> Warframe: Weaponized Wubs > by eles74 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Intro to Warframe > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have you ever wondered what else there could be in a universe like your own? I've thought about that a lot in the past while, what with all the ancient artifacts my team has been finding. And when I say find, I mean raid ships or outposts for them. The factions we attack are known as the Grineer and Corpus, along with an infection. Let's start with the Grineer. Lead by two queens, known as the Sisters. Most of them are large rough looking soldiers. They got to look like they do now through centuries of cloning. The Grineer want the artifacts power to restore their DNA, and then weaponize the rest for fighting the Tenno (me and my crew), and Corpus. Then there is Corpus, the high tech, and slightly lazy scavagers. There are few actual Corpus soldiers, most of their forces are MOAs or ospreys. MOAs are bipedal robots with energy shields, whereas ospreys are more supportive drones. Corpus wants the artifacts powers for WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, and sell the rest to the highest bidder. Finally there is the infection, a nasty little thing. It was originally a bio weapon used by the Orokin, the ancient ones, to fight an enemy unknown to anyone of our time. Most infected beings are smaller, but sometimes there is a victim that is not put down for a long time. Those are known has ancients, some have powerful regeneration abilities, whereas some can drain a warframe's energy and shield. Now, enough about my enemies, how about I tell you about my team. The Tenno are the masters of blade and gun, We use warframes, powerful suits, capable of nearly anything combat oriented. My team of four, including myself, comprises of a Rhino, a Loki, a Frost, and my warframe, Banshee. Rhino is the heaviest frame, its stomp can warp time. Frost is a defensive frame, it can freeze the vapor in the air into a nearly impenetrable shield of ice. Loki is a stealthy frame, it can manipulate waves of light to hide itself from others. Banshee is based on sonic energy, this baby can make the ground shake enough to kill a heavy Grineer. Together we are known as the Ethereal Lotus. I go by the name of Sonic Boom, and this is how my team saved a planet... > Sabotage > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It all started on that ship... "Your mission is simple; find the reactor core of the ship, and destroy it. That should help starve out the Corpus outpost on Pluto." Lotus' transmission ended with the usual "Good luck." "She knows we don't exactly need luck, right?" Nano Spark, the Loki operator, said. "Well, we never know when there could be a fusion MOA" Sub Zero, the Frost operator, said in reply. "The MOAs are easy, it's the leaches I'd love to see gone" Rock Raider, the Rhino operator, added. "Guys, we've got a job to do, so let's just get to it" I chimed in. "Nano, check out what kind of resistance we've got" "On it." He said, turning invisible. After a few moments of silence, he reappeared. "Well then, this'll be an easy one. There are 3 crewmen with prods and about 5 or 6 shockwave MOAs." "Really?" Zero said, genuinely surprised. "I was expecting at least a sniper or railgun MOA." "Oh, and one more thing," Nano mentioned. "Unauthorized life forms detected," a female voice came from the speakers on the ceiling, "please get to a safe area until the threat is eliminated" We all looked at Nano, "...there may have been a fusion MOA I wanted to get rid of." He finished. "Well, there goes the stealthy approach" I said, rather annoyed. "Let's just get this over with." With that, we stacked up at the door and I silenced all of us. Rock stepped in front of the door to open it. Due to my silence, the Corpus crewmen didn't hear the door open. They were on alert, but didn't know where they had to watch for us. I lined up an arrow from my Paris as Nano charged his glaive and Zero took aim with his kunai. I nodded giving the signal to take out the crewmen. All of our weapons found their marks, but now the MOAs were alerted to our presence. They ran in our general direction looking for where the threat was. My silence was still in effect, so Rock readied his Hek, the most powerful shotgun the Tenno knew of. "Time to blast these suckers to the void." Rock said charging his iron skin ability. The MOAs finally found us, and the Rhino engaged without hesitation. He sprinted at the MOAs, that were charging their shockwaves. Only one MOA remained after the shotgun tore through the MOAs' armor with ease. Its shockwave pushed Rock back a little, but knocked me and Nano to the ground. With a quick movement of his arm, Zero froze the MOA and sliced it in half with his Reaper. All that remained of the robot was a pile of frozen circuits and metal. Our first problem was out of the way, now we had to get to the lower levels of the ship and find the reactor. The resistance we faced was no challenge for our skills and abilities, though there was one thing that conserned me; the lack of officers on the ship. Normally, there are a few tech officers supporting their crew, but this time, it seemed like there had been nothing in charge of the ship. "Where are the officers?" I asked "Not a clue," Zero answered, "Are you getting that same feeling?" "The one where this mission is going to somehow go wrong?" Nano said. "That's what I'm starting to feel too" Rock added. "Tenno, I'm picking up a faint bio signiture." Lotus said, warning us of a possible infection, "Keep your eyes and ears open." "Well, this mission just got interesting." Nano said in his usual cocky tone. As we fought our way to the elevator that lead to the reactor level, I heard a crewman laugh quietly, muffled by both the sound of gunfire and his helmet. 'How could they think that there is something down there, that's that dangerous for a team of fully armed Tenno?' I thought. The doors opened into a dark room, covered in what looked like tumours or worms of some sort. We heard a strange growl, that sounded like whatever made the sound, was choking on something. A leaper jumped at Sub Zero, only to be frozen and shattered by a round from his Latron. "Looks like this thing has been here a while if it spread this much." He said, wiping the blood from his frame. "You're right" Rock said, "we should take out that reactor, fast" As we kept running and gunning as chargers and runners came after us, we arrived in the room with the reactor. "There it is, destroy it and get to extraction" Lotus ordered. With a powerful swing of Fragor, Rock destroyed the reactor, cutting most of the power on the ship instantly. Our HUDs lit up with the red words all Tenno have grown to dislike; ship integrity compromised, hull will fail in : ~1 minute. "How the hell do get out in a minute!" Nano yelled, "Extraction is almost 5 minutes by running!" "I may have an idea." I said looking into the room beyond the reactor. It had empty cryopods. "Get in one have a nice nap. These things can survive pretty much anything." "Are you sure about this Sonic?" Rock asked, hoping he had heard me wrong. "Either this or we freeze in space, after being burned or ripped apart by them." I said nodding my head behind us. "Fine, but if I don't wake up, I'll kill you." Rock gave in. We all got in our pods, and sealed ourselves in. Then everything went dark. > Wake up call: Loki > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loki Waking up from sudden cryo is not the most pleasant thing, and wakeing up in a bright place, is worse. I was slowly coming to my senses; I was on the ground. My HUD was coming online; my shields were down. That was enough to wake me up, like a detonite stim. I got up and looked around to get my bearings; a field? This looked like old Earth, but that was, you know, old Earth. I heard a flapping sound that was getting louder. I turned, just to get the wind knocked out of me, and I was back on the ground with what looked like some kind of cyan equine with a multicoloured mane, and wings, pinning my shoulders to the ground. "Whoa there!" I said when I realized my position. I quickly lifted my legs and kicked the creature off to my left. I then pinned it down and slid my glaive into my hand from its place on my arm. I held one of the blades at its throat, holding my position to see how the equine would react to its life being threatened. All I could see in its magenta eyes, was fear, no rage, no sign of ferocity. With as calm a tone as I could get, after being tackled, I said "Where am I, and who are you?" Not even thinking if it could understand me. "Y-you're in Equestria, n-near P-Ponyville." It said, to my surprise, in a female voice. "I'm Rainbow Dash!" She said when I let my guard down for a second, she kicked me off with an instant switch in her personality, fearful to full of confidence. We both got to our feet quickly. "And who are you anyways?" She said with a sneer. "Name's Nano Spark" I responded with roughly the same way as Rainbow Dash did. I could tell that she was a fighter, but not to my extent. My glaive folded and reattached to my forearm, I won't use lethal force with some sentient being that doesn't seem to have the heart to harm anything. "Well then Rainbow Dash," I said taking my stance for hand to hand combat, or rather, in this case, hand to hoof. "You want to finish what you started?" She smirked at my question. "Let's go" Her fear had almost completely subsided. She was the first to act, she flew at me with her forelegs out, ready to take me down. I reacted by rolling to the right, and dropped a decoy where I was standing. Rainbow saw me tumble, but from her point of view, I rolled out of myself, leaving a ghost image where I had been standing. She took down the decoy like she did to me when I woke up. She looked up and saw me still in recovery stance from my roll. I smirked under my helmet. "Well you're already smarter than the guys I normally fight. They would try to tear off that thing's head before realizing that I'm not where they thought I was." I said, getting up The tear off that thing's head part made her stop in her tracks. "You mean that you fight guys who would kill you?" She said raising an eyebrow. "Well, not all the time, but yeah" I responded. "Alright, I guess I'll see you around Rainbow Dash, I need to find my team." "Wait, how many more of you are there?" She said as I turned to look back at her. "There are three more like me, a heavy one named Rock Raider, an ice based frame named Sub Zero, and the one in charge, a sound based frame, Sonic Boom" "You should go see Twilight at the library, she could help you find your teammates, and she can contact Princess Celestia." She said, pointing in the direction of a small town. "Let me show you where it is." "Alright, anything that can make my search shorter." With that, we headed into town, towards the library. Orokin above, I hope nothing goes wrong, but knowing my current luck, something will find a way. > Wake up call: Frost > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frost Waking from cryo for me is probably the easiest thing in the universe, compared to my teammates at least. Those cryo pods have to get colder than what my frame can handle to freeze me, so for others it can get uncomfortable. As I opened my eyes and my HUD came online, I got the feeling I was being watched, but not like a hunter watching its prey, more like being observed with curious eyes. I got up and heard a barely audible gasp. Whatever was watching must have been surprised that I was alive. My senses came back to me rather quickly when I stood, so I could now see I was in a dark forest, which looked like one from old Earth. I turned to see what looked like two equines, a white one with a purple mane and a horn, the other was yellow with a pink mane and wings. “A unicorn and pegasus, if my knowledge of ancient greek mythology serves me right” I muttered to myself. Their eyes widened at the statement. “C-can you understand me?” I said genuinely surprised that they had a reaction. “Y-yes, we can.” the unicorn spoke up, hesitantly, in a female and refined accent “Who might you be?” she asked as the pegasus coward behind its mane. Judging by her build being similar to the unicorn, it was likely also a female. “I go by the name of Sub Zero” I answered in a calmed, friendly tone, to try not to frighten the pegasus any further, “And you are?” “My name is Rarity, and this is Fluttershy.” She said, pointing a hoof to the pegasus, "Might I ask, what is that you are wearing?" "I thought you might ask that sooner or later." I replied, "This is a frame, called Frost. With it, I can control ice, and make the very humidity in the air freeze." "Why would you want to do that?" "Well as you can tell, I'm not exactly geared for peaceful operations." I said, pointing at my weapons, "This is called a kunai, a throwing knife. This is a Latron, a rifle. And this is called Reaper Prime, one of the only few hundred made by the Orokin." Rarity was a little nervous, understandable, but Fluttershy asked, "You're saying that you fight others to kill them?" Bearly louder than a whisper. "Yes, I kill." I said, with a bit of regret, "But I only kill those that would make others suffer. I have a team of four, including me. Together, we stand against the odds and defend our solar system." "You say you have a team?" Rarity asked "Yes." "I believe we may be able to help with that." Rarity replied "Follow us to the library, our friend, Twilight might be able to help you. She is the Princesses student after all" "Thank you." I said, "and trust me when I say, no harm will come to you, your friends, or your planet. And did you just say you were friends with royalties pupil?" "That's correct, though she prefers not to boast" With that, we headed to a small town. Orokin above, this place is seemingly untouched by war, let's try to keep it that way. > Wake up call: Rhino > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rhino Cryo Is probably my least favorite thing, ever. At least I survived the ship blowing up. The thing about the cold is, when you wake up from cryo, your shields are offline for a little bit. That was something Sub's old team had to deal with when they saved that Excalibur warframe on Pluto. The difference is that I was fully equipped, Fragor, Hek, Lex. two generally big weapons, and the heaviest pistol known by the Tenno. Because this gear is so big, it managed to freeze onto the pod's interior. All I could do was detach my gear to get out. When the pod opened, I sat up and to take a look around. I was in what looked like an old earth apple orchard. I heard a noise of a nearby tree shaking, then the sound of something falling to the ground. I looked in that direction, only to see an orange equine with a stetson and a ponytail. Oh, the irony. It was picking up some apples that hadn't fallen into the baskets below the tree. It hadn't noticed me yet. I scrambled to get out of the pod to grab my stuff, once the pod disappeared. The equine must have heard me in my rush to hide. I couldn't let it see me, not without knowing what intentions it would have. I was hidden from view behind a tree. "Ya hear that Big Mac?" a female, accented voice said. That must have been the orange equine. "Eenope." A new, deep, male voice said. I hadn't seen any other ponies when I looked. I glance at my radar confirmed their locations. My Fragor hadn't defrosted yet, so the connection for it on my back failed. To give an idea about how loud a frozen power hammer hitting the root of a tree, think of about a dozen Bratons firing at once. "It came from over here!" the female said. She ran, er, galloped in my direction. I hit my Lex to the tree to get rid of the rest of the ice, and emerged, pointing the powerful gun at the pony's head. She stopped dead in her tracks, with a larger red stallion that got in front of her as soon as he saw me pointing the Lex at her. I cautiously lowered my arms. The stallion, who I assume was Big Mac, had that 'touch her, you die' look on his face, but his hind legs were slightly shaking. "That's really brave of you to stand up to someone like me." I spoke up "But lucky you, I don't attack anything unless I'm attacked first" "Who exactly are ya?" The mare asked, steping out from behind Big Mac "Long story, involving a race of slightly mutated beings trying to turn my solar system into an empire." "That don't sound too bad." She said "Well their empire falls under the category of 'twin tyrants wanting to enslave everyone'." I responded "By the way, what was your name?" "Oh, pardon me. Name's Applejack" she said, She pointed a hoof at The large stallion "This is Bag Macintosh, he's my brother. We work the orchard together." "Nice to meet you both. I go by Rock Raider. Rock for the resilience, Raider for my specialty." I said, grinning under my helmet. "Hang on there. What kind o' raidin' are we talkin' about?" "The kind where I steal an artifact that would be used as a weapon against me and my kind." "Just who is 'your kind'." "We are the Tenno. The masters of blade and gun." I said as I pointed to the lotus on my pauldron "Our purpose is to strike at those that would disturb balance. The Grineer, Corpus, and Infestation have done just that." I clenched my fist at the thought of a three way invasion of this new planet... that my team would have to fend off. "I need to go, and find the rest of my squad. Where is the nearest town, or village?" "That would be Ponyville." Applejack said. "Big Mac, you keep workin', I'll bring Rock over to Twi's place to see if she can help." "Eeyup" was all Big Mac said Finally, we were on our way to meet Applejack's friend in Ponyville. All I can hope is that the rest of the Ethereal Lotus aren't far off. Who knows what could have tracked us to this quiet planet. > Wake up call: Banshee > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wake up call: Banshee My recoveries from cryo are among the slowest, being in a suit based on vibrations and low temperatures slowing them. As my senses and HUD came online, I saw two green dots on my radar, meaning they were no threat at the moment. I heard whispers coming from their direction, so I focused to increase their volume to hear what they were saying. "Look, Octy," a female voice, on the tomboyish side, said "whatever that thing is, it's probably not going to hurt us" with that, one of the dots started to move in my direction. I didn't move my head to see, for I didn't have the need to. A sonar pulse showed that it has equine relations, the mane was a mess, but the good kind. Either my sonar had problems, or it was a unicorn with sunglasses. Odds are, it was the latter. "Vinyl!" The other being spoke up, in a refined female accent, like Old Earth British "Do you have to poke at everything that could get you killed?" She said in a hushed tone. As soon as the blue pulse signalling my shield regeneration went off, I kicked up my legs and got to my feet to see the two mares with my own eyes, since the second one, likely 'Octy' never came in range of my sonar. She was a grey pony with a charcoal black mane and a pink bowtie. The nearest one, Vinyl, was in fact, a white unicorn with purple sunglasses and a mess of a mane, coloured blue and teal. Both jaws dropped at my movement, one angled up, the other, down. "No one is poking anything right now." I said, hand on my short Skana. "No way!" Vinyl shouted, ecstatically "This is awesome! It can walk, talk, and threaten!" "Vinyl!" Octy shouted "Get away from it!" "It's fine," I said, trying to get take edge off, "neither of you have given me a reason to fight you yet. Name's Sonic Boom." "Nice to meet you, Sonic." The white unicorn said extending a hoof. "I'm Vinyl Scratch. I'm a DJ." I reached out to grab her hoof and shook it. "I am Octavia," the grey mare said, still eyeballing me in case I did anything "I'm Vinyl's roommate." "It's nice to finally meet a race that isn't trying to kill me on sight." I said, "You're not going to try, are you?" "Why would we try to kill something that hasn't even pointed any sharp objects at us?" Vinyl said. "Well, I have a history of getting mixed up in more than a Tenno like me should." "What kind of 'mixing up' are we talking about here?" Vinyl said, moving her sunglasses up to rest on her horn, and narrowing her magenta eyes. "It involves protecting the Origin System from two factions and an infestation, all of which would love to see my team and I, eviscerated, mutilated, and possibly-" "I think that's enough details." Octavia cut me off. "Right. Anyways, this suit is one of the reasons I can fight them. It's called Banshee. Basically I can control sound waves to do things from silence myself, to clearing a hallway with a blast." "That sounds awesome!" Vinyl said, "You know, I weaponized music before, but not control it like that." "Wait, you've used sonic resonance as a weapon?" I was genuinely surprised that a being that acted the way she did, could get some control over sonic energy. "We'll it was just that one time a being of chaos came back to try to take over, again." "Do you still have that weapon?" "Well, I lent it to Pinkie for the weekend, said she had a party to plan." "You gave a sonic weapon... to a party planer?" "Yeah, it's just a big modded speaker. She probably won't find the button to turn it into the bass cannon." "You know, Vinyl, it is P-" Octavia was cut off by a loud noise, that sounded like a bass drop from that Old Earth electro stuff. Not much to say, I saw the bass cannon on the outskirts of a nearby town. it was a modded speaker, that blasted enough sonic energy that it glowed blue, like my sonic boom or sound quake, but the beam was more solid. There was a pink pony standing next to it. "Well then, I guess I spoke too soon." Vinyl said. "Anyways, I have to go find the rest of my team." "How many of you are there?" Octavia asked. "There are three more Tenno like me. We need to find a way to contact my clan in the Origin System." "Then I suppose we could take you to see Twilight Sparkle in town." Octavia suggested, "She is the princesses student, so she would have the resources to help you." "Thank you, any help to get my team back in action will be appreciated." "To the library!" Vinyl shouted, taking the lead, headed into town. > The Chase is On > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Somewhere on Mars "Who is this?" Sgt. Nef Anyo said. "Lotus." The Lotus responded. "What kind of sick joke is this?" He scouled at the blurred, yet slowly forming hologram. "Why would the eyeless slag willingly contact me, giving her location!?" "You know as well as I do that you would need a lot of help to get into this dojo, even more so getting to me." The Lotus had fully formed in the hologram. A woman in a purple frame of some sort with a mask, covering her eyes. "You have a point. So why is it you're contacting me?" "One of my teams has gone missing after a mission on a Corpus ship near Pluto." "And you think I have something to do with it?" "No." "Then why contact me over the council?" "A missing team would not be on their list of priorities, even if they got their hands on a certain key." "I'm listening." -------------- Grineer Recon ship near Pluto "Captain, I'm sure they were killed in the explosion." "Then you have never seen what a Tenno agent is capable of." Captain Vor said to his subordinate. "How could they have possibly gotten out?" "That Corpus ship was carrying more than supplies. They had found abandoned warframes on Pluto. They would need cryo pods to ship them off-world." "You think they went to sleep?" "They did, if you had properly analyzed the debris, like I had ordered you to," He grabbed the void key from a slot on his armour and charged it, "you would have seen them." He turned to the scout, and fired a beam of golden energy at him. With a scream of agony, he was gone. "Track the Tenno, and follow them." Vor ordered another scout. ---------------- "So if I get your little team in contact with you, you'll arrange for that key to get to me, and if I don't help, you'll send it to Eris." Anyo recapped "It's your choice, help, or good luck dealing with that infestation." "Tough choice, help the betrayers, or deal with Phorid, the biggest damn guard dog in the Origin System, not to mention the psy abilities." "By the way, I got wind of a Grineer recon ship near Pluto at the time of the explosion." "Consider your team found." Anyo concluded. "One more thing Sargent," Lotus added, "I mean contact, as in, no body bags." "Alright, now if you'll excuse me, I have some dogs that need to pick up a scent." "Do you really need hyenas to find four agents?" "What? No! I'm just gonna follow that Grineer Fomorian that left Ceres about a minute ago." "Well then, I need to upgrade my scanners." “Was that a hint of jealousy I detected?” End transmission. Anyo called his pilot as soon as the Lotus disconnected. --------------- Unknown location A Tenno agent was kneeling at his star chart watching four cryo pods get blasted out of the system. Rewinding and using infrared to see if there was something in the pods, though it would be faint. Zooming in on each pod, he saw that there was someone in them. “Damn” he said to himself, punching his knee, “They always find a way to slip out. Perhaps I’m simply losing my touch.” The dark agent got up and walked to the cockpit of his shuttle and sat down in the pilot seat. “I have failed to eliminate the Tenno near Pluto.” Suddenly the agent felt a sharp pain in his head. “You’ve failed one too many times, Stalker” A voice boomed in his head. “You will come to me immediately for your punishment.” “Wait! My plan’s flaw was the lack of knowledge of the ship’s cargo. They survived in cryo pods. If you could just grant me more time to hunt them-” the Stalker tried to explain, but the voice interrupted him. “Silence! You’re lucky that I’m in a good mood. I will give you two weeks to kill them. This time, you will not leave another one of your traps to deal with them, you are to kill them your self. Am I understood?” “Yes, Master.” The Stalker was clutching his head from the pain that lingered for a moment longer. “Now, where have you gone off to?” The Stalker went back to his star chart to calculate the trajectories of the pods. “With that angle, they would fall into nothingness, forever drifting in the dark. I should be able to cache them all within a week. This should be fun.” Stalker set the coordinates and kneeled in a meditative position for travel. ---------------- Near one of Jupiter’s moons The Golem was in the process of consuming the matter of the remaining Corpus crew that dared raid the derelict. He understood a faint memory from the corpse of the commander; the Tenno had gotten more aggressive to take Pluto from the Corpus. They had sent a team to destroy a supply ship that was sending food and ammunitions to an outpost. That was the same ship he had placed a spore pod in not a month earlier. (We must recover the power of the Tenno matter. Get the Tenno frames of ice, sound, strength, and trickery.) The dark voice blasted on a psionic level. His mistake was sending the message with so much force. Someone was bound to hear it. ---------------- Tenno dojo, Night Guard "Shadow, Get Blade and Ferna!" Espa, the Nix operator, called to her team, "We've got ourselves a little search and rescue!" Three more Tenno entered the star chart room, Falling Shadow with Ash, Silent Blade with Excalibur, and Inferna with Ember. "Who's the target?" Shadow asked. "An old friend." > New Allies > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vinyl Scratch and Octavia led me through the primitive town. The sun was beginning to set, so there were few of the residence outside. Nonetheless, we got the occasional glance, but it seemed as if they saw nothing out of the ordinary. "Am I the first of my kind to be on this planet?" I asked the two mares. "As far as I know, yes you are. Why do you ask?" Octavia responded. "It just seems like the townsfolk are used to an unknown creature walking through the middle of street." "We are headed in the direction Twi's house, so..." Vinyl said matter-of-factually. "I take it she has to do with the stranger things in town?" I said. "She is the princess' student, so Ponyville doesn't really question anything when she's involved." Vinyl said with a shrug. The rest of our walk was in silence. Within a few minutes, we arrived at a large, literal, tree house. It was a hollowed out tree with windows and a small red door. It had an observation deck near the top, with a telescope, that was pointed in the direction we came from. "Here we are." Vinyl said. She knocked on the door with her fore hoof. "Hey Twi! We've got something to show you!" "Spike! Could you get the door?" A muffled voice came from inside. The door opened and a small purple reptile was standing in the entrance. He shouted over his shoulder, "It's Vinyl, Octavia, and I'm assuming, the thing they want to show you!" "Let them in!" The voice shouted from upstairs, "I'll be right down!" A loud crashing noise came from upstairs, followed by a clopping sound headed towards the stairs. The reptile, Spike, lead us into a common room, with some chairs and a couch. I used my sonar to get the layout of the building, see any possible threats, and find out what the noise was. It was a pile of books that had fallen near a bed. This time, I saw Vinyl's ears perk up the moment the pulse passed over her. "What was that pinging noise?" She asked looking at me, "Cause it's the same ping I heard when we were walking over to you." "Oh, you heard that?" I was surprised that she took notice of the sonar, "That's a pretty good set of ears you've got there. The ping was my sonar, I just wanted to get the layout of the building." Of course, I left out the 'possible threats' part. "That's pretty cool." She said. "What's pretty cool?" Twilight asked coming down the stairs. Twilight was a purple unicorn, with a dark purple mane that had a light purple highlight near the middle. Her jaw hit the floor as soon as she saw me next to Vinyl and Octavia. Once Twilight recovered from the initial shock of seeing a new creature, she lost it... "What is it? Can it speak? What are those things on its sides?" She must have meant my Vipers, "Is it male of female? Does its species even have a distinction between genders? Why is its head shaped like that? Is it-" her lips kept moving, but she went silent, thanks to a little trick of mine. It took about four seconds of silence for her to realize that she was silenced. She had a confused look on her face for a moment. Then her horn began to glow a pinkish purple and she tried speaking again. "Did you just mute me with magic?" "No, no magic, just a lot of messing with the sound waves that came from your mouth." "So you can speak!" "Would you expect less from a being that can manipulate sonic energy? By the way, just so that I know I can last on this planet, what's the atmosphere's composition?" I had almost forgotten that my frame could only sustain me for so long without oxygen. "Lots of different gases, like nitrogen, oxygen-" "That's all I needed to know." I said switching off my reserve. "I wanted to ask, why do you have swords and a bow?" Twilight brought up the subject that had to sooner or later. "I'll explain that to the best of my ability. Before I do though, did you see any objects falling from the sky last night?" "Yes, I saw four. It seemed that they all landed around Ponyville. Hey! Was that you?" She caught on finally. "Thank the Creators, they must have made it." I said to myself with a sigh of relief. "Who made it?" Twilight asked. "She is part of a team." Octavia answered for me. Just then, there was a knocking on the door. You'll never guess who was there. The door handle glowed with that same purple glow as Twilight's horn and opened, and it was, of course, a pony with wings. It was a pegasus, if my memory served right. It was cyan with a multi colored mane. "Twilight! You'll never guess what I found under my house!" She said with a slightly tomboyish voice. "10 bits says it's this chicks teammate!" Vinyl said, raising a fore hoof, with a smirk on her face. Octavia rolled her eyes. "Nano, how many times have I told you that you can't hide from sonar that easily." I said after using said ability. "Aw, but Sonic, there are others here that didn't see me. You killed the surprise, again." Nano Spark said with a sigh, appearing behind Octavia and Vinyl. "Ah!" Octavia was startled by the stealthy Tenno. The pegasus and Vinyl laughed at the reaction, as Octavia gave Vinyl a small pouch of what I could only assume was 10 bits. Once the pegasus recovered, she said, "Hey, you must be Nano's teammate. I'm Rainbow Dash." "Oh, I haven't even told you two my name yet, Sonic Boom." How could I have forgotten to tell the first two individuals that I meet on this planet, my name. "So, Nano, have you seen or heard from Raider or Zero yet?" "Not yet, but I have a feeling they shouldn't be long now. From what Dash has told me, two of her friends went to check out a 'meteorite' landing zone." Nano was always good about getting info, be it by force, or even just asking (while holding a glaive at the throat). "Well that would be at least one of them." I said with a sigh, "We'll wait for one, then go look for the other." For at least a second time that evening, the door knocked on queue. "Come in!" Twilight shouted. The door opened and two more equines came into view, this time, a white unicorn with a purple mane, and a light yellow pegasus with a light pink mane covering a bit of her face. By this point I noticed a similarity between the females, the facial structure was rounder than the males. Not much to anyone's surprise, standing next to the two ponies, was a Tenno agent. "Looks like I'm not the first one found," Sub-Zero said, "it's good to see you two made it out of that ship." "Hello everypony." The white unicorn said. "Hi Rarity, hey Fluttershy." Rainbow Dash said waving her hoof. While the ponies talked amongst themselves, the three of us needed a plan to find Rock Raider... or not... The door opened with an orange pony with a blonde mane and Stetson hat, next to a fairly large frame. "Twi-" the orange pony with a 'country' accent stopped herself as soon as she saw the large amount of people (well, mostly ponies) gathered in the library. "I think you're team is already here." She said to Raider. "Looks like it." He said. “Thanks for finding him.” I Said, “You just saved us some time.” “Not a problem. Name’s Applejack.” The orange mare said with a smile "Well then, now that we're all here, time to exchange questions and answers" Zero said. "Let's start with names," Twilight suggested simply, "I'm Twilight Sparkle, and this is Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Vinyl Scratch, and Octavia." She pointed a hoof to each of the ponies in the room, only, she pointed behind the couch when she said Fluttershy. "Nice to meet you all." And now, my turn, "I'm Sonic Boom. This here is Sub-Zero, Rock Raider, and... Nano Spark, what are you doing?" I said, looking over at the blurry outline creeping up on the couch. "Come on!" Nano whined reappearing, "We might be on another planet, but could you at least let me have some fun?" When he appeared, Fluttershy was backing up from behind the couch with a scared expression on her face. With a sigh, I continued, entering info-dumping mode, "Anyways, the suits, or frames, we have on are know as Banshee, Frost, Rhino, and Loki. Our race is known as humans. We are divided into factions, we are the Tenno, the other factions are known as the Grineer and Corpus. I'll get to them later. You're all probably wondering why we're armed." I said, putting my hand on my short Skana. "Well, that's because we're at war with the Grineer, Corpus, and the T-Cyte Infestation; the preferably avoided kind of infestation." "Why are you at war?" Octavia asked. "Corpus leaders are frame collectors and illegal arms dealers, and Grineer are led by a few spoiled queens who want an empire under their rule." I went on for another fifteen minutes about how things work in the Origin System, answering the occasional question from the group of ponies. I had left out the fact that the Tenno are hunted by the Stalker for reasons that were unclear. I finished dumping my info, finally. It was dark outside. "Ah think ah should get back to Sweet Apple Acres, it was nice meetin' y'all." Applejack said with a yawn, and she left. "It is getting late. I'll bring Fluttershy to her cottage and head home. Goodnight." Rarity said bringing the yellow pegasus. "G'night all!" Vinyl said, leaving with Octavia. Once only Twilight and my team lingered, she looked over to us. "I have a guest room with a few beds if you want." She said. "I'm going to send a letter to the princess in the morning." "How are you so trusting of us, even after Sonic just explained what kind of people we are?" Zero said. "From what I've learned this evening, I feel the need to help." Was all she said before she left us "Finally, some actual sleep." Raider said, as he lay down on the couch. > A Little Trip > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ever since Sub-Zero left the Night Guard, it hadden't been the same for Falling Shadow or Espa. Due to not being a part of the team for long, Silent Blade had been indifferent, however, he knew that they had to save a fellow Tenno. Inferna, a member of the Solar Marks, had been sent to fill in as a bullet magnet. She may have been Sub-Zero's polar opposite, but she was one of the only Tenno able to keep up with the Night Guard; the other was the dark one, known as the Stalker. The Stalker; the shadow, the blade, the darkness.  He wielded three deadly, forbidden weapons, the bow, the knives, the scythe. They were called Dread, Despair, and Hate, respectively. Not much is known of his intensions, besides finding and killing every Tenno that serves the Lotus. Some believe he serves an opposite of the Lotus. Others don't even believe him to be real. He wanted to keep it that way, until he targeted them. The Stalker thought about his mission, 'How far could those pods have gone? There must be some center of gravity slinging them into an orbit.' There was not supposed to be anything beyond the point he reached, but he kept on going. There had to something to lock onto, a star, or a planetoid perhaps?. Still nothing... Wait! A small Star appeared on the edge of his star chart. It was scanned and a tag appeared next to it; Celestial Sun. The small Night Guard ship, Hidden Moon, was in warp. Nothing could track, much less, hit, the fastest ship in the Origin System. Silent Blade sat alone in his quarters, medatating. He had been doing so since he was awoken on Pluto. Nobody knew why he never spoke, he had been given the name because of it. Falling Shadow saw the alone time as Blade was trying to remember something he forgot, whereas Inferna believed he was trying to forget something he remembered. Espa had not a clue as to what was happening inside that head of his. He had known how to shield his mind somehow. All the Night Guard knew was that he was on their side, and he was a damn good fighter. The Lotus trusted him, why shouldn't they? Inferna awoke from meditation  when Espa entered the star chart chamber. "Hey, Espa," Inferna said, "have you had any luck with our search?" "Still nothing but the direction." The psychic said with a shrug, "There's no telling how far they could have gone at this point." "Do you think that he is going after them?" Ferna asked. He had been attacking both Inferna and the Ethereal Lotus lead team for the past few months. They had survived every encounter, but not without injury. "I don't think he would go out this far, but we should treat this mission as if he is." Espa said with a nod. "And, while we're on the subject, did you notice that Blade acts differently and soon after, you get attacked?" "I had; so it wasn't just me thinking that. We'll keep an eye on him." Inferna rose to leave the room, but stopped. "And one more thing, look over to your left." Espa was confused at the statement for a moment, then she turned her head and saw a star. --------- "Of course I'm gonna bring those frames, Sir." Sargent Nef Anyo told his superior on his comms. "You had better, or you just might get a visit from my little pet." The Collector, Alad V responded, and disconnected. "Sometimes, I just want to take every threat on my life and make it happen to him." Anyo mumbled to himself. He looked back to his monitor to see the status of the large Grineer ship he had followed out of the solar system. Nothing new to see, but another ball of ash, coming from the lower area of the ship this time. At least he knew he was in fact, following Grineer. As amusing as watching Grineer kill eachother was, Anyo got out of his seat and headed to his private quarters. All he could do was wait for someone, or something, to make their move. ------------ A large fleshy pod was moving in a slow warp. The creatures inside waited, and waited. They would soon find a new host planet. One untouched by the Orokin? Perhaps, there was much more than the creators of the T-Cyte Infestation could have ever predicted. [The Tenno would destroy us?] the mind thought, [They would burn their creations? Their flesh?]. These questions were always answered by the Tenno with a blade or a gun. Sometimes both. ---------- When I awoke, I was in one of the small, yet comfertable chairs in the library. So, it isn't a dream. The others had all awoken shortly after me. Raider had slept on the couch, Zero had simply meditated. I started to walk over to the kichen when Nano came down the stairs. "Am I really the only one who chose a real bed over sleeping down here?" He said. "Well, Raider was too lazy to go up, Zero didn't even actually sleep as far as I know, and I chose to stay with the majority." I explained, "Oh, and honestly, do you think it would be smart to sleep closer to someone we don't know all that well?" "Look who you're talking to. One, if she wanted to do something, I would have to clean my glaive." He spun his glaive and pointed at it for emphasis. "And two, she didn't do anything." With a sigh, I turned and entered the kichen to see Spike cooking, and Twilight looking at a letter with her horn glowing. A quill wrapped with the same purple glow wrote. "Good morning, Twilight, Spike." I said. She glanced up from her letter, "Good morning. I'm just finishing  this letter to the princess so that she's aware of this whole thing." "Oh, right, you're her student or something, right?" Nano said as he crossed his arms. "Yes, I am. Though I prefer not to boast about it, I'm one of the top magic users in Equestria. Even my special talent is magic." She responded with a hint of pride. She turned and pointed a hoof at the star markings on her... flank was it? Most of the Origin System doesn't exactly know much on equine anatomy. "See?" And she turned back to sign the letter. "So those markings represent a talent of some sort?" I asked, fairly interested. "Yes, they're called cutie marks. Everypony has a unique talent, and when we're born, we don't know our talent, so we have to find it. Once we do, a cutie mark will appear." She explained. She caught our looks, "Aren't those things on your arms the same thing?" She pointed at my shoulder. "Not exactly, these are badges, they show what we believe as our greater achievements. The one I have here," I took the holo-badge from my left shoulder, it was a Corpus void key "I earned by going after Corpus scouts that tried to hide in the void. And this," I pointed at my right shoulder, "is my team's emblem." It was a lotus with a dark teal hue. "The badge I've got here is one I got by sabotaging a massive Grineer ship a while back." Nano of course wanted to show off his badge too. "Practically took down the whole thing on my own." He boasted. I quietly told twilight: "Yeah, with the help of hundreds of other Tenno." She chuckled. "Including the Solar Marks, and Night Guard, two of the top clans." She'd laughed a little louder at that part. "What's so funny?" Nano said, "I'm telling you, it's true!" He sounded like a child trying to blame a sibling for breaking their fathers ceramic dagger. "I'm sure it is." She said trying to contain herself. After she calmed down, she sealed the letter in an odd manner; she put some wax from a candle to close the scroll, and stamped the wax. I supposed it was to identify the sender. "Spike, could you send this to Princess Celestia?" She floated the scroll with her magic over to Spike. "Sure thing." He said with a smile. He took a breath and when he breathed out, a green flame burned the letter. "Umm... Why did you burn it?" Nano looked confused. Or at least as confused as he could look. He had a habit of trying to hide his confused looks, makeing it more obvious to those that know him. The green flame was now a floating ball of ash, and it moved quickly through the air and out the window. "I guess that it reformes at its destination?" I said. "Yeah, that way we know the letter is secure, and it gets there much faster than mailing it." said the dragon. Just then, he seemed like he was going to beltch. He let out his burp, and a green smoke came from his mouth to form a swerling ball of ash. With a flash, a scroll appeared and floated down to Spikes outstretched claw. He quickly opened the scroll and began to read aloud: "To Twilight Sparkle, my most faithful student, I trust you and your friends are doing well. These extraequestrial beings sound very interesting. My sister and I would very much like to meet them. I've sent a skycaridge that should arrive before noon. I would also appreashiate it if your friends could come too. It has been some time since we all saw eachother at the wedding. We will speak again soon. Princess Celestia." "Well I guess we should get Raider and Zero up." Nano said. "No need." We turned to the source of the voice. Zero was standing just inside the doorway with Raider just behind him. "So, we're going to speak with this Princess?" "That seems to be the case." Twilight said, and she looked up at the clock, "The carridge should be here within the hour, so I suggest you collect your things. We may need to arrange someplace for you all to rest during your time on Equis." "That sounds good." Nano said with a shrug. "Once again, thank you Twilight Sparkle." Zero said. "Oh, it's no big deal." Twilight replied, " And please, just call me Twilight." "We'll get our things, then we should be on our way." I said as we headed to gather our gear. Nano grabbed his Braton and Sicarus, and holstered them on his back and on his side, respectfully. He always had his glaive with him; he loved that weapon. Zero already had his gear, because he had only meditated over night. Raider collected his Hek, Lex, and Fragor from beside the couch he slept on. Finally, I collected my Paris and its quiver, and dual Skana; as I had my twin Vipers with me. You just never know what could happen. They were also very compact, so it wasn't much trouble for me. Twilight had gone to get her friends when Vinyl Scratch had arrived. Spike let them in and we talked for about a half hour. It was mostly Vinyl asking strange questions like: "What kind of music do you like?" How was I supposed to know? The only sounds I ever hear are gunshots, explosions, screaming, my own abilities, and the drums in the dojo. "I really can't answer that one." I told her. "I don't think any of us can. The only music we've heard, besides in our dojo, was some of the pre-Orokin stuff on Earth. It was so hard to hear it, because of a millennium of dust collecting, that I had to channel it for everyone to hear clearly." "Do you know what genre that music was?" Vinyl asked. "Well, the terminal said it was something like, electro." Raider said; he was normally the one to dig deep in terminals. "My guess is electronic, but nothing specific." "So, you don't know what electronic music is?" Vinyl asked, with that you're kidding me look. "I'd say that if we heard it, we could identify it." Zero said. "Well then, if you guys come back from Canterlot, you should stop by my studio." She started to get up when I stopped her. "How'd you know we were going to Canterlot?" I questioned her. "Oh, I saw the sky-carriage on my way over. Heck, you could see a bird on its way from Canterlot, from Fluttershy's place just outside of town." She waved a hoof for emphasis. “So, will you be coming?” Raider asked her. “That depends, when are you going?” She answered with her own question. “As soon as the carriage gets here, and Twilight gets back with her friends.” Zero said. “Then I’m coming. I’ve got a job tonight at a club in Canterlot, and I missed the morning train.” She said sheepishly rubbing the back of her head. “And you would be late if you took a later train?” Nano said from where he sat in a window frame with a leg hanging down. “Pretty much.” Twilight opened the door and entered, followed by five of her friends, the pink one that found the ‘hidden’ button included. “Good morning Vinyl. Are you going to be coming with us to Canterlot?” she said. “If I could get a ride, that would be great.” “Of course. By the way, the Princess might also want speak with you about the Tenno, seeing as you found Sonic Boom.” “Thanks!” And with that we all fit onto the large golden carriage pulled by two white pegasi in golden, ornamental armour. We took off toward the city on the mountain side.