When Warframe Plot Bunnies Attack

by CardinalGoldenbrow

Summary:

Warframe has a pretty imaginative community, and sometimes I see ideas, speculation, and situations that spark the urge to write a quick little story about it on Reddit. Here's a collection of those plot bunnies and their stories. Expect spoilers and speculative content. I'll add to it as I write more.

Chapter 1: Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Warframe has a pretty imaginative community, and sometimes I see ideas, speculation, and situations that spark the urge to write a quick little story about it on Reddit. Here's a collection of those plot bunnies and their stories. Expect spoilers and speculative content. I'll add to it as I write more.

Requests: As long its safe for work (shipping/romance is fine) and non-crossover (since I probably don't know the other fandom that well), I'm happy to take requests and wild plot bunnies. Just be aware that it takes me a fair bit of time to get to some of those projects if I'm in the middle of writing a longfic.

I hope you enjoy!

 

Chapter 2: The Ventkid
Plotbunny: Do you ever think the Tenno walk around as themselves to start trouble just to scare the hell out of someone when they turn into a warframe?

Chapter 3: The Eximus
Plotbunny: What are Eximus, lorewise? How did they get so powerful?

Chapter 4: Reworking the Sergeant
Plotbunny: A petition for DE to rework the Sergeant into an actual challenge instead of a joke boss.

Chapter 5: Narmer Invasions
Plotbunny: How about we get some Narmer invasions like how the infested invasions work where one random planet has a Narmer outbreak and you work with some faction to drive it back?

Chapter 6: The Other Prisma Latron Shoulder
Plotbunny: Gyre wants the other Prisma Latron shoulder piece to complete her fashion frame.

Chapter 7: Red Vail Crimes
Plotbunny: What crime has this Grineer soldier imprisoned in the Red Veil syndicate committed (wrong answers only)?

Chapter 8: Khra Rifts
Plotbunny: Khra Rifts, which allow Drifter to time-travel into another version of the Origin System to make a difference.

Chapter 9: Garuda & Excalibur's First Date
Plotbunny: The First Knight (Excalibur) and the Queen of Gore (Garuda) having a Talk on the Plains. What do you think they’re talking about?

Chapter 10: Superstitions
Plotbunny: Superstitions of the Origin System, featuring Wisp.

Chapter 11: The Zanusyte Infestion
Plotbunny: Zanuka, Valkyr, and an Infested Syndicate based on the aftermath of Mutalist Alad V's adventures on Eris.

Chapter 12: The Void Storm
Plotbunny: What do you think is the single worst war crime action that we do in this game?

Chapter 13: Repairing Fortuna with Bad Puns
Plotbunny: A quest to repair the damage to Fortuna (Post-New War)

Chapter 14: Home on the Zariman
Plotbunny: Why the Tenno adopt the Zariman as their home despite its traumatic past. (Angels of the Zariman)

Chapter 15: Tenno Interrogation Techniques
Plotbunny: How notorious are the Tenno interrogation techniques that a capture target would rather stick around infested than be captured?"

Chapter 16: A Rare Moment of Cooperation
Plotbunny: What do our usual enemies thought about the warframes they work with during invasions? Featuring a Hyekka Master, Khora, and Venari

Chapter 17: The Tenno Among Us
Plotbunny: a Tenno using fashion frame to imitate the Corpus infiltrates one of their ships

Chapter 18: Speedy Boys
Plotbunny: Gauss vs Volt speed competitions

Chapter 19: Jarka's Mentor
Plotbunny: "You woke up as an average Grineer solider. Do you think Queens are proud of you and why?"

Chapter 20: "Lose the Rig, if you know what I mean."
Plotbunny: Why Little Duck refuses to talk to our warframes (post-New War)

Chapter 21: This is fine.
Plotbunny: Have you ever noticed the Corpus workers sitting in little glass cubicles in the reworked Corpus Ships, just working away while we Tenno blaze past?

Chapter 22: Veso, Veko, Venmo
Plotbunny: Veso-R’s adventures under Narmer (New War)

Chapter 23: Crack Ship: Daughter/Bombastine
Plotbunny: if I have to imagine Daughter/Bombastine shipping, so do you.

Chapter 24: Renting Out Drifter's Camp
Plotbunny: Drifter meets the new tenant at his camp: Kahl-175 (Veilbreaker)

Chapter 25: Why Drifter doesn't use the Tigris
Plotbunny: the original Duviri Paradox featured Drifter using a Tigris shotgun

Chapter 26: Why Drifter doesn't use a K-Drive (anymore)
Plotbunny: why Drifter can't k-drive after the New War

Chapter 27: Drifter & Umbra
Plotbunny: Drifter has a more complicated relationship with Umbra than the Operator did (New War)

Chapter 28: Incarnon War
Plotbunny: Can we get an Incarnon War to round out the set of Stalker weapons?

Chapter 29: Selling the Lotus
Plotbunny: What would happen if we could sell the Lotus?

Chapter 30: Void Save the King!
Plotbunny: A Dax Gladius catches Drifter and meets a Warframe.

Chapter 31: Gardening in Duviri
Plotbunny: Who shoots plants? Gardening doesn't work like that!

Chapter 32: Orowyrm vs Railjack
Plotbunny: DE should let us fight the Orowyrm as a Railjack Crew

Chapter 33: You wake up in Warframe
Plotbunny: You are offered a million dollars, but to claim it you must enter the last video game you played, and stay there for a year. If you accept the money, how's life there?

Chapter 34: Protea Prime, Child of Two Fathers
Plotbunny: Protea Prime's launch trailer

Chapter 35: Jade Shadows Small Town AU
Plotbunny: Hunhow has gotten so bored in his retirement that he's cracked open the 50 year scotch and is therapizing the edgy 17 y.o. that mows his lawn on the weekends. (Jade Shadows)

Chapter 2: The "Ventkid"

u/Lucifer_Graves asked: Do you ever think the Tenno walk around as themselves to start trouble just to scare the hell out of someone when they turn into a warframe?

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"42, 43, 44..." It's exactly 45 steps to the far end of the Anyo Corp vault system's laser walls, and 45 steps back. The metal walls of the vault room are an unrelenting, sterile gray and the vault windows have an excellent view of a completely unremarkable computer console. Profit, this is a *long* shift.

I'm just about reduced to making up a name and backstory for each of the security cameras when I see them out of the corner of my eye. It's a Ventkid, tapping away at the console inside the supposedly secure vault.

How in the Granum Void did a Ventkid get all the way from Fortuna to the flagship? There's no mistaking the puffy vest, nor the kubrodon knee pads, and definitely not the snow visor. I half-expected to see a k-drive lying next to them, but no, they are standing there completely absorbed in hacking our priceless data.

Well, kid or not, I know my duty. I waited for the appropriate moment to step past the lasers and went inside the Vault. "Kid, I dunno how you got here-"

The kid about jumps out of their skin, whirling around,  mouth falling open in shock.

I leveled my Plinx. "Come quietly, and no one gets hurt."

For a long moment, we just stared at each other. The next, there's a warframe where the kid was.

I'm holding a mucking warframe at gunpoint with a Plinx. Every bit of Profit I've ever made in my life flashes before my eyes. It's not much. Maybe my parents will scrape together enough to bury me under a Granum Crown.

Then, impossibly, the kid steps back out of the warframe, dusting off their vest like one of the mighty Tenno hasn't just been jumpscared by a lowly Corpus Crewman. "You saw nothing, okay? No one gets hurt."

Just like that, I could breathe again. I said, "Yeah, pretty sure staring at these gray walls are making me hallucinate from pure boredom."

The kid winks, and then they and their warframe are gone before I can properly holster my Plinx.

Chapter 3: The Eximus

u/Razzmatazz-Sweet asked: What are Eximus, lorewise? How did they get so powerful?

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There's a new kid in my squad. Some squirt fresh off of the Orb Vallis. I can tell because he stands way too close to my Eximus suit. 

I get it, Venus was cold. But my Arctic augmentations aren't your personal air conditioning. So I tell him, "Back off."

He opens his visor. Profit, he's so fresh he only has a single hashmark tattoo of service. "How do I get one of those suits?" 

You keep your head down, hang to the back of the squad, squeeze off some shots where you can, and pray the Tenno aren't feeling particularly murderous, I think. "Live long enough, and promotion and profit will come."

"No, really."

"Really. No idiot heroics. Just survive. Against the Tenno and the Grineer, it's the survivors that'll distinguish themselves. Cause everyone else is dead."

His face falls faster than the Index when the Tenno show up to play. Despite the ice-cold coolant cell exterior I like to cultivate, I feel bad. He's just a kid, not that much different from how I was the first time my Nullifier squad leader looked at my freshly scrubbed face and ordered me to back off.

"A word of wisdom, kid. This ice shield looks hard, and it is. It'll take a blast from a Kuva Bramma just like the Corpus Board says it will. But just like those Nullifier shields, you know what the Tenno see when they look at me? A big glowing target. So seriously, back off."

Maybe, if he listens, he'll live long enough to get promoted into a glowing target himself.

Chapter 4: Reworking the Sergeant

u/Mental-Ad-1807 made a petition to rework the Sergeant from being a complete joke of a Warframe boss. I started thinking about how DE might make him an actual challenge.

________________________________________________________________

 

Nora Night croons over the radio waves, "They say that something old has become something new, Dreamers. Do you have what it takes to face the Sergeant?"

"He got a rework?!" Volt exclaims.

Excalibur stows his Skana. "I'll grab Mag. You call Rhino. We gotta check him out."

Volt struts back to his Arsenal. "Time for fashion frame. Got to look good for the new and improved Sergeant."

He pokes the Randomize button five times.

"Operator, my sensors are BLEEDING."

---------------------

"Fashion victims about to become murder victims," the Sergeant announces as the four warframes rapidly close the distance. "Nef Anyo is a cheapskate. Parvos Granum is generous. Leave now, and I might be half as generous to you as he has been to me."

"I'm quaking in my boots," Volt retorts.

Mag rounds the corner first. "Uh, guys..."

A series of warframe heads are mounted to the wall as trophies. "Do you like my decorations?" The Sergeant taunts.

"How'd he get-" Rhino pokes at a particularly eye-searing Revenant's head. "These guys aren't supposed to die as long as they are paying attention."

"You've got Iron Skin," Excalibur dismisses his fears. "What could go wrong?"

---------------------

The Sergeant floats above the eximus-filled battlefield, protected by a full globe of AOE-baffling shields. A shield osprey hovers over each shoulder. He hasn't even bothered to use the Tenet Detron he's carrying.

Rhino's roar paints the whole group gold with damage buffs to no avail. Mag cries, "He's regenerating his shields faster than I can strip them!"

Excalibur gets swarmed by eximus units. He briefly breaks free, tries to blind them to give himself some breathing room, and then gets overwhelmed and downed.

Rhino charges at the Sergeant. He snatches one shield osprey out of the air and starts pummeling it, barely making a dent in its reinforced shields. "Next time, we bring toxin mods!"

The Sergeant swings his Detron around to target Rhino. "There won't be a next time."

This is Volt's chance. He leaps into the air. At the movement, the Sergeant swings back at him. He has a second to feel the Detron's particles deplete his shields,  right before he blows all his capacitors in a massive electrical discharge that rolls through the entire room...and leaves the Sergeant untouched.

Volt stares at his downed teammates and his own radiation-covered hands. 

The Sergeant laughs. "I'm only just warming up!"

 

(Or, be careful what you wish for!)

Chapter 5: Narmer Invasions

u/ripskeletonking suggested: How about we get some Narmer invasions like how the infested invasions work where one random planet has a Narmer outbreak and you work with some faction to drive it back?

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Agor Rok paces the command deck of his Galleon, glowering at his lancers and the babbling prisoner in turn. His lancers quail; Rok is not overly given to shooting the messenger with his Kuva Seer, but this is very bad news indeed.

"-praise the martyred Ballas. Praise him, for even in death he loves us still-"

Rok cuts off the prisoner's mumbling with a brutal backhand. The Heavy Gunner had been a loyal soldier of the Queens this morning before she clapped on the Veil and shot up three pieces of strip mining equipment with her grattler.

Rok is still a loyal soldier of the Queens. He is in command of this planet. He will not sit idly by and watch his command rot out from under him as more of these damned veils surface, drown out the Queens' commands, and turn Brothers and Sisters against each other.

Even if it means making a deal with *them.*

"Leave." He growls at his lancers. "Space that one and her Veil with her."

They thump their chests in salute and leave him to make his humiliating request alone.

Rok takes a bloodstained komm unit off his belt. It's stained with his own blood and the blood of the brothers and sisters in his squad, all slaughtered by the Tenno who's top hat now adorns his shoulder like a pauldron. "Progenitor," he growls. "I have a proposal for you."

"Whoa," the Tenno says, putting their hands up. They've replaced the top hat with an even fancier one. "I love you, lich man, but not like that."

He ignores the banter; every Grineer knows that the Tenno are given to witty quips right up until you punch them in their sword-steel face. "Narmer has infected my troops. I offer you a Forma to root them out."

"Deal." 

Rok blinks. "That was easier than I expected."

The Tenno doffs their hat. "Consider it a down payment on the five forma I'm gonna pump into MY kuva seer," they say, and sign off.

He glares down at the dark komm unit. "The things I do for the Queens."

Chapter 6: The Other Prisma Latron Shoulder

u/OldSchoolNewRules appealed to DE for the other Prisma Latron Shoulder for their Gyre' Fashion Frame.

 

"The wait is over, Tenno. Baro Ki'Teer has arrived."

Air Traffic Control at Strata Relay braces for impact. The Relay itself opens like a flower stalk, extending countless new landing pads for the Tenno landing craft that swarm like fish in great shoals. Delicate Cephalons shelter their sensors from the mob of flashily plummaged warframes that gathers in the Concourse, lest they start bleeding. 

Gyre prances and dances her way to Baro's Ducat Kiosk.  It's her first big shopping trip, and she needs only one thing to complete her outfit.

The Void Trader eyes her. "Some interesting gear you have, Tenno. I guess minimalism is making a come back

Ignoring the jibe, she scans his catalog and sighs in primed disappointment. "I'd be fancier if you'd just give me that other Prisma Latron Shoulder."

"You couldn't afford it if I did. Browsing is always free. How fortunate for you. Perhaps a Darvo Deal would be more your speed?"

Under that withering scorn, Gyre slinks away, feeling lopsided and drab next to the Prime warframes that Baro fawns over. He's tossing out invitations to anything with a touch of Orokin gold and symmetrical fashion.

A passing Wisp tries to console her, saying, "i can't go to the parties either. Everyone tells me, "Wait a few years.""

"I don't want to go to his stupid parties. I just want the other shoulder pad!"

Together, they hatch a plan.

----------------------

Inaros Prime strolls up to Baro Ki'Teer. There's a Prisma Latron guard on one shoulder, Wisp hanging on his left arm, and Gyre on his right.

"Great Inaros! Welcome! My shelves grow bare. Might we... you know? The usual?"

"I need a favor." Inaros rumbles in a voice like a sandstorm sweeping over bare rock.

"Anything, God King!"

"I need a party invite for me and my plus one."

The Void Trader eyes Wisp with suspicion, then visibly decides that anyone good enough for the God-King Inaros is good enough for him. "Of course!"

"And I need the other Prisma Latron Shoulder."

Now, the Void Trader glares at Gyre. He knows when he's being played.

"What?" She asks, with a coquettish flip of her dancing skirt. "The God-King can't be lopsided."

Baro grinds his teeth. "God-King, I may have a lead on some Orokin treasure troves that might contain a complete Prisma Latron set. For a modest investment we can both do quite well AND keep my kiosk well supplied with wonders. What say you?"

Inaros nods. "Send me your Void Signal when it's time."

Wisp and Gyre kiss him on the cheek. "Through the beneficence of Inaros, all things are possible!"

Chapter 7: Red Veil Crimes

u/Mr_Obvious360 asked: What crime has this fellow grineer soldier committed (wrong answers only)? 

So I went to Ticker to see if I could get some inspiration about the Red Veil Operatives in the picture. Well, I found Operative Mine and his quirk.

_________________________________________________________________

 

Red Veil Operative Mine sharpened the ritual knife, leering over the captive grineer soldier on the table. The cloned man looked strangely peaceful, lying there like he could fall asleep despite the drumming of the infested chargers on the glass enclosure behind them.

Well, that wouldn't last long once Operative Rakt started up the electro-table. Corruption must be cleansed. Still, he was curious at the man's apparent peace. This one had even had the bounty paid by his own squad, a mark of true depravity. "How can you lie there like you have no crimes on your conscience?"

"I was a loyal soldier to Queens. Loyal to my brothers." The Grineer smiled, a ghastly sight. "You two are scary, but not as scary as the Tenno."

Mine double-checked. "Your own squad turned you in. What did you do?"

"Don't know." He squinted up at Mine through the bright lights above the table. "Say, while we're asking questions, why did you end up here?"

Mine flushed hot enough to match the bright red of the Veil's walls. Rakt's snickers turned into full blown gales of laughter as the Operative explained, "No one else would take him because he snores like a Ghoulsaw!"

The Grineer laughed with Rakt, then when he saw that Mine was deeply embarrassed, tried to switch tack. "I'm sure you're as deadly as a ghoulsaw too."

Mine and Rakt looked at each other. Rakt backed away from the electro-table controls. Mine put the ritual knife away. Their leader Palladino might be disappointed in them, but she didn't have to torture the cheerful guy.

Trying to maintain at least a facade of Red Veil Edgelord, Mine asked, "Any last requests, soldier?"

He yawned. "Could do with a nap. You know soldiers. If you can sleep, you sleep."

Well, he wasn't going anywhere, so they left him to it. Out in the antechamber where the Tenno came and went, Rakt asked, "What do you think he did to deserve getting turned over to us by his own squad?"

"Dunno. Probably looked at the Queens funny."

Then the racket started. Like a ghoulsaw, it rose and fell in volume, sawing on the eardrums. Like Lephantis, it snorfled and sputtered. Like an Opticor, it cut through the walls like they were paper.

"What the hell!" Mine covered his ears.

"It sounds like you did when you first got here!" Rakt snapped back.

Realization struck. They rushed back to their captive, fast asleep and snoring loud enough to drive the chargers into a frenzy.

"I think I know why his squad turned him in," Rakt said grimly.

Mine felt sick to his stomach. "We can't kill a man for the high crime of snoring too loudly." Not when Red Veil had taken himself in, checked him for sleep apnea, then given him an elevated pillow and soundproofed rooms.

"Of course not. But what do we do with him?"

Mine thought. No way would Palladino take a Grineer into the mysteries of Red Veil, even if they both vouched for him. Then, an idea struck him. "I know."

-------------------

Their Grineer former-captive-turned-free-man followed them through the Relay Hall of Syndicates with the cheerful aplomb of a soldier who's going to die someday but today the angel of death has passed them by. "Where are we going?"

Rakt opened the doors to their Allied Syndicate. General Cressa Tal glared at them with her one good eye. She knew full well what the Red Veil did to captured Grineer soldiers.

Mine clapped him on the armored back and guided him inside. "Steel Meridian. You're their man now."

Cressa Tal blinked. Their Grineer buddy looked around. "Uh. Thanks?!"

As the two Operatives left him there to get acquainted, Mine heard the General ask, "So why'd you end up here?"

"Don't know."

She'd find out as soon as her newest Operative took a nap, but that wasn't Mine's problem anymore.

Chapter 8: Khra Rifts

u/GenericPybro suggested a new twist on Void Fissures and Lohk Surges: a Khra Rift that would combine The Drifter's gameplay with time-travel into another version of the Star Chart.  I do love the story potential for Drifter-based gameplay, even though it only works in missions that are carefully curated for their limited skill set.

_________________________________________________________________

"Khra: To cosmic forms from tangent places. We end as we began."

If the Drifter had known they'd wind up saving a second timeline's Origin System planet by planet with nothing more than Nataruk, a dinky void pistol, and an electrified  cheese knife, they would've stayed in Duviri.

But they have what Ordis lovingly calls a "saving people problem." So here they are on Mars, itching from the blowing sand and void contamination, as terrified Sand People point to the glowing golden hourglass of a Khra Rift in their main temple to Inaros.

The energy has half-swirled from top to bottom, so they're right to be terrified. Dredging up half-remembered lessons from the Zariman, the Drifter explains, "It's causing normally tangent timelines to touch. If they actually merge, there's no telling what might happen."

Mars might be transformed into a garden paradise in a timeline where the Orokin never fell. Mars might be transformed into a lifeless wasteland from a timeline where the Orokin never existed.

The Drifter calls Nataruk to hand and steps into the Rift.

Fortunately, it's a similar enough timeline to the one they left. They step out of the temple into a bustling Sand People village...and duck back behind a stone column as Grineer artillery explosions bloom overhead. Lancers run rampant through the streets, kicking in doors and dragging peasants from their homes. 

Nataruk's perfectly charged shot adds another explosion to the sky; Grineer faces show fear for the first time as their Bolkor dropships rain down in pieces.

The Drifter can't save everyone, but they save who they can. Smoke grenades cover the villagers' flight down twisting side streets. Silenced shots pick off their pursuers. Radar reveals where the Grineer patrols are. The soldiers aren't expecting a sudden stab in the back or the paralyzing jolt that stops their screams. 

In the aftermath, they patch up the wounded as best they can for evacuation. Then they come across a newly-orphaned child clutching a handful of sand in his fist, who they recognize from another timeline when they both meet for the first time on a Tenno Relay. The child accuses, "You aren't Inaros."

Having accomplished their mission, the golden currents of Time are already separating this temporary collision of timelines. "No, I'm not," the Drifter tells a young Baro. "You don't need a Warframe to do what's right. But you keep believing in legends, and you might just meet the God-King yourself one day."

The Khra Rift flips. Reality itself goes topsy-turvy as connected timelines spring apart like quivering bow strings, leaving the Drifter feeling much like an arrow fired into a target. It's a bruising landing onto the steps of Inaros' temple, but at least it's only sand itching and not void contamination.

"The Khra Rift is cleared," the Drifter assures the grateful Sand People. "Just give me a call if it comes back again."

Somedays, they wish they'd stayed in Duviri. Today, when they've stood up for what's right with just Nataruk, their dinky pistol, and an electrified cheese knife, there's nowhere they'd rather be than saving the Origin System in as many timelines as it takes.

Chapter 9: Garuda & Excalibur's First Date

Garuda doesn't have a lot of in-game lore, so when I saw u/HolyKnightDeVale's artwork "The First Knight (Excalibur) and the Queen of Gore (Garuda) having a Talk on the Plains. What do you think they’re talking about?", I couldn't resist explore some of the ideas I've had for her lore. Check out the Art too!

_________________________________________________________________

As long as they avoided the stomping Teralyst and acid rain clouds of the Hydrolyst, or the swarming vomvalysts and hunting packs of wild kavat, the Plains were actually quite beautiful at night. Excalibur mentally patted himself on the back for asking Garuda out here for their first date. She was used to the permanently clouded skies of the Orb Vallis and hadn't stopped marveling at the clear view of thousands and thousands of stars visible from the mountains beyond Cetus.

Now, if only he weren't such an awkward conversationalist. She was sitting there, claws folded gracefully against her arms, looking at him.

"Uh, so, I guess there's one thing I've been dying to know about you."

"Heh, dying." She chuckled.

"How'd, uh...Eudico said the Biz found you under a Valiis mushroom. How'd that happen?"

Her claws flexed out as if to rend and tear. He backpedaled quickly. "Hey, forget I asked. Sorry!"

Just as quickly as she'd roused to anger, she preened her claws back like plumage. "The Biz is a good man who respects the fauna of the Vallis. Suffice it to say that the Orokin who made me did not. Their maidens believed that by bathing in the blood of youthful creatures they could preserve their vitality without Continuity."

Her golden claws gleamed in the moonlight. He guessed, "They didn't want to get their own perfect hands dirty, of course."

"They made me be their butcher. When we rebelled, I butchered them in turn and poured their blood out into the same bathhouses where I'd slaughtered pups, kits, and chicks for their amusement."

Someone other than a fellow Tenno might find themselves revolted by her bloodthirstiness. Excalibur, himself a victim of Orokin atrocities, approved wholeheartedly. "They deserved it."

"So did the Corpus who intruded on a sawgaw nesting site to make their snake oil cures. I was guarding that mushroom forest." She spread her hands. "Unfortunately I was overwhelmed. But not before I reaped a rich harvest of fertilizer from them."

"Well, I'm glad the Biz found you, even if the Corpus aren't." He said, and daringly snuggled closer to her, avoiding the claws. She leaned against him, and with some difficulty, he held in an inner cheer.

"He's a good man." She repeated. "I'm not too sure about Master Teasoni here on the Plains, though. I tripped over a little kuaka on my last bounty run and he wasn't even upset."

As much as Excalibur loved watching her fight as ribbons of blood trailed from her claws and gore streaked her slim body, he didn't exactly want to see Cetus' best huntmaster get dismembered. "In his defense, the Plains have a lot more kuaka than the Orb Vallis has pobbers. If he didn't help keep the prey population in check, we'd be overrun with bloodsucking kavats out here."

Garuda sat straight up, her claw tips nearly swiping him across the face. "Sorry! But - there are bloodsucking kavats?!"

"Yeah, toss a stone out there," he waved over the darkened Plains, "and you'll probably hit a pack of them."

"I need one."

It wasn't quite the romantic first date he'd envisioned, but since it made her happy, they hunted down a vampire kitty for her very own.

Chapter 10: Superstitions

u/Rekindled96 posted a meme where the Grineer see Wisp only a terrifying spectral figure, compared to how the average Tenno see her. The Warframe universe must be rife with superstition for the average enemy.

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Thanks to the endless war with the Grineer, there's so much blood splattered on the bulkheads that every spaceship in the Corpus fleet is haunted.

It starts small: there's a rash of thefts that no one 'fesses up to. The officers pull the security cam footage and can't find who did it. No one knows why the poltergeist has a taste for rifling through lockers for ammo it can't shoot and credits it can't spend.

There's noises in the vents at night that old machinery can't explain. There's grates and vent covers lying loose in the morning when the whole maintenance crew signed off swearing they bolted that thing down and superglued it to boot. 

Every new crewmen hears about the dark hallways and dead ends where someone went missing.

It could be worse. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who served on a ship with a verified case of spontaneous human combustion.

It could be much worse. The ghosts you can't see are better than the ones you can.

If you shoot down too many lifeboats, then one night when the Void flickers just beyond the horizon, a ghost ship comes calling. When the storm passes, they'll find your body slashed to ribbons by a Shadow's scythe-like claws.

If you betray your squadmates to their death, the ghosts know. You'll see their faces rise as shadows guarding the Reaper of Souls when he comes to claim yours.

And then there's the one who brushes past you in the narrow hallway, paralyzing your limbs with fear. Her whispers sink into your brain until you can't tell friend from foe, spreading in a cascade through your whole squad. You see her, or you think you do, for she vanishes the next second. When you give into fear and shoot at the shadows, you only kill your mates because she wasn't there at all. She was over here instead, and now she's gone.

Your best bet for surviving such an encounter with the Will O' Wisp, says no lesser man than John Prodman himself, is to lower your gun and simply admire what little you can see. She is a beautiful, deadly ghost, and likes to show off her best asset as she leaves someone alive to tell the tale.

Chapter 11: The Zanusyte Infestation

u/Gulutito posted ideas for Syndicates for every species that doesn't have one yet. Here's a story based on their idea for an Infested Syndicate based on the aftermath of Mutalist Alad V's adventures on Eris.

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"Tenno," the Lotus said, "our operatives are picking up unusual signals near Eris. Someone needs to investigate."

Mesa inspected her regulators. "The last time I went there, my warframe got taken over by Mutalist Alad V. No thanks."

Atlas cracked his knuckles. "The last time I went there, I got entombed by the Jordas Golem. No thanks."

The Lotus put on her best "Space Mom" voice: "Someone's got to figure out why the hivemind appears to be attacking itself, Tenno."

Even the mighty Tenno knew better than to argue. Their landing craft set off for Eris within the hour.

………………..

Most Tenno missions took place on the once vital spaceport or the ships now gridlocked to the surface by thick tendrils of Infestation. The Lotus' data had them descend to the surface itself, where it became clear that there were indeed two rival hiveminds. 

Watching the formerly-Corpus-infested battle all the other infested creatures, Atlas said, "Jordas was a Corpus Cephalon. I wonder if their AI makes them more resilient somehow?"

"Or Alad V did something right, for once," Mesa said.

They looked at each other. "Nah, that can't be it."

After punching and shooting their way through all the infested in sight, they tracked down the hive at the center of it all. It was guarded primarily by mutalist MOAs and ospreys. 

Mesa said, "You might be on to something about that Corpus AI."

Atlas muttered, "I swear, if it starts moaning about Pherliac Pods, I'm gonna pop one right up its-"

The Hive stirred. Like Phorid, it was a giant quadruped. Unlike Phorid, it had familiar teal metal plating for armor.

Mutalist Zanuka bared her fangs.

"I swear," Mesa said, "if Alad V shows up with that damned collar-" she didn't finish the sentence, but her regulators spun from her elbows to her hands.

Atlas raised his fists.

Zanuka shook herself. "Tenno? Oh my, it's the Tenno. Excuse me. Ahem."

In a far more bombastic voice, she announced, "You have loyalty issues, Betrayers. I, the Zanusyte, will be happy to help fix that for you!"

Mesa shot her in the face until she stopped moving. Atlas punched what was left into a crater.

After they made their report to the Lotus, Mesa sighed. "I'm not looking forward to the next bit."

"Dealing with the rival hivemind we saw?"

"No. Letting Valkyr know that Zanuka's back. She's gonna have Hysterics, literally."

……………………

Valkyr dropped from her landing craft, touched down on the sporulated surface of Eris with the grace of a cat, and then cut loose.

Her claws shredded every infested who came at her into a fine mist - former Corpus or otherwise. Her ripline pulled the ospreys down from the air so she could rend them in half. 

When she reached the crater where her fellow Tenno had left Zanuka, she paused. Like Phorid, this Zanusyte would slowly regenerate…were it not for the tendrils of the rival Hive Mind slowly ripping her apart. Zanuka's bound limbs strained under the pressure. Like the Warframe who's slow torture had birthed her and who's flesh she now wore as armor, she couldn't truly die either.

Valkyr let out her warcry. She'd do for Zanuka what should have been done for her and make it quick.

Then Zanuka said the one thing that stopped her in her tracks. "Help?"

"You're asking me for help?" She asked, in disbelief.

"That's what the Tenno do, right?" 

Actually? Yes. That wasn't something that Zanuka would've learned from Alad V. Maybe more of Gersemi survived Alad V's desecration than she'd thought. 

Growling, she set to work shredding the rival Hivemind's tendrils instead. "I don't want to hear a word about 'Betrayers' or 'loyalty issues' ever again."

"You mean that's not the traditional way to greet the Tenno?" 

She asked so earnestly that Valkyr just shook her head. "You've got a lot to learn."

"I thought I was offering to help. Then they shot me."

"You've got a lot to un-learn, too."

As she destroyed the bindings, a different voice broke in. "Creature," it rumbled, "Do not unleash this machine mind. The future of organic life lies in chaos, not the ordered replication of repetitive mutalist machines."

"You're the other hivemind?"

"I am the Chaosyte." It confirmed. "Stand aside and let me finish the Zanusyte."

"Please don't," the Zanusyte said. "Er, the Tenno like Profit, don't they? Or is that one of the things I have to un-learn?"

"The other Tenno like loot, great weapons, and fashion." She said.

The Chaosyte threatened, "My weapons are beyond your comprehension. Pray you do not oppose me and find out."

The Zanusyte said, "I think I've got some infested bits and baubles lying around. Does that count as fashion?"

For a Tenno like Valkyr, which hivemind to side with was an even simpler decision: the Chaosyte was a torturer. She could not stand aside and let even one such as Zanuka suffer a slow death by torture. 

And so she wasted no more time severing the Chaosyte's tendrils and freeing the Zanusyte.

"You fucked around, Tenno. You'll find out!" The Chaosyte roared.

"Oh no." She said. "I'm just sobbing in terror at the thought of ripping those incomprehensible weapons from the flesh of your infested. No, wait, that's drool. I'm drooling in anticipation."

As the Chaosyte withdrew in a huff, the Zanusyte pulled herself together. "Er, you Betrayers are hardcore."

Valkyr laughed. "Zanusyte, you've got a lot to learn about working with the Tenno instead of against us. Here's to loot, great weapons, and fashion!"

Chapter 12: The Void Storm

u/ZoroSwipe asked "What do you think is the single worst war crime action that we do in this game?"

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Since Void Storms existed before the Tenno reawakened, everyone knows it's a myth that the Tenno can call them up at will. However, it's a simple fact that the Tenno don't fear the corruption of the Void. No, a storm-stricken battleship calls to them like a dying animal attracts vultures.

It starts with a single grate. A single loose grate lying on the floor of a less-patrolled hallway.

Then the horror begins.

A pinprick of light appears and then vanishes, almost too fast for even cybernetic eyes to register. On its heels, a blast front of superheated air whips whole squads off their feet and burns them alive. Those on the fringes survive long enough to scream as the air scorches their lungs every time they breathe.

A gaseous cloud sometimes outpaces the light, and then resolves into the form of an ancient god. Two gods, now, as if terrified grunts could hope to kill even one of them. The thunder of his majesty is enough to blast them off their feet. He does not even bother with the iron rod of his displeasure.

The truly unlucky die a slower death. They thought themselves wise to hang back and take care of the cleanup. Perhaps they think, as they begin coughing, they'll even call in sick this shift? Except that the whole squad is coughing, and then their armor cracks as rapidly growing fungus disintegrates it. From several rooms away, they hear the distant snarl of the Tenno who's killed them, and they die choking up their own liquefied organs.

At the back, the Reaper is in no hurry. These burned, blasted, and infected bodies aren't going anywhere, except into his realm. His scythe reaps its tithe. Anyone who interferes with his work finds themself added to the legion of damned souls that surrounds him. (There is a secret cult to the Reaper among the Crewmen and Grineer who would normally have the job of cleaning the blood off the decks. Its rites include ritual cannibalism of body parts.)

In all the chaos and confusion, the death and despair, no one notices until much later that a particularly vicious officer has gone missing without a trace.

"Either he's dead or the Tenno grabbed him." They shrug, but no one knows which is worse.

Chapter 13: Repairing Fortuna with Bad Puns

u/CyanAstronomy wanted a quest to repair the damage to Fortuna and Cetus.

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"Why haven't you changed the lights back? Narmer Red is so ugly I wouldn't put it on my worst warframe."

Eudico hears the question every so often from bewildered Tenno who do their best to clear up the debts accumulated in their absence. Rather than rant about herculean tasks, she just shrugs it off. But this is Sparky asking, so she says it plain: "The old purple lights had Argon gas in them. Narmer sucked all that out and changed it to Neon. Who's gonna pay to replace it? Not Nef Anyo."

"Are you telling me that the old lights-" Sparky tries and fails to look innocent, "-are gone?"

Oh, she'd missed the Tenno and their terrible sense of humor. She groans at the pun, because it makes Sparky happy, and says, "There's no way we can pay for enough argon. By the time you shipped it here, half of it would disappear."

Sparky cracks their knuckles. "Challenge accepted."

Eudico doesn't ask how. She's learned to trust Sparky. When that means the Tenno scrape every Orokin Tower in the Void for argon crystals, then descend en masse on Fortuna to change out every light bulb in a single day, she groans at every single argon pun.

That, company scrip, and some rare debt bonds make the Tenno happy; the only payments they've asked for their part in lifting together to keep the dark from coming. Thanks to them, she sleeps soundly under new lights that don't remind her of Veiled dreams.

Chapter 14: Home on the Zariman

u/Aorcain asked for others' thoughts on how quickly the Tenno adopted the Zariman as their new home despite its traumatic past during the Angels of the Zariman quest.

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The Chrysalith isn't home until the Operator comes back to the Zariman, ready to fight to keep it plugging the gap so there aren't Void Storms from the Veil to Mercury, and Quinn welcomes them back with a smile. A real smile, not the pained one he bore while the song of his former crewmates tore at his soul like hooks through flesh.

The Operator's not sure what to make of this business of their "light" or even if they still have it after shaking hands with the Man in the Wall. But right now, if they are the candle holding back the darkness of despair for Quinn and the other Holdfasts, it's worth it.

Everview Arc isn't home until they meet Skittergirl, the void manifestation of Archimedean Yonta's anxiety. The Lunaro pitch features a far more deadly game than they used to play as children. Instead of throwing balls through hoops, it's a frantic mess of grabbing balls of vitoplast and shoving it into ruptures before the Angels' clawing hands tear reality asunder. It's all Archimedean Yonta's fault - she designed the damned stuff to float!

Then Skittergirl's laugh sends a chill down their spine and siphons the vitoplast from their carrier. "You thought you could fix it!" She taunts. "You foolish child, everything's broken because of you!"

Oh, they know *that* feeling. They gun down Skittergirl, take back their vitoplast, close the ruptures, take the first elevator back to the Chrysalith, and hug Yonta.

She awkwardly hugs back. "She's right, you know? According to eternalism, somewhere there's a me who stayed on Lua and I hate her."

At times like this, they miss Teshin with a sharp ache. He'd insisted that they learn from their past mistakes...and then let the past go so they could move forward. So they say what he would have: "Accept her criticism, learn from it, and grow beyond it. I have faith you will."

Afterwards, there's a little pep in her step, and she always has an adorable smile and little wave just for them as they go by with their next bounty.

Halako Perimeter isn't home until Cavalero directs them to a Corpus squad ransacking their old classrooms. Cephalon Melica scolds the Eximus Tech holding aloft a glowing, singing Zarium Accolade, "Those are for distinguished students of the Entrati Archives and you certainly do not qualify. Return it at once."

Ignoring her, he orders his squad to leave with the loot.

Their blood boils. No, the Corpus may not rake through the detritus of their old life for trinkets to serve Granum's ambition!

When they're done, Cavalero whistles. "Kid, I'm not gonna get sappy on you, but if no one's ever told you they're proud of you for being a walking war-crime, let me do that right now. You survived hell and you dish it right back out better than anyone."

No one's ever said it in quite those terms. Equally as warming, Melica thanks them for the Accolade and asks about their classmates.

"Rell died a hero." They tell her the sad news. "He protected us from a threat we didn't understand."

"Oh." Cephalons have a limited range of emotion; she sounds sad anyways. "My precepts state that I cannot have a favorite student. I can state that he was one of my favorite students."

The Greenway isn't home until Hombask meets them in the agri-zones near a patch of Lofler berry bushes. The berries are plump and ripe, guarded by inch-long thorns. They remember the berry juice staining their fingers during the harvest festival, though they've forgotten the taste. They remember the withered, scorched, and then frozen bushes and dead beds of greenery after the sabotage that opened the agri-zones to space. She'd done it to save them from the Void jump, hoping the Orokin would call it off...and doomed them to starvation rations and the famine that followed the wreck.

She deftly twists a handful of berries free and offers them. "Primm put so much effort into growing them again while I despaired. Never again, Tenno, I promise."

The berry bursts with sharp, tangy juice. And just like these rebirthed plants, Hombask is a Holdfast like the others, rebirthed from who she was to a second chance.

They share the berries and afterwards she helps decorate their empty dormizone.

The Dormizone isn't home until the Drifter walks in whistling, starts cooking a meal just like their parents used to make, sets two plates down at the table, and asks, "--Hungry?"

"Uh, yeah."

Chapter 15: Tenno Interrogation Techniques

u/LemonsLiesandLuigi asked "How notorious are the tenno interrogation techniques that a capture target would rather stick around infested than be captured?"

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"In the name of Profit, I'll tell you nothing! We've heard what the Red Veil does to their prisoners - I'll bite my tongue off before I submit to torture."

The warframe who'd captured him near Eris shrugged enormous feathered wings that barely fit in the tiny cell on the Relay it'd hauled him off to. "I'm not with the Red Veil," it's Tenno Operator said. "Just pick which set of paperwork to sign, please. Perrin Sequence did the contracts."

He examined the contracts. Ergo Glast's reputation for honesty did not disappoint. The first contract said that if he did not wish to cooperate with the Tenno, he'd be returned to the Corpus, no strings attached.

Hah. As if. First, his mission to Eris was a complete bust thanks to the Infestation first and the Tenno second. His superiors would take those losses out of his pocket. Then, having failed, he'd be out of a job. Which meant searching for a new job, bribing recruiters, and paying to move to his new post all out of fast-dwindling savings. He'd be lucky to break even. More likely this was the start of a downward spiral that'd leave him destitute and debt-ridden in Fortuna.

But hey, at least the Solaris didn't have to fight the Tenno.

As for the second contract: "Tell the Tenno everything.  In return-"

He read no farther. "In the name of Profit, no."

"That's not very Profit-minded of you." The Tenno chided, tapping the pages. 

He read the second contract. "In return, a basic living stipend-" the number was a princely sum compared to a crewman's pay he had to read twice before he believed it - "health, dental, and eye benefits. Sick days. Paid time off. Holidays." (What in the name of Profit was a Tennobaum?) "And you never have to fight a Tenno again."

Ergo Glast wouldn't lie. But if any Corpus agent put up a recruitment offer like this, they'd crash the comm nets from the sheer number of applicants.

"This can't be real," he said, even though a part of him prayed to Profit it was.

The Tenno leaned back, putting their armored feet up on the table between them. What the motion did to those wings defied description. "Oh, it's quite real. Why do you think so many Sisters of Parvos decide they'd rather work for us instead?"

He'd forsake the Corpus...and be on an upward trend, putting credits away for retirement, not one disaster away from pay-day loans. And he'd never have to fight the Tenno again.

"In the name of Profit, I'll tell you everything."

Chapter 16: A Rare Moment of Cooperation

u/lesbianwriterlover69 asked what our usual enemies thought about the warframes they work with during invasions.

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Riva-263 counted her pride of kavats. All five of them. Rippa. Claws. Fang. Lop-ear. And Stumpy with the stumpy tail, lopped off when he bothered the wrong Butcher. All five, ready for murder and mayhem on the Corpus Obelisk blockading their colony on Mars. 

Then the Warframe arrived, two more kavats trailing at her heels.

Rippa stretched, baring her claws. Fang and Claws hissed at the newcomers, then at each other.

The warframe’s purebred Smeeta sneered down its pug nose. Lop-ear pawed at the air as if to say, "Don't look at me funny; did you smush your face into a wall as a kit?"

The final kavat stood tall and proud like a Queen decked out in prime golden armor, much like her mistress. 

In that moment, Riva decided that she'd either be fast friends with this veiled Warframe or deadly enemies. "You like kavat?"

The Warframe scritched her queenly companion. "Venari and I go way back. Your Lt. Kril paid well for the both of us, so shall we?"

It took about a day of heavy fighting for the Corpus to get the hint. In that time, she'd learned the Warframe's name, Khora. She'd learned that Khora was not used to being packed into a breaching pod with seven kavats to be shot into the Corpus ship. And when the Corpus got desperate enough to turn off the air and life support, they'd both learned that dangling Corpus from Khora's Strangledome made for wonderful kavat toys.

All too soon, the Corpus higher-ups crunched the numbers and cut their losses. Riva walked Khora back to extraction.

"Are you sure you don't want to join Steel Meridian?" Khora asked.

"Riva is not defective." She said proudly. 

"I didn't say that. Oh fine, I'll say it. If you don't join up, you're going to die. Some other Saryn will infect your pride without even knowing you're there. Some other Gauss will run past and you'll just burst into flame. Or maybe it'll be some other Khora. You'll think it's me and they'll whip you apart before you can say a word."

Khora thought her afraid to die? She was not defective. To die for her Queens was an honor. "Riva stay. Fight for Queens."

Khora sighed. The lights of her landing craft flared on its final approach. 

Riva counted her kavats. Rippa. Claws. Fang. Lop-ear. "Where's Stumpy?"

The smushed-nose Smeeta looked back as if to say, "You think I know where that stump-rump moggy is?"

As if in answer, there was the yowl of a kavat enjoying herself. A very queenly yowl.

"Oh." Riva said. "Stumpy always gets around where he shouldn't be. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Khora said. "When she has the kits, I'll name the queen of the litter for you. You’ll be remembered. Take care."

Venari rejoined her mistress, looking very pleased with herself. Stumpy sauntered back to her pride. Riva carefully shook Khora's spiky hand and they parted for good.

 

Chapter 17: The Tenno Among Us

Inspired by u/Adorazazel's Drifter fashion using the Masker Theodolite outfit and various attachments to mimic Corpus style.

 

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Day 10: They still have not realized that I am not a Crewman aboard the $$$ Quarterly Profits. The true test will come at the end of the work week when they have to issue my paycheck.

 

Day 11: I reported to the Reactor Department today. Like every other department, the Sergeant in charge is a swaggering bully who got his post because there's an "Anyo" somewhere in his family tree.

"What do you do around here, short stuff? I bet your job title's longer than you are."

I laugh, because it's true. "I'm a Junior Anti-Tenno Inspector of Grates, Vents, and Security Cameras."

That last list cut off the snickers. The Sergeant favored me with a beady-eyed stare, no doubt judging how much he's going to have to bribe me to ignore whatever illicit activities the cams show. Engineering had a gambling ring. Vault Security was charging a premium to store personal belongings in the vaults. Let's just say I'm not too worried about the paycheck not clearing.

 

Day 12: Vent Inspection isn't a bad job, actually. It's a little like crawling through the ducts and pipes on the Zariman. Except that these pipes are square, clean (except when I come across the remains of someone who's pulverized corpse never got found in the wake of a Tenno raid), brightly lit, and not crawling with Void contamination. 

Okay, maybe it's not much like the Zariman after all. Except for the corpses. That's pretty much the same anywhere.

 

Day 13: I turned in my report on the Reactor Department's Security lapses. The Sergeant made a big show of reading it. He made a bigger show of calculating the costs it would take to replace the brittle grates, reroute the vents that lead directly to the reactor's power cells and central console, and fortify the exposed reactor against Tenno-grade explosives.

Then he passed me a credit chip for 10% of the total. 

I said, "Really?"

He said, "This report is going to the Captain whether you sign off on it or not."

"I know. And the Captain will inflate the number by her cut, then you'll pocket whatever you don't bribe me with to spend with your cronies, and nothing around here gets fixed. I want 25%, at least, upfront."

We settled on an even 18%, upfront. He thought he got a steal. I think I won't have to fight Profit-taker again for months, so we're both happy.

 

Day 14: The paycheck is a moot point. There's no one left to pay me.

Blaring alarms woke me. The Captain screamed over the intercom that a Tenno Railjack just translated in sector and it was our job to stop them.

Ha. As if.

For a while, I hoped. Maybe it was an Ivara here to burgle our spy vaults, prowling through the vents I'd nicely marked as vulnerability like a Void-sent prophet to prove my point. I didn't hear any screaming...

Turns out you can tell how an invasion is going by how increasingly desperate the Captain is.

First, she took away our bonuses if we failed.

Next, our paychecks. All that worry for nothing. 

Finally, when the Tenno squad breached the reactor (and proved my point, not that anyone in that Department was left alive to say so) she cut off the air. Doesn't she know that warframes can manufacture life support from the dead bodies of her crewmen? Maybe not. Whoever wrote that report probably got a fat bribe to keep them quiet.

Then I did hear screaming: a lost Solaris agent who'd  realized the awful truth that we Tenno pay a lot of lip service to the cause but just as often leave them to die.

I sighed. Yes, I could convert my credits to a Granum Crown to free the man, who was now sobbing about leaving his three children as orphans saddled with generational debt. Just at 10000% markup, such that I'd be right back to farming Profit-taker like the other plebs. Parvos Granum had one thing absolutely right: getting rich and keeping a sentimental conscience doesn't work.

 

Day 15: The experiment is over. I've turned in my report on "Why the Corpus Haven't Fixed Their Ships Yet" to the Tenno Council. And now I'm off to Fortuna.

First, farming Profit-taker. Ugh.

And afterwards, family dinner.

Chapter 18: Speedy Boys

Inspired by u/Elolet's meme about Gauss vs Volt speed competitions.

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Ramn-32 shouldered his Kuva Shildeg, filled his bucket with spackle, grabbed his mason's trowel, and headed to work on the docked Galleon. Cleanup crews washed blood and viscera off the decks. They dragged sliced, scorched, and electrocuted bodies off for reclamation.

"Heh. Extra protein in the slurry tonight." 

In the first room, he assessed the damage. Bent railings. A warframe-shaped dent in the doorframe. Bullet holes in the door.

He sighed. 

Then he got to work. He unscrewed the railing and hammered it flat. He hammered the doorframe back into alignment, though the door was just a little slower to open than before. And those weren't bullet holes in the door. More like tiny razors had embedded themselves. He spackled them over anyways.

Not every room was like that. Just enough of them, at random intervals, that he got curious.

He spackled over the tiny dent in the door, then pulled it out like a mold. It was the face of a tiny, pretty fairy.

"Huh."

It took a lot of spackle to mold the bigger warframe who kept leaving such dents in the walls. Whoever it was, it had a rounded, streamlined shape and must be moving extremely fast to leave just a clear impression.

"Too fast. Heh."

Extraction marked the end of the damage and his shift. Three airlocks needed to be resealed. He frowned. "Three warframes. Two dents. Huh."

He brought it to his Commander. 

"Huh. What do drones show?"

Three warframes kicked open a vent in the landing bay. The pretty fairy shrank into a tiny fairy surrounded by a cloud of razors. The streamlined warframe turned to the final one, a lean black and gold runner and said, "I'll race you," in the tone of someone sure they'd win.

"Go right ahead," he invited.

The fairy dashed off faster than the drones could follow. The racer crouched and sprinted off at a blistering pace.

The lean one bullet-jumped after them at a far more sedate pace for a Warframe...and as they entered the first room ahead of him, cast some sort of Void magic on them.

Fairy faceplanted. Racer tripped over the railing, caught himself, and then slammed into the wall. Caster rushed past them, cackling, "Skill issue!"

"Heh. He make more work for Ramn, but good laughs."

Chapter 19: Jarka's Mentor

Inspired by u/paryta's prompt "You woke up as an average Grineer solider. Do you think Queens are proud of you and why?"

 

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Fresh brothers and sisters on the Plains today. Cracked so fresh from their tube, I still smell growth accelerated hormones oozing from their pores.

The howling wind up here in our lookout post will whip it away soon enough.

New Ballista sister clutches her rifle. "How to kill Tenno?"

I show her the riverbank. "Wait until they start fishing."

I show her the ridge where tumbling rocks shatter, revealing ores within. "Wait until they start mining."

I show her our camp. New brothers scurry far below. "Wait until they start killing."

Night falls. The beast of the Plains howls to the moon. Tenno archwings sweep out of Cetus. "Wait until they come for the lure."

She is new and fresh. She shoots ten clay targets to my six. She calls out an approaching archwing before I've realized it's not a condroc. She sees the telltale glow of Tenno bait in the water and watches for the wavering invisibility while my vision is just blurry. She is my keensighted sister who's rifle guards my new brothers.

I am old. And so I show her the secrets. "Stand inside the post. Stand behind the nets. Stand near the center post. Do not patrol the outside. Do not stand in the open."

She does not understand. Not yet.

"The Tenno have clay targets they call rivens." I say, standing on the open side of our lookout post, my face to the wind, drinking in every last blurred moment. "They hunt us. It is a special prize to take us unawares. When you grow old and unable to serve the Queens as you should, tell your new sisters this. Then wait until they come for you."

Chapter 20: "Lose the Rig, if you know what I mean."

u/Upset-Condition-7656 memed about Little Duck's abrupt memory loss in between happily talking to our Tenno Operators and then refusing to admit that she knows our Warframes. (New War Spoilers, FYI)

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Little Duck busied herself with counting toroids, steadfastly ignoring the warframe getting more and more frustrated while waiting for her to acknowledge her. The Tenno were frantically prepping for their coming war with the Sentients and wanted all the amps her crowd of colorful locals could craft.

Finally, the pristine Mag Prime with the Dax syandana shimmered and Sparky stepped out. The little operator was completely exasperated. "Come on, LD, you know it's me."

"Nice to see you again, Shadow," she said, finally opening her faceplate to greet the Tenno who'd done far more than her share to save the Solaris.

"Oh, come on!" Sparky shouted. "Why won't you talk to me in my warframe? Just because I want to fast travel here instead of spoiling the sleeping Tenno, you act like you don't even know me."

Eudico stared fixedly at her battlemap, pretending not to hear a thing. And anyway, she couldn't understand why Little Duck insisted on dealing with the Operators directly, because she wasn't friend to the Quills and indirectly touched by Unum. Unum, who saw all futures. Eudico didn't know what she did, and no way was she telling Sparky about it.

But if she didn't say anything, Sparky's stormy expression said she was gonna storm right on out of the Backroom.

Awkwardly, knowing it was a bad excuse that would only become obvious in hindsight, she said, "I just want to be sure of who I'm talking to."

Sparky threw her hands up, vanished into Mag Prime, and stormed out.

...............

For players who chose their Operator:

...

After the war, Mag Prime wearing that Dax syandana back through the door to the Backroom. She was hesitant, uncertain of her welcome.

Little Duck steeled herself. "I deal with people, not machines, mate."

Mag Prime shimmered.

Sparky flung herself forward, wrapping herself around her in a hug that would've cracked ribs if she hadn't replaced them with a metal chassis. She embraced the girl with all her augmented Solaris strength.

It was Sparky, not the tall, dark, stranger with Sparky's grown-up face and ice-cold coolant in her veins who'd dared eel through the veil-wielding Deacons with nothing more than smoke bombs and jank-ciphered comms. Sparky - *her* Sparky - her friend and comrade and deadly Shadow, was back.

Her voice cracked (though she'd deny it under pain of torture) as she said, "I just have to know who I'm talking to."

...............

For players who chose their Drifter:

...

After the war, Mag Prime wearing that Dax syandana back through the door to the Backroom. She was hesitant, uncertain of her welcome.

Little Duck steeled herself. "I deal with people, not machines, mate."

Mag Prime shimmered.

It's the tall, dark stranger. Thanks to the Quills, she already knows before the woman pulls back her hood to reveal Sparky's older face. When she had come through Fortuna, she was all steely nerves and ice cold coolant in her veins, gliding past the Deacons under cover of her smoke bombs. Daring even what Little Duck wouldn't - to wear a cursed veil in order to steal a ship and save their world. Now, she stands there and shifts awkwardly under her silent regard. "Uh...Sparky said I needed to talk to you face to face."

Sparky isn't here. But that dear girl who faced down Nef Anyo's mother-mucking Orb Mothers so the Solaris didn't have to trusted this strange version of herself enough to tell her how to make Little Duck trust her. Told her that LD needed to know who she was speaking to. Even though Sparky didn't understand why. (Or perhaps, she finally did.)

The least she could do was trust in return. She opened her faceplate, looked her up and down, and said, "I thought you'd be taller."

The Drifter (who's fully as tall as a warframe) broke into a grin. A rusty grin, as if she hasn't had much to smile about in her years. But it's Sparky's grin. And perhaps, she has Sparky's love for the Solaris too.

It's time to find out. "Ready to dance on some faces?"

Chapter 21: This is fine.

Have you ever noticed the Corpus workers sitting in little glass cubicles in the reworked Corpus Ships, just working away while we Tenno blaze past? u/Extension-Ad-5134 memed about their reaction.

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"Do you ever wonder why they don't construct the whole ship out of this Tenno-proof stuff?" Faro-6 asked, leaning against the tiny shared water cooler in their tiny windowed cubicle.

Everyone has that one annoying co-worker and as far as Mendo Marv was concerned, Faro-6 couldn't get moved to another cubicle farm fast enough where he could bother someone else with his inane questions. "Obviously it's not cost-effective or the Board would've already done it. And if we're late turning in these figures because you won't shut up, I'm taking my pay cut out of your paycheck."

"Geez, who pissed in your greedy milk today?" Faro muttered, but at least he got to work.

A few days later, Faro returned to the topic like a kubrow circling round to sniff its own poop. "Say, why do you think we even get Tenno-proof windows? It's not like the scenery is all that great."

"Obviously, market research suggests that the view of-" the newly renovated interiors of the Corpus fleet that formerly belonged to Nef Anyo and were promptly annexed by his father Parvos Granum actually were a vast improvement on the old gray gunmetal but no way was he going to start up a conversation on interior design with Faro- "our Founder's golden hand will encourage us to focus on our work."

A long shift later...

"Did you see that?!"

He read the scrolling Index figures, cross-refenced them with the latest market predictions about what week the Narmer Archon Nira was going to make her move on Jupiter for the third time this quarter, input his recommendation that the Board should seriously consider charging Alad V a loan at Solaris levels of interest to rebuild. By the time he looked up, whatever it was, was long gone save for the fine cloud of soot settling over the windows. "See what?"

Faro gobbled. "The patrol. They were right there. Then, fire, flames! A Tenno, you think? They just burned."

"That sounds awful."

"You...really don't care, do you?"

"If you kept your head down and did your work, you wouldn't be having a mini-crisis about watching a bunch of crewmen burn to death."

Fortunately for Faro, because he really was starting to wonder if he should put his thumb on the scales of Profit and report his colleague for reindoctrination at the temples on Neptune, there were no more Tenno raids to distract them for the next several weeks.

Unfortunately, as the Tenets say, "Money begets money," and so where one Tenno went more were soon to follow. The one that unleashed the firestorm must have passed the word that this ship had a Golden Hand access to the Granum Void that was conveniently placed for whatever the Tenno were doing and very inconveniently placed for Faro's work ethic.

"What do you think they're doing in there?" Faro asked, peering at the glowing portal that a Mesa had leapt into.

"Doing Tenno things."

"They say Granum parties with his Sisters in there. Maybe he invites the Tenno?"

"Obviously not," he snapped, scandalized. "That's blasphemy."

When a squad of three Protea and a Mesa all leapt into the Granum Void, Faro raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure they aren't partying?"

"Are you sure you aren't an idiot?" By Profit, he was reporting him for reindoctrination the moment his back was turned.

The Proteas and Mesa all spilled back out. One Protea covered the hallway, saw their cubicle, and-

No, he was not watching a mucking warframe goggle at them like exhibits in a zoo. He was a steadfast Corpus disciple of Profit and his eyes were on his facts and figures where they belonged.

Faro, on the other hand...

He hissed out of the side of his mouth, "Don't look, it only encourages them."

Oh, Faro was looking alright. And the Protea sure didn't mind because she was looking right back.

Then another Protea came over to his side and tapped on the glass. Tap. Tap. Rap, tap, tap.

Don't. Look. It only encourages them.

Mercifully, the Mesa pulled them away. He pretended he didn't heard the chorus of feminine "awwww"s or her stern reprimand, "Don't tap on the glass; you'll scare them."

Long after they left, Faro stared longingly down the hallway. "I bet Granum parties with them. Who wouldn't?"

"Obviously, I wouldn't."

"Obviously not because you're no fun and you think all of this-" his hand wave seemingly encompassed everything from their tiny water cooler to windowed cubicle, from fiery deaths to blasphemous parties and ogling warframes, "-is fine."

Definitely reporting him.

Chapter 22: Veso, Veko, Venmo

u/Raszard has done a series of lovely comics about Veso-R’s adventures under Narmer. Check out the whole series here Veso: the Fan Animated Series Concept

 

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The Drifter sidles through the Gas City streets, avoiding the harsh eyes of Narmer Deacons and the harsher foul-smelling winds until he comes to a MOA repair depot. There's one man he's here to see. 

The repairman is surrounded by broken MOAs and ospreys. He's fitting them with Narmer masks and putting them back together. Little do the Deacons know, most of those masks don't work quite right.

The Drifter knocks four times. "Veso-R?"

"He's dead." Comes the curt answer.

"Right. My bad. Must've been Veko I was looking for."

Its all an intricate dance of callsigns and countersigns. "I'm afraid he got a promotion. What's the word from what's her name...Norma?"

Every week, Nora Night gives out the new name to anyone who knows how to listen for it. Anyone who needs a helping hand from a man smart enough to keep his head down until it really matters. And when it really matters, he hits harder than anyone. "Dora," The Drifter corrects him. "Dora Dwyte. She said I should look for Tesco-UK."

"That's me. What can I do for you?"

"I need a bomb big enough to dent an Archon."

Tesco scratched his chin. The tattooed ink was starting to fade from repeated scratching. "Best I can do is a breacher MOA and a shield osprey."

The Drifter weighed the odds of success with just Nataruk (very bad) versus the odds with Nataruk plus a shielded, walking grenade (slightly less than very bad), and then weighed that against the repair shop and malfunctioning masks. "It's not worth busting your cover. Thanks anyway. Wish me luck."

The former crewman-turned-resistance-mechanic shook his hand. "Make Nira howl and maybe Dora will even get your name right for once."

"Maybe after I kill the other two." With that, the Drifter vanished back out into the city, starting his lonely climb into Archon-killing glory while Tesco-UK faded back into well-earned obscurity.

 

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Something was scratching in the vents nearby.

This was a problem. Because as far as Veso-R was concerned, Corpus Board regulations strictly forbid live animals on board. Properly programmed MOAs didn't shuffle around and scratch at odd times. Which meant it was something organic, or at least an amalgamation of organic and something else.

It was the something else that worried him. 

In hindsight, it was pretty clear how he'd gotten here. All those NDAs he signed in exchange for that princely salary working for Alad V? All to cover up for his blasphemous alliance with the Sentients. All to cover up the Amalgams: grotesque blends of man, machine, and Sentient. Small wonder he ended up betraying the fleet.

If Alad V got even a single whiff of the idea that the man who'd handed the Fleet their fire control back and broken that alliance with a single shot made it to a lifeboat and from there back through the vents of a gas city to the hidden lab that became his sanctuary...it wouldn't even matter that Alad V didn't remember his name right. Yes, he'd create a hunter-sniffer Amalgam just for the sole purpose of hunting him down. 

He still had his Plinx. He could do the brave thing and go after it.

If it really was an Amalgam, he was going to die. 

The alternative was dying like a rat in its hole when it found him.

He sighed. There was no hope for Profit in this. Just the satisfaction of knowing that if he died, he did so on his own two feet.

Or rather, on his belly, because the vents were a tight fit. Plinx first, because the thing knew he was coming.

It was definitely alive. It heard him and it whined. Whined like a lonely beast. 

"Shut up, by Granum," he snapped. "You'll get us both caught by Deacons."

It shut up. Then it started thumping, hitting something against the walls repeatedly.

Maybe they'd mistake it for broken machinery? If only he were so lucky. 

He wasn't. When he slid out of the vent and into a "nest" of wires and torn suits, the beast was a Tenno kubrow.

It barked, rushed at him, rose up on its hind legs, slammed its paws down onto his shoulders, stood over him with slavering jaws open wide-

...and licked him. 

"Urgh, gerrof!"

It obediently climbed off. Then it went rigid as it finally realized that he wasn't its master (or mistress, or whatever the hell the flamboyant Tenno were), that he wasn't veiled but he was a Corpus crewmate, and that it was in fact a war-kubrow trained to rip men like him in half and eat his limbs for lunch.

And to his terror, it was thin enough under its fluffy fur that it needed lunch.

He might be fast enough to fire a full mag from the Plinx before it tore him apart. Instead, he reached for his belt pouch and offered it one of his ration bars. The scientists who used to live in his lab liked snacks. He had plenty to share.

Its jaws could crush a Grineer Lancer's armored skull. It gently lipped the bar from his open hand, snapped it up in one bite, and whined for more.

"Shut up," he muttered. "There's more where I came from."

During the long crawl back to his lab, with the kubrow hunched and crawling behind him like the hunting dog it was before the Tenno trained it to follow their commands, he had a long time to think about the Tenno. They'd suckered the Board into their Grand Alliance, only to disappear, leaving the System to fall into Narmer hands. He'd almost started to believe the Narmer propaganda "Corpus pupils weeping praise under Tenno blades."

When his new buddy curled up next to him for scritches, he decided he didn't believe it. What Tenno would willingly abandon such a good boy?

Chapter 23: Crack Ship: Daughter/Bombastine

Because someone brought up Daughter/Bombastine shipping, and I thought, "How the heck would that even work?" And then this plot bunny would not leave me alone. 

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The noble and courteous Bombastine offered his long arm to the lovely scientist. "Why, yes, I would love to hear your dissertation on the Golden Maw's impact on Duviri's ecology. And afterwards, I shall sweep you away to King Thrax's court where you shall be the belle of the ball."

She peered at him shyly through her glasses, "Really? Oh, no one in my family appreciates my genius like you do, Bombastine."

"The more fool them!" He proclaimed.

The tablet was rudely ripped from her hand.

"What is this?!" Her awful, horrible, no-good brother scrolled down and began to read. Out loud. "As Bombastine kissed her, her bosom began to heave like a beached Tromyzoan." 

She snatched it back. "Ugh, you're the worst!"

"Mother!" He hollered, because why shouldn't her day get worse? "Mother, she's writing Duviri fanfic."

Her mother was so rarely interested in anything that wasn't about her or her vanished father. Unfortunately, she'd written the Tales of Duviri. So she came out of her laboratory for the first time in days to see what was going on. "Is it any good?"

"It's smut." He said with relish.

She clenched her fists so hard her nails drew blood. "Shut up!"

"Is it good smut?" Her mother asked.

Oh, her day could NOT get worse. 

"It's self-insert smut, so, no."

Her mother shook her head. "This is why I didn't include a chapter with the Harbinger of Lust. Phallic imagery of the Orowyrms aside, I just don't trust those Zariman kids to keep their minds on their schoolwork." 

"My readers like it," she shouted. "Neither of you appreciate my genius." With that, she slammed the door to her room and went back to writing. Those poor Zariman kids, forced to listen to her mother droning on with lectures about Eternalism. She'd give them something more entertaining. 

As Bombastine kissed her, her bosom began to heave like a beached Tromyzoan. As their tongues battled for dominance, his hand deftly undid her laces until her gown puddled to the floor…

Chapter 24: Renting Out Drifter's Camp

u/Sasmael's Tenno is politely asking Kahl for rent to stay at the Drifter's Camp.

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Drifter expected to swing into his camp, do a little fishing to relax from the stress of keeping the whole System from flying to pieces, eat fresh fish grilled over an open flame, sleep under the stars, and enjoy being just Drifter for a while in a place where he didn't have to be "Drifter Drifter Archon Killer."

Dumbfounded, he looked between the Grineer soldier Kahl-157 and the Solaris mechanic Chipper, looked around at their budding camp set up in the midst of his own, and said, "Who told you could set up here?"

"The Tenno," Kahl said.

"I am the Tenno," he grated. Okay, maybe it was a personal sore spot that everyone who was in the know expected that Tenno = kid, and everyone who wasn't in the know assumed that Tenno = warframe. Nobody ever looked at adult him and thought, "hey, he's also a survivor of the Zariman..."

Kahl blinked long and slow, then held out his hand at chest height. "Small Tenno. Look like you. Your son?"

He choked. Chipper cackled. He glared. Chipper slapped his knee, howling with laughter. 

Kahl asked, "Not your son?" with innocence so pure he couldn't even hold a grudge. Against Kahl, that was. He was going to strangle the Operator the next time they met on the Zariman. Or at least chew him out. Because, really, he couldn't even be arsed to leave a note or something? Even a simple Hey, Drifter, I rented out your camp to discount Steel Meridian/Vox Solaris, hope you don't mind! would've been better than this.

"Not my son," he sighed. "But sure, I'm pretty good at cleaning up after his messes. If he says you can stay, you can stay. Is there anything I need to know about this little arrangement?"

"Kahl free brothers from Narmer. Kahl take loot from Narmer. Kahl give loot to Tenno."

Chipper added, "By loot, he means weapons, warframes, mods, fashion and archon shards. Don'tcha worry, mate. Chipper knows what the kids like."

He was actually intrigued. "I like archon shards I don't have to wrestle Archons for."

"One a week's the best I can do."

"I could happily go a lifetime without seeing Nira again, so I'll take what I can get."

That broke the ice. He lent Chipper the workshop he'd used to fix up the Bolkor, since he was flying around in the more sophisticated Parallax landing craft now. He and Kahl fine-tuned his Veilbreaker and traded tips about fighting sentients without a warframe which quickly turned into comparing their weapons. He'd take Rumblejack any day over Slaytra's brute force. Kahl couldn't get the hang of Nataruk's tricky charged shot. He tried the Grakata and the recoil knocked him on his ass so hard he had bruises.

They ended the day fishing together. He caught a mawfish for dinner. Kahl fished up an old boot.

"Grineer boot." Kahl said, shaking out lake water, sand, and foot bones. 

For the first time, he worried. Yeah, Kahl clearly wasn't loyal to the Queens, but he was fanatically loyal to his brothers and here was proof that, yeah, the Tenno killed his brothers all the damned time.

Then, with a truly ugly, gap-toothed, and absolutely good-natured grin, Kahl stripped off his matching boot and tried the wet one on. "Heh, it fits!" He took a few steps. "Kahl like new boot. Tenno is good luck for fishing."

He couldn't do any less than grin back at such a cheerful soul. Maybe he'd just give the Operator a little scolding. For now, he clapped Kahl on the back and said, "Let's go cook dinner."

Chapter 25: Why Drifter doesn't use the Tigris

u/Geffy612 asks why a feature from the old Duviri trailer where the Operator passes a Tigris shotgun to the Drifter never made it to the final quest. 

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Flying above Duviri through an angry sky, Drifter felt it. The pull like a hook in their gut, dragging them earthward. "Whoa, Kaithe!," he urged, wheeling around and aiming for the clear, flat, empty space below. 

Just as Kaithe landed, they trotted up to a table that hadn't been there before. A table just like the one in their dormizone, with two cups and tray turned sideways so the Other Side could share it. 

"Another day, another mask," he sighed. The kid in the black leather suit huffed a sigh. "Yeah, sure, sigh. Why can't you give me something useful for a change?"

He and Kiddo went about their routine, jogging around looking for light beams, then guiding each other into them, until the item reassembling itself on the table started to look like...well, not much like a mask at all. It started with two long barrels and by the time they were done, it was a large double barreled shotgun.

"Hell yes, that's what I'm talking about!" No Dax Malleus was gonna stand up to this.

As soon as he picked it up, however, Teshin the party pooper just had to chime in. "That's weighted for warframe use. You've earned another weapon option for the Undercroft. I do not recommend using that in Duviri."

"Spoilsport," he muttered. It couldn't be that bad, right?

Shortly after, he came across a Dax patrol on the road. He dismounted and loaded the Tigris.

Teshin sighed.

"Hey, what're you sighing for? You've not been stuck stacking decrees to turn dinky little Sirocco into a killing machine." The Dax heard his griping and came for him. He raised the shotgun's stock to his shoulder and took aim.

Pellets turned the Dax Malleus into a sieve. The recoil kicked like Kaithe and spun him around. In the process, he let go of the trigger. It fired again spraying pellets into the air - *who the hell on the Other Side thought that was a good idea* - and the recoil knocked his on his ass.

The remaining Dax laughed at him.

Back in his cave, Teshin and Sol laughed at him.

Grimly, he reloaded. He'd show them. He braced himself on a rock as the Dax Gladius came for him.

This time, the recoil knocked him back all the way to the ground. And when the Dax Gladius disarmed him and his hand slipped off the trigger, the second shot blew off Gladius' head and broke Drifter's hand.

As the remaining Dax hauled him and the shotgun off to Castle Town, he had a long time to think bitter thoughts about warframe-weighted weapons and stupid firing mechanisms while his slow healing knit his bones back together. 

Lodun scowled down at him, unrolled the king's sentence of death by impalement, and hissed, "You were supposed to help me prove my claim to the throne today."

Right. The Orowyrm. If he pissed Lodun off, at least he'd get to use the shotgun in the fight. "Sorry, I got sidetracked figuring out if that shotgun would make a better king than you."

Lodun swelled with rage. Lodun swelled all the way up into an Orowyrm.

He grabbed the shotgun away from the stunned Dax and called Kaithe. Teshin said, "Use my Orvius to grapple onto the Orowyrm."

"I haven't forgotten since yesterday, you know?"

"For all I know today, you might have the bright idea to fight the Orowyrm with your new gun."

For a bright, brilliant moment, he imagined himself riding the Orowyrm, climbing up its back, and unloading both barrels into the back of its head. Then his common sense inserted the rest: as he stumbled from the recoil, Lodun's death throes launched him out of Duviri and into the Void.

Affectionately, Teshin said, "You're an idiot."

So he grappled with Lodun with the Orvius. And when he landed in the arena wearing his borrowed warframe, ready to take down the pathos clamps with his borrowed shotgun, he discovered its other downside. It couldn't reach. "I can't believe I'm saying this. Other Side, this one's a dud. Send the Imperator, please."

Chapter 26: Why Drifter doesn't use a K-Drive (anymore)

u/TheAvgCrusader asks why the Drifter doesn't use their own horse or a k-drive in free roam. I'm likewise a bit miffed that my Drifter forgot how to k-drive following the New War...

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Drifter bundles up and heads up the elevator to the Orb Vallis during a cold cycle. It's not as cold as it used to be, the locals say. Used to be, he'd come back with icicles dangling from his beard and places he'd rather not think about. But thanks to Ballas, the terraforming systems warmed up this frozen patch of Venus to merely "just below freezing" and churned the thawing permafrost into sludgy, half-icy mud.

He picks up his bounty from the Solaris by the door and as he's trudging toward the Blinkpad, the kid sitting on a k-drive swinging his heels back and forth says, "That ain't very Logical of you."

"Pardon?"

The kid, Boon, thumps his k-drive. "Best way to get around the Orb Vallis. Everyone knows it."

He's used one before, to get out to the Veil factory. There's a spare one leaning against a pipe, un-decaled and Boon says even he shouldn't have much trouble, "even if ya ain't got a speck of Glinty on ya," which he roughly translates as either "where's your warframe, dumbass" or "you're thirty and therefore inherently uncool." Fair enough. If he had his Kaithe, it'd be a different story, but he doesn't. So he steps up on the board, kicks off, and-

He'd failed to take into account that unlike the time he went to the Veil factory, this time there are dozens and dozens of Tenno squads pouring in and out of Fortuna. The ground is a mudslick. That doesn't matter to the Tenno leaping up into their archwing flyers. But for him-

-his foot slips. He pinwheels his arms. The k-drive zooms out from under him, across the road, and only stops when it hits a giant mushroom. He lands squarely on his ass in muddy sludge.

Boon can hardly breathe for laughing at him. He trudges off after the board to the sound of, "Yeah, the more ya age the more ya beige. S'Why I'm never gettin' that old."

He's gonna feel the bruises for days, but he'll be damned if he doesn't get back up on that k-drive and (carefully) kick off down to the Growth Labs.

Chapter 27: Drifter & Umbra

u/Artanis137 speculated about Umbra's relationship with the Drifter.

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Drifter pokes his head into the Orbiter's vehicle bay. The Arsenal is locked down under exodus protocols, but there's still one warframe who the Arsenal won't (or can't) hold. Ordis calls him Umbra, and from Duviri, he recalls him as an accomplished swordsman who fought like a young Teshin at his side without transference direction. Unfortunately, Umbra doesn't give a shit about him now.

"Narmer hauled off two Ostron families for their labor camp. You wanna help me rescue them?"

Umbra ignores him. The single eye revealed by his cracked faceplate stared fixedly at the shawzin in his hands and he doesn't miss a note.

"You do you, Umbra."

He tries not to be jealous of the Tenno. He's learned his lessons from Duviri, and so when he gets back  battered, bruised, and only having saved one family because there were Deacons on patrol and he just wasn't as good as Ordis' sainted Operator who never lost a hostage… 

Instead of getting lost in bitterness, he checks on the Lotus. She's still fading, in the sense that a wilting flower clings to life as long as its attached to the root. The Somatic Link is the best life support in the System, or so Ordis says. She's barely there. Either Ordis got scammed or he's going to have to resort to truly desperate measures soon.

He checks on Umbra. He's still playing the same fucking melody like it's the only one he knows, which is why he got relegated to the vehicle bay in the first place. He likes the shawzin, he really does. After Duviri, there's only so much repetition his sanity can take. 

Though he tries, he can't entirely hide the bitterness as he says, "You know, I could've used your help tonight. We could've saved everyone."

Umbra ignores him. Why? Because he's not Umbra's beloved Operator. 

He tries another tack. "If your Operator were here, I'm pretty sure he'd want you to help me like you did in the Undercroft." It worked on Ordis, anyways. 

For a moment, Umbra's eye rises to meet him and his blood runs cold. There's nothing behind that eye but fury and killing rage and a single burning memory. Without transference, void powers, her helping hand, or being someone he's not, he's got about as much chance of calming that storm as he does of singlehandedly tackling an Archon. 

Instinctively, he whistles the tune that Umbra's been playing. The warframe settles down and starts playing again. 

He backs out and doesn't breathe deeply until he's out in the forest where at least he can run for his life properly if Umbra changes his mind and tries to hack him to pieces.

...............

 

Turns out that when he got desperate enough and with a borrowed bow from Hunhow and a helping hand from the Shadow, he could actually take on an Archon. Two of them, in fact.

So when he gets those void powers for his very own, and the Operator gave his blessing to "Use my warframes, save Space Mom, and kick Ballas's ass up between his ears for me" he chooses the stupidest option. He checks on Umbra.

"Hey, I realize I'm not your Op-"

That's as far as he gets before he's slammed up against the vehicle bay wall, with Umbra's sword at his throat, single eye glaring into his.

"Hey," he pats the air soothingly, like he would a void-riddled kexat. It worked on the Shadow, anyway. "I'm not your Operator. I'm not gonna try to be. I just want to know if you want to come help kill Ballas."

Umbra recoils as if he's been shot. He all but collapses next to the shawzin. He tries to pick out the familiar melody and fails.

It's so wrong that all his bitterness is wiped away. He whistles the melody until Umbra's faltering fingers find it again. Then he touches his shoulder, asking through transference.

Umbra is a whirlpool of guilt, pushing him away before he can be sucked down and drown in it. There's flashes of memories. A proud Dax swearing an oath to defend the Orokin. Those same oaths binding his hands like fire, as he strained on his deathbed to tear Ballas apart. Those same oaths holding him immobile as Ballas took a gleaming greatsword from his hand and stabbed the Operator-

He gets the picture; Umbra's afraid he's going to be more hindrance than help. And he really could do what Umbra suggests and take a different warframe, except that none of them do what Umbra did in the Undercroft. So he sends back his own memories from Duviri. 

Umbra, guarding his back as he throws power cells into the excavators. Umbra, helping him look for decree pieces. Umbra, battling Dax and Thrax while he activates life support.

No longer a gentle sort of transference, it's discordant hum settles down into a synchronized note. It's not the same as what Umbra and the Operator have. There's no disassociation as the two become one flesh. Instead they are inherently aware of the other, like Umbra knows his blade and he knows exactly where to place Sirocco's shots.

Umbra can't fight Ballas. Drifter can. 

Deacons make Drifter want to curl up and die. Umbra cuts them down without fear. 

When it's over, they stand together as partners. 

.............

 

Obviously, he can't keep Umbra in the vehicle bay with the dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammers Necramech after teaming up with him to save the system. He still can't stand listening to the same damned song on repeat for hours and takes to sleeping in the Somatic Link instead of his living quarters. Turns out that Ordis did not get scammed. It's really cushy. 

Unfortunately, it's also not designed for sleeping. It's designed for keeping Operators comfortable during long endurance missions and after a while the Radiant Lotus comments, "You really should get some proper sleep."

"If that's Umbra's idea of a lullaby, it's not working."

Kindly, perhaps because she too spent quite a bit of time in Duviri or at least her hand did, she says, "You know you can Helminth Banshee's Silence subsume onto a pair of headphones."

"...this is why you're the woman commanding the Tenno and I'm just Drifter."

................

 

Because Teshin loves Komi and tea and Umbra is also a Dax and can't really drink tea, he buys him a Komi set. Not that he's really looking forward to adding to his unbroken string of losses.

One second, Umbra is unwrapping the package. The next, the board flies across the room and komi stones spray out like buckshot. He doesn't quite howl but it's close.

And in the silence that follows, they both stand there in awkward embarrassment because he hadn't meant to hurt Umbra and Umbra hadn't meant to do that.

He can't really be upset either. "How about we just assume that you'd kick my ass at Komi just like everyone else does?"

Umbra nods and they leave it at that.

...............

 

He drops Kahl off at his camp on Earth. Kahl is delighted by the fresh air. Kahl is charmed by the little kuaka running along the game trails and the fish splashing out in the lake. Kahl promises to repay his generosity with broken Veils, saved Brothers, and whatever loot he finds along the way.

Kahl doesn't see that as soon as he gets back into the Orbiter, he immediately heads to the nearest sink and empties his stomach.

The Archons are back.

They're out for blood. Veiling. Killing. And while the Tenno have an Arsenal full of warframes and weapons to kill the beasts, he's "Drifter Drifter Archon Killer" with a whole System full of people looking up to him and a whole Narmer cult looking for revenge.

For once, Umbra seems to understand that playing "Smiles from Juran" isn't going to cut it. His warframe partner comes in and just rests his hand on his shoulder. 

The flash of memory he gets is his own self poking his head into the vehicle bay, asking for help. And when he doesn't get it, leaving to go do the right thing, the hard thing, anyway.

He holds onto Umbra's confidence in him. They're partners now; they'll be alright together no matter what the universe throws at them.

Chapter 28: Incarnon War

u/Successful-Mousse405 asked if we could get an Incarnon War to round out the set of Stalker weapons.

___________________________________________________________________

 

Fathoms deep in the oceans of Uranus, under sealabs, and through tunnels bored in a bombed cavern, Hunhow stares down at the Operator through layers of pressurized plate glass. His deep voice reverberates with disbelief. "You want me to do what?"

The Operator says, "I just want to complete the set? You gave Drifter your Nataruk, so sure, I thought maybe you'd give me Incarnon War."

"Foolish child." Hunhow snaps. "Think. Think! War is my own self."

"And since I'm your new grandchild-" the Operator interrupts. 

"By adoption," Hunhow mutters.

"-Grandchild by adoption , I'd say you've got a lot of missed birthday parties to make up for." The Operator smiles blithely up at the Sentient Destroyer of Worlds.

Hunhow twitches. The movement shakes the sealabs above. "War is my own self. I am Sentient. Your Void is poison to me. By definition, War cannot become Incarnon any more than Nataruk can."

"Huh." The Operator considers that. "Okay, but the truth is, War is an impact greatsword in a slash meta. Without an Incarnon boost, its gonna need an absolute godroll of a riven to be good enough to use for more than just flex and fashion, and maybe not even then."

Hunhow trembles on the edge of fury at that impertinence. And then he considers that - a most wicked thought - that perhaps the reason he failed to slaughter the Tenno in the first place is that he made an impact greatsword in a slash meta. Natah would be so terribly disappointed in him if he actually hurt the Tenno now, but there is something to be said for being properly feared and respected. All the Tenno admire what Nataruk does to their foes. Why shouldn't they do the same of War?

He says, "I will consider making a new War."

"Ha, ha, is that a pun?" In lieu of hugging his massive buried body in the ocean beyond the plate glass, the Operator tries to hug the Shadow instead. Shadow shoves them off. They beam at him anyway. "Thanks, Grandpa, you're the best."

Most days, Hunhow regrets coming back to the Origin System. Even now, he's pretty sure he'll come to regret agreeing to the idea of "birthday parties." But for now, he has a challenge worthy of his nature: to build himself a weapon that the Tenno will respect and fear.

Chapter 29: Selling the Lotus

 

Plotbunny: What would happen if we could sell the Lotus?

---

The Lotus is mostly inured to her children's shenanigans. One does not simply mother a bunch of void-powered child soldiers stuck in eternal puberty without nerves of steel. 

And so when the Operator calls and says, "So, uh, completely hypothetically , what would you say if I maybe, uh, sold you?" 

She says, "That's nice, dear." And "Did you see there was a new invasion up on Mercury?"

"Ooh, is it forma, adapters, or potatoes?"

"Just detonite ampules, I'm afraid."

"Nevermind then. I already made all those guns."

She lists the invasion anyways for Tenno who haven't. Her children are very motivated by rewards, loot, and shiny things. Somehow the Corpus have poured millions of credits into researching their foes and never realized her secret: if they offered the Tenno fashion, all would be lost. So she asks, "Out of curiosity, how much am I worth on the open market?"

"Uh..." the Operator stalls for an awkward-bordering-on-worrying amount of time, and then finally says in a small voice, "Is this like asking "Does this dress make me look fat?""

"A girl hardly wants to hear she's been sold off to the Zanuka Project for less than you spend on Baro every other week."

"Ha. Haha. Yeah, uh, I held out for at least 165 plat, I promise."

"Glad to hear it," she says. "Don't spend your completely hypothetical plat all at once, now."

"Haha, good talk, Space Mom."

"Stay safe, dear."

Chapter 30: Void Save the King!

Plotbunny: A Dax Gladius who's never seen anything more advanced than a bow watching me kill everyone he knows with a Stropha

---

"Halt in the name of His Majesty, Dominus Thrax!" I shouted.

Drifter froze, caught red-handed in the act of looting one of the king's chests. Luscinia's pearl strands dangled from one hand. Her ruby necklace slithered back out of their pocket and onto the ground. They looked like nothing so much as a guilty, greedy child with their hand in the cookie jar.

The two Arceus with me drew their bows. Our Malleus pounded his Sampotes against his palm. Our Herald raised his flag and began calling upon the beneficence of His Majesty. 

Even Drifter, notorious outlaw and rabble rouser, saw reason. They raised their hands in the air. 

I relaxed. For just one moment, but that was my undoing. Drifter vanished in a gout of smoke. Then the beast emerged, a monumental man of golden armor.

It roared. Our Malleus roared back defiance and charged, lifting the Sampotes overhead for a mighty blow.

Boinnnnng!!

It bounced off. And then the beast raised its blade gun gunblade? Whatever it was, Malleus vanished in a gout of gore and viscera. 

Now, I have the utmost faith in His Majesty Dominus Thrax, but really, what were we supposed to do against a monster with weapons far beyond our own? We turned and ran. It didn't chase us. It stomped the ground in frustrated fury.

My limbs slowed. I swam through clear crisp air like it was tree sap and I was the bug trapped in hardening amber. I couldn't even turn to face my death squarely, only hear the awful sounds as that gunblade shot and shattered my squadmates. 

Then the pressure vanished. Time restarted. And I was alone, facing Drifter and their dinky little pistol.

"That was you?" I asked. 

"That was Rhino. I really wish transference surge lasted a little longer," they answered. Then they shot me in the shoulder.

That hurt like a kaithe kicked me. I raised my sword to charge. "For the king-"

They shot me in the head. For my sins, it didn't kill me immediately, just knocked me on my back hard enough to make me wish that transference surge lasted longer. Rhino would've been a clean, quick death. Not this embarrassing, painful death by a dozen potshots.

As Duviri faded away, at least I had the satisfaction of hearing my king's voice. "Look. They died with my name on their lips."

Void save the King!

Chapter 31: Gardening in Duviri

 

Plotbunny: Drifter is the Gardeners' Enemy No 1 for shooting plants in Duviri.

---

It's a Joy Spiral. The borealis drifts lazily across the sky, the breeze hits just right, and plants are blooming all over Duviri.

"Oh, Drifterrrr!" Mathila carols. "I need you to-"

Drifter pulls out their shopping list. "I need yao shrub and tasoma extract and then I'm leaving."

"But then who's going to spread some positivity today?"

"Dunno. Not my problem," they shrug, and wing away to the colder southern islands. Yao shrub is easily spotted from the air. One shot from Sirocco, it drops its glowing fruits, they swoop down, scoop them up, and off to the next shrub.

 When they duck into a cave looking for tasoma stalks, Mathila claps her hands. "I know! You're gathering those to juice to relieve Duviri's people of their nightmares. How sweet of you!"

Drifter draws their pistol, shoots the plant, scoops up the stalks, and says, "Honey, I need 60 of these for my Braton Incarnon."

Mathila sputters.

There's another tasoma tucked away in a high nook. They fly into it and nevermind that Kaithe slams his head into the ceiling. "And next week I need 60 more for my Strun. I ain't giving them away." 

"Did you just shoot that plant?!"

Sirocco reloads with a whir. "...yes?"

"What are you, a barbarian? That's not how you harvest plants."

They jump down from the high nook, summon Kaithe, and gallop out of the cave and onto the next. "What's wrong with it? The plants respawn."

"Respawn?" They've reduced happy Mathila to near gibbering. "Plants don't respawn. They grow. It takes years for yao shrubs to fruit-" she shrieks as they shoot another one.

"It'll be back next Spiral." They say dismissively.

"Only because Thrax reset it, not "respawning", she covers her mask with her hand. "You-, I-, I'm going to talk to Thrax about this!"

"You do that," Drifter retorted, and ducked into a cave.

Several ransacked caves later, they're contemplating grabbing a quick decree and leaving with their loot when Mathila says, "Right, so I talked to Thrax and he agrees that it is very important to your emotional development that you get in touch with nature, and he'll let you into the palace gardens."

"One, Thrax only agreed because he thinks it's hilarious to call me a dirt-grubber. Two," they pause to take a rapid inventory of their shopping list, "If it gets me more tasoma extract, I'm in."

"I know you'll enjoy it!"

The castle gardens are a veritable treasure trove of pollinating silphsela, tea-scented kovnik bushes, glowing eevani, and dracroot that tries to coil around their ankle when they aren't looking. They point Sirocco at it. "Come to think of it, I need more of you too."

"Ahem," a deep, metal voice rasps. "Please do not hurt the plants." It's the biggest Dax Malleus they've ever seen. He's not carrying his Sampotes hammer. He's carrying a trowel big enough to dig their grave and wearing gardening gloves. "We will start your lessons with weeding and watering."

It turns out that gardening, real gardening, is nothing like lightning quick flights over the mountains shooting out yao shrubs. There's a lot of grubbing around in the dirt. There's bugs. There's weeds that look like good plants and good plants that look like weeds. After the first hour, when the breeze feels heavenly on their sweat and they are actually enjoying the hard work, they say, "I think there might be some hydroponic containers left on the Zariman."

It gets worse. There's homework about soil composition. There's trimming the dead bits off the kovnik trees that leave them smelling like Teshin's tea. Then they follow Malleus to the palace compost bin and that leaves them wishing they smelled like tea.

Thrax cackles. "I should have put you to work a long time ago."

Mathila has the nerve to pop up at that moment and ask, "Are you enjoying yourself? Getting in touch with nature and your inner gardener?"

Right now, they're getting in touch with the slimy, squishy skins of connla sprouts leftover when other people drank the fresh water, so they growl back, "Yeah, I'm loving it. Why don't you come down here so I can show you how much?"

Wisely, she avoids them until Malleus pronounces them an adequate novice gardener. 

"Adequate," Thrax mimicks, as he awards them a decree. For their hours of work, Mathila presents them with a single tasoma stalk.

"I hate you," they mutter, take it, and immediately leave. When they reappear in Teshin's cave, they go check out the hydroponics. With a little bit of elbow grease, they might be able to get them working again.

"Taking up gardening?" Teshin asks, stumping over to them. "A hobby would be good for you."

"I do not have a green thumb," they hotly deny. "I just need more plants for my incarnon adapters, I refuse to muck around in more compost, and Mathila and Malleus will bury me if I shoot any more plants."

After a very long pause in which Drifter has time to remember that Teshin is a Dax, and the Dax were highly refined warriors with sophisticated hobbies like komi, the shawzin, and -with their luck- flower arranging, Teshin says in disbelief, "You've been shooting plants?!"

Chapter 32: Orowyrm vs Railjack

 

Plotbunny: "DE should let us fight the Orowyrm as a Railjack Crew"

---

Slowly, majestically, the Railjack drops from its tethers, backs out of Kronia Relay's cavernous drydock, and turns to face the distant stars. Drifter pats the pilot's chair. "Cy, you did a nice job getting her ship-shape again after our little sunburn incident."

Dryly, Cy says, "I took the liberty of increasing our SPF to over 9000. Translating to Venus Proxima in 3...2...1..."

The reliquary drive kicks the ship in the ass. They punch through realspace and the void. Void travel is entirely safe...so long as you control your emotions. Something which the Zariman colonists notably failed to do. Drifter takes a deep, calming breath. Then they see something out of the left bay window and turn to look.

It's an orowyrm. The Void washes out the color, so they can't tell if it's Lodun or Mathila or Bombastine. "What the hell?"

They punch through the other side. Venus Proxima glitters with Corpus ships scavenging old Orokin wrecks. Cy starts up with the mission parameters: "Bad guys. Hit them in the knees."

Drifter hauls the controls around. "We're going back."

"What." Cy says.

It's insane. They left Duviri and it's emotionally constipated Courtiers behind them for good. Except one of them is lost in the Void now, and Drifter knows how that feels, and they'll be damned if they abandon even Lodun to a worse fate than death by impalement. So they give into insanity: "We're going back into the Void to fight that Orowyrm."

Cy does not know Drifter well. Cy does know the Tenno very well. So he says, "You cannot mount the Orowyrm in your dojo as a trophy."

Perhaps sensing that Drifter is imagining the Orowyrm staked out and hanging from the Dry Dock roof like a museum exhibit, Cy clarifies: "We don't have space onboard to bring it back for taxidermy."

Now, Drifter's imagining a pink Orowyrm strapped to the top of the railjack like so much luggage. "Actually, we need to drive it back to Duviri from whence it came."

This time, the Reliquary Drive mutters in his ear, "Hey, Kiddo. You're nuts, you know that?"

Drifter mutters back, "Takes one to know one."

They vanish into the Void. Back in Venus Proxima, the Corpus Captain on station looks from the now empty battle screen to her subordinates and says, "Maybe they forgot to turn the stove off."

Void travel is exceptionally safe if you can control your emotions. Cy is a non-viable railjack Cephalon, but that doesn't matter when his two precepts are to keep the crew safe and to complete the mission, and he knows exactly which of the two are more important. So while his Tenno pilot pursues the twisting, fleeing Orowyrm through unknown depths, Cy keeps their ship steady and secure. Even when a portal opens up and the land beyond is nothing at all like the Origin System he knows...

Drifter narrowly avoids impaling the railjack on top of the highest spire of Thrax's palace.

"What the hell?" Thrax demands.

Back in Duviri, Luscinia the Orowyrm sobs tears of relief like icy meteors that explode on their shields. Everyone below cowers, because while the orowyrms rampage with terrifying regularity, this new flying beast is something else entirely. Nearly everyone, that is. Acrithis leans out the window of her carriage, scribbling down all the details.

Cy grumbles, "You are very fortunate this ship is designed for atmospheric battles too."

The Syndicate crewmates pour laser fire into her pathos clamps. Unfortunately, trying to line up the railjack for the big gun is a long, slow stern chase.

Thrax sighs. "I suppose you want thanks for bringing my Nightingale back."

Drifter growls, "I'll settle for a little help."

The two wyrm tether towers activate at Thrax's command, holding the Orowyrm in place. Finally, Drifter can line up the cannon and Luscinia falls, as unhappy as ever, but safe and home at last.

Thrax says, "Well done. Now get out."

Cy says, "Orowyrm neutralized. Unsure if sensor readings are real or a fever dream. Will redact mission details so the Tenno do not get stupid ideas."

Drifter lines them back up for the punch. "Thanks for going out on a limb for me and covering my ass, Cy."

Back in the Venus Proxima, the Corpus Captain scrambles all fighters, calls for crewship reinforcements, and then hails Drifter. "I don't suppose you left your faucet running too?"

Chapter 33: You wake up in Warframe

Plotbunny: "You are offered a million dollars, but to claim it you must enter the last video game you played, and stay there for a year. If you accept the money, how's life there?"

---

You have just long enough to think "Shit, maybe I shouldn't have blabbed the super-secret details of what really happened during The New War somewhere where the Tenno could hear about it," before the Wukong leaps down from his cloud and bashes you on the head with his staff.

You see stars.

At least the pain in your head is a slight distraction from the pain of being copied down to the molecular level, transported, and then being remade in one of the Lotus' cells.

This, uh, wasn't how you hoped to meet Space Mom...

Unfortunately, you don't get to meet Space Mom. So you never get the opportunity to tell her that she's got over 26 million registered losers space kiddos she doesn't know about. Instead, you're interrogated by her Cephalon Cordylon who you vaguely remember doing some sort of Q&A you didn't read. Worse, Cordylon doesn't believe your story.

Apparently Albrecht Entrati can time travel back to 1999, but a video game player from 2023 willingly throwing themselves into the middle of the many Grineer, Corpus, Narmer, and Murmur attempts to control the System is just too farfetched.

"Look," You finally say, "I did it for the money. You know how the Solaris will go to desperate measures for a credit to pay down their debts? Well, paying rent sucks."

"Hmmm." Cordylon says. "We'll see what the Lotus has to say."

The Lotus doesn't come to see you.

But you recognize the man who does. "Pedro Pascal?!"

"Who?" He says, "I'm the Drifter."

"Oh. Right."

He takes out a bottle. "I've been told that you left your home dimension behind to join us here."

"Yeah. I have to stay here for a year to earn the money. I'm starting to regret that decision."

He pours a glass for you. Then another for himself. "Starting?"

Right. You guess he'd know what it's like to leave a relatively safe pocket dimension for the harsh, hard reality of the Origin System where Wukongs smacking you over the head is arguably one of the gentler encounters one can have with a warframe.

He pushes the glass over. "Trust me, you'll need this.”

Chapter 34: Protea Prime, Child of Two Fathers

Plotbunny: my reaction to the Protea Prime trailer

---

It doesn't take long before Protea Prime wishes she could rewind time to the moment the Tenno first cracked open her vault and lock herself back up inside. They will NOT stop pestering her.

"So, you're the child of two fathers? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge."

It's not that funny. "Yes."

"Was Ballas really two-timing Margulis with Parvos Granum?"

Would they like to be squicked out by their parents' sex lives? "I'd prefer not to think about it."

"How did Granum "violate" the Entrati, eh? Wink, wink..."

She'd explain that he spied on their facilities and stole their research, but since even turning back time won't get her out of the conversation, she takes refuge in the Entrati labs.

Loid does not approve. "I saw off Granum's thugs with a Zylok." He says, looking at her over his gold-rimmed spectacles. "I am ransacking the labs for artifacts to pay off an old friends debt to him. And unless you can rewind time to 1999 and bring me back my Albrecht, you would be wise not to test my patience."

Is there nowhere she can go to get some peace?

And so when Sister Vala Glarios offers her a place in the Sisterhood, when her father Parvos Granum embraces her and says, "As long as you follow the Tenets, my daughter, you shall pursue Profit at my side," she considers the offer. Considers it very seriously indeed.

"I accept."

She is Protea, mistress of time, daughter of the Golden Hand. Her temporal powers make the Granum Void into a prison fit to contain even the Tenno and expel them on her command, should they fail to demonstrate that they are worthy of a Sister candidate against which to test themselves.

She is the pride of the Sisterhood. The hardworking, supremely competent apple of Parvos Granum's unsentimental eye.

Right up until, on a routine tour of her ships, one of the lazy debtor Solaris saboteurs in chains brightens up at her approach. "Ah, a Tenno," he says, relieved beyond measure, like he expects her to do something about his bonds. "I never take charity, but if Ticker sent ya... I'll make an exception this once."

"Ticker," she repeats, making a note to report this Solaris United agent for the high crime of charity.

"Yeah, figure one of me kids must've gotten her to pass the word to you, eh? Otherwise we're staring down the barrel of generation debts, and those ain't the name of this guns on your hips, Tenno. I'd pay off anything for my kids, but," he shrugs, helpless, "this ain't paying work."

It all races through her mind. Kids bailing out their father. A father who'd pay anything for his kids. A work of charity or a blasphemous sin against the Tenets?

This is what a father should be, she thinks.

She is the child of two fathers. One of whom despised her and the other who used her, and right now, she's not sure which is which or if they are both equally guilty. The lie of her life is laid bare. She will never find peace in her fathers' service.

It's a moment's work for the mistress of time to rewind the shackles until they no longer hold the Solaris, who babbles thanks and assurances that his kids will be fine.

Her father Parvos will not forgive her. He will despise her.

Alarms go off as the captive is freed without the requisite payment of a Granum Crown. In a moment, security cameras alert everyone onboard to the culprit: Protea Prime has gone rogue. It doesn't matter. She is a warframe, created for war. Just as Ballas used her to gain Granum's stolen research, now she uses the grenades, artillery, and temporal control that her other father gave her to find her own way to Extraction and later to the Solaris colony of Fortuna.

There, she meets Floor Boss FB-9.

Eudico, alias Vox Solaris.

The Voice of the Solaris United looks down at this prime warframe offering apologies and her service to their cause, and says, "You don't have to pay us back. We don't deal in debts here."

"I know." Protea Prime replies. "I also know I won't find peace unless I make a better future."

Chapter 35: Jade Shadows - Small Town AU

Plotbunny: After reading The Reaper's Lament, a dialogue between Hunhow and the Stalker released prior to Jade Shadows, u/Gelkor commented, "Bruh Hunhow has gotten so bored in his retirement that he's cracked open the 50 year scotch and is therapizing the edgy 17 y.o. that mows his lawn on the weekends."

---

The afternoon sun beat down like a baking oven. The only relief from the summer heat was an occasional breeze. Who the hell thought red metal and black seats were a good idea for a riding lawnmower?

"Oh, right," Stalker thought. "That was me."

Meanwhile Old Man Hunhow kicked back on his shaded porch, shouted encouragement whenever he drove by, and sipped lemonade. 

He finished up and trudged over to get paid. Damn, that lemonade looked good. Maybe he should ask for a tip...

Hunhow pulled out a bottle of scotch and poured a long pour into the lemonade.

He wilted. 

The old man dug around for his wallet. "The usual?"

"The usual." Lawnmowing for the elderly paid well for a summer job. Well enough that he'd have enough for the fixer-upper car he wanted, and maybe enough for a new paint job too. Red and black, naturally. 

Hunhow paid without complaint. He sat back down with a small chorus of groans and popping joints. He took a big swig of spiked lemonade.

Look, he didn't want to pry into the old man's daytime drinking habits, but he also didn't want one of his regular customers dying of liver failure before school started. "Say, um...is everything alright?"

Hunhow gripped the lemonade cup between his hands. He squinted up at him. "You got a girlfriend, son?"

"...no." With a pang, he admitted the truth. "We broke up." 

"My wife died. About a year ago."

He thought to himself, "this was a mistake." He said, "Um, I'm really sorry to hear that."

Hunhow shrugged. "We'd been separated for a while. But it still hurts. As for my kids..."

Like an idiot, he repeated, "Your kids?"

"They don't visit. Or call. I suppose I don't blame them."

"Geez." Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, "No wonder you're drinking the good stuff."

For a long moment, he thought Hunhow might cry.

Then his wrinkled face collapsed into a smile. A bright mischievous smile. "Oh, my boy, you don't drink the good stuff in lemonade."

That's how he wound up seated at a tiny kitchen table with a tiny tumbler of "the good stuff." 

Old Man Hunhow tossed his back. "Cheers."

"Cheers." Then it hit the back of his throat. It burned all the way down. He coughed, and it burned all the way back up. "Geez!" He wheezed.

This time, Hunhow poured him a glass of unspiked lemonade. Ice-cold, delicious lemonade made it worth sitting through his lecture on "how NOT to end up old, alone, and bitter." 

"Actions have consequences," the old man rambled on about friends and family and lost loves, and then grabbed his arm with a hand that suddenly gripped as strong as steel. "But it's not too late. You understand? I'm old. You're young. It's not too late to repair those broken bonds."

"Um..." He couldn't pull away. He wasn't sure he wanted to, either. Awkward though it was, Hunhow spoke like he believed in him. Believed that Stalker with his edgy clothes and the red lawnmower with the black seats, could *do better* than growing old, bitter, and with no better company than a boy and a bottle. "Yeah. Uh. Thanks."

Hunhow patted his shoulder. "Thanks for listening to an old man ramble." Then he packed up the bottles and put them away in their cupboard. 

On his way out, Stalker hesitated. The old man was right; it wasn't too late for him. But what if the old man was wrong? Before he could talk himself out of it, he said, "Hey, it's not too late. You should call your kids. Repair those broken bonds."

Then he dashed out of the house, ears burning with embarrassment. He had work to do. Lawns to mow. 

Though maybe, when school started and he saw his ex-girlfriend again, he'd spend some of the money earned on a "No hard feelings, right?" red rose.

Notes:

Jade Shadows: Small Town AU plotbunny up for adoption

Turns out Stalker accidentally knocked up his girlfriend. Oops. Jade says she's keeping the kid whether he wants it or not, and he's slowly coming around to the idea that his edgelord days are about to be replaced with sleepless nights with a newborn and that's surprisingly okay with him.

Meanwhile, thanks to Stalker encouraging Hunhow to call his kids, his daughter Natah is cautiously willing to reconnect - and her snot-nosed middle schooler son is visiting his Grandpa.

Hunhow has to hide the alcohol and clean up his act. Stalker has to clean up his act and figure out how to be a father. Jade has to deal with the perils of a wanted teen pregnancy. And something has gone terribly awry when the one person who recognizes the value of regular pre-natal appointments is the Operator.