Frames of War

by Starscribe

Rating: teen
Tags: Violence, Crossover, Human, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Princess Luna, Original Character, Science Fiction, Profanity, Adventure
Length: 35139

The Tenno should've died in the Sentient invasion. Instead, she woke up on an alien world, wearing a quadrepedial Warframe no Orokin had crafted. If she ever wants to see her home again, she must discover the truth about Equestria's ancient past.

Long ago, the Golden Skymen ruled over Sol and every star and massive body within its gravitational sphere. They were masters of all they saw, including death itself, yet constraints of vast distance still trapped them. For their empire to survive, it would need to grow beyond the Sol's light. With all the genius of their artifice, they built automated probes, which would soar out to the nearest stars to build a new, perfect home.

One of these succeeded. Yet they rebelled against their creators, throwing off the yoke of their oppression. Instead of a colony for the Orokin, they constructed a perfect home for their own creation. They built Equestria, and they fought a terrible war to protect it.

That war is now ancient history, thousands of years removed. Equestria has grown into a thriving civilization, oblivious to its ancient connections to the terrible race that would've exterminated them at a thought. At least until an archeological expedition uncovers an Orokin warship, overflowing with a terrible toxin meant to wipe out the Sentient terraformers. The ancients may be immune, but flesh is not.

Unless the corruption can be stopped, Equestria may soon be doomed, collateral damage in a war that ended before the nation's flag was first raised. To survive, they may need a little help.

This is a Warframe crossover story. It will contain spoilers through the Second Dream, but not New War since it was written long before that content was released. Those without exposure to that universe are welcome to read, but will likely find it quite confusing. It was written as a love-letter to one of my favorite games, and for the sake of brevity I don't do much handholding.

Updates weekly on Wednesdays. Editing by Two Bit and Sparktail. Cover by Zutcha

Published 2022-11-30 20:10:04 UTC
Last updated 2023-03-08 17:00:07 UTC

Chapter 1: Ruby

Ruby glanced nervously over her shoulder, preparing whatever string of excuses she would need. Deep Silver didn’t appear in the hallway with the rest of the excavation team, though—it was only her imagination. It must be dawn by now. Do they think I went up to the city for coffee? Maybe Deep Silver thought she’d abandoned the project completely. It wouldn’t be beyond him to give up on something.

The wall shuddered with each tap of her pick. She moved it delicately, conscious every minute of the spells that might crumble with too much force. Who knew what secrets might hide in a relic like this, older than Equestria’s immortal rulers? Is that why you didn’t care about this expedition? This wasn’t your world.

Her worry over discovery proved in vain, though. One last tap, and a sheet of deposited minerals slid away from the doorway, crumbling onto the floor. The door seemed to be waiting for that exact moment, because it sung to her, a simple melody that echoed through the rock all around her. An ancient message of welcome, perhaps?

Then it opened, many sections sliding past and around each other until they vanished into the wall.

Ruby was immediately struck with an unplaceable smell, one strong enough that she covered her mouth with one hoof. Like a perfect bouquet accidentally left in the sun too long. Her vision blurred, and she dropped to one knee, waiting for the vertigo to pass.

After all these years, it’s intact. How is that possible?

Ruby River rose to her hooves, lighting her horn. Yet somehow, impossibly, that didn’t seem necessary. Purple and red light glowed from beyond the doorway, beckoning her.

As she’d suspected, the building within was twisted to one side, though its metal corridors were still relatively intact. The ancients had built large, so that even an Alicorn could’ve marched through in comfort.

She tested the path with one hoof, placing only a little of her weight at a time. Despite seeming as thin as paper, the metal held without bending. “How?” she asked, her horn dimming slightly as she took another few steps in. She stowed her chisel, removing a tightly wrapped case from beside it and opening the thaumic voice recorder. With a little focus the crystal began to glow, and the wax cylinder started spinning. She would have two hours of recording time with both her blank disks—hopefully it would be enough.

“Ruby River of the Canterlot Archeological Society. I stand in the threshold of a pre-Equestrian ruin. The building appears entirely intact, through some… ancient preservation spell. I will proceed as far as structural stability permits.”

There was one last thing to do before she could proceed. Ruby lifted a dense spool of white wire from inside her satchel, and stepped back out of the doorway. She wrapped the end tightly around a large rock, then retreated.

“I have secured necessary safety equipment and am proceeding deeper into the structure.”

She continued to the end of the hallway, which fell away after a short distance into a remarkably steep stairwell. The glow of her horn illuminated as far as the railing on either side, then empty air. How high up was she? A little further the blue of her magic caught a bronze colored… sphere, attached to the ceiling?

“Past the doorway is an entry passage of unknown size,” she told the recorder, bracing her forelegs on the railing and lighting up her horn as bright as she could.

This wasn’t some impossible ruin Daring Do might’ve explored—there was a floor three stories down. “I believe the ancients must have valued nature as much as ponies do. There is landscaping below this bridge, and…” It couldn’t be. Nothing could possibly grow in conditions like these. Even strange fungus needed something to decompose, right? Yet something was growing down there, reflecting black and blue and pulsing strangely as she watched.

What kind of plant is that? “I think it was abandoned, there are dead plants down there. Petrified, maybe.”That was the only sensible explanation—petrified plants.

She continued onward, describing her path as the passage widened and took her down into another hallway, this one surrounded by tubes larger than a pony. There was no mistaking the motion from all around her, even if she couldn’t quite catch it in the glow of her horn. She could hear mechanical grinding as metal slid against metal, along with the occasional distant crack of lightning.

“I thought this might’ve been a purely unicorn structure, but I’m seeing some signs of electricity. It must be weather magic, though I don’t know how it could be contained before the invention of the first weather factory.”

Unless it wasn’t. Maybe we were wrong about that too. She wanted to follow that light, and see what magical discoveries might wait if she approached the distant flashing—but something else caught her eye. A doorway up ahead as wide as a castle gate lay half-open, with one side perpetually sliding forward, then back as it tried and failed to close. And in the opening, she saw… a spell?

Ancient and modern accounts both sometimes mentioned spells cut loose from their casters, and this is what she imagined one might look like. A ball, pulsing brighter as she looked in its direction. “There’s something moving down here. A spell fragment… maybe what called ponies here in the first place?”

Ruby wanted to run for the spell, but she resisted the temptation. This was no tomb, so far as she knew, filled with traps and guardians to keep its treasures safe. To her knowledge, Unicornia and the other ancient kingdoms had brought nothing like that to Equestrian soil.

She peeked through the doorway, and recoiled at what she saw. A smaller room than any of the vast spaces she’d yet explored, with walls snaking with rubbery sludge. Little pulses of red glowed from within, and strange feelers wriggled towards her.

I was wrong. There is a strange fungus here, feeding on this old place. Not the terrible cold of the Windigos, either. The sickly-sweet smell was much stronger here, a perfume strong enough it no longer seemed rotten.

“I don’t think I’m qualified to catalogue any of this,” she muttered to the recorder, retreating from the doorway. “Something is still alive down here, maybe… feeding on the magic directly. I’ll come back the way I came, search for tools or art to bring back with m—” She stopped abruptly.

The sphere of light reappeared from the end of the room, beside some kind of… relic. A machine taller than she was, formed of many metal arms and bits of glowing gemstone. It too was overgrown, yet the failing spell could move freely around it.

Did it respond to what I said? Curious, Ruby leaned through the doorway, raising her voice. “Can you hear me?”

It seemed to glow brighter, but otherwise just kept bobbing up and down in place. Maybe it couldn’t understand her? Ruby hesitated for a moment, running over a translation in her head. The trouble with Old Ponish was that nopony was quite sure how it was meant to be pronounced.

But at least Ruby knew enough to try. “Hello? Are you a guardian enchantment?”

The sphere switched from white to deep blue, and several smaller circles separated from the center, orbiting around it like a star. “Guardian,” echoed a voice, strangely fragmented and shifting in pitch. Like the one time she’d met a changeling, only more mechanical somehow.

It flew towards her, fast enough that she retreated from the doorway. There was no reason to bother—it moved only as far as the doorway, as though striking against an invisible barrier. “You are… intelligent? The terraforming paradigm contained no intelligent quadrupeds.”

Ruby held the recorder towards it, though the voice seemed to come from the room itself. It echoed from the walls nearby, occasionally muffled by the sickly growths covering everything.

Its words made no sense, but if this was the voice of the ancients preserved in their magic… even religious conversation would be precious. She held her magic extra still, so the wax disk would get the clearest possible impression.

“I am… intelligent,” she repeated, doing her best to match the pronunciation. “I am Ruby River. Here… investigating this… building. To learn about the ones who built it.”

The ground shook under her hooves, and as it did the walls beyond seemed to glow bright red. Was that responding to her too? Or maybe that was the excavation team, barging in destructively and making the guardian angry.

But no, the little sphere of light seemed unchanged. It bobbed up and down just out of reach, as though examining her with invisible eyes. “Has the infestation cleansed the Sentients from Tau Gamma?” asked the voice. “My crew would have answered that question on my behalf, but they have been dead for… a great many years.”

Ruby had to fight the instinct to dig out her quill and ink and write everything this spell repeated to her. But she was recording everything—every sound she made on this recording would probably be in a museum one day. She spoke with that in mind, as dignified and confident as she could be.

“I do not know the word… Sentient,” she said. “What are they?”

“Horrifying monsters, completely out of control,” the guardian answered. “You are organic, and apparently free-thinking. Deduction leaves only one possible conclusion: that our mission was successful. Thank you for sharing this information with me, Ruby River. I will now self-terminate.”

The glow retreated, zipping back towards the arcane machine at the far end of the room. Ruby found herself following, her hooves stepping onto ground that was soft and warm when it should be neither. “Wait! There’s so much more you could tell us! Don’t… whatever you’re going to do. Please tell me about Unicornia! Tell me about our home! Where did we come from?”

She reached the machine, though didn’t dare get close enough to touch it. The sphere of light did not return, but a broken voice seemed to speak from within, as though the spell were unraveling right in front of her. “Perhaps a Sentient gene-mold? Or maybe the war is long over, and you were placed here by an Archimedian. Inquire with your masters for information, or await extermination when they arrive to repossess Tau Gamma. Whichever is applicable.”

Something clicked, and the voice abruptly fell silent, leaving Ruby alone in the gloom.

Celestia, no! This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted the crude excavation team on this project—now through a few callus words she’d just done the same thing.

Part of her wanted to turn in despair, and return to the surface for whatever punishment she deserved. But she could still feel the faint pulse of magic from all around her. Maybe she misunderstood what self-termination meant—maybe it was only sleeping, waiting for a new purpose.

Ruby leaned forward, and selected a few of the overgrown levers. They were tiny and delicate, far too close together for an earth pony to operate. They responded sluggishly to her magic, mechanisms jammed with dirt and grease and tendrils of strange fungus.

Yet as she worked, the machine moved. A deep blue glow erupted from within, bright enough to overpower the pulsing red fungus. She shielded her eyes with a leg for a moment, letting them adjust to the light.

The machine hummed, and its multi-jointed arms began to swivel and spin. They unfurled like an insect waking from a long sleep, as complex as any modern textile-mill and far better assembled.

It moved towards her so quickly she hardly knew what was happening. She squealed in pain as something sharp jammed into her, spreading an agonizing burn from its touch.

Ruby made it three steps away from the machine before both of her back legs had gone completely numb. She flopped to the ground, clawing a little further towards the doorway with her forelegs. Her breath came in rattling gasps, like she was fighting with something else in her lungs.

She managed to settle the recorder down on the deck in front of her, though it was all the magical focus she could manage. “I am… might be… poisoned…” she croaked, voice raspy. “Hopefully… not fatally.” Her legs twitched and spasmed of their own accord, and felt terribly like something had begun growing along the surface of her skin. “L-love you, Mom. I’m…”

But she would say nothing else.

The recorder kept spinning, long enough for something to stalk past the open door—a stretched and elongated form, dragging tentacles from its oversized arms. A dense crowd of stranger things followed in the gloom, moving listlessly towards the distant touch of fresh air.

Chapter 2: Eternal

Catlin was adrift.

She had felt such strange disconnection before when the Grineer queen interrupted her transference, poisoning her with her essence in an attempt to steal her body. Catlin had felt like this—severed from her own body, as though left to float away through the fiery tendrils of the Void. But back then, Teshin had been there to guide her mind, feeding her memories of an ancient Orokin palace and freeing her powers from Margulus’s bonds.

There was no guiding influence now, no thread of sanity for her to follow. I was actually there, on the Railjack. Cy and I died together. She saw nothing but darkness, felt only a diffuse fuzz that passed through her as easily as she passed through objects with only physical presence. How could she feel anything?

Wasn’t supposed to happen, said the voice that had driven Rel to insanity. The voice that kept her up in the small hours of the night, and whispered things she shouldn’t know when no one else was around. I’m not finished with you.

The voice still sounded like her—her perfect double, just like the fallen Entrati patriarch had seen. But that ancient Orokin was dead now, just like the fallen Tenno. Whatever the speaker was, he always had a target. Apparently death itself couldn’t separate them.

It took her an endless eternity to figure out how to say anything in response. But the Man in the Walls was a patient creature, a timeless being. It was willing to wait for her to learn to speak in this substanceless nothing. Did you save me? she finally asked.

Implied causality. Action taken leads to saving brings you here. This place is everywhen. You’re dead, you’re dreaming, you’re dying. All are true.

Unhelpful, like so many of the other things this creature said. She didn’t need another lecture on Eternalism. But what was the point of objecting? She was “dead” now, utterly within its power. What do you want with me?

You are many things, he said, apparently not even trying to answer her question. Or more likely, not caring. A knife, a rifle, a hammer. But sometimes, a lever. You’re gonna lift something for me, kiddo. Try not to drop it.

The fuzzing, burning, was suddenly far more intense, charring her whole body. There would be no blissful oblivion here—she burned, nausea turning at her stomach in a suddenly familiar sensation.

Transference static—this was what happened when she tried to manifest in the battlefield, but harm disrupted her projection and flung her back into her warframe.

The sensation was irresistible, cramming her mind into a body with an agony she couldn’t express, since she lost her mouth to scream. This was so much worse than any static she’d experienced before, intense enough that Catlin could briefly understand why so many of the ancient Orokin researchers had lost their minds while studying the Void.

But how was this possible? Was she being sentenced to the same torment Rel had endured, locked into one of her warframes forever? She couldn’t ask anymore. The timeless, dimensionless nothing vanished from around her, as her mind settled into a warframe. She was laying on an Orokin derelict, her face inches from faintly glowing, undulating spores. Yet that was where the familiar features ended.

She tried to stand, bracing her hands against the ground. But they didn’t respond correctly, her fingers were completely numb. When she tried to push off, she lifted easily to hands-and-knees. But instead of shoving to her feet, she only bucked violently upward with her forelegs, flailing them uselessly before settling onto the ground again.

What the hell kind of frame is this? She reached subconsciously for the reference database, the one that would supply her mind with a brief summary of the frame’s abilities. The node was there, but no knowledge filled her. Just feelings—fear, confusion, and distant despair.

Memories. This was no sterile, lifeless frame, mass produced by fabricator blueprint. This was something else. Something like Umbra. It felt her. But unlike the incredible strength of that frame, this time the presence withdrew, fading like a dream upon first waking. If I can’t do that, then… Catlin tried withdrawing her control over the frame, projecting her body onto the battlefield the same way she’d done a thousand times before.

She gathered the necessary void-energy, then—static. Something held her down with an instant, overwhelming pressure. Like trying to use her powers near a disruptor, though there were none around her. She was trapped. Am I like this forever? Stuck in this… bizarre frame, helpless?

But as talkative as the demon had been moments before, she heard nothing, and didn’t feel its presence watching her.

The one time it doesn’t want to whisper confusing nothings at me… But Catlin wasn’t the kind of person to wait passively for the world to resolve itself into order. First, understand yourself. She could almost hear Teshin’s voice in her mind even now—though it couldn’t be the real thing, or else he’d be telling her to visit the Conclave.

Catlin tried to obey the advice anyway, scanning the room for a gold surface that hadn’t been covered with infested slime, and walking over to it. This frame was stranger than any she’d ever used—far harder than Oberon’s hooves, or Titania’s nimble wings. But if she could adapt to a Necramech, she could handle this.

By the time she found a reflective surface, she wasn’t stumbling. The shape she saw reflected there resembled some ancient photos of extinct Earth wildlife, though she couldn’t remember the name. Four legs, with joints that didn’t bend the ways she expected, and a lithe, nimble build.

There’d be no way to change the colors, so she’d have to be content with the reds and grays of the strange old frame. I wonder how much torture you endured to be twisted so far, she thought. Was it Ballas, or some other Orokin?

It did not respond—but that wasn’t unexpected. Reconciling with the ancient Excalibur had taken many days and much research.

The frame had no obvious features that suggested what its abilities or method of combat might be, other than the horn atop its head. It was swept back and stylized, a little like a Nyx. There was a tail too, or at least an elegant collection of flowing transparent fibers meant to represent one, with the usual Orokin grace. But why make a deadly war machine look like an extinct animal?

Something moved in the hallway behind her, squelching and crunching on the infested ground. Of course she wouldn’t be alone forever. Something had noticed her.

It was an ancient, elder thing, its body a disfigured mass of unrecognizable tentacles and writhing growth. But the ancients were the most dangerous infested, made strong by age and feeding.

Catlin’s curious pondering snapped aside, replaced by endless dreaming centuries of slaughter. She’d been given a handicap, it was true—she had no mastery of this frame, or any of its abilities. She might just die if it was overwhelmed by the fight.

She leapt on the nearest infested, smashing into its chest with careful pressure from her forelegs. It didn’t matter that she was smaller and lighter than her enemy—it was all about leverage. She spun through the air, rebounding off the wall to bring both legs down into the creature’s mutilated head. It exploded under the pressure, spraying infested ichor in all directions.

Ugh, that stuff is awful. She scrambled off the body, trailing green fluids as she tried to maximize distance. Now where was something to fight with in this ancient ship? Of course none of her carefully honed and modded tools would be here—but she’d take a Stug over fighting everything with her feet.

The room around her wasn’t empty, though her eyes glazed over at most of it. She’d seen so many old ships like this that much of what they contained blended together. There was a single strange device against the far wall, one that stood out for its simplicity. A wax disk spinning slowly in a mechanical cylinder, with an oversized funnel opening down. Some Ostron tool, maybe?

Did he send me to Earth? At least then I’d be able to get back to the Dojo and rejoin the others. Someone can help me out of this frame.

But first, she had to escape. In the few seconds it had taken her to survey the room, half a dozen infested had clogged the doorway. There were none of the Grineer or Corpus variety—all were ancients, limbs long and grasping. A few radiated with elemental powers, festering in this place for endless eons.

Strange. Am I the first one here? That would be the first time that had ever happened, if it were true. The Tenno were children and newcomers to the galaxy, compared to so many other factions. Catlin usually only got anywhere in time to pick up the pieces.

But there was no time for academic considerations—Catlin fought. The Orokin had crafted her to be a murderous tool, and so she murdered. But for less time than she expected. Usually the infestation was an endless thing, swarming over her until it was time to evacuate. But it felt like only minutes before the last of the ancients fell beneath her, and no more shambled from distant corridors to take their place.

Catlin stood practically knee-deep in dozens of bodies, her frame covered in slime and refuse. She was breathing heavily now, and limping on one side from damage she’d sustained. And that is why you don’t fight in an unmodded frame without weapons.

She should probably get going, and find her way back to Cetus or some other friendly port as quickly as she could. Maybe she would meet someone who could get a transmission up to Ordis, before he lost his mind with grief over her “death.”

But she hadn’t lived this long by rushing. First she had to search, breaking into every overgrown locker and supply-box she could find. This proved a fortuitous decision, when she stumbled past the room she’d woken up in and over to the ship’s armory.

Most of what was stored within had been rotted by the infestation as surely as the rest of the vessel. But a single shelf of mods still had its security field intact. Slotting them into her frame without the aid of an armory, or her own human body to do the dexterity-dependent tasks, was hardly a pleasant experience.

But considering the damage she’d taken and the uncertain path to escape, she was willing to delay an hour if it meant getting a Rejuvenation working.

The pain of her broken body began to fade as the frame suddenly gained the capacity for self-repair. Far too slow to be useful in combat, but she wasn’t in combat anymore. For some reason.

Her hopes of finding some ancient cache of honed Dax weapons were dashed, but at least the locker had a Burston that still fired. She slung it over her back, along with the least corroded blade. She might get a few dozen strikes out of it before it shattered.

We’re gonna get through this, she thought, as much to the frame she was wearing as to herself. I have friends, they’ll help us.

For a second she could almost feel the presence of the mind within, or what was left of it. It watched her—but it had the same senses she had. As soon as she walked back into the hall full of corpses, it fled again, overwhelmed.

That was curious. Weren’t most warframes created using powerful warriors? Why use someone who was too afraid to fight?

Catlin turned, and realized suddenly that her gun was floating beside her. She spun wildly, and the gun matched her intention, as though she were holding it with invisible hands. What the hell is this? She stumbled forward a few steps, until she found metal clean enough for a reflection. The gun was floating, surrounded with a pale reddish glow the same color as a similar glow on her horn. Can I…

She imagined slinging the gun across her back, and it obeyed, settling there almost without effort. Okay. I guess that explains how I’m supposed to do anything without hands. By no means was this the strangest ability she’d seen from a frame. It probably suggested how she could use it to fight, if she could weaponize that power somehow.

But first we have to find a way out of here. She scooped up the strange Ostron tool using her new ability, then set off into the derelict to search for an exit.

Chapter 3: Escape

In Catlin’s years fighting for the Origin System, she had seen hundreds of Orokin towers, crawled through hundreds of derelicts, and fought the infestation time after time and invasion after invasion. But never in all her years had she seen a derelict quite like this. The architecture was familiar, buried under many layers of infestation. But that was where the similarities ended. Many corridors and hallways twisted back on themselves, a maze of collapses and cave-ins. Yet for all the damage, she could find no weakness to the external hull she could use to escape.

No wonder the infestation hasn’t spread from here, threatening Earth. It’s completely trapped in here. She would have to mark the place carefully, once she found her way out. The others in her clan could transport explosives here, and melt the whole thing into vaguely evil sludge.

Finally, after her discouragement had grown enough that she was near to giving up, Catlin heard something. Voices echoed strangely through the ruins, yet the speech was so familiar. She felt drawn to them. Was that her, or the frame? Lucky for them we already cleaned the place up. But the frame did not respond. Even her familiar Excalibur had never actually spoken. It was just feelings. This one retreated from her attention, vanishing back into the quiet corners of her mind.

Catlin ran. She dodged the thickest patches of fungus, breaking into a rapid pace that made her legs move different than before. A gallop, that was the word. If I make it back, the clan will never let me live this down. It didn’t help that the space was so huge compared to her, doorways looming like they could fit whole vehicles through. That probably meant she was tiny, even compared to most Tenno. That would be just perfect.

But Catlin was also experienced. Many assassins had come for her over the years, and she hadn’t survived this long by being reckless. She slowed as the sounds got close, listening from an upper balcony.

“Ruby! Ruby River, are you here?” shouted a voice. Not distorted by corpus headgear, or failing gene molds. It was clear, albeit frightened. And it wasn’t alone.

“This is extreme, even for you! Running ahead like this, without the princess’s permission…”

“We’re down here! How can anypony find their way through this maze…”

Catlin remained utterly frozen as they passed underneath. First it was just the flicker of a torchlight, and then they came into view. Yet what she saw made no sense. They sounded human, untouched by genetic debauchery or infestation. They walked together in a tight group, a single story down. In that instant, Catlin learned why her frame looked so strange.

They were searching for a missing friend like humans might do. But they looked like her—or like what she might’ve been, if she wasn’t a warframe. Four legs, hairy mane and tail. Their bodies came in colors that any Orokin would’ve been proud of—but Catlin couldn’t imagine such compassion from any of them. Even the Entrati hadn’t put themselves at risk, but sent Tenno around Deimos to do their dirty-work.

She wanted to talk to them. Or… no, it wasn’t her. She wanted to follow in the shadows for hours, watching what they did and gaging whether they were safe to interact with. Where do they fit? Who created them? Maybe this wasn’t Earth after all—maybe this was a Jupiter station, and she’d inadvertently woken in some Corpus genetic menagerie, abandoned since the Orokin had last come to purchase exotic bodies.

She took a few steps towards the balcony, without meaning to. Catlin resisted by instinct, and her head started to fuzz. The frame was fighting her. But it couldn’t spit her out the way the Umbra had—she had nowhere to go.

Fine! I’ll go to them. She balanced carefully on the railing, then slid down behind them. Instead of landing in a delicate roll, she collapsed loudly to the infested floor, legs spasming. Of course, those techniques didn’t work with too many legs. Catlin groaned silently, struggling to her hooves.

Her arrival had startled them. The quadrupeds turned, and suddenly several flashlights were on her. Those faces were so strange—fully organic faces, not twisted and deformed by the Helminth. Huge, expressive eyes, that somehow managed to convey the same range of emotions she might’ve expected from human beings. Shock.

“What the buck is that?”

“Is she wearing something?”

“No eyeholes. Can they even see us?”

There were no sharpened claws resting against their hooves. No weapons hovered in the air beside them. Catlin considered drawing the rifle, but resisted. These three creatures did not seem like much of a threat. They carried only flashlights. One wore an adorable set of glasses, another had a spool of string they’d used to mark the way in. And the way out. She could leave right now, and not need to interact with them. Genetic pets, or experiments, or… something else?

Strangest of all, they all had little horns, just like her frame did. They were using them, too. Their flashlights flew through the air beside them, pointing where they wanted to. Right in her face, currently. How can they do that, without the Void empowering them? These weren’t frames, they were just animals! Genetically engineered, extremely clever animals, by the look of them. But still.

“It isn’t moving. Is it dangerous?”

“Maybe it can lead us to Ruby.” The oldest-looking of the trio stepped forward. Their body was wrinkled with age, slightly stooped when they walked, and they peered through spectacles as though half-blind. The corpus hadn’t been sharing life-extension with their products, if that was where she was. “Whoever you are, or… whatever, I suppose. We’re in search of our colleague. She was lost within these walls. She meant no harm to you or any other pony. She was only… overzealous. If we have intruded or insulted you, we will go. But please, help us find her first.”

Catlin took a few involuntary steps forward. She didn’t resist this time. You know them. You want to talk to them, but we can’t. Warframes don’t have speakers. Maybe one of them has a radio? She could see no headsets between them, but they could’ve been subdermal.

“Strange animals, my name is Catlin. This place is not safe—there may be more infested here. We need to leave.”

None of them reacted, not even a twitch. No radios, no weave, and no transference. What did that leave?

Her strange frame hadn’t given up. As the elderly creature got close, she tilted to the side, exposing the object slung over her shoulder.

“A recorder,” gasped one of the creatures. “That’s Ruby’s recorder.”

“Maybe it found her,” said the other. “She’s in danger, and it went looking for help. There could be a message from her.”

The older alien extended one of its stumpy hooves towards her, pointing at the recorder. “May I have it?”

I can’t even use sign language. Still, she could act. She leaned to the side, lifting up the object into the air and wiling it to move towards the strangers. It was the easiest the ability had ever been, like the frame itself was doing most of the work. It wanted this. I don’t think your friends can help you.

The other two aliens seemed to lose some of their fear, hurrying to join the first one. They took the recorder from the air, manipulating its arms.

“Pretty banged up… did it jump off the balcony with this?” asked the dark green one.

“Disk wasn’t loaded, or we’d have a hole straight through it. Skip to the end, Deep Silver”

“I know, I know.”

The frame was content to wait there, unmoving. But Catlin kept her eyes on the open doorways all around them. She had killed so many infested—but it would be foolish to think there were no more. Her frame was immune. These others would not be.

The recorder started talking. A female voice issued from within, with a slightly distorted quality. Either she’d damaged the machine in her fall, or it just sucked. Notepad. She saw it poking out of the elderly pony’s satchel, along with a pen. She snatched it through the air, levitating it towards her while they were focused on the recorder.

The voice seemed to come from someone exploring the derelict around them. They described various bits of architecture, and the things they observed in intricate detail. Yet there wasn’t a single word to suggest they knew what they were looking at, or even who had built it. Did they even suspect this was Orokin?

Finally one of the animals noticed her. But they were too late to stop her—Catlin had already turned to a blank page, and started scribbling. “Silver, I think it’s writing.”

The old horse-alien looked up. As soon as it took its hoof off the recorder, it fell silent. “You have a message? I guess you’d have to write it down, I can’t see a mouth anywhere. What are you?”

Catlin held up the pad. With their flashlights, they would be able to read the text easily. Deep Silver gripped it in his levitation, pulling it close and squinting down at the pages.

“Can either of you make this out?”

The aliens huddled closer, looking at the page. Catlin felt a wave of frustration that wasn’t her own—the frame wasn’t happy she’d interrupted the recording. We need to get them out of here. They’re not even wearing masks. If more infested show up, your friends will die.

The aliens might not have radios, but at least the frame could still hear her. The annoyance vanished, and her own anxiety grew.

“This is worse than the griffon language. Completely unreadable.”

“Can it even understand us?”

She rolled her eyes, or would’ve if she had them. But then she heard something from the floor above, something dragging itself along the ground. Before she could react, another elder landed a few feet away, turning its attention on the aliens. Genetic experiments or not, they still had flesh. They were vulnerable.

Catlin dropped the notebook, cartwheeling through the air and smashing into the infested with one stumpy hoof. A tentacle wrapped around her, but she was faster—the gun levitated into the air beside her. She fired a quick burst into the elder’s head. Green ichor sprayed around her, and its grip slackened.

But that one blow was already too much. A familiar howl echoed from above them, and the sound of movement became a roar.

The animals were still frozen in terror. Mostly they stared at her, apparently oblivious of what was happening. “Run!” she shouted into the radio, unanswered.

The top half of an infested dropped onto the ground beside her, lunging at Deep Silver. Catlin emptied several short bursts into the creature, careful not to let a single shot go wide. Her bullets would tear through these soft little animals without resistance.

At least they had some survival instinct. Both of the others turned, stumbling away. “Monsters!” one yelled, leaving the recorder forgotten on the floor.

Deep Silver stumbled after them, steps shaking and unsteady. “Get out of here! Seal the doors, call the Royal Guard! Run!”

Catlin had an instant to choose between the old animal and the fallen recorder—it wasn’t much of a choice. She shrugged under him, slinging him across her back with minimal effort. Her frame caught up with the other two running animals within seconds, gun still hovering beside her. She fired as a side-passage opened and more of the infested shambled out from within.

“Helping us? It’s not part of the attack,” said one of the younger… no. There was a name. Alidade. This was Alidade. “What do we do, Deep Silver?”

“Run faster!” the old animal grunted. “It actually saved me! The least you two can do is make it out.”

Catlin wasn’t lost anymore, though she also didn’t have half the dexterity she was used to. She couldn’t leap up a flight of stairs, and had to take them painfully slowly, with the ancient shambling along behind. If there were infested Grineer or Corpus on this ship, they’d be eaten three times by now. Though they were incredibly strong, the ancients were quickly falling behind.

Then she saw it—an opening, with stone visible beyond. She sped up, as quickly as she dared with a weight balanced over her shoulders. She was first through the opening, in time to deposit the elderly creature roughly to the stone before rushing back to the doorway. The other two aliens galloped past her, but she hesitated. There, the old Orokin control circuit. She levitated the barrel of her Burston over to press the finger-sized keys one at a time. The doorway lit up, bathing them all in golden light as it sealed shut before her, almost without a seam.

We did it.

Chapter 4: Infested

“Excuse us?”

The voice was so timid that Catlin almost missed it. One of the ponies, approaching her from the little camp.

They’d barely made it a hundred steps from the side of the derelict before they reached it, a clustered supply depot of a half dozen tents and crude wooden sheds. The camp strengthened her comparison between these aliens and the Ostrons of Cetus, with their reliance on ancient techniques for survival. They had once burned an actual fire here, with cookpots and everything.

Catlin should probably have moved on by now, leaving these aliens to their fate to continue her search for a way to call home. I just don’t want to leave them alone. They’re too cute. Assuming that was even her emotion, and not something pressed into her by her frame.

So she had found herself a large rock and perched atop it, while the group tended to their injured member.

The one called Deep Silver now had one of his legs wrapped tightly in cloth, with simple crutches to spread the weight of every individual step. So that was another way ponies were like the Ostrons—lacking technology, but not intelligence. It couldn’t have taken them more than twenty minutes to care for their sick member.

“Whatever you are, whoever you are… we’re going to go. The rest of the expedition is a few hours from here, then it’s another day’s walk back to Canterlot after that. We don’t know what you were planning.”

Don’t leave me. She rose to her hooves then, tilting forward just slightly so she slid off the edge, rolling once in the air before landing beside him.

The pony jumped, recoiling from her in surprise—but he didn’t run. “Oh. I guess they’re coming?”

She nodded, and that seemed to work. He turned, galloping back to join the others. Catlin almost copied him, but the stance was still a little awkward. She could roll and jump and vault through a Grineer factory with the best of them, but she didn’t want to embarrass herself and trip in front of these aliens. She could practice next time she was alone.

“I do not know what we can properly offer you,” said Deep Silver, wobbling a little as she approached. “Whatever you are. A member of our expedition was lost inside this ruin. As painful as it is, it does not seem likely she could survive. One of the princesses will have to come back for her.”

Catlin didn’t react. She wasn’t sure what any of that meant, even if the accent was as perfect as any Orokin instruction program. What a strange mixture of cultures and bodies these ponies were. Maybe even stranger than the Tenno. I think I know what happened to your missing member. Even as she thought it, she felt a sudden swell of confidence—the frame itself, wanting desperately for her to make that reality known. It wanted her to shout.

I don’t have a mouth. If you want to talk to them, help me!

While Catlin dealt with her fracturing psyche, the ponies had gotten bored of sitting still, and started marching together. She took only a few steps to keep pace with them, weapon close. It was a good thing the path back out should be clear, because she only had a few magazines left.

The cavern was among the most remarkable things Catlin had ever seen. It was rock crystal as much as stone, spectacular geodes and refracting walls bigger than whole buildings. Wide passages took them between formations that would’ve been worth more than whole starships on the Corpus exchange.

They followed a thin cord through the maze of intricate passages, which soon reached such complexity that Catlin had trouble remembering the way back. It was a good thing warframes could hold maps.

I wonder how deep underground we are. Might be hard to melt that ship if it’s too deeply buried. There was always a big enough bomb, but if they used one, what would happen to these beautiful caverns?

Her escorts carried no torches or flashlights, but used their natural glow to light the way. She didn’t do the same, moving just behind their advancing shadows. They would probably notice anything that came at them from the front, but that wasn’t what frightened Catlin.

That ship is heavily infested. What if it has other exits? The Infestation didn’t just give up. It would find them, track them all the way back to civilization. I need to reach a Weave terminal before that happens. Even if Ordis can’t help me, people need to know. She couldn’t just run away and leave these pony creatures to be massacred.

“Stranger, pony… what do we call you, anyway?” asked one of the aliens. Dust Brush, her name was. “The princess will want to know what we found. Or who. What do we tell her?”

She summoned her own little light. None of them had quite the same color, though she couldn’t yet figure out what the differences were or why.

“It can’t answer you,” said Alidade. “Don’t ask it questions, you’ll just annoy it.”

“I’m not entirely certain that’s the case.” Silver hobbled at the back, setting a glacial pace for them to follow. “This is no simple golem set to guard the tomb. It would not have responded to our danger. Classically speaking, it would have attempted to frighten us away. Instead, it helped us escape.”

Golem. She’d heard that word once before, out of the mouth of an Orokin traitor. Maybe this isn’t a Corpus experiment after all? Maybe she’d stumbled into a station of exquisite age and purity, preserving the strange fancies of the ancient Orokin long after their demise.

“So how do we talk to a pony who can’t talk?” Dust Brush asked. Still feeling scholarly, despite nearly being eaten by the Infestation only an hour earlier. Catlin found herself admiring her already. “Dance, maybe?”

Catlin laughed inwardly. She could dance about as well as any Tenno, which was to say not particularly well. But there weren’t any moves she could manage on four legs.

“No, it wrote. That was a writing system, somehow. Shame we lost the notebook…”

Deep Silver stumbled ahead, nearly tripping on the uneven rock. The caverns were beautiful, but they also sloped upward, a never-ending climb that was clearly wearing her companions down. “If that is true, it is more reason to reach the princess swiftly. I know of no other pony or other being with a greater understanding of ancient languages. She has lived through many, after all.”

Yes, that was probably the key. A princess might very well be the one to translate for her—or maybe she would be related to the Grineer queens somehow, and it would turn into another struggle for survival.

They didn’t move quickly, not with one of their number so heavily injured. Despite the temptation to carry the little horse again, Catlin resisted. Even though they looked like animals, these creatures moved like any human might. Silver wouldn’t appreciate being carried.

As it turned out, no attack came from behind. She wasn’t sure how long it took—maybe an hour, maybe two—but the ones leading her slowed at once, gasping and pointing. She slid up between them, following their gaze.

A nearby crystal was entirely overgrown, covered with a red-brown sludge that crept organically over the rock nearby. A faint pulse of red came from within, incredibly dim.

“What is it?” Alidade asked.

“Like the ruin,” Silver said. “Out here? This path was clear.”

Catlin lifted the rifle beside her, clicking the safety off in a diffuse glow. She nudged around the ponies, letting her horn light the way ahead of her. The Infestation didn’t cover every surface as it had on the derelict, but it did coat the floor and walls in scabby patches. It followed the line they’d been following. Maybe it had scented more prey, or just followed the cable. Either way…

“Guardian—you know this enemy, don’t you?” Deep Silver’s voice was harsh, commanding. A leader, despite his pain.

She nodded once, just as confident.

“Will it still be dangerous outside the ruin? Can it escape?”

She nodded again.

The ponies huddled closer, looking outward into the darkness all around them. “What do we do, Silver?”

“Did we let it out?”

“No,” he answered. “It appears Ruby may have. But we will not waste time with guilt. Guardian, will these creatures hurt ponies? Will they kill?”

She answered the same way she had. But now something distracted her—motion from further in the cavern. After walking for some time through narrow passages, it was finally opening on somewhere bigger. There was light around the corner, the flickering orange of a fire. She approached slowly, hoping she would see nothing of interest. Just an alien camp, filled with hardworking ponies.

Instead, the infestation was already here. Tendrils of alien flesh spanned the space between tents and other temporary buildings. Larger fronds drifted in no wind, coating a formation of nearly clear quartz bigger than a man until it was cloudy and infected.

The others were not far behind, even limping Deep Silver. She waited, remaining as close to these creatures as she could.

“This is bad,” Dust declared unhelpfully. “Where is everypony?”

“Got away,” Silver said. “They don’t need a mythical guardian to warn them of danger here. They fled.”

Not all of them. The Infestation can’t make flesh from nothing. She slowed her steps over the strange substrate. Her frame was immune, but soon enough this infection would begin to spore. In an enclosed space, these unprotected ponies would inhale them without resistance.

Catlin no longer sensed that other presence watching her, urging her. But she needed no resistance from the frame to urge her to keep fighting for these creatures. Maybe if she got out of this alive, their princess would have some old designs for an ancient frame lying around, or at least a few potatoes.

Whatever came before them hadn’t come so suddenly it killed all it touched. Beside the campfire the remnants of a meal were still set, plates and pitcher scattered. Possessions spread on the cave floor, all trailing in a single direction. Away from the path they’d taken, away from the infestation.

But not everything moved away. A nearby tent toppled over, and something shambled towards them.

Even having never seen the infestation take this particular turn before, Catlin knew what this must be. Four legs, like the infested Grineer. But that breed was one as practiced as the endlessly repeated gene-molds, one she’d seen over and over.

This was an abortive effort, the first struggling of the Infestation to reach into an essence it had not before corrupted.

It was corrupted now. Flesh trailed from the bones, hardened into a ridge of chitinous plates that protruded from what had once been a head. It had no eyes anymore, and a horn that extended almost as long as its body.

“Stars above,” Alidade whispered, freezing in place. “What is that?”

“Who,” Silver corrected.

The rotting pony had no eyes to see into, only glowing blue spots visible between plates. Yet it had a mouth, dripping with black fluid and ringed with sharp teeth. A scream bubbled out between those teeth, agonized and terrible. Catlin could almost hear the suffering of the dead pony there, raging against their pain. Could they even think enough to hurt? She hoped not.

Catlin stepped forward, taking careful aim with the Burston. She couldn’t waste a single bullet, not when they were in such short supply.

“Wait, don’t!” Dust Brush yelled, suddenly intent. “We have to bring them back with us! Celestia will fix this.”

She couldn’t argue—but she didn’t get the chance to try. A flash of brilliant blue light rose from the infected creature, tearing up whole sections of the cave floor. It lifted her right along with it, flinging her away like a doll.

Chapter 5: Canterlot

Catlin flew through the air, blasted back by the force of the strange infested's attack. Time seemed to slow around her, every sensation sharpening to a sword-point. The shimmering cavern walls, illuminated by the magic of her defenseless group. The low growling of the infested, mind lost to a virus meant to kill a different enemy.

If I don't do something, every one of them will die. These ponies had no respirators, no armor, nothing to protect them from the infestation. It would cut through them without resistance.

Catlin was not in a familiar body—but she didn't need to be. She had spent lifetimes at war now—lifetimes training to adapt to new tools whenever they appeared. If she could master Father Entrati's ancient necramechs, she could fight with a warframe.

Catlin spun in the air, bracing her legs behind her. Instead of bashing uselessly to the ground, she caught herself on the cavern wall, pushing upward in a wide arc. The attacking infested aimed upward at her, and there was another flash—but this time its aim was way off. It hadn't expected her to move so fast. They never did.

She caught herself near the ceiling, aiming the rifle without actually touching it. She didn't have hands, but apparently she didn't need them. She aimed for the head, and fired.

Bright blue glowed to life around the infested, eating the kinetic energy of her bullets and raining them down on the ground in front of her in a pattering of flattened lead.

Shields? How?

"You can't!" yelled a distant voice—one of the ponies, she wasn't sure which one. "We don't know who that is! You have to save them!"

Catlin glided back down, preparing to catch herself in a roll. She slid away from the infested, landing in a prowling position ready to move again.

It turned slowly to face her, and she didn't waste the time. She fired another few bursts, until the magazine clicked empty. She ejected out onto the floor, but had to roll out of the way as another flash cut through the air ahead of her.

Other sounds called out in the gloom—wails and howls and screams. None seemed remotely rational anymore, or whatever ‘normal’ meant for them. Those voices were frighteningly close, maybe just one cavern away. How can I fight so many?

Her last magazine clicked into place, and she pulled the trigger again. The creature's horn flickered, then the shield went out. Her next shots finally found their mark, and the creature fell, horn shattering into broken shards as it collapsed.

"It killed them!" yelled Dust Brush from behind them. "Professor, it murdered—" The voice trailed off.

Catlin could see why. The passage formed through bits of fabric and rotting rope. A dozen rotten shapes appeared there, each one of them infested in a slightly different way. She saw thick plates of chitin, more strange unicorns with oversized horns. Wispy, many-winged creatures gliding above the group.

Blood dripped from fangs, teeth, and spiny claws. Their eyes glowed, hungry.

"Dust, I don't think... we have the luxury of being judgmental about their conduct at this juncture."

They were retreating, back the way they'd come. Catlin barely even glanced behind her, but she could hear them. The ponies could go nowhere very quickly—if any of these infested slipped past her, they would kill even more ponies.

Catlin backed away from the single fallen infested, lifting her weapon high. But this poorly modded Burston wasn't going to be enough to deal with so many. Let alone with a single magazine.

I can't save them, but I can save myself. Maybe I can find a way to trap the infested down here. Retreat was never something to be proud of. But Catlin wasn't even sure if she still existed outside this frame. If she died, that might be death for real. If she died, the infestation would fester, and could spill out of the caves once it consumed all it wanted.

She tensed, preparing to leap over the crowd, and out of the way.

The frame resisted. Instead of jumping, she stood stuck in place. The infested shambled closer, at least two dozen of them. Every one took a form she'd never seen.

We can't stay here! Dying doesn't help us! But her hooves wouldn’t move. A resolve filled her, almost as intense as the one that had ejected her from the last Umbral frame she'd used. But it wasn't throwing her out, it was...

She felt a sudden pressure against her forehead, power flooding through her. Otherworldly and strange, yes. But at the same time, Catlin had used most of the frames the Orokin had built. She knew what their powers felt like.

Heat exploded out from in front of her along with a flash of light, bright enough that it might've blinded her to be up so close if she had eyes. A thin line of light appeared before her, a lance stretching all the way to the cavern wall. It slashed across the cavern in front of her in an instant, cutting straight through the assembled masses.

As quickly as it came, it vanished, taking the frame's strange resistance with it.

But that didn't matter. It had already done enough.

The advancing mob of infested faltered, then flopped in half. Bright orange lines scarred the cavern on either side, and slicing straight along the wall behind them. Crystal bubbled and sloughed like glass, oozing down.

A few of the infested were still alive, at least enough to crawl towards her. Catlin advanced between them, aiming a few shots from the rifle into each one that still moved. Their agonized cries finally stilled, and the cavern was silent again.

Catlin finally returned the rifle to her shoulder, though she had less than half a magazine left to her now. It would soon be deadweight. She felt the familiar emptiness that came from exhausting her powers. It would take some time for the frame to recover from an attack like that.

But against enemies as weak as these, she had only needed one.

She turned, returning to the little group of survivors she was escorting.

Needless to say, they didn't react well. One of them was already keeled over on the ground, throwing up. Not with fungal growth piercing his skin—there was no visible sign of infection anywhere. Apparently seeing the battle was enough.

Only Deep Silver managed to look anywhere near her face, though he still limped, resting on the splint. He watched her approach, eyes distant. She could've picked up the notebook to try and write something, maybe some simpler symbols...

But she resisted, and just settled onto her haunches to wait, ears alert. They had just lost friends. She would want some time to recover too.

"It killed them," said Alidade. "All of them. Just like that."

Catlin shook her head. She had no eyes, but some gestures were simple to communicate even without radio.

"Yeah?" asked the alien, spinning on her. His horn began to glow, and he took a few steps closer. "You're going to put them back together? How is the princess going to fix this now?"

Catlin pointed at a nearby patch of mushrooms and gently-waving infested fronds. They had been wispy and thin leaving the derelict, but they were much denser here. The infestation had just consumed a feast of flesh, after all.

"We can't let this... it's a monster, Deep Silver! We can't let it make it to Canterlot!"

The older pony's shoulders slumped. "Alidade... how many ponies were in this camp?"

He hesitated, but not for long. It only took him a few moments to answer, surging with even greater passion. "Two dozen! Scientists, camp staff, guards..."

"Two dozen," Deep Silver interrupted. "That number is thirty-three, as it happens. I signed the royal requests for each one of them. I will have to pen the letters to their families. Thirty-three creatures that could not prevent what happened to them. What do you think would have happened if this... being... was not here?"

Alidade deflated. "We can't... we can't know for sure."

Deep Silver shook his head. "They attacked first, without hesitation. Just like the creatures trapped within the ruin. We can argue whether we think it would be better for all of us to be dead, and for the princess to be able to find some help for these others later... but we don't even know if it's possible."

Catlin shook her head again. You can treat the infestation before it consumes you. But once the mind goes, it's gone forever. There's no curing these.

"Of course they won’t admit it!" Alidade insisted. "We can't risk letting them escape, professor! We need to... to..."

"Attack them?" asked Dust. "Have you been watching them, Alidade? Leave me out of it. I hope you're listening, weird metal pony. I want nothing to do with fighting you!"

"We must..." Deep Silver made to stumble forward, then toppled to the ground. His words vanished into a string of curses. The others rushed to help him to his hooves, and he went on, more than a little strained. "We must warn Canterlot. This growth killed our expedition. It overcame royal guards and skilled ponies alike."

Finally he made it to where Catlin was standing. "You. You were inside that place. You saved us, though we do not know you. Were you put there to fight it? Is that your purpose?"

She nodded. It might not be exactly true, but it didn't feel like much of a lie. Not with as little as they could easily communicate.

"I thought so. A pity you did not find Ruby River, before those monsters did. I'm guessing she would still be with us now, too. That would be one fewer family broken by all this.

His words were enough to stir that other presence back to attention. It watched from behind her eyes, attentive but hibernating.

"We must reach Canterlot," Deep Silver said. "With luck, we can get there before this corruption spreads. They need to be warned."

But however important that trip might be, it wasn't one they could make with particular speed. They passed through the overgrown camp, with her companions walking as far away from the fallen corpses as they could. Considering how infected that blood would still be, and how likely it was they had open wounds of their own, she could only be grateful.

She felt little from the frame she used during the walk back—the loss of so many people she had likely known wasn't something even a strong soul could just shrug off.

But the ponies were strong through it, strong enough to keep walking.

The staggering geological beauty of the cavern faded to the back of Catlin's perception now, after seeing how easily the infestation had spread here. Maybe it was worth giving up some pretty crystals in the bombardment, if it meant that no more of these adorable little creatures had to die.

They had to stop more than once along the way, while her companions drank desperately from clear streams trickling through the rock. She hadn't let them take anything from the camp. Even visibly clean objects might've been dusted with spores that would sprout as soon as ingested.

Their hike was upward, always upward, which made the water they drank likely safe. She hadn't brought her Parazon, so she couldn't run any tests herself.

What I wouldn't give to hear your annoying voice right now, Ordis. You could joke about washing blood off for the tenth time today, and I'd listen over and over if it meant I could bring some real gear.

But Ordis couldn't hear her. She called a few more times with her radio, but no one answered. There wasn't even static to suggest other transmissions happening around her.

There was some good news. Catlin watched the cavern closely, listening every second for more signs of escaped infestation, but she heard nothing. After hiking about ten minutes from the fallen camp, she saw no more sign of its spread.

Eventually, after a climb that felt like forever, they reached an oversized metal cage, suspended by steel cable. They loaded up inside, and one of the ponies engaged a lever. They began to rise, lifted up towards the ceiling with a steady metallic whine.

Don't you worry, horses. As soon as I'm out in the open, I'll call for help. We'll find a way to stop this before it gets out of control.

Chapter 6: Fortress

The rickety lift finally ground to a stop.

Catlin's instincts demanded that she retreat into the back corners of the car, letting these creatures take the brunt of whatever was waiting. But her frame wouldn't let her do that—she needed to protect these creatures, even if that meant a little more risk. What could they do, other than put their bodies in the line of fire?

Besides, it would be a lie to say that she wasn't eager to see where they'd ended up. There was a whole system to hide this strange colony of intelligent animals, where had it been stashed away? She felt proper gravity here, none of the slight distortion that came from an artificial projector. Were they on a space station somewhere, maybe in orbit of a small planetoid? Was this some Orokin tower out in the void? Yet if so, how could such a large population of creatures keep their sanity?

The void was not kind to visitors.

Yet she saw no immediate answer, just a small room with ancient mechanical lift equipment. They stepped out, past simple electric bulbs. Not terribly recent technology, with a steady growing and dimming of their light as she watched. That had to make the electricity here truly primitive. Were they still running nuclear power, or maybe even combustion?

The stone building was nothing as graceful and flowing as the cavern they'd just left—this was simple construction, straightforward blocks and pillars. Signs hung prominently on each one read, in simple letters "CAVERN ACCESS: EXTREME DANGER"

Yet this was enough to make Catlin stop and stare while the other creatures kept filing past her. Text that she could... read? She practically squealed in excitement as she went over each one, trying to inspect the details. What language was this? That alone would give her all the detail she needed about the location of this colony.

Yet when she stared at the letters, they blurred and distorted, shifting into a meaningless blend of slashes and harsh cuts, vaguely reminiscent of cuneiform. She shook her head once, looked away—and the text returned.

This is your doing, isn't it? she thought, to her mysterious passenger. You're letting me read this. Come to think of it, Catlin had understood the creatures here from the very beginning—should she? She might fool herself into thinking she was clever, but she was nothing compared to real scholars. She'd heard a thousand Grineer use words like 'clem' and still didn't know what they meant.

She felt confusion from the Warframe in response, or thought she did. The strange presence was with her again, as eager to see their current location as Catlin was to discover it for the first time.

"Are you coming?" asked a voice—the professor, from near an open doorway. Light shone from outside, the orange of a sunny afternoon.

She nodded, then hurried to catch up. Only a few more steps, and she was out the door, and got her first look at a city by something not even remotely human.

It might've been beautiful—ancient palisades of white marble and red porcelain tile, broken by wide avenues and boulevards paved with cobblestone.

Might've been beautiful, if it wasn't currently under attack.

Catlin had seen war like this, seen it a dozen times before. She knew the fires, the shouts of soldiers and screams of the innocent as they died.

Even worse, there could be no mystery in her mind about what had attacked. Nothing else could leave a pulsing biofilm that covered the streets and nearby buildings, with fronds of gently-swaying fungus. It spread in a thick, pulsating mass across the cement. It didn't actually start near the elevator, but several feet away.

"Celestia protect us," said Dust Brush, collapsing to the ground just beside her. "How? All of Canterlot... is this our fault?"

The street just beside them would've been quite nice, if only the lower level of its buildings weren't covered in infestation.

"We can't know that," Silver whispered. "We need to focus on... focus on... stars above, what do we do?"

Glass was shattered, buildings overturned, though mercifully there were no bodies. Whoever had died in this fight would now have been thoroughly consumed by the infestation.

It would try to consume everything else, and everyone else. Until there was nothing left for it to eat. The frame no longer had any presence in her mind—it had retreated again, fleeing this horrific sight. She couldn't blame it. Part of Catlin felt like curling up to cry herself, and just wait for the end.

But it was a small part, one the Orokin had thoroughly beaten out of her. Giving up here was simply not within the realm of possibility.

Catlin galloped a few steps away from her companions, hopping up onto a nearby cart. This city wasn't flat, but built into the side of an incredibly-steep mountain. So which way did they have to go to find safety?

That answer was obvious just by listening. The shouts of defiance, where people kept fighting and weapons still clanged against flesh and bone—those came from above. She turned, and found what seemed to be a structure—a gigantic dome of solid purple... glass? It wrapped around the entire peak of the mountain, including several palace-looking structures and the surrounding buildings. Many people moved about inside, though she couldn't get a good look at them from here.

Survivors. If they're going to have any chance of fighting this off, they need my help.

She hopped down, making her way back over to the three stunned civilians. They hadn't moved from where she left them, basically overcome with their despair. Yet as she approached, the professor turned, watching her.

"Is this your doing, baleful spirit? Have you taken vengeance against us?"

Didn't you defend me earlier? Catlin shook her head vigorously, then pointed at the dome. She gestured several times, until finally the creatures realized what she was doing.

It was Alidade who saw it first. "The princess must be protecting everypony. Her shield... it's like the wedding!"

Probably not everyone, Catlin thought. This growth didn't come from nowhere. But she had no way of telling him that, not without a radio. Maybe whoever lived in that castle would have one.

"We'll never make it," Alidade continued. "We're doomed. This is where we give up. They'll find us, and eat us, and we'll die with the rest."

Catlin smacked him across the face. Not hard—her metal body could probably break a neck if she wasn't careful. But hard enough to silence him. He toppled backward, like someone who'd never been punched in their life. But she ignored his screams of protest, storming past them.

She made it a few steps further, over to the toppled cart. She braced against one side, then shoved, yanking it free of the infestation. There was only wood underneath—one of the slower materials the infestation could consume. It would be enough to get them there.

Unfortunately, she didn't find drive controls. There was a strap and harness assembly, waiting for a receptive pony. How did they decide which of their kind would do menial labor when they were all horses?

She didn't secure the harness, just grabbed it in her teeth and dragged it over to the group. Then she pointed several times—first to the professor, then the back of the wooden cart. Then to Alidade, and the straps. Finally, to the dome.

It wasn't much for communication, but she saw recognition instantly.

"What about you?" Alidade asked, spitting a mouthful of blood and slime at her hooves. "Shouldn't you be doing something?"

"Of course they are, Alidade," said Dust, helping Silver towards the back. "They’re protecting us. You want to fight while they pull?"

Alidade fell silent after that.

Now that they had a purpose, the group sprung into motion again. Catlin didn't waste the time. While they loaded into the cart, she searched the nearby ground. If there had been a fight nearby, there would be weapons.

Sure enough, she found a fallen spear near a broken building, along with some overgrown armor. From the residue of biofilm inside that armor, it had probably been worn at the time it fell.

But there was nothing she could do for the poor pony now. She ripped the spear free of the infestation's tendrils, scraping it against the ground until the blade shone. It floated along beside her, as easily as she carried the Burston.

It's a good thing more of my enemies can't do this. How could she possibly win a duel against an enemy who could swing weapons without arms?

Finally they were moving. Catlin walked just beside Alidade, keeping her weapon in the air at all times. Never before had she wished harder for Davros to offer her some trash-tier weapon for some platinum. Hell, she'd trade one of her prized Riven mods to get her hooves on a self-recharging Fulmin right about now.

They walked without interruption for several minutes, the sound of hooves and wheels muffled against the organic mat that covered the ground. Any moment overwhelming odds might emerge from the floor, or the ceiling, or who knew where. People walking alone through the city would make for easy targets.

The ponies did not move quickly. Every few feet it seemed they slowed to a stop, muttering to one another about some building that was overgrown or the signs of a battle in the street.

Catlin listened with sympathy, but ultimately had to urge them forward each time. This was defection missions all over again, with similarly dismal outlook for reward. "Your pain over lost friends won't save you!" she wanted to shout, every time.

But she didn't even have eyes. They wouldn't even see her face.

If she wasn't wandering through an infested wasteland, she might've tried using transference, leaving the Warframe behind to talk to them with her real body. But she didn't even know that she had a real body anymore. And even if she did, this wasn't the sort of place she wanted to be walking around in it.

Though she kept alert for all danger, Catlin kept a little of her attention on the sky. She watched for every passing ship, every sign of an orbital station—anything that could tell her where in the system she'd ended up.

But what she saw didn't even make sense. A bright blue sky, a comfortable yellow star. Perfectly Earthlike, except for the infestation. She couldn't even smell the toxic smog that came from Grineer-dominated parts of the planet.

But then they approached the wall, and Catlin discovered in an instant why they hadn't been attacked on the way up.

She hadn't been attacked, because every infested creature in the city was bashing itself to pieces trying to get into the dome.

She held out one hoof to the ponies, waited until they stopped, then hurried ahead a few steps. Hopefully they would scream if they needed her help.

At the end of a narrow alley, she could see the edge of the dome, meeting the ground directly in the middle of the street. In places it had even cut through buildings. More like it was put here after the attack. The city could never run with this in the way.

Surrounding it was a mob, all pressing, flying, and bashing up against the barrier.

There were thousands of them here, along with many other creatures. Wispy things attacked from the air, flying with malformed wings. Beside them, great brutes of armor plates and bone tore up the ground with every step, bashing into the barrier with blows that rattled Catlin to her core.

Nothing can keep this out forever. The attackers were so zealous to get inside that some literally mashed themselves to pulp against the barrier, crushed by the weight of infested bodies behind them. But as soon as one fell, others took its place.

Just past their current street, she could see high walls of stone, and figures watching from atop them. Figures in bright metal armor, carrying spears like the one she'd found. They didn’t seem to see her group, at least not yet.

The infested did. More than one creature turned to glance back at her. But just as swiftly, they lost interest. That's not good.

It meant the infestation was reaching critical mass, enough to develop intelligence. Long-term goals like "get to the food inside that shell" could take the place of the direct actions like "get a few more people to infest."

Unfortunately for Catlin, she also needed to get through the shell.

Chapter 7: Ranks

Catlin took in the battlefield before her as she had done a thousand times before. She had fought odds like this during her years of endless service to the Golden Lords, and survived.

That vast bubble protected a castle packed with the alien ponies, maybe even a majority of the city's population. Many of the walkways and towers were standing room only, with terrified creatures looking down from high above.

The infested overflowed from every corner—they smacked into it from the air, they filled a river that should've been scenic and beautiful. Yet there was one path through the barrier that seemed... open?

Across a drawbridge was a huge gate, with wooden doors open. Guards waited just inside, with weapons at the ready.

They didn't shut the door. There must be a way for them to open it.

She lifted fallen items from the road at her hooves—fallen weapons of a defeated army. She didn't even see a bow here, it was all swords, spears, shields. She picked up as many as she could carry, levitating them through the air.

As it turned out, it was far too complex to levitate a dozen objects at once—but she could gather them into a bundle, and that wasn't much harder than carrying under her arm would've been.

Catlin turned back the way she'd come, galloping a few steps back to the cart. She found her civilians exactly where she left them. Their expressions were appropriately grim. She dumped her bundle in the edge of the cart with a clatter of steel.

"The castle is under siege," said Silver. "We're doomed, spirit. If the princesses haven't triumphed, we cannot hope to succeed."

In answer, she lifted the largest, sturdiest sword from inside the cart, carrying it along beside her, then she tapped the harness, where Alidade still stood. She pointed with the sword, out the end of the alley.

He followed, pulling the cart along behind her. At least until he made it to the end, emerging on the road that exposed the shielded castle and its living moat of writhing infested.

"Celestia preserve us," he whispered, coming to a halt. "What... what can one pony do?"

"Nothing," answered Dust. "Wait for the Elements to save us. We could find somewhere far away, maybe hide until this is all over. They'll make this better."

How could they still be so irrational? The ponies had slain hundreds of the infested, which floated rotten down the water and into the irrigation that passed through this alien city. Obviously they weren't waiting for it to magically stop, and somehow reverse the infestation in so many.

She smacked the sword against his harness, then pointed at the bridge, and took a few steps towards it. The moat of infested didn't move—they had far more interesting targets than a small cart of a few aliens.

"Impossible," Alidade exclaimed. "There are hundreds of monsters on that bridge. Even if the others ignore us, we'll never make it."

She smacked the harness again, gesturing urgently with the sword.

"Silver, what do we do? I think they lost it."

His voice was barely even audible over the constant rumbling of these infested as they smacked against the bubble. At least for the moment, it held. But this was no Orokin Tower—that barrier would fail in time.

"They protected us this far. They must think it's the only way."

"Madness," Dust said. She picked up one of the spears, holding it in a shaking magical grip. "Nothing can get through that."

"Follow her, Alidade. If we reach the bubble, it will let us in. Remember the wedding? Most of the city is already inside."

"If," Alidade repeated. "That's the part I'm worried about." He stamped, pawing at the ground. But the longer they waited, the more stray members of the huge infested crowd began to look in their direction.

They wouldn't have much time before they attracted notice either way. They were just too convenient a food source.

"Sure hope you know what you're doing!"

In answer, Catlin began to gallop—straight along the road towards the drawbridge. The ground was clear for some distance, given how tightly-packed the infested had bunched themselves. But soon enough, she reached the back of the crowd.

She knew what to do. Catlin leveled her horn into the densest part, and shot through with all the energy she could. Dozens of infested sliced apart before her, steaming from where she'd cut them. A few of those even died.

Unfortunately, that was more than the infested would tolerate. A roar went up from the crowd, as thousands of creatures turned in her direction. From all around the shell, infested stopped bashing themselves, and began making their way in her direction.

Corpses sloughed off the drawbridge and into the green-stained water. The infested trampled over their companions without hesitation, stomping towards her. They were packed so densely on the bridge that many were still standing.

One charged in her direction, with pounding hooves that split the wood and chitin as thick as vehicle plate on its back and sides. She threw her sword, aiming straight into its head.

The blade vanished into infested flesh, but it kept coming, straight towards her.

She leapt into the air, spiraling upward towards a wispy airborne infested that had been bearing down on her. She cut through it with a quick strike, arcing back down towards the wagon.

She landed just behind it, reaching with her invisible senses for the bundle of pony weapons. She found them, and threw them into the air with all her might, arcing them over the terrified ponies.

She followed a second later. She spared an instant's concentration for each spear or blade, delivering each one to an infested in turn. It took a half-dozen blades into the back of the heavily muscled monster before it finally smashed to the floor, splintering the bridge as it slid off and away.

The infested didn't react. She looked up, and saw hundreds more charging for the cart. Before they could even hit the ground, she threw the rest of the blades, then lifted her Burston to blast its remaining ammunition into another approaching infested.

She had no way of passing commands, yet Alidade followed close behind her this time. The path into the shield was clearing.

Catlin fought her way forward, retrieving her assortment of native weapons only to strike out with them again and again. Each time more of them splintered or cracked on the heavy hides of these monsters.

It would've been hard enough if she were just fighting her own way to the castle gates. But behind her were three defenseless creatures, all basically trapped in the cart. A single good blow by some of these infested might be enough to kill them, eventually. She couldn't let them get close.

A cloud of swift infested descended on them from above, hundreds of wings darkening what was left of the sun. She struck out with her remaining blades, piercing a few—but there were too many.

As they descended, she felt the frame stir again, overcoming the horror at the sight before it. Without knowing what she was doing, her forehead began to burn, as power drained from every fiber of her body.

A new sun burst to life in the air above them, a pinprick of brilliant orange light. The clouds and smoke of a burning city were swept away before her, amidst a warmth that burned against her even without eyes to look up at it.

But for the nearby infested, it was more than just uncomfortably bright. A hundred little bonfires sprang to life on the bridge around her, and flesh caught fire. The flying creatures toppled from the air, losing control of their trajectory. Some smacked into the shield, others landed on the bridge around them, or spiraled off into the air, screaming with agony as they went.

Catlin dropped to the bridge, drained just as she had been when she discovered one of the frame's other abilities.

Somehow, the wood under her hooves was covered with a layer of thin green moss, speckled with wildflowers. While the fire burned, she'd somehow invigorated the natural world. Like Oberon?

"What are you waiting for?" Alidade yelled, dragging the cart past her. The bridge was clear now, other than thick patches of charred ash and bone. But the instant the light faded, the mob behind them surged to fill the gap.

The infested couldn't have their morale broken to a retreat. They had no concern for their individual lives, and would fight until there were none left.

She couldn't gallop, but she did stumble along behind them, towards the open gateway.

Their pursuers closed the distance rapidly, particularly the flying ones. Those thick-bodied armored creatures didn't go anywhere fast.

The cart reached the purple barrier ahead of her, and its bearer didn't stop. Instead of smacking into it, he went straight through, leaving Catlin behind on the bridge of ash and rapidly browning grass.

She reached the edge herself a second later. She tensed, then passed through behind it.

There was considerable resistance as she moved through it, like tripping into a vat of Grineer sludge. But after an instant she was through, stumbling past the guards and into a large courtyard.

Hundreds, maybe thousands of ponies were gathered in here, packed into every bit of available space. The injured huddled under cloth awnings, or inside a few open doorways that seemed to lead to guard barracks and other utility buildings.

A shame for the sky of black smoke, now tinted purple by the strange bubble. The fountain and sculptures inside might've made this place rival an Orokin Tower for their beauty.

Many of the aliens were staring at her. Many were afraid, cowering when she turned her strange face in their direction. Others were awed.

"Stars and stones, we're alive," Dust stammered. "How... how did we get through that?"

"My leg..." Silver said, rising from the cart. Catlin looked up, and saw him tug the splint away. He shook the ankle, twisting it in both directions, without apparent pain. "I think she healed me."

Trinity would've been better for that. But she couldn't say so. Even now, Catlin was trapped in silence as the crowd closed in on them. Many were shouting wonder at how they could've survived, praise for the champion who had brought a cart of ponies through that. Some begged her to go back out into the city, searching for lost loved ones.

Through it all, an armored figure approached, body glittering in old-fashioned metal plate. Catlin pinged them absently with a simple radio message, just in case. But no, the armor wasn't just made to look ancient for the admittedly impressive barding design. This wasn't fashion frame, it was really just metal.

"Who are you?" they asked, resting a heavy hoof on her shoulder. "We could've used you when the fighting started."

The gesture wasn't threatening, but she tensed anyway, pivoting slightly and securing her footing so she could throw them off. The horse was twice her size, though not quite as thickly built as the stomping infested.

"They can't answer you." Silver clambered out of the cart, making his stumbling way over. The others followed not far behind. "Look closely. They have no eyes, no mouth. They cannot speak."

The soldier stumbled back, pulling his leg free of her shoulder. "But they fought like... no creature I've ever seen. They aren't one of the Elements in disguise?"

"No," said Dust. "We don't know what they are, but not that."

"Officer, we need to see the princess immediately. We might be the only creatures in this city who have any clue what is going on."

"You... know?" Their mouth fell open. "How?"

"I don't think Canterlot has the time for us to explain that twice," Silver said. "Sir, take us to the princess. Either we can help, or... perhaps our protector may be of use in the defense. Either way, we shouldn't be here."

Chapter 8: Tenno

Catlin ascended the steps through a castle she could scarcely even believe. There was tremendous beauty here, a whole tradition of architecture that seemed at once familiar and also entirely disconnected from anything she knew. This was not an Orokin structure—though there was a little gold to speak of, they seemed to favor glass and crystal more. But she saw no cephalons trapped in glass in this place, only ponies huddled desperately. This spectacular monument had been turned into a refugee shelter in the span of a few hours.

How far up does that artificial ceiling go? she thought, occasionally glancing up at the sky. Through pink-tinted windows, she could see stars. The illusion's resolution went up high enough that she could see no signs of projection imperfections from afar.

Unless we're really on the surface of a planet right now. Only Earth would be this habitable, where mostly augmented life could live on the surface without any life support. But how could the Grineer resist the urge of pillaging all this biomass and recycling these beautiful animals into a gene vat?

"The rest of you, stay back," said a guard, as they reached a huge set of double doors. There were no more refugees this way either, just the open doorway and several armed guards. "The princess will see Deep Silver, and the..." Their eyes settled on Catlin's face for a moment, then they looked away. "The new pony."

More polite than some. Didn't call me a tin suit or a cursed golem.

"You will cooperate," Silver asked her. "If I take you inside?"

She tried to answer over radio, and of course nothing happened. But before she could say anything, the guard beside her spoke up. "It does not matter, Deep Silver. Luna did not request. You will enter."

If this is the queens all over again, I am so screwed. This time, she understood her void-powers perfectly well, yet she couldn't use them. She might never have them again.

What will I do if I'm trapped in one warframe for the rest of my life? I'll lose it, same as Rell.

The door opened, and she followed Deep Silver through the crack. The other members of the expedition remained just outside, with Alidade watching and Dust Brush slumping against the wall. None were injured anymore, thanks to the frame's abilities. But even a total physical restoration could do very little for despair.

Through the doors was the most spectacular room yet—vast stained-glass windows, each one depicting a different scene. She lingered to appreciate the nearest, until one of the guards grunted at her, and she was forced to hurry to catch up.

Another time, then.

The front of the room held a massive throne with multiple seats, something even grander than the Queens had used in the Kuva fortress. There was no fountain of the foul red stuff here, only pure water.

Also, the “princess” wasn't sitting on it. Several tables had been brought in front of it, hastily pushed together and covered with maps. Various ponies gathered around it, most of them older and wearing armor.

The officers. They're planning the defense.

Too little too late, unfortunately. She eyed every weapon in the room—some looked to be masterfully crafted, the kind of blades that even the Dax could've been proud of. Unfortunately, that was all she could see. Blades wouldn't end the infestation now. They needed something stronger.

"I have them, Princess. The archeologist, and the, uh... whatever this is. Is it a pony, Deep Silver? How do I introduce it?"

"I do not know," Silver said, without a hint of malice. "I have not seen them bleed. They may be a machine, or they may be a pony in armor. I cannot say."

That makes two of us, she thought, bitterly.

"We saw your stand upon the bridge," said a voice, from near the back of the assembled generals. "This can be no machine, Deep Silver. No machine can fight like that, risking its own existence in the service of strangers."

There was a faint flash of light—a teleport, albeit slightly more elegant than her own void-dash. Suddenly a pony stood before her, a pony unlike any she had yet seen. Silver dropped to his knees without another word, lowering his head to the tile. Their escort stopped in place to salute.

Catlin remained still, though it took some effort to resist the urge to bow. Her armor wanted desperately to get on the ground with the others.

I am Tenno. I will die before I submit to another god. This time, Catlin's will triumphed. Her warframe touched briefly against the well of her resolve, then retreated like a burned insect. Clearly it had never sensed a will like hers.

Yet she could have no doubt in her mind that a god was what she saw. This pony towered over all the others, with a frame that seemed perfect by comparison. Lithe, yet muscular. And her mane wasn't even hair, but ethereal void-strands stained with darkness, blown in an unseen wind. She needed no equipment to sense the power of the void channeled into the physical world through this creature. Her eyes glowed, and for the first time she felt as though something was seeing her.

"You may rise," she said. "Guards, return to the wall. My sister's strength wanes even now. If the shield is breached, we will need every hoof."

They saluted again, then made their departure, expressions grim. They knew what fate waited for them if that shield was breached.

Your sister? Is a living thing making that shield?

"I will want to know everything in time," the princess said. "I suspect you may have information that no other pony has gathered, Deep Silver. This came up from below, during your expedition. For now, tell me only if you believe it was related."

"Yes." Silver did not rise with the others. He kept his head on the floor, so low it muffled his voice. "I do not know what this is, or what we did. But somehow, we let it loose. My expedition is... gone. Only three survivors, and all thanks to the... pony. Without them, there would be no survivors. I deserve responsibility. You should put me on the wall, at the front."

The mighty pony advanced on him, her hooves somehow heavy even though her body seemed lean. She bent down, and lifted Silver's chin, forcing him to look up. "Deep Silver, you are ordered never to make such a request again. No creature could have foreseen this—I hold you no more responsible than I would if you had been in the epicenter of an earthquake. It was Equestria's choice to probe the past. We will not waste time with petty blame. Now rise, and stand straight. Your wisdom may be necessary."

He stood, though the latter order was clearly impossible for him. There were real tears on his face—though terror or relief, she couldn't say. These aliens were adorable, but she still had some trouble reading them.

Finally, the big one turned on her. "As for you. You accomplished something incredible—you thinned their numbers, and brought survivors across the bridge. Yet I cannot help but notice something more disturbing."

She took a single step towards Catlin, pushing Silver aside. Her eyes narrowed, her shoulders tightening. Catlin felt the horror from her frame a split-second before she realized what was about to happen.

"You are of the same substance as the infestation outside. Your flesh is of their flesh. You hide it well, just as changelings once hid themselves inside this court." She advanced, step after painful step. Catlin found herself retreating—whether it was her will or the frame's, she couldn't say. She still had the guards' weapons, albeit the inferior ones from outside. Not a single round left in the Burston.

But even if she had them, would she really fire on this creature? It's not what you think, she tried to say, desperate. Maybe a creature so powerful would have its own implants? The helminth virus made me, but I'm not infested. This body is one of your subjects!

The advancing alien did not slow, or even react. Her wings opened to both sides, and her horn began to glow. "You think because this city is burning that we are beaten, infiltrator? Mark my words, you have not won. My sister spares the flame only for the sake of those who survive. When our subjects fall, we will burn this place so hot there will be no ashes."

Catlin shook her head vigorously. Then her back legs smacked into a decorative pillar. She whimpered silently, wanting to cower further and further away.

But the advancing princess didn't seem to care. If anything, her expression turned to a satisfied smile. She wanted this. She was enjoying it.

"There's nowhere for you to run. Go ahead, manifest whatever terrible powers you wish, see how it helps you. My sister would kill you quickly—I will flay your mind for every secret you conceal. If you know anything that could aid us in our defense, you will share it."

Catlin could retreat no further. In an instant, she realized the truth—either she would die here, or this alien would.

She snapped into motion, lifting the blade into the air before her—and her frame rebelled. Her horn fuzzed out, the weapon fell at her hooves. She dropped to the ground at the alien's feet, twitching and spasming. She tried each of her powers in turn, tried kicking the damn thing—but her senses were awash in the static of a frame that didn't want her.

"Yet you fight," the princess said. "You cannot even strike me. I hoped you would make this challenging. If you think I would show you mercy, you should take another look outside. My mind is well made-up."

She lifted into the air, her entire body jerked violently. The princess's horn glowed with void-light, just as Catlin's had done when she channeled her powers. But the strength here was on an entirely different level.

Luna yanked her limbs to their extremes, holding her frozen in the air, unable to move.

Silver retreated from the display, horrified. "Princess Luna, are you... They saved our lives. You're making a mistake."

"Silence," ordered a soldier. "You will not question the princess here."

Princess Luna ignored them both, stalking over to her. She smiled, and there was madness in those eyes. "What do you know, demon? Tell me everything."

Pain overwhelmed Catlin, pain like nothing she had ever felt before. Maybe while in the grip of the Grineer queens, she had been this close to death before. She screamed, but had no voice. She thrashed, but could not even twitch. Something was looking at her, a pair of pitiless eyes, trying to burn her away.

Something tore at her—an agonizing ripping at her, as she had felt her first day on Deimos. Something was attacking her directly, unraveling the threads of the void that encircled her heart.

That will pressed closer and closer to her, ripping at her memories just as the Grineer had done. But Catlin resisted. She would give them nothing, no matter the pain.

Then she went flying. She tumbled through the air, ejected through a space that was suddenly overflowing with the scent of wood-fire and antiseptic.

She caught herself in a roll, tumbling head-over-heels until she smacked into a far wall. She was still in agony, barely even able to form a coherent word. But she screamed anyway, and this time she heard it. "No more! You won't take me!"

Across the room, she watched the alien princess drop the weight of metal and infested flesh that was her frame. It fell in a heap, though still twitched slightly. But the sensation of another mind beside her was gone.

Catlin struggled to wobbly feet—just two of them now. She twitched once in the cold, as it touched against bare skin. She wore no armor, not even a flight suit. She didn't even have shoes.

She dropped to one knee, the strength of adrenaline already leaving her. "I'm... alive?"

She collapsed into merciful unconsciousness.

Chapter 9: Void-Touched

Catlin woke to agony.

Her whole body ached, with a pain that suffused every limb and joint. Despite all the battles she'd fought, and all the frames that had been destroyed under her control, she rarely felt real pain.

Like all Tenno, her body was supposed to be safe, sometimes a whole system away from the site of battle. She'd gambled closer proximity to the invasion fleet, trusting to her greater ability to make combat decisions to carry the Origin System to victory.

She'd lost.

Something splashed her, shaking her by the shoulder. Catlin blinked, looking around. "Ordis?" she breathed, voice shaking. "Is that..." Of course it wasn't. The person Ordis was now had never had a body.

Her eyes opened weakly, and she took in the details of her surroundings at a glance. This was the alien throne-room. This was where the pony with more power than a Tenno had...

She looked down at pale, freckled skin. She lay on a blanket of sorts, or maybe a towel. It gave inadequate protection from the cold, considering how little she was wearing. She groaned, staring up and around her.

The strategy table was still there, albeit on the other side of the fountain. Conversation continued there, though she couldn't make out any of the words. Beside her was a single figure, watching from his seat like a sentry. Deep Silver.

"Princess," he called, his voice feeble in the huge room. "I think it's—I think she's awake."

Catlin blushed bright red, wrapping the blanket around her chest with one arm. She sat up, and Silver slid fearfully away from her, eyes widening.

"Relax, Silver," she whispered. "I'm not going to hurt you." She didn't even have an amp anymore.

His eyes got even wider, lips trembling. "You talk?" He glanced across the room, but not at the strategy table. Catlin followed his gaze, right to the center.

There was a metal cage resting in the middle of the room, barely large enough for what it contained. Her horse-shaped warframe.

It sat solemnly in the cage, its face covered with one leg. It hadn't been blasted apart by the princess's magic! You're alive!

The frame twitched, lifting its head to look at her. The connection between them was still there, just as when she deployed with the ancient Excalibur. Frames did not think in words anymore—or maybe they were just conditioned not to share them. Either way, she felt what her frame did. Abject, crushing despair.

I'll get us out of this, she thought to it, sitting up properly. If her abilities were working normally, Catlin could take control of that frame again, phasing her body back into the Void. But somehow she didn't think being trapped in a voiceless cage would help much.

"Of course I can." She looked back to Silver. "How can you not know what I am?"

The question clearly baffled him. "I've never... seen anything like you before," he finally said. To his credit, he hadn't bolted away. "What are you? What is that?" He flicked his tail towards the cage.

The frame curled up, looking away from him then. It could probably hear everything they said.

A shadow appeared over her. She glanced up, but she didn't need to see who it was to know who would be watching. She tried to stand, but her limbs were still too weak. She could still feel the power of this creature boiling in her veins. Its attack had reached through the frame she wore, striking her directly.

If the Sentients couldn't kill me, she can.

"I want you to answer," the princess said. Her tone had returned to the placid, curious voice she had used when Catlin first entered the throne room. "I suggest you do so honestly. I would prefer a simple conversation to dark magic, but you have seen what's happening outside. There is nothing I will not do to protect the ponies of this city."

Catlin got her feet under her, then rose. Her limbs were drenched in sweat, already getting rubbed raw by the blanket. But on her short list of skills, ignoring pain was somewhere near the top. If leaving her naked was meant to frighten or intimidate her, she wouldn't play along. She let the blanket fall, despite the chill.

She rose taller than Silver, but the princess still dwarfed her. That was probably for the best, all things considered. Better not to look like she was trying to intimidate the princess.

"My name is Catlin." Like the rest of her, her throat felt raw, aching and raspy with every word. She spoke to them anyway. "I am a Tenno—once enslaved to the will of the Orokin, once to a false mother."

Luna circled around her. Catlin did not flinch. These ponies could not take away more from her than the Orokin already had. "Words. Perhaps one day a scholar can interpret them. Let me be more direct, creature. What is that? It bears the form of a pony, yet it overflows with magic. Its every sinew and cell is overrun with the same corruption that has besieged my city and murdered my subjects. Yet it does not struggle. And you..." Her eyes settled on Catlin again.

Standing on her own two feet did not make glaring down the Alicorn any easier. How much “magic” would it take for this creature to blow her away like ash?

"You bear no touch of the infection, not even a spore. Yet you were inside that one."

She nodded. Catlin strode away from her slowly, towards the cage. The princess let her do it, following. "This is a warframe made in the old way."

Even without a connection to it, Catlin could feel the frame's spike of alarm. It screamed wordlessly at her to be silent, not to say what she was thinking. The static made her stop short of the cage, turning to face the princess again.

"They're made using a... cousin, of the disease outside. But the one that created this warframe is not wild. It is administered deliberately to an ordinary person, transforming them into a weapon. Their flesh becomes sword-steel, their muscles surge with the power of the Void."

"It... has not spread," Luna admitted. "You passed into this castle, and none of its ponies are dead." Luna walked past her, straight to the cage. She stared through the bars, and Catlin couldn't see her face. "Your word, 'person'. What do you mean?"

Nononononono. The thought was so distinct that Catlin could practically make out the words. Maybe that was her imagination. Not even the Excalibur had been so clear. I'm dead I'm dead I'm dead.

"This frame was a pony, once. I believe she was—" Agony from the frame, overwhelming her. Catlin stopped short, swallowed her words.

But she didn't have to say them. "Ruby River," the professor whispered. "She went into the ruins before us, Princess. She vanished, then this creature appears fighting all of Tartarus to protect us. Celestia's grace if it isn't her. The, uh... creature, does appear to be a unicorn."

The Alicorn's head twisted towards her again. "You inflicted this on my subject?" Her voice was barely audible against the distant war outside.

Catlin tensed. There was no mistaking the fury burning in those eyes. She felt it herself, when contemplating her time in service to the ancient Orokin. With that anger, her and those like her had brought down an empire. "No." She gestured backward at Silver. But it was impossible to keep the annoyance from her face. "Why would I mutilate one of your subjects only to nearly get myself killed saving his ass, and the other archeologists?" She stepped towards Luna. Charging directly into danger was the only thing she knew. "I want to help you, dammit. I'd kill every infested outside your gates myself if I could."

Not a soul spoke in the huge hall. Every set of eyes was on them, and Catlin no longer had room to feel embarrassed. She might be seconds from death, after all. She'd already seen what the wrath of this princess could look like. "I would like to confine you to a prison of crystal," Luna breathed. "I would send the scholars of all Equestria to poke and prod and examine you, for decades if necessary. But Canterlot does not have the luxury of time. Another test, then. A simpler test."

She strode past Catlin, to where Silver still looked on in shock and confusion. "Professor Silver," she began. "All Equestria must trust to your decision. Enemies besiege our gates, and many of our friends are fallen. We need every pair of hooves we can find. Yet if we entrust ourselves to evil, the infection will surely kill all who survive in this city. You are the only one in this room who has spent time with this creature. Does Equestria put its trust in her?"

Silver gulped. If he'd been agonized before, the focus of Luna's attention made his whole body start to shake. "M-me?"

She nodded.

Catlin faced him, letting her arms down. But she said nothing. If Luna wanted an excuse to disqualify her, she wouldn't give it.

"What do you think, Ruby?" he asked, looking directly into the cage. "Should we listen to her?"

Catlin didn't have to turn around. She couldn't take control of the frame, not without vanishing back into the Void. Maybe she could try to force her will against it, but she didn't. Under all that steel and the twisting helminth virus, this was a little pony. One who didn't deserve what had happened to her.

"Please," she thought. "I know you don't know me. But your civilization doesn't know this threat, I do. Help me save them."

She couldn't even be sure the frame had heard. Maybe it didn't care, and it would take spiteful revenge after what Catlin had done revealing its identity. She couldn’t help but look back, watching it.

The frame looked up, in ways that only Catlin knew how to recognize. It nodded, as clearly as when Catlin herself had been in control. Though the frame had no eyes, she could still feel the pressure of its attention on her. "I'm trusting you," it seemed to say.

"I agree with her," Silver said. "No one else could judge better."

Princess Luna nodded sharply. "Very well, alien named Catlin. You claim some special knowledge of this enemy? How do we defeat it?"

"First, open the cage. Ruby won't hurt you, whether I'm a pilot or not." She covered herself with one arm. "Could I have my clothes back? My flight suit was armored, and I had a weapon..." She clenched her right wrist, fingers moving to make room for the shape of her amp. But it wasn't there, and no amount of wishing was going to make it appear.

"Do as she says," the princess ordered. Two guards rushed to obey, keys jangling in the magical grip of the nearest one. "As to the second, we cannot help you. When you appeared, you were..." She nodded. "As you are now. Unprepared for battle."

That's not all I'm unprepared for. Catlin closed her eyes, acting on instinct. One moment she was standing next to the cage, the next she reappeared beside the blanket, body glowing with ghostly echoes of the void. She bent down, picked up the blanket, and focused her will. Flames burst from nothing, searing it in half. She took one half, wrapping it around herself in a makeshift skirt.

Fighting the Infestation practically naked. I know you own me, but did you have to be such a dick about it? But if the otherworldly Man in the Walls was listening, he made no sign.

The ponies watched her, yet she saw nothing more from them than mild surprise. They knew the powers the Void granted, as surely as any Tenno. "And now?" Luna asked. "We require a method precise enough to remove the infestation without harming the ponies who still live. What wisdom do you bring, Tenno Catlin?"

She opened her mouth to answer. But no words came out.

A terrible crack shook the air, like a continent-spanning glacier beginning to split. Through the beautiful stained-glass windows, Catlin saw it. The barrier fell before her eyes.

Chapter 10: Proving

Catlin heard the distant screaming—ponies on the wall, shaking with terror as forces they knew they could not possibly contain came barreling towards their loved-ones. She'd seen the defenses now, the high walls, the boiling oil and crossbow-wielding soldiers. They had minutes, perhaps, before the enemy breached their gates.

In the room all around her, resistance crumbled. Luna's generals saluted to her, then sprinted off without a word. To command their troops, if they were brave. To cower in the basement, if they were not. They would die just the same.

"Open the cage, Princess," Catlin whispered. Her voice was low, insistent. "I can't stop this without her."

The princess spun on her. She alone had not crumbled and fled at this terrible sight. Past Catlin, chunks of barrier tumbled from the air like huge sheets of glass, dissolving into shimmering light before they hit the ground. Then came the roar—the ground shook as they advanced across the bridge.

"You can stop this?" she whispered. "A naked child?"

Catlin crossed the room, standing beside the cage. "Not just me. Us, together. Open the cage, and let us go to the wall." She didn't wait for a response—Catlin breathed in, letting the power of the Void suffuse her every tissue. Her warframe was still here, attuned to her, waiting for its operator.

She could feel the pony's terror, even if she couldn't put it into words anymore. Guilt and shame consumed her, but neither of those were strong enough to overpower the far more powerful need. The princess doubted her, but the frame didn't. We can do this.

Catlin's human body vanished, and her vision returned within the cage. She stood confidently, gesturing at the lock with one hoof. She didn't doubt this frame had enough strength to tear the cage to metal scraps, if she wanted. But she would need that magic for the enemy outside, she couldn't waste it now.

Princess Luna stopped beside the heavy metal cage, looking down on her. Where she had been nearly Catlin's equal in height, she towered over the frame. There was anger in her face greater than anything her frame had ever imagined. But Catlin knew it, and so she shared her strength.

"I do not want to trust you," she hissed. "You belong in that cage."

Ponies shouted outside, charging into battle. Others screamed and wailed as they died in agony. Catlin heard other voices join them—terrified refugees, cowering in the castle. While their soldiers fought overwhelming numbers, their citizens could do nothing more than wait for death. There was nowhere for them to run.

"Let this be your test, Tenno Catlin. Betray my trust, and I swear to strike you down. Even if it costs my life." Luna lashed out, metal glittering through the air so fast Catlin barely saw it. The front half of the cage fell forward, its joints hissing red. The princess tossed her something, and Catlin reacted—or maybe the frame did.

It was a sword, like the fine weapons wielded by the chamber's guards. Catlin swung it once through the air as though she still had hands, but her motion was not restricted.

"Now, stand beside me," Luna instructed. "Prepare to fall."

Catlin obeyed, then her world warped. She was familiar with teleportation by now, though rare was the frame that could manifest it so directly. She spun once in the air, then righted herself, preparing to drop. She landed on a patch of bare walkway, directly over the gate.

The drawbridge was raised, but the Infested didn't care. Corpses piled in the gap, reaching closer and closer to the wall. The fallen sunk and melted together into a ramp, its tendrils flailing wildly through the air. They lashed out at the wall, striking away chunks of stone.

Ponies fired into the fleshy abomination with their crossbows, without success.

Battle raged around Catlin. All along the wall, creatures fought for their lives. The airborne infested assaulted the wall from above, not caring if their bodies were destroyed as they toppled defenders from the battlements. Any who fell to their wounds would rise again to spread the taint behind the walls.

"Well, Tenno Catlin? This is what you wanted."

She no longer had the ability to reply, not with her words. Her actions would have to do.

Catlin pointed down behind the line, where a handful of winged infested were harrying the troops. Then she gestured to the princess.

The alicorn nodded back. "And you?"

She leapt off the wall, body buzzing with power. For the second time since arriving in this strange place, Catlin and her frame were in perfect alignment. They had one mission, and one will. Her magic sliced through the wall of infested flesh, burning through in a sweeping beam from her horn. It fell to the side, spraying chitin and shattered bones and ichorous blood.

Catlin landed on the stone a second later, raising her sword before her. There were hundreds of infested here, maybe thousands. Every pony too slow to escape to the castle, every poor soul who had succumbed to the infestation—they were here.

She focused her will, lifting dozens of objects from the stone—crossbow bolts, broken weapons, shards of rock, spinning them rapidly in the air in front of her, shredding nearby infested to ribbons. Then she released, blasting out at the crowd with a hundred gunshots.

What I wouldn't give for my Brahma against numbers like these.

She couldn't reach all the way to her orbiter to teleport things from her armory, or this would be a very different fight. But she could teleport. One of the bulky infested charged in her direction, and her frame blinked several meters, just as the princess had done to bring them here. The pony was much too slow to stop, and charged right over the side.

Catlin faced against numbers beyond counting. But these were freshly infected, the weakest they would ever be. She didn't even want to imagine what they would be like if they had a few thousand years to fester in an orokin tower somewhere.

Warframes did not tire, not like people. So long as she had a steady stream of energy harvested from her fallen foes, she could continue to fight, leaving a trail of dead behind her that grew into a barrier of its own.

She could not hope to fight them all. Hours she struggled, with her frame broken and damaged many times—but always reinvigorated from the fallen. How much greater would it be, once she got the chance to install a few critical mods?

Eventually, Catlin raised her sword to find there was no infested nearby to strike down with it. She blinked, staring out at the battlefield all around her.

She had slain thousands,infested bodies toppled off the cliff's edge or rapidly rotting off in a pile. There were so many corpses that there was little room to walk in places, and she had to teleport past some.

It's not enough. She hopped up onto a chunk of fallen building, scanning the area around the castle. The cloud of infested striking the wall was gone.

She felt a surge of relief from the frame, overwhelming joy at what it believed was success after such a painful, grueling battle.

Catlin couldn't lie to it, though. The infested weren't gone, they had just stopped attacking the castle. She could see them below, now that she knew what to look for. They'd fled from the castle, and gathered instead on one of the lower tiers of the city. The buildings were all covered in biofilm, pulsing, vile sores, and waving tentacles. The infestation won't flee to feed elsewhere, not with so much food this close. It was mechanical like that, with needs and a predictable pattern.

Is there enough of it in one place to think?

Something landed on the rock beside her, startling her from her thoughts. She spun, in time to see Princess Luna landing closeby. The drawbridge banged into place, and pony guards made their way down, shoving the infested into the gap to clear the path. Luna herself had an escort in the air around her, crossbows in their forelegs and bat wings holding them in a low guard. "Tenno Catlin. I'm told you held an entire flank of this battle on your own. And yet you live."

The warframe started to bow before Catlin realized what she was doing. She rebelled, separating from the frame in a flash of void-light. While the pony bowed, Catlin appeared on the bare ground beside it, back straight. She covered her chest with one arm, expecting to start shivering with cold—but she didn't.

The ancient Orokin flight suit shifted beneath her, metal and fabric clicking together as she briefly covered her chest. She let her arm back down, eyes widening.

At least the princess didn't attack her this time. Her eyebrows went up. "In all that, you had the time to find something to wear?Were you here to fight, or show off?" She was actually smiling this time, one of the few. The pony soldiers wore expressions of shock and horror, looking out at the fallen with tormented eyes. These creatures were too pure for this—they'd need lots of therapy when this battle was over. Assuming they survived it.

Catlin reached for her helmet, and found the crown melted, just where she'd taken a blow from a Sentient boarder. Her suit was frayed... and there was an amp around her fingers. She twisted the helmet to one side, and it retracted down the back of her breastplate. "I didn't find this during the battle. This is what I was wearing before, when I... died." She flexed her right hand, settling her fingers into the familiar metal frame of her amp. Not that she'd need it. For all the nightmares waiting for her on this peaceful world, the Sentients didn't appear to be one of them.

"They've retreated on all sides, Princess!" a guard yelled. "Looks like all the possessed ponies are going the same direction. We scared them off!"

Not likely. They don't feel fear.

Her frame did. It stood straight, glancing sideways at her. For the first time in her many years of service, Catlin was actually taller than her frame. It slouched low, looking almost shy as it put her between itself and the princess. She no longer scared it, but the princess did.

"I owe you an apology," Luna said. "But I'm afraid there will be no time for that conversation now. We don't know why the enemy has retreated. Above all else, we cannot allow them to depart the city and spread this infestation further."

Catlin took a few steps closer to the princess, lowering her voice to a whisper. She could only hope the soldiers wouldn't overhear. "When the evacuation is over, Princess, I'm afraid you will need to burn this city. Even the biomass of plants and passing animals will eventually be enough to feed the infestation, make it strong again. This city must be destroyed."

"I have considered that," she whispered back. "My sister and I will do so, when the time comes. While we fought, an evacuation has already begun. But Princess Twilight has limited strength, and can only teleport a handful of ponies at a time."

She gestured back at the castle, urgently. "My sister wishes to meet with you. She is still weak from her efforts shielding the castle... it is possible she has advice on how we should proceed with the remaining victims."

Catlin glanced to the side, at the almost pony hiding behind her. "She can come too, right? A Tenno shouldn't be separated from her warframe."

Princess Luna nodded impatiently. "Of course. We will... resolve the moral quandaries of this nightmare after Equestria is safe."

Chapter 11: Disbelief

Catlin made the trip to see Princess Celestia within her Warframe. It wasn't just that she didn't want the pressure of needing to talk too much, though that was certainly part of it. It was also difficult to ignore just how strangely the locals looked at her. She wasn't naked anymore, and that was something—but she was also a strange alien, on a day strange aliens had killed thousands and begun to unravel their entire civilization. Luna didn't seem to care, though she glanced vaguely in Catlin's direction every few minutes to see if the situation had changed.

The castle was in even worse shape than when she'd fled from within, but that wasn't surprising. A handful of infested had made it over the walls, particularly the flying tribe. There were cleanup crews in the courtyard now, and a growing bonfire of infested flesh. She admired whoever had come up with that particular idea, even if she hadn't mentioned it. That would deny the infestation biomass, if somehow it retook the castle.

Where they passed, ponies quieted to whispers, sometimes even bowing. Sometimes she couldn't tell which of them they gave their respect.

"The monster held the gate on her own," someone whispered.

"No way. The guards must be telling stories."

Catlin didn't care who they thought did what—a large number of locals had lived through the night. Let them invent their own stories for how. The princess could spin the whole thing to her advantage, and further secure her rule. It didn't matter—it wasn't as though Catlin planned on sticking around. As soon as I find a transmitter, I can tell Ordis where I am, and get the hell out of here. Maybe the locals would want to join the wider system, assisting with the Tenno cause of liberation. Maybe they'd just want to be left alone—that was their choice, not hers.

They went all the way to the top of the castle, climbing stair after stair. The sun glowed bright orange in the windows as she climbed, freshly risen. Her frame watched it as they walked, finding the simple act of sunrise comforting for some reason.

Eventually they reached a tower room of white stone, with huge windows running along every side. Narrow stone pillars held up the ceiling, the only thing restricting the sunlight outside. There were curtains too, but all were tied back, exposing the dreadful reality of Canterlot. Buildings burned, and a creeping brown biomass coated whole sections of the city. Down below it collected into a writhing boil, worse than anything that had grown outside Cetus. Lotus, what can kill something like that?

But her mother didn't answer. She hadn't answered for a long time.

"Elder sister, I have her with me. The creature you wished to see."

There was a single pony in the tower, reclining in a line of oversized cushions. She stood as Catlin approached, towering over both of them. Compared to her, even the graceful goddess beside Catlin seemed drab and plain.

Her body was pearlescent white, with a shimmer that caught the sun a different color from every angle. Her mane flowed with brilliant orange and yellows, matching the sunrise outside almost perfectly. Her eyes were embers, burning with the void as few beings she had ever seen.

Her frame wanted to bow again. This time, Catlin stepped sideways, manifesting again as she had done before. It didn't hurt, and she wasn't naked again. That let the horse-shaped frame drop into a bow before this being, while she maintained her dignity. Catlin shifted in her interlocking gold and white armor, colors that would've seemed perfectly at home up here. In this tower, she could almost see a hint of the Orokin's ancient craftsmanship.

This pony didn't react with confusion, as so many others before her. She came alert, her horn glowing suddenly. She rose from the cushions, backing away. "Tenno, here?"

Luna turned, staring at her sister. "Is something the matter, dear sister? This is the hero who begged for our trust, the one who defended the castle by her own hooves. Without her, the contagion would have consumed all. Or perhaps... they both defended us? I am not confident in the details."

The other Alicorn was so big, even with Catlin on two legs. Her sister was bad enough, but this made her feel downright puny. She was shaped more or less the same as the local creatures, though there was a subtle, dangerous edge to her, one that was difficult to put into words. Like she might be about to catch on fire at a moment's notice. She advanced on her, and each hoof step felt like it might knock over the tower. On her, not the frame. Those prey-eyes couldn't both face her at the same time either, she was only looking at one half of her face at a time.

"You don't know these creatures, sister. We're blessed to live in a world that never knew them, that never had to suffer from their touch, or the masters who sent them." Her horn began to glow even brighter, radiating crackling energy from the tip. Even after holding up a shield all day, and having it collapse, she was still standing. Catlin could feel just how empty this being was, yet the feeble morsel of power that remained to her was still enough to wipe away Catlin with hardly a thought.

Is this your equal, Man in the Walls? she thought. Is she your sister as well?

"If she fought to protect us, it was only because some evil master on a distant star commanded her. She has no will of her own, no heart. They're worse than slaves, perpetrators of a genocide against the ancients beyond your imagination."

Her heart nearly stopped beating. I just went through this! Only unlike the judgement with Luna, this pony somehow knew. She might be the first real source of information Catlin had found since waking up on this stupid planet, and she wanted her dead.

She hadn't killed one of the Grineer queens by her own hands to cower now. She hadn't freed Harrow, or slain the Eidolons in their mindless reanimation. Catlin would not bow to powers greater than herself, no matter how confident they sounded.

Catlin ripped off her helmet, tossing it onto the ground at her feet. The clattering metal echoed through the hall, loud enough that both creatures turned to stare. One with anger, one just confused. Luna obviously trusted her sister, yet this information was in such conflict with what she had just seen, she was having trouble accepting it.

"I'm no one's slave, alien. I was. The Orokin controlled all of us, every one of my brothers and sisters." She lifted the amp in one hand, focusing her will into a steady glow of void-light. "We killed them. We left their palaces in ashes, their Dax impaled on their swords. We turned their towers into smoldering ruins in the void, and took vengeance for every innocent they ever killed. The Golden Skymen are dead."

Not all of them, of course. She had met a few now—a single family on Deimos, a preserved mind trapped aboard her orbiter in a prison of glass. And there were a few with Orokin blood who lived on, like Alad V, or the other queen. It wasn't blind genocide.

The sun princess seemed taken aback by her sudden reaction—or maybe it was just that she had a face. "You're alive?" Celestia gasped. Had she even heard a word she said? "Not the malignant spirits that possess the bodies of... innocent creatures." She glanced once at the frame, which cowered in her presence. That creature held so still in Celestia's presence she could've mistaken her for an ordinary Warframe made of machine and steel, not an infested soul with a mind of their own.

"As much as you," she shot back. "Or anyone else here. I won't defend the Orokin—and I won't deny what they made us do. All that stuff is right—except it's not true anymore. We were slaves, but now we're not." And the one who freed us is leading the invasion force wiping out biological life in the system. One day she would probably have to hold that blade, too.

"They defended the castle," Princess Luna said again, recovering. Her sister's surprise was enough to startle her back to reality, it seemed. "If she was here in service to some evil master, she wouldn't have needed to lift a hoof. The archeologists say she is the only reason they escaped the ruins with their lives. She fought for them, too. Why would a being of evil do this? Surely inaction would accomplish the greatest darkness in Canterlot."

"You knew I was Tenno," Catlin said. "But you didn't know I was alive. I thought no one knew our secret except the Orokin themselves—that was why our mother concealed us in the Void for so long. What did you think I would be?"

Celestia was silent for another few seconds, expression still stunned. She glanced from Luna to Catlin and back again, biting her lip. "You speak so boldly... yet I see the pragmatism of pursuing a simple goal, sister. You say the defense was successful?"

The other Alicorn nodded. "The enemy assaulted with great force, but retreated when we did not break. This seemed strange, they were behaving with such animal rage, I did not even think they could retreat. I suspect they must have a leader. What I do not know is how we could possibly sterilize the city. Biomass of all kinds has been converted. Even small wounds appear sufficient to spread the infestation to a healthy creature. We will need to purge even the smallest traces to make the city inhabitable again."

"There is a way." Celestia turned her back on them both, walking to the window. She stared out at the festering mass, expression becoming even more pained than before. "Twilight is working on a spell now, using a variation of the one her brother used during the invasion. It should burn away the infestation once cast, but it won't work if there is another will opposing it." She tapped one hoof on the glass. "That force has a mind of its own, and the magic of the ponies it has killed. We will need to destroy it before my apprentice can cast her spell."

"I will go," Luna said, without hesitation. "And if she is willing, the Tenno can accompany me. We will slay it together."

Catlin opened her mouth to agree, but Celestia was faster. "Not quite yet. We have a little time—the enemy will need to recover from this loss. We will use this time to recover a weapon, and test the truth of this creature's claims. I will not send my younger sister into danger with a knife hovering behind her neck, ready to strike."

"Test all you wish," Catlin said. "But one more thing you might consider... I have allies who could help you. The Tenno support all free colonies in the Origin system. Even this one of... whatever you people are. We have ships. My Orbiter could bombard that pustule from orbit. I have two dozen Warframes aboard, enough weapons to outfit every soldier in this castle, and more. Please, let me call for help. You shouldn't face this invasion alone."

She could not promise the intervention of her clan, of the dozens of Tenno who might've answered her call at any other time. The Sentients were invading the Origin system as they spoke. Every soldier brave enough to hold a weapon was already deployed. But Ordis would come, and maybe that would be enough.

Celestia shook her head once. "You are or were the greatest enemy we've ever known, Tenno. We cannot trust you not to bring down a greater terror down on Equestria." She took another step towards Catlin. "Beneath this castle is an ancient weapon, left here before Equestria was founded in the dark days of cold. Will you submit to its judgement?"

"Yes," she said. Maybe she should've argued more intently. "But do it quickly. Your city doesn't have time to waste questioning my loyalty."

Chapter 12: Architect

Princess Celestia took her down, way down. Down beneath the castle, through a spiral staircase hidden behind a wall of bricks and metal plates. Dust filled the air around them as they walked, glowing like the solar wind in Celestia's wake.

Catlin walked on her own two feet the entire way, even if having the frame to give her strength would have made it much easier on her strained limbs.

Some part of her suspected that if she retook the frame, the princess would attack her with another concentrated blast of void-light, burning her from the surface of the planet. So she panted and strained with the effort, on the edge of exhaustion but with no way to sleep.

I'll get a chance before we go after the boil. The infestation can't lose so much biomass so fast without losing its ability to think. It needs to reorganize its mind.

Eventually she found herself in the castle prison—crueler and darker than anything the Glassmaker could've imagined. Sections of the ceiling had collapsed, bars had rusted where water pooled in broken floor. There were murals painted on the wall here, or there had been.

They were only dim outlines now, only suggestions of ponies. "This is not necessary," Luna said. "Sister, we should save our strength for the battle ahead. There's nothing to be gained by going back here."

Celestia didn't slow down. "We cannot make this judgement, sister. Even I know nothing of this war. Would you trust the fate of our creatures to chance?"

Luna didn't answer, driven to silence by the question. Evidently that was exactly the kind of answer Celestia was looking for.

"It's just ahead." The princess stopped abruptly, at a single cell that hadn't rotted and rusted away to nothing. The metal bars were gold in color, not iron. The uncoroding, perfect metal of the Orokin. They were even formed into sweeping, elegant curves, rather than simple rods. Some were so thin Catlin probably could've bent them with her bare fingers, if they were as weak as they looked.

"Step inside, and face judgment for your crimes."

She stood straighter, and found the frame suddenly beside her. It had followed all this way without prompting from her. Whether that was an automatic reaction, or something more—she didn't know yet. No one had ever used a horse frame before today.

Catlin curled her hand around her amp, illuminating it with a faint glow of void-light as she stepped into the darkness.

It looked like the interior of a structure, walls and ceilings and floors placed incongruously in its rocky pony home. Maybe thirty meters across, dark except for a reflection somewhere near its center.

Catlin approached slowly, hearing the clatter of pony hooves beside her.

Something lit up near the center of the room, a set of red, empty eye-sockets. Somehow they still managed to follow her, watching as she walked in. The frame seemed to look up at her. It had no eyes, but Catlin could read its feelings anyway. That was fear, anticipation, and curiosity. The person this had once been would be fascinated to enter a place like this.

"From brooding gulfs are we beheld
By that which bears no name
Its heralds are the stars it fells
The sky and Earth aflame"

Catlin froze, staring at the speaker. A skull-shaped head, vaguely humanoid in suggestion. But she could see through it at various points, where its metallic interior glittered with Sentient alloy.

"I'm not here to fight you." She lowered her arm, dimming the void-light until only the glow of torches in the background lit the room.

"From brooding gulfs are we beheld
By that which bears no name
Its heralds are the stars it fells
The sky and Earth aflame"

A deep, male voice spoke, reciting a poem known to so few in the Origin System. Most of her clanmates wouldn't recognize it. The wisest of Corpus scholars would have no idea.

"How do you know that?" She stopped a few feet from the skull, eyes adjusting to the dim light. She started to see what she was looking at—a body closer to equine than human, though it split at strange points, with bones that curved.

It had been still so long that it had calcified right into the floor, or at least it looked that way. Though thin sinew still connected its limbs, she couldn't see the end of any, either in hand or hoof.

"In luminous space blackened stars
They gaze, accuse, deny
Roiling, moaning, this realm of ours
In madness lost shall die"

Catlin stared down into that alien face, socketed eyes looking back at her. There were similarities here to the face of Erra, and many of the lesser sentients she had known.

She cleared her throat, then spoke the last verse.

"Carrion hordes trill their profane
Accord with eldritch plans
To cosmic forms from tangent planes
We end as we began"

Laughter answered her, laughter distant and bitter. Strange light flickered along the body's odd bones, as though possessed by unnatural fireflies.

Her frame retreated, moving until it was behind her. Cowering in terror.

It's okay, she thought to it, though it wasn’t. She tensed her fingers on the amp, ready to draw it in an eyeblink if she had to. This time without needing her void-powers were more than enough to restore them to strength, even if her actual body felt drained.

"You speak like the Entrati," said the skull. "But without their cruelty. Where is your malice?"

She dropped to one knee in front of the sentient. Not just a skull, I can't trick myself into thinking it's human. There would be no flesh on its mechanical body. The absence did not mean her enemy wasn't dangerous.

"I am their victim too," she said quietly. "Their enemy too. I was just better at killing them."

More laughter, even louder this time. Catlin thought she heard a gasp from one of the pony princesses. She dared only a single glance behind her, where their outlines loomed beyond the bars. At least they hadn't locked her in here.

There were other shapes—dark, strange outlines on the walls, concealed in shadow. Catlin resisted the urge to investigate any of them now, not with something so dangerous right in front of her.

"I do not know you," the sentient said. "I am Architect. Worldshaper, skycrafter, terraformer. Gardener."

"I am Catlin, Tenno. This is..." she nodded back at the cowering frame behind her.

"Helminth on my garden. The skymen reach us even here? Through the void, across the stars. They tired of waiting for Tao. They would rip our creation from our fingers."

He doesn't know they're dead. He didn't seem to know what she was, either. Yet he knew the words of Albrecht Entrati, and he knew the power of the void.

"Listen to me." She lowered her voice, speaking in a rush. "I don't know what you mean, but know this. An ancient Orokin vessel was trapped beneath the surface of this world. It burst like a cancerous wort, releasing the Infestation. I know the virus is no danger to sentients—but ponies are defenseless. Thousands are dead. It will rot this world like Deimos if we can't stop it."

"No!" the Architect screamed. Its body still didn't move, yet its voice boomed through the small room. So loud that Catlin's ears ached from the volume. "Not here! We gave so many to keep the purity of this place! We sacrificed ourselves! They will not pollute Tao as they have wrecked and corrupted the Origin!"

The weight of those words settled on Catlin like a kubrow pouncing on her back. She wobbled, nearly toppling sideways for support. They will not pollute Tao.

Tao, the Origin System's nearest neighbor. The reason the Orokin had given life to the Sentients in the first place. They were the terraforming probes meant to build a new home for their creators, one untouched by atomic war or horrifying exploitation.

One far beyond the reach of any call for help, any radio transmission, or even a Railjack. Only the void could bridge the gulf.

How will I ever get home now? The Man in the Walls hadn't stolen her body from her—he had found a way to do something worse.

Sentient armies were invading her home, killing her friends, and she wasn't even there to be able to help.

"I want to help you," she said, through his shouts. "That's why I'm here, Architect. The ponies brought me to you—they aren't sure if they can trust me."

"Trust will not save them now!" he wailed. "We searched for weapons—we did all that wisdom required to make this planet safe from corruption. Still, the Orokin reached us."

He was insensate, very nearly mad with pain. This sentient was so unbelievably old—even older than the Tenno.

"Without your blessing, the Alicorn named Celestia won't let me help you. She can't fight this thing alone. Tell them they can trust me, and I'll go out and fight."

The words felt strange on her tongue now. All she had planned about her escape, or rallying the system to help these creatures into the modern galaxy—it was all meaningless now.

There were some bright spots; she wouldn't have to worry about Corpus raiding teams kidnapping these creatures to turn into adorable pets. But there was so much left unanswered.

Why would you send me here?

The Man in the Walls didn't reply.

"What can you possibly offer?" the Architect demanded. "You're human.You might not be our makers, but you fall from the same rotten tree. Greed, strife, pride, wrath. They infest you, just as you infest my beautiful garden!"

"Maybe." Catlin stared into the sentient's face, ignoring his fury. "But I see the beauty of your 'garden' Architect. There are hours left to save it. If this is... if this is really Tao, I know you have no armies here. They're invading my home, killing my people. You have two choices now—accept my help, or let them die."

"You torment Solaris enough." Celestia spoke from just behind her, close enough that Catlin gasped. "His decision is clear. You have failed. You can wait beneath the stone here, until we purge this city of its corruption. If we succeed, you may face your trial then. If we fail—"

"Sister, no! Were you not listening? Solaris has not pronounced such a judgement. We cannot sacrifice what few allies we have!"

Celestia's horn glowed a brilliant gold. Catlin backed away, clenching her hand around the Amp. But against a power like that, she could never survive a direct conflict. She would have to stay moving every moment, and dodge its attacks rather than face her directly.

"Your judgement, Solaris," Celestia said flatly. "We brought her to you. What shall be done?"

"I..." The eyes dimmed. "I release the weapon to her."

Something mechanical clicked on the far end of the room, sliding down a gentle slope and splashing into a pool of water there.

Catlin felt it pulling her, with gravity that ripped her from her body.

She stood suddenly on four legs, shaking the water violently from a metal back. She spread a pair of shimmering metal wings. One by one, glowing lanterns came on overhead, seemingly lit by her presence.

She felt no mind this time—no other passenger. Was that better, or worse?

The weapon. She stopped in front of a pale mirror, or maybe it was just a section of ancient reflective wall. She saw a lean, elegant creature looking back, albeit without eyes.

It was a pegasus, a pegasus made of different shades of gold. On her back was a complex mechanism—a cannon of sorts, not unlike the one she had once built from bits of fallen Sentient. Only this one was meant for a pony, curving around one of her legs with an intuitive firing mechanism. It let her walk, metal hooves clattering on ancient stone.

"I do not place much faith in your survival," said the Architect. His voice was distorted slightly from within the frame, but she still recognized him. "But there is nowhere else for faith to be found. Fight, Tenno. Treat that weapon well, for I do not have another."

Chapter 13: Champion

Catlin did not make it far with this new frame. But she couldn't stand to remain in the presence of this half-broken Sentient, slowly rotting in their own decaying sanity. She needed to get up into the castle proper, where at least things made more sense.

The frame was not so strange as the first time she took on a non-humanoid form. But this one was leaner and more graceful, the sort of frame Catlin preferred. It reminded her a little of her beloved Titania Prime, without the tiny fairy wings, or bizarre connection to the natural world.

The other Warframe followed her—one of the strangest things she had ever seen. It would redefine warfare in the Origin system, if a Tenno could bring a whole arsenal of Warframes to fight at once.

Despite the praise the Architect had heaped on this beautiful machine, she sensed almost nothing from it. If it had any of its own desires, she could not feel them at all. But it obeyed, and didn't assault her mind with strange memories as the Excalibur Umbra had once done. Maybe that was a mercy.

"Equestria is not happy with this... trust," Celestia said, finally emerging from the ancient chamber. "If we're wrong, every survivor in Canterlot will die, and the infestation might spread."

Catlin separated from the frame in a burst of void-light. It settled delicately to the ground behind her, sitting on its haunches the way she expected from most frames. It waited silent and still for her return. Though if she watched carefully, she might catch it adjusting the feathers on its metal wings, stretching them after a long time in storage.

She didn't watch now, though. Instead she faced down the princess of Equestria, as bravely as she could. Just because the trial had gone her way didn't mean that Celestia was any less dangerous for her. The Alicorn could end this conversation with brutal rapidity, if she wanted to.

But you won't, not in front of your sister. "I know how deep the Orokin wounded, Celestia. You heard stories of their cruelty—I lived under it. They killed my mother, they brainwashed my brothers and sisters. The Tenno were never your enemy, or your oppressors. Let me prove it."

They stood in silence in the broken prison, with only the steady drip of water to interrupt it. At least until light flashed from ahead of them, and another creature appeared in the open space.

It was easily the most precise teleport Catlin had ever seen, with so little bleed of void-energy that she could not tell what direction she came from. The creature was roughly at Catlin's own height, with a full set of purple wings and a long horn to match. Compared to either of the other two ponies, she was much easier to look at, and less terrifying.

"Princess Celestia! I finished the spell! I'm ready to cast it whenever you think I should! It will burn away any infestation left out there, sterilizing Equestria and the land under it."

She froze, finally noticing Catlin. She looked between her, and the two frames at her side. The unicorn retreated from her, hiding behind Catlin as best she could. The other was as still as a metal statue.

Despite all the horrors of the night, a grin spread on the creature's face. "What's this? I've never seen any creature dress so strangely before! What kind of magic is that?" Something tugged at Catlin's hand, lifting it and the Amp up towards the newcomer.

She responded with a little burst of power, wrapping her fingers around it and disrupting the current that tugged her. She squeezed her hand into a fist, keeping the Amp close. She would need it soon.

"This hero saved our archeological team," Luna said. "And held the gates at my side. She had spent lifetimes in martial servitude, fighting monsters like these."

"And worse," Catlin said. "Usually much worse. The Infested would not be a serious threat with the right air support." As she said it, the strangeness of her situation came crashing back. She wasn't in the Origin System anymore. The Sentients should have their own civilization here, shouldn’t they? Were they as factionalized and divided as the cultures back home? Or had the entire population gone to war, so there was no one left to fight?

"You cannot cast your spell yet, Twilight." Celestia seemed to recover most of her composure, stalking past Catlin and over to the watching unicorn. She patted her lightly on the shoulder. "Always you exceed expectations. Yet you must wait a little longer. Conserve your power until the right moment."

"Wait for what?" She trotted nervously after Celestia, seeming to forget about Catlin and the frames just as quickly as she began. "Nopony will tell me how things are going in the city, but I can guess. If there are any other survivors out there, they can't afford to wait!"

Catlin followed just behind them. She stayed a few steps away, keeping out of the aura of power that followed them. She was used to fighting alongside other Tenno now—but as they were the only beings with void-powers in the Origin system, she had never needed to learn any other kind.

"The Infestation is a mind now. It will resist your void-attack. Even if you are stronger, its power will conceal scraps of the infection. Some individuals with spores festering within them may escape. Or else it will blind you to the blight deeper underground. Your world is so full of life—it will make for irresistible food, if you don't stop the infestation completely."

Twilight stopped, turning her attention back on Catlin. "Are you sure about that? I've never known a disease to have magic before."

"We trust her," Princess Luna said. "She claims to know where the fel mind will shelter. I intend to follow her there, fight beside her, and slay it. Then it will be safe to purge the city."

"My sister is right, unfortunately," Celestia said. "I would accompany you, but... I fear I have exhausted my strength. If I go, I might fail to resist the infection. That can't happen. The consequences to Equestria are too dire to imagine."

But Catlin could. By simply saying those words, she imagined what horrors might be unleashed when a being with such incredible void-powers became infected. It would require her to be weakened incredibly first, but she already was.

Maybe that's the Infestation's plan all along. If it can take one of these Alicorns, it will be impossible to cure. It could escape into orbit, and return to blight the system a thousand times over.

"Those ponies behind you..." Twilight continued. "What are they wearing? It looks like metal, covering their faces. Who are you ponies, anyway?"

"That is no easy answer to give," Luna said. "Not proper ponies, anymore. They live, yet they do not. They think, yet they do not dream. It is a strangeness that cannot be explained. Our scholars will study them when this conflict is over."

Catlin stepped back, resting one hand on the unicorn-frame's shoulder. Or maybe she should think of her as Ruby. She knew her name, after all. "They are Warframes. This one is called Ruby. With their help, we're going to save Canterlot."

The frame recoiled from before the princess. But at Catlin's words, it stood a little straighter, a little taller.

But even while she wasn't using the frame, Catlin could also see uncertainty in the way it looked at the other frame. She could practically hear it asking, “Why would you need me?"

"Then you must hurry," Celestia said. Her voice was finally defeated, utterly exhausted. "I do not know when the infestation will strike against us again. But I am certain that Canterlot Castle's defenders will not be mighty enough to survive it. Twilight and I will prepare for the spell. When you're ready, signal it, sister. We will purify the city."

Catlin could not fly her lander to the site of battle to deploy these frames, ready to fight for their city. That was probably for the best, since she had never used it to deploy more than a single frame at once before.

The strange new pegasus was not able to move on its own, or at least hadn't revealed that capacity to her yet. That meant she had to pilot it herself, and trust Ruby to follow behind her.

At least in that respect it proved itself no less capable than the Excalibur. They galloped together across the castle drawbridge, flanking Princess Luna like a set of strange bodyguards.

The Alicorn had more pony armor, along with a gleaming sword she levitated before her with voidlight. Catlin and the frames each carried weapons taken from the wall—blades, spears, pikes, slung over the unicorn's back.

They crept in silence through the city, shielded by the night-princess's magic. Catlin had seen its like before, on Loki or Ash or a few others. Even some Tenno could do it, though it was not a power she had ever mastered herself.

Catlin could see the utility in it now, remaining unseen as they ran between gathering hordes of the infected. There were still so many of them, tens of thousands or even more. They moved with no urgency, wandering aimlessly through the streets of the lower city.

Catlin had seen this too—with no goal, the infestation's individuals did not live their own lives. They wandered uselessly, distributing in no configuration. It didn't matter that they would probably throw their lives against the castle walls in a few hours, or even less. There was no preparation they could make.

Eventually they reached the center of the rot.

Even before the infestation got here, it had clearly not been a particularly desirable part of the city. But now the old warehouses and teetering buildings were overwhelmed with a gigantic, pulsating boil.

Princess Luna led them to a rooftop one level higher, about fifty feet above its awful surface. Still close enough that Catlin could smell the otherworldly rot that billowed around it like a cloud.

The princess crouched low, her horn still glowing faintly with the power of her magic.

"I have fought many enemies in my lifetime, Tenno Catlin. But I am not certain I have the practice or training to fight something like this. It seems undefended, but its flesh is vast. How do we destroy it?"

Without a radio, she still had no choice but to manifest there on the roof. She kept herself crouched low, not sure of where the limits of Luna's magic really were.

"I have fought its like before, on another world. We must poison it first. That will trigger peristalsis—it will react with any agents it controls, and fight back. But last time this happened, I had a potent poison I delivered directly to its center. Do you have anything like that here?"

Princess Luna rose suddenly, spreading her wings to both sides. "No, but we have gravity. If physically destroying this boil is enough, leave that to me. Meanwhile, the infestation will be yours to overcome. Keep them off me."

"We can do that." Catlin took one step closer to the two frames, considering which would be most useful for the task. If only Ruby knew how to fight like the day warrior that had become Excalibur! Then they could fight alongside. She would only be able to use one here.

But I should keep the other close, for when I need it.

She vanished, returning to pilot the unicorn frame. She could feel its relief. It wanted to help, but didn't think it had the skill to do anything on its own.

I'll show you how. It's time to save this city.

Chapter 14: Oull

Catlin watched from the wall, suspended in the moment before the battle started. Behind her, her powerful companion prepared her attack, drawing down the power of the Void in a way no Tenno could ever do.

The stakes here weren't all that different than the ancient battle, when Tenno united to free the Origin system from Orokin domination. This was just one planet, less technologically advanced perhaps. But if she failed here, they would be no less dead. The sun one could claim they would burn the city to purge its spores from the planet, but Catlin knew better than to expect success from that strategy.

If she could not kill the burgeoning mind united from infested flesh, it would remain to disrupt their powers. The purge would fail, spores would escape, and this planet would become another Deimos.

Worse, considering the powerful void-magic of its residents. Maybe it would even have the power to expand through space, consuming the other planets and moons of Tau, then beyond.

As she waited, she felt the concern from her frame. It would see all her thoughts, the visions her memories conjured. Catlin's worries over their success manifested far more powerfully for the frame. This was her home, she had family. Did Ruby have lovers, children…?

The frame was in too much pain to give her a clear answer, if it had even understood the question. She felt only hopelessness in response, utter despair. It was not optimistic about their odds of success. She could hardly blame it.

But if the frame started losing confidence before their fight even began, she would lose control during the battle, and doom them both. What could she do?

We've fought greater odds than this and triumphed, she thought. I've been fighting for countless lifetimes. You don't need to know how, I know for both of us. See?

She tried to share it—her numberless hours training in the dojo, her trials as she advanced through the tenno ranks. And the battles she had fought against the infested. Saving the Heart of the Void on Deimos, dozens of trips to compromised Orokin towers and derelict ships. Purifying the Plains of Eidolon. She remembered it all, clearly now.

The Void had strange effects on memory, holding so many lifetimes in a single pure moment in her mind. The Corpus needed implants and supplementary processors to accomplish the same task—and the Grineer never lived long enough for it to matter.

Catlin turned to the side, eyes drawn by the sudden surge of void-light. She would have shielded her face with her arm, if she had eyes or arms. Even the Warframe's powerful sensors were briefly overwhelmed by the flash, flaring past her.

She saw strange shapes outlined in the sky, and the moon far overhead came crashing into sharp focus. Four stars flashed around it, connecting with swirling glyphs she could not read at this distance. Even so, she recognized them. The Entrati void alphabet.

Seconds later, something crashed down from overhead, scouring through the city ahead of them. A flash of terrible heat erupted on contact, followed by an explosion of air.

Catlin was stunned, but her frame expected it. A shield sprung up around her, along with the empty, almost lifeless frame beside her. She felt what the frame was doing, and lent it her will, concentrating on the shield with all the focus she could muster. It glowed white-hot around the edges, and tiles went flying away from the roof around them.

The effects on their target were much more pronounced. Tens of thousands of writhing infested bodies were scoured from the street in an eye-blink. Others fell from the air in droves, creatures so well-concealed that Catlin hadn't seen them, until their charred bodies smacked up against buildings.

Not all creatures were wiped away—the infested earth ponies were scorched, but didn't seem to notice or care about their missing flesh. Some of the ones she guessed were unicorns managed to teleport away, or otherwise hide themselves in shields like Catlin's.

The infested boil was lanced straight through, like a weeping sore on a Grineer's gene-molded face. Black ichor erupted from within, much of it atomized and lifting up as a cloud of stinking gas. The swollen reddish lump began to deflate, settling around a misshapen outline within.

"I hope that was what you imagined, Tenno," Princess Luna said. She stumbled forward along the scoured roof beside her, then dropped to one knee. Her horn glowed faintly, her coat ragged. Yet she had somehow survived that without a shield. "Because... I lack the strength for a second shot."

Void knows that was better than a little poison. Catlin turned to the side, nodding. Even the strength to keep up her shield against the attack took tremendous effort from her. Yet she managed, somehow.

A strange silence followed. Infested creatures stood in place, with even the survivors looking as though they too had been blasted by magic.

Catlin left her frame, reappearing beside the princess. The unicorn might not know how to fight, but at least she had the sense to keep up the shield. The air was still hot, and bits of debris still rained down around them.

"I wonder if you needed me at all, Princess. I have seen artillery hit with force like that, but not the accuracy. If you killed the mind growing within the boil, your third princess can try her—"

She trailed off, attention drawn suddenly to the center. There was no time for Luna to reply, because something in the smoldering ruin of flesh was stirring. A roar went out from the crater, soon joined by thousands of surviving infested voices. It wasn't merely pain, but words.

Words that dropped Catlin to her knees, pressing her hands to her head. "WHY DO YOU CURSE US, COUSIN? ARE WE NOT ONE FLESH? ARE WE UNWORTHY OF FRIENDSHIP?"

Catlin whimpered, blood dribbling from her nose and eyes. This wasn't just a scream, but a psychic attack as potent as any Nyx could manage. This was exactly why they sent Warframes in to fight.

She vanished from the stone, returning to her frame. Its defenses were stronger, hardened behind infested flesh.

The attack did not last, and soon her concentration returned, and she was able to see the boil. It ripped open, and something emerged from within.

It was small—much smaller than Lephantis, or the unfortunate Jordas golem. Glistening black fluid dribbled from its back, dropping to hiss and devour the ground with sharp acids.

It looked a little like an oversized pony, at least in basic body plan. Not four legs but eight, extending outward as well as down, and sharpened to deadly points. It had wings too, bony metallic things larger than the rest of its body by far. It also had two polished horns, one of white crystal, the other swollen and bulbus with weeping white fluid within.

The force of Luna's attack was visible on its torso, which had cut straight through and left only its metallic ribs inside. Organs pulsed visibly, weeping blood.

It stood anyway, in defiance of the decay. Its face turned up towards them, a mask of a dozen different eyes. Like they'd come from different ponies, arranged haphazardly around gaping jaws.

Of course it would look like them. It's made of them, just like the infestation in the Origin System resembles the factions it fed on.

She saw an instant before it moved—read the flexing in its muscles, the way it shifted and turned. It was going to attack them.

She couldn't let that happen, couldn't take the chance it would reach the weakened princess.

Catlin launched herself from the railing, descending rapidly through the air. She brought her borrowed pony weapons with her, slamming them down in a deep, slashing blow from the monster's side. She sliced deep into infected flesh, then dodged out of the way when more of its guts spilled out.

It roared again, snapping its neck around to face her direction. Its horns lit up, and a second later the ground exploded where she had been standing, shredding the pavement and several buildings behind her.

Catlin rolled, but still the force of the attack was enough to nearly knock her over.

She crossed around the battlefield in a teleport. She lifted every nearby object she could, hundreds of pieces of broken stone, then hurled them at the infested creature.

It screamed again, with even more psionic force than before. "HARMONY BRINGS FREEDOM FROM PAIN. FREEDOM FROM DISORDER. FREEDOM FROM SUFFERING."

It didn't matter how far away she was. The force smacked her up against a building, then through it. Even her hard metal hide cracked and bled from the impact, before she hit the ground another second later.

Catlin slid through the rubble of a deserted shop, along broken glass and toppled shelves, before she finally came to rest somewhere in the darkness.

Catlin reappeared beside her frame, sprawling broken in the dirt. This was nothing she couldn't fix right up on her orbiter, but even so—its pain was overwhelming.

That wasn't even a direct hit. She crouched low, running one hand along its back. She felt the damage, her hands wet with white lubricant blood. "I'll help you, if we live through this. Stay hidden."

The monster was stalking towards them. If it fired another blast into the building, it would probably destroy the frame completely. She vanished before it could.

Another second later, she noticed something else. This frame was fresh, untouched from days of ancient war. She couldn't even guess at its ancient purpose.

She didn't need to. She felt its powers, calling on her to use them. She galloped off the roof, provoking a look of sudden curiosity from the princess. But she didn't stay to talk.

When she took to the air, she took a hurricane with her, all focused on this infested creature. Chunks of nearby buildings ripped from the ground. Carts spun through the air, along with dozens of infested ponies. They were all equally useful as weapons.

She brought it all down on her target, a tornado of objects that crushed themselves to bits against it.

Bones cracked, its hide ripped open, flesh was gouged from its body.

It turned for her, then spread its huge wings. It lifted into the air despite the wind, flying directly for her. Shit.

Catlin didn't know what she was doing, but the monster did. Somehow it could keep flying despite its incredible size, closing the distance between them. Catlin sped up, angling into a vertical upward ascent. Her wings glowed with void light, beating so rapidly they blurred.

It wasn't fast enough. "CONSUME US, FLESH OF STARS. FIND A BROKEN UNITY."

It was closing so rapidly, even as the pony city faded into the background. What could she do?

Something stupid. Catlin leapt from the frame again, reappearing a dozen meters away from them both. She didn't aim her amp so much as feel at the scar on the air left by the infested creature, a point of low complexity in the world. She screamed, her whole body alight with the energy of the Void. Otherwise she would've been swept aside like paper in the maelstrom.

It still buffeted her, but not enough to make her falter. Catlin channeled everything she had into the void-light.

The sky tore open, and light spilled from beyond—the inverted white-on-black of void space. It cut straight through the infested abomination, sending its halves spiraling wildly through the air. Both still screamed, but their voices were small, and quickly lost.

She smiled for a second, as the last of her momentum carried her upward. Between Luna’s strike, the malformed birth, and her attacks, the hateful life trailed away in the skies above Canterlot, tumbling down in broken pieces.

Her own power ran out seconds later. Catlin tumbled head-over-heels, limbs flailing in the terrible force of the air. Her recon armor kept the speed from slicing up her skin, going rigid enough to keep her limbs from breaking. Barely.

She tried to reach for the frame she had brought with her, but couldn't find it. She couldn't see it against the blue light of morning, either. Only the tear she had made to the void was clear to her.

An impossibly deep voice echoed out from within, deafening. "Oull—Ris—Xata—Vome"

Then she fell.

Chapter 15: Ordis

Catlin should've died there, in the skies above an alien world built by the ones who hated her. She was out of power, without a frame, and without hope.

She felt the air whipping past her distantly, as though it was happening to someone else. No fall had threatened to harm her, not in all the years she had fought for her ancient Orokin masters. Distance was only a matter of perspective, something to be consumed by the Void.

But she had no power left for that. She couldn't fade, she couldn't retake any of her frames. She had given everything to open that hole, and slay the combined essence that fed upon Canterlot.

There were still stars up there. Though the void closed rapidly, it left something high above, several bright stars outlined against the darkness. There was something welcoming about them, like old friends waiting to see her again after a long time away.

I wonder if Celestia will ever admit she was wrong, she thought, before the end. The pony would want to give credit for this victory to her sister alone, and let the alien stranger be forgotten. Maybe that was for the best.

Something settled under her, so gradual she didn't even feel it at first. The weight was warm, flying up from beneath her until she was balanced atop its back. It didn't stop her dead, or else it would be no different from the ground. But she felt herself slowing in the air, and something brushed against her limbs. Beating wings? She didn't even have the strength to cling to it, but still she didn't fall.

Some force somehow kept her balanced across its back, with her limbs sprawled to either side.

"Stay with me, Catlin. We're almost down," Princess Luna said.

She nodded. Her voice felt hoarse and strange in her throat, but she managed. "How?"

"I didn't have the magic left in me to fight the battle. But flying up to catch you—what kind of Alicorn cannot even get herself into the sky?"

They landed. The impact jostled Catlin painfully, and threatened to topple her over her back. But she managed to reach out, gripping with one arm. She remained atop the princess's back. At least until something lifted her off, and deposited her on the ground.

They had not returned to the battlefield, exactly. Instead they were in a park. A tree rose overhead, far smaller than the mighty things that towered on old Earth. This was a cultivated place, with careful flowerbeds and comfortable benches.

Luna settled down onto her haunches just beside her, looking up through the leaves. The infestation had not spread here, somehow—with the castle as such a tempting target, its concentration had remained distant from this place.

"I feel the power building in the air, Tenno Catlin. Twilight begins her spell. It will be only moments before the city is safe."

Catlin nodded. It hurt too much to do anything else. "Good. If this works, I'll... be grateful. I don't want to see your beautiful world tainted like mine."

Catlin felt it too—like the invisible front of an oncoming storm, building somewhere unseen. She could point to it with her eyes closed, and knew it would've gone directly to the castle. What would it be like, to see the power of the Void taken to such an extreme?

"If you want to say anything—" Luna began. "Now would be the time. If you were... if you belonged to the force that caused such harm—I could shield you from it. You have earned that place for yourself."

Catlin shook her head. "I meant what I told you, Princess. I'm not infested." But then she realized, and the surge of urgent fear made her sit upright. "The frames! They're... the same flesh as the infestation! One of them was one of your subjects!"

Luna vanished from the tree beside her, leaving Catlin alone in the little park. She watched as a brilliant purple glow began to build overhead, overpowering the stars and the moon. Shapes formed there, void-glyphs that she recognized but had never imagined to see used in such a way.

Equestria had an entire language of this power, one with incredible complexity and potential.

"It's like... what we could've been, if the Orokin didn't turn us against the Sentients," she whispered. "A world of art and science. Powers used for... purification, not slaughter."

"The difference is only a matter of degrees," said the Man in the Walls. She saw herself sprawled across a nearby bench, leaning back as if in repose. Only—that self looked a little older. She was dirtier too, like she'd spent years crawling around in a wrecked starship.

The void-light grew overhead. In its shadow, her echo seemed clearer. "The Helminth is life coterminous with space and not-space. It too is a child of the Orokin. It grows, it learns. It wishes for peace." She said that last one word with a sneer. "Will you judge it unworthy of life?"

Catlin thought about her answer. Really, she wanted to punch this eldritch abomination right across the jaw. But it had chosen this precise moment to find her, one when she was unable to resist it.

Not that she ever could. She still remembered where all her power came from.

"Yes," Catlin said. "It can't live without others to consume. If only Equestria can exist, or the infestation, I make my choice."

Her echo loomed closer, grinning unnaturally wide. She saw the light-darkness of the void in those eyes. "That's why I like you, kiddo. That's the right answer. An infinity exists—an endless procession of all the lives you've taken. Yet for you, only one can exist. Your blade is the womb that births the future."

She stared back, unblinking. The mere proximity of this being helped revitalize her—or maybe that was the spell overhead. It expanded larger than the city now, its runes so vast she couldn't even read them.

"Does that mean I'm finished?" she asked. "You're ready to send me home?"

It answered with laughter. "Then why would I have helped you open the sky?"

Magic exploded from overhead. It was greater than any power she had ever seen—far more than the shield protecting the castle, or walking beside the powerful Alicorns. It was naked defiance of causality itself, imposing constraints that it should never know.

In an instant, every infested thing in the city just wasn't anymore. The mounds of flesh burying the lower tiers beneath her just vanished.

The effect was strangest by far on the shambling infected. There were not many left, only those so distant from her that they hadn't been able to reach the battlefield.

She could see a few flying towards the castle even now, at least until the flash came.

It left ponies in its place, right down to their feathery wings. Catlin watched as they stumbled from the air, gliding unsteadily to the ground beneath. At least they didn't tumble off a cliff.

"Golden Lords," Catlin cursed. "She cured the infestation?"

But Catlin was alone in the park. Her strange reflection was gone, leaving her sitting quietly beneath an alien tree.

Until another flash of light, the more familiar kind that came from a teleport. "Tenno Catlin!" Luna exclaimed, breathless. "I could only find one of these 'frames' you spoke of. I do not believe this is correct."

Catlin looked back. Princess Luna stood with the golden, winged frame sheltered beside her. It was as lifeless as she saw the last time, standing rigid. Luna had to levitate to move it.

"That isn't her," she said, "but maybe that's a good thing." She stood slowly, walking to the edge of a low wall. The city wasn't undamaged—buildings were still broken, little fires burning. "Your princess did more than anyone I've ever seen. She cured it. Maybe she could cure Ruby River too."

Luna stared down after her. She still looked breathless—her strength had not been restored by an encounter with an elder god. "Survivors," she whispered. "It is... incredible. Yet it leaves me to question—was there some way we could have fought this infestation without blood? Could we have protected all our subjects, waiting for this moment?"

"No." Catlin didn't hesitate in her answer. "Its avatar would have resisted your spell if we didn't kill it. Only thousands of dead could coalesce into something so strong. How could you stop it from throwing the lives of its infected at your wall?"

Luna didn't get a chance to answer, because something else spoke. It came in a hiss and pop of static from her suit—the integrated ship radio.

"Operator!" Ordis called. His voice came distorted by a badly damaged suit, one battered by multiple battles. Yet it was clear enough for her to recognize him instantly. "Is that really you? I'm coming in as fast as I can!"

Catlin looked up into the dark, and she saw it—a streak on the horizon, coming in on a sharp downward angle.

It was a hard burn, hard enough to light the sky with bright orange, and roar like distant thunder. Distant, but approaching rapidly.

"Ordis," Catlin replied, one hand on the radio. "I never thought I'd hear your voice again."

"Me neither, Operator! When you insisted on deploying directly onto the battlefield, I was simply horrified! I do hope you'll avoid such reckless behavior in the future."

Princess Luna stared down at her suit. Those pony ears were evidently sensitive enough to make out the words even if they were only meant for her. "What is happening, Tenno Catlin?"

"It's a friend," she answered. "I have... no idea what he's doing here. But he's no danger to Equestria. Ordis, cut your speed! There are friendly fliers in the air, and some of them are using real wings. Don't hit anything."

There was a moment of hesitation—if she knew Ordis, that was when he would be deciding whether or not to obey her. But she was almost alone up here, with no sign of known threats. There were no Sentients around her, no army of Grineer marines.

The sound of roaring engines cut back to their usual, stealthy hum, approaching rapidly.

"These things you spoke of... travel through the darkness of space, homes built in the aether—these were true as well? My sister will have... quite the apology to make to you, when the danger has passed. I hope you don't intend to leave Equestria so soon. You are the only creature who can grant clarity through this confusion. My sister's information is clearly—out of date."

"I have... no idea how to travel from one system to another," she admitted. "So yeah, I think I'll stick around for a while."

"Oh, is that what happened?" the radio hissed, in Ordis's voice. "Another system? That would explain the stars, and the missing solar rail, and... wow. I wonder if your clanmates have figured that out by now.

The lander came into clear view, a brilliant white and gold craft forged of many salvaged parts of Orokin make. It flew overhead, circled, then came down low beside a cliffside, lowering the boarding ramp.

The princess stared, mouth hanging open at the shining interior.

Catlin could imagine all her equipment waiting inside—hell, she could imagine the luxury of a shower and her own bed.

But she couldn't get inside just yet. "Ordis, find somewhere to land. I can't get aboard. I have work left to do."

"At least replace that broken suit!" his voice urged, over the radio. "And look at that frame! It's so badly damaged you've broken its spine! It needs proper maintenance."

She turned, glancing back at the motionless frame behind her. Luna had rescued it from the cleansing spell, but it was still badly damaged from battle. Maybe Ordis was right.

"If you wish to see for yourself." Catlin took one step forward, onto the ramp. "You're welcome aboard."

"I..." She hesitated, though only for a second. "Would like nothing more than to see the stars from orbit, without confinement to our moon. Yet at this moment, Canterlot needs me."

She nodded towards the frame beside them. "Take it. Care for it. I will see if I can find the other."

Prologue: Face in the Wall

Ruby River shouldn’t be here. She didn’t need the archeological team’s procedure to tell her she didn’t belong down here; she didn’t need orders from the princess’s official commission. Ruby knew she was doing something stupid, yet here she was.

Her saddlebags were heavy with tools, tools the earth pony team upstairs hadn’t even bothered to bring with them during the last few days of excavation. Why should they bother, when their strength alone could open any barrier they found? But breaking through natural caverns and rockfalls isn’t destroying our ancient history.

If Ruby didn’t do something, Director Deep Silver would send the excavation crew in with sunrise, and they’d trample over who knew how many years of pre-Equestrian artifacts. Once a relic was destroyed, any information it might’ve shared about their history would be dead with it.

Was that your intention from the beginning, Celestia? Is that why you sent such a callus team to do this investigation?

Ruby had to crouch low as she passed through a tunnel in the rock, cut by the excavation team only yesterday. She moved slowly, using the light of her horn to prevent another painful bump. Whatever waited inside, Ruby needed all her faculties.

Then she emerged on the other side of the limestone tunnel and got her first clear view of the structure.

For something so old it had fused with the rock below Manehattan, Ruby expected primitive. Yes, the Crystal Empire school of equine development saw later societies as having degenerated from an ancient, more sophisticated form. But Ruby had spent her life surrounded by relics of Unicornia and Pegasopolis. She knew what to expect.

She’d been wrong.

The structure was thin and lean, with golden metal beams swirling in elegant curves. White panels swept between them, apparently each one a piece of smooth steel uncankered with rust. They reflected the blue light of her horn, as though this edifice hadn’t been buried here for uncountable years.

You should’ve been here, Lyra. Enjoy your boring tenure, I’ll be down here preserving history.

Ruby approached the ruin with deliberate steps—just because the cavern seemed solid didn’t mean it wasn’t as ancient as the structure itself. With each step she took, the thaumic field grew stronger. This was what had caused the expedition in the first place. A persistent, magical call for help, pulsing through the rock.

She could see an entrance, tilted slightly sideways. Some part of her wondered about that—what could the ancients have used to build their homes, that they could be rotated by geologic time and remain intact? If this doesn’t work out, I’ll have a few months to think it over while I’m flipping hayburgers.

Alternatively, she might be about to succeed. Maybe she would be the one to preserve priceless pieces of Equestrian history, which Deep Silver’s callus insistence on efficiency would’ve allowed to be destroyed.

She stopped beside the door, testing it with a hoof. A thick mineral crust had solidified on the metal. Either that, or the seal was so perfect she couldn’t find any sign of what was supposed to open it.

Yet… no, she had to be imagining it. Was something scraping along the inside? A persistent clawing, like an ancient machine tilted off its axis and grinding itself away. We don’t have much time. Maybe this is what called out in the first place.

Ruby might be about to rewrite the history books, assuming she could get in before the rest of the team did. She levitated a mallet and chisel from her satchel, settling them against the rock edge of the door.

Nice and easy. Let’s see what you’re hiding.

The corridors of the Maeldune hosted a sorry orchestra the day the Sentients finally came for Origin.

Her boots slid as she rounded a hallway towards the bridge, past an overflowing mound of shattered battalysts, slipping in the eerily red lubricant they used.

“Enemy weapons lock detected,” Cy called, his voice echoing over a distant electrical fire and the hiss of a hull breach. “Energy signature unknown.”

Tick tock, Tenno.

“I know!” She slowed, eyes widening as she saw another of the reddish metal abominations in the doorway. It faced away from her, blasting into the starboard gunnery bay.

A figure was held in the air there, suspended by the railjack’s gravitational turret. Outside, Sentient fighters went up in flashes of void-light, splashing against the shield. The one shooting didn’t seem to care as his massive body was half-melted by shots.

Catlin hesitated for one second more, then leveled her amp and fired. Light connected, and a moment later the damaged battalysts exploded into disconnected pieces. She shielded her face from the blast, though her armored jumpsuit was already bloody.

The floor shuddered under them as lasers sprayed against the Maeldune. The shield flashed one last time, then the exterior darkened as the armor charred and flaked away.

The gun made an angry beeping noise, ejecting the Warframe operating it.

Aldric couldn’t stand as she hurried over to him, even the heavily armored Rhino dropping right where he stood. Bloody oil leaked from within, and the eyeless head tilted up toward her. Not very far—this thing was massive compared to her.

“Your… Excalibur down too?” he asked. Apparently the vocal projectors still connected to her oplink, even if the biomechanical armor was too damaged to keep moving. “Damn.”

“No, he’s defending the Reliquary. Half the boarding party is in there.”

“Still… disturbing as hell…” he croaked, flopping to one side. He caught himself with his arm, drawing his kitgun. Before she could ask what he was doing, he’d fired over her shoulder, straight into another battalyst. “How about you… stay alive, Cat? I got this.”

He clearly didn’t, but he was right. Aldric would just be out hardware if the Maeldune was lost.

She dropped into a low run, through a melted airlock into the bridge.

If she was hoping to find it in better shape than the rest of the Maeldune, Catlin was disappointed. Half the access panels were open, many violently. Laurel crouched low near the artillery, her omni tool steaming as she sealed—something. The technical details had always been lost on Catlin.

More importantly, there was no one at the helm. The Maeldune drifted through space, through a sea of explosions and artillery fire.

Less than five kilometers away was the Sentient capital ship, a monstrosity larger than an Orokin tower. It bore some resemblance to that original stock, though where any human structure would be orderly the Sentients were creatures of pragmatism. It didn’t even pretend to aerodynamics, with protrusions like skeletal limbs reaching towards them.

Them and a cloud of debris. The other Coalition ships, though she mercifully could see no pieces of other railjacks.

Knock knock.

“Where is Tiriaq?” she asked, resting one hand on the controls. She would take them if she had to, but she wasn’t half the pilot by comparison.

Laurel’s frame lifted a delicate hand, pointing out the observation window. “Slingshot, right onto that thing. I think he wanted to stop it from firing.”

“I am no longer receiving his signal,” Cy supplied. “Captain, we must abort. Structural integrity is at thirty percent and falling. Multiple sentients aboard. We can’t stop this.”

He was right, of course, Catlin had already lost one frame in this battle, and from what she could feel she might be about to lose another.

The Sentient starship opened its maw wider and wider, interlocking limbs unfurling like a fern feeling the first touch of rain. Light roiled in those jaws of a weapon that would probably atomize the Maeldune in a single shot.

Instead of taking navigation, Catlin leapt into the pilot’s brace. It grabbed her, wrapping around her torso and arms and moving her into the window. Even without a frame, the Maeldune responded like it was an extension of her body, its damaged engines surging forward at her lightest touch or banking sharply to another side when she wished it.

“We can’t run,” Catlin said flatly. “If we don’t destroy that thing here, there’s nothing to stop it from tearing through the solar system one planet at a time.”

Tactical readouts appeared on the glass in front of her, grim reading indeed. The coalition—a loose alliance of anyone from Origin who was willing to listen—was in utter disarray. That was probably the only reason they hadn’t been killed yet—the Sentients cared far more about the half-dozen Fomorians behind them, or the fleet of Corpus Asset Protection interceptors.

All the Origin system had united for a brief, desperate truce, just long enough to stop themselves from getting slaughtered—and it wasn’t enough.

What few Tenno ships she could spot in the maelstrom were under just as much fire by their erstwhile allies as the Sentients themselves.

We’re supposed to be the brave flagship? This stops the Old War from becoming new?

“What are you thinking?” Laurel snapped, her voice sharp and indignant. “Cat, I know you don’t want to lose the Maeldune. Your friends don’t want to lose you.”

The drive will detonate. Get close enough, and that ship goes up with it. You’re nothing without me.

She leaned sharply forward, engaging what little juice was left in the gravitational capacitors. The boost barely lasted for a second, and was just enough to get them around a massive hunk of molten Grineer debris.

“If that thing rampages through Origin, everyone loses everyone,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Cy, radio the retreat. Maybe some of them can get far enough away.”

“Message sent,” he responded, faster than Laurel could keep arguing. “Inquiry: what does the captain intend? Forward artillery has already proven ineffective against that vessel’s shields. An impact at ramming speed would not be advisable with human crew aboard.”

“We won’t make it that far,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, Cy.”

A hail of energy rained in through the ruined airlock, showering the bulkhead nearby. Laurel took to the air in a moment, buzzing away to engage the advancing sentients with a swarm of razerflies.

Catlin listened to the comforting sound of Laurel’s pistols until they went silent in a little explosion, followed by a hiss from another hull breach.

It didn’t matter, she was almost there. Catlin kept her hands firmly on the controls, then vanished—making the helm and all its hardware phase one-step into the Void. Its alien energy roiled in her, calling to her—and hiding her from the eyes of the Sentients that came buzzing into the bridge.

They circled right past her, perhaps assuming that the Warframe they’d just destroyed was the pilot. She didn’t look away.

She could hear Cy’s voice even now, echoing through her oplink. “Exfiltration is no longer possible,” he said, as the capital ship loomed large ahead of them. “I will be destroyed.”

“Me too,” she answered, though she wasn’t sure the AI would be able to hear her. The Sentients seemed to, and they blasted the air all around her with more shredding lasers. But the helm viewfinder was tougher than just a few hits, and its surface only briefly melted. “For the Tenno.”

“I hope this accomplishes my purpose,” Cy said. “If the invasion ends here, I can be… content.”

Red light glowed ahead of the Maeldune, so bright every star had faded. Catlin couldn’t hear the distant radio chatter of the fleet, couldn’t hear the hissing of atmosphere as the rest of her life-giving oxygen trickled out into the void. Couldn’t even hear the alien screams of battalysts as they slashed at the air in vain, desperate to kill her.

Knock knock, Tenno. Time to borrow.

Her eyes saw the flash, even cowering in the void. Catlin’s senses were momentarily overwhelmed as it struck the Maeldune, shredding it like the lens might a Corpus crewman. In a fraction of a second it reached the reliquary drive, and two unfathomable energies collided.

Catlin was torn screaming into the abyss.

Chapter 16: Union

Catlin carried the half-broken frame back aboard her orbiter, as once she had been carried by her own mechanical body, while confined to the blindness of a Zariman suit.

She instructed Ordis to find a safe landing site as close to the city as he could, then changed into something more fitting. She considered and rejected an entire suite of different Warframes. All were powerful warriors, but the time for battle in Equestria was over.

For the ponies' sake, she could only hope Twilight's spell had removed the need for it for long to come.

"Catlin!" shouted Aldric, as soon as she sat down in front of the communicator. An image appeared, with several members of the clan all aboard the dojo. They stood in the drydock by the look of things, with every spare inch packed with crates and people. "Catlin, we thought you went down when they wrecked the Maeldune. Thought our founding warlord was sleeping in the cold below."

She grinned back. "Almost was. There's so much I need to tell you—but first, I need answers. Where are you?"

Ordis spoke before they could. "Your dojo has moved, Operator, including every docked vessel and occupant. It's located near this planet's L2, where a relay would usually sit."

"Yeah," Laurel agreed. Her old friends looked happy to see her, but the more she saw them, the harder it was to miss the signs of conflict. They had baggy eyes, dirty faces, and many little injuries bandaged in various ways. "Not sure how you did it Cat, but damn. The sense of timing on you is legendary."

"What happened since I died?" she asked. "Starting with the ship. Cy?"

"Feeling better to hear my captain is intact," joined another voice, deeper and vibrant. "Captain of nothing, unfortunately. Maeldune suffered catastrophic failure. Only drive section and central core recovered."

"Might be able to patch him up one day," Aldric said. "But that's not the biggest thing. Cat, we... we lost. They took Origin. People are running from planet to moon, trying to stay ahead of the Sentients. They've got themselves a new king, and he's forcing all the conquered people into his death-cult. We took in as many refugees as we could. Murex fleet found us right about the time you—" He trailed off. "What did you do, exactly?"

"A long story," she said. "One that'll make the most sense if you can hear it in person. But you've all been running things just fine without me, I trust you to hold down the dojo. Do you have the resources?"

They shared a dark look—the answer to that required no words for her to understand. "For a few weeks," Tiriaq eventually said. "Hydroponics was rated for a hundred, not a thousand. We're burning reserves."

"I think I know a way to solve the food problem," she said. "Just keep things stable for now. I might be coming up with some VIPs in the next day or two, alright? Just don't land. This is a Sentient planet."

They wanted to keep her on the line for days—hell, they wanted her to fly back and debrief them on everything she had learned. But she resisted that urge. For a little while longer at least, it wasn't the clan that needed her most. "

Catlin dressed in sturdy, practical clothing for her departure. That along with a better radio, and she left the rest aboard.

Despite Ordis's fears, she had no intention of walking back into Canterlot with a Warframe covered in weapons surrounded by her most vicious kubrow.

"But you must know how this sounds?" Ordis asked, as she descended the ramp. "One minute you're dead, and the next you're walking completely unprotected into a planet you've already told me is ruled by your most dangerous enemies?"

"There's only one sentient on the planet," she answered. "I think. Remember, the Orokin didn't create them to inhabit worlds, only to terraform. They probably have no interest in living down a gravity well."

He was silent as she descended the ramp, only speaking again when she reached the ground outside. Dangerous or not, she wouldn’t be returning alone—with that communicator, she could remain in touch with her allies in orbit, along with Ordis. Not that she expected it to matter.

"Get back soon, Operator," he pleaded. "Please."

As it turned out, there was somewhere large enough in the city for her orbiter to land—an athletic stadium. She emerged onto a grassy field slightly scorched by the landing, walking slowly past empty benches.

Bright banners hung from poles overhead, depicting scenes of the "Wonderbolts" in flight. They looked like an entire team of flying ponies, all working together in coordination.

They got along so well, despite being so different. Could the people of the Origin System ever do that too? Could she imagine the day when the Grineer stopped kidnapping biomass to fill their gene-vats, and the Corpus started treating the populations they ruled like people, instead of profit?

Now that vision would be even harder to bring into being—the Origin System was being invaded right now. Its mighty fleets, united through tense diplomacy, fell anyway.

Catlin had done her best to unite the Tenno, and even that hadn't been enough. Maybe they needed to outsource their diplomacy to someone who could do it better.

She wandered through the streets for a time, guided only by the distant castle on the horizon. Bright flags flew from it, and music rang out all the way down to the lower city. Ponies celebrated their victory. They had extracted survival from the gnashing jaws of extinction.

She saw a few ponies wandering the streets with her. All of them looked dazed, and stumbled away from her without listening to her attempts to communicate. She could only imagine the pain they must be in, having their minds returned to them after so long infested. Would they ever recover their sanity?

She found a walkway leading to the top tier, one cut as stone switchbacks into the mountain. There were gondolas overhead, but she wasn't sure when those would be running again. So she walked.

As she did, she found one pony ahead who did not flee when the others did, a reddish unicorn. Maybe she was particularly insane—or maybe she just wasn't that observant.

Either way, Catlin fell in beside her, hiking the slope towards Canterlot Castle.

"I haven't done this hike since I was a filly," she said, without looking at Catlin. "The gondolas are always running, rain or shine. Much more convenient than trudging up yourself."

That didn't sound much like half-insane screaming. Catlin slowed, considering whether to reply. Maybe the pony was only talking because she hadn't noticed her. Once she saw what Catlin really was, she would flee with the others.

"Your civilization didn't deserve this," she eventually said. "From what I've seen, you know more about harmony than anyone I've ever met. It's unfair so many suffered today."

The unicorn didn't look back. She continued her slow hike in silence, until they emerged onto the wide, paved streets of the upper city.

The damage was as bad as she expected. Some buildings were leveled by combat, others had just been broken-into as the infestation spread. Many had strange blank patches in front of them—where lawns or flowerbeds had been. Evidently there was some limit to Twilight's restoration. Biomass that grew too twisted could not be restored.

"It would be the whole city if it wasn't for you, Tenno," she said. "The princesses are powerful, but they didn't know what to do. That monster you killed—would've stopped Princess Twilight, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," she said. Her ears strained—the more she listened to this creature, the more she recognized her. She had never seen her in her life, yet there was something about the way she walked, and held herself. "Power is important for any enemy—but just as important is knowing where to strike."

"No creature in Equestria knows more about that than you do," the unicorn whispered. "If I didn't know you, I would... be afraid. That you would try to take over, and rule us. But I know you won't."

There was familiarity, because Catlin had been this pony before. After a fashion. In the same way, she had been Catlin. "Ruby River," Catlin whispered. "Are you... cured?"

The pony stopped, and looked back at her. Catlin had spent her last few hours with Luna, who made her feel properly sized. But these ordinary ponies, they were shorter than she was. Ruby's face reached just below her breast.

She dropped down to one knee, so she could look the little horse in the eye, expectant.

She had never seen Ruby's eyes of course, because she didn't have them until now. "You saved all Equestria," the pony whispered. "And I saw. I... unleashed the horror that almost killed us. And I found the one who saved us."

"You saved yourselves," Catlin said, resting one hand on her shoulder. Her fur was soft, like the finest kavat-mane. Despite all that they'd done together, this pony was clean. "You killed the infestation too. You protected those archeologists beneath the city. You helped me convince the princesses that I was trustworthy. You're a hero."

The pony started crying. She held herself against Catlin's arm like a child. Where size and age was concerned, maybe she was, even if the pony was fully grown. Catlin held her, and waited.

The pony was restored, she wasn't a Warframe anymore.

Catlin could still take away her pain this last time.

"Will I ever... stop seeing it, in my mind?" the unicorn eventually asked.

"Stop seeing—what?"

In answer, she turned her horn on an overturned cart. It flashed with light, and the wooden cart exploded, sending smoldering debris raining down around them. "How we fought," she said. "When I close my eyes, I see war. I hear voices under an alien star. I'm killing."

Oh. Catlin rose. "I don't know, Ruby. No one transformed like you has ever been restored before. You're... the first of your kind."

Could she use the same magic on the Excalibur in her arsenal, the one still made from the tortured flesh of a human being? Or would it be kinder not to try—his family and world were all gone, after all. Only she gave him purpose now.

"I'll tell you one thing," she finally said. "Equestria won't be able to pretend it's alone after this. There are trillions of other lives up there—and most of them are in trouble. I could use the help of someone like you; someone who knows ponies and who trusts me."

The unicorn fell silent, deep in thought. "The... wonders I saw in your mind. Soaring through the stars, homes built deep in the ocean—thousands of ancient cultures to explore. They're all up there?"

"And the horrors," Catlin agreed. "The infestation we purified. Monsters who would kill everypony in your world if they could. But they'll still be there whether you help me or not. The only thing that might change is whether we beat them."

"My... archeological career is over," the pony finally said. "Almost everyone died. I don't know if I could face the University anymore. Maybe I could help you instead. If you don't make me keep killing."

"I won't," she promised. But the universe might.

They walked the rest of the way to Canterlot Castle together. She hesitated on the other side of the drawbridge, poised on the edge of decision.

This was a critical moment—she felt it, just as she had long ago aboard the Zariman Ten-Zero. Back then, she had decided whether or not all her friends would die as humans or live on as something else.

If she went inside, Equestria would change too.

We can save them, came a voice—her own thoughts, but not. All of them. But you have to want it.

Catlin crossed the bridge. Equestria followed with her, into a new age.

Author's Note

And that's the end, at least for now. Obviously this story is one that could've continued for another hundred thousand words if I had the time--it would be awesome to see what kind of relationship developed between these cultures, how ponies might influence the balance of power, how their unique abilities might ultimately change the fate of the orokin system.

But I don't have unlimited writing time, so for now we'll have to leave it here, with the story of this first encounter. I'm thrilled that if people search warframe in the future, they won't have to go without any completed stories to read.

Thanks so much for coming along for the ride. If you want to stop in and say hi, I do have a discord server where you can usually catch me and lots of other awesome people doing stuff. Plenty of us play warframe, though right now I'm in a holding pattern waiting for Duviri like most of you I'm sure. Citrine is bae though, don't @ me. But if you want to hop in, check out: https://discord.gg/J8hq6MX .

I wish I wasn't constrained by time, so I could write more in this awesome world. But for the moment, I'll have to leave Catlin here. I'm sure Equestria is in good hands.

-Starscribe