[Ashwinder] Chapter 9 - Aftermath

“Captain!”

“We’ll fight together!”

“No, Captain!”

“We won’t abandon you!”

Dozens of soldiers spoke at once, trying to change his mind.

“I said GO!” Harry’s body shouted at them in an angry voice. “It’s an order!”

The Dax soldiers gritted their teeth, but, in spite of their unwillingness, they could not disobey a direct order. They took the tall, blue-skinned man with them and ran out of the corridor, leaving their captain behind.

As his comrades retreated, he turned to face the enemy. Over 30 eldritch monsters floated towards him. Thirty against one. . . The odds were overwhelmingly against him surviving that confrontation. He wanted to run. He wanted to escape. But his body wouldn’t budge. He had no control over it.

“Come,” she said in the same calm, low, husky, female voice. “Step forth. I’ll tear you all limb from limb.” (1)

⁂

As the violent battle came to an end, the female Dax stood hunched in the ruined corridor, surrounded by the broken bodies of 30 Sentients. Her Dax armour was torn in many places, slashed open by sharp blades and energy attacks, but it had held long enough to keep her alive. Blood trickled down her side where a deep gash had cut through her breastplate, and her left leg had a puncture wound that had gone straight through the thigh. Her breathing was harsh and heavy, and her eyesight began to darken. She knew that if she allowed herself a moment to sit and rest, her eyes would close forever. She might never wake up again.

Dragging her wounded and exhausted body, she started running after her comrades and the Orokin noble they were protecting. Her ragged breath and the clanking sound of her heavy armour seemed especially loud in the wide, abandoned halls of the majestic Orokin mansion.

The thought that her brothers and sisters in arms were ahead, struggling against the sentients, gave her the strength to push past the limits of her body, and Valkyr started running even faster than before.

She found them at the next junction, surrounded by sentients on all sides. Nearly a third of the Dax had already lost their lives, their bodies strewn all over the floor. The remaining Dax had formed a tight circle around the Orokin noble, the sharp tips of their slightly curved long swords aimed at the alien creatures who hovered menacingly around them.

For a moment, the two sides watched each other silently, not making a move. The stalemate was broken when Valkyr suddenly attacked the sentients’ rear, catching them completely off guard.

“Captain!” the Dax shouted in glee when she saw the red-haired woman stab her claws into a sentient’s back, tearing him in half.

With her arrival, the Dax soldiers got a second wind, and they threw themselves at the sentients with renewed vigour.

Their boosted morale, however, was not enough to make up for the discrepancy in numbers and individual prowess. The average sentient was more powerful and more dangerous than an average Dax.

“Don’t attack them alone!” Valkyr shouted. “Hold the line! Protect the noble!”

Her order came too late. A flying Sentient rushed straight at the Orokin from above, and the Dax, who had broken off their circle in order to lunge at the enemy, were unable to react in time.

The Orokin cried out in terror, his tall and lanky body flailing pathetically as he fell on his ass.

The sentient started rotating like a whirlwind of death, using his tongs-like limbs as swords, and the Orokin started crawling on the ground and screaming as he tried to escape. He got back up to his feet and ran at the closest Dax, the fear of death giving him wings.

Finally reaching the soldier, the Orokin suddenly grabbed her from the back of his neck with his big and long claw-like hand and pulled her back, throwing her between himself and the spinning sentient, using her as a meat shield.

The Sentient tore through the Dax female like she was made of paper, her mutilated body falling into pieces at the noble’s feet.

Everything stopped for Valkyr.

She didn’t feel the pain in her leg anymore. She didn’t hear the sounds of battle or the shouts of her comrades. Her hearing became muffled as though she were underwater.

Her vision narrowed, and a deep haze of red clouded her sight. Her bloodshot eyes locked on the Orokin. That same man she had nearly died protecting. That same man whom her brothers and sisters in arms were fighting to defend. After everything that they had sacrificed for him, he had just killed one of them with his own hands.

Something inside her snapped.

She let out a sound that didn’t sound human. Rage like she had never felt in her entire life exploded from within, and a savage scream came from her throat.

But she didn't charge at the sentient whose sharp, tongs-like arms had torn her Dax comrade apart. To the shock of not only her Dax comrades but also that of the Orokin, Valkyr actually charged at the Orokin himself!

It should have been impossible.

The Dax around him froze. Even the Sentients were momentarily stunned. Dax were bioengineered to be unable to defy their Orokin masters. It was impossible for them to disobey their orders, attack them, or show any sort of defiance at all. No Dax had ever done something like that before.

Yet there she was, right in front of her eyes: the red-haired Dax captain leapt like a tiger towards the blue-skinned noble, sinking her claws into his stomach. She lifted his large body above her head, and his scream of terror turned into one of desperate, agonising pain as Valkyr yanked her arms apart, tearing him apart at the waist and ripping his spine in half.

The Dax and the Sentients watched in shock how the blood sprayed across her armour and face as she tossed the two pieces of his body to the floor like garbage.

Soaked crimson from head to toe with the Orokin’s blood, Valkyr turned next to the Sentients now. Her bloodshot eyes burnt with rage, and for a moment, the Sentients didn’t move. Some of them even backed away. Her rage and hatred were almost palpable, her killing intent almost material.

⁂

Waking up, Harry let out a groan. Due to his transference to Valkyr, he had become accustomed to dreaming about her life from when she was a Dax soldier, many millennia in the past.

He did not dream of her memories in chronological order. It seemed more like whatever happened in the present would influence the memories he would dream about at night.

Sometimes, the dreams would be relaxing, showing him memories of her going on quiet patrol missions, training alone, or participating in drills with her fellow Dax soldiers. . . but other times, he would live through intense life-and-death moments and through gory and violent battles.

‘So that’s how she became a Warframe.’

His dream did not end after Valkyr killed the Orokin noble. The rest of the Dax continued to fight the remaining Sentients. . . but when the battle came to an end, Valkyr was apprehended by her own comrades.

‘What a messed-up world.’

When Command found out about Valkyr killing an Orokin, they ordered the other Dax to apprehend her. Due to their genetic engineering, the Dax could not disobey. They were forced to arrest their own Captain, the very person who had saved their lives, the one person they respected the most.

In a desire to understand just what had allowed a Dax, who should have been completely loyal to them, to kill an Orokin, the scientists of the Orokin Empire had performed all sorts of experiments on her. Unable to find an answer in a short period of time, and due to being in the middle of a great war against the Sentients, the Orokin Executor, Ballas, decided to turn her into a Warframe. It would serve as punishment for her actions, and the Empire would also gain an exceedingly powerful weapon at the same time.

Once he injected the infested serum into her veins, the female Dax turned into a monster. Her fair skin turned into an amalgam of tough hide and metal, her long, burning red hair fell off, her small hands grew claws like those of a tiger, and her sentience got buried underneath an all-consuming rage that made her unable to distinguish between ally and foe.

Harry moved his arm off his face and looked to his side when he sensed someone taking his left hand in theirs. The tough, cool, metallic claws told him who it was before he got to see them. It was his Warframe. She had been watching over him, kneeling at the side of his bed, the entire time.

But then, he sat up in bed with a start. Or, at least, he tried to. Pain, like someone had split his head with an axe, suddenly assaulted him, and his sight went white.

His cry alerted the Warframe next to him, and she stood up, flooding their transference link with her emotions of worry and anxiety.

Valkyr was not the only one who reacted to the sound he made. The automatic door of the room he was in opened as well, and a small drone flew inside the room before projecting out a familiar hologram. Considering that his head hurt so badly that he couldn’t even open his eyes, Harry did not see who it was, but their soothing voice was unmistakable.

"Harry Potter, you are conscious again. Can you provide a report on your-”

“Martialis! What happened to the colony?” he shouted, half-delirious from pain. “The Grineer Galleon! It was firing- I tried so hard to protect everyone. I-” he made another attempt to sit up, but it only resulted in another blinding bout of pain.

Due to the vivid memories he experienced through his transference with Valkyr, he had momentarily forgotten about the present, but once he remembered it, he started hyperventilating.

Yet again, he tried to sit up one more time, but this time around, Valkyr put her hands on his chest, immobilising him.

"You are experiencing the consequences of using the power of the Void beyond your body’s capabilities. Your condition is unstable. I advise against movement unless it is strictly necessary."

“What happened to Martialis?” Harry asked again. It was as though her words didn’t register in his mind. “What happened to the colony? The Grineer-”

"The colony is secure," Cephalon Suda replied. "Your efforts were not in vain. The survivors of Martialis have been successfully relocated to the Corpus colony on Alator."

As soon as she said that, he stopped struggling, and his body became slack.

“Thank God,” he muttered, his voice filled with relief. “I don’t remember much. How were they saved?”

The last thing he remembered was that he had been on the verge of falling unconscious as he poured his Void power into the Orokin Tower in a desperate attempt to protect everyone from the Grineer Galleon’s enormous artillery shells.

"The Tenno arrived moments after you lost consciousness," Cephalon Suda said. "My drones recorded the entire battle of Martialis. You will have access to the footage for study at a later time. Now that your immediate concerns have been addressed, please assess your current condition."

Harry opened his eyes slowly, preparing himself for another bout of pain, but it didn’t come. It seemed that as long as he lied in bed on his back, everything was alright.

Valkyr let out a low, growl-like sound, happy to see his eyes glancing in her direction. Cephalon Suda’s sophisticated-looking cube also seemed to shine brighter than usual when he opened his eyes.

“I feel tired and kind of dizzy. My head hurts. I’m thirsty.”

Cephalon Suda watched with great interest as, without anyone ordering Valkyr to do anything, the warframe picked up a bottle of water from the nightstand and carefully placed its flexible tube in Harry’s mouth, slowly helping him drink.

"Thank you, Valkyr. You’re the best," Harry said when he finished drinking, smiling at the Warframe, who responded with another low, tiger-like growl as she put the bottle away. To anyone else, that sound was downright frightening, but to Harry, it was comforting, adorable even.

With his immediate worries alleviated, he asked:

“What about Clem? Did he make it?”

"Yes. Darvo returned for him and extracted him from Martialis when the Grineer Galleon began its second assault on the Orokin Tower," Cephalon Suda answered.

The Cephalon proceeded to ask him a few questions about his mental and physical state before turning to leave, understanding that he needed rest to recuperate. When the Cephalon was about to leave his room, Harry called her name:

“Suda?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for the Osprey robots. The last one out of the ten Ospreys you gave me helped save Valkyr’s life. . . and. . . I’m sorry about that weapon you gave me. It broke during the battle.”

"I am pleased to have been of assistance. Your safe return was my highest priority. I look forward to our continued collaboration. For now, rest and recuperate."

As Suda’s hologram disappeared, the drone flew out of the room. Harry closed his eyes and let out a sigh.

Sensing Valkyr gently taking his hand in hers again, he opened his eyes and turned his attention to her.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Sensing the worry in his voice, Valkyr sent her emotions of content and happiness through their link and let out that chilling, tiger-like groaning sounds she often made.

He turned his body on his side to face her, and it was only then that he finally noticed the numerous scars marring her armoured skin. He squeezed her hand gently, guilt eating at him inwardly. She may have healed her wounds with her Hysteria ability, but the scars of the injuries she had received were still there.

“You’ve been through a lot,” he said.

When Valkyr took his hand and brought it to her own face, he found himself smiling as he understood her wordless request. He started caressing her armoured face with his thumb, and the cat-like Warframe purred like a mountain lion from his touch.

By now, having interacted with three different Tenno over the course of several weeks, Harry had learnt quite a few things about the common sense of the current era and about what was normal and what was not normal among the Tenno and their Warframes.

He knew that most Tenno were not that close to their Warframes. The very fact that Valkyr could move and think for herself was not normal; the only other Warframe that had shown such capability was Angie’s Excalibur Umbra.

Even so, Harry did not care about what others thought about him. To him, this Warframe had saved his life not just once but multiple times. Just the day before, she had given him her lifeblood, choosing to sacrifice herself for him. She wasn’t just a ‘meatsuit’ or a weapon of war to him. She was his closest ally in this time period, his closest friend.

“Thank you, Valkyr,” he said sincerely. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Remembering the cruel fate she had once suffered at the hands of the Orokin, Harry vowed never to let her endure anything like that again. He didn’t keep that promise to himself. As he gently caressed her armoured helmet, he shared his thoughts with her through both his words and their Transference.

The Warframe’s vocal cords were too large for human speech, but she understood him perfectly. A soft, mountain lion-like purr came from her, and that calming sound eased Harry into sleep while her feelings of contentment and happiness flowed into his mind through their Transference link.

⁂

Two days had passed since the battle of Martialis, and Harry had already made a full recovery from his lethargic state.

Thanks to the large number of survivors this time around (normally, the Grineer massacred or enslaved every living thing whenever they attacked a colony), Harry had become something like a small celebrity in Larunda Relay. With two million people having survived the ordeal, it was no wonder that the news of his exploits had spread so quickly. The fact that instead of escaping, Harry had resolved himself to sacrifice his life to protect the people of Martialis had left a deep impact on them.

Now, every time he left Cephalon Suda’s headquarters and went out for a walk in the space city, men, women, cyborgs, and even some Grineer defectors would stop him to shake his hand, some of them also asking for his permission to take a picture with him. Quite a few of them were actually people from Martialis who had taken refuge in Tenno relays after almost dying at the hands of the Grineer.

The boy was surprised, too, that he found himself not hating this newfound fame. Unlike his fame as the Boy Who Lived from his original timeline, this time around, it was for something that he achieved through his own deeds and sacrifice, not through his parents’ deaths.

Nevertheless, being stopped every ten minutes by random strangers to shake their hands quickly got old. Starting with the second day, Harry resorted to walking around by “hitching a ride” in Valkyr’s body with his astral projection while his real body remained inside Cephalon Suda’s quarters. Without him walking around in his own body, no one had the guts to approach Valkyr.

That being said, currently, Harry was inside Darvo’s ship, wearing a futuristic space suit provided by Cephalon Suda, on a flight towards Mercury. Naturally, Valkyr was with him as well.

Although the large space city, Larunda Relay, was orbiting Mercury, the planet itself was not under the control of the Tenno. It was Grineer territory. As was the case for most of the planets occupied by the Grineer, the terraformed regions were covered by large gulags where the Grineer clones worked tirelessly to mine the ores and various natural resources found in the crust of the planet.

Mercury was the smallest planet in the Origin System, just slightly bigger than Earth’s moon, so it was not an easy task to slip undetected past the Grineer’s network of satellites monitoring the planet. Thanks to Darvo’s help, however, Harry managed to land without any incidents. Darvo's invisible spaceship was too high-tech for the Grineer satellites to detect.

⁂

Whether he felt guilty for dragging Harry into the mess on Martialis a few days ago or he just wanted to forge a closer relationship with him after his display of strength against the Grineer, Harry was not sure which was the case, but Darvo had been extremely accommodating to him.

Not only had he happily agreed to give him a ride to Mercury on his invisible ship, but he also provided Harry with the location of a gulag that had been abandoned after the Grineer stripped the entire place clean of all the resources. It was the perfect place to experiment with the creation of Ashwinders.

Having prepared a significant amount of flammable junk beforehand, Harry used the power of the Void to levitate it out of Darvo’s ship and carry it to a fair distance away, into a narrow corridor.

“Incendio!” Harry chanted as he aimed his Amp at the pile of junk.

Darvo, who was standing next to him, watched the scene with mild interest. Valkyr was tilting her head at the fire curiously too.

“So you’re saying that a magical snake will be born from this fire?” the older man asked.

“I hope so,” Harry replied. “But we’ll have to go away. Please don’t leave any drones or other devices behind to record it, or our trip here now will be nothing but a waste of time. The Ashwinders won’t spawn unless it’s a magical fire that is left unchecked and unsupervised.”

“How long do you reckon it would take?”

Harry shrugged his shoulders.

“It could be anywhere from a couple of hours to a day or two. It depends on how quickly the fire will go down. The snakes are created not from the fire itself but from its dying embers. Let’s go back to the relay. We can check again tonight if you’re not busy or tomorrow morning.”

“But what if they disappear?” Darvo asked. “What if you can’t find them anymore?”

“The Ashwinders born from the embers will die very soon after being spawned. But, before dying, they will always lay eggs which will then start to burn and create another fire. So you can always find them by checking which place caught on fire because of their eggs. They could be very dangerous if left to their own devices. They could burn down entire towns and forests like that.”

As the three of them headed back to the ship, Harry received a holographic transmission on his wristwatch.

“Heyyy, Harry!”

If the young, chipper voice was not a dead giveaway, the bubblegum-pink hair certainly left no doubts about her identity.

“Hey, Angie. What’s up?”

“I came to visit you, but you’re not here.”

“Ah, I’ve made a small trip to Mercury. But I’m on my way back now. Did something happen?”

“Mhm,” she replied. But when she saw him getting worried, she added, “Don’t worry; it’s nothing bad. But I won’t tell you more through the transmission. We’ll talk more in person.”

“Alright, keep your secrets,” he said, smiling.

The girl grinned before terminating the call.

⁂

Upon returning to the relay, Harry said his thanks and bid his goodbyes to Darvo, heading straight to Cephalon Suda's quarters.

“Finally, you’re back!” the pink-haired girl said instead of a greeting, her arms crossed to her chest as she sat on his bed.

“It’s good to see you, Angie,” Harry said, smiling. “I can finally thank you in person for saving my life. Thank you. You saved us all.”

The Skykiller. The Fear Eater. The God King. Those titles that the people of Martialis started shouting when the powerful sandstorm swept over the colony belonged to the Warframe Inaros. The people of Mars had been worshipping Inaros as their god since time immemorial, from the old days when the Orokin Empire was still at the height of its power.

And Inaros was Angie’s Warframe too. The cute little girl pouting on his bed was the one who had single-handedly destroyed a 4-kilometre-long Grineer warship and killed thousands of Grineer troops in one fell swoop. Although he had watched the footage of the battle recorded by Cephalon Suda’s drones, it still felt surreal that Warframes were actually capable of such widespread destruction.

“At least you do have some common sense, mhm,” Angie said while hopping off the bed. “Come, follow me to the dry dock. I want to show you something super awesome!”

The girl grabbed him by the hand and started dragging him after her, walking as fast as her short legs could carry her. Harry did not fight it, following her without making a fuss. He was curious what had gotten her so excited.

Arriving at the dry dock, he had to squint his eyes as he was suddenly flashbanged by an explosion of pink, yellow, and blue.

“What the hell is that thing?”

That was the wrong thing to say because Angie kicked him in the shin for it. She would have probably done a lot more if not for the growl that came from behind them, reminding the girl of the fact that an extremely loyal and overprotective Warframe was following Harry around like a shadow.

“You’re really rude! You boys really have no taste. Or did you and Galen talk ahead so that you’d make fun of me? My ship has the best fashion in this whole relay!”

Harry glanced at her and then back at her ship. The bright pink paint with the various yellow, blue, and red kuaka and kavat floofs drawn on it made her ship stand out like a disco ball at a funeral. It almost reminded him of Umbridge. He shuddered in revulsion at the thought of that.

“Tastes are subjective. . . I suppose?”

Seeing her darkening scowl, he barely suppressed a snicker.

“No culture,” she said while shaking her head, her voice dripping with disappointment. “Come, follow me inside.”

As the spaceship’s hatch opened, Harry was relieved to see that the interior was not as obnoxiously pink as the outside. It looked relatively normal.

The three of them walked together until they arrived in front of something that looked like a coffin of glass and steel.

“Is that-”

“Yes,” Angie replied before he could finish his question. “It’s a Warframe cryopod. It’s the cryopod that the Corpus governor from Martialis tried to hide. The thing that lured the Grineer to attack the colony. And now it’s yours.”

“What?!” Her statement caught him completely unprepared.

“It’s yours,” Angie reiterated. “This crypod belongs to you.”

“Are you serious?”

“How many times do I have to repeat myself?” Angie asked, annoyance seeping into her voice.

“I just didn’t expect you to give me a Warframe.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” she said, offended.

“I mean, you kept going on about how I ‘stole your Valkitty’ and such.”

A hue of red appeared in her cheeks at his words.

“Why do you have to dig up my dark history from the long-forgotten past? If I say this Warframe cryopod is yours, then it’s yours!”

Harry looked at her with a deadpan. She was talking as though several years had passed when, in fact, it happened only a few weeks ago.

Dropping the playful and pouty act, Angie said in a serious voice:

“Listen, Harry, what you did in Martialis two days ago was nothing short of a miracle. Me, Galen, the Lotus, and even that clown, Karim, used to have our reservations when it came to you. We thought you could be an agent of the Man in the Wall. But you went ahead and showed us your pure heart.”

“That other Tenno that was with you in Martialis ran with his tail between his legs, thinking it was a lost cause. And it was. He wasn’t wrong for escaping with his life. . . But you stayed behind. You were ready to lay your life down for their sake, for strangers that you’ve never interacted with before. And you fought until the very end to protect those people.”

Harry felt himself getting embarrassed at the frank way she was praising him.

“But if it weren’t for you, everything would have been lost. In the end, I failed. You’re the one who saved everyone in the end,” he said.

“But if it weren’t for you, there would have been nobody left alive for me to save,” Angie retorted. “You saved two million people, Harry. You are a hero. And we, the Tenno, believe that one should be rewarded appropriately for their deeds, be they good or bad. The Lotus also told me that you refused to kill this Warframe and the Corpus who were guarding her. If there is anyone who deserves to have this cryopod, it’s you.”

By coincidence, his holo-watch started ringing at that moment, signalling an incoming transmission.

“Go on, answer it,” Angie said. It looked like she had expected him to get that call.

When Harry picked up the call, the hologram of a 17-year-old boy with a crew-cut hairstyle and a rather eye-catching set of black scars on his neck and jaw appeared.

“Hey, man. How’s it going?”

“Hey, Galen. I’m good. . . But I’m actually in the middle of something now. Could I call you in one hour or so?”

“Ah, you and Angie are about to defrost the cryopod, aren’t you?” Galen said knowingly.

“Huh, you knew,” he said in realisation.

“Of course I did. I actually called you for something related to that. You see, word of deeds on Martials reached the Tenno Councillors. And they decided to give you a helping hand now, as a reward.”

“Help me with what?” Harry asked, not sure where this conversation was going.

“Well, you can’t really expect to be loafing around in Suda’s syndicate forever, can you?” Angie said.

“She’s right,” Galen supported her. “You’re a Tenno now. You’re one of us. Our brother in arms.”

Not for the first time that day, Harry felt embarrassed and inwardly touched.

“I-, I don’t know what to say,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his head.

“Don’t expect this to be a common occurrence,” Galen continued as if he couldn’t see his awkwardness. “In the future, you will have to acquire the resources and credits you need on your own. But now, in the beginning, it is only right that we give you a helping hand. In the end, nobody but us, the Tenno, can give you an Orbiter with a fully functional Helminth room.”

Harry had no idea what was so special about the Tenno’s Orbiter or what a Helminth room was, but he could tell from the way that Galen was speaking about it that it was quite a big deal.

“Thank you, guys. You’ve been helping me out a lot from the very moment I arrived. If there’s any way I could pay you back, just let me know.”

“Since you’re offering, we could use an extra pair of hands in this damned war. . .”

“Galen!” Angie said in reproach.

“Come on, Angie, surely you see it too. From the footage we got on Martialis, his Valkyr is incredible. She’d be unstoppable in one-on-one encounters. And we could really use some help here, especially now that I’m bedridden.”

“Bedridden?! What happened?”

“He’s not actually bedridden,” Angie explained. “But his Warframe was killed in combat. He’s suffering from Transference Static now. He needs to sit out and wait for a few hours before he can use his Transference on another Warframe again.”

Harry couldn’t help asking:

“Who would even be able to kill a Warframe? . . . Like, how is this war dragging on for so long? It’s been more than a week already, hasn’t it? Angie, you’ve singlehandedly obliterated that four-kilometre-long spaceship in Martialis and killed thousands of clones instantly. How in the world are the Corpus and Grineer able to fight against you for so long?”

He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. The more he thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. The Tenno and their Warframes were almost like demigods. If there were thousands of Tenno and they were all capable of similar feats to what Angie had shown on Mars, it felt ridiculous that anyone or anything could stand in their way.

“It’s not that simple, Harry,” said Angie with a sigh. “Not all Warframes are capable of such feats. And even Inaros, he can’t do things on such a scale all the time. I had the home advantage now since we happened to be in the deserts of Mars. . . That said, it’s not the Grineer or the Corpus who give us a hard time. It’s the-”

“It’s those damned LOOT GOBLINS!” Galen suddenly shouted, startling Harry. “Those fucking assholes! Those lawless, spineless, credit-grubbing pieces of shit!”

His screaming rant left Harry at a loss for words. He had never expected Galen, the serious and capable Tenno, to blow a gasket like that.

“Loot goblins?” he asked, befuddled, his mind going to the Goblins from his own timeline.

“He’s talking about other Tenno,” Angie said, snickering slightly, seemingly amused at how Galen lost his cool. “His Excalibur got assassinated by an Ash.”

“I’m afraid I’m not following,” Harry said, his confusion growing deeper.

Having got his anger under control, at least for the moment, Galen answered:

“The reason why this war keeps dragging on forever is because it’s not a simple Tenno vs Corpus or Tenno vs Grineer. It’s more like a free-for-all battle royale where each camp has Tenno on their side. The Tenno aren’t one united entity. Most of us have full autonomy. We can choose to follow whichever syndicate or organisation aligns with our motives and beliefs. . . We don’t have a real government or a true hierarchy of command. . . “

“But what about the Lotus and those Tenno Councillors that you guys mentioned?”

“It’s about time for the Councillors to step in, but who knows how much good it’ll do? Unless the Lotus herself says something, it’s unlikely for this to end anytime soon.”

“But Lotus never orders us to do anything,” Angie also explained. “She gives us suggestions and tells us what would be the optimal way to complete our missions, but she never acts as our conscience.”

Harry was momentarily silent, seemingly thinking hard about his decision.

“I can help you in this war,” he said eventually. “But don’t make me kill innocents, regardless of whether they’re Corpus or Grineer.”

Feeling as though his definition of “innocent people” may not be the same as theirs, he added, “If you need me to protect the civilians from getting caught in the crossfire, you can always count on me. But don’t ask me to break into a facility and kill random people for no reason. . . “

“I can work with that. It’s exactly what we need. Too many Tenno joined the side of Grineer in this war. Fucking mind-boggling. Imagine joining those butchers just because of a damn microwave gun. I swear, if it were up to me, I-”

“Alright, Galen, we’ll talk to you later,” Angie cut him off before he started going on another rant. “Harry and I are going to defrost this cryopod now.”

“Sigh. Right. We’ll catch up later. I’m also curious to see what the Warframe sleeping inside is.”

As the holographic transmission came to an end, Angie and Harry turned their attention to the Warframe cryopod. Having already tried to dissuade her once and failed, Harry understood that the girl was dead set on gifting it to him, so he stopped trying to change her mind.

“Ordis, you can start the defrosting process,” Angie instructed her ship’s Cephalon.

“Understood, Operator. Ordis will begin immediately.”

While they were waiting for the ice to thaw, Harry couldn’t help teasing the little girl:

“Say, Angie?”

“Yes?”

“What if. . . Well, what if it turns out that it’s a Prime?”

Angie froze, looking as though she had never even considered that possibility.

“Argh, I hate you, Harry!” she shouted, making him burst into laughter.

⁂⁂⁂⁂⁂

AN: Sorry for the delay. I should’ve posted this chapter early in the morning but I couldn’t. I have actually proofread it now, while I’m at work 😅 I hope there aren’t many typos.

(1) See chapter 4 for the full dream