“Ahem.”
Volt blinked his neural sensors several times, realizing what he was doing. “Oh, sorry.”
“You should be, you’re staring.”
“Sorry. I… I… uh… um… I can’t help it…”
A slap to the face rudely snapped Volt back to reality. But the slap didn’t come from the person Volt had been accidentally staring at.
“How dare you!” Ember hissed. She was very dressed up today. Skin made of molten glass, wrapped up in fine fabric, with a fiery halo Signa above her head and a matching flaming Syandana. “I’m standing right here, Styanax is standing right there and you’re staring at Jade of all people?”
Styanax, wearing his patented Aztec-themed nipple tassels, also blinked, but he didn’t have visible eyes or neural sensors on his helmet. “Why are you dragging me into this?”
“Have you SEEN how much collective cake is in this room?” Ember exclaimed. “Between you and me, we’re going to turn every single Corpus here into a puddle of-”
“Alright, Ember, calm down!” Jade sighed. “Let’s just get this basic mission done with. I don’t want any weirdness popping up while we escort what is essentially a nuclear reactor through a Grineer research and development lab and ammunitions stockpile.”
“I mean, it’s already way, way too late for that…” Volt also sighed. “I’m sorry, I just can’t get over the fact that you’re… kinda… um… pregnant.”
Jade eyed Volt. He couldn’t see her eyes (no one present had visible eyes apart from Volt) but he could feel the intensity of that stare nonetheless.
“What?” Volt protested. “You literally have a clear panel in your stomach where your womb would be, and you are literally standing all weird and pregnant-like, opening up your feathery covers and showing off a massive belly! Only two kinds of people stand like that: Grendel after a filling meal and expectant women! We’re Warframes, piloted by deranged child soldiers, it’s weird!”
Jade stared some more, then slapped Volt across the face the same way Ember had. The two women tutted and headed off towards the objective.
“Am I wrong?” Volt asked.
“Um, not really? Just really awkward, although I am so, so glad you didn’t just call her fat…” Styanax shrugged. “You don’t let your adult self pilot you?”
“No, I let me, my real space kid self, pilot me, as I always have. Weird adult me can stay in his stupid pocket dimension in Duviri, as far as I’m concerned. He did NOT pilot Warframes well during that stupid New War nonsense against the Narmer.”
Styanax shrugged again. “Fair, I guess. We should get going.”
Volt nodded and activated his speed, giving them both a boost as they chased after their team mates. They caught up pretty quickly, only to find that, yet again, Ember was having trouble with the hack. She always had trouble with Grineer consoles. Already rather pissed off, Jade shoved Ember out of the way then did the hack for her.
A siren sounded as two sets of massive doors opened up. From one, an unfinished reactor for a Balor Fomorian edged out on a tram line. The other door revealed a bunch of confused Grineer, which Ember instantly incinerated.
“Alright, who’s powering this thing?” Jade tutted.
Volt raised his hand. “I will. Let me just give myself some Overshields and you can all have fun murdering everyone.”
Jade gestured out towards the rest of the Grineer base. “Go on, then.”
Volt did as he was told. He bullet jumped out into the open, where he quickly spotted a group of confused Grineer who had come to investigate what had happened to the previous bunch of confused Grineer. With a single Discharge, he stunned all of them and completely filled his Overshields. He did consider killing the Grineer, but his team mates would probably steam roll them in a few seconds anyway.
Satisfied, Jade and Ember headed out and started murdering, while Styanax skewered a few Grineer, giving the rest of the team Overguard. Since the power core was modified to be powered by health or shields only, Volt sat on top of the power core, occasionally throwing Electric Shields around it to block the occasional bullet. Not that anyone was paying him much attention, since Styanax’s nipple tassels were almost as distracting as the fact that a pregnant angel Warframe was flying around.
“Does anyone need healing?” Jade asked as she stared at a Grineer Nox until they froze in place, before shooting it in the face.
“No thanks, I have that covered!” Styanax tried to be optimistic, while also trying not to look at Jade. Now that Volt had mentioned that Jade looked pregnant (or was pregnant? Styanax wasn’t sure), that was all Styanax could think about. Even though Ember was running around with her glorious, magma-filled ass on full display.
“Oh. Hmph!” Jade tutted. “Fine. More weapon damage then. Kill them all.”
“Alright, I guess…”
As they proceeded through the base, the Grineer realized they had little chance of stopping the Tenno, and the smarter grunts were beginning to flee rather than fight, knowing they may have had a chance of seeing another sunrise. However, all of a sudden, everything seemed to flicker. The dull, yellow lights in the indoor areas of the Grineer base all faded away, and a horrible disjointed voice echoed through the air.
“You still capable of protecting that power core, Volt?” Ember hesitantly asked as she reloaded.
“Yeah, sure. It’s just our old confused, angry buddy. Standard procedure!” Volt replied reassuringly. “We’ve done this hundreds of times.”
A black, wispy shadow appeared about 20m in front of the power core. Ember and Styanax both prepared themselves, while Volt erected more electric shields and jumped off the power core, causing it to stand still briefly. Ember felt somewhat uneasy, since the darkness was here for her, specifically.
Out of the shadow, a familiar face appeared: the Stalker, decorated in black and red, accompanied by smokey death. Stalker stared at Ember, but swiftly paused as he heard someone land softly behind him. Jade held out her weapon, a long, angelic scythe, ready to attack.
“Oh… No… Can’t…” Stalker stuttered as he faced jade. “No…”
“No what?” Jade almost taunted back.
Stalker looked Jade up and down, then sighed, before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
Volt, Ember and Styanax all gasped in disbelief, as did the single lone Grineer Butcher who had stuck around. Jade shrugged, then killed the Grineer Butcher, before drifting off, seeing if there was anyone else to kill.
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?” Ember screeched. Styanax lacked an answer, and Jade clearly didn’t seem to care. Volt jumped back onto the power core, giving it the last boost of shield energy it needed to get to the extraction zone. As they arrived, Jade’s landing craft appeared, to lift the power core up and fly it away. She teleported back to her ship, not even bothering to say goodbye to her squad, leaving the others in shocked silence.
“No, seriously, what the fuck was that?” Ember repeated herself.
“Uh… the power of love?” Volt suggested as the rest of their landing crafts arrived.
“I… I guess? Still… that was bloody weird…” Styanax frowned. “I don’t like it.”
Ember sighed, then shook her head. “No, me neither. And, in all honesty, between the time travel 1999 stuff and this Jade and Stalker stuff, I am genuinely scared of what the Tenno Council is going to dig up next…”
“Eh, we’ll be fine!” Volt perked up. “You guys want to open some relics?”
“Yeah, sure. I need a palette cleanser anyway…”