—Welcome, Newcomer.
Perhaps the Drifter could call himself lucky, if luck could even apply here.
A morbid kind of luck.
The void had changed him.
His voidbody dulled the ache of hunger, siphoning something unseen, something unknowable, and feeding it back into him. It kept him going.
Kept him moving.
And he was moving.
Not running, not really but burning through absurd amounts of energy just to push himself forward through the endless black.
To the naked eye, it might've looked fast.
But he knew better.
In space, "fast" was a lie.
There was no friction to fight, nothing to slow him down but that didn't mean it was easy. The closer he edged toward light speed, the more the cost of energy climbed.
He could feel it.
So he held back.
Disciplined himself with the teachings of Zenurik, smoothing the flow, refusing to waste everything in a single desperate burst.
Steady and measured.
Endless.
How long had it been?
Days?
Weeks?
Months?
He didn't know.
He refused to know.
Duviri had already taught him what happens when time stops meaning anything.
He would just keep moving.
Until something changed.
—
Something did.
At first, it was just shapes, distant, writhing, wrong.
Then they resolved.
An army.
Of… bugs.
His stomach twisted.
Grotesque things, chitin glistening in the void, bodies layered and swollen and alive in all the worst ways. And that large one...
No.
Absolutely not.
He angled himself away immediately, veering hard, instinct screaming louder than reason.
He wanted nothing to do with that.
But then—
He looked again.
They weren't just drifting.
They were feeding.
On something massive.
Shattered.
A planet.
"Oh… god."
The realization settled cold and heavy.
That wasn't debris.
That was remains.
They tore into it, multiplied around it, spread across it like rot across flesh.
Propagating.
Growing.
Consuming.
His thoughts stalled.
I'm not anywhere near the Sol system.
Not even close.
Nothing like this existed there.
Nothing like this should exist anywhere.
And yet...
They reminded him of something.
The Infestation.
But worse.
Hungrier than it.
"…Yeah. No."
He turned away fully this time.
And ran.
—
I wonder if they're okay.
The thought slipped in, uninvited.
I want to know if they're okay.
His pace faltered, just a fraction.
Please…
I hope they're okay.
Something tightened in his chest.
I don't like this.
I don't like this.
I don't like th—
—
The thought broke.
Collapsed.
—
He slowed.
Just a little.
For the first time in… however long.
Fatigue crept in, not physical, not entirely.
Something heavier.
Mental exhaustion.
A pull.
A whisper.
Stop.
His momentum stuttered.
Just for a moment.
The void inside him flickered.
Dimmed.
I'm so tired…
The stars blurred.
Or maybe his perception did.
I want to stop.
I want to rest.
I want to—
And for a terrifying moment, he almost did.
—
The Warframe drifted aimlessly in space, it's biomechanical body barely functioning, it's shield capacitors flickering, tip toeing the line of complete obseletion.
Yet, somehow, it persisted.
Persisted enough to be found.
Persisted enough to be discovered.
"Dan Heng! Get my kit, March call Welt! We found the thing that hit the engines!"
Dan Heng...? March...? Welt...?
I...
"The engines are fine, little damage to its insides! it's mostly the chassis that are damaged, it just that something unexpected happened!"
I....
I'll.. Take a little... Drift....
—
Himeko didn't know what happened, but something had hit the Astral Express' engine hard, hard enough to knock it off trail.
Pom Pom was complaining and the calculations started to skew right off.
Not only that the entire energy consumption of the entire Express started to go haywire, so she rushed towards the engine room.
She wasn't the only one, Dan Heng and March was running alongside her.
Welt?
He was having a difficult time keeping the entire train straight, using that unknown staff of his to keep the Express from veering to no return.
What she found confounded her, right in the middle of the damage was an intellitron? No, it wasn't, it was something completely different. It didn't look an intellitron, it definitely didn't look like an IPC produced machine.
Another problem also arose, a hole was pierced directly into the carapace that provided safety to the entire engine room, probably what the entrance that thing used.
But before it could overstay it's welcome, the hole that led to space quickly closed as the metal sheets closed on eachother, courtesy of Welt no doubt.
That man really was reliable.
The red haired woman cautiously walked forward, preparing her briefcase to face any unforseen dangers. Dan Heng prepped his spear, Cloud Piercer and March pulled her bow taut, an arrow already forming.
She kneeled down and slowly touched the unknown entity before turning it around.
"Its... Severely damaged.." Golden eyes quickly turned to look at the engine it was nestled on.
The chassis was completely broken, still salvageable but broken nonetheless.
The insides were alright, it seemed like the unknown machine only crashed into the converters and nothing else.
That was good news, that could be temporarily fixed to run a little longer to get to the next stop for professional work.
"Dan Heng! Get my kit, March call Welt! We found the thing that hit the engines!"
The xianzhou native lowered his spear, "But, Himeko, the engines!"
"The engines are fine, little damage to its insides! it's mostly the chassis that are damaged, it just that something unexpected happened!" She quickly replied.
"March! Like I said, get Welt here as soon as possible!"
March stiffened before dispelling her bow and arrow, "Yes maam!" and dashed through the exit followed by Dan Heng, each adhering to their instructions .
Himeko sighed, and turned her attention to the 'machine' right in front of her.
"Whatever shall we do with you?"
—
:3