Chapter Text
-{Drifter}-
Entrati stepped over them as they gasped for air in the reactor’s control room. Hot, burning pain spasmed in their chest as the bullet singed their insides.
“To save them, you must know them, Drifter.” He said it calmly, like they were on a relaxing walk instead of inside a ticking bomb. “And…” he continued, “A parting gift for you. If you’re so inclined, that is.” A pill-shaped, metal something clattered to the floor by the Drifter’s face.
“Rot in hell, Albrecht.” Speaking was agony. The air felt thick in their lungs.
No response.
Entrati’s form dissipated in an instant. The air in the room started to singe every portion of exposed skin present, the smell of cooking flesh and the tang of ionizing metal filling the Drifter’s senses. Hating themselves for it, they took the vial in their fist. The metal casing seared their nerves, sending blinding pain up their arm.
No more time left.
With the last of their heat-sapped strength, they raised their fist and let it fall.
Pitch black. Familiar, whispering voices. That feeling of being watched coming from every direction. A pull like gravity in a direction they couldn’t place.
Then— weak daylight.
A hard fall onto a dirty tile floor. The smell of dust and stale grease. The familiar gurgle of the Helminth behind them.
The Hex, sprawled across the tile like discarded dolls, breathing slowly.
Entrati’s gift in their hand.
Gold. Mercifully, no longer skin-meltingly, radioactively hot. Turning it over, they saw the inscription: ‘Voidtouch.’
A term of address, or a description of its contents? Was this another one of his endless puzzles? They turned it around, over, over again. The only hint to its contents was a single button on the end.
Their curiosity won them over.
They wrapped it in their hand, easing their thumb against the button slowly, hesitantly, until—
*click*
Barbed needles launched into their closed fist. VOID! They flung their hand open, shook it frantically, tried to claw it away with their free hand. It stayed firmly attached to them. Entrati, you two-faced—
A hissing noise, and then—
Pain, pain like fire spreading through every cell of their body. They couldn’t even muster a scream. The world was nothing but agony and white-hot burning, burning, burning. Far too much time passed before the pain stopped, sharp and immediate like the flick of a switch. Like nothing had happened. They forced themself to uncurl from the fetal, shaking position they’d shrunk into, to extend their hand and try one last time to release the metal trap.
It rattled harmlessly onto the floor, hollow-sounding and slick with blood. They could feel their hand swelling like an insect sting. The cold floor was a welcome relief from the boiling hot pain. They laid there for a long while, staring at the unconscious Protoframes in front of them.
The Volt— Amir? Yes, that sounded right— sat up first, all in one swift movement. His hands reached for a keyboard that was no longer there, freezing in confusion as he looked around. The others began to stir. Each startling into wakefulness, each one’s eyes landing on the stranger on the stage. The Drifter rose slowly, hands out in a placating gesture.
“I… I have an explanation.”
They hesitated. Breathe.
“You’re not going to like it.”
Three hours later, they’d explained themself hoarse. They skimmed past the grislier details of their collective deaths, given the bare bones of Entrati’s history, even dipped ever-so-slightly into the Man in the Wall… Omitted the part about that evil little metal torture device in its entirety.
…Silently wracked their brains to remember everyone’s names.
Arthur spoke first.
“A second chance. Forever.”
They nodded. “As many times as it takes.”
As many times as… What takes? Eleanor crept into the group’s minds on kavat's feet, her voice filling their heads from the inside out.
Drifter straightened. That’s going to take a little getting used to. “I… I honestly don’t know. Entrati’s as much of a mystery to me as he is to you. At the very least, as many times as it takes for us to not die. In a perfect world, as many times as it takes us to kneecap that thing’s plans, permanently.”
A long silence.
Great morale boost. Telling them to bash their heads against a wall for all eternity would be more encouraging.
Arthur spoke again. He sounded more sure this time.
“You heard them. Second chance. We have a year to prepare and a lot of work to do.”
He stood, and the others followed suit.
“Full mission brief. Tomorrow, in the garage. 0700 sharp. That includes you, Drifter.”
“I’d assumed as much.”
“Today: Lettie, Quincy, check our supplies and make a list of what you need. Aoi, Eleanor, double check the fortifications and modify as needed. Amir, you’ll help me scrape some kit together for ‘Marty.’ Anything else waits until tomorrow. Understood?”
Nodding. Quincy and Lettie disappeared near-instantly, the others slipping away a moment later.
Wait.
“Um. If someone could show me where the garage is, I would greatly appreciate it.” Louder than they meant it to come out. Kill me now.
Sol. One more thing.
“And help me find somewhere to crash for the night. I’m not picky.”
Lua help me.
-{Amir}-
7 AM seemed a long way away. Bashing the various bits of broken comlinks together to make something at least kinda functional didn’t take nearly as long as he’d hoped, nor did explaining how to use it. The Drifter (wait, was that their actual name or a nickname?) picked things up QUICK. Not him-quick, but still. Then Arthur had taken them on a tour of the mall, starting with how to get to the garage. Then where to find Lettie in a medical emergency. Then where the bathrooms were, where to find fire extinguishers… basically a tour of the mall’s most practical and boring locations. The Drifter had been distracted, sneaking glances into the various personal areas as the three passed them. Snapping to attention and nodding when Arthur talked, then looking around for interesting stuff as soon as his back was turned to them. Same.
As soon as the tour was over, they’d retreated into the creepy room behind Doctor Fr- Entrati’s abandoned clothing store, practically shoving everyone through the door while confidently assuring Arthur they had their own weapons ready and waiting.
“And protective gear?”
They’d smiled a blank, polite smile.
“Warframes. And for hand-to-hand I have this.”
They’d gestured to their outfit, then thanked Arthur and all but body-checked him out of the doorway.
The Drifter’s clothes were decidedly not anything like the stuff in the clothing store in front of their hideaway. A hood with some kind of… gas mask? Loose fabric draped over something almost like leather, with a cool spacey-looking gun holstered on their belt. OOOOOO what OTHER kinds of cool space weapons do they have? Laser guns? Laser swords? Psionic wave emitters?! Maybe giant mechs for fighting supersized aliens! That’d be cool. What wasn’t cool was the amount of waiting for it to be 7AM. Amir checked his watch impatiently. Only 1AM. Too amped to sleep, too busy thinking about what happened and wondering what was going to happen. Ugh . Maybe he could try to sneak out for a run or something, find something techy to fix around the mall. There were only so many things you could do in an arcade that didn’t make enough noise to wake people up.
A light out in the dark mall caught his attention. Almost neon blue, just at the edge of his peripherals. Decidedly not a light that’d been there before. A moving light. Techrot? Please not when I’m the only one awake… No, more controlled. Not shambly. He squinted into the dark. The light bobbed down the stairs, then vanished.
A deep breath out in the dark. Then silence.
He was halfway to messaging Arthur an urgent SOS SOMETHING CREEPY IS HAPPENING PLS RESPOND sort of message when he heard a startled gasp from the other side of the room. He whipped around to see the Drifter at the threshold of the arcade, looking sheepish.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” they whispered. “I thought everyone would be asleep and I wanted to explore, sorry!”
They backed away quickly, vanishing back into the shadows of the mall.
“Wait!” Amir hissed, “just to make sure, the blue light thingy out there was, like, your flashlight or a glowstick or something, right?”
Just enough of a silence to make him nervous about not getting an answer. Then, they whispered back:
“...Yeah, sorry, that was me. Sorry.”
Silence again.
Well, that was weird. Amir went about backspacing his message in KIM before he fumbled it and accidentally called a false alarm. He checked his watch again.
1:12.
Fine. Sleep it was. Maybe. At least trying. He could always change his mind, right? Yeah.
-{Drifter}-
As kind as it was for the Hex to let them use the backroom, to show them around the mall, to make sure they were able to get messages…
Today was a lot. A lot of people, a lot of names and locations and new-old stuff they didn’t quite get. A lot of trying to find a balance between being personable and finding the easiest escape route from every conversation. A lot of forcing themself to seem more on top of all this Entrati garbage than they really were.
Speaking of Entrati garbage…
They turned the empty gold thing over in their hands again. Voidtouch. The button slid in and out of its machined slot loosely, useless except as another trinket to display and reminisce on how much the experience hurt. They’d had a dull ache in their hand all day, but that was nothing compared to whatever it had done when they’d activated it.
The faintest sting of heat spread across their skin. Like stepping out into Mercurian summer sunlight. Just a memory.
A really awful memory.
Time to stop thinking about that, then.
Immediately and forever.
They dropped the item onto the huge table in the center of the main room, lost among the remnants of Entrati’s belongings scattered around.
Arthur’s tour was thorough, but not particularly interesting. Time to do some investigating.
First, double checking they actually could get to the garage on their own. Then… whatever piqued their interest.
_
They scrambled away from the neon-lit arcade, hissing apologies through their teeth. Of course someone’s living in here. Totally makes sense. Probably. Maybe in the past this was a thing.
“Wait! Just to make sure, the blue light thingy out there was, like, your flashlight or a glowstick or something, right?” The voice was difficult to place through the harshness of a whisper and the urgency of the speaker’s tone.
Blue light thingy... Voidlight. My eyes. That’s a later conversation for sure.
They attempted to construct a cover story. Their brain came up with nothing convincing. They took the easy way out: not even bothering to explain.
“...Yeah, sorry, that was me. Sorry.”
They backed away slowly, far enough away to sling away without being noticed. Back to the obols and ornate wooden furniture oif the backroom it was. Sol knows where else these people are sleeping. They slunk back through the clinking coins of the doorway like the door would bite them if they lingered too long on the threshold.
They laid down on the long couch upstairs. Sleep took them like a knife in the back.
_
Pain. Like a dying star flowing through their veins. Like acid eating away at their skin.
The Drifter lurched from their couch-turned-bed, drenched in pain-sweat. What was in that thing?! Another wave of blinding, singeing, unbearable pain sent them to the floor.
Help.
They tried to will themself to their feet, but all they managed was a half-hearted crawl. Lettie’s tent wasn't far, but the distance seemed impossible in this state.
Help.
Sick. Pain. Wrong. Help. Please.
Help scared pain can't move burning pain help please my head my head my head help
I hear you. We're on the way. Help is coming.
Again, Eleanor's voice in their mind. Filling up the corners not thrashing in pain. A welcome distraction in the endless burning.
They were delirious by the time Lettie arrived. Time felt distended and sluggish, every second a new agony. Bits of words trickled in and out of comprehension.
“Entrati ba-”
“-Kit-”
“Painkill-”
“Shot-”
“Pain-”
“Carry-”
Help please help me it hurts it hurts
Try to hold still. This will help.
Help pain my head burning help—
A stark, simple canvas tent, not dissimilar to the ones used at Iron Wake.
Lettie shouting towards the open flap, and cold shears against their skin cutting their sleeve away.
Eleanor's dark hand, resting on their shoulder.
Breathe.
Blurry shapes of people moving around.
Exhaustion. Sleep opened its welcoming arms towards them.
Someone shook them. They opened their eyes again. Bright light. They flinched away. Tried to move, away from the bright light and the noise and the movement to somewhere dark, quiet, safe, alone.
“Hold still, stupid!” Lettie's voice, angry. Then quieter: “I am trying to help you. You sleep, you don't wake up.” A much firmer grip on their shoulder. Not Eleanor. The light again. “No concussion. Where the hell is he?! Quincy! Move your-”
Pain again. Like their skin was too small for their body. Tight. No air. Splitting. Cracking. Stretching. Snapping.
“Oh, great. I NEED HELP IN HERE, PEOPLE! NOW!”
Eleanor's hand again on their shoulder.
Can't breathe.
You can. Just try.
Can't.
Try.
Shaky. Too small to satisfy the panic. But a breath nonetheless.
Eyes open again. They tried to tilt their head, see what Lettie was doing. Eleanor's hand on their forehead, stopping their head from lifting.
Not now. Trust me. You don't want to see.
Why?
You look a bit rough around the edges. Something for later. For now, hold still. We'll do what we can.
Sleep?
A moment. Lettie, answering aloud. “Sure. They'll hold still if they're asleep. Make yourself useful, get A—”
Sleep. Deep and dark and painless.