Chapter Text
The air was biting cold as the Drifter left the relative safety of their warframe, leaving him hidden in the entrance of a nearby building. Children, they'd learned, tended to be either enamoured or terrified of warframes, and while their favoured Yareli tended to be one of the more well-liked (Aoi once said she reminded her of Navigator Mercury from System Guardian Navigator Lua, whatever any of that meant), Drifter had opted to bring Sevagoth this time. Ever since Arthur had mentioned how badly he scared Scaldra, they couldn't help it.
It had been a rough few weeks. There had been little for the Drifter to find joy in lately; as Lettie would say, the spiders were spinning webs in their head, and it was getting hard to ignore. Distracting. Leading them to objective inadequacy. Kalymos had gotten a burn on her paw during a Legacyte hunt ten days ago; six days after that, a Hellscrubber which Drifter had neglected to cleanse in time had nearly taken a chunk out of Aoi. They were beginning to feel like a liability on missions, and so the spiders weaved their webs further.
But moping around the mall wasn't an option. Besides the fact that it wasn't going to help anyone, there was a constant influx of injured civvies, and counting the heads that came in one day compared to the amount left the next wasn't exactly encouraging. Smudge had even been left with Lettie to assist with blood transfusions, and while it was helping a little, there was only so much one little Vasca could do.
To top it all off, the cold and damp of the late winter was making their old injuries act up something fierce. There were days all they wanted to do was sit at the bar and drink until the pain stopped. But that would mean facing Velimir and Minerva, and as happy as Drifter was for them and their renewed love, all it was doing was reminding Drifter how badly they felt like they were flopping like a fish with their own relationship – or lack thereof, as the case was. It had been weeks since they'd admitted to Roathe they were falling in love with him, and neither had brought it up since.
They felt like a wet blanket smothering everyone they interacted with, and they could really, really use a win.
So they stepped out alone into that dark, silent cold, softened their voice as best they could, and called out to the crying child huddled beneath a dead bush: “Hey, kid? You lost?” The child looked up, startled, but only kept crying in response. They stepped closer, kneeling down beside her in an attempt to seem less threatening. “Where are your parents?”
“Th-the...” The child hugged her knees closer, sniffling through the tears. “The t-t.v.... a-ate th-them...”
“Oh. Shit.” Drifter grimaced. “I mean shoot.” They reached out, but when the child flinched away, they withdrew their hand. “Hey, it's gonna be okay.”
“Will not!” Drifter cast their eyes down; she had a point. They remembered what it was like, that feeling that nothing could ever possibly be okay again. They couldn't blame her for not believing them.
“I, uh... my parents died when I was a kid,” they said. The child eyed them, unbelieving.
“Really?”
“Really. And I was so scared. I'm sure you're scared too.” The child sniffed again, nodding. “Can I bring you somewhere safe, to talk?” The child shifted uncomfortably.
“My... my parents said not to go with strangers.”
“Well, that's smart. So let's not be strangers, then.” They smiled gently at the child. “My friends call me Drifter.” The child slowly loosened her hold on her own knees, wiping at the tears on her cheeks.
“I'm Misha.”
“Hi, Misha.” They held their hand out again. “Let's get you somewhere warm, okay?” After a moment's hesitation, she took their hand, letting them help her to her feet. “You okay to walk, or do you want me to carry you?” She looked down at her feet, at the shoes she'd slipped on in her haste to escape her family's apartment – thin tennis shoes, laces still untied – rather than trying to fight to get her winter boots on. She cast her eyes timidly up at them, and they gave her that same warm, gentle smile. “Alright, come on,” they said, leaning over to hoist her up in their arms.
They paused a moment, balancing her against their hip, to send a message to Aoi's KinePage – Found child, need blankets – before beginning the trek to where they had left their atomycycle, an hour and several battles ago. They knew there were still Scaldra around; they could hear them off in the distance. They couldn't take the same path back as they did on the way out, either. They didn't want to risk exposing a child to the efervon still lingering in the air.
So they took back alleys, all the while speaking to the girl, trying to keep her calm; of how she would be safe with the Hex, warm and looked after, that there were other kids among the citizens staying at the mall she could meet. They had to fall quiet, however, as the once-distant sound of Scaldra patrols grew closer. They wondered if Viktor would ever run out of troops to throw at them; it hadn't happened in any loop so far. They heard the engine of an armored truck too close by for comfort and wondered, briefly, if it wouldn't be in their best interest to tuck little Misha away in the entrance to a building and go take care of the patrol.
Before they had a chance to weigh the dangers of frostbite over gunfight, the alley was lit up in stunning light. Two lights, to be exact. Two lights that, as Drifter squinted into them, were getting closer.
In the second between Drifter realizing it was the truck the were hearing, and that truck colliding with them, they just barely managed to turn to the side and use their own body as the shield between the impact and the child in their arms. They felt the metal of the truck's hood give slightly to their body, and then the stone of the ground very much not give at all, and somewhere lost in the haze of adrenaline was a pain they hadn't felt since Duviri, pulling and twisting like their leg was being torn off. They focused instead on the child in their arms, shaking and cry and clinging to their neck like her life depended on it – and, they supposed, it did.
“Are you okay?” they asked, groaning as they pushed themself off the ground. She nodded frantically against their shoulder. “Listen to me,” they said firmly as they set her up on her feet, “you need to run.”
“No!” she cried, trying to cling to them again.
“Run and hide,” they insisted, trying not to panic as they heard the doors on the tuck open. “Go. Go!” They shoved her toward a small opening between the buildings, and she stumbled at first, but then she ran.
They turned back toward the alley, intending on making an attempt to stand, but found themself in the distinctly unpleasant position of having several gun barrels shoved in their face. It was not a new position, necessarily, that they were finding themself in, though it was certainly the first time with such grievous injuries. They wondered to themself just how certain they really were that they could not, in fact, die here.
“Hands up!” one Scaldra trooper shouted at them. Another was on comms, informing someone on the other end of the Drifter's capture. What a sad fool they were about to make of him.
“If you say so,” they responded, and as they raised their hands, so too did they raise the troopers, a well of Void energy opening beneath them and lifting them screaming like so many puppets on strings. The troopers' shouts of panic only intensified as the Drifter disappeared before their eyes. After only a few seconds, the Void energy dissipated, leaving the Scaldra scrambling for their weapons as they fell to the cold ground. They pressed their backs to one another as they stood, peering around in the darkness of the alley, until the glint of moonlight off Orokin gold caught one of their eyes.
“There!” the trooper yelled, and as they all turned to point their guns at the figure, it calmly asked:
“So, do we have any regrets?” They opened fire, their terror only growing stronger as the figure simply... let them. As they emptied their chambers into it, a great metal coffin rose to envelop it, their bullets ricocheting into the concrete surrounding them. “You're about to.”
As Sevagoth's Shadow erupted forth, cleaving the nearest Scaldra Jaeger to pieces with its mighty claws, Drifter was glad none of the troopers would live to report on what they'd just said – Quincy would never let them live it down if he found out. The Shadow's claws found their next target in the shoulder of a second Jaeger, his blood gushing onto the snow as they tore his arm from its socket.
While the two remaining Jaegers scrambled to reload their guns, the Flayer among them leapt at the Shadow, her blades poised to plunge into its neck. The Shadow lunged forth in turn, reaching both sets of claws out before it; they caught the Scaldra through the chest, her final scream cut short as they ripped her body in half like a sheet of paper. Bullets filled the space as her remains fell to the ground, and the Shadow dodged to the side, spinning through the air to land the final heavy blow on the remaining Scaldra, their bodies shredding beneath its claws.
With those final souls consumed by the Shadow, Sevagoth reemerged from his coffin, though to Drifter's dismay it wasn't to the silence they were hoping for. They could hear more soldiers rushing down the dark alley, and worse – gunfire in the adjacent street. They shouldered their rifle as they turned to face the oncoming Scaldra, though they only managed to get a few shots off before an efervon grenade landed at their feet. They scrambled up a nearby wall before it had a chance to go off, leaving the small battalion in the cramped alley as they clambered onto the roof above.
As they crossed the roof, the battle going on in the main road came into view – there were dozens of Scaldra soldiers surrounding a lone man, though they were making little headway as he dashed between them, cutting each down with chilling ease. The Drifter stepped back to take a running jump from the building, and as they landed in the thick of the battle, black swirls of gloomy mist rose from the ground to grasp at each of the Scaldra soldier's legs, bringing them to a near-standstill.
“Drifter,” Arthur greeted them, “I wondered if that screaming was because of you.” Drifter raised Sevagoth's arms in a flourish, and the dark grasping mists glowed with energy as he beckoned forth the seeds of death. Before any of them could even try to retaliate, Sevagoth's Shadow was flung out into the crowd. “Horrifying,” Arthur quipped as the Shadow rent through the soldiers, splitting and duplicating to tear a path through the herd before dissipating into mist. “You mentioned a child?”
“I told her to run and hide,” Drifter shouted over the screams of the dying. “And I'm stuck in this thing.”
“Are you injured?” Drifter gave a nod of Sevagoth's head in answer. “You clean up here, I'll find the girl.”
“Her name's Misha,” Drifter said before summoning the Shadow forth again, and as they swung forward, Arthur ducked just in time for its claws to pierce through the Scaldra trooper behind him. He unholstered his pistol, delivering the decisive shot to her head before dashing off into the night.
The Drifter turned their attention to the remaining troops, and pounced.
The night was finally quiet, and Drifter did their best to follow the path left by Arthur. They didn't want to call out, didn't want to break the silence and risk bringing attention back onto themself, so following footprints and the occasional drop of blood in the snow was the best they could do. But they were, admittedly, nervous; a child so young should not be out in cold like this for so long. They could only hope Arthur had already found her, and was well on the way back to the Mall with the girl in tow.
The hope was shattered when they turned a corner into an alley, and found Arthur propped up against the wall with a thousand-yard stare. As the Drifter approached, Arthur held an arm out to block them.
“You don't wanna go back there, Marty.”
“Why?” they asked, though with a lead weight in their gut they felt they already knew the answer. They tried to step around him, and he met their step, his hand on Sevagoth's chest and a look on his face that said Please just listen. Drifter did not listen. They pushed past him, peering around the darkness of the alley until they spotted the small figure slumped beside a dumpster.
They dropped to Sevagoth's knees beside her, and for a long while all they could do was stare. The green tinge of efervon clung to her, still slowly burning away at her skin, and her tiny chest bore two bullet holes. She had died scared and in pain, alone in the dark and cold, and it was all the Drifter's fault. They had failed her utterly. They gathered her little body up, cradling her in Sevagoth's arms as they stood.
“Drifter –”
“I'm not leaving her out here like trash,” they said flatly, turning to carry her out of the alley. Arthur sighed as he followed them back onto the street.
“There's a graveyard nearby. I'll keep watch.”
The atmosphere was tense as they arrived back at the mall half an hour later. Aoi was waiting for them with a smile when they arrived, a blanket in one arm and a Jinymon floof in the other. She looked between the two arrivals in the garage, and the very distinct lack of a child in tow.
“What... happened to –”
“Aoi,” Arthur interrupted her sternly, and when she met his gaze he simply shook his head.
“Oh, shit.” Her expression fell like a stone in water. “Oh, Lua, I'm so sorry.” She watched the Drifter walk past her, though when she tried to follow them into the mall, Arthur held her back by the elbow.
“Just give them some space, Aoi.” She scoffed.
“Uh, no?” She pulled her arm from Arthur's grasp, and followed Drifter toward the backroom. “Hey,” she said softly as she caught up up with them, “you... wanna talk?”
“No,” they answered with a sigh, and from the look on Aoi's face when they turned to look at her, it was not the answer she was hoping for. “I think... I think I need to go. For a little while.”
“But... Hey, I know this sucks, but, there'll be more loops. You can save her next time. I'll even go with you!”
“It's not just that, Aoi. I got pretty banged up out there, and Lettie's got enough on her plate as it is. And I just keep fucking things up. I'm dragging you all down with me.”
“You're not –”
“I just need to get my head on straight, okay? I'll be back in a few days.”
“...Okay,” she relented. “I'll... make sure Smudge gets to go on some supply runs.”
“I appreciate that. Thank you.” She nodded, forcing a smile on her face. She watched Drifter ascend the stairs to the Helminth room, and before she returned into the mall, she took a moment to leave the Jinymon floof in the care of Kalymos. At least someone could still make use of it.