the past, but like… full on time travel."
"Why do you say that?"
A holographic still of Lua was displayed, except it was not the seat of the Orokin Empire. It was unmarred and untouched, looking a pristine white, and unadorned with a golden superstructure that encased the orbital body. Before anything else could be done, the hackles rose on the back of Varzia's neck.
She turned back to the entrance, seeing yet another one of those aliens, emitting a strange energy. It chilled her in a way that was similar, yet different to Void exposure. Just the sense of trying to see the horizon, unable to see comprehend that there was an end to it. She could march for days and never reach the edge. This new alien was almost certainly the leader. It wore a mask that covered the right set of eyes, while having a raised collar of strange looking ice jutting out from around its neck. In its hands were a sword, held with a tempered yet rough surety.
Warrior saw warrior. There was an understanding about the coming conflict— an inevitability as sure as thought and existence. Even still, it seemed there must be formalities.
"There's no stopping what's coming not. Make it easier on yourselves and just stand down," the alien said in a feminine voice, "And enjoy what time you have before the end comes."
Varzia purred. "Shame we can't be more diplomatic. Inter-species relations could certainly be… interesting."
"You jest," she hissed, "On the eve of everything."
"Nope. It is a shame. At the end of the day, I am a Dax and I have to do what I must." She raised her blade, settling into Rising Steel. "We both have served terrible people. I can feel it. But I choose who I serve now: that hot piece of ass over there, and the wielders of these warframes."
Yes, warrior saw warrior. This alien was working for someone great and terrible, and against her will. Once upon a time, Varzia had been proud to serve the Orokin until she began to see the atrocities they committed on the daily. This alien, she sensed, didn't even have the luxury of choice.
The alien inclined her head down ever so slightly. "Then relish in your choice, your freedom. And your death."
A tense pause before they fell upon her. Varzia knew she was going to lose after three sword strokes from the alien. The first blow nearly wrenched her blade from her hands, arms shaking from the sheer force. The second blow she barely dodged, narrowly missing her jaw. And the last blow, slashed right through the shields, scarring the silver breastplate on her chest.
This was an enemy she was unequipped to fight.
"Run Maroo! Get out of here!" she shouted.
"Haven't even called my safeword yet!"
Maroo dashed toward Varzia's foundry, throwing herself into a dive The alien tossed out an icy orb at the thief. It exploded in a rising cascade of strange, shimmering ice that froze Maroo at the waist, leaving her top half dangling in a diagonal slant. Regal Aya glittered beneath Maroo.
Varzia growled, throwing out a wild slash to buy her time to grab her glaive, but the alien grabbed the blade with a hiss. There was only a flash of blood before that same foreign ice weighed the blade down. It became heavier than she would have thought. She tried cycling a different effect and fire briefly flashed beneath the cold before it was quickly smothered to nothing. With no other choice, she quickly dropped the blade.
Any move she took would have left her vulnerable, so she was rather grateful that she wasn't instantly skewered. Instead, thanks to blocking with the glaive, only a good chunk of her armor around the midriff was torn to shred and she was sent in a tailspin. The ground lurched toward as a gut punch, vision spinning as she struggled to sit up, but she couldn't find which way was up.
"Come on, damn it!" Maroo shouted.
She blinked, seeing Maroo reaching down and plucking a Regal Aya. She slammed it into the Foundry slot, but instead of selecting a weapon to manifest, everything began to thrash and spark. The Foundry glitched out, sparking as it conjured up a Bolter Prime. Well, that definitely wasn't in the current rotation. It dropped down and Maroo barely managed to catch it. It fell with weight, dragging her arm like a pendulum.
With an exhausted heft, Maroo tossed it at Varzia. It fell into her hands, ready to go. Unmodded, unForma'd, and far from super-charged, it would have to be enough. She opened fire. The alien scampered before tossing out another a orb and another wall of ice formed. She tried shooting through, but Varzia got the sense that even if the weapon was modded heavily for penetration, it would not even begin to make a dent in this strange ice.
The alien leapt up into the air, grabbing the sword with two hands and brought it down with a heavy slam. She raised up the Bolter Prime to block. The blade didn't cut all the way through, but it was more than enough to damage the function. Varzia drew the still-stuck blade away with a throw, diving around the alien.
"Catch!"
Maroo tossed her a set of Tekko Prime gauntlets and Varzia fell into Gaia's Tragedy. Slow, powerful strikes were a forte of this stance, but the flurry of blows were still pretty tricky. She moved forward, throwing out the Ocean's Contempt. Tired she may be, she struck hard and fast, and finished with an overhead blow. And the alien took it in stride, grabbing her by the wrists with the lower arms. Ice crackled, breaking apart the weaponry and holding her arms stretched. Another hand grabbed her by the throat, the other raised the blade. Varzia thought about how Erra held her aloft, cracking her helmet open slowly as if to make her keenly aware that he was about to crack open her skull. She didn't struggle like last time and accepted what was about to come.
She grinned red and said, "Choke me harder, mommy."
At the very least, the alien obliged. Vision growing dim, she almost the air weeping and reaping into itself. Space intersected space and a Limbo warframe popped into existence a few feet away, stepping out from the Rift Plane. This one was colored red and gray with an Aureolus helmet, giving it a beaked appearance. It possessed no weapons, but it raised its hands, energy stirring all around it. The alien dropped Varzia and stepped back hesitantly.
And it promptly fell apart, limbs detaching, head falling.
In its place was a Tenno in the flesh, who wore a Voidshell suit, giving them a very androgynous appearance. The bronze and black metal gave them a very armored appearance and the helmet was intimidating with two large lenses. The Tenno and the alien faced off in a tense standoff before they both shot their hands out. That cold beam met Void fury in a blinding flash. The two tensed as they put more and more of themselves into the attack. Something had to give and the struggle broke off, sending wild sprays of energy against the walls. Streaks of ice and burn marks now decorated the walls.
"That's not Light," the alien hissed.
"No. It's the Void," the Tenno replied in a muffled voice.
"I was not warned about this." The alien glanced back before nodding her head. "No matter. I got what I came for."
The Tenno raised their hand, but the alien teleported out in a bright flash. There was a tense, searching pause before they turned to Varzia and extended a hand to the fallen Dax.
"Saved me yet again, ay, Tenno?"
"Always."
Despite being taller than the Tenno, Varzia was reminded of the wide gulf between Dax and Tenno.
"How did you get here?"
"I was here to get a Trinity Prime when Transference failed and kicked me back to my Orbiter. Not my Somantic Link, but in my Landing Craft." The Tenno looked right into Varzia. "I was hasty and made a rough plan with my Limbo. The theorem work for the Rift Walk was very hasty. It took me to where the Bazaar should have been, but it was empty. There were other Tenno ships there, searching for it, but I was kinda… floating in space. And without an Archwing life support system, I decided to make another Rift Walk without knowing where I was really going. The math was complicated, but I was basically Rift Walking to the idea of the Bazaar. And I can only assume this is some alternate timeline or such."
"Could have died."
The Tenno shrugged. "And? I used to believe that I was the warframe during the Old War. Just because my actual life is now on the line doesn't change the fact that some things need to be done."
Varzia laughed.
"Can someone get me out of this ice?!" Maroo shouted.
The Tenno popped up right next to the thief and laid their hands on it.
"No ordinary ice," they murmured.
Maroo said, "You know, I can't believe that the Tenno really are kids." The Tenno stared at Maroo, who held up both hands. "Teenagers, my bad. But I always thought those whispers to be some bizarre form of propaganda."
"It's an open secret. And doesn't really matter."
Void energies burned against the ice. Nothing happened for a moment and then the Tenno grunted, forcing their hands deeper into the ice. As the Tenno worked, Varzia took stock of the situation. She looked back and saw that all of the warframes, save the one near the Foundry, were stolen.
Damnit!
That alien managed to provide a good enough distraction for the rest of them to steal the 'frames. That was fourteen warframes in enemy hands, but before she could mull on that, something happened. The cold surged into the Tenno and they cried out, hands shaking as icicles sunk past the suit and into their skin. They stumbled back, the ice around Maroo breaking away as they did. The Tenno shivered, curling into themselves and falling into the Mesa Prime, disappearing into it.
They did not stir.
Maroo and Varzia looked down at the unconscious Tenno.
"Well. Shit."