“So, why are we waiting again?” Frost asked as he threw an energy pad on the ground and tutted.
“I wanted to wait for a whole squad!” Volt replied, fiddling with his Vectis. It had been a while since Volt had done anything apart from close Void Fissures on his own, and for some reason, he’d decided to head to the weird Entrati Labs on Deimos, mostly out of curiosity. The Cavia, a weird team of Void-touched animals, led by an oddly almost normal human being by the name of Loid, needed their help, and that had made Volt start working with other Tenno again. However, things had changed while Volt had been away, and he’d recruited his old friend Frost, in his sparkling white, blue and gold Prime Warframe and with his shiny Tenet Arca Plasmor, Knell Prime and Glaive Prime, in giving him a hand.
“But it’s Mirror Defense. It’s easy.”
“Still, I like company.”
It didn’t take long for help to arrive. Two Tenno stepped out from the large, golden doors behind Frost and Volt. Ember was her normal, fiery, orange and gold self, complete with a Phantasma Prime and, weirdly, a Knell Prime and Glaive Prime as well. Both she and Frost tutted at Volt with his clear lack of Prime gear. He wasn’t even using a Prime Warframe, despite being a True Master, and everything Volt was carrying was yellow, apart from his pet Vasca Kavat, which was named Litvir. Ember and Frost were both using Helios Prime, and neither of them knew why Volt had named his cat that weird name.
The other Warframe though, this one was a bit of an enigma, and was armed with a wrist cannon and a book. They were quite heavily built, but covered in tassels, and were hovering in midair. Their colour scheme was rather muted, mostly dusty browns, with a silver trim.
“Heya!” Volt waved. “You guys here for the Cavia standing or…”
The mysterious Warframe grunted, wrote something down in their book, then grunted again. “I am here for Grimoire mods, unfortunately. A pleasure to meet you all.”
“And who are you?” Frost asked as he made his way to the first item that needed defending, the Auricle. “Don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”
He’s an Atlas, clearly!” Ember beamed.
The Warframe tutted. “No, dear. I am Dante. I am… a rather new addition to the vast Tenno arsenals. Shall we get started?”
Volt and Frost both shrugged and got to work, activating the Auricle. Frost deployed a Snow Globe, while Volt placed a handful of Electric Shields around it, for a hint of extra protection. Ember though remained where she was, until a Rogue Culverin started poking her in the side, prompting her to join the rest of her team. Thankfully, this was a timed mission, and all they needed to do was to keep the Auricle functional, until it was finished with its job and the other defense target, the Vitreum, would activate.
While Volt got to work shooting both rogue Necramechs and the horrible invading Murmur with his beloved Twin Kuva Stubbas, Frost couldn’t help but note that Dante was constantly pausing, glancing at Frost and Ember and writing things down. It was pretty clear that Dante was using his book to cast his abilities, however, Dante also seemed preoccupied with something else too. After watching Dante elegantly spin around and spray out some sort of power that gave his entire team Overguard, Frost decided to approach Volt and ask, not really wanting to pester the bulky, floating stranger.
“Hey, Volt?”
“Yeah?” Volt asked as he reloaded, then bullet-jumped across the room to grab some floating icons. He hadn’t been to this particular Entrati lab before, but he HAD spent a lot of time on a similar mission on Mars, and he was pretty sure that if he collected enough floating icons, the Auricle would summon something to protect itself.
“What do you think Dante is writing about?”
“No idea! Why don’t you ask him?”
Frost glanced at a nearby handy timer. The Auricle was nearly done, and they had to move on to the Vitreum. He threw his Glaive at a nearby Shuffling Fragment, then took advantage of one of Volt’s Shocking Speed boosts to zoom through a weird pocket of Void to where the Vitreum was located. Ember had also noticed Dante’s weird pauses, but she was too busy being embarrassed about misidentifying Dante to speak to him directly.
A new wave of enemies spawned, and the team got to work once more, collecting Vosphene Glyphs and mowing down enemies. A combination of Volt’s Overshields, Frost’s Icy Avalanche and Dante’s Final Verse kept them all alive, while a Snow Globe and more Electric Shields meant little bothered the Vitreum as it did whatever it was supposed to be doing. Once the Vitreum was finished, Dante turned to the others, still tutting.
“The Grimoire Mods can only be found after three more rounds of this. Do you all mind accompanying me?”
“What’s the Grimoire again?” Volt asked. “I’m a bit out of the loop. Is that the book Loid gave us?”
Dante nodded. “It is. My own Noctua can use multiple copies of the Grimoire mods, hence why I am doing this mission.”
“I don’t mind sticking around if Frost and Ember don’t mind!” Volt shrugged some more.
Frost turned to Ember. Ember hesitated, then relented.
“Sure, we’ll stay. How many rounds do we need to do?”
“Four in total. We have completed one round so far.”
“Alright, fine.”
Dante floated off back to the Auricle, and Volt followed. Frost and Ember turned to each other again, didn’t say anything, then chased off after their team mates. Volt had already activated the Auricle and set up some more Electric Shields, casting Shock at them so they’d damage any Murmur that tried to pass through them. Really, the Auricle didn’t need much protecting, since they had ample Vosphene Glyphs, but Volt seemed happy.
Most of the mission carried on in silence, with Volt occasionally asking if everyone was alright. However, after a while, even he noticed that Dante was spending more and more time writing things down and less time shooting things. He rarely even seemed to bother using his weapons and was instead happy to just cast spells at people. Clearly Frost lacked the courage to ask, so Volt decided to ask for him.
“So, uh, Dante, what you writing about?”
Dante glanced down at the yellow-clad Tenno. “Oh, nothing much. Just notes and some fiction of mine. I do love to write my own little stories as well as document things.”
“What sort of stories?” Volt’s neural sensors lit up. “I like to write stories too! Been writing my own little series about a bunch of aliens that live in a space ship traveling in the space between universes. Probably not as interesting as what you’re writing though!”
This time, Dante wasn’t so quick to reply. He quickly scribbled something down then glanced at the aforementioned handy timer. They had sped through all four rounds and Dante hadn’t even realized. Unfortunately, they didn’t find what they were looking for, and all four of them opted to extract, rather than having to do another four rounds for another chance at a Grimoire mod.
As the team reappeared in the Sanctum Anatomica, their mission having been otherwise successfully completed, Volt decided to ask his question again. “So, what were you writing about?”
Dante opened up his Noctua, then flicked back several pages. “I was writing about our dear Frost and Ember here.”
At the mention of his name, Frost immediately turned his attention to Dante. “You were? Can we see what you wrote?”
“Uh… no.”
“Why not?”
“It is… not very good…” Dante stuttered, having lost all his suave charm.
Not at all satisfied with Dante’s answer, Frost snatched the Noctua from Dante and began reading from it, out loud.
“… Frost began to moan in pleasure as Ember forced her long, hard, throbbing shaft between Frost’s thighs, into his gaping… Uh… what in the name of the Lotus IS this?”
Dante snatched the book back from Frost and quickly hid it away inside his cloak. “Nothing!”
“You’re writing…”
“Yes. I am! But it is only meant for my eyes, not yours!” Dante tried to explain in a panic. “You weren’t supposed to know! I am sorry!”
Before Ember or Frost could say or do anything, Dante rushed off and disappeared back inside the transporter chamber, leaving the squads and zooming off to a new mission. The three Tenno stood there in silence, not sure what to say.
“Volt?” Ember eventually stuttered.
“Yeah?”
“Is your fiction like that?”
“Not really, no.”
“Do you… do requests?” Ember asked.
Volt thought to himself. “No, but I suppose I could?”
Ember glanced at Frost, then turned back to Volt and tapped her fingers together. “Write something about Dante. Something horrible”
“Sure. How horrible?”
“Very horrible…” Frost hissed, as he grabbed his Arca Plasma. “In the mean time, I am going to go and murder some Murmur. I need to clear my head. You guys coming?”
Ember and Volt both picked up their weapons and followed.
“Oh, definitely. I need some inspiration anyway…”