*Avalon POV*
My sword cut through another lancer with blazing fury and cold grace. My shield froze incoming threats and burnt them to the ground. My sicarus burst-fire pistol unleashed it's triple shot with near-perfect accuracy and raw striking power. Then my tigris spat out double-barreled death upon the remaining troops in the area.
The area fell silent, apart from the gunfire in the background, and I scanned my surroundings. Corpses were everywhere, some had limbs missing, others were bleeding profusely.
The volume of the assault had decreased dramatically, from a roar to a frequent burst of explosions. The grineer were loosing, quite badly.
Suddenly I was face-down in the dirt and being dragged backwards towards a unseen attacker. I heard the whistle of the blade moving through the air before I saw it. With a loud clang my blade met the Scorpion's machete before it hit my back.
"Tenno Skoom!" She cried, bringing her weapon back to strike once more. I brought up aegis and felt the grineer blade collide with it's burning surface, before I reversed my grip on silva and blindly thrust the fire-blade backwards.
I was rewarded with the sound of synthetic flesh and bone ripping apart, as the Scorpion unit screamed for the last time. The was a thump as the lifeless body fell along with her weapon. I stared at it for a few seconds before picking it up and placing it on my back.
'To have something and not need is better than not having something when you need it' I reminded myself. Old advice from an old friend of mine that I always kept with me.
There was a rumble of engines and I expected to see another grineer transport coming in to land. But what I saw brought me relief and hope as the familiar outline of a liset stealth ship flickered in and out of view.
Then off the bottom a lone figure dropped. Dressed in dark red and black, with red points of light that shone like rubies. The frame's original colors were quite birght and vibrant, but the wearer changed them to match a certain figure's sinister darkness. Only one tenno I knew of mirrored the stalker in looks like that, even having a scythe, kunai, and "stolen" bow. Except she was much more friendly.
'Chaser is that you?' I called out using telepathy.
"Avalon, good to hear your voice" Came her joyful response.
'What are you doing here? We have a full squad already and you know that that is more than enough for just this small operation' I said. All tenno knew that the lotus only allowed four members per squad to keep potential losses at a minimum, and avoid attracting too much attention from the grineer or corpus. "Also, wasn't everyone else otherwise occupied?"
"Avalon this is no small operation, the grineer famorians are going to send whole legions of troops upon the planet at different locations all over the globe," She said, the happiness in her voice turning to serious instantly, "The Lotus has dispatched multiple squads to protect the natives and prevent the grineer from setting up a permanent facility here. It has become a top-priority mission"
'So where's your squad?' I asked.
"They are with the locals who are seeking shelter near the forest" She replied
'And why are you not helping them?' I questioned.
I felt something tap my shoulder and I spun around.
"Because I'm here to help you get the civilians out of harm's way" Chaser said giving me a hard glare.
Before I could reply or object to what had been said a beep from my commlink signaled someone was contacting me.
"Help...any Tenno hearing thi... is Cynder...Grineer are concentrating...center of tow...I have a group of civilians wi..."
The transmission cut out in a blast of static, but on my minimap Cynder's beacon was still active, indicating that only her commlink was gone.
Any other arguments I had with Chaser were put aside as we both ran towards the blue symbol on our minimaps.
***
*Cynder POV*
"Damn ballista", I cried as my wrist-comm sparked, "We'd better hope that someone heard that distress call, or we're basically dead"
Omega whimpered quietly at the word 'dead' but otherwise he seemed perfectly happy chewing on the leg he had ripped off of a grineer. Fluttershy and Twilight both winced at that sight. Considering their species was vegetarian by nature that reaction wasn't surprising to me.
Twilight had been helping to get the younger ponies to safety when the grineer arrived. Now we had five young ponies with us, all female. One who had an orange coat and purple mane approached me at my cry and looked at me with uncertain eyes.
"A-are we gonna be okay miss fire-lady?" She asked quietly.
'Miss fire-lady?' That was a name that I would never go by.
"Hopefully," I replied, "just stay low and quiet"
As she returned to the four other young ones I re-focused on sniping with a Vulkar sniper rifle that I permanently "borrowed" from a now dead ballista.
'Four shots left, about twenty-thousand more than four grineer left' I groaned in frustration. Out of all the tenno I knew, I always seemed to have the worst luck. Never had what I needed when I needed it, couldn't find what I needed when I needed it, and I always seemed to pick the absolute worst time to charge ahead or take cover.
Suddenly Twilight cried out, and I was smashed across the face with a garakta.
"Son of a mutalist!" I yelped as I tumbled to my feet and fired the sniper rifle point-blank into the lancer's head. The power of the sniper rifle, combined with the point blank range created a gory explosion that splattered blood on my armor, the floor, and my face.
I wiped the blood off of my visor, and stood up to aim once more. I pulled the trigger again, and fought the powerful recoil as the weapon lurched backwards, and another grineer suddenly was minus his head.
Various insults and cries came from the grineer, who now were taking cover behind boxes, barrels, and other objects. But even with those that were hiding, there were still way too many for the lousy two shots left in the clip.
'Why me?' I thought as I watched the grineer advance towards us.
Suddenly they was a cry from off to the left, and a split second later several grineer were thrown backwards. A black arrow with red glowing tip and fletching stuck out opposite sides of one lancer's head.
Then another cry was heard, this time off to the right and moments after a large number of grineer were frozen into shiny ice sculptures. Each one capturing the panicked flailing poses and shocked expressions of the troops. With a bright flash accompanied by a loud snap-crack the ice-bound grineer were shattered into snowflakes.
I saw her first, though she was harder to spot, her black and dark maroon coloring wasn't easy to pick out from the shadows in which she hid. What was easy to spot were her glowing arrows and crimson glow coming from her mask's 'eyes'. She was agile, funny, clever, and deadly. She was 'The Chaser'.
Her appearance and arsenal came from her admiration of the stalker himself, why she admired him I'm still not sure myself. But nonetheless she was one of the tenno who actively tried to get him to appear. Though she was often disappointed on many missions.
Then I saw him, not that he was hard to miss with the gold on his helmet and his pristine white attire. A prime to be sure, and the only other that I knew besides Shift. A Frost Prime warframe, known for a good mix of defensive and offensive abilities.
"Good news" I said, turning to the ponies behind me, "Help has arrived!"