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Zek Ordis acquires coordinates sent to Kushiko by Zek. There's no explanation to them, and they go somewhere in-system. Maybe it's time they actually met face to face... or what passes for that among Tenno.

The coordinates lead to a remote location on the surface of Mars. The sun is up, casting long shadows across the face of the Red Planet. Wind whips dust through the air, snapping flags taut from the poles where they jut out from the rocky ground. In the great distance, ugly, bulbous ships in ochre and crimson trawl the surface, and bulky, armored clones scour the deserts.

Here, it's a little different. A narrow, C-shaped canyon serves as shelter from the winds and the dust, the breeze battered down to a steady wind without being scouring by virtue of the uneven cliff faces. They're tiered within this place, and signs of doors cut into the cliffs and old, sand-stripped remains of something like civilization betrays the remains of the vilage that must have once existed here.

A Warframe kneels in the middle of the canyon floor. It bears the vertical stripes and overlapping plates of a Vauban chassis, but with too-narrow, almost feminine arms and bulky legs, neither of which look like they fit the rest. It looks beaten and battered, but the black, opaque visor remains as polished as ever... and the weapons it carries -- ones from out-of-system, some kind of assault rifle and a semiautomatic pistol -- are just as well cared-for.

Zek's Warframe waits. He resists the urge to touch the face of the massive carved stone slab it rests upon. Stillness and silence. Wait.
Kushiko Ah. This is a familiar place--insomuch as familiarity is bred when you're wrecking Grineer down here that appropriated the older settlements here for their own purposes. She looked--as much as she looks through her Warframe's neuroptics, over the surface of the planet. The varying little hotspots and zones.

She contemplated 'whom' to be, in this case--should she still be Mesa, whom Zek saw prior in the Index, or something that might trigger yet more famliarity? No, it was neither of those things that really governed her choice--the tabi-footed Mag, the Orokin-tech original with which she had made purposeful coloration and slight tweaks to.

The alloys that gilded it's--hers?--limbs and body and head bore more of a dark, silver tone, away from the gleaming golds and whites the Orokin so favored. Realistically, this was her 'first', even though it too, went through so much before she awoke the first time and found herself bereft of so much.

Now however, was not the time to dwell on such things. Not when the Liset came down low and brought its underside towards the canyon itself, with it's underside tube revolving to reveal Kushiko's Mag, which, once the half-cylindrical delivery brought her out, she promptly pushed off, somersaulting once to control her descent, in order to make that typical three point landing of most Tenno.

And maybe other types, we won't discuss that.

She didn't appear to have any weapons, but that meant nothing at present. Her syandana, a twin-tailled looking thing, wavered gently in the breeze. Here she was, now able to properly /stare/ and look at Zek--why the powers seemed familiar, yet the parts that didn't match...

Her voice carries, as it is wont to do. Her presence, the Void itself radiating into the air of the canyon itself. Chilling for others. More than likely a familiar thing here. <"Hey, Zek. Hope you weren't waiting too long. We're glad to finally have this chance to meet.">
Zek They don't match because it's a patchwork of butchery.

The arms have been re-armored with Corpus-manufactured equipment, but designed after what looks like surplus Zanuka Project designs. The legs look like they're from an entirely different and much more heavily-armored 'frame, rebuilt with signs of disassembly near thighs and hips. Rumors about Corpus still trying to dissect and understand captured Warframes are, apparently, entirely true. It looks rushed. And...

...a little tweaked, too. There are fresh signs of thermal damage near the elbows, like someone cut into it and then put it all back together a little differently. The same kind of damage is visible across its abdomen, fresh incisions that don't look like they were made in the heat of battle. It's another sort of primitive butchery -- more controlled, more precise, but primitive and painful nonetheless.

Zek's first thought upon seeing the Mag descending is about the coloration. It feels... tarnished. Worn. It's an appropriate visual metaphor for where the system seems to be compared to when he left it.

<"Not long. Well..."> The patchwork Warframe's head looks up towards the doors in the cliffs. <"...not waiting, anyway. You aren't late, if that's what you're worried about."> He still sounds... tired. It's a constant note to his voice. <"You didn't bring any weapons,"> he observes.
Kushiko It is probably a good think impulse led her to bring Mag. Retrospect would indicate that if Valkyr saw, the part of her that is and isn't Valkyr would probably be extra hardcore right now about what she's seeing. Even now, she can feel that part of her, welling up inside that she has to take a few moments to tamper back down.

Nonetheless, the black and purples suit her well--and the lilac coloration of her energy is definitely part of her instead of the usual standards. They can both compare and contrast with one another. <"Didn't want to give you a hostile idea. We are the weapon, as you well know."> Her monocular 'eye' shifts slightly, the hovering magnetic plates at her shoulders wavering a bit as she shifts her position, following perfectly.

With her slight shift, there's a glint of light: on her side rests a Corpus-looking handcannon, and on her back, just peaking out as optical camoflage fades out, is a very long rifle--again, Corpus by the look of it--the two weapons nearly 'blinking' into being.

She does take a step forward--more to visually inspect than anything else--and far and away from here, her face deepens into a greater scowl than before. <"...you sound like you haven't been able to rest any."> she notes.
Zek The sight is enough to bring any Tenno to /some/ kind of emotional response. Kushiko is just a bit more prone to specific ones than the others would be. Zek either doesn't seem to notice it, or chooses not to comment. Even odds on that. Body language is a strong communication medium amongst them.

He waits until she's shown that she is in fact armed, and he nods once, sharply. <"But that doesn't mean that we should be unprepared to use others, either."> He sounds... slightly approving, in fact. <"If you were hostile, you would not have made the mistake of getting so close before addressing me in any case.">

The faceless mask turns back to her. <"No rest for the wicked. And that's us. Right?"> He shrugs, very deliberately. <"Can't sleep. Can't wake. Can't do more than think, sometimes. I think I'm in pain, others. Isn't that weird?"> He tilts his head to the side. <"I thought it was these legs, but now I..."> He trails off.
Kushiko <"Would be foolish not to use everything, anything we can."> she remarks softly, a similar hint of approval in her own voice. And speaking of that body language medium, there's no mistaking the blanketing concern from her--then again, Mag tended to be very much the 'guardian' sort, and that's just a bit more profound here, and growing more notable as Zek speaks.

<"... it is. I don't know what it is, but it isn't right, though that goes without saying."> she concludes when Zek trails off, starting to briefly circle him for a moment. <"We did not get a look at your pod as well as we should have."> she adds. <"The immediate reaction we would have is to try and get you awakened. You, countless others, me, we went to sleep so long ago. Centuries, maybe? You had an even rougher time than I did, by the sound of it."> she admits. She gestures towards herself, before looking around.

<"One of the Grineer's Captains had found me. Tried to control me, hooked me with a nano-parasite before I was able to fully wake."> That too, piece of Corpus tech. <"... even then I wasn't aware. Just was. I still *dreamed*."> She pauses, and gestures with a hand--a hand which begins to emit light faintly until it forms the shape of a comm-panel.

A comm-panel with the girl that is, purple haired and everything, the blackened scars around one eye looking like growths amidst the somatics that dot her face. <"You can't see yourself as you truly are, can you?"> she wonders, far more softly, far more concerned.
Zek Zek's Warframe is largely still. While Kushiko's tells of her protective instinct, Zek's is a closed book with a scarred cover. Careful examination finds the truth of it, though: confusion, uncertainty, and a carefully-assembled demeanor of practiced calm.

<"Mm. Right."> She circles. The weapons are affixed to points at his back and side. There's also a rod practically against his feet, laid in the sand. It looks like a toppled flagpole. There's a crack in the stone slab where it probably once stood up nearby. <"I remember... uh..."> He struggles to find words, slowly shaking his head. <"...sleeping. But it wasn't... it wasn't actually..."> Zek gropes for meaning. It slips away from him like it was iced over.

She shows a face. The Warframe's head twitches. Turns. Stares. <"I... I don't understand. I'm right..."> He lifts one hand, touching his 'frame's chest. <"...here. Aren't I? The pod, we, uh, we took it from the Corpus. Zwei and me. I keep them away from the side --"> His hand rises, touching where his brow would be. He looks like he's struggling to comprehend what he's trying to say. <"-- the side --">
Kushiko Well, this was one way to get places. She couldn't imagine the ordeals--well, she *could* but at the same time, actually playing out or attempting to figure out what exactly happened to him wouldn't be helpful. Certainly they would need to actually *do this* later, to try and sort through what he could remember, but he was...

...not well.

She closes her hand, quietly, before sitting seiza herself, instinctively, perhaps even unthinkingly before him. There was a microexpression of irritation with regards to the mention of Zwei--impossible to fully hide, as much as she may well want to.

She remains silent long enough for him to try to come to his own terms with what he's trying to say, what he's trying to think. <"We are both in here. You in yours, and we are in here."> Her hand moves to her chest. <"We are the will that guides them. They are our hands that move unseen."> she explains. <"There is a place, where many of us were sleeping, no, /dreaming/, still guiding our Warframe. The reason I wanted to try and trace you before was to see if..."> The swirling mass of energy flickers for a few moments within Mag's head.

<"Pointless now, maybe."> the girl muses quietly, her voice vaguely distorted a bit by nascent, extradimensional energies she yet uses to speak. <"Nothing feels right no matter what you do, does it?">
Zek Zek is too enraptured by the contradictory information to actually notice the irritation. He's wrestling with trying to grasp a piece of sensory information that refuses to be properly examined. It's like trying to squeeze an icy sphere and having it slip out of your grasp, again and again, no matter how you change your hold on it. Delicate... you have to be delicate... but...

He doesn't figure it out. She tries to explain it. He nods, but it's a slow, languid thing, a tired motion of the head. It droops like he was struggling ot stay awake, but of course, he can't seem to sleep, either. <"Dreaming...">

Zek picks something up out of the dirt. It's a splinter, a jagged fragment of some larger thing stuck here. <"Nothing feels right, no,"> he echoes, voice a harsh whisper. He sketches steadily in the sand, drawing clean, curving lines. Two curves. Two vertical lined between them. It looks like... the pod, in profile. Two halves of it. He adds intricate detail to one side, detailing everything from dings to filigree as preciely as he can, and then abruptly erases it with a sweep of his hand, drawing it again but slanted, like it had been opened. The other side he leaves as it is: a curving exterior line, and a single vertical interior one, bereft of any definition.

<"That. That's what I see. /That/.">
Kushiko For what it's worth, without having other things to talk about, she can devote as much of herself to this, to listening, to trying to intuit /something/ about what precisely is happening to Zek. More than anything before, it drives her, even now, as she recalls her own sensations with becoming 'awake' as it were.

And thus, did she stare--the monocular point seemingly focused more to mirror the moving head of the girl from her Somatic Link. Having to explain things like this--to understand them--is going to require patience on both sides. <"That pod is where you put yourself in normally, your Warframe."> she begins, and looking to him for verity. It's something that supremely nags at her--she's actually seen and learned how Vauban works, which is why seeing it in this state makes it intensely aggravating.

...there is one other thing she could show, but right now, it would do no good until he could make sense and sort this piece of information out. She drew back a little, looking thoughtful (at least as much as something with scantly any face could *look* thoughtful) as she mulled his information, his diagram. The two pods from before. The twinned pods for others she had helped get moved along when she conducted defensive operations for exposed cells.

She takes an audible breath. <"I was in something like this before, but this,"> she gestures to the other part, the closed capsule drawing, <"Is, if I'm not mistaken by what you're showing me, where you *should* be. It has equipment, /should/ have equipment, letting you use Transference. That's how we become part of these Warframes."> She's trying to take this slow, honestly. <"Would you be willing to show me where it is? I think something happened when the Corpus took you, that they maybe did something to it to mess with you so what they did to your body wouldn't be resisted as much."> It's theory, admittedly.
Zek Something is wrong. /What's/ wrong isn't exactly something that can be intuited so easily. Still, the idea that the Corpus /did/ something while he was still asleep... that seems to fit the theory. That would explain why he'd been complaining about things like hunger when he should be so deep in hibernation his body wouldn't need anything like that.

A sharp nod. <"Yes. I was in this one."> He taps the detailed side of the pod. <"I remember it opening, and my legs feeling wrong. Then I fell down, and I was..."> He shakes his head slowly. <"They hacked my neuroptics. I had to remove the data shunt after the fact. It dropped resolution to the point of being unable to clearly tell what was what. I could track individual targets, but -- it's why I didn't recognize you.">

He makes a motion like he was taking a deep breath. <"It -- I /can/, but I shouldn't. I don't know if they want anyone else knowing where they are. Get me a groundcraft capable of moving it and to a warpgate, and I can move it -- if you have a place for me to put it. I'm not leaving it out where anyone can find it."> The tension in his voice lends more credence to her theory, even if he doesn't directly address anything about being inside it.
Kushiko Hearing the words is one confirmation. Hearing the words is also putting in a glaring desire to head over to Venus and wipe out a research colony or two. Just a pile of chicken walkers and Bursa until a local Corpus merchant sect was so very much in the red they'd need a new color for it.

That, however, can wait.

The immediate response, in general is 'yes'. The Lotus, she had practically begged not to intervene or speak up just yet, given what had been heard and seen prior--the fact Zek didn't remember her was telling enough. Even though the woman--if a woman she truly be--did not like it, she acquiesced for whom she saw as a child.

<"They...? ...oh."> Zwei. She bit back the immediate desire to be grumpy as hell about her, before nodding briefly. <"I should be able to. I, if it weren't that requirement..."> She gestures upwards--even though it was gone, implying the Liset, <"My ship could get it out, but I can't blame them if they expected me to get violent."> A slight pause. <"I won't, because it serves no purpose."> Doesn't mean she doesn't want to.

Moving along, she thinks. <"There is a safe place--two of them,"> she indicates, holding up her hand slightly. <"One is in my Orbiter. We can also do some maintenance and work on your actual 'frame. I'm not sure if we'll get it back to the original condition anytime soon, but functionality is..."> She trails off for a moment, an audible sigh as her shoulders slump a little.

<"The other is that... if you recall Staren, and some others who have spoken, there are three 'power groups' in the multiverse. We are with the Concord. There others--the Paladins, the Watch, but we found ourselves illsuited to them. One by too much restriction, the other too extreme and shortsighted. Safety can be guaranteed at the Grand Dorado Metropolis' Elysium Apex.">

A thoughtful noise, <"At least, in passing. It would be a place to have residence until you are better able to think and we can fix what's wrong.">
Zek They call that 'supa-red'. It's like normal red but also on fire.

<"The fact remains that a private place does not remain private if others are brought there,"> Zek says quietly. <"You clearly have no appreciation for them, and they you. It is best if we avoid a confrontation. I do not wish to have to forcibly remove either of you from one another's presence."> The fact also remains that he seems to think he can manage that even while his Warframe is all fucked up. Maybe he /is/ dreaming.

A long, thoughtful pause. <"I... would prefer not to keep it on your ship,"> Zek admits. <"I do not want to intrude in your space. I would appreciate the access for maintenance, but the second option is much more desirable for the purposes of security. And, I think, for... ideological reasons,"> Zek says, after a moment. <"The Watch is going to repeat our mistakes, and I do not think the Paladins understand what it really means to be subservient to someone who does not have your best interests in mind."> One of his hands curls into a fist against his leg.

<"If you think the Concord's aid is the correct choice, then that is where we will go.">
Kushiko A faint, mirthful laugh from her. <"True. On... well. All accounts."> She eased back a little, beginning to stand, ending up on her knees as she shifted position. She elects not to challenge what Zek claims a need to do--even if he couldn't in his condition, the damage that would ensue regardless would be pointless.

<"To be fair, I am somewhat relieved. As much as I may have tendered the offer, at least until we can acquire a vessel for you somewhere."> There's an audible frown in her voice, her body language. <"We may well speak with Staren regardless--it would probably be more plausible to try and find an old ship somewhere, then transfer you to it, but building one may be necessary. Probably still going to have to relieve the Corpus of one.">

She makes another sound, but nods. <"I'll get in touch with the people in the Concord as well. Get a craft out here, and get you to the Metropolis. And there's one other thing... seeing as you've already become armed and what we recall from talks before."> As she starts to stand, the weapons she had--Lanka and the Detron variant, both shimmer out of sight, and she reaches. A double-bladed staff of Tenno make: the Orthos, is pulled free. She gives it a slight flourish, before extending it to her fellow Tenno.

<"Consider this a gift. Something to start helping you be whole again."> she offers.
Zek Two Tenno fighting outside of an agreed-upon sparring arena is generally a terrible thing for anyone in the vicinity if one of them isn't totally outmatched by the other -- and even then, the collateral damage could be fairly catastrophic. Zek might bloody Kushiko's proverbial nose before he went down, even in his current state, and that's... expensive.

<"I can work with a hull and plenty of space,"> Zek assures her. <"In the old days, I was pretty good at guiding cytogenesis. Staren seems resourceful, anyway, and if he can't find something, the Corpus will have to lend me something suitable."> Yeah. Lend. Definitely lend.

A nod -- and then a gift. Zek stares at her, and then at the offered weapon. He takes it with both hands, holding the Orthos horizontally in front of him. His head turns, slowly examining it up and down, from one blade to the other. He slides one hand towards the middle, then releases it with the other, balancing it on two fingers. He takes hold of it with his one hand after a moment, and swings it over his shoulder, affixing it to a spot next to his rifle in a practiced motion.

Zek bows. <"Thank you. I won't forget this.">
Kushiko Yeeeeah, these two fighting?? Both of them lose, in the end, absolutely and completely. Sparring? Yeah they really ought to do that, once the latter is back to a somewhat more viable stage. <"It is the least I can do. We made sure it was refined as well as it can be, augmented so as it can handle a greater degree of modification and power."> she notes quietly. <"But yes... Staren's a part of the Concord. There is value in strength, in guiding it, to refine what we are.">

There's also a few more pieces to that puzzle, but it's definitely a place where one can stretch their proverbial wings and grow and be valued for that, rather than simply be ordered around. Reasonable returns.

She returns the bow, all the same, before reaching, and handing him a datachit. <"That will have all the information you need. There's a bit of work still, to process joining up as a Concord Partner, but it won't take long."> Besides, she'll take care of a lot of the side red tape since given his condition, it'll be probably easier to get him there first, signup, and try to fix the issues he's having there.
Zek <"They sound like a largely reasonable group of individuals,"> Zek says, <"at least compared to the others. Growing stronger... it's... something I would like to do.">

And not being alone, he doesn't say. That would also be something he would like to do. In those moments in the dark, where all he had was himself and a stumbling, suffering attempt to go to sleep, he had wanted that very much. At least the Orokin made sure they were never left to their own devices, and the awful thoughts that lingered there.

He takes the chit, shaking his head a tiny amount, sharply, as if to dispel an errant thought. Zek presses it against his wrist, and lifts his other hand, making a motion in front of him to activate his augmented reality display. He goes over the information presented in it quickly. A fair amount of it is just the usual form necessities, and he fills them in at the speed of thought. <"Alright. Everything else will need to be delivered, so, let's..."> He rises to his feet. <"...get going.">

<"There's nothing left for us here but ghosts.">
Kushiko <"True. Though some of them can be a little..."> She wavers her hand just so, before her own ship, signalled at some point, taxis back down to the canyon itself. <"... it's good to have someone else here,"> she admits, without realizing the thoughts might have been drifting in Zek's own tumbled head. <"The others are one thing, but we have not had a fellow Tenno with us for far too long.">

Her own display briefly comes up, and she thumbs a few things, a little additional missive here and there to keep things sped along for the process. <"Yes. Let's get moving."> And with that, she'll spiral upwards, leaping to and clinging to one side of the cliff, then another, then pulling herself into that same body-shaped recess before, and locking herself into place, before the capsule rotates back into place.

...and with that odd little Lotus symbol. She'll be needing to explain that later, perhaps, if that comes up.