Celestia's Bad Friends

        Rhino Prime, Nyx, Valkyr and Trinity were all standing around a Grineer ‘operating table’, which was in essence a robotics repair slab considering their heavily mechanical nature. Trinity was operating the sub-par console to use the surgical arms to carefully pry melted seams of Volt Prime’s Warframe apart bit by tenuous bit.

Volt Prime had overcharged the shield ability on the Odonata Prime, passed the ability and energy THROUGH himself, and projected it out of his Gammacore, utterly destroying the Gammacore and the Archwing, as well as SEVERELY electrocuting himself, irony at its best. “So the Warlord is currently out of commission then hm?” Rhino Prime asked lowly, his arms crossed over his broad chest as he shook his head. “Damn, there’s no way I can possibly arrange a defense against invasions of that scale, not with our meagre numbers, and the Specters can only engage on foot.”

Celestia, Artemis, and Discord all entered quietly. They had spent the past few hours divulging to the public the existence of aliens, that they had been on the planet for over a year already, peacefully, for the most part, and this invading force is actually another faction of a different species of alien that said prior aliens had protected them all from.

Nopony took it well to say the least.

At least their fear was directed at the Grineer, where it belonged, considering Valkyr and Excal-Nyx, were public knowledge, considering their shenanigans. “Why can’t I just teleport him out of his armor again? I’ve yanked soldiers from molten-hot armor before.” Celestia asked, getting a sigh out of Trinity.

“We can’t do that. He’s an Original.” Trinity grumbled, getting the Equusian’s to blink in confusion. “If I just let you yank him out, we could damage him too much. He’d...become like us… Or worse...” Trinity said sadly.

“What do you mean like you? You all feel the same already.” Discord said. Chaos said to him that sure, among the Tenno, Volt Prime was the most stable, but-oh~. “He can’t change his form.”

“That’s right.” Valkyr said uncharacteristically calmly. “While the rest of us are more or less amorphous, he still has a normal body…It’s the one thing he’s attempted to hold onto since he woke up from cryosleep…. Only using this frame, or special ones he got from Darvo or Stalker….”

“I...I used to be...an Original.” Nyx said wistfully, getting everyone to look at her as she looked towards the ceiling. “It’s fuzzy...I can’t remember too much from back then. My last memories, before going to sleep, were...being betrayed. Stabbed in the back by Tenno I feel I trusted with everything, just because I...I didn’t want to….” Nyx began shaking, holding herself and Valkyr quickly embraced her.

“Don’t think about it Nyxie. Let it go.” Valkyr insisted softly, rubbing her cheek against Nyx’s as the femme started weeping inside her frame.

“There was blood...so much innocent blood….” Nyx whimpered, and Valkyr herded her away, Celestia moving to follow when Rhino Prime blocked her with his body.

“Leave them be. It is...a painful past that former Excalibur Prime tries to bury with her foolishness and levity...” Rhino Prime explained. “I… I’m going to go try to see if I can get Darvo to send anything that may help. It’s the least I can try to do with this mess.” Rhino Prime grumbled, feeling useless. Rally troops? Sure. Lead a warband headlong into bloody battle. Yes. Administrate a wounded clan? Rhino Prime wasn’t so sure….

“Is there anything we can do?” Celestia asked hopelessly. She couldn’t comfort her lovers-FRIENDS! Friends, and she couldn’t heal the leader of the group protecting her world.

“Not that I may know of.” The dark, gritty voice caused everyone save Trinity to jump, who only managed to maintain focus from decades of medical practice under her nonexistent belt. Seriously, she’s so rail-thin she couldn’t even wear one on her hips.

“Stalker, please don’t do that during a delicate operation with equipment designed to hash and butcher more than heal or help.” Trinity chided, her bland, no-nonsense tone sent chills down everyone’s spines. Nobody fucks with the White Mage for a reason.

“Sorry...anyhow. Beings I am Orokin, I have knowledge of a few things that could help, but I was not a member of the research teams, I was just a soldier. The most I could suggest is using a Transferral Nexus to plant him directly into another Prime frame. Unfortunately, those are huge, and the only intact ones might involve Master Teshin’s Conclave, but that’s back in the very center of the Origin System… Something not even he can reach.” Stalker informed gruffly, without holding anything in at his irritation at an ally being laid so low.

“So little faith, my pupil?” A smooth male voice asked, with a soft filter overlaying it that sounded as if the speaker was under a thin veil of bubbling water.

“As if I would doubt you, Teshin.” Stalker spun and kneeled into a prostrating bow, drawing everyone’s attention to the tall and regal golden being who wore an oddly-shaped helm, so broad at the top, and even had a glass plate of water within it. The water was still, as he was, the blue lights of his ‘eyes’ and ‘mouth’ shimmering like the surface of a lake. “I am surprised Master Teshin, that you would journey so far into Outer Terminus.”

“Why would I not? When I sensed great potential gravitating away from the Origin Systems? That the Lotus was directing Tenno here to fight a battle once more not their own. I had to investigate.” Teshin strode elegantly forward towards the supine and sleeping Volt Prime, the plate of water not losing a single drop despite its fullness as he approached the table. “Dear Volt Prime, traitor, deserter. Your sins are far less than most of your kin. You do not deserve to join them, your body ravaged to the point of being unrecognizable, as we had forced upon so many of your kind once we learned the advantages of your pliant forms, when we ceased to make Warframes to preserve you, and rather, to enslave you.”

“So, does that mean you have an identical frame to transfer him to?”

“No.” Teshin answered plainly, walking away from the table and towards the worried trio of god-like beings. “You three. Your bodies, they sing with the resonance of the Void. Yet not. As if your very existence defies it….” Teshin hummed, calmly running a finger along the sheath of his Nikana Shoto. “I do have knowledge of the whereabouts of a Prime Frame, vacant, abandoned. It’s auto-repair functions have preserved it, but the Corrupted have seen to securing its safety in the ruins of Earth. Volt Prime will remain stable, so long as he is not removed from his Warframe, so time is not of the essence.”

“Will you tell us where this location is?” Trinity asked, only for Teshin to ignore her, and look Celestia in the eyes, she felt so naked, even though she already was, and not in a good way. Like he was peering into her very soul.

“You. You must be the one to take the journey.” Teshin turned, and strode away, leaving Celestia gobsmacked.

“W-wait! Where is it?!” Celestia asked, only for Teshin to pause and not turn to them.

“Speak with the Former Original. She knows.” Teshin hinted, and then vanished, in a screeching shimmer of prismatic light.

---]=======/

        “No! NO!” Nyx screamed as she held her head, curled into a ball in the corner as Valkyr tried to comfort her. Nyx had begun panicking the instant she was asked the relevant questions that Teshin had left them, shivering, shaking, sobbing. Even worse than before if it was possible. “Please...Frost Prime...please don’t….”

        “Nyxie, I’m here. Frost Prime is gone, shhh….” Valkyr pleaded, rubbing Nyx’s upper-back as she looked back towards the concerned group.

        “We were friends...why did you do this to me? Why…?” Nyx choked, shuddering and she sniffled as her helm’s horn flared, and some things in the area were crumpled inwards from her stressed mind trying to vent. “I Trusted you Frost...but you were one of Them….” Nyx whimpered, but she took a deep breath. “You forced me away from them...I had to watch the people of Coba die, and I couldn’t protect them because you kept hounding me, herding me to...to the storage facility.”

        Understanding what Nyx was trying to do, Celestia quickly summoned a scroll and began writing down what was being said.

        “It was there, at the compound, you no longer needed to occupy me, and you cut off my legs, my FUCKING LEGS YOU ASSHOLE! You threw me into a cryopod and left me to rot!” Nyx suddenly bolted to her feet, her rage pouring off of her in a visible aura. “It might be pointless for me to go and get it for myself, especially after everything I’ve been through and changed with, but Volt Prime deserves to keep his body stable, and we don’t know where Jaques even is.”

        “I still don’t understand why your Cephalons will only respond to their Operators or Lotus.” Celestia commented. She’d had plenty of time to learn more about her friends, and some things like the Cephalons refusing to have any sort of contact outside those their Operators are immediately corresponding to was a little too strict in her opinion.

        “Honestly, sometimes we don’t either. It’s weird, we just don’t question it.” Valkyr said. “And Nyx, you’re not going alone. You know I’ll be there with you. And Celestia’ll be there, too!” Valkyr turned to Celestia with one of the most MENACING glares any creature could have given ANYTHING. “Aren’t you? Celestia?”

        “I thought it was obvious.” Celestia tilted her head in confusion. “Teshin insisted I be the one to go, and...there was something about him. Something that told me to ignore his words would be foolish.”

        “AREN’T YOU?!” Valkyr said menacingly and motioning to Nyx, Celestia merely blinking.

        “Of course. I couldn’t let my friends and allies suffer, not when I could be of help.” ‘Especially for you two….’ “But you’ve all told me up and down that Earth was a toxic deathtrap, how can I go there? I may be nigh immortal, but alicorns get sick too.”

        “Tia, I may have not been idly joking when I mentioned you getting your own Warframe….” Nyx weakly chuckled, getting everyone to look at her. “It’s in Ordis’ storage. We barely even need to use the Mantis lately so I was keeping it as a surprise….”

        “Nyx, I know you’re good with the Foundry’s manual controls, but when did you make your own blueprint?” Valkyr asked in surprise, and Nyx huffed as she crossed her arms.

        “Valkitty, you should know better than to underestimate me! I am, the, GREAT, NYX~!” Nyx cheesed, but sighed. “It’s just not the same, Excalibur~!” Nyx lilted, missing her old annoying chant. “But no, I just took an Ember blueprint, and reshaped everything into a quadrupedal control scheme and form using Tia’s measurements. But considering how much her plot’s gotten jiggly this past year, I’m hoping I compensated her flanks well enough….” Nyx mused, getting Celestia to flush angrily.

        “I AM NOT FAT!”

        “The ass was fat, and it was gud.” Valkyr nodded in counter, making Celestia suddenly sprout crocodile tears.