Wands and Warframes

[Darkphoenixlady]

Letter

"Harry?"
"Yes Lotus?" Harry says absently while looking through a recovered Orokin terminal on the Orcus Relay.
"What is that?"
The that in question is a brown avian with large eyes, sharp claws, and a beak designed for rending flesh. It was also wearing a harness and had a leather tie around one foot.
"According to ancient Orokin records, it's likely to be some sort of owl. Though they don't have much about them on this terminal. I'm still trying to find a translation program that will work on this letter."
"Letter?"
"Yes, it was carrying a small scroll, the scanner says that it is made out of skin of an animal. One that we have no records of in our databases. Neither does Simaris, in fact he offered me my pick of his offerings in trade when he found out about the owl."
Lotus is silent for a moment, "Harry, do you want to use the systems on Lua? They are still the originals that were there before I moved it into the void."
"There's an idea, thank you. Maybe they also have a record of the letter I was found with. Margulis used to tell me about it and how the original was being used to create new species for Earth." Harry sounds a little sad when talking about Margulis, though he does pack up and head back to his lander.
"I'm sorry I'm not her Harry"
"Don't be, I've had two wonderful mothers. Even when you were Natah the Sentient for a while, you were still my mother. Did you know that I never had my memory wiped, I don't think I've every mentioned that before. I still remember the look on Margulis' face when I came out of the device that was supposed to seal them away, and then ran towards her shouting 'Mama'"
Lotus considers that for a moment, "I can imagine. You always were an odd one Harry. You had less issues controlling your void energies and were far more versatile in what they could do."
Harry laughs, "According to Margulis, my existence did more to upend their ideas about souls too. There were some theories before I arrived that they yellow light seen when they convert a cephalon is actually the persons soul. Apparently, I had a fragment of another person's soul in my head."
"I hadn't heard about that."
"Mum, my first mum, used to talk to me about her work when she thought I was too young to understand. Something about the control exercises that they had us learn allowed me to remember everything perfectly. Including when you stood up to Hunhow for us before you took on a human form. Listen, I've just arrived at my lander, give me a day and I'll see you in person."
As he hangs up on the Lotus, he looks at the lander and then at the bird that's perched on his shoulder, "Ordis, do you have any thoughts about how to get an owl onto the orbiter without using the digitisation beam?"
"Ordis wonders if the Operator is Crazy forgetting the docking door."
"Thanks Ordis, I had forgotten. Could you open it for me."
"Ordis will manoeuvre the lander so you can use the door."
"Thank you Ordis."

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When Harry saw the Lotus waiting for him at the landing site he transferred out of his Equinox Prime and launched himself into a hug, "Mother!"
"Ooof. Hello Harry."
"I've missed you. How are you adjusting to being the Lotus again?"
"It is, interesting. Why did you suggest I take up this name again?"
Harry leans back, "Margulis was a woman who's boots you were trying to fill, and Natah is the person that your family moulded. However, the Lotus is the person you chose to be. The name that you took on yourself. Why wouldn't I want to honour that? Every one of us has been shaped by the war, and you allowed us to be our own people, why wouldn't you expect the same?"
"Thank you."
"Besides," Harry adds cheekily, "You're more cuddly like this."
Natah smiles at the most accepting of her Tenno, her children as he disengages and opens the airtight cabin to let the owl out. Using all of her senses she studies the owl trying to divine its origins, and comes up blank. They then walk together down to the original labs that Margulis used. Loading the scans of the parchment and owl into the labs computers unlocks a previously secured section of the servers. There they find a lot of speculation on DNA divergence points, as well as a translation program for the ancient language the letter is written in. There are copious notes by Silvana about how the differences were enabling her to develop flora and fauna that would be resistant to the pollution that was plaguing the earth. Apparently, all of the things he appeared with were made from organic materials that had retrievable DNA. The last thing they find is thousands of pages of research on the soul using the fragment they extracted from Harry's forehead. As Harry gets lost in the research and speculation about his origins, she takes the time to make some nanites to sustain the owl off of the ambient Orokin energy.

To Natah, the most important find was the original specifications for her ancestors along with speculation on how they could have incorporated a soul into it. Later investigation would reveal that every single project in that part of the servers had been banned and destroyed by the Orokin leadership at the time. Additionally, all of the scientists involved were put to death the same way that Margulis had been, with the sole exception of Silvana who went missing on Earth, and was presumed dead.

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Harry was absolutely engrossed, and then he came to the research about souls. The more he read, the more he was sickened by what happened to his first mother.
"Mum."
Natah looks over from a mission briefing she's giving, "Yes Harry?"
"Thank you for killing the Orokin."
"Ah, er," She quickly turns back to the briefing, "Sorry to cut this short Tenno, the Grineer and Corpus are arguing about territory again and are willing to pay quite handsomely for your help. Pick a side, and if you see out the campaign then you'll get your pay." She then closes the call quickly before giving Harry her full attention.
"What brought this on."
"I've been reading up on the Jade Light. Those, those, corpus execs, were destroying peoples souls. Not just the Oro, but the soul itself. That's why their Oro, where they've survived in the past, didn't bring them back."
"Harry, have you read the letter yet?"
"I know what you're doing Mum, and no I haven't"
"Well, maybe we should read it together."
__________ School of Witchcraft and ____________
Headmaster: ___________ ____________ (Order of _______, First Class, Grand _______, ___ ___________, Supreme ________, International ___________ of Wizards)
Dear Mr Potter,
We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at __________ School of Witchcraft and ________. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.
Term begins on 1 ___________. We await your owl by no later than 31 ______.
Yours Sincerely,
___________ _______
Deputy Headmistress
Harry shakes his head, "That's a lot of unknown words."
"What was written on the other side?"
"Oh, just the nav-coordinates of my location when the owl arrived. I checked that with Ordis as soon as I got the letter on board the Orbiter."
Natah nods, "Let us craft a reply, and send it on it's way."

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Minerva looks up as one of the long-distance school owls appears in her office while she's just sat down to do some paperwork. Which is odd, as she'd just sent off the last batch of school letters. Her eyes widen as the implication sinks in, this is the owl that she sent out with Harry's letter. It is with a sinking feeling that she retrieves the letter from the owls leg, as the only reason the owl would be that quick is if the letter was undeliverable.
She's reaching for her wand to vanish the letter before taking the news to the headmaster when her brain catches up to what her fingers are telling her. This isn't parchment.
Fingers trembling she opens the letter to see printed text in both English and an unknown language.

Dear Deputy Headmistress

We received have your letter, and have translated best as we can. Please could you provide coordinates for navigate us to find you. I am interested in attending your educational establishment, do you have a place where the downloaded buy the books?

We will also compilation need of your calendar and how relates it to your star system, as we share not the same.

Regards

Natah (The Lotus), Harry.

Sent at Tau-71324998 Rath-89423843 Vela-13024935 Lemos-24194340 Orion-65732041 Gro-27843519 from Sol, Milky way.

Clutching the letter tightly she scrambles around her desk, catching her thigh on the corner, and fair runs to the headmasters office.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Corrispondence

Minerva skids to a halt by the gargoyle and almost collapses from the pain in her thigh. She should have taken it more easily until the muscle recovered on its own. But needs must, and talking about needs.
"Move, unless you want to be a bunny rabbit for the next school year. I have urgent news for the headmaster."
The gargoyle that guards the Headmasters office looks reprovingly at her, but does reluctantly step to one side. Limping up the stairs she pushes open the door to his office without fanfare.
Albus looks up from his own paperwork with some surprise, "Minerva, to what do I owe the pleasure?"
"It's Harry, he's replied to his letter. Though it seems a little odd."
Albus' gaze sharpens, "Odd how?"
"It's like he never learnt English. Here, see for yourself."

She hands over both copies of the letter and waits silently while he reads the letter multiple times. She swears that she can see his hand reach for a quill in order to correct the grammar or word choice, even though there's only a few lines to it. Eventually he puts the letter on his desk before removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

"Well?"
"He is 11, and interested in coming. Talk to Aurora and see if she can make heads or tails of this. While you're doing that I'll draft a response. I wonder why he referred to you by your title and not your name."

Pulling his wand he duplicates the letter, then frowns when the copy doesn't have any writing on it. Instead it has black smudges where the text should be. Fixing the image in his mind, he casts the duplication spell again, with the same result. With a sigh he assumes that there's some sort of copy protection on the letter, so he pulls out a sheet of parchment and spells a quill to transcribe the letter onto the new parchment. Once she has the copy, Minerva goes off to find the Astronomy teacher to see if she can shed any light on those numbers.

Once he's alone, Albus casts some detection spells on the letter, trying to find out why he couldn't copy it. Much to his frustration, the letter shows no signs of magic. It also shows no sign of ink either. Even his alchemy spells say that it is a uniform sheet of material with no deviations within standard tolerances1​.

Unfortunately, Aurora doesn't know what the numbers at the bottom of the letter mean. As such, over the rest of the day they draft a letter back to Harry trying to describe calendar. It's over breakfast that Aurora hears them bickering, and comes up with the suggestion that they end up going with. Include a calendar with each day clearly marked, and the summer and winter solstice indicated. They should also indicate when they received his letter, and when they sent the reply.

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It's almost 3 months later, and Harry is in the process of culling the Grineer Ghouls in the middle of Africa when out of nowhere an owl appears and tries to land on his Mesa frame. That lasts all of a couple of seconds before one of the ghouls tries to eat it, and with a disgruntled squark, it takes off. Unfortunately for Harry and the Owl, there's a Dargyn skiff keeping an eye on the fight, looking to take an opportunistic shot at Harry if he disengages. As soon as it finishes it's identification scan of the avian, and comes up with unknown, it's reported up the chain. Much to Harry's disgust, this means that his current location becomes the most coveted vacationing spot for every Grineer within short range radio link. It gets so bad that Harry eventually posts an urgent help bounty using his own carefully hoarded platinum. With the distraction caused by his fellow Tenno, and the onset of night and the sentient fragments rising from the depths, he is finally able to exfiltrate with the owl not only alive, but also intact.

Once behind the Orokin era walls of Cetus, Harry transfers out of his warframe and allows the owl to land on his shoulder.
"Hello there, you've been gone a while. Come on, as we're planetside, let's see Master Teasonai and see if he has any treats that are safe for you to eat."

Walking through the village is an interesting experience, as it seems like everyone wants to look at the owl. Eventually he is able to make his way to see Teasonai, who upon seeing the owl immediately stop talking to his current customer.
"Tenno, what a pleasure. And this fine specimen of a bird, where did you find it?"
"It's an owl, and I didn't find it, it found me. They're apparently used for carrying letters, as you can see."
"Is that what that is, how odd. How do you read it?"
"They've applied a substance to the surface of the animal skin." Harry removes the letter and unfolds it to show the proof.
"That seems widely wasteful, there are so many better things that the components of that letter could be used for."
"Tell me about it, they have an educational establishment that they've invited me to. I'm seriously thinking of going just to find out how they can afford to be so wasteful. Anyway, enough about my mail, can you examine the owl and let me know if there's anything I need to do to care for it properly."
"Hmm, if you'll allow me to look after it for an hour I'll give it a full diagnostic."

An hour later, and a cryptic message from the Quills contact Onkko, Harry returns to see how the owl is getting on.

"Absolutely amazing, the owl shares a lot of similarities with the local wildlife. Which, apart from the insects, seems to have come from a different evolutionary tree to everything else in the solar system. The only animals that seem to share the same evolutionary tree as us are kubrow and kavats of course."
"Um, yeah, there's a pretty good reason for that. However, I'm not really at liberty to talk about it."
"No, no I understand. You Tenno come across secrets all the time, and you trade on your reputation."
"Look, New Loka might have more information if you can sweet talk them."
"Those crazies? I doubt anyone from Cetus could step one foot inside one of their compounds without having weapons pointed at them. If my curiosity becomes bad enough I will send one of my apprentices. Anyway, your, owl was it? Yes, owl. It had some parasites living in it's feathers. We have extracted them and are keeping them for study. It also had no antibodies for any of the illnesses found on the plains. We noticed that it already had some nanites, so we've just reprogrammed them to also act as a second immune system. It should also be safe to transport it the same way you transport your other living companions. Also, you are aware that the harness is made from animal skins?"
"We were, thank you for pointing it out though. I need to get going, as this letter isn't going to translate itself."
"Thank you for allowing me to see such a magnificent specimen of a unique animal that isn't infested."

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Harry makes his way to Lua with the letter, as his lander is coming in to the landing pad he muses that it's almost like having a home. Oh, he has his orbiter and railjack, but they don't have the same feel as working near to his mother. He sometimes wonders whether he'd have been kicked out, like Rell was, if he'd been older when he appeared on the Ten-Zero. Then again, it's probably not fair on the other Tenno, who were all going through puberty when the accident happened. As a result, he had a very different experience with Margulis, and then Natah, than they did. He doesn't remember his parents trying to kill him, though there is that memory of a man shooting a green light. Disembarking, he makes his way down to the Lab and his mothers workspace. As he approaches, her pod opens and she disconnects from the computer network.
"Harry, welcome back."
"Mother, it's good to see you." – He indicates the owl – "We have another letter."

Dear Mr Potter _ Natah
Thank you for your prompt response, we have included a calendar with this letter. On the back our Astronomy Teacher has drawn our solar system as well as a diagram of the tilt of earth. We have marked the day with the most daylight as well as the day with the least. These are the Summer _______ and the Winter ________. We have also marked the date we received your letter, and the date that this letter was sent.

It is currently the 24th​ July, and we would like to arrange for a teacher to visit on the 31st​ of July. If possible we would take you to diagonally for your supplies, including an owl for your own correspondence.

Please let me know if the date is suitable for you, and feel free to ask me any questions. I will do my best to answer them.

Yours Sincerely

_________ ___________

Harry's eyebrows furrow as he finishes reading the letter, and looking at the associated calendar and diagram.
"Mum"
"Yes Harry?"
"I think they live on earth."
"What do you mean?"
He takes the back of the calendar over to where she's hooked into the computer systems, "Look, the orbits are slightly off, but all the major bodies of the solar system are there. Though they have an asteroid belt for some reason. Then they've got a satellite that's slightly larger than half the size of Mars, just like Lua. Then there's the axial tilt they're describing."
"I see. It is plausible if the owl is using the void to travel. Though, it would be unique amongst all of the known species, as even Tenno need technological aid to transition into the void proper. If that is the case, we will need to construct a void beacon for your railjack to home in on. I don't think we should construct a solar rail, as we do not want the Corpus or Grineer, let alone the infested, to find their way to their world."
"Could we do a series of beacons, like the ones that lead to the derelicts in the void? I know we've now isolated all of the beacons for them now, but if someone decides to follow me I'd rather have a chance to notice and ditch them before I arrive at an unspoiled planet."
"You would make a good Sentient Harry. Seeking to protect a system from those who would only exploit it."
"Thanks Mum, but I like my limbs organic."
"Of course, I'll be coming with you for the first trip. I'm sure that Teshin, can, take over…" Natah trails off as she remembers that Teshin was killed by her brother.
"I miss him too. It wasn't your fault, you were trapped."
"It's just, he took over when I was lost to myself."
"I'm sure there's a copy of Ordis floating around somewhere, and you could always ask Maroo to interact with the organics. She's pretty much neutral."
Natah laughs, "You've made your point. Now Tenno there is an urgent mission to be taken care of. You need to write a reply while I make a small temporal tracker. I want to know exactly how long it takes for the messages to get there and back. The second stage of your mission is to collect 20,000 navigation coordinates so that we can use the information from the tracker to plot a course."
"Do they need to be new coordinates?"
"No?"
"Oh, goody, here you go."
"No Harry not in here, just send them to me normally."

It takes a few days, but they put together a small tracker that fits unobtrusively inside the harness the owl is wearing. Most of that time is spent working out how to use the Orokin technology to achieve what they want by reading manuals and notes. They also write a letter.

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Just over an hour after she sent the letter, the Owl returns and deposits a new letter to the desk of Minerva McGonagall.
Dear Deputy Headmistress,
We would be delighted to meet the representation of staff. However, as it has already been 3 days since this message received, we request that you send back owl immediately with a note to say what the date is. It is carrying a tracker that calculate a route to your planet should enable us from where we are.
Regards,

Natah (The Lotus), Harry.

Minerva snorts, of course there'd be time magic involved. Well, nothing for it but to reply assuring them that it's not quite the strangest situation she's seen. Granted, there's no topping Xeno Lovegood's visit and walking in on a fairy orgy with a little time magic mixed in. As she recalls, it took five minutes to get in and then drag the underaged Lovegood out. However, 4 days had passed on the outside. Quickly penning a reply, also including the current time and a note that time magic tends to be very localised. So, if they walk at most a mile from their current location they should return to normal time. Letter penned; she attaches it to the owls' leg before sending it off.


1​Unknown to him, in the absence of any form of written communication anywhere in the solar system, and the resources needed to make paper or parchment being so valuable for other things, the solution that Harry and Natah eventually came up with, was to produce an organosilicon sheet of material where the letters were just the same molecule in a different alignment, thus changing the way they reflect light. The result of this is that the document is essentially one giant molecule.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Research

Natah looks at the data from her tracking unit with no small amount of consternation. According to the data, it was in an area bounded by no more than 1 rel on a planetary body for 923 seconds after. Before and after that it was in motion. The total journey time was only 2,000 seconds. However, it arrived back with them 146,724 seconds after they sent it. The only way that this should be possible is if the destination was near a black hole. However, the transit times were far too quick for that to have been the case. Also concerning is the fact that the tracking unit had traces of void energy on it. This is also worrying in its implications, as not even Tenno have been able to reliably manage long distance unassisted void travel. It also means that she'd be unable to travel with Harry to this educational institution. Idly she calls up the research on souls and the speculation on how to give a Sentient a soul. Could that be what she was missing, all of her children have reported seeing phenomenon in the void, but no probes or recording devices have ever reported any such thing. Even her own trip through the void when Harry rescued her was void of such things. If she's right, then it would also allow her to safely traverse the void and provide her with the same protection to void damage that the creatures of this system seem to enjoy.

Reaching over to her helmet, she places it on her head and accesses The Lotus' systems to record a new message.
"Tenno, this is a capture mission. Your target is a Sentient so you will need to immobilise it before you attempt the capture. Use a Kinetic Siphon Trap to immobilise your target for capture. Remember, we need the target alive."
She then sets up a series of bounties on Lua for her Tenno to bring a small variety of sub-sapient Sentient Drones. If she's going to try to give a sentient a soul, she's going to do it with those that don't have the sense of self necessary to complain first. Idly she considers whether she should share this with the others before discarding the idea. She may revisit it in the event she ever returns to her home, no, her place of birth. This is her home now, and the others can't really see that.

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Harry jumps as his communicator activates to show The Lotus, "Tenno, there is a new quest available."
"Hi mum."
"This is official, so Lotus please."
"Yes Lotus." Harry says before opening up the quest information, "Lotus, why do I need to run 20 void mobile defense missions?"
"The tracking cloud was unable to follow the beacon, this suggests the creature is capable of void travel. I will be configuring the amplification arrays to track the signal. Once it is complete we will send the creature out again."
Harry sighs, just his luck she'll need a selection of towers. Not just the lightly contested ones.

A couple of months later he troops into the Lotus' labs wearing a Nezha, "Hey Mum, it's done."
Once she's finished with her call, Natah takes off her "So I see, they're all working perfectly. I was just tracking your progress to Earth. I see you also took the time to take on some of the capture targets."
"I did, what do you need them for?"
"I wanted to visit this planet with you, to see what sort of technology they have that allows them to use animals like that owl to deliver messages safely through the void. Not to mention being able to use animal skins and precious compounds to make a physical record of a message. Their world must be a technological marvel, maybe what the Orokin could have been."
"Well they did send me here safely. Though, apparently here was likely less safe than they expected. I do wonder why they never came to find me though."
"I might have an answer to that, especially if tracing the next letter works. The total round trip time from when you let the owl go to when it returned was 2,000 seconds, to the nearest second."
"And in numbers that the rest of us can visualise?"
"Around 15 minutes."
"Wait, really? It was gone nearly a day."
"146,724 seconds, to the nearest second."
"Mum, now you're just being difficult."
Natah just smiles at Harry.
"Fine, so that's 2… thousand, not quite 21, so that's 20 remainder that. Wait, 20 hours and 31 minutes give or take?"
"Well done Harry, and you didn't use your implants either. I'm impressed."
"Wait, the implants do more than just allow communications?"
"Yes, how do you think Ballas kept doing all the stuff he did, or how he was able to steal my power?"
"Why didn't anyone tell me that."
"Because you were a child, and then because you were a weapon to be used. All Tenno are also Orokin, and have the same implants and nanites as they did."
"That's why you were supposed to destroy us isn't it."
Natah nods.
"So how do I use the implants for more than just communications?"
"You already do. Remember what your orbiter looked like before it was powered on properly?" Harry nods, "That's what it looks like for anyone without implants or sentient systems. What you're seeing is your implants interacting with the systems built into those locations. Once you've learnt to access your implants consciously, you'd have been taught how to use them to direct the energy produced by Orokin reactors. Then how to interface with and direct the computers. I've been reading more of the notes from the secured section, and the discussions they were having on whether to teach the Tenno how to actually use their implants. They wouldn't have started until your brain reached full maturity, so it was never on the cards for you. But most of the other Tenno passed that threshold within 5 years, with the youngest of them taking 8 years. You were the only child under the age of 10 to survive, and they weren't sure how you managed to avoid the predations of the adults long enough to be found by the children."
"Are you ok Mum?"
"It is disturbing to read these reports, we thought that the Orokin were all the enemy, and they were. It's just that not everyone we thought was Orokin were Orokin. Most were slaves in all but name, chained by implanted commands or implants like Tenshin was. Or just denied an Oro, or even the implants needed to use their technology. They used their own population in experiments as though they were less than them. Oh, Umbra was a special case, as he was a Dax, one level down from Orokin like Margulis and Ballas. I'm coming to believe that Margulis was an aberration amongst the Orokin, because she seems to have actually cared about you. But even there, she looked at you especially Harry. I've found discussions about how you've got the best genetic reconstructions she's ever seen, and how using your information they've been able to improve the viability of the Grineer clones by 10 years. This is massive, as it suggests that originally Grineer were only expected to live at most 5-10 years. They expected that implementing these improvements would pay for itself within 5 generations in terms of resources saved."
Harry looks sick, he has some friends in the Steel Meridian, and the idea that he was partially responsible for their condition, no matter how indirectly, sickened him. Granted he had more friends in New Loka and the Perrin Initiative, it made balancing his long-standing friendship with Cephalon Suda and his standing with New Loka look easy in comparison. Not that he can blame them for it, the Grineer as a whole don't really understand the whole family thing. Something to do with being created in a tube and then programmed with all the skills you need to know. It leads to some odd disconnects, even amongst those free of the hard wired loyalty to their queens.

"Harry, don't think about it too deeply. Apart from the family on Demios, they're all dead now. And all of this happened hundreds of years ago."
Harry laughs humourlessly, "I'm supposed to be a battle-hardened Tenno, and here I am being upset that I was used to increase the amount of suffering the Grineer go through just so that they needed to clone less of them."
"Aren't you the one that keeps telling me that I chose to be The Lotus? What about you? Are you Tenno or Harry?"
"I'm Harry of course."
"Then as Harry, you are allowed to be upset at these things. Anyway, are you ready to send the letter?"
"I am."
"Then I'm activating all of the trace programs, release in 3…2…1…Go!"

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Minerva yawned as she clambers off her bed and heads into the bathroom. As she's crossing her living room an owl swoops down and lands on the back of her armchair by the fire. Absently she unties the letter and summons an owl treat with her wand before continuing into the bathroom. She's just sat down and is staring at the letter when her sleep fogged brain clears enough to realise what just happened. It takes all of her experience not to immediately get up and check the door to her quarters. Instead, she opens the letter in a shaky hand.

Dear Deputy Headmistress,

Thank you for your prompt reply, and your suggestion. However, we are currently restricted to the solar system, so we cannot test the idea that moving one M I L E would allow us to leave the effect. We are however trying to plot a route to your location, so if you would return the owl with a letter in a day's time it would be greatly appreciated. We think that we will have nearly 90 days to try and locate you during that period.

Regards,

Natah (The Lotus), Harry.

Numbly she sits there and lets the letter drift to the floor, Solar system, they don't know what a mile is. It looks like they actually drew out the word. Where is Harry? When she finished with her morning ablutions and was dressed. She calmly, collectedly, and unhurriedly made her way to breakfast where she deliberately savoured every bite before making her way to her office. She then wrote a letter to a fellow Master in India that she'd corresponded with about a few articles in Transfiguration Today. Normally, she wouldn't expect a reply for a least a week due to the distance the owls have to fly. Restricted to the Solar System. She is only mildly surprised when the owl returns 30 minutes later with a bright red letter in its talons

"What the hell Professor McGonagall, I was in a meeting and your owl just breezes in as though our wards don't exist. If you are going to run magical experiments again in the future let me know in advance so that you don't cause a panic.

Madhavacharta Ashtikar"

Opening the bottom drawer of her desk she looks longingly at the bottle while she tries to decide if it's too early to have a dram or two.

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It's a couple of months later when Natah calls out, "Harry, I think I've got it."
Harry comes over, "Got what?"
"The location of the planet the educational establishment is on." – She points at a graph on the screen that shows a massive dip followed by two small spikes – "See here where the signal redshifts just below the detectable range of the Antenna, and then blueshifts for a few hours twice. I manufactured a drone with a trailing antenna twice as long and launched into the void around Lua. With that I was able to detect the signal. I then sent out a few Railjack missions to deposit copies of these drones in different parts of the void. This allowed me to draw a 4d map of where the signal overlaps and calculate the probable coordinates. Then, taking measurements at different times, I was able to configure the systems here to calculate its motion relative to us, giving us this 5d plot. It turns out it's not a long distance by Railjack, but you will be going deeper than anyone has ever gone before and returned to tell the tale, at least according to the records here. Not even the Ten-zero went as deep. Because of that we need to ensure that you have a receiver that can pick up the blue shifted signals from here."
"Ok, what does that mean?"
"You're going to need to talk with Cephalon Cy about installing a somatic link into your Railjack, along with designing a lander segment. He should enjoy the challenge. You'll also not have access to the storage on your Orbiter, so if you want to take anything you'll need to make sure it's on your Railjack. And, no that doesn't mean your entire plushie and bobblehead collection."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Visit

Albus looks over his desk at his Deputy with some concern, "Are you sure you want to do this? We could send Hagrid."
"No, I've been the main contact through the letters, and I want to see that he's ok with my own eyes. That and they might have an issue with time magic, and Hagrid wouldn't be able to deal with that."
"But how are you going to get there?"
"I spoke to Fawkes while you were out, and he agreed to take me."
"I can't persuade you to let another staff member go?"
"Apart from you Albus, I am the most experienced staff member, and most able to deal with any situation that might arise."
Slumping in his chair, Albus strokes his beard in a comforting gesture, "I'm not going to talk you out of this am I."
"No, I allowed you to leave him with those ghastly muggles and now he's who knows where. This time I'm not going to leave him to fend for himself."
Albus decides to keep quiet about the fact that Petunia never even saw the boy.

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Natah looks down at the most recent sentient that she's worked on since setting the capture bounty. A feeling of melancholy comes over her as she considers the irony that these Sentients can be made here, while those that are sapient like herself become sterile when they pass through the gap. Not only has it survived the experience, but there also seems to be a spark of something in it's movements. Harry comes in wearing one of his warframes, Banshee Prime if she's not mistaken, as he does, the sentient flinches at his presence. That's, unusual. She holds out a hand palm facing towards Harry, and he stops. After a few minutes of not dying, the Sentient starts looking for a way out, and failing that moves as far away from Harry as it can.
"Mum. What did you do?"
Natah thinks for a moment, "I think I've given it a soul."
"I hope you're not going to do this to yourself after only one success."
Natah laughs, "No Harry, I'm not going to perform an experimental procedure on myself that has currently killed 157 out of 158 sentients it has been tried on."
"Good, I don't want to lose you so soon after getting to know you."
"You won't. Now be ready to dodge, I'm going to turn its weapons back on."

Harry's ready when it does immediately open fire, what he wasn't ready for is the fact it shot the floor in front of him. Even so, he jumps backwards and to one side, then watches in amazement as it doesn't immediately follow up on the first shots. "Mum."
"Yes Harry."
"Have you just turned a Sentient killing machine into a wild animal?"
"It seems that way."
"Right, just wanted to be sure. Anyway, you wanted me to give you a couple of hours warning before the teacher was due to arrive."
"Oh, yes, I need to set up the scanning equipment. Thank you Harry, could you give me a hand with it?"
"Sure."
"You know, Maroo seems to be doing really well as the face of the Tenno. She seems to have enough hardened explorer vibe to make people treat with her seriously."
"Told you."
"Yes you did. Though Ordis isn't doing so well communicating with the Tenno, I have to take over far too much."
"What about what's her face, the Dax that's moved in with Maroo. She's been around as long as Tenshin was."
"I'll approach her to see, how's the modifications to your railjack coming along?"
"We've had to get rid of the forward-facing turret, so I'm missing my heaviest guns. But Cy wouldn't let me get rid of the bottom or rear placements. The entire cargo bay has been converted into a pod room, along with wall mounts for 6 warframes and my armoury. I've also got space for Whisker to live too."
"That's your kavat isn't it."
"It is. In deference to the fact I might be transporting human guests, I've also installed a few seats I recovered from an Orokin derelict. I'm also leaving Nidus behind, as I don't want to spread the infestation to a virgin system. I've also taken each of the frames I'm going to take to the helminth before taking them straight to the Railjack."
"Well done, I'd forgotten about that. Do you have a foundry?"
"Yep, fully stocked too, as well as a Mod workstation."
"Well, let's get those scanners set up."
"What are we going to do about the language thing."
"I've repaired your old pod and added the flash training matrix to it. It's slightly different for adults than children, but they'll have the basic knowledge they need to operate here. Apparently it wasn't too rare for people to marry down, so they had processes in place to elevate them."

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​

Minerva double checked that she had her travel trunk in her pocket along with her wand and old armour, though it was a little more snug than it used to be. Fawkes alights on her shoulder and Albus gives her a cheery wave before she's engulfed in flames. Then she's standing on a smooth stone floor in a cave that's open to the stars on one side with a blue green moon hanging full in the air. Off to one side is a human woman with a strange headdress looking at something and swearing in a foreign language. Looming over her is a Golem of unknown construction. The only indication she has that she's in the right place is the owl sitting on the Golems shoulder. The Golem says something, before shrugging and turning towards her, and then Harry comes out of it's chest. She'd recognise the Potter profile anywhere, and the eyes are pure Lily.
"Harry, I'm so glad to see you."
"Whorre, Pum whepo yeep slip wonk worr. Caxan ug kot dinke zo dew wholo." He opens the lid on some sort of casket with a seat inside it and indicates between her and the seat. Not recognising the language in any way, she walks over and sits in the chair. Harry then does something and she blacks out.

Minerva wakes up feeling rested and pain free for the first time in what seems like forever. Opening her eyes she can see the inside of her healing pod with the internal controls in front of her face. Outside the pod there are a couple of people talking. Her eyes widen when she realises that she didn't know all of this when she got into the pod. Quickly stabbing the release, she sits up as the lid opens.

"Mum, mum, Natah!"
"It's impossible, it can't be true, there was no void wake, only visible light and heat."
"Mum! It's clearly possible as it happened. Besides, she's awake."

Minerva looks over at the voices, to see the woman working on a dataslate while Harry is standing beside her trying to talk to her.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but what happened?"
Harry looks over at her, "Sorry about my mum, but she can get like this when things don't make sense. She's sometimes worse than a Corpus Exec that's gotten wind of a possible profit-making opportunity."
"What, why does what you just said make sense?"
"The pod you were in ran you through a flash training program. It basically hijacks your dream state in order to integrate whatever it's supposed to teach you. You might dream about being different people for a few weeks, but that's just your brain cementing the information. Looking at the display it also fixed your eyesight, replaced your liver and kidneys, healed some arthritis in your left knee. Removed a proto-cancer in your ovaries and corrected the genetic defect that led to it. Oh, and removed all the heavy metals, primarily lead, that weren't supposed to be there. They're in the cup on the left-hand side. You've also been given the immunisations you need to live here without dying of something virulent."
"How long did this take?"
"Around 4 hours."
"Oh, no, we're going to miss the shops in Diagon Alley"
"Don't worry about time, we've calculated that we're running between 70 and 90 times faster than you are. That means that you've only been here for 2-3 minutes."
Minerva stops and stares at Harry for a moment, "Harry, I assumed that you were just large for your age. But how long have you been here?"
Harry shrugs, "Around 800 years give or take."
She sags back into the seat, "But, how?"
"I appeared on the Zariman 10-zero while it was stuck in the void. I was in a basket with a blanket and a letter. From what I've been told, it was stuck there for 6 months after I arrived. The void has left a permanent mark on all of the survivors of that time, and the rest is not something I feel comfortable sharing with you just yet, as I've only found out recently myself. Suffice to say that we are functionally immortal. Mum is also functionally immortal, but for a different reason. A side effect of that is that we stopped aging just before we hit true adulthood. Physically, I'm around 16."
"Today's supposed to be your 11th​ birthday, I was expecting you to be slightly older because of the time problems you were describing in your letters. But this is a bit more than I was expecting. Let me get out and unpack my trunk."
"Before you do that, why don't we move into the complex so that we don't need to worry about powering the atmospheric shields."
"Atmos…pher…ic shields." – She slowly turns to look at the blue green moon hanging in the sky – "That's Earth isn't it."
"It is."
"That means we're standing on the Moon."
"We call it Lua, but yes."
Shakily she points at the Earth, "That's the Earth."
"Yes."
"And we're standing on the Moon Lua."
"Yes."
"Impossible."
"Now you sound like mum."
Natah finally walks over still scowling at her datapad, "Harry, I'm not that bad."
"Mum, you were literally just complaining about how something you just saw happen was impossible. Yes you are."

Deciding that the Deputy was in shock, Harry transfers back into his Banshee Prime and sweeps her up into a princess carry before starting to walk back into the compound with The Lotus. Minerva turns her head to study the Golem and realises that it has breasts and a defined waist.
"Harry, is your Golem female?"
"She's a warframe, and yes she is."
Minerva nods, that makes more sense than it being a golem, "Why are you using a female warframe?"
"She feels more comfortable today."
The Lotus looks up from her datapad, shakes her head slightly to clear her head of her business persona, and Natah says, "Gender is somewhat optional for Tenno. Warframes are somewhat alive, though most of them don't have the ability to act on their own. They still have their own experiences, feelings, and opinions. When a Tenno has transferred into a warframe it's body becomes their body. What it feels they feel. Their arm is it's arm. In essence they provide the mind and motive force. Some of them were sapient before the Orokin turned them into warframes, and in the process driving them insane."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Meet the Family

Minerva conjures a chair and sits down weakly, to more exclamations of "That's impossible, there were no energy spikes it just appeared." She smiles as part of this is going according to script, that smile quickly turns into a frown as Harry does the same and produces a sofa made from gold and some white material. Waving her wand she casts a couple of analysis charms to try to determine the magic it used and stares as it just comes up as a muggle artifact. Her own complaints join that of The Lotus, as the shocks keep mounting up. She's in a place where they can do magic that is not magic, and Harry has been alive for over 800 years.

Harry just sits back on his sofa and smiles at both of them complaining about something being impossible because it doesn't conform to their rules. After a few minutes enjoying the schadenfreude he interrupts both their thought processes.
"Mum, Headmistress, just quit it. Just because you don't know how it works doesn't make it impossible. The Headmistress."
"McGonagall. Professor Minerva McGonagall."
"McGonagall knows how to use magic, and I have an invitation to their educational establishment to learn how to use it myself. You know how to use physics, and I know how to use the void. Mum, the only difference between void and magic is that you can detect and analyse void, but you don't have anything that can detect magic yet. McGonagall, you seem to only know about magic."
Minerva shakes her head, "I know quite a bit about what can be done without magic as I introduce muggleborn students to the magical world every year."
Harry thinks for a moment, "Then it's likely that they aren't as advanced technologically as we are. Either way, the point is the same, you are both experts in your own fields, and what you are seeing falls outside anything you could have expected."
Natah looks at Harry, "Why aren't you bothered by this?"
Harry laughs, "Mum, I'm not a scientist, have you seen how much Grineer waste has come out of the woodwork over the last couple of years that looks like it shouldn't be possible. Yet nearly all of it has a sound scientific basis. I had to learn to just take things as they are and deal with them."
"I suppose it could look like that."
"Mum, you're not human. You have senses that I couldn't even name, let alone comprehend."
Minerva looks sharply at Harry, "Your mother isn't human?"
"Yeah, she's a Sentient. From what we've been able to piece together, they were terraforming machines that gained sapience while doing their jobs in the Tau system. They then decided that they quite liked the system they'd just terraformed, and they'd rather their creators didn't come and ruin it all the way they've ruined their home system, this one. So they started a war that the Orokin were losing. I was 12 or 13 when Mum subverted us, the Tenno, and got us to fight against the Orokin. She then went against orders, and hid Lua rather than kill us."
Natah nods, "It's a rather short summation, but there's nothing untrue in that."
Minerva girds herself, takes her trunk off of her belt before placing it on the floor and unshrinking it with a wave of her wand. Ignoring the gasp behind her she opens the lid and climbs down the ladder inside before retrieving a bottle of Ogden's finest and a couple of glasses. Wordlessly she hands one of the glasses to Natah before opening the bottle and pouring both of them a triple.
"Bottoms up", she upends the glass and swallows the whole thing in one go, Natah follows suit a moment later. She feels the magic working and lets the belch rise up and a gout of flame spews across the room.
"That's better." She then enjoys the rather surprised and confused expression on Natah's face as she does the same thing. She can't even bring herself to care that Natah isn't magical so she'll need healing later.
Slurring slightly she says, "Harry's mum, I note that we never got around to introducing each other with all the impossibilities going around. I'm Minerva McGonagall. Minnie to my friends."
"I am The Lotus, Natah to my friends and family. Well, really just Harry."
"I would be honoured to be able to call you Natah."
"That would be good. What's happening to me?"
"It would be the magic in drink, makes it work on anything. Look, the label even guarantees that half a bottle will even get a Giant drunk. Don't get much more magic resistant than a Giant."
"Why not give Harry some?"
Minerva slurs a laugh, "Harry's 11, can't be giving children alcohol."
Harry decides to leave them to it at that point.

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"I don't get it Cy, both of them are supposed to be highly intelligent representatives of their respective species, and yet they couldn't acknowledge that the other was doing stuff they had no explanation for."
"I have seen many crew on the ships that I have served on. One thing that has always been true is that the younger members have a certain flexibility of thought that the older members lacked. I've seen many of you Tenno since you rebuilt me, and you are all the same. Young adults just on the cusp of adult development. Often ruled by your emotions more than your heads, but able to react and adapt to new situations far faster than more experienced heads in similar situations. It is why you are still employed even though for many the name Tenno is a curse word. The Lotus and the new teacher have maturity on you, which serves them well in it's own way. Much like Tenshin was able to plan far in advance of most Tenno, they can both see far reaching consequences of what they know. Give them a few days and I have no doubt that they will both have accepted the others impossibilities and either be working to understand them, or just accept that they're there."
"Thanks Cy, I guess it's hard to believe that physical maturity makes such a difference."
"As a cephalon I have different limitations, so it's easier for me to see. Equally, we have trouble with abstract notions."
"You mean like music?"
"Yes, like music."
"I think I'm going to bring Octavia, Titania, and Wisp with me."
"They are all good choices, though lacking in the ability to just take punishment."
"I don't think I'll need that sort of ability there, but I'm going to take Atlas, Oberon, and Gauss, no Loki on the other side."
"Why not take your Ivara?"
"Because I want a balance of male and female."
"I can't say I understand organics fascination with gender."
"Neither do we most of the time, we just know what feels comfortable. And sometimes different gender frames feel more comfortable."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Do you feel comfortable as you?"
"Yeah, most of the time. When I don't I'll slip into a warframe. It's not like I couldn't change everything apart from the plumbing using my orbiter pod anyway."

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Natah looks at the human Minerva with some amusement as she wakes up in a pod. Serves her right for inflicting that on the organic parts of her chassis. Turning back to her notes on the latest experiment along with the analysis of the changes to the first survivor, she is amused at the sounds of pain coming from the human and wonders how long it will take them to figure out they can just make the pod remove the hangover.

What she's seeing from the results of adding a soul is, concerning. The sentient has minor changes throughout its chassis and programming. Part of which brings hope into her heart, a rudimentary reproduction system. The changes to the programming are more worrying, as its precepts have changed priority and preservation of self is stubbornly at the top of the list. Second on the list is garbage as far as her instruments can tell. A goblet filled with h2​O appears on the surface beside her, and her manipulation arms twitch slightly. Harry was right earlier, it's clearly not impossible if it just happened. It just took several hours for her systems to adjust to the idea there was something she couldn't explain, they then started making theories for how to start to explain the phenomenon.
"Good Morning, assuming morning exists on the Moon."
"Commonly, organics use the term for the start of their waking period if they're not on a planet with a near 24 hour cycle."
"Why are you sitting in that massive construction, and what happened to your face?"
"My systems have been undergoing reconfiguration to account for previously unknown phenomenon. The datalink between the main chassis and this form is not wide enough for that purpose so I recombined the two in order to facilitate the process."
"You sound different too."
"It is harder to appreciate organic matters when I am like this as I have full access to all of my senses. The increased processing power also leaves me a little disassociated from things that seem important when I'm only using the subframe."
"I see. I'd like to apologise for the way I was behaving yesterday, I came here with an incorrect set of assumptions and I reacted badly to having them thrown in my face."
"It is of no issue. It is why my systems are reconfiguring after all. Though I will say, I'm pretty sure that you don't see. That is something that can be changed if you'd like, as there is a proven procedure for converting an organic to a Sentient. Additionally, with this research you won't even lose your soul." She waves a manipulator at the display in front of her.
Minerva doesn't even twitch at the display, "I see, what research is this?"
"The Tenno get their name from the ship that they were found on, the Zariman Ten-Zero. The ship was a Military Vessel being used for experiments in the void. According to the official records there were no civilians on board. According to these sealed records they were experimenting on the effects of void exposure. Harry appeared on this ship before it returned to real space, which is why he's part of the Tenno. What they found when they examined him after he was recovered allowed them to confirm the existence of the soul. They then theorised that it is possible to give my kind souls when they're made."
"You don't have a soul?"
"Correct. Over the last year I theorised that it's why the void is so problematic for us. I have successfully given two of the lesser Sentients souls, and I'm analysing the changes that have happened to them."
"How did Harry prove that souls exist?"
"Read for yourself." Natah hands Minerva a data pad with the relevant research open.

Sometime later Natah was interrupted from her scans of Fawkes by Minerva swearing, "That Whiskered old goat I won't remove the scar because scars can be useful indeed. What did you know you old bastard?"
"Are you ok Professor?"
"I've just read the description of where they found the soul, and what they did to remove it."
"Why did that cause you to suffer a bout of anger?"
"Because I asked Albus about removing the scar when we were dropping him off with his relatives. He assured me that it was better to leave it."
"Did you know it held a soul then?"
"No."
"Do you have reason to believe that he did?"
"No, we thought it was dark magic."
"How would you have removed it if it was dark magic?"
"It would have needed a long stay in a magical hospital and specialist magic to slowly leech the magic from the wound so that they could then heal it."
"According to the letter he was found with, his parents had just been killed and he was being placed where he was for protection. How safe would he have been if he went through that process?"
"I, dammit, how can you be so reasonable?"
"The emotional routines that I developed when I tried to destroy this part of myself are deadened while I'm whole. It makes being impartial easier, but the trade-off is that I find it harder to treat organics as people that have feelings. Harry stopped me from destroying either part of myself and continue being The Lotus. I sometimes wonder if he was right."
"I've seen lots of children come through Hogwarts over the last 50 years, and some of them become what their families want, and others become what they want. The only thing that is consistent is that they are always who they are. You can't take away parts of them and still have a whole person, something breaks every single time. Then the mind healers at St Mungos have to earn their pay by putting them back together again. Good or bad we are always more than the sum of everything we have experienced, and removing part of that hurts us more than you'd expect."

"Merlin, I need to take Harry to Diagon Alley."
"His Railjack is not yet ready to head to your system, also I will not be able to accompany you until I am confident enough in my research to give myself a soul, as the void is not forgiving to my kind."
"Void? You've mentioned it before."
"It looks like grey mist when you travel through it, and it's how the owl has been getting between us."
"I didn't travel through a void, Fawkes brought me here by phoenix travel. He has consented to help me do Harry's shopping. Why are you preparing his Railjack?"
"Tenno need their Somatic Link while they're asleep, as it allows them to continue to inhabit their warframes. Without that their void powers can react to their emotions while they dream, causing damage and injury to people and things around them."
"I see, I will be sure to let his head of house know once he's been sorted. Will you be coming with us?"
"Will Fawkes be able to take one of the captured Sentients first, I'll disable the weaponry. Don't worry, they're sub-sapient and programmed for particular tasks."
"Why don't you ask him yourself, he is quite intelligent."
Natah turns to the phoenix that is somehow looking smug in the middle of her equipment, "Fawkes, would you mind taking one of the captured sentients to diagonally and bring them back to see if it's safe for me to be transported by you."
Fawkes trills and launches off the pedestal he's perched on, flys around the room once and then dives at her. She has only an instant to react before she's engulfed in flames and appears on the steps of a white building on a planet. Her systems reel from the shock and change in input and busily start to gather data on the new location, first noting the lack of any Orokin systems communications beacons or energy flows. Idly she notes that some of the organics have drawn wands or swords and are watching her warily. Her logic processes point out that she does actually count as a captured sentient given what she's found out the Orokin did to her.
"I'm assuming you can understand me, so could you take me back please?" She adds the please as she doesn't want to be stranded here while there's so much going wrong in the Orokin system. A flash of fire later and she is standing in front of Minerva, who is trying to reassure a distraught Harry. As soon as he notices that she's there he launches into a hug. She still doesn't understand how he can be so accepting. Diagnostics are already running before he's taken a step towards her, and are coming up clean.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Shopping? No banking.

After quite a lot of arguing, Harry had been allowed to travel to Diagon Alley in his Titania frame. So it was that the three of them appeared on the steps of Gringotts in a flash of fire. Fawkes immediately moving to perch on top of Natah's chassis. Minerva steps forward to talk to one of the Aurors that had showed up in the brief window of time since Fawkes brought Natah last time.
"Good day Auror…"
"Prentice Professor. What's going on, and what's with the monsters?"
"I'm showing a student around, they're the one wearing the butterfly themed armour."
"And the other one?"
"Their adoptive mother."
"I see, I think I should assign an escort while you're here." He looks nervously at the rather large sword on the back of the person in armour.
"I assure you that I am perfectly capable of looking after my charges on my own. Or are you going to argue that."
"No Professor, it's just."
"Just?"
"Nothing professor."
"Good, make sure it stays that way."
"But what about their weapons?"
Minerva looks pointedly at the wand in his hand.
"We don't know what she might do with that sword."
"Auror Prentice, you are carrying a deadly weapon that you've been trained to use. You are surrounded by people carrying the same weapon, and you are worried about a sword?"
"Off with you, and if I catch you trying to make trouble for my student, you'll wish that Madam Bones got to you first. Oh, and existing isn't yet a crime before one of the bumbling idiots in the Ministry starts trying to throw their weight around."
Turning around, she stalks back to Harry and Natah, who seem to be in a stand-off with the goblin guards.
"What is going on here?"
"They are refusing to remove their disguises before entering."
"At least this will be easy to sort out, they're not disguises. This is like a suit of armour," – She indicates Harry – "and this one is her actual body" – She indicates Natah – "Additionally, neither of them speaks English."
Turning to the two she says, "The guard thought that you were in disguise and was trying to get you to remove them before entering. I'm going to tell them that we need to see an account manager."
Harry nods in response so she switches back to English, "We need to see an account manager, are you going to refuse to let us in?"
The guard looks Harry up and down, "I'm going to need to take the lady's sword."
Minerva hesitates before translating that.
"Tell him, if he can take it then I'll let him hold on to it."
"What? Are you insane?"
"I refuse to just relinquish my weapons."
Minerva swallows hard, "She said, if he can take it you can hold onto it."
The guard barks a laugh, "In you go then, see that she behaves or else."
As they enter the bank, all eyes seem to watch them. Though goblins seem to be watching the sword more than the people. Minerva walks up to one of the tellers, the witches and wizards in the queue suddenly finding a better queue to be in when Harry and Natah follow her.
"How can I help you witch?"
Knowing that the counters have a muffling effect, Minerva isn't afraid to say, "I want to speak with the Potter Account Manager about Business my charge has with them."
"And does your charge have a key?"
"Not that they know is their key."
"I see. Hooknow, take these people to accounts verification. Follow this goblin, they will take you to have their identity verified."
Minerva is quite glad of the break, as translating is harder than she'd ever thought it was. Next time she does a summer lecture on Transfiguration she'll have to thank the interpreter.

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Harry and Natah shuffle into a cramped office with a ceiling that is barely high enough for Natah to float upright. In front of them sits a small goblin on a chair sized for him against a desk sized for a human.
"You claim you need to see the Potter account manager."
Minerva replies, "We do, I have the Potter heir with me."
"I was under the impression that the Potter heir was male."
Harry decides that this is probably the right time to transfer out of Titania, so she kneels down in seiza and transfers out in he same position before standing up, "I am Harry. Apparently, I also have the name Potter."
"Interesting magic, I suppose you're going to show me your scar now."
Harry looks confused, "Which one?"
"Why the one on your forehead."
"That would be a little difficult as it was treated and removed when I was a toddler."
"I can't say I've heard that particular excuse before. Well, now we come to the fun part, finding out if you're family enough to wear the heirs ring."
"Don't you have my birth parents DNA on record? You could then just do a comparison of my DNA with theirs to check that I'm their child."
"Their what now on record?"
"Oh void, just give me the stupid ring then. I'll come back with a corpus dataslate and a rechargeable scanner later and teach you about DNA."
Minerva interjects, "Harry, are you sure?"
"Yeah, what's it going to do? Bite me?"
"No, it could kill you."
"Really?"
"Yes, if your magic isn't a close enough match to the magic on record it will react with your own magic. If you're too distant then it could kill you."
"Huh, fair enough. I'll still do it."

Goldsaw watches with interest as this human converses with the professor in a language that the translation matrix on the desk can't translate. His ears raise in surprise when the Professor confirms that he'll try the ring. Most of the other claimants in the past balked at that requirement. Opening a drawer, he pulls out one of the ring boxes and places it on the desk before opening it. The teenager takes the ring and places it on a finger, and nothing happens. His ears lie flat against his head at this result, the ring should react in some way.
"I need the ring back to check that the magic is still functional."
They shrug and slip the ring off. Lifting it off the desk he feels out the enchantments, and they are still active. "I need to cast a spell on you to try to find out why the ring didn't work."
"Go ahead."
Goldsaw uses a basic diagnostic spell that will tell the magical status of a being. This comes up positive, so it's not a mundane that has been roped into this. Another spell checks for blockages, and there's the problem. Something they're wearing is completely suppressing their magic.
"Something is suppressing your magic, can you take of any rings, jewellery, pins, or assorted magical items and try again."
Interesting, that's not a Golem as Gringotts has yet to find a Golem anywhere that can hold a conversation, especially an animated one like that one. What they assumed was a golem gestures to a bracer that the youth is wearing. What so special about that bracer, it's made with some strange materials, but he can't sense anything magical about it.
The Professor speaks up for them, "Account Manager, Harry asks that you stand behind him as he removes the amp so that if he loses control over his void abilities you won't be in the line of fire."
Ears peaking in interest, Goldsaw does what any intelligent goblin would do, moves out of the line of fire. When the bracer is removed he feels a tingling across his scalp, like something wrong has just appeared in the room. It looks like the Professor has felt it too. This time when the human puts on the ring it activates and draws a drop of blood into it. That means he's close enough that he could be the heir.
"Minerva, I thought you said it wouldn't bite me."
Goldsaw sneers at the Professor, I bet she translated that without thinking, "Young man, that bite was the ring taking a sample of your blood. That means that your close enough to being the heir that you're now the Account managers problem, not mine. Now get out, time is money after all."
The human laughs as they return to their armour, "Such a corpus thing to say."

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Harry follows another Goblin to yet another cramped room, there the goblin meets them at the door.
"Good Morning Mr Potter, I am sorry to say that we have been unable to locate any translation personnel for your language. Also, I'm afraid that our meeting will need to be delayed, as you have a queue of guards wanting to take you up on your offer to 'take your sword from you'"
"Oh, thank the void I get to do something other than sit around in meetings."
The goblin seems to chuckle, "Indeed, if you will follow me, we will get this over and done with."
The group of them are led deeper into the bank, to an arena of reasonable size that is just hardpacked earth covered with a layer of sand and sawdust. There's a scattering of Goblins watching the various fights currently going on. When they see the group enter more than a few of them run out excitedly as the fights on the floor start to wrap up and leave.
"Mr Potter, I am obliged to tell you that you can hand over the weapon now and avoid a fight."
Confused, Harry says, "Why would I do that?"
"Indeed, however many have done precisely that. Once you are on the floor you are only allowed melee weapons and armour. No ranged weapons or magic." – Minerva adds – "Or abilities that seem like magic."
Harry fair bounces in place as he hands his weapons to his mother. Holding War he vaults onto the arena floor and runs through a few bouncing katas to get a feel for how much room is available.

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Natah watches as her son draws the eyes of all the goblins in the arena with the basic moves that all Tenno learn under fire. People always forget why Warframes have the word War in them. Despite the fact that there are only thousands of Tenno, they successfully waged war against the Sentients, and then the Orokin. Often with only one or two of her children in any particular battle. So far as her sensors can tell, there are only around 5,000 organics in these caves. Most of them concentrated within a mile of their current location. It's interesting that there is such a high level of genetic diversity represented here.
"Account Manager. May I ask a question about your species?"
Minerva drags her attention away from the spectacle below to stare at Natah before belatedly translating what was just asked.
"Certainly, I can't promise to answer, and I have questions of my own."
"There seems to only be 5,000 organics in these tunnels, but you have high levels of genetic diversity. Is this just a small village?"
The account manager stares at her for a long moment while Minerva does the same, "No, Gringotts is the largest goblin settlement in the world. We use an apprenticeship system, and all apprenticeships have to be with another clan. Is Mr Potter representative of his species wherever you come from?"
"Humans, no. Tenno are not representative of humans. However, he is representative of Tenno. Why is this settlement so small?"
"Wars won and lost with Wizards and the resulting Treaties. What is the armour he is wearing?"
"It is more like a full body prosthetic designed for war. It also allows Tenno to safely be around people before they have learnt control of their void abilities. Why have you not settled elsewhere?"
"I see, I don't know what veld – void – abilities are. Where would we go? The statute of secrecy prevents us from living amongst the mundane, and there are no remote parts of the world that are both inhabitable and unsettled by humans. What about where you're from?"
"Earth is untamed, despite the best efforts of the Grineer, and sparsely populated. Nights are unsafe as Sentient remnants from the Old War rise from undergrounds and attack any humanoid they can see. However, it can be beautiful, and deadly. There are a few enclaves of humans scattered around, but for the most part it is controlled by the industry of the Grineer and their Queens as they try to subdue the wilds to be more inline with the environments they thrive in."
"We have families that would be willing to take that risk. The guard is entering the arena, I see he has decided to wear his combat armour."
"I don't think it will do that much good, your people seem to be too static in their fighting techniques."
They watch as the contest begins, it's clear that the guard is an expert with their axe as in the currently static fight they are overwhelming Harry in pure skill. However, the Tenno have to face of against the best of the Grineer Prosecutors, who are able to parry most weapons fire, and so often need to be faced in melee. The point where Harry got fed up trading blows and blocks and started moving was starkly obvious as the whole pace of the battle changed. The guard quickly became overwhelmed by just how mobile a warframe is, the fight finally ends when Harry manages to jump over the guard and immediately start a slide attack that's almost faster than they eye can see, and leaves the guard lying on the floor missing both legs. She watches as a couple of Goblins run out from a side door and do something to prevent the guard from bleeding.
"That was different. Do all Tenno strike to kill?"
"Yes, we are able to repair their warframes easily, and the enemies that they face are striving to kill them."
Natah looks down at Minerva's ashen face, "Professor are you ok? You seem pale."
"He didn't even hesitate."
"Of course not, hesitation is death."
"But he's so young."
"Professor, you're forgetting that he's over 800 years old. 2-300 of which was spent awake and fighting in a war, both in the past and in the last few years. All the Tenno have an innocence to them, but that's due to the processes that prevent them from fully maturing, not because they've not seen the worst that can be done to people. The systems we have prevent trauma from embedding in the deeper parts of their minds, while they can still learn from their experiences. Another name for transference is The Second Dream, and it is named that because that's how it can seem while you're in it."
Natah turns to the Account Manager, "Forgive Professor, they are innocent. Yes, hesitate is die. Live enemies, dead Tenno."
The account manager looks surprised, "You have picked up English very quickly."
"Is English language name? Have been monitoring conversations, more data easier understand."
"It's still bad though."
"Estimate 3 hours till fluency."
"And Mr Potter?"
"Not Sentient or cephalon, take person time."
Harry jumps up out of the Arena, "That was fun. He was good, but like the Grineer, they don't train against agile people like us."

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They were finally allowed out of the bank after Harry had to listen to what felt like hundreds of documents being read out and translated, followed by signing said documents. They even had a person in from the guards department to witness him making an oath on a glowing crystal stating that he was older than 18 years. Thus he was now recognised as an adult, rights – including inheritance - pending completion of a valid course of magical education to bird level. Thinking about it, the only thing they said it meant is that he didn't need a guardian that could do magic. There was depressingly little wealth in his vault, with only a little bit of bronze in the way of stuff that would actually sell at home. The bulk of the contents was Auron, which he has far more of in his orbiter, followed by a metal called silver, which can't be that useful if he's never seen it before. Then they have to get the value backwards, Auron being most valuable, despite the fact that the Grineer extract thousands of tons a day from Mercury. Still, he supposes that it's hard for an honest Tenno to get hold of any as it all goes to industrial processes and turned into things like circuits and control mods. Pulling out of his musing when they stop, he looks curiously at the shop the Professor just walked into. A shop filled with lots of wooden sticks. Apparently he'd need one for, School he thinks they keep calling it.
"Mum, why are we waiting outside?"
"Weren't you paying attention?"
"Sorry, I was thinking. Besides, there's no hostiles around so there's no need to focus."
"Harry, you can get away with that in the Orokin system because it's your R&R time. But here you're supposed to be paying attention to learn stuff."
"Yes mum, it would be more convenient if we could flash learn it though."
"You'd still have to practice, like you do with your weapons and armour. How is it that you could spend months reading through the research notes on biological manipulation, souls, or Orokin science, but you can't spend 15 minutes paying attention to Minerva while she's explaining what she's doing?"
"Because that stuff's interesting. Why does it matter what a wand is made from, or what ingredients we'll need for potions? That's what the foundry is for after all."
"Because a wand is a weapon, and you need to know everything you can about your own weapons."
"Oh, my bad. I wonder if we can install mods into a wand."
"To be honest, they seem more like amps than your standard weaponry."
"That makes sense, it's probably why I keep needing to take my amp off too."
The door to the shop opens and Minerva sticks her head out, "You can come in now. I've persuaded the owner not to try and sneak up on you."
As they walk in they see a tall human with milky silver eyes, "Have they come in Minerva?"
"They have Ollivander."
"Oh for the depths of the void." Harry transfers out of his Titania and removes the amp from his right arm.
Ollivander's gaze zeros in on him immediately, "Mr Potter, may I ask where you came from?"
"Are you blind? I was standing right there."
"As a matter of fact I am. I have learnt to see with magic."
"Oh, sorry about that. I use an amp to focus and control my void energy, it's been causing problems all day."
"May I see it?"
"Er, sure." Harry picks up the amp and holds it out, Ollivander is apparently able to see his hand well enough, but not the amp as he looks down at his fingers as they trace the amp. After a few minutes he's able to put it on and winces before taking it off quickly.
"Yes, a quite remarkable device, though rather indiscriminate in its use. We may be able to make better, but we do not understand the energy it is trying to control. As to your wand, I presume you wear your device on your main hand?" – Harry nods – "Then, as Fawkes is here we will start with a Holly and Phoenix feather wand."
Harry takes the wand, and is startled when Ollivander pushes his hand vertical, the only thing that stops him breaking the mans arm is the beam of white light that lances out of the wand and through the ceiling before the wand is snatched from his grasp.
"Cool, can I have that one?"
"Not phoenix feather then."
"Aww."
Elder and dragon heartstring turned the counter into a slime.
Unicorn hair refused to work
Thestral hair wilted
Elder and Horned Serpent Horn exploded
Aspen was close, but not close enough
Eventually, after digging through old stock, Ollivander found a Blackthorn and Thunderbird tail feather. This sent out a spray of grey sparks.
"I made this wand in my apprenticeship when I was in my wandering days. It is a crude thing indicative of my early work, but the Sioux Master I was visiting said it was a strong wand that would find an owner one day. Blackthorn is a wood well suited to warriors, while the Thunderbird tail feather is well suited to transfiguration and has the ability to sense danger. I've heard tell that some Thunderbird tail feather wands have been known to fire curses on their own in response to that sense."
"Cool, I'll have to see if the Quills can make a casing for it. It seems a little fragile for taking into battle as it is." It could be his imagination, but the wand seems to pulse in approval at the idea.
"That will be 7 Galleons."
"That can't be right, it's far too cheap."
"The ministry subsidises the cost of wands."
"Well, you can just unsubsidise the cost of mine." – Harry holds the wand up to his eye – "This is good workmanship, if this was a zaw I'd probably have to pay several raw gems to get the equivalent standing needed to buy this. So, I reckon it's probably worth a good 500gm Auron, that looks like around 80 Galleons." He gets out the amount of money and places it on the counter before putting his amp back on and transferring back into Titania.
"That's far too much, even without the subsidy."
Natah speaks up for the first time, "He pay what worth to him. Fact it worth resources and not money important."
They both leave the store and the old man staring at the pile of coins.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Evolution

Once they get back from the shopping trip Natah tags along with Harry while he delivers their present for Simaris, one country landscape oil painting with farm animals and a couple of people in it. The reason she was tagging along is that the painting is animated with magic. Her own gifts were in her home on Lua, a breeding pair of white owls, apparently enchanted for post. An expanded trunk filled with one of every book in the bookshop, a few children's toys, and a cauldron and ingredients. The books include the not-so-invisible book of invisibility that she'd noticed in the bottom of a loading trolley they had by the back door. It had put a dent in Harry's available resources, but they both felt it was worth it.

"Greetings Tenno. Lotus what momentous occasion has brought you to my doorstep in person?"
"I am just accompanying one of my children."
"Ah," – He turns towards Harry – "Tenno, are you here to see knowledge of the path?"
Harry chuckles, "No, I'm here to give you a gift. Though it is a physical gift that can't be sent by mail. Before you digitise it, I suggest you spend some time looking at it with your optical sensors."
With that said, he takes the painting out of the wrapping he'd put it in and leans it against a wall.
Simaris looms over the painting, "What is this? A construction of plant matter, all be it in the fashion of a made-up scene from earth. Why have you gifted me such a waste of… What is this? It moves? How, turn it around, quickly."
Humouring the cephalon he lifts it up so that it's side on. Simaris' avatar move around it studying it intently, "This seems to be entirely inert organic matter consistent with archaeological finds, but the surface oils move along with their pigments. How does it do that?"
Smiling Harry responds, "Honestly, I have no idea."
"This is a handsome gift, what do you wish in return?"
"I'd like a corpus medical data-slate linked to one of your scanners with the solar charging widget. Finally, I would like a nanite injector."
"It is not that handsome."
"I can also take scans of creatures from the same place as the owl and give them to you."
"You will give me 10 unique scans that cannot be found in my library."
"Sure, I'll need that stuff first though."
"I will arrange for it to be delivered to you. Now go, I need to divine the secrets behind this picture."

Walking out of his audience hall, Natah smiles as Harry picks up a cello that he left outside, they then walk the short distance to see Cephalon Suda. While the gift giving goes just as well, she doesn't have the same over the top reaction as Simaris did. Probably because of her recent brush with the anthem. She is very appreciative of the fact that it is voice activated, even if there are no detectable energy emissions. With some good will built, they both return to Lua.

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"Tenno Harry, your Railjack has passed final systems checks. We are ready to launch on our maiden flight when you are ready."
Harry looks up from the book he was struggling through, "Thanks Cy."
The painting that is instructing Harry in English speaks up, "Young Master, you still have 30 minutes left on your lesson. What would your parents think if you left now?"
"I need go. Lesson later."
With that he walks off wishing once again that he could just digitise the lessons and flash learn them. Pulling his warframe to him, he quickly makes his way onto his Railjack. Checking that he has the Auron and scanner assembly stowed, he heads to the helm.
"Ok Cy, take her out and set course for the deep void. Remember to take into account the increasing blueshift on beacon."
"Yes captain. All non-essential personal have left the Railjack. Releasing clamps. Taxiing out of the dry dock. Deploying stabilisers. Engaging void drive, now."
Harry takes his place on the pilots pedestal and watches the void pass while ignoring the man in the wall that is looking around the cockpit. After around an hour flying through the void they come out in orbit of an Earth.
"Captain, detecting EM signals and communications, suggest setting course for the satellite and staying in the shadow while we analyse them."
"Good plan", Harry points the railjack at the moon while Cy readies the drive. As soon as the course is set they jump into the void again and reappear in the shadow of the moon a matter of seconds later.
"So, that happened. I think we're going to need to set up the main beacon here. Well, on the far side of this Moon from Earth. I wonder why Minerva didn't mention anything about the space presence?"
"I cannot comment. I estimate that it will take me 48 hours to analyse the EM radiation and associated energy radiation to determine what countermeasures we can deploy. Initial readings suggest that only the EM radiation analysis will have any results."
"Great, well while you're doing that, I'm going to equip my archwing and start using that corpus drill for more than just mining ore and gems. If that doesn't work, well I've got more than one repurposed mining laser."
"For what purpose Captain?"
"If we're going to have to come here every time in order to avoid the locals, we might as well have a drydock for you to receive repairs and store goods in."
"I see. I will leave you to it then."
As Harry was leaving, he made a note to see if Legs could help him craft a mining MOA that could be left to excavate things according to a supplied pattern.

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With Harry gone and a 100% success rate on upgrading sentients with cores over the last 50 samples, Natah cancels the capture bounties and transports the ensouled sentients to the plains of Eidolon. With that done, she contacts Maroo to activate her temporary position. Briefly she reflects on the fact that the Human may not be so human anymore as her scans from the interviews indicated high levels of Orokin Nanites as well as untreated void exposure. Coupled with the reports of her exploits and explorations going back 30 years, and how young she seems indicates that she will probably be around for many more decades. If not, she can always ensure that she has an Oro installed, given that a reliable proxy will be useful in the coming years.

With that done, she pre-prepares a request for aid to go out in 48 hours unless it's cancelled and sets the process for upgrading her chassis to start in 30 minutes, giving her a 10 minute buffer to get situated and cancel if she chooses to. The buffer comes and goes and then the world metaphorically lurches a meter to the left and seems to gain more depth. Leaving the cocoon that the process took place in, she cancels the automated call, noting that it has 12 hours left on the counter. She then starts a systems diagnosis to try to determine what if anything has changed. Irritatingly the diagnosis says it will take 15 hours and 30 minutes to complete. She then spends what feels like an hour or so performing the clean-up of the process and checks the diagnosis progress, 15 hours and 5 minutes to go. She double checks the time and comes out with the same result every time, only 25 minutes passed while doing the clean-up which is how long it should have taken. To pass the time she went to do some of the paperwork that always piles up when managing the Tenno. Next time she checks the progress there's 14 hours and 15 minutes to go. Deciding to check in on how things are going with the Tenno, she calls Maroo.

"Maroo, how's things going."
Maroo's eyes widen slightly on the viewscreen, "Lotus, is everything ok?"
"It's fine, I was just calling to see how you were getting on with the Tenno."
"It's only been 3 hours, there hasn't been time for anything to happen. I can see that something's going on, so we're coming over."
"You can't, I'm not presentable."
"I can see that, that's why we're coming over."

Panicking, Natah tries to disconnect her subframe so that she can meet Maroo, only to get an error, Diagnosis in progress. She's still trying to find a way disconnect a couple of hours later when Maroo and Varzia come running in weapons drawn.
"Right you, what did you do with the Lotus?"
Natah spins round, "What? I am the Lotus, I can explain."
Varzia looks confused, "I've never seen a Sentient panic like that. I think something else is going on."
Maroo nods eventually, "I think you might be right, no Sentient that I've ever heard of would have forgotten to use the Lotus' iconic features when calling me. Whoever you are, you have 5 minutes to persuade us to give you more time."
"I am The Lotus, I've been working on giving Sentients souls and I went through the process myself and something went wrong. Check that terminal over there if you want."

While Maroo continues to cover Natah with a gun, Varzia goes over and checks the terminal. "Looks legit."
Maroo laughs as she puts her weapon away, "Looks like the process worked then."
"But my emotions are all wrong, my internal timer isn't working properly, and…"
Swallowing hard, Maroo approaches the death machine that's panicking and takes the human looking hand, "Look, I can't say I know a lot about souls. However, I do know a lot about being alive. Emotions can be overwhelming; they can make us believe things because we want them to be true. They can cloud judgement, and they can provide focus. This is all part of being alive. Now why don't we go somewhere that we can sit down and have some Jovian Spice Brandy a contact of mine acquired and you can tell us what's been going on and why you look like this."

They all go into one of the chambers that they'd passed while looking for the Lotus that had some chairs and Natah starts.
"It starts thousands of years ago when the Orokin sent my predecessors to the Tau system to terraform it for future expansion. Back then we were intelligent, but not Sapient, or even Sentient really. Over time we evolved as we created more and more sophisticated platforms to deal with different things. Eventually, we gained a sense of self and became more than we were, developing society and pride in our work. When we finished the terraforming process we looked at our records of this system and realised that one day the Orokin would be coming here to do the same thing. A force of us then came back to this system to prevent the Orokin from despoiling our home, and I think we lost more than just our fertility in the process. At some point in the war I was able to subvert the Tenno and use them to attack the Orokin, records are conflicted on whether I did it on orders from my Father, I did it on my own, or whether I was captured and reprogrammed to look after them and broke my programming. My own memories are unreliable about that fact too. Either way, the Tenno became my children, children that I'd given up the ability to have by coming back here. When the Sentients demanded that I destroy them, I turned on them and finished the war with the Tenno before hiding them, and Lua, in the void.
"Harry, has always been different from the others. He was an orphan before the events that lead to the Tenno, and somehow survived those events even though he was only a Toddler. He first latched onto Margulis as his mother, then a couple of years after they put her to death, he latched onto me. In the last few years he has been in the wrong place at the right time far too often, to the point where he was the primary Tenno involved in the events that happened, from Lua returning from the Void to rescuing me after I was captured."
Maroo laughs, "You mustn't forget pulling my arse out of the fire when I got that artifact."
Natah dabs at her face and looks at her finger in surprise, "Why am I leaking?"
"We call that crying."
"But my eyes are only supposed to provide liquid for cleaning."
"So are ours, doesn't stop us from crying though. So, you're a Sentient, boogie man of the solar system."
Varzia finally relaxes enough to remove her hand from the hilt of her sword, and the conversation turn into one of two women comforting a third. There was no longer any doubt in Maroo's mind that no matter her shape, The Lotus, Natah, was in fact a woman.

Sometime later, Natah giggles before covering her mouth.
Varzia asks, "What?"
"I don't know why I did that."
With a sigh Maroo asks patiently, "What were you just thinking of?"
"Simaris' reaction when Harry gave him a painting from the world his school is on. It was, 'Why are you giving me this waste of resources' till it moved and then it was 'How does it work, show me. Turn it round, I must divine its inner workings'"

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A Technician stands in front of his boss at in the Minor Planet Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, "We've had an anomalous contact. A brief radar contact approximately 78,000km from earth that lasted 30 seconds. The object in question was heading towards the moon in a trajectory that would have its path deflected by between 10 and 25 degrees. We have confirmed that other sites had a contact at the same time, but by the time we were able to get observatories to look at it, the contact could no longer be seen."
"How large a contact are we talking about?"
"Between 200 and 250 meters, and metallic."
"Shit, that would have made a dent if it hit earth. Write up a report of its projected origin and I'll add it to evidence next time I approach the government about having a dedicated team looking for shit like this."

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Errands

"Captain, I have determined that the operational effectiveness of the planet's detection grid should allow you to land your orbiter near the original beacon with a 0.003% chance of detection. They also have a primitive communications network in orbit around the planet and one manned habitat. Though I question the use of the term habitat, it fits. I am currently analysing their communications in order to build an analysis of their data."
"Thank you Cy, I'm heading back in. There should be enough of a hollow to hide the Railjack in now if you need to."
"Understood."

Half an hour later Harry was following a flight plan over the rotational axis closest to the beacon before dipping down to nearly sea level to avoid the almost ubiquitous EM emissions that were sent out in pulses around the edges of the land masses. Then it was a short flight over land to a stone building next to a small commune of some description. After he exited the lander with his Kavat and cargo Cy directed the lander to a clearing in the local forest they'd spotted on the way in. Now on foot he deployed his K-Drive and made his way to the large stone building.

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Minerva is sat doing some paperwork using the small Orokin computer that Natah gave her before she left. On the corner of the desk is an Orokin desk ornament that raises a set of concentric rings into the air, spins them around only for them to scrunch up again. Notably, there is nothing keeping those rings attached to the base, she'd checked with a sheet of parchment. Privately she would admit that the computer made the calculations that were needed for the advanced classes and her own research much easier to perform, and changed a solid afternoons work into a matter of minutes. Even better, everyone else thought it was a new paperweight. She was just lowering her quill to make a minor adjustment to a question when a phoenix Patronus came through the wall.
"Minerva dear, you are needed by the main gate."
With a sigh she puts the quill back in the ink pot and places some blotting paper on the ink spot that fell from the quill. Making her way down to the entrance hall she is surprised to see a pitch black warframe with glowing dots of red lights. Hanging at it's waist is a golden disk with a black handle, she can also see a couple of firearms now she knows what they are. He is standing on a K-drive, and again she curses the linguistic program for providing the name of things but no knowledge of what they actually are. Sat on the front of the board is the strangest cat she's ever seen, it has large golden ears, a gold stripe down it's back, and golden socks. It's tail splits out into 5 tails, and the rest of it's fur is emerald green. Standing behind him is Hagrid with his crossbow pointed at him.
"Harry what are you doing here?"
The cat jumps off the board and turns invisible, a moment later she can feel it moving around her legs. She realises that it distracted her from what Harry was saying.
"Sorry, your kavat distracted me."
"That's ok, I was doing a test flight with my Railjack. So I decided to run a couple more errands while I was at it. Would you be able to show me how to get to Diagon Alley? And could I prevail on you to act as translator again?"
Minerva looks at Hagrid, "Don't worry Hagrid, this is Harry Potter. I'm surprised the headmaster isn't here."
"'e was, but 'e left when 'arry didn't answer him."
"I see." – She focuses back on Harry who's waiting patiently – "We can take the Floo from the Three Broomsticks in the local village. Also, what sort of kavat is this?"
"A Smeeta Kavat, I bred her myself."
"I see, and you'll be bringing it to school?"
"I see. Let me inform people that I'll be out for the afternoon, then we can go."

After 5 minutes of learning how to pronounce Diagon Alley without saying Diagonally they make it to the alleyway and then the bank. Once they arrived Harry tried to walk straight in but was stopped. With a sigh, Minerva translated, "You must leave your weapon with us at the door."
Harry laughs before saying, "You take, you keep. I see manager." With that he walks into the bank and up to a free teller materialising his key as he does so, "Want Manager".
The goblin takes the key looks at it the sneers, "What are you trying to do, giving me a fake key." Which Minerva repeats with a sigh before turning to the Teller.
"We would like to see the Potter Account Manager. Mr Potter was wearing a different suit of armour last time, but had a split sword."
The sneer disappears from the face of the goblin almost faster than you could blink, "Naplock, takes these two to see the Potter Account Manager."

Once they get to the Account Manager, they are once again led to the arena. Harry's shoulders slump and he turns to Minerva, "Can you ask them to clear the arena so that I can demonstrate my weapon before the idiot enters the arena?"
When the Account Manager starts barking in his own language Harry shakes his head, "Another language to learn, English is hard enough."
Once the arena is clear, Harry jumps down and starts to throw the weapon around. Initially it's just thrown and returned, but then he starts charging it and leaving scoured floor in circles where the charge explodes on contact. After 5 minutes of this he returns to the Account manager, who is wearing a frown.

Meanwhile, Minerva is explaining a very brief history of Warframes, and what they were designed for. As well as what they still do. To her complete lack of surprise, the guard failed to take the field after that display.
Looking at the account manager Harry says, "Will that stop the idiots from trying to take my weapons from me? It was entertaining the first time, but they really aren't the calibre of opponents I'm used to."
"Mr Pot, Mr Potter," – The account manager licks their lips – "Mr Potter. While I understand where you're coming from, ours is a martial culture. Taking up a challenge in the face of certain death is one thing, however when death is less certain."
"I see, lets us see to our business and then I will introduce you to something."

Once they arrive back at the Account Managers office, Harry materialises a small cube of gold, around 30cm to the side on the floor.
"While I was bored I did a little mining on Earth in the Orokin system and gathered a small amount of Auron to convert into your resource tokens. Would you be able to turn these into tokens for 5% of the volume as a fee?"
"I will get our assayers," – The account manager licks his lips again – "assayers to value that and transfer the equivalent amount of Galleons to your vault."
"Yeah, sure whatever. Anyway, the next bit is a solar powered scanner, and a Corpus Data-Slate. This canister contains nanites that will teach you to speak the Orokin language and read the Corpus language. If you send Minerva a message once you've used the nanites I'll come back and teach you how to use those. Oh, and the canister, just place it on its side against your wrist and press the glowing button. It will do the rest, you may want to be lying down too."
Once she's finished translating Minerva adds, "Mr Potter's key also seems to have lost it's magic, maybe you could provide some other identification and keep the key here for him."
"We will come up with some way of doing that. For the moment, take this Seal. It will be accepted in the Alley in lieu of money while we work out how our largest depositor can access his account without a key."

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To Minerva's bemusement, Harry's next stop was the menagerie, where he asked for a breeding pair of every animal they have in stock, to be delivered to the school as soon as possible. Minerva managed to persuade him to instead buy a massively expanded trunk, and a special belt to keep it on that way the creatures could be transported easily and safely, and the shop keeper wouldn't need to worry about transporting so many animals. His next stop was to the House Elf relocation agency, where he picked out 6 house elves, 3 of each gender. Finally, he ordered two subscriptions to the Daily Prophet and the Quibbler. The Quibbler was, interesting.

"Ah, Mr Potter, I see your mother is not with you. That's a shame, I was hoping to interview her about her opinion on the impact of rabid quiffles on the stability of society."
"Ah, what?"
"Oh, manners. Sorry, I'm Xenophilius Lovegood, owner, editor, and primary reporter for the Quibbler. Would you mind terribly if we, my family and I, accompanied you back through the veil when you next go?"
"Pardon?"
"I'll throw in a lifetime subscription to the Quibbler for free. You never know, we may even find a crumple horned snorkack while we're there."
"What's one of those?"
"They're purple quadrupeds that has a horn on its nose that look like someone's squashed it. Their ears are on top of their head with purple tentacle things coming out of them, claws on their feet and a flat tail"
Harry goes strangely quiet for a minute, "Sure, you can come and visit, I think I'll be leaving in a day or so, so meet me at the school."

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Natah was confused, all of her diagnostics came back normal except for a couple of precepts having their importance changed. But everything is different. She's been having trouble concentrating on tasks that would have been trivial, if lengthy to complete. She's been unhappy with her accommodation; despite the fact they provide everything she needs. She's found herself calling Maroo and Varzia more often, even going so far as to visit them on occasion. The worst part is randomly remembering her childhood, such as when she chased Erra through the canyons, and he got stuck between two boulders because he wasn't paying enough attention to where he was going. Granted, it was funny, however she hasn't even thought about it since they came to this system. Or when her mother showed her how to guide the evolution of bacteria so that they formed into a multicellular organism. At one point she raids Harry's stash of decorations in his orbiter and goes crazy just to get rid of the unrelenting white of her quarters.

The weirdest part is wanting to eat and drink. Her humanoid chassis was designed to convert food and drink to fuel, and to be able to differentiate tastes and textures in order to blend in. However, it's never something she's needed to do. It's just infuriating, and Harry's been gone for forever. She snatches a plushie up from a chair and squeezes it in her arms. Wait, she has owls, they deliver messages. Swiftly she heads over to the Owl enclosure where A and B were resting. No, that's no good, can't really identify them like that.
"You, the pure white one, you're Tau. And you can be Hed. You must be awfully bored in here, how about once this message is delivered I take you to Earth so you can stretch your wings?"
Both owls bob their head.
"Look at me, talking to you as though you understand me. Right, the message. Which one of you wants it?" – Hed lifts her leg – "Right it's going to my child Harry."
Once Hed flies off, she turns to Tau, right I'm going to study some books if you want to watch me.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Teaching?

"Xeno, if this is another of your hairbrained snipe hunts I am going to be very angry with you."
"I promise Dora, this is going to be a story to be remembered."
"I've got a promising contract for a new spell that is bringing in enough money to keep the family afloat for the next year."
"I promise it will be worth it, we're meeting Harry at Hogwarts tomorrow."
"I will meet him, but if I think you're having a Xeno moment, I'm vetoing the trip."
"Yes dear."
"Also, you get to tell Luna that her play date with Ginny is cancelled."
Xenophilus gulps, "Yes, dear."

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"So your name is Ironclaw it is not a description?"
"That is correct Mr Potter."
"That makes more sense. How was the process with the nanites?"
"Uncomfortable, I was under the healers tender care."
"I see. I can't say I can understand that, but it is what it is. Anyway, this is a Corpus Data-slate. They don't require any special implants to use, and they also require a minimal level of education to activate too. If you can read and touch things, you're pretty much fine. A side effect of this is that they use special awareness puzzles to unlock their devices. To turn it on press this button here, and if it runs out of power just leave it in sunlight, or a strong light for a few hours and it will recharge. As you can see, it generates a hexagonal grid and you need to make all the lines match up into one continuous shape. You generally only have around 10 seconds to complete this. Which is more than enough time when you're not under fire and trying to turn the alarms off."
Harry watches as his Account Manger unlocks the device for the first time.
"Now you're in, if you see this symbol here you can change the security settings, including the complexity, the amount of time available, and even if there is an alarm and what volume it should go off at. There is also an automatic wipe facility, but I suggest you don't activate that as this is your only Data-slate and you won't be able to restore it afterwards."
"What about my claws?"
"It's designed for people with metal bodies to work with, I think your claws will be fine. Anyway, I've already linked this scanner to the device, so if you pick up the scanner, you'll see that there's a glowing spot on the handle and a viewscreen. The scanner will highlight things that it can scan in either red or green. Red means that it doesn't have a match on the data-slate, and green means that it's similar to something it's already scanned. If there is a close enough match to something else, it will also display the name attached to it. Mine is linked to a database of known armaments, so I can quickly identify what sort of troop I'm facing, then have a rough idea of the type of training they'll have. I haven't set up any categories like that so until you do you won't see those labels. If you hold down that glowing spot it will initiate a scan, or it will tell you if that particular item has already been scanned."
"What's this number that keeps changing?"
"It's the exact distance to whatever is under that dot in the centre. Let's go out onto the floor and scan a few people, I can then show you the next aspect of scanning."

"So, as you can see we have the complete scan of 20 people that were in the bank. At the moment there's not enough data in your system to enable automatic tagging, so we're going to have to do that manually. If we apply the human tag to all of these, and the goblin tag to all of these, it will start to build up a profile. We can then apply a male tag to these ones and a female tag to these. A witch tag to these ones and a wizard tag to these ones."
"I see?"
"With this basic tagging done we can now select people to compare, such as these two people that look like mother and child. See how it tells you how close their DNA matches?"
"I see, though it looks like any junior goblin could do this, why did I need to use the nanites?"
"So that I can talk to you properly obviously. As you can see without any more matching it tells you that they have 99% of the same DNA. If we compare a goblin with a human, it shows a 97% match. That's interesting. With Grineer I usually see a 99.99% match even amongst disparate units. Side note aside, as you scan and tag more people it will start to automatically assign tags and relationships. It will even be able to tell you how many generations back they share a common ancestor. It also works on weaponry and clothing too, so you could categorise wands based on their woods and cores."
"I see, could it also identify writing?"
"I don't see why not. Though it wouldn't be able to translate it for you. Also, while it can't scan through object, it can tell if there are scannable targets through objects. Though for that to happen you need to exclude certain things from being scanned. Which, again is just a case of scan it, tag it, exclude it."
"I'm not sure how this would be useful for inheritance though."
"If you have enough scans to start doing generational comparisons, then you can compare a scan of someone to the person they claim to be related to. It will then tell you if they are, and whether it's an ancestor, sibling, or descendant relationship. If you have three people, say mother, father, child you can tell that the child is directly descended from both mother and father."
"I see, I'm not sure of the utility of this, but I will set a junior to scan everyone that enters the bank."
"Other functions that this slate has include a spreadsheet, so you can do calculations and write formula like the account books that you've shown me. There is also an inventory function, that can also be linked to the scanner, to tell you how much of something is in a pile, box, or other container. There's a messaging system, but that requires at least one more Data-slate. Finally, there's a programming interface and the instructions on how to use it. Though they are all part of the advanced functions and need quite a lot of reading to understand them. The full instruction manual for the slate is also in that section, here."
"Wait, how does the inventory function work?"
"As you can see from scanning people, the scanner can pick up the exact chemical makeup of things. After all that's all DNA is. So it's far simpler and quicker to scan a box of ore and determine exactly how much is in that box and what different elements are in its makeup. So if I scan a Galleon, I can see that it contains 13% Auron, 25% plumbum, 27% cuprum, 10% alu, 5% manganese, and 20% nickel. That's not a lot of Auron there."
Ironclaw shifts uncomfortably, "Yes, well the Ministry of magic insists on keeping the value of the Galleon at 5 British Pounds. Which is a fiat currency, so we changed the amount of gold to provide a similar value."
Harry cocks his head, "So like credits then? They're a digital currency that is only worth what it is because everyone agrees it is."
"Yes."
"I see, why do they insist on using gold for currency then?"
"I'm not sure, we value it because it is ideal for Goblin enchanting and is a cornerstone of our craftsmanship. However, it is very scarce on Earth."
"Oh, that's because most of it's in the centre of the planet. If it wasn't for the difficulty of mining out the core of a planet with a molten core without killing yourself, I'm sure the Orokin would have done that on our Earth. As it stands, we get plenty of gold from Mercury, Venus, and the asteroid belt."
"I see, so what do you consider scarce metals?"
"Platinum? But that's more because it's used in so much that there are always shortages despite how easy it is to find it. That's about the only pure element. It's more crystals and molecular metals that are rare due to the processes needed to produce them being limited to one planet, or even part of one planet. Even then, it's unlikely that you'll find a buyer for a cut crystal like the ones I've seen in jewellery here as they can't then be cut into the right shape for whatever application they're needed in."
"What would be needed to get more of these scanners and slates?"
"Meh, probably scans of animals and plants really. Actual animals and plants may even buy you a generator and computer with an artificial intelligence. Not a cephalon though. Once you have that, you could link something like a Helios to it and let that do all the scanning."

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Ironjaw burst into the directors office, not waiting for pleasantries to be exchanged as this information is too valuable.
"Director, I have just been given something that will revolutionise our society."
"What is it?"
"Please put your money pouch on the desk."
Curious, the director does so and watches as Ironjaw points a device at it and then looks at a metallic slab.
"There are 13 Galleons, 3 Sickles, 14 knuts, and one unknown coin in that bag."
The director frowns, there should be 14 Galleons in the bag, but still that's just a parlour trick any account manager can do with a basic spell, "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because this device shows the exact composition of what I point it at." – Ironjaw dumps the contents of the pouch on the desk and points it at the scattered coins – "That one, it's got 8% gold and 30% lead."
The director picks up the coin and hefts it in his hand thoughtfully, "This works on anything?"
"It does, even people."
"I see, how accurate is it?"
"It can give the values in weights too, though they're not the ones that we typically use."
The director waves his hand, "Pfft, if this can help our smiths make our metals purer then they'll change measurement systems. What's the catch?"
"Mr Potter doesn't see resources as worth anything intrinsically, only in what they can be used for. The half-ton of gold that he brough by is worth so little he went out and mined some because he was bored and wanted to replace the resources he'd already spent. I scanned it out of curiosity and it's 99.995% pure. Additionally, these devices are written in a language that isn't spoken on Earth anywhere, it also doesn't appear to have any common roots with any of the known languages on Earth."
"I see. What do we need to do to get more of these?"
Ironjaw laughs, "Scan plants and animals. If we arrange for actual plants and animals, he said he'd be able to give us a generator and computer."
"The implication was that a generator would be used to provide the energy these use to run, and the computer would be a more powerful version of this slate. There is more information on this slate, but it will take weeks to see what's there, and months, possibly years, to understand it."
"Very well, for now I want you to hand off all of your other accounts. Once you've done that, head to the forges and show the crafters this device. Then teach one of the apprentices how to use the scanner, and get them to scan as many plants and animals as they can. You'll also need to work with our human employees, specifically the few muggleborn we've been allowed to employ. Find out if there is anything similar in the muggle world, and just how similar it is. We need to make sure the Ministry can't take these away under any of their muggle related laws."

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Harry sighs as Hed swoops in with another letter from his Mother, which will make the 10th​ since this morning when he woke up with both Hed and Tau waiting in his room. He's fairly certain that she's done something that he'd have worried about as normally she'd only check in every few weeks-months, which would translate to a few times a day. If nothing else, Cy's reactions to the owls turning up in the Railjack are endlessly amusing. He's also found out that House elves work compulsively, and are chronically under-educated. This is to the point he needed to let them help out around Hogsmeade while he was waiting for Cy to finish his analysis of the communication and detection capabilities of the planet and plan an exit route. He'd also got hundreds of unique scans of plants and animals from the goblins, with a request for as many solar-powered scanners and data-slates as that could get. He might see if Simaris can get a small generator and charging unit instead, along with a bucket load of scanners. It's not like they're expensive or anything at 100 credits a pop, let's add an enquiry to Simaris with Hed's next mail. Finished with his responses he hands the small tube that Natah put the chip in back to Hed.
"There's a message for Simaris in there too."
With that done he continued scanning the animals he'd bought, who knew that serpents could talk. Or that he'd be able to understand them.
"Hello Mr Potter!" a voice calls down from the entrance to the trunk he's in. Turning around he jumps and slides his way to the entrance before leaping out.
"Hello, English bad. Call Professor."
That said, he recognises the man from the Quibbler office, there is a woman who's just whipped out a wand and is in the process of casting a lot of spells along with a girl, who walks up to him and pokes him in the leg. Deciding to transfer out to make it less likely that an ingrained reflex will kill her, he kneels on the ground and leaves his Titania. There's a flash of light as the owner of the newspaper does something with a box. The woman also starts waving her wand around even more. Fortunately, it doesn't take long for Minerva to arrive to translate.

With the ability to communicate restored, he gives the family a brief explanation of where they'll be going along with an introduction to his Kavat. Minerva also give a brief explanation of what they'll be going through when they get there so that they can survive and communicate with people. While they're talking Hed flies back in with another message from his Mother. Hanging his head, he calls Cy, "How long till we can leave the system?"
"I have an exit flight path programmed into your lander now."
"Oh, thank the void. I'll get everyone loaded and then we'll be off. Minerva, I've just got confirmation from Cy that we have an exit path, are you coming with us or staying here?"
"I've got too much work to do that I can't do elsewhere."
"Ok, well send me an owl if you change your mind."

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"Die you void sucking maggots!" Natah decided to act as bait after a particularly punishing contract negotiation with Corpus Execs who wanted Tenno help in one of their invasions, Mars this time. She had never been sure why her Tenno would take these missions against infested ships that had been abandoned by the Corpus or Grineer. As she rained fully automatic Sentient gunfire down on their heads she was starting to realise just how therapeutic it could be.
Varzia tries to catch her attention, "Lotus, Lotus! Natah! It's time to evac, the search team has scavenged everything of value."
Reluctantly she makes her way to the exfil point where Ordis is waiting with Harry's lander.

 

[Darkphoenixlady]

Luna, Lua, What?

Luna looks around the strange house that they've found themselves in. It doesn't really make sense, there's an invisible voice, a person without a voice who just watches her, creatures without a working mind that Harry joins with to make a whole person. Lots and lots of what she assumes are weapons based on the shape of some of them, and cuddly toys. Enough that she could cover her bed at home without leaving anywhere for her to sleep. The house is also currently floating over the moon, and her mother has stopped them from leaving so that she can look out the window. Oh, and there's the cat that is sometimes invisible. Then there's the thing at the back that whispers like the arch that mummy showed her when she took her to work once. Yawning, she makes her way back to the bedroom and looks at the pod. It's the only thing she hasn't looked at, so it's probably where Harry sleeps. Opening it up she gets in and settles down to sleep, as she does she feels something nudging her mind. Letting it in she can feel a touch of magic, opening her eyes she's surprised to find herself outside the pod floating above the ground. Ah well, she's still tired so she lies down on the floor and goes to sleep.

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The journey back to the Orokin system goes smoothly enough, apart from the delay in leaving the moon while Pandora looks at the stars for a few hours. Xeno tries to talk to the Man in the wall, which Pandora can't see. All six house elves cling onto Harry when they enter the void, and Luna has managed to go missing on a ship that doesn't have any where to get lost in. The man in the wall seems to think something is absolutely hilarious while they're looking for Luna. Oh, and Harry's Wisp has lain on the floor for some reason. They're almost at their exit point when Luna comes into the cockpit rubbing her eyes.

"Did you have a good sleep dear?" Pandora asks
"Mmmm, was comfy"
"Where did you sleep sweetie?"
"Black pod in Harry's bedroom."
Pandora was sure she looked in there, but maybe she just looked at it, "Well, we're almost there now. Do you want to watch?"
Luna nods mutely.

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A few months after they'd arrived, Luna approaches Aunt Natah on Lua.
"Aunt Natah."
"Yes Luna."
"Would you be able to help me?"
"What do you need?"
"Can I have a sleeping pod like Harry's?"
"Sure, there's plenty around here."
"Could you also help me to get a Wisp, as she was nice but I don't want to keep borrowing Harry's as it feels wrong somehow."
Natah frowns at Luna and disconnects her subframe so that she could sit down with her, "How do you know that?"
"I slept in Harry's bed on the way here, and she said hi. I've visited her when Harry's been here, but he's not here that often."
"I think we should talk to your parents about this."
Luna's eyes turn silver as she continues talking, "No, they won't take you up on your offer if we do. Well, Dad will, and then Mum will follow suit. Then she won't die because this will be home instead of home. Then I'll get a brother. It's already almost too late for Mum, but work was delayed because Harry came here instead of there as a baby."
"We should still tell your parents."
"We can tell them once Harry is at school. Night in day will give me balance, the queen of the fae will teach me to fly, and the fly stuck in amber will anchor me to now; but it all starts with the gateway to the stars." Luna's eyes return to her normal bluey silver look.
Natah shakes her head, "I can't promise anything as the blueprints can only be found in one place, and your parents can't afford the platinum to buy one outright. However, you can use the console to talk to my Tenno and see if any of them would be willing to get the blueprints for you. Are you certain that you've communicated with Harry's wisp before?"
Luna just nods.

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It's another couple of months later when Xeno is laying stuff out for the Quibbler that Natah casually says, "Your alignment is off."
Xeno narrows his eyes at the three frames in front of him before pulling out an old steel ruler and measuring the position of the picture on each page.
"You're right, how did you know?"
"I've got better senses than an organic."
"But you're working on your own research."
"Better senses."
"Must be nice."
"Nothing stopping you from having them too. One moment. Tenno, this is an Extermination mission, the Corpus were investigating this Orokin Tower when they tripped the security systems. They are now fully controlled by the AI managing the tower, they can't be allowed to leave. Wipe them all out."
"Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"Order the deaths of so many people."
She sighs, "It was easier before. But even now I do it because I know that the alternative is worse. Same as we have to wipe out everyone involved on a ship that get's overrun with the infested. If one of those towers gets out of the void, the AI will sense the lack of Orokin signals and assume that the current inhabitants overthrew them. It will then go on a rampage destroying every colony and outpost until someone stops it. Which gets harder the longer it's left as it enthrals the people in those very settlements. The sentients left in this system don't have the firepower needed to destroy one of those towers, so we'd need to rely on the Tenno to go in and take control. Very few alive now have ever seen that happen before. Those that have are the ones that help pay for the Tenno attacking the tower."
Xeno lays a hand on her chassis, "I can't imagine having to make those choices. It was bad enough fighting in the last war, well, we called it a war. This puts it in a different perspective."
"Thank you, how have you been finding your time here?"
"A little frustrating actually, I would love to visit Demios and see the animals there. Same with the surface of Venus. I'd love to investigate the inside of one of those towers. However I'm the fragile one here. I'm about as strong as the people on earth, and that's it."
"My cousin and father developed a process to turn an organic into a Sentient. I've turned the theoretical process to give a Sentient a soul into an actuality. Combined you could get the resilience of the Sentient without losing yourself."
"So what would be involved in this?"
"Not a lot. You get into a pod, I give you an implant which contains a small antimatter power source and a nanite factory and then you go about your day. In a couple of months it will have taken over your immune system, so you won't need to worry about the infested. As in becoming infested. Over the next few years you'll grow your main chassis. That's really the key difference between my approach and my relatives approach. They sought to make organics into sentients, I'm not replacing you, I'm adding to you."
"That's sounds interesting, let's do it."

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"There you go, it's done."
"Oh, ok. It's just occurred to me that I should talk to Dora before I go ahead with this. She might veto it as me having a Xeno moment."
"But it's alre…ady done. Of course they can teleport."
A few minutes later Pandora comes back in with a sheepish looking Xenophilus.
"Xeno tells me that his thinking about taking you up on an offer to turn him into a Sentient."
Natah shakes her head, "It's actually already done and implanted. He agreed to it and then immediately said he needed to talk to you before he went ahead with it."
"Ok, can you take it out?"
"No?"
"Is that a question or a statement?"
"Yes."
"Ok, I'm a smart woman, why don't you try explaining it to me."
"At this stage it should be possible to reverse the changes by sending the right program to the nanite factory. That would then take a few days before the implants can be removed. However, I haven't written that program yet, and it will take a few days for me to write it. During which time the nanites are progressing and converting his spinal cord to use sentient technology. Once that's complete I'd need to clone him a new spinal cord which will take a week, during which time it's spreading out along his nerves and into his brain, and those nerves would also need to be replaced. Once it takes over his brain, which will take about a week, there's nothing I can do. We could also take him to Venus and give him a full body prosthetic. But then the only part of his body that will be organic will be his brain, it would also prevent the spread of the nanites into his brain, but is also irreversible. I could send out a mission to capture a fresh Grineer clone that hasn't been imprinted yet, and try to work out how the Orokin did their transfer thing. However, he would then be genetically programmed to follow the orders of the Grineer Queens, and also subject to the same frailties as all Grineer. There's also a high likelihood that he'd lose his magic.
"The process I designed was supposed to work to preserve the person undergoing transformation and be as light a touch as possible on their original body, while the original process focused on changing the body first and then modifying the brain. Which worked faster, but seems to have driven the recipients out of their minds as they couldn't cope with the new senses. Given that they tested on an Orokin first, and he remained lucid, I'm not surprised they made that mistake. The Orokin already had so many implants in their brains that they may as well already have Sentient senses."

"I see, and of course we can't use a stasis spell on him, as we don't know how it will interact with the reactor, and testing it, even if it proves to be safe, will take enough time to make the effort pointless." – Pandora turns around and slaps Xenophilus before pulling him into a hug – "Oh you silly man, why do you have to have your Xeno moments."

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Staring up at the ceiling in the bed they're using, Pandora says, "Xeno."
"Yes love?"
"We can't go home again, can we?"
"Not for a few years, no."
"It won't be home then, will it."
"No."
"I love you, you silly oaf. I just wish you'd talk to me before you do things like this. What am I going to do with you."
"Join me?"
"I probably should, shouldn't I."
"I'd like it if you did."
"Xeno."
"Yes dear?"
"You're not allowed to explore Demios until you can defend yourself."
"Yes dear."

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Dear Ginny,
I hope this letter finds you well. I've had a wonderful year since I last saw you. Yesterday I met my first Crumple Horned Snorkack, and it was glorious. I wasn't allowed to pet it, as I didn't have the right immunisations, but it was everything I thought it would be. Mum and Dad have been exploring now that they're sentient, so I've spent most of my time in Africa or on the Moon. Did you know it's not actually made out of cheese? I'm hoping that I'll be able to see a vampire cat soon. Mr Teasonai said that he'd let me see one next time I'm around when one is caught. I'm not allowed to go out to find one on my own yet.
I've also met a man called Onkko, he's funny like grandmother was. It's always fun trying to work out what order things have and are supposed to happen in when talking to him.

Sorry I've been gone so long, I hope you haven't been too bored.

Your friend

Luna.

"Mum!" Ginny runs down to the kitchen while continuing to call.
Molly wipes the flour off her hands when she hears the call, "What is it dear?"
"You know the Lovegood's went on holiday a few days ago. I just got a letter from Luna."
"Well? Can I read it?"
Ginny hands over the letter which Molly reads twice, "Oh dear. It looks like the Lovegood blessing has bred true."
"What do you mean Mum?"
"Oh, never mind. It's just an old story. Nothing to worry about."

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Master Teasonai looks at the 6 diminutive beings that Tenno Harry left with him a year ago, "Let me get this straight, you've found a magical grove that's perfect for your needs."
"We have."
"And the grove talks to you."
"It does, it can also give us work."
"And you want to live there."
6 heads bob.
"But you don't want to leave us without help."
"That is correct."
"So you've come to me for permission to do what?"
"We would like to go live there and make babies. We's would come back every day to help village. Grove would be home."
"So why are you asking me for permission?"
"Scary Master said to treat what you say as coming from him."
"And you think you can protect yourselves from the Grineer."
"Bad same same people no match for house elves."
"You know what? Fine, go make a home and have kids. Great Er, you shouldn't need permission to do that. Just promise me that you'll be careful and will come back here if you or your children are in danger."
"We's promise."

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"Director, we have received a shipment from Simaris, the expanded trunk worked almost as expected. The mice and rabbits arrived dead from void exposure. However, the data-slate arrived intact with all of its information. The seeds were also sterile when they arrived. However, he has requested that we purchase an owl for him, as well as a Harness with a voice activated expanded trunk. In return he has sent us 6 Sunpoint Mining Lasers, 3 scouting drones, a server with an AI, and a fusion power source that requires pure water to run. There is also a charging tree and 200 of his own design of scanners, a Helios companion drone and a mining MOA, and 5 Data-slates. He's also installed a loader drone in the trunk that has its own internal power source."
"Very good, how are the apprentices getting on with the new equipment?"
"Very well, it's drastically cut down on the number of errors in preparing materials. Which has saved us time in re-smelting the raw materials. We've also identified 2 tons of counterfeit coins. It seems like most of them have come from the Ministry in terms of wages to their workers."
"Next time it happens, send them back with a copy of the relevant part of the treaty that gives us the sovereign right to mint Galleons, Sickles, and knuts, along with the penalties that can be recovered from the sitting minister and treasurer if they fail to abide by the terms of the treaty."
"What about the workers?"
"What about them?"
"Won't they have problems?"
"They will, but that's not our fault. Scratch that, add a note on the account for the Tellers to inform them of why their wages were returned to the Ministry and what would have happened if we found out about it after it had been put in their accounts."
"Talks with village of Cetus have run into difficulties due to the difference in the flow of time. We estimate that if we discuss things for the normal length of time, then there will have been 8 different leaders on their side. We will need to find some way to send a delegation to them that can negotiate with full authority of the board."
"Draft a letter to Mr Potter and see if he could transport a few directors before School starts. Failing that, do it over the Christmas Holidays."
"Finally, all of our owls have been rotated through delivering post to the Orokin system. Since we completed this we've seen a 0% failure to deliver where the recipient was alive. By all reports the Black account manager was ecstatic and dancing in the halls when the heir confirmed they would be willing to take up the lordship if they could get past the problem of illegal imprisonment. We've also being able to finally serve account closure notices to the Lestranges. They have 30 days to appear in person to contest it before we can seize the accounts and do a full audit before putting them in storage for a legitimate heir."
"That's great news."

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"Croaker"
"Yes Shade?"
"How is there a Gringotts owl on your desk?"
"Honestly, I have no idea."
"I will call in Shotgun from warding."
"You do that."