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[Ashwinder] Chapter 3 - Cephalon Suda
🕑 Added 2024-12-16 04:52:52 +0000 UTCAN: If you're interested in joining my Discord server, you can do it at /x7xdd53WqE. It is a small server for now, but I am active there if you have any questions.
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Chapter 3 - Cephalon Suda
According to the special theory of relativity, only particles with zero rest mass can travel at the speed of light, and nothing may travel faster. Therefore, travelling from one corner of the Sol System to the other through conventional means should logically take decades or longer.
However, through the power of the Void, things previously thought impossible became real. Thousands of years ago, the Orokin Empire used to cover the entirety of the Origin System. Their scientists had developed a network of Solar Rails, highly advanced structures that used the power of the Void to teleport spaceships from one planet to another. 
Therefore, a trip from Jupiter to Mercury that would have normally taken a few years only took half an hour. Most of that time was spent just getting to Jupiter’s Solar Rail or docking in Larunda Relay’s hangar. 
Exhausted from the ordeal he had gone through and with his mind still in shambles due to his accidental Transference with the Warframe, Harry was still out of it when they arrived there. Even after the Liset landed in the hangar and he was brought out into the vacuum of space, he did not notice any discomfort or a lack of air.
The blast door serving as the entrance from the hangar into the relay opened, and the two Tenno walked in first, followed by Valkyr, who was carrying Harry on her back.
Two men wearing space combat suits and holding Boltor rifles similar to the one wielded by Rhino were standing guard in front of the inner entrance. The guards only gave a respectful salute to Warframe, not making any move to bar their entry. 
Once the Warframes passed through the screen of blue light covering the inner entrance, they were finally inside the actual relay.
The majestic architecture of that futuristic space city did not register in Harry's mind; his brain could not make sense of anything around him.
The three Warframes walked to the circular, glass elevator, which took them to the floor below. Soon, they arrived at Darvo’s Market in the North Wing of the relay.
“Come in, Tenno,” a middle-aged man greeted them.
His attire was proof of his identity: Darvo was a Corpus. Or, better said, he used to be. Nowadays, he was a rogue arms dealer with no allegiance to any major faction. That being said, the open-faced helmet he wore left the two tattooed lines on his chin visible. A more knowledgeable person would realise that Darvo was not just anybody; he used to be part of the upper class of Corpus. 
“Lotus, you are here already,” Galen projected his body outside his Warframe and said.
“You have returned safely,” the woman in question said in greeting.
She walked closer to them and glanced curiously at the boy whom Valkyr was carrying on her back. Lotus had lost her sight in an accident many years ago, but, thanks to the marvellous technology of her lotus-shaped helmet, she could see the world around her just as well as any other person.
But when she arrived within half a meter's distance from Valkyr, the warframe let out a low, threatening growl.
“You better go inside my quarters. I don’t want you scaring away all my customers,” Darvo said.
The number of people who had the stones to talk like that to a Tenno in the Origin System could be counted on the fingers of two hands, but Darvo had no reason to fear them. He had a close relationship with them. The Tenno had saved his life before, and he had helped them greatly in exchange too. Moreover, Darvo often gave the Tenno special offers and discounts on his wares.
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Nearly ten minutes after entering the building owned by Darvo, Lotus and the two Tenno had yet to find a solution to removing the teenager from Valkyr’s grasp.
Every time they tried to get closer, she would growl at them threateningly. Between the three of them, they could overpower Valkyr somehow, even if she was a Prime. However, fights between Warframes were always devastating. They wanted to avoid that scenario because they were inside a relay.
Galen tried to use his Transference on Valkyr, but a Void Blast threw him back violently into the opposite wall.
“I can’t enter her mind. It’s almost as if she’s already being controlled by someone else.”
“Let me try!” Angie said.
Despite her apparent age, neither Galen nor Lotus tried to stop her. Angie may have looked young and acted rather immature at times, but when it came to using the Void, her talent was in a league of its own.
Angie’s pink hair fluttered slightly, and her eyes gleamed with a bright blue light as she called upon her Void powers.
Unlike the first time she tried to use her Transference on Jupiter, in the Gas City, Angie seemed to succeed in infiltrating Valkyr’s mind this time around. The Warframe fell down to her knees, seemingly unresponsive.
The Ripline tying the boy to her back came loose, and he slid off on the floor as though he was paralysed, unable to stand.
Galen transferred his body back into his Rhino and rushed to grab Harry from the floor. His actions proved to be wise because, only a few moments later, Angie’s Transference broke.
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When she used her Transference on Valkyr, surprisingly, it wasn’t a memory of the Warframe that she accessed but a memory belonging to the boy that Valkyr had been carrying on her back.
The first thing she saw was a skinny, tall, and bald man with deathly-pale skin, blood-red eyes, and two slits instead of a nose.
“I said, bow.”
It was a different language, one that she had never heard in her entire life, but, due to being inside of Harry’s mind, Angie understood the man’s words. It was not only his knowledge that she had received but every single emotion and physical sensation that the boy felt, Angie experienced them too.
She could feel her nerves burning from what she assumed to be torture. She felt the same terror, pain, anger, and anxiety that Harry had felt at that moment.
The man raised his wand, and Angie felt her back strain as if a huge, invisible hand pressed on her from above, forcing her to bow.
“Very good,” said the man softly, and the spell that forced Angie to bow disappeared. “And now, you face me, like a man . . . straight-backed and proud, the way your father died. . . And now — we duel.”
The man raised his wand once more and spoke one word.
“Crucio.”
The pain was so intense, so all-consuming, that Angie no longer knew where she was. . . She had never experienced anything like that. Searing knives were piercing her skin and bones and every inch of her flesh was on fire; it was as if she was being burned and flayed alive, all at once.
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“What’s happening to her?!” Galen shouted as Lotus rushed to the little girl’s side and took her in her arms.
Fortunately, it looked as though the connection between the unknown boy and the Warframe had been broken due to Angie’s interference because Valkyr did not stand up; she was still kneeling on the floor. But the girl’s condition was not pretty. She was screaming and thrashing in agony. It was as if she was being tortured.
To everyone’s relief, Angie’s screams ceased after a few seconds, and she became still, falling unconscious. But their worries returned anew when the boy who was now being held by Rhino was engulfed by a blue aura, and he became conscious.
Although everything that happened until then had felt to Harry as though he had been in a bad dream, he was fully awake now. Realising that he was being held by one of the supersoldiers he had seen in his “nightmare”, his first reaction was to aim his wand at the Warframe’s wide chest and shout:
“Relashio!”
Galen was startled to see that his Warframe’s grip on the boy’s body broke. Not just that, but the two of them were pushed into opposite directions, and the boy jumped up to his feet, pointing his wand at them.
“Don’t come any closer!” he shouted. “I’m warning you!”
Lotus and Rhino glanced at each other. They couldn’t understand a word he was saying.
“Look, buddy, we aren’t going to hurt you if you cooperate,” Galen’s voice came from inside his Warframe, and he raised his hands up in the universal sign of showing his non-aggression.
But when he took a slow step forward, the boy shouted:
“Stupefy!”
A red bolt of light slammed into Rhino’s chest, but the Stunning Spell fizzled against his armoured skin fruitlessly before dying out.
Upon being attacked, Rhino burst forth from his spot, Charging at Harry. He didn’t even have time to react. Despite its size and weight, the juggernaut of a Warframe was deceptively fast, appearing as nothing but a blur in Harry’s eyes.
“Galen, don’t kill him!” Lotus said urgently.
The Tenno listened to her instructions because right as he was about to slam into Harry, his Charge came to a stop, and he grabbed Harry by the neck before shoving him roughly into the metallic wall.
The back of his head hit the wall so hard that his vision went white for a moment. Running on instinct, he raised his wand and aimed it at Rhino’s face as he shouted:
“Bombarda!”
Unfortunately, once again, his spell proved to be ineffective. It barely made Rhino’s head flinch, not leaving even a scratch on its metallic head.
He tried to cast another spell, but Rhino quickly yanked his wand out of his hand. Harry’s trusty wand, which had served him faithfully for nearly five years, was snapped and turned into nothing but a pile of wood chips in the Warframe’s powerful hand.
Shock and panic threatened to engulf him. He had just gotten out of a terrible “nightmare” but the reality appeared to be no different. No, it was even worse because his wand was broken. His only means of defending himself vanished.
In his fear, his Void powers lashed out, and another Void Blast pushed Rhino away more than five meters, making him stumble and fall to the floor.
Harry collapsed on the floor too, coughing and gasping after almost getting choked out.
Having used that new power several times before, he finally became aware of it and drew on it consciously.
Remembering how the female Warframe had protected him in his “bad dream”, Harry chose to bet on the possibility that she would do so again. He raised his arm, and a beam of blue light shot out of his hand, linking him with the kneeling, unresponsive Valkyr.
Just as Rhino stood up from the ground, the sharp tips of a claw-type weapon, a Venka Prime, poked the side of his neck. 
“If you make another move, you’re dead!” Harry threatened, still gasping for air.
It was not in his nature to kill, but he was at the end of his wits. He had been tortured after stepping through the Veil of Death by an eldritch horror, then he was chased and attacked by robots with plasma rifles, and then he was tortured once again, inside the ‘dream’, while experiencing the female supersoldier’s excruciating memories.
Galen and Lotus did not understand his words, but the meaning of his actions was clear.
It was at that moment that a drone flew inside the room, and a large hologram depicting a sophisticated, robotic-looking cube surrounded by 10 smaller cubes appeared from it.
“My name is Suda, and I am a Cephalon. Who might you be?”
The amiable, female voice seemed out of place in a room where one could cut tension with a knife.
Harry stared at the hologram and then at the woman with the strange helmet and the Rhino ‘super soldier’ next to her. He didn’t understand a word of what the Cephalon said.
“How come none of you speak English?”
It was ridiculous in his mind that someone who owned such advanced, futuristic technology could not understand English.
“How fascinating!” Cephalon Suda said, her voice tinged with awe.
“Do you understand what he said?” Lotus asked.
Cephalon Suda’s arrival was because of Lotus, who had called her over after Angie fell unconscious.
“He’s speaking a dead language, one from before the Lith era. It’s even older than the long-gone Orokin Empire. It is a language from over 20 thousand years ago, when the Earth was inhabited by billions of humans who were split into hundreds of different nations,” Cephalon Suda explained, her holographic manifestation glowing brighter as if to show her excitement. “How is this possible?”
Harry tensed as the cubic hologram flew closer to him and spoke in a very clear voice.
“Do you understand me now?”
Hearing someone talking to him in English, Harry felt as though a weight was lifted off his shoulders.
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‘I really am in space,’ Harry said to himself for what had to have been the hundredth time.
He stood on the balcony and stared at the vast, endless space through the large windows of Larunda Relay’s main lobby.
How many people on Earth have dreamed of going to space? Merely setting foot on the Moon had been a monumental effort and achievement in humanity’s history, and it has never been replicated ever since.
Yet there he was, a teenager who had never even gone to middle school, to say nothing about having any higher education, standing inside a colossal space city orbiting the planet Mercury.
Mercury was the closest planet to the Sun in the Origin System. The Sun appeared to be 3 times bigger to the naked eye than it was on Earth, in Harry’s memories, and its radiation was far more powerful.
As the rays of the sun peaked from behind the grey planet, the large windows of the lobby automatically tinted, blocking the powerful radiation in order to prevent people from going blind.
A peculiar sound, like that of a mixture between a hiss and a groan, came from the creature next to him. It was the white-armoured female ‘supersoldier’, Valkyr.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Naturally, the Warframe could not reply to him, but her body language and the direction of her gaze betrayed her curiosity.
Following her gaze, Harry noticed at the foot of the enormous statue in the lobby a man wearing dark blue, strange, rhombic-themed clothes and a rhombic helmet that covered his head and the upper half of his face. 
The moment that man stepped up on a platform made seemingly just for him, dozens of Warframes, supersoldiers similar to Valkyr, crowded around him. 
‘Is Valkyr really just a mindless ‘meat-suit’ as they called her?’ Harry wondered before returning his attention to the starry outer space.
He had been living in the Larunda Relay for two days now and had learnt many things in the meantime. One of those things he learnt was that the ‘supersoldiers’ he had seen so far were supposedly a bunch of mindless, rage-filled killing machines that only the Tenno could tame.
‘But I’m not one of those Tenno yet I can still control a Warframe. And Valkyr. . .’
A complicated expression surfaced on his face. He did not know what to feel about the Warframe that was following him around as though she were a loyal dog.
The Warframe’s recent behaviour in his presence—acting as though she were a curious, harmless cat—had almost fooled him into thinking that she was different. That she was not a rage-filled killing machine. But every time he realised he was having that kind of thoughts, he reminded himself of the massacre that Valkyr had committed in the Corpus-controlled space city and of the fact that he had almost died at her claws too.
On one hand, he was scared of her. The violent and brutal killings he had seen her commit still haunted him in his sleep. But on the other hand, now that his wand had been destroyed, Valkyr was the only thing he could rely on in this new, strange, and dangerous world.
“Harry Potter? It is time for your scheduled appointment with Cephalon Suda.”
Turning towards the voice, Harry saw a man wearing a black and grey combat suit decorated with magenta accents. It was the uniform worn by all those who belonged to Cephalon Suda’s syndicate. 
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Thanks to Lotus, and due to Cephalon Suda’s avid curiosity in regards to him and his origins, Harry had made a deal with Suda: the Cephalon would provide him with a translating chip and meet his basic biological needs such as food, water, and a place to sleep in exchange for him sharing his information with her.
As he and Valkyr followed behind the Suda Syndicate operative, Harry was inwardly at a loss for what to do.
Once they arrived at Suda’s headquarters, her pleasant voice greeted him happily.
“You seem distressed,” Suda remarked, the cube of light coming closer to him, simulating the way a human being would lean in closer to get a better look at someone. “Is there something on your mind?”
Harry took a seat on a cube the height of a chair and ran a hand through his messy black hair.
“You told me yesterday about the Grineer, their army of countless clones, and their desire to conquer the Origin System. And you also told me about the Corpus, the unscrupulous, cult-like corporation that would do anything for the sake of profit. . . but these don’t mean much to me. . . I am more interested in Earth. What happened to the Earth?”
“Your curiosity is understandable. Unfortunately, I am afraid I cannot give you pleasant news. The Earth had become largely uninhabitable due to excessive pollution. Its atmosphere had become too toxic for the human organism. The planet started healing as its vegetation adapted to the new living conditions, but then the Grineer arrived, poisoning the forests and burning everything in their path.”
As she spoke, various screens of light appeared in the air, showing Harry images and footage taken from the Earth. There seemed to be no traces of any human settlements, with most of the planet being covered by dense jungles.
“Nowadays, other than a tiny settlement called Cetus, which is under the protection of a sentient Orokin Tower, Earth is virtually uninhabited. Only Grineer, the Infestation, and mutated wildlife roam the planet.”
“This can’t be it,” Harry muttered, unwilling to easily accept those words as the truth. “There have to be more survivors than that!”
“I assure you that this data is 100% verified,” Cephalon Suda said.
Deep down, he understood how small was the chance for anyone to still be alive after the passing of so many millennia, but he could not give up on hope.
“No, you don’t understand. My people were different. We weren’t like other regular humans.”
“This is very intriguing. Would you please elaborate?”
He was going to break the Statue of Secrecy, but Harry could not bring himself to care about such things at that moment.
“Are you familiar with the fairy tales of old? The stories that parents used to read to their children back in my time? Stories about witches and wizards who could turn invisible, levitate things, transform into animals, and brew magical potions? Those weren’t just stories. We were- we are real.”
Cephalon Suda glowed with a very bright light.
“According to my readings of your vitals, there is a 96% probability that your words are the truth. How fascinating!”
Harry spent the better part of the next two hours telling Cephalon Suda all that he knew about the Wizarding World. He told her about the International Confederation of Wizards, about Hogwarts, about the Ministry of Magic, and many other things. The Cephalon’s affable behaviour and pleasant personality, coupled with the fact that he was desperate, made Harry latch onto the only semblance of an ally that he had.
He was way in over his head. He was just a 15-year-old boy who had somehow ended up 20,000 years in the future after nearly dying several times in less than 24 hours. In the first place, he couldn’t even begin to fathom such an absurd amount of time because, as far as he knew, the history of human civilisation was barely 6-7000 years old.
If not for the fact that he could see Mercury if he looked outside the relay's windows and countless spaceships landing and taking off from the relay’s hangar, he would not have believed that he had travelled that far into the future.
“How can I get back to Earth?” Harry asked eventually. "What do I have to do?”
“I would advise against performing such actions. You are ill-equipped to embark on such a journey,” Suda replied.
“So you’re telling me I’m stuck here? Is that just a fancy way of saying I’m a prisoner?” Harry said in anger, his quick temper flaring and his anxiety getting the better of him.
“As long as you leave the Warframe behind, you can depart from Larunda Relay any time you wish,” Suda said, not bothered by his outburst.
“How can I go without Valkyr?! She’s the only means of defending myself that I have!”
“Valkyr belongs to the Tenno,” the Cephalon said simply. “We cannot risk letting a Prime Warframe end up in the hands of the enemy. It would be a disastrous outcome. Grineer and Corpus are the enemies of all.”
“I wouldn’t need this Warframe if that Tenno didn’t destroy my wand!” Harry shouted.
“My data indicates that anger is a waste of energy,” Suda said. “Thinking calmly and rationally is 350% more likely to result in finding a solution to one’s predicament.”
At Suda’s response, Harry buried his face into his palms and let out a loud groan of exasperation.
“Goddamn it! What should I do then?”
Apparently, his turbulent emotions had been transmitted to Valkyr through their Transference link because the Warframe walked closer and knelt next to him. She didn't touch him but merely kneeling next to him was unknowingly bringing him a small measure of comfort.
“According to my analysis, you are suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Survivor’s Guilt, Depression, and critical levels of anxiety. The indicated course of action would be to rest and seek professional help. As it happens, I am qualified to provide such services. However, my data indicates that organic lifeforms will show better results from therapy by interacting with other organic lifeforms as opposed to interacting with beings of data such as I.”
Harry remained quiet for a while, and, unexpectedly, the Cephalon was tactful enough not to break the silence, letting him think in peace.
“I just want to see if I can find any surviving members of my people. Is it too much to ask?” he muttered in a defeated voice.
He was hoping that with their Warding Spells that made non-magicals ignore them, the wizards had managed to survive somehow. It was a very long shot, but it was the only thing he had.
“If you were to go now, you would not be allowed to take that Warframe with you,” Cephalon Suda reiterated. “You would have no means of defending yourself against the Grineer or the wildlife, which is far more dangerous than the fauna from 20,000 years ago. Furthermore, even if you were to succeed in escaping, your mere presence would spell doom for any colony you ended up taking refuge in.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is not clear yet how you have gained Void powers, but the fact is that you have the ability to control Warframes. The Corpus and the Grineer would be willing to spend untold amounts of money and resources to capture and experiment on someone like you, on a Tenno. You are a person of interest, Harry Potter.”
Hollow laughter escaped from Harry’s chest before he could stop it. Not even three days after travelling 20 thousand years into the future, he had already made it on the villains' hit list. The irony was just too much.
“May I suggest a proposal?” Cephalon Suda asked.
Taking Harry’s silence as agreement, she continued:
“I have studied the remains of your wand. According to my analysis, the chips of wood are from a species of tree called Ilex aquifolium, colloquially known as holly. Nevertheless, I could not identify the creature whose feather was used as the core of your wand.”
“It was the feather of a phoenix. It's a red, magical bird about the size of a swan. Phoenixes can control fire, they can teleport, and their tears have miraculous healing powers,” Harry said quickly, giving her all the information he had. "They can also carry weights many times heavier than themselves, and they are immortal, resurrecting from their ashes every time they die. Is there a way for you to fix it? Can you fix my wand?” he asked hopefully.
“An identical model could be replicated, but it is unknown whether it will contain the same allegedly mystical properties as the original.”
His disappointed face was so expressive that even the Cephalon felt the need to comfort him:
“I will continue analysing your wand and allocate a significant portion of my processing power to the task of replicating it. In the meantime, my suggestion would be for you to try forming a connection with the Tenno. Learning how to control your Void powers is imperative. It would increase your survival chances in the current era by approximately three thousand percent."
“That's. . . good to know," Harry said slowly, not expecting the Cephalon to give him such a ridiculous percentage. "Thank you, Suda. Truly. I don’t know what I would do without you. How can I repay you?”
Going by the increased brightness of her cubic hologram, Harry judged that she must be pleased by his words of gratitude.
“It brings me joy to see that you can be reasoned with. Concerning the matter of you repaying me, as a Cephalon, my goal is to collect and preserve knowledge. You are a very intriguing individual, Harry Potter. Your data is far more valuable than you think. You are unique; therefore, continuing to provide me with information about your abilities, your past, and the world that you used to live in is the best payment you could offer me in exchange for my services.”
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AN: Cephalons are former people who had been "digitised". Their brain/conscience had been turned into data. They became something like a super advanced AI, maintaining their memories and some of their personality traits from when they were alive.
Some people became Cephalons out of their own free will but the majority of them didn't. They were forced to, and their personalities were altered; they were brainwashed/reprogrammed. During the era of the Orokin Empire, turning living people into Cephalons was often used as a form of punishment/execution for those who offended the regime.
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