4224/Suspicious Minds

Suspicious Minds
Date of Scene:	16 June 2016
Location:	Origin System <WF>
Synopsis:	What happens when a Tenno loses contact with their Ordis and is displaced by freaky Void incidents and can't find their Liset? We go out and find their Orbiter, that's what.
Cast of Characters:	Kotone Yamakawa, 255, 571, Kushiko, 1000

---

Kushiko has posed:
        --THE STORY SO FAR--

An Orokin Derelict, a vessel long since overtaken by the Infested growth was displaced. And not in the usual way: most Orokin vessels lie within the Void, a subdimensional space that is not a place to be taken lightly when it comes to travel. The Orokin Derelict should have stayed there for all time, but some oddity with the Multiverse or perhaps something else worse has resulted in it's appearence in normal space in the Space-Time Storms not too far from the Origin System.

There is some good news: actual combat-capable Infested aboard the Derelict have been purged, but the bad news is that the Infested plantlife still remain, to say nothing of the Orokin material the ship is composed of could be salvaged and repurposed. This leads to a need for Lotus and Tenno-aligned interests working with Union to ensure there's no chance of this derelict falling into the wrong hands.

Thusly, there are a number of ships from frigates and cruisers creating a no man's land and redirecting the few instances of traffic through the area to not run too close to the derelict. There's also the matter of actually tracking down the mysterious Chroma's Liset and reestablishing connection with his Ordis, seeing as the same incident that brought the Orokin Derelict into normal space resulted in severe enough interference to break that connection.

There's also the matter of a general debrief and introductions: it would do good for Meren to see some of those whom Kushiko had begun to work with outside the typical Tenno allies.

The particular vessel that was chosen was one that could be docked with rather easily, an intermediary ship that allowed for a wide range of vessels such as the standard Liset to the Mantis and Scimitar variants of landing craft to the more standard ships that didn't involve simply carrying a Tenno's Warframe into and out of a combat zone.

This was the case of the particular science and research ship that was being employed: it featured a massive landing and embarkation zone, atmosphere regulated by a shield that allowed smaller ships to come to and from while keeping important things like oxygen and temperature at a comfortable 72 degrees Farenheit.

Present was Mesa: the gunslinger, the outcast of the known Warframes, and colored in that now signature black and purple design. The materials she featured appeared more leather and like actual clothing than the hard metallic and organic carapaces that personified the average Warframe seen so far.

Also present was another Warframe, however, and this one was not being run by Kushiko...

Meren (1000) has posed:
For his part, the rescued Chroma has spent most of this time making himself uunobtrusive and tending to his gear. Most of that seems to consist of a brilliant bladed staff, the same white and gold as the Orokin derelict's decor, except in much better repair. It gleams as though new, once freshly cleaned of Infested gore. The bow over the Chroma's shoulder is wrought in much the same material.

The big Warframe has spent its time cross-legged in whatever serves for the aft of the ship, observing the others unobtrusively; from time to time it's slumped over, as though the very connection between Operator and Warframe fizzing in and out as they travese the Void.

When the connection holds, though, the Operator makes sure to relay his directions to the Lotus; he, at least, remembers where he left his Orbiter.

Even if the Liset is still somewhere out there in the Void, at least he can have his Warframe brought back to him. He's given his name as Meren, and he's been shockingly cheerful and polite to the others in spite of the violence they'd found him in.

So the Chroma waits patiently, absently fiddling with its weapons, leaning back against the bulkhead and occasionally jolting in and out of 'consciousness.'

Stupid Void.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko was not here for the mission to the Derelict. She had only chanced to hear about it after the fact, her own duties having kept her busy at the time.

    We shall not go into the long and epic tale of that battle, but there was a duel in the midst of an inferno. And a car chase. It was totally sweet.

    Nevertheless, another Tenno surfacing is something the demigod will naturally have some curiosity towards. Which would explain why the vessel receives a request for drop-off clearance from a Union dropship, the craft swinging in just long enough for its passenger to step out before it heads back out to join the other waiting ships. Once onboard the vessel, the swordswoman asks to be led to where the Mesa and Chroma might be found, and moves with a brisk pace; but once she reaches the aft section of the ship where they can be found, stops at a respectful distance, waiting patiently. She's not gonna approach on the chance it might spook the new guy.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
It had been a bit, with being on standby but she understood why she'd been back up howevershe's waited and several dozen games of Angry Tachikomas later it was about time to get aboard the ship. She was quite curious to get to see a Orokin ship though up close. They knew they would have to burn what was left of the infestation out and she had got ready to board the ship and it wouldn't be long before the short cyborg stepped on to the space hulk..

"So this ... is it? Amazing that the Infested were not able to warp it like those Moas...."

Shje looks to the Tenno and raises an eyebrow another Tenno? That was news to her and she would keep her distance for the moment.

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    By the time Setsuko gets there, she'll be greeted at the passenger craft by Alexis Maaka. The cyborg's currently enjoying the last of a cigar as she waits. "Evening, Major." She nods to Setsuko as she stamps out the little smoldering nub that used to be a Cuban. She'll also be there to see Kotone as well, giving the younger cyborg a grin and a nod.

    Once she makes it to Mesa and Chroma, Maaka keeps her distance from the new guy, not wanting to freak Meren out too much. Besides, they've already met. Instead, she just watches and goes over some vital diagnostics while the new guy meets some more new faces.

Kushiko has posed:
The Lotus was working on actually pinpointing the exact location thanks to Meren's directions; for whatever reason even she could not get a link re-established to where Meren's Liset was, nor Ordis. Hopefully this wasn't anything bad: maybe the worse case scenario was simply that the displacement of the Orokin Derelict caused some emergency protocol for Ordis to try and reestablish proper linkages.

...and hopefully it had nothing to do with the fact there might be technically two Ordis' right now. Surely not, right?

... right.

Mesa stood not too far off where Chroma had selected to remain out of place from, occasionally crouched over and with her back to a bulkhead, waiting on those of the Union and the Syndicate to arrive. The Union because some of theirs had proven reliable, and the Syndicate had proven an excellent source of neutrality and additional manpower where needed.

Once Alexis, Setsuko and Kotone had each arrived, the gunslinger Warframe stood, giving her AkSomati a modest little twirl out of habit and holstering them at her sides. Even as she stood, a flicker of light from a hidden point on her shoulder began to coalesce into a wide angle beam which projected a simple holographic panel.

Static and hints of banding intermittently danced across the screen before Kushiko's face appeared, "... thanks for coming, all of you. And thank you all for the help, tagging along and looking into this incident." Her pale lilac eyes looked to each of the three Elites before she bowed her head once, Mesa imitating the expression.

"If you'll follow me... I have one of my fellow Tenno to introduce to you, properly, since being on the Orokin Derelict was really a bad place to have any kind of long conversation." Towards Kotone, she also adds, "Maybe, but it's still pretty ruined in there since the Infested have been in there for hundreds of years. Or were, heh-heh..."

Kushiko might just be showing a side of her she hadn't in a while due to Meren's presence here, the Warframe turning on one heel and gesturing as the panel briefly dissappears so it wouldn't occlude the sight of Chroma that the Warframe leads the trio towards.

Meren (1000) has posed:
Intermittent directions help steer the ship, keeping its nose pointed towards wherever the Orbiter is hiding. The Void is as much a hell-space as it is a blessing, for the Tenno; it provides safety from vengeful Sentients, salvage-hunting Corpus, and violent-minded Grineer.

Chroma must be immersed in his task, because it takes him several seconds to realise that he's suddenly surrounded by curious strangers. The dragon-like Warframe doesn't blink, since it doesn't have eyes, but it does look up and cock its head like a curious puppy. (A Great Dane puppy, maybe.)

Light glows at the shoulder of the stranger's Warframe, projecting a flickering, static-ridden holographic panel much like Kushiko's, but a thousand times worse in signal. Static pockmarks the transmission, and the audio seems to be in and out.

"Hi!" The stranger is cheerful, a boy of perhaps fifteen. His skin is unhealthily pale, but despite his apparent complexion there's a vitality in his eyes. They're the kind of bright cyan colour not really found in nature. So is his hair, actually; cut somewhat short, neatly combed and parted. He's smiling brightly at all these weird people. (No room to talk, Mr. Cyan.) "I think I recognise a few of you. You were at the derelict, weren't you?"

His voice is low, constantly on the verge of breaking, with a timbre suggestive of a cold -- but he doesn't seem sick. It's just how his voice is. "Definitely a bad place to waste too much time talking." He frowns, serious for a moment, before brightening again. "We use to purge those outbreaks, in the old days, and that would be a good practise to keep."

"Anyway, you can call me Meren. This is Chroma." He makes the Warframe point to itself with one clawed digit, nodding its big pointy-snouted head almost as though cheerfully. "I guess he's not the most common kind of Warframe. I see Kushiko's got..." The figure of Meren squints. "Mag? No, no... that's... Mesa, isn't it?"

As to the matter of salvage, Chroma shrugs; an almost comically exaggerated gesture mirroring Meren's. "Maybe. We don't really understand Orokin technology that well, though. A lot of us have... forgotten. Except for a few things," he adds, holding up that elegant bladed staff. "And it's not stable any more, I think. It's sat for a long, long time without maintenance."

He seems naturally cheerful, in contrast to Kushiko's reticence. "So!" Chroma drops its staff and claps its hands, with a faintly metallic, almost chitinous 'pang.' "Tell me about yourselves. I'm curious. I've never seen anything quite like you. We... don't really get to meet new people too much, so this is quite an occasion!"

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
R    "I was, yeah." Maaka nods, her helmet gone now to reveal blood red hair and golden eyes. They're obviously cybernetic looking, to Meren and Kushiko's eyes. This might be the first time either of them have seen Maaka's face without the helmet, to the cyborg's memory.

    "Good to see you're doing okay, Meren. I'm Maaka. I met Kushiko during an investigation on a Grig vessel, her team had already blitzed through when we ran into reinforcements and had to hold position. Since, we've been working together on the odd mission or two, hitting Corpus compounds and cleansing Infested, usual shit." She says, flashing a genial smile at the kid. She eyes that double-ended staff, jealous a little bit of the weapon. "Man, you guys have some nice toys, I gotta admit..."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    "Maaka," Setsuko replies, her greeting businesslike. Kushiko receives the same; the video communication is something she recognizes as noteworthy on the Tenno's part. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help. I had my own situation to deal with. I'm glad to hear it turned out well enough." Mostly due to another Tenno being present before they got there, apparently. She's still not complaining. And then to see the face of this second Operator so soon after the first? It's a little bit of a surprise, to say the least. But he seems outgoing, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. "I wasn't able to join Kushiko for that, but I've encountered the Infested before. I can't fault you purging them wherever they appear. It's good to meet you, Meren." She bows deeply. "My name is Setsuko Kaminagi. I'm a demigod, more or less. Half human, half divine. And a Major in the Union military." A hand settles on the blade at her side. "This is my sword, Zanjintou."

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa looks over at Maaka and smirks a bit.

"You seem chipper and ... wait does that even /do/ anything for you?"

She asks Maaka looking at the cigar her friend is smoking. She doesn't say much more as she's looking over the Warframes with a good deal of interest and she follows along as she's asked to move along side the others.

"You make a good point, though how are we going to clean out the spores from his place?"

She's honestly curious about that and she just stops as they run.

"Hello I'm Kotone Yamakawa."

She bows slightly at Chroma for lack of anywhere else to be. She does take a look at the warframe closer for a moment.

"Me? I'm mechanic and a Vehicle designer that kinda fell into adventuring for lack of a better term and ... my body's just about entirely Prosthetic, for medical reasons if your wondering."

She also gives Setsuko a big grin.

"It's good to see you as well, though I'm just a nobody honestly. I just end up sticking my nose into a plot of places. Like how I was part of the group that checked out the Grineer ship that was drifting around a while back."

Kushiko has posed:
If Mesa could frown, she would reflect the immediate response Kushiko had in regards to the garbled transmission medium Meren's link is suffering. Had to be something to do with /where/ and how the Orokin Derelict managed to even arrive outside Voidspace to begin with.

The Lotus is one to notice this as well, but given her current focus is on the analysis of what /precisely/ went wrong as well as reclaiming the location of the Orbiter and lost Liset, she does not lend voice to her concern. No, the condition of his datastream is documented so at some point they can at least verify precisely what happened and guard against it in the future.

"Mmm, it's Mesa, yes. She's been itching to show off lately," Kushiko admits with a smirk. "She still wants to, but I'm sure we can find a fix for that later." The way she talks, one might think the Warframes bore out their own sentience, but the truth of the matter was a slightly more complex thing for Kushiko.

Then again so was the fact she even was using the similar means of communication to show her face. Part of it was Meren, to be honest: he was being rather infectious in his ways, and he had begun to remind her of certain necessities when it came to allies, Tenno or otherwise.

"Some of us have reproductions of their technology. The Nova and Mag I use are examples of these," Kushiko offers, while surveying Maaka properly for the first time. Not just with her eyes but the suit optics that feed her the data necessary for her to even operate her Warframe. It's a bitter smile as she quietly remarks to herself, "Toys, huh?"

Shaking her head a little, she looks to Setsuko with a faint smile, before her holoprojection turns over to Meren, "Her swordplay reminds me a little of Excalibur's if you know what I mean..." Well, if he remembers. Memories are a little odd, to put it plainly but hopefully they both share memories of the first Warframe before all others.

And then her attention falls back on Kotone and Alexis, cognizant of that smoking cigar seemingly for the first time, looking bemused at first. "Why would..." Shaking her head, she addresses one of those concerns: "The spores are largely gone; they can't actually reproduce anymore, so what's coming out of the ship right now is... best we can ever really say it, it does not spread the same way. Grows, certainly, but it's not infectious the same way. The root and plant networks basically cause it to be self-contained."

Hopefully that answers that question for now. There's reasons why some of those trees and other points in the derelict managed to be pure white but it was an inevitability for the root network to be overcome.

Meren (1000) has posed:
"It was worth all the trawling through the Void to track down the components," Meren replies to Maaka, just a little proudly. "Worth every credit. There's nothing better for dealing with the Infested. Well, I guess there are, but I like this one. Maybe we can see about finding you an Orthos of your own."

"Yeah." This, to the matter of reproduced Orokin technology. Meren nods affirmatively. "I've got a Wyrm Sentinel, too, like that. And my Orthos, of course." He pauses, squinting at Kushiko; then, looks to Setsuko. "Excalibur? I remember Excalibur. I remember..." His expression seems to go distant for a moment, then he frowns. "I remember using him, once. I liked him. But that's all I can remember about him." It's enough to get the context. "Really? Like him? That's amazing!" 'Him,' not 'it.' Meren seems to put a lot of stock into these Warframe things, too.

Chroma's head swivels over to Setsuko, and Meren looks to her eagerly. A new person! Oh, goodie! Chroma clambers to his feet, folding one hand over the other and bowing formally. "A pleasure and an honour! This is Chroma." He gestures to indicate the Warframe. "And Orthos Prime." The bladed staff is patted fondly. "I look forward to working with you! And your allies, too."

Kotone is also given that formal, hands-clasped-before-himself bow from Chroma. "I wasn't, but I appreciate the honesty. My body isn't, but... I suppose you'll see that soon enough. I'm providing coordinates and directions to the Lotus to return to my Orbiter, and take you all with me to meet in person."

Meren's projection raises a brow, slowly. "Grineer ship? I'll have to hear about that adventure..."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    "In person...?" That's not a pair of words Setsuko expected to hear from a Tenno. Not so soon, at least. But if Meren wants to, who is she to judge? "The Grineer were an... interesting first contact with this neck of the Multiverse," she adds, with regard to the other topic at hand. "They put out a call for help, we answered, and apparently our help wasn't welcome." That last sentence comes with a slightly dry tone. Meren probably has a good idea about how well THAT went. "We were glad Kushiko was there."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "I might take you up on that, but it's the training I'm not so sure about. Swords are nothing to me, but...y'know." Maaka shrugs. She folds her arms, cocking an eyebrow. "Excalibur...weird. I'm used to that being used for something else, same with Valkyr. In human myth, those two words are pretty commonly used in mythology for a king's sword and transporters to the afterlife respectively." She remembers Saber, and she isn't as uneducated as one might assume, that much is certain.

    She nods, bowing her head. "If you insist on a meeting, I'll come along." Setsuko sums up the Grineer thing pretty well, so Maaka nods again.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa seems to accep the answer about the risk of more spores,though it's good she's keeping the fact they exist in mind. She can't help but recall what happned to the Corpus recently and she's scared not even her mechanical body is not safe from them at all after all. She grins at Merin as he replies to her.

"Fair enough I won't poke on it much I can't throw stones about that, now can I?"

She pauses s it hits her Meren's offering to meet in person? She double takes she was not expecting that either.

Kushiko has posed:
Oh that was an adventure and a half. And murder. Lots and lots of glorious Grineer murderings. Not as good when they decided to come /back/ but... that would be a tale for another time.

For the time being, that reticience of Kushiko is a little bit more plain as she leans against a wall, listening and watching, a faint little ghost of a smile on Kushiko's face as Meren, Setsuko, Kotone and Alexis interact and discuss certain matters.

While it is quite true about guiding and finding that Liset--and helping Meren's Ordis reestablish contact with it--was what the Lotus was conducting, it is a surprise to Kushiko about how forward he was being about introductions. Not that she gave immediate voice to it: she had a certain desire, a hope that she could live beyond what she had seen as her burden, Meren seemed far more comfortable with it.

... and if he wasn't, then he was really weird. Maybe both.

"Standard Survival operation," Kushiko remarks, "Full squad, we stayed there for a bit, but the ship went adrift into the Multiverse and was stumbled upon, Setsuko, Alexis and Kotone were among those who came to investigate it." Unsaid out loud is the desire the Lotus expressed for the Tenno to observe, to see how the Elites dealt with it.

Suffice to say, it was a passing mark afterwards. It's something she and Kushiko will have to catch Meren up on later.

"'Valkyrie', right?" It's a quiet smile on Kushiko's visage as she muses, "There was another name, but when it comes to Valkyr there is an unfortunate history there thanks to Alad V. But we can talk about that another time," she concludes.

Especially given the beeping notice of an incoming alert; confirmation that Meren's Liset has been located and arriving shortly to the craft they're on now, and their imminent arrial to the Orbiter itself. ETA: 5 minutes, from the looks of it. The Lotus appears on her own panel projection nearby. "We are verifying the Liset's systems are intact, Meren. Stand by."

Meren (1000) has posed:
"In person," Meren agrees cheerfully. He is, for a Tenno, uncommonly outgoing. That the Tenno hide for a reason seems to be either beyond him, or he simply doesn't care. One has to wonder how he's survived for so long. Then again, he doesn't seem to be stupid. He's careful to a point... but it's a terribly lonely existence.

They're just children, when it comes down to it. So is he; at the end of the day. A creation, a tool, and a weapon... and a lonely child.

"King's sword..." That brings the Tenno pause. "Huh. Excalibur does like to use swords. He's very skilled with them. They suit him. And carriers of the dead..." His nose wrinkles. Choosers of the slain? "Odd."

Chroma's snout swivels to Kotone, but the Warframe's expression, lacking eyes, is unreadable. Even Meren's projection gives little away. Is he enjoying the confusion he's causing? It's hard to tell. The draconic head swings back over to Kushiko. "Ew," he says simply, wrinkling his nose. He doesn't like survival operations. They're nerve-wracking, and he doesn't like putting his Warframes at risk like that. Never mind that every last Grineer or Corpus or Infested in the Origin System manages to find its way to the operation to make life miserable.

"Alad V." His wrinkled nose goes into full-bore scowl. Before he can complain about that charming personage of the Corpus, though, the alert chimes and Chroma's head twists over toward the fore of the craft. "You found it?" He sounds pathetically hopeful. "Are the ship systems intact? Is Ordis okay? Why wasn't he responding?"

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    "We're well aware of what the Corpus do, believe me. Alad V's...a problem, for certain." Maaka says, frowning with agreement. Sounds like the feud between him and the Tenno is more personal than she expected, but she won't pry yet. She does know how it feels to have an enmity with scientists and companies, that much is clear.

    "Valkyries were choosers of the fallen in Norse myth, if I read it right they'd pick warriors who died with glory and honor in battle to go to Valhalla, the warrior afterlife. I'd be happy to help you with finding more about Earth myths sometime if you want." She offers, reaching over to clap Meren's chroma on the shoulder, before the alarms begin to go off. "Eh? Already found? Faster than I thought..."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Whatever other questions Setsuko might have had, they're stilled by the communication from Lotus. It's been found. The swordswoman stands up straight, her expression growing neutral, and if anything a bit distant. After a second or two, her eyes close.

    She's sinking herself into her divine half, dipping into instincts the mortal side of her never had. It's not quite 'listening', not quite 'smelling', not quite 'feeling', but at the same time it's a bit of all three; her battlesense has never quite been something she could put into words. But she's using it. She's using it, to try and make sure there are no hidden surprises waiting.

    It probably looks a little weird to Meren.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa can get how surival operations are, they are madness wave after waves of hostiles, it's the sort of thing she's thought of as madness before she left her world but that does happen here and then thename Alad V comes up and she grimaces for a moment.

"I have seen thatname insome Corpus files I pulled a while back. The mention of the ship possibly not being intact geta a frown on her face. She also gets the feeling she's very lucky to not have met the infamous Corpus himself in person. He'd likely want to see how she ticked too.

"Pretty much the same story back home too for Valyries though I suspect there are actual ones in the multiverse."

Kushiko has posed:
The other word, the word left unspoken is 'Gersemi'. Valkyr before the pain, before the experiments of Alad V was known as this. While Kushiko had taken on that pain to help restore that frame to it's physical appearence, to control her rage, she would never be what she was before.

For now, however she lets that subject drop.

"That is odd. Then again I choose who I kill as Valkyr... which is to say everyone not a Tenno but..." She looks apathetic at the notion, offering a faint shrug otherwise through the projection. Hell when it got down to it what happened with Mesa was also related to Alad V sticking his face where it didn't belong, namely in the Infested.

... come to think of it everything to do with Alad V was bothersomely complex.

For what it's worth, Setsuko is able to pull a sense of what /was/, rather than what is because what 'is' present when it comes to the Liset being remotely operated, the Orbiter just beyond, there is an utter lack of hostility. The Void itself feels /weird/ though, with Setsuko's divine sense reaching through that vermillion chaos, that stormy sea and turbulent sky--did we mention the Void is weird? Good, because the Void is /weird/ with people's senses who aren't terribly used to it.

That malleability is chief among the reasons why the Tenno's powers work the way they do, not just in terms of twisting physics but fully capable of control that made their use much akin to living things.

As to Kotone's words regarding what the group knew so far, the Lotus spoke first, "I'll explain later too, Meren. Some data caches on Corpus ships were prolific for our allies here and helped catch them up so they could make informed decisions." Now, as to Ordis and the Liset?

"Your Liset appears completely intact, but there's some anomalies and interference. We believe it may be related to the upheaval with the Moon no longer being within the Void, as it caused old systems aboard the Orokin Derelict you were on to displace itself and arrive outside the Void beyond the Origin System." The masked woman pauses to let this sink in. "The problem is where it arrived and how it arrived: besides the Moon's original sudden exit from the Void, there are a number of volatile space-time anomalies persisting because of the displacement of the Orokin derelict. What happened for you was distorted for when it took place relative to us."

What does it all mean? "This is why our perception of when you were here is not aligned. It's also why you lost contact with the Ordis: he and the Liset were linked together, and the incident displacing the ship you were on placed you both on parallel tracks. He's been searching for you but unable to, but now that we are here at the Orbiter we're close enough that we make contact with him and bring us all back into space-time alignment here within the Void." It's probably best not to dwell overlong on how all of that is working, beyond now it should be possible to get contact with Ordis going.

Meren (1000) has posed:
"Choosers of the slain..." Meren looks thoughtful at this description of Valkyrie, or Valkyr, as he knows the word. "Huh. I haven't used Valkyr very much. I only remember..." He looks brooding and thoughtful for a moment, before finally scowling and shaking his head. "I don't remember much. I know of her, but that's all."

There's a lot he doesn't remember.

"Sure. Maybe." Chroma doesn't so much as move when he's clapped on the shoulder; he's about as solid as one would expect a battle tank to be. In fact, there's a metallic 'clunk' when Maaka's hand meets his metallic 'skin.' The thing swivels its head to look at Maaka, then down at the hand on its shoulder. Even without words, the look is clear. What was that?

Setsuko definitely looks a little odd to Meren. He looks at her, and looks at her some more; both the Operator and the Warframe are staring at the demigoddess. Somehow Chroma even manages to do this without visible eyes! Finally, he eyes the others and says, "Is, uh... is she okay...?"

He finally shakes his head, his image on the holoprojection turning back to the Lotus.

"You can forward the data to my ship." His tone is deferential, both his head and Chroma's head slightly bowed. "I'll read it later; I don't need to take up your time with an explanation." Space Mom is very busy. "Anomalies... from what I understand, maybe it was on the edge of the Void that's butted up next to the multiverse, or something." He pushes two splayed hands together as though to demonstrate two disparate things being crammed up next to each other. "Maybe that caused the interference. It was fine when I left it, and then suddenly I lost contact with Ordis."

The image of Meren rubs at his jaw, frowning. "Hm. Spatial-temporal anomalies. I guess I'm lucky you all showed up when you did, aren't I? Chroma could've been there for a long time... and my Liset, too."

He seems to pause, thinking that over... and apparently it gives him a headache, too. He finally scowls and shakes his head rapidly as though to clear it.

"Well, come aboard when you're ready. I'll be waiting." Chroma lifts its muscular shoulders in a shrug. "I'll see if I can reestablish the connection with Ordis and have the Liset docked."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    "I'm fine," Setsuko replies after a few seconds, opening her eyes. They seem to be glowing a faint blue for a fraction of a second, but it fades almost immediately. "I was using my divine senses. I'm attuned to battles, past, present and future. I wanted to check whether we were walking into a fight or not. We aren't," she adds. The swordswoman seems slightly more relaxed at that. "I've long since given up trying to understand these... space-time weirdnesses," she admits. "We didn't have science anywhere near that advanced where I come from."

Alexis Maaka (571) has posed:
    Maaka blinks, and she keeps her eyes shut as the thing happens. "Yeah, I'm good." she says, rubbing her cybernetic optics as they reboot to stop glitching. Her vision ceases blurring and forming artifacts after a moment, and she's back to normal. "I have no idea how some folks can cope with that stuff myself." She shrugs, agreeing to Setsuko's point with a grunt.

Kotone Yamakawa has posed:
Kotone Yamakawa listens as the subject of temporal issues comes up and Kotone's cybertnic eyes somehow start to glaze over, she worked with physical things shecould eitehr edit with code or build. Time? that makes her head hurt really. Still she looks concerned to Meren's warframe for a moment.

"Glad we were able to help you out honestly."

Kushiko has posed:
"She'll be alright, sure... she's /kinda/ like us, almost. What she sees as divine isn't... far off from how we use the Void." A helpless shrug from Mesa/Kushiko as the Warframe's arms rise and fall with the expression Kushiko gives. "Near as I can figure at least," once the demigoddess affirms her being okay, a ghost of a smile on the black-purple haired Tenno.

As to what Maaka and Setsuko say, Kushiko makes a helpless little 'mmf' before offering, "We sortof... need to, but not as much. The Lotus tells us what we need to know, when we need to know it. Ordis helps to sort through some of it sometimes." They were children after all, soldier or no soldier there were some things they needn't know, save in this case.

Speaking of, Space Mom seems to read both of her beloved children quite well, "We have been conducting investigations, study. You will have that information available of course... we may need to raid the data stores still intact on the Moon sooner rather than later." There is some relief in that so far, there haven't been /accidental/ forays of Multiversal residents into the Void: hazardous is putting it lightly for those who don't know.

Still, it's a topic for another time, as the Lotus turns her attention momentarily towards the focus at hand. "We've guided your Liset into range; go ahead and attempt to--"

That's about when the Lotus is interrupted /sharply/ by a familiar sight for Kushiko and Meren both--to say nothing of Kotone, Setsuko and Alexis--"OPERATOR?!" *zzrtzch!* "Iii-i-i-i-i-is that you? Ordis is hap-angry-- ...to see you! You did not abandon me! Butwheredidyougo?!" Even as he says this, there's a slight reverb of aggression he speaks, sinewaves pulsing frantically as his cracked facade leans into the viewpoint of the projection.

Oh, poor Ordis.

In the meantime, one of the other projections will likely serve up a feed of Meren's Liset once Meren gives this Ordis the appropriate orders for docking the vessel in the aft of the ship, not far from where they are now.

Meren (1000) has posed:
Chroma is paying rapt attention to Setsuko, in the way that a scientist would be watching a particularly interesting lab rat. Stuff like this is terribly different, and that makes it terribly interesting. "Divine senses? Attuned to battles? So are we... but I guess you probably mean that differently." The grainy image of Meren's holoprojection rubs his jaw. "No, there shouldn't be anything near my Orbiter. That's why it's here in the Void."

Space-time weirdnesses. That brings him to grin in genuine amusement and pleasure. See? Cracking jokes? He missed that kind of thing, from the time before he was lost to the Void and summarily stuffed into an Orokin lab. Life was a lot more fun before that, from what little tatters of memory he has left from those early days.

"And I'm glad you were able to help out," Meren asides, as Chroma's pointy snout swivels to face Kotone. "I don't know how long I'd have been on that derelict, drifting through the Void into who knows where."

That Setsuko is a little like the Tenno earns a quizzical little tilt of both Chroma's and Meren's heads. Oh, really? That's interesting. Very interesting. He'll have to talk to Setsuko later, once his Warframe is returned to him and he's had time to process all of this. They'll probably have many interesting conversations.

Meren glances over. "Ordis also helps us process information when it's sent to our ships, and faster than we could ever do it, especially if we need to sift through it in a hurry. Finding targets of interest, or rescue operations... that kind of thing." He nods, though he's distracted from whatever his line of thought was by the Lotus speaking up again. "Oh. Really? Good." Except for the going back to the moon part. That place is creepy even by Meren's standards. He looks a little bit hangdog at that part.

"Ordis!" Chroma sits bolt upright, and Meren sounds... almost pathetically joyful. "You're okay! I was so worried!"

"Operator, wheeeerrrre--" The transmission collapses into a brief spate of staic. "Operator, where did you go?"

Meren's own copy of Ordis seems to be a lot more cracked and damaged than Kushiko's. Wherever the Liset went, it must have been through the wringer, or it was just in worse shape than hers when it was salvaged. Meren makes a gleeful little sound. "Orokin derelict. Somewhere in the Void. I guess we got separated through some kind of space-time anomaly; the Lotus is looking into it."

"Oh. Is that s-s-s-so? Ordis has no information on that, but will trust you at your word, Operator." There's a short pause, and the sine waves twitch a little. "Operator, please don't ever ab-ab-ab-ab-abandon Ordis like that agai--"

Meren sighs. "I guess I'll have to run diagnostics on him. I hope he isn't in too rough a shape, but he's still functional, so I guess that's something."

There's the Liset. The projection of Meren claps his hands gleefully. "Great. Alright, Kushiko, go ahead and dock the Scimitar. I've got my Orbiter waiting, and I'll bring in the Liset." There it is, in all its black and cyan-accented glory. "I'll be waiting for you all; Chroma will escort you all to the Somatic Link chamber."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    "I do mean it differently, I think," Setsuko replies to Meren. She reaches down and unclips her blade's sheath from her belt, and holds it up in front of herself. "This sword, Zanjintou, was the blade of a literal god. A divinity, a higher existence with dominion over the concept of War in my home world." When she speaks the word, it almost seems to thrum faintly with meaning. "It's become inextricably tied to my existence. It's my blade now, and a part of me. So its divine power has... leaked into me, for lack of a better term." She cants her head slightly. "...The Void feels vaguely similar to divine power in some ways, but very, very different in others. It's a bit unsettling." The even-more-cracked version of Ordis simply receives a quiet, almost disbelieving stare. "...I'll be over to your ship as soon as you're ready, then."

Kushiko has posed:
It's going to be /fun times/ when it comes to resolving the two Ordis that are potentially present. Copies? Quantum entanglement? Trying to logic that out is going to very plainly take some time, time that's not going to be spent here and now.

Kushiko on the other hand, falls into that familiar demeanor of reticience that she's known for, owing to her racking her own memories and mind regarding the Tenno she /thinks/ she knows. Trying to actually recall exact names beyond who she knows by their chosen Warframes is a troubling matter.

In the meantime is the matter of transitioning from the ship the group is on to Meren's Orbiter. With their new proximity, Meren's Liset is now close enough for Meren to have his Ordis reestablish link with his Liset, and the Liset that Kushiko's Ordis was guiding brings that one into the docking bay in the adjacent area of the ship's aft at last.

At least there was very clear coloring preferences to the Tenno, even if the names of their respective gear stayed the same!

Less than a minutes' walk would see Setsuko, Mesa and Chroma once they got going to the docking bay itself. Now, the Liset was turned about already, but Mesa sprinted ahead for good reason: the rear underneath the twin tailed element of the ship was being lowered at an angle so a secondary holding and transport bay could be opened. For Mesa? She was going to air glide over and pulls herself underneath and into the recess of the ship in order to lodge her frame in, as was custom.

Once Mesa was aboard her own ship, the angle of the vessel evened out, a ramp deploying for Setsuko and Chroma to board the rear compartment which had, through components that slid in and out of place, presented an 8 by 8 foot hold, with benches and belts that offered secure comfort for transport of friendlies who needed rescue.

... or in other configuration, probably /buttloads/ of Nano Spores.

Meren (1000) has posed:
"Oh. I see." Meren's holoprojection leans forward, squinting at the sword offered up for view. He's not looking through the projection, though, he's looking--

--through Chroma, who's got his head cocked right next to the sword, suddenly beside Setsuko in silence. Maybe two of those eye lights are actual optics, but it's hard to tell where exactly he seems to be 'looking.'

"Fascinating. I've never heard of anything like that before. It's okay, though. The Void is unsettling to some of us, too, and we're suffused in the stuff." Meren's projection cracks a grin, while Chroma remains stoic. "It's hard to describe."

Where Kushiko prefers darker colours and violets, Meren seems to prefer dark cyans, almost black, with accents of shockingly bright cyan that contrast one another well and show up easily. There's no effort at stealth with that kind of colour scheme, especially not with the flashy cloak-like syandana that flows behind the draconic Warframe.

No, he's just there to lay the hurt on whatever he's been commanded to fight. Subtlety is not one of Meren's finer qualities. Neither is stealth.

Chroma is quick to jog aboard the Liset, waiting with seeming patience to be transferred aboard, and then transferred over to the Orbiter. The actual transfer is quick, shuffling between ships and docking bays and whatnot.

They'll all discover soon enough that even Meren's Orbiter is decked out in those same shades of cyan. Very dark, thankfully, so it's fairly easy on the eyes -- but it's distinctly cyan.

Chroma gestures for the group to follow once they're all aboard and disembarked onto Meren's Orbiter; he'll lead them aft, to where the Somatic Link chamber lies behind its mist-cloaked door. The sigil of the Lotus glows on the door before it hisses open with another wash of steam.

Standing there is Meren himself. He's a decently large boy of maybe sixteen, dressed in a futuristic-looking flight suit. His hair is a shock of cyan, and his eyes are the same bright shade, skin pale. He's already pushing himself off the seat as the door hisses open, grinning brightly and taking a step forward to greet his visitors--

--and crumples onto the floor with a yelp, almost flat on his face, as his legs go out from under him the instant he's put weight on them.

Whoops.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko nods to the Chroma, returning the sword to her side. "The Multiverse tends to do that. I hadn't heard of things like 'quantum physics' before I left my world, but they're very common out there, as I've come to find out." There's a faint little hint of amusement there.

    Much like Meren, once she's seen the Mesa take its acrobatic trip across the docking bay to enter Kushiko's orbiter, Setsuko makes her way right up along with the Chroma to settle into the transport hold. Her pace is brisk and businesslike, and something in the way she moves suggests the woman could keep up with a Warframe at faster speeds too.

    Boarding Meren's Liset, on the other hand, is a new enough experience that she lingers for a moment, looking around with quiet curiosity before she proceeds in. This thing is definitely bigger on the inside, she quietly muses. And then it's through the door, into the chamber, and...

    Well, it's impressive how quickly Setsuko moves. Fast enough to be at Meren's side in a heartbeat, carefully reaching down to help him up. "Are you alright? Your legs aren't injured, are they?"

Kushiko has posed:
The Void as much as it was their lifeblood was /damned/ weird, make no mistake about it. The peculiar nature of it, it's similarity it sometimes bore to other kinds, other types of energy is part of what fostered the sense of the familiar with Setsuko as far as Kushiko felt it.

The transfer of people and Warframes from one point to another wasn't altogether difficult. Just a matter of positioning, docking one Liset, then another. Throughout the entire proceeding, Kushiko had remained quiet otherwise, and in turn, it was Ordis who had announced the disembarking procedures in her stead.

Strangely more polite, though seemingly with directed efforts to /stay/ coherently polite for those announcements.

Regardless of the time taken, being inside another Orbiter was an unnerving sensation for Kushiko with Mesa; just because they were manufactured the same way, it didn't /feel/ anything like her own. It was nothing she could put into words at this point in time, but who knows, maybe she might be able to suss out the words that didn't simply amount to 'weird' as a transcendent brand of understatement.

Before she has a chance to comment about the physical similarity between her Orbiter and Meren's however, earnest surprise to see Meren already ready to come out of the Somatic Link changes that line of thought quickly. More to the point, it's the boy rising, then falling that has Kushiko's Mesa surging through the air abruptly. Maybe not as /fast/ as the demigod does but that doesn't stop her from ending on Meren's side opposite of Setsuko.

Though, with Setsuko addressing the first, obvious question, Mesa turns her head, directing her optics towards Chroma, whom she suspects might not be as animated as Meren is as Kushiko quietly wonders, "... please don't tell me you forgot about that..."

... no, Kushiko has never accidentally done something like that herself, why ever would you think that?

Meren (1000) has posed:
Splat.

Well, that was a graceful first impression, wasn't it?

With some chagrin, Meren allows himself to be picked up by Setsuko. He's lighter than he looks, and he clings to her in a way that suggests he's going to do that again if he lets go. "Thanks." He manages a sour little smile. "That, uh... that happens, sometimes."

"No, I'm not injured. We don't fight, ourselves. We direct our Warframes in battle. I was never the same after the Lotus brought me back here, from cryosleep. Maybe it was because I was out for so long." His tone turns a little bitter; the first such emotion he's shown. "But I was always sick, even before..." Before he became what he is now, but he doesn't say that part out loud.

Leaning unsteadily against the demigoddess, he gives her arm an awkward pat, part acknowledgement and part thanks. "No," he directs, to Kushiko's projection. "It's not just from using them for too long."

Chroma steps in, then, scooping an arm under Meren and hefting him easily onto an armoured shoulder. The Operator settles. "I can't walk. I, uh, might have forgotten. Probably. Maybe. A little? It's been a long, long time since I've gotten to meet anyone new," he adds, wistfully. "It's been lonely here, so it's nice to have someone aboard."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko gives the Mesa a quick glance, one that says she's deduced a couple things but won't touch on the subject. Instead, she carefully supports the Operator until his own Frame can pick him up. "I see." She briefly considers suggesting he stay in the chair, but if he doesn't want to, then she'll trust his judgement for now. Instead, she replies, "I already knew a little about Tenno already. One or two things I noticed, or Kushiko told me." She takes a step back, giving him his space now that his Frame has him. "...I admit that I'm impressed you can control two bodies at once. That seems like it would be difficult."

Kushiko has posed:
--now that was a new one on Kushiko, watching Chroma continue to move despite what she /thought/ was Meren completely out of his chair. Being face down on the ground, however brief /should/ mean the connection was not present except by touch.

This was definitely strange for her, the projection of Kushiko's face fading in and out of sight for a fleeting moment. She clued in Setsuko more than she planned to, but that was her line of thinking. And maybe she should try this herself, but the way her own Void-derived powers worked it was her mind rather than her body that was the chief concern.

Nonetheless, when her projection phases back into a more solid state, she's apologetic when she speaks, "Ah, we're sorry, we thought you had forgotten about... no nevermind." It didn't merit further discussion, not now at least.

When Chroma finishes helping Meren up, Mesa turns away for a moment, stepping towards the vermillion mist swirling about behind the Somatic Link, the rhythmic pulses of the root system that dipped down and ascended at varying points within the white abyss.

Tacitly, she speaks herself, though not with her projection as directly as before, something in Meren's condition drawing her own thoughts inward and not wishing to show it. "It's not too hard, but for us it's something we've always been. They couldn't... contain what we were." She trails off then, partly hoping Meren is able to fill the gaps in the tale with his own words.

Meren (1000) has posed:
"There's nothing like us in the Origin System. There never was, and there probably never will be, unless it's another Tenno." Meren turns a little wistful again. "We used to be something else, before the Void changed us. We used to be normal. Now it's part of us. It gives us strength, but it's also our curse, too. And we can never go back to what we were before."

Shifting his weight atop Chroma, the Tenno looks down at his company, cocking his head slightly to regard Setsuko with a bright cyan eye. "Hmm. Really? I had never really thought about it too much. It's just... something I do, you know? Another gift of the Void," he adds, but this time it's a little bitter. It had nothing to do with the Void, and everything to do with the Orokin Empire's inability to leave well enough alone.

"Anyway, it doesn't take much for me to direct Chroma. He's easy to direct. It's almost like he knows what I'm going to ask him to do before he does it." Wait a second, are those things actually aware, or is he just talking about it fondly? "Sometimes it's a little fuzzy, but usually it's not a problem for me... maybe it's because I'm used to him and Volt."

He blinks over to Mesa, somewhat owlishly. "I forgot a lot of things," he tells her, in a moment of resigned honesty. "I guess you can chalk it up to the pile..."

It's a really big pile. Frustratingly big, some days, but thankfully there's always a chance to make new memories out there in the big wide multiverse. Oh, boy, is there. He can't wait to go exploring. It's a dumb idea for his own personal safety and he's all ready to go throw himself into extreme danger for the sake of novelty and curiosity! Yeah, he might have been cooped up on this ship for a little too long.

"Maybe it's because I'm a cripple." He shrugs, eyeing Setsuko. "Chroma helps me get around and function. Volt, too, when I'm using him. Maybe I just use them so much that I'm used to it... I never really thought about it."

He glances back to Kushiko, then to Setsuko. "We didn't know what we'd been made into," he explains, in that sort of bluntly honest, guileless manner that children can sometimes have. "We hurt people. We didn't mean to, but we didn't know how to control it... they used to put us to sleep, because we couldn't hurt them while we were dreaming. But..." He half-smiles. "It doesn't look like we can hurt you, either. So maybe there are more people out there we can't hurt. We can start living, again. Like real people. Like... we used to be, before we became part of the Void."

His voice is almost pathetically hopeful at that last.

With an unspoken command, an unvoiced wish, Chroma carefully lowers Meren to the ground; he stumbles, but Chroma keeps his arm under the Tenno to support him. "It's like me and my Warframes. I can't walk without help. But Chroma helps me walk. We wouldn't have lived out there, but the Void helped us. I don't really remember much of what came next, but I remember that it helped us Tenno survive."

"Anyway, if you have any questions, I'll try my best to answer. But there's a lot I don't remember," he adds, with that hint of wistfulness again. "I don't know if it's the Void or what they did to me, but I don't remember much..."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko regards the Mesa, then Meren, with a thoughtful expression. "I fear that people like us are unlikely to live truly normal lives. But..." She seems to be considering something. "...well. We occasionally run into those who understand us. And sometimes that's worth a lot. In my case..." The demigod folds arms behind her back and starts to pace a little. "When I first stepped out into the Multiverse, I'd only been half-divine for a couple of days at best. I stopped to stay in a peaceful village for a short while. I noticed, after I'd been there a couple days, that there seemed to be more... disputes. More arguments, tempers flaring. On the third day, a fistfight broke out. On the fourth, three of them. After that, it got a little worse. To keep things short, I moved onto another place, and the same thing happened. I began to notice a pattern."

    Her eyes drift upward briefly, as if to look out into the 'sky' of the Void. "I can't stay in one place very long. My nature apparently draws war to itself. I don't want to bring that down on innocent people, so I move around a lot. I stay on the front lines. It's not... quite the same thing. But it's not quite different, either." A faint shake of her head. "There are always those out there who understand you, if you look long enough."

Kushiko has posed:
There's a strange reflection going on here, something that Meren's actually helping to put to words more than he might realize. The way Valkyr, Nova, Mag and Mesa were when it came to her general well being, and the way her own segmented persona gave each them their own seeming autonomy at times. Other Tenno could not control as many as she could--as far as she knew anyways.

But was that all there was to it? Kushiko listened, letting the words, the facts spill into places for interpretation. Her Warframes, and she herself were exceptionally protective and private, though 'painfully shy' also had weight when it came to Kushiko. Yet as time progressed further, she had begun to open up, but even then there were the way the Warframes were: exceedingly protective of their Operator.

Kushiko's projection reflected something a little bit different as she stared ahead, looking not at the occupants of the room through her optics, but staring silently at Valkyr within her own Orbiter whom had arrived there, flanked by Nova and Mag Prime alike. "... we suppose," she murmurs, before trailing off. Words that could be assumed to be modest acknowledgment of Meren's words, almost listlessly pondering whether or not it was him being a cripple.

Though the truth is something else entirely.

"It's like a puzzle that's missing the pieces, we find." Kushiko starts anew, modestly assuaged by what Meren is able to offer up in his stead with his memories. Even if it is not as she hoped for herself, but she pondered if it was a little bit worse for Meren than it was for her. "We don't know if we'll ever be able to piece it together as our own, but... we must have known." It's clear that 'we' may not necessarily refer to her and Meren explicitly but there's no telling at this point.

"We remembered what it was like to be afraid. To be weak. I vowed never to forget that. Never to abuse what we had been given. We had--/have/, a code." Honor, dignity, despite servitude to their Orokin masters. To Setsuko, Kushiko's gaze levels out evenly through the projection, considering her words thoughtfully, the pale lilac orbs glimmering slightly. Warmth, just for a moment seems to pass across her features at the demigoddess' sentiment.

"We have these hopes as well, though the truth is that the world we might want to live in is not for us." A faint smile, "But here, there are many worlds, aren't there? No place for us to live as we were, then we'll live as we are..." She stops herself then, as both Mesa and Operator shift from their respective positions, the panel realigning for Kushiko and Mesa to gaze not solely at Meren and Chroma and even Setsuko, but even within their own Orbiter at the other frames.

"... no, we'll live as how we'll /want/ to be." Echoing a sentiment that stuck with her, no, more than that, a voice that she hoped the words rung in a familiar fashion for Meren too.

Meren (1000) has posed:
"Maybe we're not," Meren concedes with a half-shrug, "but if I have half a chance, then I want to try for it. Wouldn't you, if you thought you could; if you thought it was feasible?"

He stumbles a little against the support of his Warframe, but Chroma makes sure he doesn't go anywhere. Given the sort of raw strength these things can wield, holding a sickly child upright isn't much of a challenge. Both Warframe and Operator keep their attention fixed on their two guests, though in the case of Chroma, it may just be an illusion.

He nods, though. "Sounds a little like us, when they first brought us back to the Orokin Empire. They didn't know we'd changed. So when they tried to find out what was wrong with us, some of us used our Void powers. We couldn't help it. We didn't mean to. But we couldn't stop ourselves, either. We didn't know how. It just... happened." He makes a low sound in his throat, as though frustrated. "I think... I think we did a lot of damage. Hurt a lot of people. But I can't remember. And I don't know if I did or not."

"It used to be that we couldn't stay anywhere but the Void, but maybe we'll have more luck in the multiverse itself. We're safe here, but it's a lonely place. You understand; the details might be different, but you know what it is." Meren smiles a mild, fatalistic sort of smile. "It's nice to find someone who understands. I wasn't really expecting that."

He doesn't seem to consider Kushiko's use of 'we' strange at all. He himself does the same thing. He and Chroma are a unit; even if the Warframe doesn't have any sense of self, Meren invests a lot of emotion and sentimentality into the technogolem.

"If it's a puzzle, I have a lot of pieces missing." Meren gestures helplessly, palms outward. "I don't know if I'll ever find them all."

At talk of a code, Meren draws himself straighter, even if the effort visibly costs him. "We will bring honour to the Tenno," he says, and there is a conviction and steel in his voice that betrays nothing of his weak body. At Kushiko's continued words, though, something passes over his face; almost melancholy, but not quite.

"'Dream not of what you are... but what you want to be.'" He's obviously quoting something or someone; words of evident significance to himself and Kushiko both. "But that was just the first step, wasn't it? There's a whole road in front of us, now..."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    "A code of honor," Setsuko muses, turning back to face both Meren and Kushiko's Mesa. "We really are alike in several ways," she concludes. "I was born of a warrior clan. The Kaminagi have... had, very strict rules about battle, and a soldier's conduct." There is a faint smile there. "Whatever path you choose, whatever way you Tenno find to live, I'm certain there's a place for it in the Multiverse somewhere. It's a very large place. And at this point, having seen Kushiko in action more than once, I'm prepared to lend my blade, where I can. I can make no promises, of course, but..." Well. The Tenno remind her of herself in many, many ways.

Kushiko has posed:
Unbidden is a sense of pity that Kushiko does her damndest to erase; no, not pity, maybe anger at seeing Meren struggle. It's not his fault. It wasn't /any/ of their fault, yet here they were. All the same, Meren covers much of the the tale as it should be.

There's a few details she ponders a little bit to herself, her own sentiment regarding this, one old memory of her mother drifting to the surface. Such thoughts incline Kushiko towards reticience once again but without presenting itself through the projection as she listens.

She might have to attempt to venture outside herself, but even as Meren speaks, there's a wariness at the concept she feels through her frames; not just yet, they caution. Soon, perhaps.

"Mn, yeah. Setsuko's been someone we have found to be of worth," Kushiko begins. "The Multiverse has a lot of weird ones. Noisy ones, people who don't think about what they're doing. But she's not the only one..." Those she had met so far had demonstrated the spirit even if they had lacked the supernatural element; this too was just as important.

As to the puzzle itself, her words come a fair degree more dryly than before, undoubtedly influenced by Mesa's persona: "You and I both, plus I'm pretty sure this is one of those stupid puzzles that has no edges of corners." And given the varying issues between the two, that wasn't exaggeration.

A knowing look in regard to Setsuko; this subject had come up once before, and in that respect it was familiar territory as discussions went as it regarded honor. "Of course. The aid you've given so far has been more than welcome... and who knows, perhaps there may yet be a place..."

Truthfully, with Meren here now, the thoughts and plans she had in regards to establishing a Shadow Clan here just moved up a degree. They would have to repurpose (and thus reclaim) a Void tower but it was a plan to strive towards. Maybe that was more important than the establishment of such a thing.

Meren (1000) has posed:
"A code of honour," Meren confirms, cyan eye settling on the demigoddess. "We might have this power, but we would rather throw ourselves in surrender to the Sentients than betray that. It may be that we fight, but we have the power to choose our battles, and to choose who we protect and who we strike down with our blades."

Whatever the Sentients are, they must not be very nice. The way he says it also suggests that surrender isn't really an option. He seems to take this quite seriously; there's real conviction in those bright and faintly glowing eyes.

"Maybe." Meren lets himself lean back a little, supported by Chroma's strong arm. After a few more seconds of lingering on the ground, he lets Chroma scoop him up again, a moment of giddy disorientation as he's scooped high into the air and set down on the Warframe's broad shoulder. He might be crippled, but that'll never get old. "It certainly does seem to be a very big place. I can't wait to do some exploring once I have my affairs in order."

Uh oh. That devil-may-care grin might be a harbinger of terrible things.

The expression fades once he looks back to Kushiko's projection, and he frowns, as though in thought. "'Of worth?' Everyone is of worth, sister. Well, almost everyone; the ones who preserve the balance." He nods as though to himself. "Even if some of them forgot about the balance, like the Grineer and the Corpus..."

Balance?

"Of course it is." The boy makes a sour face at the mention of a puzzle without corners or borders. "And I bet some stupid kavat stole some of the pieces, too."

He glances back to Setsuko, nodding seriously. "Mm. I have to thank you for whatever you've done to help Kushiko. I don't know how many of us are left, out there, but every Tenno alive is a victory. And any help you've given her is help I'm happy to give you, if you need it. My body may be weak, but my mind is strong. And Chroma is strong, too." He reaches down, patting the draconic Warframe's head in a surprisingly affectionate gesture. "We're willing to fight for you. Or anything else you might need from us."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Hmh. "I... can't help it, I suppose," Setsuko muses. "It's my nature now to walk the battlefield forevermore, but I can choose which battlefields I walk, to whom I lend my blade. And I have... a soft spot, of sorts, for those of an honorable nature." A sucker for kindred spirits, in short. Her hand has absently drifted to Zanjintou again. She doesn't miss the words being thrown around, the mention of 'Sentients' immediately giving her the impression that Meren means something other than just 'self-aware beings'. Whatever they are, they're an enemy of the Tenno, she concludes. "...and a strong mind is, by far, a soldier's most dangerous weapon," she adds, with a look to Meren in specific.

    "As for the Multiverse itself, be ready for a... very strange place. If you have fairy tales here, stories of magic and impossible things, in all likelihood there's somewhere in the Multiverse they're real. I have fought alongside men wielding great, powerful magics, and others driving towering robots into battle, and seen girls younger than either of you project power that could level a building. One of the fiercest fighters I know is a robotic unicorn. The only thing you can truly prepare yourself for, is the fact that you'll be unprepared."

Kushiko has posed:
The mention of the Sentients would cause Mesa and by proxy Kushiko to turn away briefly. /That/ brought up some memories and definitely changed the body language Mesa presented. Another possible threat that could spill over into the Multiverse, and not one she was looking forward to dealing with due the potential for Hunhow or others to maybe gain allies or simply circumvent the Void entirely.

At Meren's words, Mesa simply offers a helpless little shrug on the notion of 'worth'. "This is true, but there are some who haven proven themselves more than most." A glance aside by Mesa in Setsuko's direction for a brief, yet important moment. "And for others, worthy enough to see as equals, in spirit or in combat."

This was an important distinction for those more combat-minded: someone who not only could keep up, but someone you could test your mettle against. It helped to improve both yourself and your comrade, which is how she saw Setsuko and had begun to slowly see others as more readily than before.

Yet Setsuko's words ring a sense of amusement as she turns away from the misty echoes of the Void behind the Somatic Link, "... well, there's always room for a new kind of strange," she begins, her projection simply smiling at Setsuko's words of caution.

"I think that is something we're both looking forward to. We come from a place where we are regarded in the way you offer, the power we wield seen as magic itself. We don't... personally understand it very well either sometimes." On this, Kushiko looks momentarily distant, as though she is searching memory, yet finding it wanting.

Mesa turns towards Meren, dismissing that mental cloud for a moment as she muses, "What she's trying to tell you is not to let the fun overwhelm you, Meren." Wait is that her being /teasing/? ... maybe there is some of the reticient, eternally withdrawn Kushiko showing itself at long last.

Meren (1000) has posed:
"Oh. So it just... happens, like we used to be with the Void Energy." Meren seems to accept this with a thoughtful expression. "And you can choose where you want to go, if you're going to be doing that anyway. I see. It's a little like us. We can choose where to unleash that energy, but we can't... at least, I don't think we can... store it indefinitely."

In light of the matter of morals and ethics, they're probably going to get along just great. Tenno may be assassins at heart, but even Meren is careful in what he does. He may be a child at heart, too, but he seems to fully grasp the gravity of what he does as a Tenno. The taking of a life is something that cannot be undone. He returns the look given him at her words on strong minds, along with a faint suggestion of a shrug. "Maybe so."

Setsuko's last caution on the multiverse itself only earns a grin. Yeah, that's just going to encourage him, by the look of it. It'll encourage him a lot. He's looking forward to throwing himself out into the madness.

It'll be a nice change of pace, doing something that doesn't involve being covered in blood.

Kushiko's words earn a faint but unreadable look from both Meren and Chroma, both looking at Mesa very intently for a few seconds at that assertion about 'new strange.' He declines comment, though, and looks somewhat sympathetic when Kushiko's projection looks like she's combing her memories for something. He knows that sour look when they fail to produce. Oh, boy, does he know that feeling. Meren may have a strong mind, but there are holes in his memory, yawning chasms of who he was and where he came from. Those holes bother him more than he lets on.

"What?" He blinks owlishly at Kushiko's warning, and then frowns in the manner of a cute little puppy that's just been soundly punted. "H-hey, just wait a minute... I wasn't going to do anything foolish..."

...Liar.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    There is something of a knowing look on Setsuko's face when Kushiko speaks. "I can understand that. What I know about my divine gifts... most of it was instinct. I couldn't tell you how I do it. I just... do. The rest I had to learn the hard way, by discovering it on my own."

    When Meren speaks, the demigod gives him a brief, acknowledging nod. "Sort of. It's more... I will draw conflict to me no matter where I go, like a magnet. So I simply go where there's conflict already, and fight alongside those I feel are just. It isn't much of a life. But there's worth to it nonetheless. I stain my hands with blood so that others will never need to." Those last words sound as if she's reciting a rote mantra. She finds herself pacing without really thinking about it, eyes absently looking around the room - and particularly at the wisps of Void behind Meren's chair. She doesn't miss that grin, either, and her response is to simply raise an eyebrow, letting her faint amusement show through that.

Kushiko has posed:
The immediate instinct Kushiko has in response to Meren's words would be a very flat 'I don't believe you', but she curbs her instinct in that regard. Part of that curbing is owed to the niggling sensation about what she was thinking about--she could have sworn, at least she knows she remembered from walking down those halls on the Moon one time.

Devils.

But the clarity she seeks regarding that is not something she'll have enough to speak on--at least not yet. "Certainly not. But then again, we have a lot to learn as Setsuko and even everything you've seen recently demonstrated." What with the people who could fight on a level similar to the Tenno and not, you know, actually /be/ Tenno.

Plus it wasn't /just/ the fighting either: the places, the food--not that it was /needed/ but there was opportunities that abounded.

Yet she does fall silent and taciturn upon Setsuko's words. Her projection reflects an altogether knowing look of feeling precisely as she did. That was the burden to bear, wasn't it? To fight so others did not have to but it was not a death sentence as it could be. Not anymore at least.

The quiet mood of contemplation is dismissed after a few moment as Mesa fiddles with one of her Regulator sidearms out of habit, the barrel swinging around into her hand as the Operator speaks. "Well then. Let's make the most of it going forward, huh? All of us."

Meren (1000) has posed:
"Sounds familiar," Meren confirms to Setsuko. "We had to work at what we learned to do with the Void, some of us. Eventually, we learned how to harness that energy; how to make it do exactly what we wanted it to do. We learned to control it, instead of it controlling us. But we hurt a lot of people to get there," he adds, with a shadow of guilt. "A lot of people."

He frowns, very slightly, at Setsuko's description. "Huh. I guess I can understand that. We tend to go where the battles are, too, but that's usually because that's where the Lotus sends us. We're warriors; conflict is part of our nature. But we hope to settle conflict, or to prevent greater conflict. Though I suppose some of us just partake of conflict for the sake of it," he muses. "But staining our hands so others need not... we understand that. We understand that very well."

Shrugging from his perch atop Chroma's shoulder, he offers a cheerful smile. "Yeah. We'll make the most of it... all of us. Together."

Kushiko has posed:
"And work we shall, as there is still some work to do with that Orokin derelict." Largely to ensure it isn't misused by opportunists and the like. The Lotus may trust the Union to respect their wishes but it did not lessen her caution and wariness about having that Orokin tech out there.

Despite its' current state of 'bloodied, dilapidated, and prodigous amounts of scorching' at any rate, it still had it's uses.

"Last I know, the Lotus does not yet need us for it, but will undoubtedly need us soon for specific tasks. We shall leave you now to gather yourself and make sure nothing is out of order." It goes without saying to make sure Ordis isn't... /too/ much off his rocker. Diagnostic regressions are likely necessary given the space-time oddity that tends to be the Void and now the Multiverse's interaction with it.

She would gesture to Setsuko, but not before Mesa turns to Meren, "We are glad that you are with us now, brother." Such words were accompanied by a small, quiet smile; for the taciturn Operator, it felt good to have cause to use that word again.

The projection flickered out of sight as Mesa bowed her head, before turning to guide Setsuko back to her own Liset so they could get her back to the frigate and thus, make their way back /out/ of the Void once more.