The Void of Harmony

by Mordred

The World Through the Void

“Operator, I have *BZZT* DISCOVERED THE DEMON *BZZT* found the person who’s energy signature matches the hammer you found,” Ordis’s voice rang out through the the ship.

I stopped meditating and stood up, stretching slightly to get the kinks out, and, with a few *pops* I was satisfied. “Ordis, can you take us to the person that made this hammer?”

Ordis’s voice rang out once again, “Of course I can, are you *SURE YOU WISH TO GO WHERE YOU MAY NOT RETURN?* Sorry Operator, I will need to look into these glitches sometime.”

“It’s fine Ordis, and yes, I am sure, but as a precaution I’m leaving my Mirage warframe here so that we can find our way back,” I said, though in truth, the constant personality shifts were beginning to get a bit annoying. “Let me know when we arrive in their atmosphere, I’m going to try to think of a name for this new Focus school that I’ve discovered.”

“Of course Operator.” Ordis said, the ship smoothly accelerating out of the planet’s atmosphere I watched somewhat in awe as the ship slipped into the Void, which, despite its name, was not black, but white, with pale blue energy swirling around aimlessly. I tore my eyes from the amazing view, and went back to thinking of the name. As we were in the Void, I thought of what had happened with Lua in game, and then what was revealed earlier this year, that I would sadly never see.

“Ordis, I’ve thought of a name for the new school.” I said proudly, thinking of how perfectly it fit with the school’s attributes, on top of being a nod to something that seemed would be great.

“Operator, *BZZT* WHAT DID YOU DECIDE TO NAME IT *BZZT*, sorry again, this seems to be getting worse,” Ordis said, with a seemingly sad tone to his voice. I let the HUD be enabled again at the end of his response, and what I saw surprised me. In game, Ordis is a glass cube that has a corner cracked, but here, there was a single long crack that went from the top of his casing to the bottom, skirting around the center by a hair’s breadth.

“I have decided to christen it ‘Umbra’, after the lost class of frames that are supposedly on par with the Primes,” I said, going back to meditating, and trying to come up with ways to use this new school to go with my assorted loadouts. Currently I was using Ivara, with the Daikyu as the primary weapon, the Spira Prime as the secondaries, and the Karyst dagger as the melee weapon.

I was thinking on what abilities to start unlocking in this focus tree, when Ordis’s voice snapped me back to reality, Ordis saying, “Operator, we have arrived, but there seems to be odd energy readings surrounding the planet, not unlike from Equus, where we just left.”

I shrugged, and said, “You might as well take us down, it shouldn’t be the same planet in any case as we wouldn’t have had to go through the Void to get here otherwise, though I will want you to keep the Liset cloaked and drop me with my Archwing.”

“Of course Operator, be *BZZT* TEAR ANY WHO ATTACK APART *BZZT* careful. Operator, this is odd, the frequency at which glitches are occurring is far higher than normal.” I nodded, and stepped to the back of the ship, where the drop point was, along with my Archwing. I got in to the human shaped opening, and it rolled, dumping me into the thin upper atmosphere of the planet.

My Itzal roared out from the ship and attached itself to my lower back, giving me full maneuverability both in and out of atmosphere. I aimed down at the planet’s surface, opening the throttle all the way, and was surprised to break the sound barrier on the way down to the planet’s surface. When I was about a hundred feet off the ground I pulled up, heading towards where I believed Ponyville would be.

I slowed to a stop at the outskirts of Ponyville, and dropped from the Archwing, and it flew back to the Liset, which was quite close behind me apparently. I walked up the dirt path into Ponyville. There didn’t seem to be anything too different in this world’s Ponyville, but something that I took note of was that most of the ‘ponies’ looked like humans with weird skin colors. I realized that this was an alternate world when I saw a woman that was the spitting image of Twilight from my world, except she looked particularly depressed.

I then sheard what sounded oddly like Discord, who was… trying to comfort her? I used Prowl to become invisible and get closer, to see what was going on. Only, what I saw looked nothing like what I was told looked like Discord, he was wearing a rusty red suit with a pink kerchief and had what looked like a metal arm made to resemble an eagles talon, but with five fingers. He had the telltale horns coming out of a greying red hair, but also had an odd cane and necklace that I could feel an odd power emanating from, as well as his tail, but ending in a stub, as if the end of his tail was cut off. “Twilight, you were not in the wrong, no matter how cruel Celestia was, you have only been kind, I can tell.”

She sobbed “But… why are you being so nice?! I was the student of the woman who tortured you, killed your people! Made over ninety percent of your family either leave Equus, or just plain stop existing! Why, Why would you be kind to me?!”

Discord smiled warmly “Because that was not you. You freed her sister from the curse that she put on her, saved the planet from dying, and had NOTHING to do with her cruelties.” he held her by the shoulders “Twilight, look at me. Everything the Magi did, both to me, and my people, hell, even to The Kin was taught behavior from Celestia, or magically implanted into them by Solaris.” He smiled at her and hugged her “Now, I think you need a new teacher, no? One who actually knows what friendship is. Why not me?”

He then turned straight towards me after Twilight nodded slowly, and he ushered her inside. “Why don’t you come out now, Void child. I promise, I mean you no harm.”

“The version of you on my world has different ideas than you, it seems,” I said, as I deactivated Prowl. I handed him twenty bits, and continued, “If you don’t mind, could you give these back to Twilight? The ability I was using kind of automatically steals from everyone in a set radius around me, and I didn’t know how to return them politely.”

He smiled kindly and nodded “I will let her know she dropped them. Her pocket will have a mysterious hole.”

“Thanks man, stealing when you don’t need it isn’t really my thing, but it wasn’t something I’ve figured out how to control with this warframe yet.” I said, smiling back, even though he could not see my face as I was in a warframe at the moment.

Discord pointed with his cane to my left, a door unfolding out of thin air into my path. “I have friends in the city through that door, just say that Discord sent you. They will let you in. Just… don’t judge them on appearances, okay? They have had a rough time.”

“It should be fine, as long as they don’t look like demons or some shit.” I said, cracking a grin, thinking about how unlikely it would be for them to be demons.

Discord laughed gently, “Actually, there is one who does look like one. He is their king, and a doctor.”

“Alright, thanks for warning me, though I don’t really do the best at respecting royalty, but at least I’ll know who this ‘Lord of Dawn’ is.” I said, surprised to hear that someone who looked like a demon was a king. I stepped up to the door and opened it, looking upon a city that looked like it came straight from Shadow of War, except it had a ton of technologically advanced areas, and the whole thing was blood red, but where the light hit it it shone incandescent white.

I walked up to the gatehouse and was surprised to see that it was manned by a few Uruk and an Olog, straight from Shadow of War, just with better armor and weapons.

They looked to me, then to the door behind me, and smiled in a friendly manner, “I assume Disord sent you?”

“Yeah, he said some friends of his might want to meet me? Something about a guy that looked like a demon, if I remember correctly.” I said, somewhat surprised at how well spoken the Uruk were, whereas in the game, only the Captains were consistently coherent.

They nodded and their armor glowed red as the gate started to open, them smiling at me “Any friend of Discords is a friend to Comraich. Just make sure to go to the town square, Simon is draining at the moment, I’m really excited to see what he comes up with next! Last time, he made the guard towers actually decent! Plus some barracks for us!”

The other guard nods “I hope he takes the time to make himself a home personally, doesn’t feel right, our king sleeping on the streets like a bum, just so we get homes sooner...”

“Your king sounds like an interesting person, I think I will go meet him. Also, do you guys have any problem with me flying there?” I asked, genuinely curious to meet this supposed demon king, who slept on the streets to provide homes for his people.

They looked to each other hesitantly, “I wouldn’t if I were you, ma’am, the people are still jumpy from the Magi attacks, they may have stopped, but… bad memories, y’know? They might think the magi are bombing us again…”

The other guard nodded, “You seem like a good person, so we don’t want your visit to be hectic.”

“Would parkour be any better, or would that just seem like I was running from something, and open a different can of worms?” I asked, thinking how long this may end up taking, with my fastest form of travel out of the way.

They shook their heads “Nah, go ahead! Orvok and Grimgor hold races all over the walls for the kids, helps keep up morale!”

“Ah, cool, well then, maybe I’ll see you again while I’m here, but, other than that, see ya!” I ran through the gate, bullet jumping onto the roof of a nearby building, and quickly running and jumping my way deeper into the city. Eventually I reached a large open area with stalls all around and an impressive garden of what looked to be healing herbs, as well as flowers used in medicine. The stalls were stocked with various goods, from something called “Golem pets” to what looked like watermelons, to armor and weapons, to a plain clothes stall. In the center, however, was what looked like a throne with three tubes feeding into hoses that fed into what was most likely an underground part of the city. The tubes had huge needles in them, they looked like they would hurt like a bitch going in, and coming out.

There was then a clearing of a throat as I turned to see what definitely looked like a demon, he smiled warmly to me, careful not to show his teeth. “I heard from Muz and Guz that a friend of Discords was coming! I hurried up the draining to make sure you didn’t have to see, luckily, I had enough SIVA to finish the market area, next up… hmmm… What do you think? I was thinking a theater, or maybe a better school building? Those are the only buildings left, aside from the castle…” He then stage whispered to me, “ I really don’t care about the castle, but they insist I build myself one, apparently they want me to live like some spoiled noble, heh!”

“Hmmm… I’d say maybe make the school and theater parts of the castle, maybe the center wing the main castle, the right wing a school, and the left wing your castle? That way you wouldn’t really be living like a spoiled noble, and you could teach the children about politics as well, have them come visit the main portion of the castle as a pseudo field trip.” I said, trying to think of a good way to make the buildings as convenient as possible, while still respecting his wishes and making the maximum conservation of space.

The kind king demon smiled “Yes! And I can convert the underground cellar to a theater, with some excavation! And then we can link the new Hive for Chryssi to the castle, with her favorite part of her culture connecting hers to the castle, also known as the hub of our culture! Perfect!”

He held out his hand to me “Names Simon, it’s a pleasure to meet you! How may I repay you! Since you are in a Warframe, maybe I could try making you one, or maybe repair the Ordis you were probably sent here with? I was always annoyed in the game by his glitches, myself.”

He then gasped “Oh! You should meet the rest of the ruling council!”

“Sounds nice to me, but on the note of Ordis’s glitches, my Ordis has them far worse than the one in the game did. The cracks that game Ordis has aren’t there, but instead there is a huge crack nearly bisecting him.” I stepped out of the warframe by using transference and shook his hand, introducing myself, “I’m Mirage by the way, and before you ask, I don’t remember what my real name is, since I was put in stone for a thousand years. Kinda makes the memory foggy, ya know?”

Simon nodded “I understand, makes sense,” he then thought a moment “Could you get your Cephalon to try to come over here? I’d like to try making him a new casing. That should fix the glitches, as well as make him more capable, and restore his memory, if you wish.”

“Sounds good, let me just step back in my warframe and send a transmission to him,” I said, using transference to get back into my Ivara. I sent a transmission to Ordis, saying, “I found someone who may be able to repair you, fly on down and land in the square, you should be able to eject your casing right?”

“Of course Operator, but *BZZT* WILL HE TRY TO DELETE US *BZZT* Oh dear, I really need this, this is becoming very annoying.” The Liset landed in the largest empty area in the square, uncloaking so that all could see it. The ramp at the tail end of the ship came down, and I led Simon up into it.

“Ordis’s casing is probably up by the navigation console, follow me, but after he’s fixed, feel free to look around the ship.” I said, nodding to Simon.

He nodded back and smiled as he walked in “Always wanted to stand in one of these babies…” he sighed “Anyway, let’s get to work!” he walked up to where Ordis was, seeming to have the ship interior memorized as he bowed to the Cephalon “From one AI to another, it is a pleasure to meet you, Ordis! Now, may you enter sleep mode? I’d rather not hurt you, if this is indeed painful. I will be honest, never made a cephalon shell before, shouldn’t be more complicated than making a lifeform that’s completely alive and semi organic, though.”

“Operator, permission to enter Sleep mode?” Ordis asked.

“Of course, though I’d say set it to wake up in twelve hours, that should be more than enough time, right Simon?” I said, directing the last bit at the demon standing next to me.

Simon shrugged “I will have it built and ready to interface in, like, two minutes, depends on if Ordis needs to have time to transfer shells. Never learned much about Cephalons…” He then seemed to have a thought “You know, I could make a sort of semi warframe for you, Ordis, let you take the companion slot for your operator.”

“That might be nice, then I could help *BZZT* TEAR THE OPERATOR’S ENEMIES TO PIECES *BZZT* Sorry for the interruption, but then I could properly help the Operator fight and protect them.” Ordis said, a sheepish tone entering his voice at the latest glitch.

Simon frowned “Oh, that can’t be comfy. Let me help ya, big guy.” he then had a glow enter his eyes as he scanned Ordis “Okay, that’s how the shell works… amplifies power, and protects information… ok. Got it…” he then began to let red mist flow from his hands, creating a red crystal version of Ordis’s shell, sans the damage, and then let some blue fire into it, turning it purple. “There, gave it my all to make Ordis’s new shell combat ready, tougher than steel and telluriums bastard kid, and given a regenerative ability… Now, Ordis, try going in it. I wanna see if there is anything that feels off. It shouldn’t, I made the protocols for this SIVA be to simply asist the AI in its core...as well as speed up foundry tasks, and give new weapons a serious buncha oomph.”

Ordis started transferring his data into the new shell, making the color lighten further as his blue light filled it. After a few seconds of transferring into it, his old shell was nothing but a hunk of crystal, and Ordis said, “It seems that the errors are fixed, and this shell is compatible, but I will need at the least a few hours of being unable to do anything as I run diagnostics on the performance levels and start resyncing to everything in the Liset.”

Simon hummed “A shame, I would of loved to let you experience the city with us in the body I was gonna make for you...oh! What if you used your new Shell to absorb the old one? Would that speed it up?”

“As long as the old shell retains the connections to the assorted parts of the ship, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.” A red tendril reached out of Ordis’s new shell and wrapped around the old one, rapidly breaking it down and absorbing it. Ordis flashed a couple of times, and then said, “Well, it seems that your idea worked, but I do still have to run diagnostics, but that will only take a few minutes, if you don’t mind waiting.”

Simon smiled happily “No problem, it will give me time to give your operator her gift, a brand spanking new warframe!”

“Uh, not sure if that would work extremely well, since the warframes are made out of infested flesh, metal, and void energy, and I think you might have trouble re-creating Void energy.

Simon grinned “But you don’t, you can give it the void energy, And part of your ship is infested, remember Helminth? He’s a strain of infestation!” he then chuckled “And SIVA is metal and then some!”

“Eh, fuck it, might as well give it a shot.” I said, his optimism infectious. I started walking toward the door that Helminth was behind, then remembered something. “Wait, let me equip Nidus real quick,” I stepped up to the arsenal and switched the loadout from Ivara to Nidus, and walked down to the door Helminth was behind, with it immediately opening. I turned to Simon, and said, “Come on in, I’m sure Helminth wouldn’t mind sparing the pound of proverbial flesh.”

Simon nodded, before walking in, and smiling to Helminth “Hi there, I am trying to make a new warframe for your master, it would share the power of Nidus, as well as the power of my SIVA. Would you allow us to take some Infested tissue?”

An echoing voice rang out through the ship, both completely unintelligible and perfectly understood, “Of course, though it has been many years since I’ve seen the master, it’s nice to know that he’s fine.” Helminth reached out a tendril from the floor, and it took a square shape, “This will respond to any attempts to manipulate it, so let me see what you manage to create when you are finished.”

Simon nodded as he took the chunk of Helminth infestation. He then began fusing it with his SIVA into something amazing, it was somewhat Satyr like in the legs, with a large, strong pair of arms and thin, light frame, both working together like a piece of art as they complemented the noble, powerful looking body. The infested flesh seemed to be made into the inner part of the frame, with the outer parts, sort of forming a SIVA carapace, it had a strange diadem that looked like a purple crystal dodecahedron made of SIVA with an infested core floating in its left hand, and it had a powerful looking one handed mix of pickaxe and hammer in the right. Lastly, it had a familiar looking gun on its back, a Soma rifle that had a full circle clip, made entirely of SIVA., with gold finish, and red plating, as well as threads of Helminth flesh lining the Barrel,

Simon smiled “Meet Archimedes. This guy is the penultimate offence frame, his SIVA crystal diadem can fire lasers of pure wraith energy at foes, his weapon, which I call the Somava, can ressurect killed foes temporarily as allies, and the pickhammer will either bludgeon or pierce the enemies to high hell, then leave SIVA in their wounds to kill em over time.”

“Sounds pretty good, doesn’t seem to be bullshit, now let’s try to use transference on it,” I said. I gathered Void energy into my palm, and placed it into the chest of the warframe. It shuddered a little, and I used transference to enter it. It didn’t feel any different than any of my other frames, and I figured I’d just leave it be and experiment with it later. I used transference again, and stepped back out, “It works just fine, moves just fine, and it seems to be in perfect working order, so I guess that’s a new warframe made.”

Simon grinned “Whaddya think, Helminth? Is it a winner?” He then turned to me quickly “Oh! And before I forget, it has no shields, but regens health like Nidus.”

“It appears that you have made something I have never seen, it was worth the tissue to see this.” Helminth responded, a satisfied sounding growl coming from the room.

Simon grinned “Nice to meet you, Helminth, may you be complete someday.” He then walked with me to the main room of the ship “Okay, what kind of combat body do you think Ordis would like?”

“Maybe something like Zanuka, highly mobile, and very powerful.”I said thinking of how Ordis could help with a body like Zanuka’s.

Simon, instead of making it straight away, began pulling out some blank paper. “I only have enough spare SIVA left for you to make one body, I want to make sure you and Ordis like it before I make it.” he began drawing out blueprints as he mumbled, it was about twelve minutes later when he finished “Okay, with this body, he should be capable of piloting the orbiter and the new body at once, as well as have several weapon systems, along with increased mobility and durability over the Zanuka models, even factoring the inferior materials Zanuka was made with, I mean really, aside from the Warframe parts, thing was basically scrap metal, now, it has all the badassery of Zanuka, plus a grenade launcher, singularity gun, and hmmm… should I give him an arc gun, or a flame thrower…”

“I’d say arc gun if it works anything like the Amprex, less chance of collateral damage.” I said, thinking of the possibilities.

Simon thought a moment “Was thinking of making it more like exploding ball lightning, but yeah, that sounds better.”

“Cool, so how long do you think it will take you to make it?” I asked, thinking that since it only took a minute or so for the casing it would probably only take a few minutes for this.

Simon hummed “Well, once Ordis finishes his diagnostics, I need to get the dimensions of his shell, so I can make the insertion bay for it, and I need to run it by Ordis, as this will be something he will be fighting in… so I’d say, oh... ten minutes tops?”

“Alright, that sounds good, though there was something I wanted to ask you about.” I said, remembering the odd hammer with the voice recording that played when it was held. “You know that red hammer? What was it, and how did I get it, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Simon smiled “It was my token, it basically is how you get your existence known by other Displaced, or people who have been sent through the void into another world.” He made another red hammer and smiled “They basically let you meet others in a similar situation, some good, some not so good, but they all are changed in some way.”

“I’m assuming you were human then, before all of this,” I gestured at his body, “happened to you?”

Simon nodded, chuckling “I was a doctor, had some serious love for Destiny, and Shadow of War, so I made a cosplay for it, and had a guy I met make the more… intricate parts. Turns out he was a primordial chaos god from another world. Who knew.”

“Ah, for me, I was heading to Tennocon and while walking there I saw a window display of an amp that looked exactly like the one that I had in-game, but when I bought it, I got sent to Equestria. Technically speaking, I’m a thousand and twenty something years old, if you include the time that I was a statue.” I said, reminiscing on the past.

Simon chuckled “And I’m technically incapable of staying dead. So if you count from my latest death… I’m only a few months old.” He chuckled “Goo-goo, I guess.”

“Eh, I’d just count the collective time, though that reminds me, I have no clue if I can actually die or not, because in-game, no matter what, you just ended up back on the Liset, so I don’t want to test that.” I thought aloud, curious about my so-called immortal friend.

He then wondered aloud to himself “I wonder… can I have kids? Because… I always wanted to be a dad, when I was human… but I dunno if Chryssi would even want to date, let alone… do that.” He sighed “Sorry, just thinking aloud. But yeah, I would not try it, dying is painful, trust me.” He then looked behind me. “Hey! You alright, Ordis?”

“Of course, the diagnostics are nearly complete, so I should be ready to go in another minute or so. Though, if I may ask, shouldn’t you already know the dimensions of my shell since you are the one who made it?” Ordis’s voice buzzed out of the loudspeakers.

Simon shook his head “No, The SIVA shell is bigger than the last one, I put in some extra to make sure your shell was well fortified. I need to make sure I get the size Perfect, else it will either risk falling out, or not fitting in right.”

“Operator, my diagnostics are complete, so we can now take the measurements for my new body.” Ordis popped the compartment that he was in open, allowing easy access to his shell. “We might as well do this now, Simon,”

Simon nodded and a red light came out of his eyes again, scanning the shell until he eventually handed Ordis to me and began making the body for Ordis “Now, Ordis, I am making it so that you can control both this body and the ship at once, the broadcasting device for your inputs may feel a little… disorienting at first. Just give yourself time to adjust, okay? No need to rush. This is going to be your first body in a long time, and you will get excited most likely, but again, you need to get used to the broadcast equipment, lest you ram this fine ship right through the city walls.”

“I’ll most likely choose to operate either one or the other, but I can definitely see the merits of being able to operate both. While I am curious to know how you knew that the Cephalons used to be living beings, I don’t remember much from that time, so this will largely be a new experience for me.” Ordis said, a slight note of impatience entering his voice.

Simon nodded as he finished the last fine details on Ordis’s body, namely some odd decals that looked like runes “These runes are a gift from the Kin, supposed to be good luck, who knows, might help.” he then held his hands out to me “Time to see if any calibrations are needed, I set it to instantly link up to whatever the first Cephalon was to link to it, but… we’ll see.”

I placed the shell containing Ordis into his hands. “You may have the honors, as you are the creator of this pseudo Zanuka,”

Simon nodded as he gently placed Ordis into the chassis, pushing him in with a satisfactory click before the protective shell enclosed him, it now looking like a far deadlier Zanuka, albeit somewhat sleeker in shape. He then scanned it for a moment and hummed “The entire body accepts Ordis as it’s primary governing AI. Now, Ordis, you should try to power on your body, should be easier than turning on the lights.”

Ordis was silent for a second, then a light whirring noise was heard, with two lights on the head of the body turning on. “It seems to work perfectly, though I will wait until later to test out the other functions, along with piloting both this and the ship at once. I believe earlier you were talking about showing us around the place, and meeting some of the ruling members of the area?”

Simon nodded and walked to the exit, waving excitedly for us to follow. “I tell ya, you’re going to love Az-Maloch, he’s the child of the two leaders of the Olog-hai.” He smiled “Little guy is so cute, he could give Ordis diabetes, I don’t even care if that’s impossible, it’s accurate.”

Ordis and I followed him out of the exit and back into the square. “As much as I doubt what you said is the case, I’ll have to take your word for it, Simon,” Ordis enunciated, a slight touch of doubt entering his voice.

“Well, let’s get going, daylight’s a’ burnin’, ya know?” I said, somewhat sarcastically, as it was only around three in the afternoon.

There were then two massive Ologs that came up to us, one in hefty SIVA armor, the other in a simple dress and looking surprisingly feminine. She smiled warmly to Simon as a still massive baby crawled behind her, it seeing me and cooing with delight, its body like a giant fluff ball, he crawled quickly over to me halfway, before standing up in a wobbly fashion and toddling over to me, it about up to my hip in height, but quite wide. It looked to Ordis curiously before saying, ”Oof, oof! Doggy!” He pointed to Ordis and looked to the feminine and fluffy Olog “It a Doggy momma!”

“Young one, I happen to be a highly advanced Cephalon A.I. tasked with protecting and supporting the Operator. I am NOT a ‘doggy’ as you so kindly put it,” Ordis said indignantly, with his voice taking on a kind of theatrical bravado.

The young Olog looked confused, “Cef...Cepha...Cephy-lon? You cephy-lon? Want pway? Know lots a games!” At this the young ologs face brightened as he bounced in place “Wanna be cephy-lon fwiend!”

Ordis sighed in defeat, which is odd since he doesn’t breathe, and he said, “Very well, I guess I will be your friend.”

The mother smiled as she picked up her son “Thank you, he has been rather excited to meet you, since we saw the ship, and Simon went in. He was certain that ‘new friends’ were in there, and wanted to go and say hi.”

I shrugged, “Kids will be kids I suppose,” I smirked at Simon, “So, how about we go meet this ‘Chryssi’ of yours, eh?”

Simon blushed, “U-ummm… ok…”

Maloch giggled, “Sy-mo like kwissi!”

Simon blushed even harder before he got walking, taking me by the hand as Ordis followed, and brought us to what looked like a massive Hive made of SIVA. “C-come on, you can meet Chryssi in her hive, she should be talking about farming plans with Orvok about now.”

We followed him into the hive, eventually reaching a large room with a sleek, pitch black woman with green undertones and teal hair speaking to an Uruk dressed in what looked like a cuirass made of SIVA, with various bone charms hanging off of him from SIVA cord and an odd looking staff tipped with green flame, and riddled with SIVA nodes. He had several pouches full of seeds on a table next to him, and was grinning joyfully as he turned to see Simon. “Brother! It is a great joy to see you! Chrysalis and I have finished the plans for our farms, no more potatoes, cabbage and roots for supper! We’ll be feasting like our people deserve!”

The sleek black woman smiled happily, “I am quite happy we managed to help! It has been hard to see your people have to eat so little, when you have supplied us with so much love, it… it felt unfair.”

Simon blushed and nodded, “Ummm… Chryssi, Th-these are Mirage and O-ordis, new visitors to this world…”

She looked to us and grinned, “I suppose you already made them feel welcome, and it’s my turn to show my hospitality? Come, friends, I shall give you gifts as well!”

“I’ll have to decline, as Simon has already given us plenty. Before his generosity, Ordis had a fractured personality and was confined to a ship, and now his personality issue is fixed and he can move around freely. I couldn’t accept further gifts from our hosts, though I must say, Simon speaks very highly of you, Lady Chrysalis,” I smirked slightly in Simon’s direction, trying to gauge his reaction to what I said.

Simon was so red, he made beets look blue. He couldn’t look at Chrysalis, who was also blushing, but green, he looked to her eventually and smiled shyly, “U-um… w-would you… like to have dinner, lady Chrysalis?”

Chrysalis nodded, before he finished, and she huffed, “Like you have any need to be so formal! You avenged my brother and saved my people! You are a hero, you can refer to me by name!” She then blushed even harder. “Th-that is… if you would care to.”

I then felt a hand on my shoulder as an Uruk in full body armor that looked highly advanced, and echoed with magic spun me around and shook my hand. He smiled, “Name’s Grimgor, lass! It’s a pleasure tae meet ye! Now, would ye mind giving them some privacy, and followin’ me? Ye kinda just took a bally sledge ‘ammer tae the awkward silence they had since they developed feelin’s fer each other.” He chuckled for a moment, “Cheers fer that, by the way.”

“Eh, I was going to clear out and maybe wander the city a bit before you got my attention, kinda not my place to intrude, though I felt I’d give them a ‘gentle’ helping hand through the awkward stage, since they didn’t really seem to be getting anywhere fast.” I said as I followed him out the door. I used transference to equip my Ivara again, and thought of something to do. “You got any training grounds that I could spar with someone at? Maybe one of them Olog-hai?”

Grimgor checked the time at the towns clocktower and grinned, “Yer in luck, kiddo. Az-Barko goes tae the arena every day round this time, he’s our best fighter. Really earns ‘is place as the leader of the Olog people.”

“Mind guiding me over there then, my friend? I have a feeling that this will be entertaining.” I said, thinking of potential strategies against an Olog. “Oh, will you have healers on standby? I’m assuming you will, or you use blunt weapons, but either way there’ll probably be a need for healers.”

Grimgor chuckled “Nary a need, the training grounds enchanted, no damage there is permanent, came up with tha’ spell when Simon told me a story bout a place called Valhalla. Most that’ll happen is ye get knocked out, and then a bucket of ice water fixes it.”

“Are ranged weapons good, or is it melee only?” I asked, because if ranged weapons are out I’m out two-thirds of my firepower.

Grimgor nodded, as he walked through the town square with me, heading east, “As long as it has ammunition, we nae supply ye any, if ye lose the arrows er the bullets, it’s yer loss.”

“Ah, good, I have a bow with a 450 pound draw that I’ve been needing to test for a while.” I chuckled. This was going to be interesting.

Grimgor smiled as we entered what looked like an arena that looked exactly like the one players found Bruz in. as we entered, we saw the same male Olog I saw with the mother and baby, now wearing full body armor, and armed with a SIVA mace that would make Sauron weep. Specifically because it was on fire, and seemed to be causing whatever he hit with it to blow up. He was fighting what looked like an Olog that had runes tattooed all over his body. The Ologs were pretty evenly matched, until Az-Barko pulled out what looked like the flamethrower some of them had, but a little… off. He shot not a gout of flame, but a massive ball of fire at his foe, before rushing him, as the fireball exploded, Az-Barko reached his now off balance enemy before ramming him into the fence and clouting him with his mace, the explosion, which should of beheaded or killed him, simply knocking him out, just like Grimgor said. Az-Barko raised his hands in triumph and the crowd cheered, “Az-Barko champion! Haha! Mead on Az-Barko, it special brew! Learned from home village!”

“AZ-BARKO! YOU ARE THE CHAMPION, BUT WILL YOU DEFEND YOUR TITLE AGAINST ME?? I CHALLENGE YOU TO A SPARRING MATCH, FIRST TO BE KNOCKED OUT LOSES! DO YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS?” I shouted as I stepped into the arena.

Az-Barko nodded, a grin on his face “Accept challenge! Any weapon, or no gun?”

“Any weapon, of course! Any less would be a dishonor to warriors, unless it was two who fought using the same style!” I responded theatrically, intent on putting on a show.

Az-Barko nodded again, before drawing his mace and taking out a pouch at his side, “Give all this fight, you no new recruit, can tell!” He then took out a large crystal from the pouch and inserted it into the mace head, the mace now glowing slightly. “Az-Barko leader for reason, strong, yes, but smart too! Good with mage craft, SIVA from master make even better!” He then pointed his mace at me in an equally theatrical manner. “Ready? FIGHT!” He then twirled in place before swinging in my direction, releasing a massive shockwave of magical energy straight for me!

I blocked the majority of the attack with my Karyst, taking two hundred damage to my shields, and counter-attacked by shooting him in the leg with my Daikyu. It was largely stopped by the SIVA armor he was wearing, but it definitely hurt, along with proccing Corrosive, which turned the outer quarter of his armor to dust.

Az-Barko chuckled, “Good, armor weigh down anyway!” He then charged me, uppercutting me into the air before slamming me down into the dirt with his mace, faster than I thought possible for an Olog, it was then that I remembered what I saw his mace do to his previous foe, and cursed as I was blasted by a SIVA burst. I quickly got to my feet and started laying out Dashwires, ziplines fired from Ivara’s Artemis Bow, and activated Prowl and hopped onto one of them. I fired on his back with my Spira Prime, drawing blood in a couple of places where the Spira dug through his armor.

Az-Barko grinned and began to rear back with his mace, before slamming it on the ground, creating a massive blast around him that caught me up in it and sent me fling, only for him to pull out his explosive gun like weapon and blast a fireball at where I landed. I quickly dodged out of the way, and seeing no alternative, conjured the Artemis Bow. I deactivated Prowl and fired a rapid volley of arrows at him, each shot firing seven arrows in a straight vertical line, all of them hitting him, with over half of them sinking deep into his flesh. More of his armor turned to dust, along with blood spurting profusely from the areas around the arrows.

Az-barko laughed happily “Good fighting! Not over yet! Want more!” He then ran at me again, this time stopping right at me and knocking me skyward with a golf swing from his mace, again the mace causing an explosion, but with me in mid air, I had nowhere to dodge as it went off, me being sent further skyward by the blast, only for his fireball launcher to hit me in center mass as the first blast cleared. I blocked a portion of blast from the launcher with my Karyst and quickly fired a sleep arrow right at Az-Barko’s head, hitting him directly. He began to swoon, and then collapsed onto his knees, out cold.

Grimgor whistled, “Yer the first tae win a match with ‘im, lass. He’ll be quite chuffed, means he still has somethin’ tae strive fer.”

He then beckoned a small Uruk boy over, who nodded and walked over to Azzy as his wounds and armor were restored nigh instantly, and promptly flung ice water into his face. To which he sputtered loudly before getting up, he looked to me and laughed heartily “Metal person strong! Happy to call better fighter! Will try to get stronger, so can fight again!”

“Perhaps, my Olog friend, though I will most likely try out different frames and tactics against you. This frame, while powerful, is rather weak in close combat and is more suited to infiltration and assassination types, not one-on-one close combat.” I said, stepping out of the warframe and bowing my head to him.

Azzy smiled, “No need bow, equals!” he then patted my back, careful not to hurt me, as his son and wife came over to me.

The wife smiled kindly, “Thank you, you gave my husband a goal, he had been growing bored, with the peace. He has needed something to get his blood flowing.”

“Of course, I also needed to test a couple of things with this particular frame, so it was no problem at all. I believe we could head back to where Simon is now, he should have had plenty of time to speak with Chrysalis about their relationship status.” I said, starting to head back out of the arena and into the streets. This day had been interesting, and I was looking forward to staying here a bit longer.

Author's Note:

First of the crossover with Shadows of Dawn by Lord Krahtorra. I don't have the links copied, so please, look him up and give his story a read.

Comments

[001101598730]

I REALLY need to start playing warframe

[Mordred]

8942564
It's a good game, and it's free, but I will warn you, if you really enjoy playing it, it will most likely take up almost all of your time.

[Timeless Lord Slayer]

9044850 Sorry for commenting the same thing twice, I have a habit of doing that, it's something I'm working on. Anyway, I sincerely hope you continue to improve, you have talent and potential, a rare combo for anyone to have.

[Mordred]

9046341
I also have pretty shitty self esteem, which does not mix particularly well with talent and potential, and tends to hold me back. I'm glad you're enjoying the story, even though it isn't as good as it could be with time and effort.

[Timeless Lord Slayer]

9046385
Well, hey, if you ever need to talk or need a friend, call me up. Always glad to talk with a fellow writer and shoot the breeze.

[Lunar Flarion]

9053052
Ah, alright, sorry for this misconception!
Still a good story!
I play Xbox as well

[Mordred]

9053868
Maybe hit me up sometime, my gamertag is NeoLegendDJ

[Lunar Flarion]

9053929
Alrighty!