“Out of the way, Tenno.” Wolf said coldly, “I’m not going to hurt her, idiot.”
With the Tenno refusing to move, Wolf grit his teeth in anger, his hand going to his sword.
“I said, out of the way.” Wolf growled, “Do not test me, Tenno. You’re on my lands, you do as I say.”
To that, the Trinity Prime gave a quick tilt of the head, as if to draw Wolf’s attention to something near them.
If Wolf looked, he would have seen several well-concealed figures just beyond the edge of the clearing. Plenty of other Tenno, all with their weapons lined on him.
…was that a Lenz one of them held?!
The healer Warframe got up silently, pacing around Wolf and the still-seated Yellow, who was trying to wordlessly request that the Tenno around them settle down.
If Wolf acted rashly, he was still outnumbered 20 to 1. Every Tenno sent to guard her was packing ridiculous levels of firepower.
“Well, you wanted to speak to me?” Yellow asked, trying to defuse the situation.
“You do realize you can’t kill me, right?” The Aurelien warlord yelled at the Tenno, “Idiots, the whole lot of you. Could you at least give us some privacy, please? This is a bit of a personal situation!”
With a sigh (and a particularly strong swear word in the Aurelien tongue uttered under his breath, only audible to Yellow), he looked to Yellow.
“I’m sure as a medical officer, you’re familiar with the psychological disorders side of it, yes? Like, PTSD?” He asked, leaning up against a tree, “Look, I’m having flashbacks, there’s this feeling of dread… I don’t know if I can take much more… And Green… He reminds me too much of old me… Just with a better grasp of tactics and even more dedicated to war… And it’s seriously fucking with my head.”
The Tenno surrounding them lowered their weapons reluctantly. The one with the Lenz seemed particularly dejected, a compatriot consoling them with a few pats of the shoulder.
Meanwhile, Yellow sighed as she considered her options. “Wolf, I will be frank…despite our advances in contemporary and esoteric medical science, psychological disorders and treatment remain a grey area.”
“I cannot just give you some magic pill that would simply cure you of the dread you experience. And whatever your thoughts on Green and you may be, that is a matter for yourself to face. Medication can only go so far.”
She sighed as the pacing Trinity Prime crossed their vision. “And while there are…other methods…of helping you, any and all of those constitute severe violations of sophont rights under both the Initiative and Coalition Charters. Es tut mir leid, Kaiser.”
Wolf looked to Yellow, his gaze curious.
“What are those methods?” He asked impatiently. It was clear that in his state of mind, he was desperate, and wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
“TELL ME, GODDAMN IT!!” Wolf yelled.
The instant Wolf raised his voice, every Tenno present aimed their weapons at him.
The Tenno with the Lenz was quivering slightly in glee as they aimed at him, the Corpus bow ready to let loose its explosive bolt.
Yellow inhaled, trying to calm herself down from the fact that Wolf was willing to have her violate the Charter itself for his own gain.
“Wolf, please…you don’t want me to use those. I don’t want to use those. Do you understand exactly what you are trying to get me to do?”
Seeing that he was persistent on this, Yellow exhaled sharply. “You are trying to have me use methods and treatments along a similar line to what Zhere used to brainwash you. I refuse to do anything even remotely like that.”
Yellow had sworn to herself that if she ever did anything of that sort, whether intentionally or otherwise, she would resign on the spot.
“God fucking damn it.” Wolf said, pushing his glasses up his nose, and rolling his eyes in disgust, “Hey, you. Yeah you, with the bow. Good luck shooting an arrow at me.”
With a flick of his finger, the arrow was broken, the explosive tip flying off into the distance, exploding some distance away. Seeing the dejected nature of the Tenno after that, Wolf’s face softened.
“You’ll get a chance to use your bow, just not against me.” Wolf said, “Save your arrows. It’s not worth it.”
He turned back to Yellow, his expression having softened.
“As much as I know that whole thing was fake… Those were the happiest years I’ve ever had.” Wolf said, “You know I hold nothing against Zhere… The man was trying to help. Without him, I wouldn’t have access to Seraph. To think, a former Brotherhood Scientist turned pirate…”
He looked at his left arm, still covered in the glowing scars of the Seraph Network.
“You’re right…” He said, “Maybe therapy… That might help…”
Yellow breathed a sigh of relief. “At least you can see reason.”
She’d met Zhere a while after his release from his potential stasis imprisonment under Admiral Platinum’s authority. Needless to say, she and him had, at the time, quite a heated exchange of words regarding his horrifying actions to Wolf.
Neither of them had left the argument satisfied. To this day, Yellow still maintained that whatever his reasons, Zhere’s acts were unjustifiable violations of basic sophont rights.
Knowing how Wolf seemed to fervently defend Zhere for reasons that were completely unfathomable to her, Yellow decided arguing with him on this subject was a waste of time.
At least he was willing to go through whatever therapy she could provide. “There are some medications and nano-meds I can give you to ease your emotional state. They won’t be an instant cure, but it’s better than nothing.”
With that, Wolf seemed to recoil.
“I thought you’d suggest counselling.” He said, “I don’t react well to certain medications… I’m already on Risperidone for my autism, and that medication doesn’t mix well with others.”
He’d tried PTSD meds before – he’d reacted badly to them.
“Counselling is one of the therapy methods I’ll also be recommending, but that requires effort on your part.” Yellow responded.
The Fleet Admiral looked around somewhat uneasily before facing Wolf again. “And besides…all past records indicate that counselling will not be entirely effective if you keep flying off the handle at the therapists bringing up your issues.”
It was seriously frustrating, how Wolf seemed to avoid truly working through his complexes. Sure, he acknowledged them and even tried to overcome them, but it wasn’t the same as managing them enough to get through life with sufficient function.
Until he understood that comparing himself to others wasn’t going to get him anywhere, Yellow believed Wolf wouldn’t have an easy time scraping through this conflict.
On nearly every level except magical, even an average GDI soldier surpassed him, no thanks in part to their far superior level of augmentation and training.
There had been a few times where Wolf had beaten GDI personnel, but that had mostly been down to sheer dumb luck or inaction on their part.
Initiative Archival Network 