A New Beginning

Lis felt... good. Her legs hurt. Her back hurt. But she was... smiling as she woke. She looked around. She was still in the warframe. She lay on a diagnostic table. Avalon? All of the machinery around her was golden. No, not Avalon. The decor was older. Shabbier. A Tower. Iriana's? Had to be. She felt... odd. She could still feel the wings. The gentle ones. Not the hungry ones. It had been... so beautiful. She remembered flying. Singing in tune with a young voice that had been sad, but kind. It had been... She was losing the memory and she sighed in loss.

"Lis?" The soft, worried voice pulled Lis from her momentary reverie.

Lis looked to the side and Serene was out of her warframe. Sara lying on her lap, asleep. The girl's leg was encased in a regenerative pod of some kind. Something to let her walk normally while her lost flesh was replaced. Lis nodded to Serene and kept her voice low.

"Sara?" The recumbent Tenno asked.

"Healing slowly. We let her sleep." Serene said quietly. "She wants to be a technician. Make things work right. She says... the you and the wings sang to her." Lis stilled and Serene nodded. "It... doesn't match any records. And that girl..."

"Her name was Helen." Lis said sadly. "Shadas made the wings for her. To escape her wheelchair. It... He..." She sighed. "It didn't go as he had planned. It wasn't her fault. Or his, from what I gathered. An act of kindness that went out of control." She bowed her head. "Helen stood with me. We fought the hunger together. Brought Sara back together."

"And you destroyed the wings." Serene said with a nod of approval. "The girl?"

"Freed, I think." Lis said softly. "We won't know until or unless we cross the threshold ourselves. And speaking of thresholds... Serene. " She chided the other gently.

"I know." Serene said sadly. "No more field runs. I... couldn't keep up with Lilly and Guiscard. Neither said anything. We didn't really need to move fast. Not a lot of distance to cover. But... I can't keep up. Despite the replacements, the degradation is too much. If we had been forced to flee..." She shook her head. "No more warframe for me."

"And a lot of people will breathe a huge sigh of relief." Lis said with a smile as she sat up. "I feel... odd. Light."

"The pain?" Serene asked, worried.

"Still there." Lis said with a shrug. "And no." She said firmly.

"Lis, we can pull you out." Serene protested. "Your energy is depleted by what the wings did, but... we can. Maybe not here. Maybe not now, but soon."

"Serene." Lis shook her head, her tone gentle. "I accepted this. Even if you can pull me out... my body has acclimatized. My neural pathways run through the warframe now. How long would I live outside of it? Or how well? Living in an ICU pod isn't living, Serene." Serene bowed her head and shook it, tears starting to fall. "I chose this, Serene and you know what?" She nodded to Sara. "It was worth it."

"This isn't right!" Serene protested, only to pause as Sara gave a sigh and stretched. "Sara?"

"I dreamed of wings, Mom." Sara said, her voice small but...a bubble of wonder sang in it. "Lis had wings. She... she carried me... Away from the ones who hurt me."

"I did, Sara." Lis said. Sara jerked upright, her face going from radiant to scared. "Easy, Sara. Easy."

"I... I screwed everything up!" Sara exclaimed. "I... made such a mess. I hurt you! I got you hurt... twice!" Lis held out her hand and Serene let Sara go. "I am sorry!" She was babbling and crying as she took Lis' hand and Lis pulled her close. "I am..." She was cut off as Lis pulled her into a gentle embrace. "Lis... I..."

"Sara, you are a little girl who had to grow up way too fast." Lis said, holding Sara's crying form close. "One whose life will be cut far too short. But one thing will never change, Sara. I love you." Sara wilted as the Nyx Prime held her gently. "I will never leave you alone again. I will never allow your fear to take hold in such a way again. You will be punished for what happened." Sara nodded jerkily and Lis smiled a bit wistfully. "But I won't make you do push-ups or sit-ups in a stream like my teacher did to me. Serene says you want to be a technician?" Serene smiled fondly at Sara's sudden tension.

"I do." Sara said, her voice muffled by Lis' chest armor. "I like making things work."

"Okay." Lis said with a nod and eased Sara so the girl was sitting at her side. "Then you need to know some things. What you did, at its most fundamental level, is no different from what a power system does. You transformed one form of energy into another. Your inner core of energy into visible light."

"So... that energy came from me?" Sara said and then shook her head. "You said that. Before. I was...a stressed."

"You had a right to it." Lis said with a nod. "But now? You are safe. You can truly start to learn. It will not be easy, or quick. But it will be worthwhile."

Sara looked at Serene who shrugged and rose. She patted Sara on the shoulder and left the room. Sara sighed, and moved to the chair that Serene had been in, careful of the cast thing on her leg.

"So where do I start?" Sara asked quietly, her every ounce of attention on Lis.

"At the beginning, where else?" Lis said with chuckle as Sara groaned. "Sara, everything we know, everything we see, at its core... is energy..."

"No nightmares." Serene said with a smile as she stepped out into the main healer ward. Iriana nodded from where she stood, working on something. Her assistant Lisa smiled widely. "That makes three nights without nightmares. A new record."

"Dreams of wings, but.. not the monster." Lisa said, a bit dubious. "Do you really think..."

"I don't know." Serene said quietly. "The holo was a little girl. But...Iriana?" She asked, concerned as the Healer jerked.

"I have been running a data search for the last three days and I found something. Is this her?" Iriana asked as she hit a control and an image appeared nearby. A small girl. An impish smile shone on her face, but... She was so small. So... withered... "Is this the girl you saw?"

"That is her." Serene said with a wince. Iriana turned, a wide smile on her face. "Iriana?"

"Her name was Helen." Iriana said quietly. "The daughter of the Tenno named Shadas and a human named Rina." Serene and Lisa both froze. "She had... an odd genetic disorder. One that was cured!"

"I..." Serene froze. She felt faint. "C... Cured?"

"A lot of the records are... distorted." Iriana said with a wince. "What happened with the wings destroyed a lot of what was stored at the place he made them. They cured her. But... They couldn't fix her body completely, she was trapped in a wheelchair. But she didn't die until... The wings." She bowed her head, but when she raised it, her smile became radiant. "With your help, Amelia's and Sara's... We may have a chance to save Sara. It won't be easy. But we have a chance."

"Healer..." Lisa had been parsing data far, far faster than human could. "This doesn't make any sense. Helen was killed when the wings destroyed Shadas and all life on Larissa. Yes?" Iriana looked sick but nodded. "Then her energy was drained by the wings, yes?" Iriana nodded, still dubious. "Then she cannot be in the database? Can she?" Iriana and Serene looked at each other. "But a holo of that little girl appeared to all of you... So... if it wasn't her database shade... what was it?"

"It might have been. Look at Shadas' mother's name." Iriana said quietly as Lisa looked scared. "Somehow... I doubt she just sat back and let her granddaughter die." Lisa paused and then went still. "Not all angels have wings or act nice." Serene leaned close and inhaled sharply as she too read the name.

Leanna

Somewhere outside of time and space

It is done, Grandma. They know the cure and Sara's nightmares have been eased.

I knew you could do it, Helen. You are such a good girl.

I don't want to go. I want to stay. With you and the golden people!

You can't stay, Helen. I managed to save part of you. But... not all. You have earned a long rest after so long trapped in that horrible machine.

No! Don't send me away, Grandma!

I am sorry, Helen. But this journey... you have to take alone. We will remember you. That is all that matters, dear Helen.

GRANDMA!The scream of fear...winked out to the sound of rustling. Wings?

I am ready. Leanna's voice shook a little, but then it firmed. Do what you must.

Helen is crying for her grandmother. The voice was... not human. Not Tenno. Not... anything knowable. Your son made a mistake and he paid for it. You did not make that mistake. You did not kill all the ones who perished. You are not to blame.

I... am tired. Leanna said weakly. So tired. So long.. alone... Teaching, trying to go on. Trying to find her in that thing. Trying to get her out from its madness... I... I never expected Lis to find her. But that kid... Ah Lis... Her voice turned fond. Then sad. I upset the balance. I will be punished.

To save a young soul. The other replied. Then it chuckled? You Tenno. So knowledgeable, but you miss the point.

I don't understand. Leanna said and then she was standing on a golden plain, surrounded by warframes, all of whom were staring at her as...something huge lifted away from her. But her attention was on the tiny form hugging her legs. "Helen?" She demanded as she bent down and hugged the tiny form that held her tight. The girl... looked normal. For a holographic shade of a young person anyway. "I..." She stared around wildly, noting each and every golden shade of her ancestors all... looking up. She looked up and froze. Helen stared up with her and smiled. "Wha-?"

"The Creator may be tough but the Creator is not blind." The armored form with the long feathered appendages -real wings- said in a calm voice that rang like thunder across the golden plains as he smiled at her. It was... not a golden hologram. "Love is what matters, Leanna."

With that, the angel vanished.

Somewhere else

"How you doing?" The voice pulled Horatius out of a fond dream. It probably wasn't one he should share though. It involved Lyza and a tub of... He sighed. He looked up at his boss and grimaced as he stretched.

"Getting shot sucks." The Special Forces soldier said with a sigh. "But we kept those girls out of the hands of the Board. The rest? Up to them."

"All we can do is what we can do." The old woman said philosophically. "The training facility will be up to your standards by the end of the day. You should have the first couple of recruits coming in a day or so after. What of the Vandals?"

"Only two lethal casualties besides ours." Horatius said with a sigh. "Stupid kids for the most part. We should have run as soon as the Grineer appeared. If the Tenno hadn't arrived, we all would have died. And for what?"

"Horatius. We need them. Their fervor and dedication. Which is why I had you make contact." The other scolded him and he slumped a bit. He stared around the room, but it was pretty spartan. The other noted his glance and nodded. "We will have better quarters for everyone shortly."

"Any complications?" The soldier asked as he slid from the bed, ignoring the warning twinges from his gut. He had taken worse.

"The facility, no." The other replied as he clambered carefully into a new set of armor. His size, no surprise. He paused as she gave a small sob. "But we only found four in the ducts."

"Four?" he asked, horrified. The other bowed her head. "Records said there were sixteen! The others?"

"There may be one or two more crammed into places even Ospreys cannot go." The old woman said sadly. "But... we have found bodies. And... pieces." She slumped a bit. "I have Olena V-12 trying to talk to the ones we found. But they refuse to talk. To trust."

"Hard to blame them." The Special Forces soldier said harshly. "And the Orphanage?"

"Fully set up on Deck Sixteen." The other said with a nod. "Frank O-34 and the others will arrive tomorrow. You can remove them from stasis there. They will be confused. Very confused. And angry." She shook her head. "Didn't expect the Red Veil to put them in stasis, but it worked out well for us."

"Confusion and anger we can handle." Horatius straightened to a reasonable facsimile of attention and nodded. "Orders?" She smiled and beckoned. He stepped with her out the door to the room and into an expansive medical bay. Several tables held recumbent forms. The Executive in charge of the facility nodded to him and he gritted his teeth and nodded back. "Executive Vina."

"I deserve every ounce of anger you have for me, Commander." Vina said calmly. "Twelve kids... I..." She bowed her head. "I was so stupid. I should have asked for help sooner. Not been distracted."

"It wasn't entirely your fault." The old woman beside the soldier glared at him and he subsided. "You were distracted. Now you are not."

"Better for all concerned." Vina said with a nod and then went still as a groan came from one of the tables. "Mercedes J-54? Easy..." Vina said, stooping beside the table. "It's okay. Easy..." An attendant came up and passed a cup to Vina who took it and nodded her thanks. "You are thirsty, dear Mercedes J-54. Drink."

"I..." Mercedes J-54 winced and then did as instructed. "Milk? I... feel... odd. Am I sick?"

"No, my dear." The old woman by the soldier's side said calmly. "You are in perfect health. Have you ever considered children?"

"Me?" Mercedes J-54 said, her eyes unfocused. "No... Always... had to focus on... job..." Vina turned bleak eyes to the others and the old woman sighed.

"Think about it, dear Mercedes J-54. Welcome." She said calmly. "Do you hear the music?" She prompted as the woman on the table gave a small cry. But not of fear. Of wonder.

"I... do." Mercedes J-54 said in a soft, wondering voice. "It is...so..." She gave small cry and went limp. Vina held her, crying softly. When Mercedes spoke again, it was calm. But... "Don't cry, Vina. I am here. I will help. I serve..." She turned her head to the side and looked at the soldier and the one beside him. "... The Clergy."

"Rest now, Mercedes J-54." The Reverend Mother said with a fond smile as her newest recruit tried to regain her equilibrium. "We have a lot of work to do. Not the least to keep that idiot Bek from figuring out that you and Vina now want to help the human race, not just the Board's profits."

"We will need to maintain fiscal structure." Mercedes J-54 said absently as Vina cried. "I think a shell corporation? How much do you wish to siphon?"

"None." The Reverend Mother said firmly. "I plan to let this facility keep on as it was. Making profits. Just... with slightly less stringent management of personnel." She smiled at Horatius who stared straight ahead. "I think an Orphanage and a Special Forces training facility will add to the facility's potential, yes?"

"There may be..." Mercedes J-54 paused and sighed. "There may be some initial capital expenditures. Those may be hard to hide. Personnel likewise."

"Personnel we have covered." The Reverend Mother assured her. "For now, rest. Think about children. Vina would love a little girl." She patted Mercedes J-54 on the shoulder and turned on her heel. A jerk of her head had the soldier following. "Horatius?" She murmured as he chuckled softly.

"And I thought I was the sneaky one." The soldier said with a whistle of awe. "Stealing an entire mining facility..." He shook his head in admiration. "Not bad, boss. Not bad at all."

"Vina didn't need much correction." The Reverend Mother said with a shrug. "She knew right from wrong, she was just confused by that idiot Maxwell D-90. She actually proposed this as soon as we inducted her. When she begged us to take her in. To give her guidance. I was... leery. But she was right. All personnel have been indoctrinated to our standards now. Security will see loyalty to the company and the Board as well as profits that will climb through the roof when she starts implementing some of the 'reforms' she will come up with. With our help." She smiled evilly. "And with a Special Forces training center here? Who would dare attack it or try to steal her secrets?"

"Someone will." Horatius cautioned. "Someone always has more guts than sense." He shook himself. "What word from Mars?"

"Odd." The Reverend Mother said with a wince. "If I didn't know better, I would say the Red Veil got real trained Special Forces soldiers from somewhere." Horatius shook his head and she nodded. "I know, but the thought of some other group of humans running around making messes..."

"Of Grineer." Horatius said calmly and the Reverend Mother nodded soberly. "Whoever those guys are... there are not that many of them. But they are good. Dang good. No signs, no tracks. Just destroyed Grineer bases and lots and lots of dead clones. If I didn't know better, I would say the Forces are doing it too. But we aren't."

"We need to find out who is doing it." The Reverend Mother said sharply. "And soon. We need to coordinate before the Grineer get organized and wipe them out."

"Just tracking them will be bad enough." Horatius said with a wince. "Making contact? Likely get our heads blown off. But..." He shrugged. "The difficult we do immediately, the impossible just takes a little longer." He shook his head. "Then again... I would have said this was impossible. Will you tell Mercedes J-54?"

"Not yet." The Reverend Mother said with a wince. "She isn't ready. Everything has to be aboveboard and consensual after what that moron Maxwell D-90 did. But she is the only one on station who might be compatible. I have data searches going for others. Discrete ones, but a lot of DNA files to check."

A heavy door ahead had two sets of human guards. Four MOAs stood with them, two Shockwave, two Railgun. The security...wasn't overdone. Not for this. A DNA and retinal scanner demanded readings from both the old woman and the soldier. Only then did the door open. Only single medical person worked at a table. But it was what was on the table that pulled the eye.

"You realize..." Horatius said with a sigh as he stared at what lay within the container. "If anyone finds out what you have here, there will be hell to pay. The Board, the Grineer, the Tenno?" He winced.

"Tenno are more and less than humans." The Reverend Mother said softly. "The woman we called Lis F-43 was full human. Once. Every scan said that."

"She was." Sister Harriet agreed as she turned from the table, her face solemn. "But there was so much damage. Brain and.. otherwise. None of us knew if she would wake at all. Let alone recover so fast. No one thought to check until she was lucid. And then? She came around so fast. And... we didn't want to stress her. For what it is worth... It would have died due to the hemorrhaging. The automated systems did what they were designed to. Saved her and it. From what you said, she was hit badly in the abdomen. They may never realize." Horatius looked at her and she winced. "I know. It...felt wrong not to tell her. But Vina didn't want to stress her. I... don't think she was wrong. But this... This feels wrong."

"I agree." The Reverend Mother said calmly. "I fully intend to... let them know we have this. Soon. Once cleaning up after that Serene person was more than enough." She said with a sigh. "I can only hope they let us sample. We need more diversity. And Mercedes J-54 is compatible with the right help. Vina wants a little girl. If we can, it would solve several problems. She was good, that Lis girl."

"If she hadn't been spoken for, I would tried to recruit her." Horatius said with a shrug. "But this..." He shook his head. "Tell them soon. If they find out and we didn't tell them... We cannot hold against a Tenno assault. There is just no way. Not yet. Maybe not ever. This facility is not a fortress. Was never meant to be one. It would be a slaughter to no one's gain."

"I know. I will." The Reverend Mother promised. "But we have to be careful. I hope she will let us use this. We need more personnel in the conflicts against the Board and Grineer. More weapons to stand against the Long Night. Weapons like Gen H-12 and Lis. Ones who know right from wrong. But if she says 'no'... That is the end of it. I do not want that weapon turned against us."

"Yes, that girl was a weapon, Ma'am." Harriet shook her head. "But... Some weapons are just too useful to leave idle, but... too dangerous to use without caution."

"Or without the consent of all involved." Horatius agreed softly as he gazed at the ovary in the stasis pod.

"Point taken."