It had been a while since Volt had interacted with others. Most of the missions he had done, he had set off on his own, finished the mission and returned to his ship, only to rush off, on his own, to another mission. Even more difficult tasks, like half-hour survival missions and defending cryopods against waves of enemies, all of that, he had done alone. Aside from that Hydralyst hunt, but that was a story for another time.
Speaking of that Hydralyst hunt, that was what snapped Volt back into Tenno society. While wandering around in Cetus, trying to decide whether he wanted to buy Zaw parts or not, Volt ran into an old friend.
“Hey, Volt!” Excalibur jumped with joy as he showed off his new fishing rod. To his side was Mag, who was quietly tutting to herself. “How are you!”
“I’m alright,” Volt shrugged. “Just captured a Hydralyst. I have no idea how or why Nora knows and wants these things, but oh well. What are you guys up to?”
Mag tutted some more. “This newbie here needed help catching fish, so that is what we did. Now we have to do a ton of Elite Sanctuary Onslaught and you know what that is like! Damn Simaris. Ugh.”
“Do you want some company?” Volt shrugged. “I have a very nice setup when it comes to quickly doing Sanctuary Onslaught quickly.”
“Haven’t you already done all your Nightwave stuff?”
“Yeah, but I have things that need Forma and things to level up…” Volt shrugged some more. “I can pop back to my ship, get myself sorted and send you both an invite?”
“That’d be AWESOME!” Excalibur nearly exploded with glee. “See you in a bit!”
Volt waved, then headed off to the landing pad outside Cetus. Once he was back on his ship, Volt began to sort himself out. His “ESO” loadout was ready to go, but he needed to decide on what weapons to bring. Volt always brought his emergency Atterax to Sanctuary Onslaught, but he did need to finish leveling those pesky Ninkondi Prime. Oh well, that would have to wait until after he had finished leveling his Vectis and his Pyrana Prime, which had gobbled up another Forma. Volt also decided to bring a Kubrow for a change.
After sending out invites and waiting for Mag and Excalibur to accept, the three Tenno headed to Kronia Relay in order to see Cephalon Simaris. Simaris was his normal grumpy self, but he seemed more hostile towards Excalibur for some reason.
“Guess he is still annoyed that Ordis stuck with me!” Excalibur smiled as the three Tenno stepped onto a platform and entered the datascape. A large, glowing portal appeared in front of them, humming ominously.
“You two ready?” Volt asked.
“Yeah, let’s get these five waves over with…” Mag grunted.
“Five?”
“Excal here did three waves on his own earlier.”
“Oh.”
When everything flickered back to normal, the three Tenno found themselves in the simulated belly of a Grineer ship. Attacking them though were swarms of Infested. Or at least, they were trying to. With a single Discharge, Volt had rendered most of them shocked and dead. With another Discharge 11 seconds later (Volt was counting), the same thing happened again, only leaving the occasional straggler.
This continued for some time, the only interruptions being the odd tut from Mag and Excalibur asking questions.
Suddenly, a portal opened up, and Simaris demanded they go through. The Tenno did as asked, reappearing in a weirdly orange landscape, a location in a Corpus Gas City.
“Uh, Volt?” Excalibur abruptly asked as Volt electrocuted the Kuva Fortress Grineer that were trying to shoot at them.
“Mhm?” Volt blinked as his chainsaw whip sliced an unlucky Grineer in half. “What’s up?”
“Can things come through the portals with us?”
“No, why?”
Both Volt and Mag realised Excalibur was trying to shoot a brightly coloured being with his bow. “This Charger won’t die.”
“That’s because that is Volt’s dog!” Mag laughed. “You are trying to shoot his Kubrow!”
Excalibur paused. “What?”
“That’s my Helminth Charger, Spasma!” Volt explained. “She has a cosmetic on which makes her look like a normal infested charger!”
Excalibur blinked his neural sensors, then leaned down towards the strange Kubrow. “Uh, sorry for trying to kill you, little doggie…”