We left the arena to head back towards the castle, where Simon and Chrysalis should still be around. Considering the general mood when we left them to it, it might be getting a little ‘hot and heavy’ in there. I chuckled slightly at the thought, then turned to Az-Barko, asking him, “So, how much SIVA does Simon generate in a day? ‘Cause so far, all the stuff he’s done with it seems like it should’ve taken anywhere from months to years, but I get the impression that he hasn’t been on here for even a year yet.”
Az-Barko smiled, “Depends, if we can find metal, he can change to SIVA. But he naturally makes about enough to outfit ten soldiers a day. So I’d say… Two hundred pounds of SIVA?” He looked to Grimgor, and nudged him, “You better at math, me more military. What you say?”
Grimgor nodded, “He makes two hundred pounds a day naturally, if he eats well and is healthy. Not to mention he can make the SIVA replicate by absorbing inorganic matter, which he has done for most of the buildings here. Luckily, we are surrounded by viable mines and quarries, from which he can make more.”
I nodded at this, contemplating. “All right then, so he just absorbs the SIVA and then uses it to make the assorted buildings and such? That’s pretty interesting, though I have to say, wouldn’t it be more efficient to build the framework of a building, then have him fill it out with SIVA?” I questioned, trying to think of an explanation for the buildings to have been completed so rapidly.
Grimgor shook his head, “Nay, once he gets all the SIVA together, we just draw up the plans, and he builds it. Takes all the raw materials and absorbs them, then drops a SIVA core to regulate the building.”
“I guess that would work pretty well. Oh, the castle’s just ahead, hmm, I wonder what Chrysalis and Simon are getting up to?” I said, noticing that we were only a couple of streets down from the castle, and that there were less Ologs out and about now that it was approaching evening.
Az-Barko smiled and let loose a slight chuckle, “Simon will be happy… Chryssi like Simon lots, heard her talk about him at tavern, when Simon not with us.”
Grimgor snickered “Yeah, although I’ll miss teasing her about her crush on the bossman, I’m right happy fer the two of ‘em.”
As we were making our way to the castle, we saw a large object streak across the sky. It landed somewhere to the north of the city, with a resounding crash that shook the very ground beneath our feet. Az-Barko frowned as he seemingly listened to what I assumed to be orders from Simon. “We go see what happened. Simon going with Orvok and Chryssi. Meet up at crash site.” He then looked down at me and smiled, “Ready meet E.T?”
“See ya there.” I said, placing down an Archwing Launcher. Within seconds the aerospace apparatus landed, and I took off to the north on my Itzal. It was a sleek purple set of wings, and I was covering the ground at a rate of about ninety miles an hour. It was nowhere near as fast as it could go out of atmosphere, but really, that’s because friction is a bitch. I came up on the smoking crash site rapidly and deactivated the Archwing, sending it back to the landing craft. It appeared to have been a satellite, about the size of a four door car. It was around six miles away from the city, and the valley it had fallen in was now gray and dusty. The satellite itself was in a crater about thirty feet deep, which was still hot, but not hot enough to damage Ivara’s shields.
I drew my bow and kept an arrow at the ready as I made my way around it cautiously, keeping an eye out for loose rocks so I wouldn’t lose my footing. The satellite was covered in hexagonal plates, and there was a glass bulb just visible beyond them. It was remarkably undamaged from a drop from orbit, though that may have just been the materials it was made from. I headed back up to the edge of the crater and pulled out a scanner, scanning the satellite, before sitting down to wait for Simon and co.’s arrival.
Simon and co. reached me in a surprisingly short amount of time, and I was about to ask how they got here so fast, until I heard what sounded like a loud snuffling sound. I backflipped onto my feet to show off a little and turned around, finding a massive Graug covered in red crystal and what looked like crimson metal plates connected together with red cables. Simon smiled in response to my confusion, which was odd since my face couldn’t express emotion, given I was in a warframe. “Oh, meet Snuffles, the Stygian Graug, he is our… I guess you could say guard dog. We feed him cows. He also is quite partial to snuggling, if you want to pet him.” He then looked around and clicked his tongue in annoyance, “This is going to be fun, isn’t it?”
“Why is it going to be fun, if I may ask?” I asked curiously. Really, the lack of expressions on a warframe makes the subtleties of communication just fall flat.
Simon gestured to the satellite in the crater, “Because that is a WARSAT from the Destiny universe. If the WARSAT’s are here, then so can so many, many other bad things.” he then looked at the WARSAT for a moment, his eyes glowing as he seemed to start looking for something. He then smiled, “Although, this WARSAT has a few goodies for us… Namely a copy of the Valkyrie protocol, and what looks like...no...no that’s not…” he leapt down onto the WARSAT, turning into a nanomachine mist and seeping between the cracks and through the plating.
He kicked the uppermost plate of the satellite out a few seconds later, jumping out with what looked like a humanoid robot wearing space age clothing in his arms and what seemed to be a core of some sort in his free hand. “Ladies and gentlemen… we have a Beta version of RASPUTIN.”
Grimgor frowned, “Tha’ name… it sounds bloody familiar…”
“Well, I have no idea who this RASPUTIN is, but given that this satellite is from Destiny, I’m assuming from there.” I said, nodding in thought. I Transferred out of the warframe since it didn’t seem like there was any immediate, pressing danger.
Orvok was silent as he stared at the WARSAT, but upon hearing the name RASPUTIN, he snapped out of his revery. “Th-that is the name of Zmatok before he fully ascended! He spoke of a land beyond our stars, but… we always thought he meant the world of the gods… If the god of Chaos was actually a being from another world… Then… we were all saved by a dimension hopper. That is a helluva lot to take in…”
Az-Barko nodded, “Not really care who save people, just happy people save-” The world around us suddenly halted, Az-Barko stopping mid-sentence. The entire world turned a shade of gray, almost as if light had stopped moving. I turned towards Simon, who was also able to move, and was looking around curiously.
“So… What’s this?” I asked him, gesturing at the now gray world.
“Why, I just figured we could have a little chat, just the three of us.” A masculine voice said from behind me, then I felt a tap on my left shoulder. “Yeah, you Tenno have weird powers… Gotta be strange, having all that void in you… anyway, I needed to talk to Simon, and I figured that I’d talk to you as well, as you are his guest.” I turned around to see a younger white gentleman in a red business suit and black shoes, with a fedora neatly placed on his head. He had his sleeves rolled up, and a chaos star tattooed on the back and front of each hand. A cane was in his hand, with runic markings running down it, etched into the wood, shining as if it was waxed recently.
Simon was staring at him incredulously. “Hank?! What the hell man, I thought-”
The man chuckled, “My name isn’t Hank, kiddo, not really. My name is Zmatok, and I am the reason your pal Secundus was able to come here and help you, as well as my son.” he smiled and leaned back in mid-air. “It’s a good thing I pulled a few strings, too. You were scheduled to die by your local death entity for the next day. Anyway, I’m here to give you both a few pointers, and maybe even a boon.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, looking him up and down suspiciously. Given that Simon already knew him, and it seemed as if he hadn’t held up his end of some type of deal, I was cautious about what he was saying. Granted, the time stopping was a factor in that as well, but anyhow.
Simon eyed Zmatok critically. “Start talking, why did you displace me and my sister?”
Zmatoks smile grew a little strained. “I wasn’t planning on your sister coming that day… I am truly sorry to put her in the danger you will be facing, but… I knew you were what the kin needed, bud. I needed someone who cared about others more than himself to lead them, to get my blessing. So… I kinda planted a few mental seeds of what you’d want to cosplay as, maybe talked with a few void dwellers and had them make some gear for you...then definitely gave you the set once the ball got rolling.” he sighed “Trust me kid, this whole mess is worse than you could even imagine. The Hive are trying to get here, as are the Vex. I can’t get a lock on them, even, and I’m supposed to know all possibilities. It’s frightening to think that my people, my children and grandchildren… that they are in such danger.” He looked to Simon, “If you had to anger and hurt people to save Roxies life, or maybe the life of her child, what would you do?”
“So… Why am I here exactly? So far this seems like Simon’s stuff, not mine.” I asked, looking at Zmatok, who was looking at Simon.
He smiled at me “I may have seen a few… threads of yours. And I may or may not have seen that you could use a hand in the future. So, I made a… what was it called… Umbra warframe?… pulled him out of a dead ‘verse, fully enhanced too… changed how his Formas work, so you can just edit your brains out.”
“Excalibur Umbra? Huh, nice.” I said nodding. The warframe he summoned looked exactly how I thought I would have changed the colors, namely purple and gray, with gold accents. I transferred into it, flexing my fingers. I drew the katana at my hip, the Skiajati I believed it was called, and examined the golden blade. Sheathing it, I turned to Zmatok, “Thanks, this’ll definitely be a large help.” I turned back towards where my Ivara was, and noted that it was gone. ‘Oh well.’ I thought to myself. ‘Can’t have multiple warframes out at once.’
Simon then looked to Zmatok, “What boon do you have for me? I doubt I need any new weapons.”
Zmatok grinned and walked over to Simon, tapping right at his center mass as the core from earlier was absorbed by the SIVA. “Well, bucko, I am giving you two, to try and make us even. I just upgraded your SIVA with the Valkyrie protocol, so those fancy Javelins from back home are yours to summon and use at will. As for gift number two...” He smiled “How about I make it so you have the same powers as my grandbaby Chryssi? You’ll be able to be anything, anyone, that you want.”
Simon frowned, then nodded. “Okay, deal.” Zmatok nodded and shook his hand before disappearing in a flash, the world slowly turning colorful again as time resumed.
“-d,” Az-Barko finished his statement, then blinked in surprise as he saw me in Excalibur Umbra, and Simon looking largely unchanged, other than standing in a different spot. Az-Barko looked around, before sighing in frustration. “Time magic?”
“Eh… More like a global time stop by a deity.” I said, looking at the now empty space where Zmatok had stood before he left.
Simon nodded, “Seems Zmatok knows what’s going on, and gave us a bit of a boost.” He then smiled at me warmly. “Well, I think it’s time we all head home, huh? Shouldn’t keep your worlds people in the lurch, eh?”
Chrysalis pouted, “Aww…. your heading home already? I was hoping for some girl talk…”
“Uhh… Yeah, totally a girl, not at all androgynous. BYE!!” I shouted before taking off with my Itzal once more. After a few minutes of flying south, and noting that the entire desert that the city was built on was barren, landed next to my landing craft. I entered it, telling Ordis to take off, and we slipped into the Void a few minutes later.
We came out of the Void over Canterlot just in time to find a pink shield shatter under the force of what seemed to be several thousand black insectoid ponies, who started to dive bomb the ground, green cones forming in front of them. The ponies on the street were panicking, and there were some of what I now recognized as Changelings change form from ponies into their natural forms. “Ordis… Prep my Atomos, Amprex, and Jat Kittag.” I grabbed my weapons from the arsenal and jumped out of the still moving ship, landing in the middle of a group of them.
“Now, you’re all going to die…”