Chapter Text
“No Ordis, I’m not switching to another warframe.” The gravelly voice of Drifter echoed down the empty grey hallway of the corpus vessel. The metallic steps of the warframe that was the topic of conversation at the time beating an even rhythm.
“But-but Operator! We have much more capable warframes for you to use! THROW HER IN THE TRASH!” Ordis’ voice was as glitchy as always, his fragmented personality on full display.
In response the Drifter groaned, “listen Ordis, you aren’t a Tenno, you don’t understand how these things work, just trust me alright? It’s not fair to her to have to rot away in storage forever just cos the kid has shinier toys.”
“Operator, it is a weapon of war, it does not need consolation for being replaced.” The cephalon's synthesized voice was surprisingly clear.
“They’re more than that Ordis, you and I both know that they were all people once. Sure they’re less now, but there's still echoes deep inside. I can feel them through transference, each of them has their own personality, just look at Umbra! One day they all might come back, who knows.” Drifter said, holding the claw of his warframe, Valkyr in front of the blank damaged faceplate she wore.
His eyes somehow allowed him to see out of her body, as if she were a suit and not a solid biomechanical creature. Transference being the unique capability of the Tenno, the capacity to transform oneself into void energy and inhabit the body of a suitable creature or object. What determines if something is compatible was beyond the Drifter, he lacked the study of Transference that Margulis had shown the original Tenno.
“What do you feel from Valkyr?” Ordis asked, his attempts at convincing the Drifter swiftly forgotten to be replaced with curiosity.
“Anger, mostly. No, that's not a strong enough word, rage, hatred… a little fear.” Drifter sighed before shutting off the comm to Ordis, he was done with that particular line of questioning, resuming his march down the empty corridor he came to a door with a terminal.
Hacking the terminal took him no more than five seconds, he knew that his younger counterpart would have done it in two, but he was still happy with himself. As the airlocks hissed and the door opened he was met, unsurprisingly with several dozen corpus crewmen and moa’s in a seemingly random assortment.
“Never a dull moment.” He said with perfect calm as Valkyrs claws of energy fully extended and he dove into the crowd, dodging bolts of energy and the swing of a stun baton with practised ease as he tore his way through their meagre shielding and armour as if it were not even there. The Orokin technological marvels that were Valkyrs claws being far superior, even if mere imitations of the originals.
Minutes later he found himself several dozen hallways and rooms deeper into the ship, ever closer to his objective. So far he hadn’t faced any extra resistance to an average mission for the Tenno, being used to fighting dozens or even hundreds of enemies at any given time.
Passing through another sealed door he heard a voice over the intercom of the ship shouting, the voice was that of a nasally woman, one with a sneer of superiority audible in her vocabulary. “Dear visitor of the Halcyon B-217 cruiser, we see you, and would like for you to know that whatever you’re looking for isn’t here. You have wasted your time and should leave promptly.” The voice stated, and then the mic cut out.
The Drifter recognised the voice, it belonged to his target for this mission, usually when the Tenno were sent to assassinate someone, that person would be a very dangerous target. But not on this occasion, this time he was simply sent to wipe out a researcher with little combat training and a bit more security than the average corpus.
Ignoring their message he went to continue, but found his feet stuck in place, at first he assumed he had fallen into some kind of magnetic or stasis trap and looked down to identify it. But was surprised to find nothing there but the orange metallic legs of Valkyr, he then found he couldn’t move his head back up, nor any of the body he inhabited.
Considering his options he decided that staying immobile in his seemingly malfunctioning warframe would be a bad idea, and as such he called upon the power of his transference. The void energy that composed his current form phased out of Valkyr and he materialised next to her.
His shaggy mane of brown hair was pushed back by one of his worn, calloused hands. Revealing a suntanned face with an array of scars down one cheek and murky blue eyes, his expression that of a man worn down by life, but standing defiant in the face of it all. Said expression vanished rather quickly as the warframe he had just exited twitched slightly towards him.
It began with a slight motion, only a few inches, but then quickly sped up as if she was breaking out of ice caked around her in twitchy, jerky movements. Finally, with a pronounced growl she broke free of her imaginary ice and her attention locked onto the Drifter. He put his hand out in a stop motion, but it was too late.
Valkyr barreled towards him in a blur of motion, his warrior instincts caused him to grasp the hilt of his blade at his side and begin to draw it, but at such close quarters with a warframe he never stood a chance. Before his blade was even halfway out of its sheath Valkyrs clawed hand grasped his throat and pinned him up against the wall behind him, her other hand held tight over his to stop him from drawing his blade. The warrior's feet dangle slightly off the ground, as Valkyr raised him up to be face to face with her at full height.
“V-Valkyr?” He choked out, barely able to breathe with the impossibly durable fingers gripping his throat tightly, he was well aware however that if she wished him dead she could simply squeeze and he would be sent back to his orbiter. Tenno are almost unkillable in that way, destroying their bodies is more an annoyance than actual danger, Drifter knew this better than even the original operator, having died innumerable times to get to where he was that day.
A low growl was the only response she gave him. Her helm frozen in place staring at him, suddenly, she dropped him and he fell to the floor with a metallic thump. The Drifter tried to rise to his feet and say something but needed to clear his throat first. Before he could get another word out Valkyr began sprinting in the direction of his target at a speed no human could match. The Drifter likely could if he had better mastery over that void leaping that his younger counterpart had mastered, but he preferred older, simpler methods of traversal.
“Someone remind me to ask the kid how to do that void teleporting thing at some point.” He grumbled to himself before beginning to jog after Valkyr, he knew that while she was moving he had no chance of catching up, so he chose to simply stay at a consistent jogging pace.
Following her was not difficult, as he simply had to follow the trail of blood and bodies she left in her wake. Usually, a warframe required a Tenno to be able to access the full power of its abilities, but Valkyr’s claws must have been an exception considering the brutalised state of the crewman corpses.
In his pursuit he jogged for several minutes, the trail of gore only getting thicker and more gruesome the further he got, he quickly realised that Valkyr was moving in the direction of the assassination target. He utilised this time to try and think on exactly what had caused Valkyr to suddenly regain her consciousness, and why she would be on a beeline for that scientist.
It couldn’t be due to the mission being an assassination, or even the corpus as a faction, since he had taken her to such missions before without issue. Thinking more about the exact moment he had lost control he realised that it occurred exactly when he had recognised the woman's voice over the intercom.
Valkyr, suddenly angry enough to regain consciousness and do all of… this. Why? Because that woman must have been one of the researchers who experimented on her and tore her apart! Bitch. Drifter thought to himself as he jogged, he decided that whatever Valkyr did was justified, his mind was awash with thoughts on what exactly he would do afterwards.
“How did the kid get Umbra to come back with us again?” Drifter and the original Operator sometimes could see into each other's lives, only snippets of important moments, however. The Drifter attempted to use this to see how the Operator managed to ‘tame’ Umbra, for lack of a better word, but a mental blank was drawn.
He was broken from his thoughts when he heard the sounds of growling slightly further ahead, interspersed with a wet, meaty crunching noise. He slowed down to a stop before entering the next room, seeing that the corpus had actually locked the door, and Valkyr had literally torn through to get to the other side.
“Am I really hiding here? What the hell happened to ‘Drifter Drifter, Archon Killer?”” He questioned in a self-deprecating manner before gripping the handle of his blade and walking through the gigantic torn portion of the door, careful not to cut himself on the jagged metal edges.
The first thing he laid eyes on after emerging from the hole was the state of the room, everything was in disarray and in some form of evisceration. The bridge controls of the vessel, the crates, the chairs, the people, even the machines, all torn to pieces and shredded. No mercy, rhyme, or reason spared for even an instant.
Then his eyes focused on Valkyr in the centre of the room, she was crouched down over a body, repeatedly slamming her clawed hands into what was left, creating that sound he had heard previously. Taking in the details of the corpse, the closest description he could think of for the remains was chunky soup, it was pretty obvious by the beefed up security however that Valkyr had technically completed the objective.
“That's a bit less subtle than how I would’ve done it, but still, job done.” The Drifter joked, trying to get Valkyr's attention with his dry humour. She froze up midway through reeling back for another strike, her orange and green colour scheme covered in a layer of red from the gore. After a moment she slowly got to her feet and turned to him with a low, threatening growl.
Drifter raised his hands in a calming motion, “easy… easy, it’s just me, okay? Your old pal, Drifter.” He kept his tone even, knowing that using any other tone could seem condescending. He was intimately familiar with how anger was a fire easily fueled, even by that meant to douse its flame.
Valkyr walked slowly towards him, her body hunched in a predatory stance, but still bipedal. Her claws opened and closed as if seeking something to tear into, but Drifter didn’t back down, what was one more embarrassing death among his thousands?
Valkyr eventually reached him and simply stood there, staring at him, as if trying to decide whether to rip him apart or not, Drifter decided that tipping the scales in his favour would be a good idea.
“Listen, I understand why you’re mad at these greedy bastards,” he gestured towards the corpses, and the ship itself, “but I’m not one of them, I’ve tried to do right by you, does that mean I deserve to get ripped apart? Dying hurts, by the way, and I’d just come back.” He pointed out, he wasn’t sure if she remembered, but Valkyr had definitely been present to see him get ripped apart at least a few times, she was the first warframe the Drifter had ever used in combat.
That was back during the New War, on his way to save the Lotus and kill Ballas, he had performed his first real transference with her, and ripped his way through the titanic vessel the Praghasa in order to stop it from devouring the sun. Valkyr tilted her head slightly, her hands ceased their relentless motions and she seemed to slowly calm herself.
“Now, I don’t know how you’ve managed to do all…” He gestured to her movement. “This, but I’m happy for you, I’m glad you can start to be your own person like you once were. I appreciate all the help you’ve given me for so long, helping you out is the least I can do to pay it back.” He explained then turned around and sighed while looking up, as if thinking a lot of things over.
“Do you still want to stay with me? You won't have to fight if you don’t want to, and I won't do transference with you without permission.” He explained, then looked to the side and mumbled “neither will the kid.”
Valkyr looked at him for a few moments, as if thinking things over. Eventually she gave a simple nod, confirming that she would stay with him, he also realised this meant she was unable to speak. He would have to try and rectify that at some point if possible.
Turning towards the door he activated his comm unit to speak to Ordis. “Hey Ordis, mind marking the way to extraction? I might be a minute longer than usual, also do we have a spare bed in storage?”
“Your route is marked, but Operator? Why would we need additional beds? ARE YOU BRINGING A PRISONER?! ” The cephalon’s glitchy voice replied.
“Not a prisoner Ordis, a friend… who I’ve just now realised is going to need a room, and as far as I’m aware the only spare room is that tiny storage room we cleared out for Umbra… or mine… crap.” As with most of his plans, he really hadn’t thought this one through.
He heard a raspy giggle come from barely a step behind him, he’d automatically started walking the halls towards the marker leading to extraction and Valkyr had silently sidled up just to his right and behind him. Warframes, despite their weight and metallic structure, could be incredibly quiet when necessary.
Drifter didn’t react with as much fear as most would, his time in Duviri had taught him how to regulate his emotions far better than most. He simply continued walking, trying to focus his senses on Valkyrs presence, but without tapping into transference, which he was loath to do without asking, he couldn't tell she was there with any senses but sight.
It was as if the moment his eyes left her she ceased to exist, and even when his eyes were on her there was no sound. I’m pretty stealthy myself, but that is downright freaky, wonder if she could show me how she does that…
Eventually, the pair reached the extraction site. Drifter gestured to the entrance to the landing craft, allowing Valkyr to go first, he did send a communication to Ordis to let him know to wait for him before taking off, as the landing craft would usually set off the instant he boarded.
Valkyr stepped into the same vaguely human-shaped grooves he was used to stepping into, it was odd to see it from an outside perspective and not actually be the one stepping in. As she got fully locked into place the entrance point spun, allowing her to exit inside of the landing craft, a moment later it cycled back around, allowing him to use the same method to enter.
The inside of the landing craft was big enough for them to fit, but they were in very close proximity, Valkyr didn’t seem to mind as she idly stared at her clawed hand, flexing and playing with her own fingers. Now that she was calm she seemed rather playful and inquisitive. The Drifter wondered if this was what she was like before becoming a warframe, or even before being tortured at the hands of Alad V.
Once the landing craft finished attaching itself to the bottom of his orbiter the pair were able to board, surprisingly Valkyr took the lead, she was clearly familiar with the process after experiencing it a thousand times without being in control.
As the airlock opened allowing them in, Ordis' floating drone body was there to greet him as usual, and visibly startled as the little drone caught sight of Valkyr moving without the Drifter’s Transference.
“Operator! Why is that warframe moving on its own! THROW IT OUT THE AIRLOCK Dispose of it!” Ordis shouted, by this point the cephalon was getting on Drifter's nerves.
“Shut it Ordis, after everything she’s done for us you think I’ll just throw her out? Hell no, I forbid you from doing anything to harm her. Now, leave me alone for a while, I’ve got some stuff to figure out.” Drifter said with frustration, rubbing his temples slightly, Valkyr visibly bristled at the mention of being thrown out the airlock.
“Valkyr I hate to say this but we actually don’t have any other space, for now, you can use my quarters as your place to rest and I’ll use the transference chair when I need to sleep.” Drifter then began walking towards the navigation to set a course for his camp, Valkyr spent that time exploring the orbiter, she had been there many times, but never in control of herself.
Evidently, she had many things she was curious about. She moved through his workspace with a childlike wonder, poking and touching various stations. She was careful not to damage anything, always returning each item to its original place. When the Drifter made his way down the steps, he caught her bent over his mods bench.
The sight made his eyes linger where they shouldn't momentarily, in a fleeting moment of weakness. He shook his head and cleared his throat to get her attention. Startled, she jerked upright and smacked her head against one of the metal shelves installed to store his mods, letting out a growl. She turned to face him, and despite her featureless visage, he could feel the anger radiating from her.
“Sorry, sorry, didn’t mean to startle you, just wanted to let you know we’re headed back to my camp for today, and in the meantime, we should have a chat about how all of this will work. Now I know you can’t actually speak, but do you know how to write? I can find a datapad and you can write what you want to say for now if that works?” He asked, trying to both placate her and explain what he believed to be their next best steps.
She nodded, but it was accentuated with a low growl. Drifter wasn’t fully adept at reading growls, but he could tell this wasn’t one of anger, probably just annoyance. What have I gotten myself into this time? He questioned himself as he led Valkyr to the transference room.