The Past Which Forges You
In deep
meditation he sat, for hours a day. Complete silence. In deep reflection. In an
attempt to salvage his past. His memories. That which was taken from him upon
awakening in this day and age. Who was he? What
was he? Was he simply a machine, who followed orders blindly for the sake of balance, and killed for said balance?
Meditation proved fruitless, and so he turned elsewhere. The Corpus referred to
his kind as The Betrayers, so they
had known more about them than they know themselves. Rhino embarked on a
journey of self-discovery, fueled only by his desire to regain that which was
lost.
Taking the
first flight to the Gas City upon Jupiter, he arrives at Jupiter in a moments
time. It is here he hopes to discover something. They weren’t all too fond of
his uninvited presence, and so blood had to be shed. Crewman after crewman lay
upon the floor in an ever cooling pool of their own blood accompanied only by
the machines they love oh so much. A message appeared in his HUD from an
unknown source. “I have come to avenge the death of Tyl Regor. I am your
retribution, your ultimate end. I shall return you to the abyss!” it said. It
showed up in his HUD labeled STALKER.
“Should I fail in my mission, I shall give you something of interest… You seek
your past, do you not? I have coordinates that may be of use to you. But you
must wrest them from me.”
In an
explosion of black smoke, he emerged. A man clad in a Warframe resembling
Excalibur’s. His helmet being much different however. Silently they stared upon one another, their
hands reaching for the hilts of their weapons. Unsheathing their weapons, they
lunged towards one another, their weapons clashing violently upon each other’s
with a brilliant display of sparks. Their weapons locked upon one another, and
a contest of strength broke out between them. Weapons trembling in their hands,
followed by pained grunts as they exerted their all. They were evenly matched.
With a swift kick to the chest, Rhino manages to knock STALKER back giving him
room to bring down his massive sword.
As the blade
readied to hit its target, STALKER somersaulted backwards; the blade’s tip
scraping against his chest damaging his shields slightly. Throwing a smoke bomb onto the floor, the
STALKER manages to conceal his presence. Rhino’s HUD began to malfunction, the
corners glowing red violently as a flash of blue emerged in front of him. STALKER
had used Excalibur’s Slash Dash, managing to rip through Rhino’s shield’s in a
single blow.
Immediately
following the attack, Rhino activated his Iron Skin. It had gone just as it had
come followed by the words Your Tenno
powers are useless! From his opponent. STALKER rushed him once more, his
scythe swinging rapidly. With each blow, Rhino was sent stumbling backwards,
while his shields depleted. Roaring defiantly, a reddish aura enveloped Rhino’s
body as he charged into the STALKER. Rhino’s great girth managing to push his
opponent into the shiny metal corpus wall causing it to dent in the
process. Before the STALKER could
retaliate, Rhino reached for his BRAKK and unleashed a barrage of bullets upon
him.
Electric
crackles escaped the STALKER’s body with each shot. One after another, until
the crackles were no more and were replaced with blood. Slowly his body slumped
to the ground, blood pooling beneath his black and red frame. “I have failed…
As promised, I shall give you what you seek. But be warned, some things should
never be known. Knowing this, you will continue on even if it destroys you.” The
STALKER mutters before disappearing in an explosion of black smoke.
The Lotus
appeared on his HUD, her face a little less than pleasant to look at. “Tenno,
do not heed the words of that assassin. The past is the past. Perhaps you have
lost your memory for a reason. Leave it be, for it may simply be a trap.” She mutters
in an attempt to dissuade him.
This was the
first time she had ever tried to dissuade him from doing anything, as if she
did not want him to learn the past.
Ignoring her suggestion he set off to where the coordinates led him.
They led to
an Orokin Derelict. Entering the desolate ship, he was greeted by horrible
fleshy overgrowth that covered the walls and floor. Tendrils of an unknown
fleshy plant like material. A cacophony of feminine giggles rung in the
desolate halls. The ship should be empty. What could it be? His threat detector
beeps several times, and he was now being swarmed by Infested Chargers.
Reaching for his Galatine, he meets them halfway while they poured of out a
massive spinning door at the end of a long dark corridor. A single cleave
manages to cut through five of them at once, bits of mutated flesh flying into
the air alongside destroyed armor and limbs.
Before long he was knee deep in the disfigured corpses of his enemies. At the very end of the corridor was a single
Ancient Infested, who did nothing but stare at him. Returning the gaze, he
reaches for his side arm; knowing full well the disrupting powers it possessed.
It didn’t
seem hostile. Raising a mutated arm; it bade him to follow it. Warily, he
followed after the creature. The feminine giggle echoed in the distance again,
this time louder. Rhino had lost track of time following the creature. The
creature led him to a vault. Slowly the door slid open, and with its descent
was a heavy white fog that had escaped the vault. Inside was a cryopod upon a
small golden altar, above it was a massive golden statue of an Excalibur; his
hands appearing as if to embrace the pod.
This vault
was familiar, he had been here before. But how long ago? A closer look at the cryopod
revealed it was a Rhino Prime. A
powerful surge of pain wracked his body and forced him to his knees, his
shields immediately draining in the process.
A torrent of memories began to pervade his mind. Ages ago, as part of a
special program, each person who had returned from the void with their gifts
were to be cloned and their original body sealed away. That was him within the
pod. Or rather, was once him. That Rhino Prime was the first, and all others
who existed were clones of the original.
He was nothing more than a clone, his existence felt pointless. He was
not special, nor unique. But instead, a clone with the same abilities as the
others.
Another
surge of pain struck him, his spine had been severed, and his body went limp.
That same feminine giggle returned, it was from the Ancient Infested who had
brought him here. It had struck him, and it had ended his life. His vision went black, and the abyss
swallowed him. Later, after an unknown period of time… His sight returns, and
he found himself within a cryopod. This cryopod was moved to a different
location within the ship. It now sat upon a large chamber, atop a golden altar following
a grand staircase. There in front of the
pod were hundreds of ancient infested that stood in several rows. In unison,
each one raised their freakish mutated arms and saluted him. His HUD began to
malfunction, static clouding his vision. Before him now were many of his own
kind standing where the infested were.
Rhino had
learned a terrible truth. The clones who did not enter stasis eventually degenerated
into these creatures. Their power eventually corrupting their very existence
and transforming them into unrecognizable abominations. Once more static
disrupted his HUD, and the infested had returned. There at the foot of pod was
his body. His old body. Along with his equipment. To regain that which he had
lost, and sought after so long… He had paid the ultimate price. His old false
life. The memories he regained had shown him something else, something darker…
The Lotus was not what she seemed to be…
The Orokin
had fought a war against The Sentients,
these being AI who had been given human female bodies as hosts. This had been
founded by an early government on earth. Eventually they turned against humanity,
against the Orokin. A full scale war had
been waged, with the Orokin on the losing side. They were losing to their own
creations. In a last ditch attempt, they turned to the void. An inhospitable
area in space known to have erratic affects. They sent several ships to
investigate, and perhaps provide some hope.
What
returned was not what they expected. From the void, were ships filled with
young men and women who had been gifted
upon entering it. Some with the ability to manipulate the elements themselves.
This was it, this was their ticket to defeating the Sentients. Each young man
and woman who had returned from the void had an exoskeleton built upon them,
that which would augment their abilities while providing sound protection from
their enemies.
The
Sentients controlled massive amounts of machinery, robotic abominations similar
to Corpus Proxies but on a much larger scale.
Each one possessed a great ship, and each of those who had returned from
the void had fought against them, and their toys. With time, the Sentients fell
into decline. The Orokin had finally won. With several years of peace, the Tenno
as they were called grew impatient, irritable. That which they trained with for so long was
no longer being put to use. They were told their sole purpose was to bring
about balance. There was no balance. The Orokin controlled everything, and so…
The Tenno turned against their former allies, killing them in cold blood. Their great golden cities ran red with Orokin
blood.
With nothing
left to fight, the Tenno went about a project. They cloned themselves, while
preserving their original bodies. Each Prime was sent in an unknown location in
the void, accompanied by fellow cloned Tenno of varying types. Other clones
were put into stasis to await a time when another series of civilizations would
rise and require their presence. The Lotus was a Sentient who had remained
hidden, using an old moniker that was popular in the past. Lotus was once a Black Market Organization on Earth ages before the
war and Orokin era. The Orokin had fancied that design and the memory of that
organization and used it for everything.
By taking up
that alias, she appeared like a friend to the Tenno, perhaps a small vestige of
their memory remained that gave them a bit of trust in her, because it was
familiar to them. But who is to say who is in the wrong? Is the Lotus evil, because she and her kind
fought a war against those who were once their allies? Or because she keeps the
truth away and wipes the memory of those who she forcefully awakens?
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