Taylor pulled herself away from the riverbank, her boots squelching in the mud. Staying near the water was a death sentence. Venari was still lurking on the bank, and getting knocked into the current again might not end with her just crawling out.
She needed distance. She needed cover. And she desperately needed to warm up.
She stumbled toward the tree line, shivering. The cold wasn't just uncomfortable; it was a nagging weight that slowed her reflexes and dulled her focus. She couldn't afford that in a test filled with opponents faster than her eye could track.
She stopped at the edge of the woods and closed her eyes, reaching out.
Her bugs converged.
They crawled over her from head to toe, a writhing suit of living armor. Spiders, beetles, moths—thousands of them. She lost the sight of her own eyes almost immediately, but she didn't need them. Her swarm sense expanded outward, painting a three-dimensional picture of the forest in her mind. The darkness behind her eyelids didn't matter. She could feel the world.
She recalled a honeybee documentary she'd watched back when she first started researching her powers—how they vibrated their wing muscles to generate heat in the hive during winter. She didn't have enough bees for a hive, but she had moths, flies, and beetles.
She ordered them to vibrate.
A low, buzzing hum surrounded her as the insects worked. The friction of thousands of tiny wing muscles generated a surprising amount of warmth. The biting chill faded, replaced by a dull, rhythmic heat. It was uncomfortable, having bugs crawl all over her skin, but it was better than freezing.
As she walked, she became hyper-aware of the bugs covering her body. She could feel the specific dimensions of her own frame—the curve of her shoulders, the length of her arms, the bend of her knees—mapped out perfectly by the insects clinging to her.
A thought struck her.
If she could feel her own dimensions through them… could she project them?
She stopped and concentrated. From the mass of insects covering her, she pulled away a cluster, leaving a thin layer for warmth. She reshaped the extracted mass in the air, molding it.
She formed a column of bugs roughly her height and width.
She opened her eyes, letting her swarm sense overlap with her vision.
It was… sloppy. The legs were too thick, the torso lumpy. But the silhouette was undeniably human.
I made it, she thought with slight disbelief. It's a clone.
She directed the construct to walk. It moved jerkily, the insects struggling to maintain cohesion while mimicking a gait, but it moved.
Taylor felt a spark of excitement. She closed her eyes again, severing her visual connection and relying entirely on her swarm as she added more bugs to her body to match the clone's density.
She began to churn out more. One. Two. Five. Ten.
She spread them out in a loose perimeter around her, hiding her real body among the fakes. She stationed them near game trails and open clearings—bait for any pursuer watching from a distance.
She walked for a few minutes, her breathing steady, her body warm. But she noticed the forest around her was quiet.
Too quiet.
Her suspicion grew. Had she actually lost them? Or were they waiting for her to make a mistake?
Then, a voice.
It came from her left. It sounded amused.
"Clones, huh? Very impressive."
Taylor spun, her heart leaping into her throat as the bugs on her face parted to let her see.
The Tenno stood there, leaning casually against a tree trunk not twenty feet away. He hadn't been there a second ago. She hadn't sensed him arrive.
He tilted his head, his glowing eyes piercing through the gloom and locking onto the clone standing next to her.
"I wonder, though," he mused, tapping his chin. "Which one's real?"
Before Taylor could react, he vanished.
A split second later, she felt a disturbance in her swarm.
One of her clones—fifty feet to her right—simply ceased to exist. A shockwave of displaced air tore through the insects, scattering them to the winds. A fraction of a second after that, a massive crash echoed through the forest.
A tree toppled over with a thunderous groan, crashing to the ground right where another clone had been standing.
Taylor didn't stay to watch. She ran.
She sprinted into the thickest part of the forest, filling the air around her with a chaotic storm of insects. She churned the swarm into a frenzy, trying to create a smokescreen that would blind even him. Her clones broke off in different directions, a desperate attempt to confuse him further.
She idly wondered if she should drop the insect disguise before he blasted her, but decided against it. This was a test. Like Venari, he wouldn't leave damage he couldn't heal.
Thinking about it more, she realized she wasn't as safe as she thought. Tenno had once joked about bringing her back from the dead if she died during training. She hadn't laughed then. She wasn't laughing now.
She felt him reappear directly above her.
The displacement of air from his arrival killed bugs in the canopy. He was gone before she could even look up. He materialized ten feet to her left. Another clone died as he passed through it.
He vanished again, repeating the process. To the right. Behind. Left. He was everywhere and nowhere.
To her, this was worse than dealing with super speed. At least then she knew where they were coming from.
But it wasn't all bad.
As long as he was content playing whack-a-mole with her clones, she was fine. Every second he wasted dismantling a decoy was a second she bought for herself. She just had to keep the numbers up, keep the confusion high, and stay hidden within the noise.
She veered around a thick oak, preparing to spawn another cluster of duplicates—
And then he was there.
No warning. No displacement of air. Just a sudden, overwhelming weight slamming into her gut.
Taylor hit the ground hard, the breath driven from her lungs for the second time that morning. Before she could even process the impact, he was on top of her. He straddled her waist, pinning her hips to the dirt with terrifying ease.
He leaned down, his face inches from hers, and sing-songed, "Found you."
Panic spiked at the sight of his glowing eyes, but she strangled it immediately.
She forced the fear away, leaving her mind clear.
Tenno leaned back, shifting his weight. One hand pinning her left wrist to the earth, he reached toward her face with the other, fingers splayed wide.
Taylor directed the bees and wasps to sting him. But when they flew too close to his open palm, they simply... ceased to be. One moment they were there, the next they were dust.
She couldn't let that hand touch her.
She threw a punch with her free right hand, aiming for his jaw.
He caught it effortlessly. His grip was like iron, locking her fist in place mid-swing. A wide, boyish grin of glee stretched across his face, as if he was having the time of his life.
"Good attempt," he noted casually.
He began to push her captured fist back toward her own face, bringing his other hand—the disintegration hand—closer to her nose. The air near his fingertips seemed to warp and shimmer.
Taylor strained against him, but she might as well have been trying to move a mountain. He was playing with her.
Fight like your life depends on it.
The memory of his instruction echoed in her mind.
Like she had done with Venari, every insect nearby converged on the Operator's face.
They poured into his nose. They crammed into his mouth. They swarmed over his eyes and ears in a suffocating blanket of chitin and stingers.
The reaction was instantaneous.
He let out a muffled, choking shout. He released her hands and reeled back, clawing at his face as he fell off her, thrashing on the forest floor.
"Gah! MMMPH!"
She watched him impassively, not bothered by the sight of a kid her own age struggling for air.
It was the same clinical detachment a person might feel stomping an ant.
It was also that detachment that let her realize what she was doing was very wrong, and what the cause of it was.
Fear—cold, rational fear—flooded back in. Not fear of him, but fear of what she had done.
"Stop! Stop!" she yelled, waving her arms.
The swarm dissipated instantly. The insects retreated from his face, scattering into the canopy.
Taylor crawled toward him, her heart hammering. "Are you okay? I didn't—I thought—"
The Operator sat up, coughing and spitting out a half-drowned beetle. He wiped his sleeve across his face, clearing away the residue of bug parts and dust. He looked up at her.
He wasn't angry. He didn't even look hurt.
He looked disappointed.
"Taylor," he said plainly. "Why did you stop?"
She blinked, her mouth opening and closing. "I... you were choking. I thought I hurt you."
"You were winning," he said flatly. "You had me on the defensive. You compromised my breathing and my vision. And then you stopped to ask if I was okay."
He stood up, brushing dirt from his pants. He looked down at her with a critical eye.
"In a real fight, the moment you show mercy to an enemy stronger than you, you die."
Taylor looked away, shame warring with confusion. "I... I know. I just..."
She trailed off. The ground beneath her looked strange. The light had shifted.
She looked up.
A tall, black silhouette stood over her, blocking out the sun.
Umbra.
He hadn't been there a moment ago. He hadn't made a sound. He was simply there, looming like a statue of death, his sword resting against his shoulder.
Taylor froze.
The Operator's voice came calm and instructive from behind her.
"Lesson two, Taylor. The battlefield doesn't pause when you hesitate."
Before she could move, before she could even breathe, Umbra's hand shot out.
Rough, armored palms clamped onto her face.
Darkness followed instantly.
______________________________________
The stone cavern was quiet, save for the soft, rhythmic dripping of false water from the moss-covered roots above. The Operator stood in the center of the raised circular platform, his posture relaxed but his gaze distant, watching the memory of Taylor's test replay in his mind's eye.
Around him, the cave was far from empty.
Dozens of figures lounged against the uneven stone walls, floated cross-legged a few feet off the ground, or simply sat on the cool rock. Brothers and sisters, their faces lit by the soft blue glow of the projected memory, watched the replay of Taylor's training exercise with varying degrees of amusement and scrutiny.
"And then," the Operator narrated, his tone dry, "Umbra slammed her face into the dirt, knocking her out cold. That ended the exercise."
The scene played out exactly as he described, sending a ripple of snickers through the crowd.
It wasn't malicious laughter—though he was sure Taylor herself wouldn't have appreciated it—this was the raucous, affectionate amusement of a family watching a younger sibling face-plant during training.
"She groaned and whined a lot after that," the Operator admitted. "But she still didn't quit. I think she has potential. A lot of it."
The chuckles died down to appreciative nods. They knew grit when they saw it, and they respected Taylor for putting her life on the line for kids she didn't know. Though, showing them the memories of that night had earned him a fair bit of grief. Many of his siblings were on his case about not only getting rusty enough that a low-level threat like Lung landed a decent blow on him, but also his decision regarding Riley's treatment—it reminded them too much of the Narmer veil. However, they understood why he had chosen this path for her and offered advice on how to help her.
He would have preferred to ask the Lotus, but she was busy with something about a "Dark Refractory."
Al, his boy genius brother, looked at the Operator and nodded. "I agree, she's probably a genius too. You taught her a focusing technique in, what? Two days? And she used it to calm herself in the middle of a combat scenario? That usually takes a while to master."
The Operator shook his head, a faint smirk touching his lips. "That wasn't the focus technique."
The chatter in the room died instantly. Al stopped swinging his legs. Even the Drifter straightened up, raising an eyebrow.
"Explain," Al demanded, leaning forward with great interest.
"It was similar," the Operator admitted. "But from what I gathered ealier, Taylor didn't compartmentalize like I taught her. She took the concept I gave her and adapted it to her own power. Essentially, she created her own focus technique that allows her to dump all her emotions directly into her swarm to achieve a sort of zen state."
The Drifter stepped forward, the amused interest from earlier gone, replaced by a sharp, uncharacteristic seriousness. "You're letting her do that?"
The Operator blinked, surprised by the shift in tone. He knew the dangers of emotional suppression—everyone in this room did—but he hadn't expected the Drifter to be the one to lecture him on it. Then again, looking at his older counterpart's grim expression, he realized he should have. If anyone understood the consequences of numbing oneself to survive, it was the man who had lived through the endless loops of Duviri.
"She did it herself," the Operator responded defensively. "Plus, I didn't even know the extent she could do that until she tried to drown me."
His older counterpart paused, then sighed.
"You're right," the Drifter said, tempering his own emotions, his voice low. "It's just... letting her abuse that... It's dangerous. You of all people should know what happens when you start treating your emotions like something to be offloaded."
The Operator nodded slowly. "I'll monitor it," he promised. "I'll make sure she processes it properly during debriefs."
The Drifter held his gaze for a moment, then nodded, the tension leaving his shoulders. The serious atmosphere evaporated as quickly as it had come, replaced by a familiar, wolfish grin. He slung a heavy arm around the Operator's shoulders, pulling him close in a grip that was equal parts brotherly affection and trap.
"Sooo," the Drifter drawled, his voice echoing slightly too loud in the quiet cave. "Little me. What do you think about Taylor?"
The Operator raised an eyebrow. Around the room, the silence became very pointed. He noticed several sisters pretending to inspect their nails, while others suddenly found the moss on the ceiling fascinating or were giving him side-eyes from the corners of their vision.
They were all listening.
For what reason, the Operator didn't know. "We're connected on an existential level, and you've heard my reports. You know what I think of her. She's determined, creative, stubborn as hell..."
The Drifter groaned, shaking his head. "No, no. I mean, what do you think about her?"
"I think she needs to work on self-confidence," the Operator said honestly. "It's a very noticeable problem."
"This idiot," one of the sisters muttered, not even bothering to lower her voice.
"Shush!" the Drifter hissed over his shoulder before turning back to the Operator with a grin that was all teeth. "Let me clarify. Do you think she's... cute?"
The Operator paused, actually considering the question.
"Well," the Operator began, tilting his head thoughtfully. "She is... endearing. In a way. She reminds me of my first Kubrow. You know, before he grew into his armor and could rip a Grineer Elite's head off."
The Drifter's face fell. He stared at the Operator with the exhausted disappointment of a man realizing he was talking to a brick wall. "A puppy. You think she's cute... like a puppy."
"She has big, expressive eyes," the Operator reasoned, smiling as if he were finally understanding what the Drifter was implying. "And she makes this face when she's confused—"
The collective look of pity from his siblings made him falter mid-sentence.
"Stop," the Drifter groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Just... stop. Kid. I mean, do you think she is attractive? In the way that I think Aoi is attractive?"
The Operator froze.
Oh.
The Drifter's smirk widened insufferably as he saw the realization click. Around them, the Tenno sisters were practically vibrating with anticipation, their attempts at casual eavesdropping abandoned entirely.
The Operator stared at the Drifter, processing the comparison. He thought of the way the Drifter looked at Aoi—the softness in his eyes, the way his voice changed when he spoke to her, the constant need to be near her even during downtime.
His cheeks heated up as the associated memories of his counterpart filtered into his head. It wasn't a blush, not really—Tenno had better control than that—but it was close.
"I... hadn't really considered it," the Operator mumbled, trying to regain his composure. "And I honestly don't see her that way."
"Uh-huh," the Drifter said, his grin turning knowingly smug. "You do realize I share your head, right? There's something there. You just haven't figured it out yet."
"Like what?" the Operator shot back. "That she has a symmetrical face?"
A wave of laughter rippled through the room from some of his brothers.
"Besides, even if I did like her, you're forgetting that I'm old enough to be her ancestor," the Operator added quickly, straightening up and trying to sound like the responsible adult he technically wasn't. "And she's my recruit. It would be unprofessional."
"She's fifteen," the Drifter piped up from his shoulder, looking far too amused for the Operator's liking. "You're biologically around sixteen. That's a one-year gap."
"Plus, if you look at it temporally, she's technically the ancestor," Al added with a grin.
"Al!" the Operator snapped, but the boy had already vanished from sight, his laughter echoing through the cave. "Not helping!"
The Drifter laughed, squeezing the Operator's shoulder. "Relax. I'm just messing with you. Mostly." He leaned in conspiratorially. "But seriously, it doesn't have to be Taylor. Just try and give romance a chance. And remember, outside our little big family, the immortal dating pool is very small, and it gets even smaller when you're looking for anyone over a thousand years old who doesn't look like a Grineer Queen. So don't be picky."
"I'll keep that in mind," the Operator said, his voice as dry as the sands of Mars.
Suddenly, Al popped back into existence right in front of them.
"If you're worrying about mortality," Al started, his tone shifting to that of a lecturer. "We have fixes for that. We could hook her up with Transference and put her real body in stasis. Kuva can revitalize the body and transfer her mind into a new one. We could even use an Orokin rejuvenation treatment if she wanted. And if you're feeling really adventurous, there's always Sentient hybrid—"
The Operator didn't let him finish.
With a silent snarl, he launched himself off the platform. Al yelped, barely managing to blink out of existence before the Operator's hands could close around his throat. He reappeared ten feet away, hiding behind the legs of a brother, sticking his tongue out.
"Too slow, old man!"
The chase was on after that.
The Operator dashed, a blur of Void energy, weaving between stalactites and pillars. Al was fast—unnaturally so even for a Tenno—but the Operator was driven by the pure, unadulterated need to strangle his little brother. He used Void Dashes to close the distance in the blink of an eye, but Al always seemed to have an escape route, phasing through rock or utilizing a burst of speed that left afterimages.
"Fifty platinum on Al!" one of the sisters shouted.
"Hundred on the Blockhead! He's got the reach!" a younger brother countered.
"Place your bets! Place your bets!" The Drifter's voice rang out above the noise, suddenly holding a holographic ledger. "No refunds! We don't actually have the Plat, but honor system applies!"
The siblings roared their approval as Al and the Operator appeared in the center and engaged hand-to-hand, their eyes glowing brighter as they fed energy into the spectacle.
Al broke from the exchange and jumped forward, flipping over the Operator's head and kicking his arm away when he reached to grab him. "Is that all you got, old man? And here I thought you were the 'savior of the system'! You move like a heavy Grineer unit!"
He landed lightly, Void dashing back to gain distance before dusting off his shoulder. "Honestly, with skills like this, I can't believe they chose you for the Tenno Council over me!"
The Operator didn't dignify that with a response. He simply dove deeper into his connection to the Drifter, connecting himself with this place before snapping his fingers.
Time hiccupped.
Al's mocking expression froze. The world rewound. The echo of his own voice played backward in the air. He found himself yanked backward through space, his body resetting to a position he'd been in three seconds ago—right in front of the Operator, mid-monologue, arms wide open.
"Wait, what—"
Before Al could react, the Operator was on him. He slammed into the boy, driving him into the ground with a heavy thud. The Operator pinned Al's arms to the floor, grinning down at him.
"Gotcha."
"YOU CHEATED!" Al shrieked, struggling vainly against the grip. "You used the rewind! Temporal manipulation is a breach of the Sibling Combat Accords!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the Operator said smugly, leaning his weight on Al's chest. "I simply anticipated your trajectory. Maybe you're just getting slow, little brother. Also, I distinctly remember the accords only applying to the Conclave."
"I am not slow and this counts as a Conclave match! So you're still a cheater! Drifter! Drifter, tell everyone he used the rewind on a training spar!"
Al craned his neck, looking toward the edge of the platform where the Drifter was standing. The older man was currently hustling a group of their sisters.
"Pay up! That's three hundred for me," the Drifter said cheerfully, clicking his tongue at the ledger.
"You bet against me?!" Al screeched, seemingly more offended by that than his brother cheating.
"You were too cocky," the Drifter shrugged, not looking up. "And the odds were too good to pass up."
"You cheating cheaters! I'm telling—"
Al's outrage was cut short.
The cavern went cold.
A presence—vast, chaotic, and overwhelmingly familiar—washed over them.
The air in the center of the platform distorted, folding in on itself. The shadows lengthened, and from the nothingness, a figure stepped forward.
It was the Lotus.
She stood tall, her helmet obscuring her face, her posture perfect. But the resemblance stopped there. The aura wasn't maternal or guiding. The smile was too wide and inhuman.
Every single Tenno in the room stopped.
Reflexes honed by centuries of war kicked in. Dozens of hands snapped up, glowing with Void energy. Eyes flared brilliant, blinding colors. The Operator released Al and stepped back, power crackling in his palm, ready to blast the fake.
For a heartbeat, the cavern was a powder keg waiting for a spark. Anyone who knew anything about Tenno power knew there was enough of it in this cave to scar a planet.
Yet, the figure didn't even twitch. It just smiled as it tilted the Lotus's helmet to the side, the movement exaggerated and wrong.
"Hey kiddos," the figure rasped with her voice, the sound coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.
The tension broke instantly.
The Operator let out a long, weary sigh and lowered his hand. The glowing in his eyes dimmed. Al clicked his teeth. And around him, his siblings did much the same. The Void energy dissipated, leaving the cavern in a state of collective, profound annoyance.
"Oh," one of the little sisters muttered, dropping her tiny hand. "It's just him."
"Just him?" Al huffed, scrambling to his feet and brushing dirt off his pants. "Scared the crap out of me."
The figure—the Man in the Wall, wearing the Lotus like a cheap suit—gave a wide shrug. "Tough crowd. Usually, I get at least a little scream."
The Operator stared at the entity, his expression flat. He just crossed his arms.
"I was wondering when you'd show up. What do you want?" the Operator asked, annoyed.
The Man in the Wall laughed.
It was a jagged, broken sound—The Lotus's voice twisted into something discordant. It bounced off the stone walls, echoing with a mocking glee that made the Operators' skin crawl. Around the cavern, faces soured. None of them wanted to hear her laugh coming from him.
He began to walk. It was a leisurely stroll, hands clasped behind his back, moving with an unsettling fluidity. He circled the gathered Tenno like a predator surveying a zoo exhibit, his gaze lingering on each of them before he finally spoke.
"Haven't you guessed?"
The Operator watched him pass, his arms still crossed. "I stopped trying to understand you a long time ago."
The entity snickered, the sound bubbling up from nowhere. "Oh, I think you know me better than that. In fact..." His posture shifted, the playfulness evaporating into something predatory. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a guttural, vibrating growl. "You know exactly what I want."
The air in the cavern grew heavy. Around the room, eyes flared brighter as the Tenno tensed, hands twitching, the powder keg reignited.
The Operator didn't flinch. He didn't have to think hard. He knew exactly what the entity was after.
"Your finger," the Operator said flatly.
The Man in the Wall's smile stretched impossibly wide, the whites of the Lotus teeth clear for all to see.
"Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!" He mimicked the sound of a game show buzzer, hopping back with a giddy bounce. "That is correct! Give my favorite murder tyke a prize!"
He spun on his heel, facing the crowd.
"But," he continued, holding up a finger, "I already know you kids won't just give it back. You're too… attached."
He paused, letting the silence fester. He looked at the Operator, his expression turning uncomfortably serious.
"So, let's make a deal."
The room went dead silent, all knowing how the last deal went.
"Kill the girl," the Entity said, his voice smooth and reasonable. "Kill Taylor Hebert. Do that, and I'll send you home. No strings attached. No tricks like what I pulled with the old Drifter here."
The words hung in the air like a guillotine blade as the Drifter flipped him off.
Around the cavern, the siblings looked at one another. The glow in their eyes flickered. No words were spoken, but the air hummed with the silent, rapid-fire exchange of a hundred connected minds. A collective decision was being made in the span of a heartbeat.
The Operator glanced to his side. Al met his gaze. The boy genius didn't speak. He simply nodded once, sharp and firm.
The Operator turned back to the Man in the Wall. He looked the entity in the eye, his face a mask of stone.
"No."
The refusal was simple, yet absolute.
The Man in the Wall stared at him for a long moment.
Then, he sighed, his shoulders slumping in a theatrical pantomime of disappointment.
"Pity," he rasped.
But then the grin returned, stretching even wider with glee. His voice swelled, echoing from the stone walls, the dripping water, and the very air in their lungs.
"But this... this is way more fun."
The pressure in the cavern snapped. The entity dissolved, vanishing as if he had never been there at all.
Before the Operator could even lower his guard, a hand gripped his shoulder, spinning him around.
"Go," the Drifter said, his voice urgent. "Get back to Taylor. Now."
The Operator blinked, his mind still processing the entity's offer and what it could mean. "You think he'll act soon?"
"I think he doesn't make threats he doesn't intend to make good on," the Drifter replied grimly. "If he wants her dead, it's because her death serves him. And if he's willing to bargain, it means he wants it bad."
Al stepped forward, brow furrowed. "It doesn't make sense. What does a bug girl's death get him? I'd understand either of you two or one of us, but she's just a parahuman, and a weak one at that? Is he just messing with us again?"
"The future," the Drifter said simply.
Al frowned. "What?"
The Drifter turned to him, his expression hard. "He can see and travel through time, Al. He doesn't care about who she is now. He cares about who she becomes. Whatever makes her a threat to his goals... it happens in the future."
The Operator figured as much. It would be too much to hope for a being as old as the stars to play the short game. No, the bastard was trying to prune the timeline.
The Drifter turned back to the Operator, his grip tightening. "Whatever future he's afraid of, we have to make sure it happens. Protect her. Train her. Don't let him win."
The Operator nodded sharply and turned to his siblings. They nodded back. Goodbyes done, he closed his eyes, centering himself. The stone cavern dissolved into darkness. The faces of his family blurred into streaks of light. The sanctuary grew distant, fading into the recesses of his mind, traveling through the Void, back to Earth-Bet.
Back to Taylor.