Redemption And Penance

chapter 1

An Excalibur sat against the walls of a Grineer Galleon, shakily clutching the remnants of its severed right arm at the shoulder. Quick, shallow breaths jettisoned a fine mist from either side of its neck, with occasional coughing fits causing blood to spray instead.

No teammates, no communications, and no remaining way to fight, with their weapons gone and only one remaining arm, the Excalibur simply sat there, waiting. With both its legs practically in pieces and twisted at unnatural angles from a grenade that had detonated at its feet earlier, it couldn't even run anymore.

Waiting for what exactly, though? Surely not for their own rescue, the world wouldn't be so kind as to give them that. So then what? The answer came with the footsteps of several individuals; Grineer soldiers.

Lifting their bloodied head slowly, the Excalibur met eye to 'eye' with several Lancers, and a few Butchers and Scorpions, crowding slightly. They were in no hurry, satisfied that their prey was both immobilised and impotent. So they sneered at it, glowered at the felled beast at their feet, and at their mercy.

Though mercy was the last thing they would give it.

One of the Scorpions walked forward slowly, uttering something in the guttural language of the cloned legion, and stopped at the side of the Tenno, holding her machete with conviction and purpose. The Excalibur had followed her with his eyeless gaze, but had afterwards turned back to the mob before it.

Slowly, it lowered its head, as if to say, 'end it.' There was pride in it still, but no more strength. That had long since expired.

The Scorpion didn't have to be asked twice. It raised, then lowered the blade, with little pause between either motion.

The ground seemed to, as if in slow motion, rise to meet the Tenno's face, but everything went black not long after.

*****

In a darkened room, amongst the wrinkled sheets of a blanket, a single lilac orb lit up, followed by deep, laboured breaths. A person sat up in their bed, the darkness obscuring their features, except for a glowing, lilac left eye. Slowly, absentmindedly, they reached across their chest with their left hand, and clutched at their right shoulder, squeezing lightly at the small stump where their right arm should have been.

Reaching towards a small bedside table on their left, they scraped a stiff piece of leather, about the size of their hand from wrist to fingertip and shaped like a scalene triangle with rounded edges, and fastened it to the right side of their face, snapping together several clasps at the back of their head.

A quiet, tired voice uttered, "Lights." And the room was illuminated with a clear white glow, revealing the girl, an operator, with the leather sitting over the right side of her face, covering from just in front of her ear, to the edge of her nose, and just above her mouth. A strip ran across the top of her nose, and under her left eye, with two others on the other side directly above and below her ear. From underneath the leather patch, a few stray tendrils of black snaking their way over her skin, across her nose and down her neck.

She shook her head sharply. "Damn nightmares"

The markings travelled underneath her suit, towards her right shoulder. The rest of her body, however, was obscured by her suit; a simple grey Koppra variant without the useless right sleeve. Her hair, an unnaturally vivid white reaching down to the middle of her back and chest, was strewn about slightly and clumped together with sweat, but otherwise relatively straight. Matched with her porcelain white skin, she looked more like a ghost that a person.

A ghost of the past. It fit her perfectly.

Pushing the covers of her legs and sitting on the edge of her bed, the operator yawned and stretched her shoulders backwards, before standing in a single motion, and heading over to a tall, upright, metal box, which hissed slightly at her approach. It opened, revealing several spouts and jets, and a series of small holes on the floor.