Volt hated Spy missions.
He hated them with a passion. Not because Volt couldn’t hack, in fact, Volt had mastered hacking pretty quickly. He didn’t mind the sneaking either, he actively enjoyed being sneaky at times. No, Volt hated Spy missions because of all those stupid energy fields and sensors and cameras and stuff that the Grineer and Corpus always chucked around their stupid vaults. Why couldn’t they just be in rooms with locked doors that needed to be hacked, rather than stupid jumping puzzles that required Volt to stop running, slow down and start doing stupid backflips and stuff to avoid.
But today, there was an extra reward at stake. The chance to get some Nitain Extract, a stupidly are component that he needed for, well, something. Volt wasn’t exactly sure, but he was certain he’d need it in the future, after he’d accidentally spent his entire supply of Nitain on an Archwing he never used. Volt probably would have ignored it had the mission been any other Spy mission, but this one was on Earth. Cambria to be exact. Should have been easy.
So far, it had been. Because of the toxic fumes and plants and stuff all over Earth, the Grineer bases scattered around were often pretty empty, making it harder for anyone to be caught. Which was good for Volt, because he didn’t want to change his yellow and blue look currently.
Thankfully, Volt only needed to get two pieces of data. He’d done so flawlessly. The last bit of data though was in one of those damn annoying vaults with the energy-sapping fences. A new addition to the data vault was a heavy door that locked and magnetised anyone inside a large radius if they happened to trip an alarm.
That was the room that worried Volt. Magnetism was normally not an issue with Volt’s normal equipment, but today, he had brought along some new weapons to be levelled up. In particular, he was using a Lato and a Tonkor. The Lato was alright. A bit light on damage, but it was a pistol, Volt didn’t mind. The Tonkor though drove Volt insane. “Amazingly high damage!” sounded great on paper, but Volt just couldn’t get the aim right. Still, he had to get that bastard to level 30 before he could sell it on and prove to the Lotus that he was worthy of a new rank. A Magnetism proc could utterly screw Volt and force him to use that Tonkor.
After a lot of patient waiting for the fences to lower, Volt got himself inside the data vault. The hack was ludicrously simple. Volt wondered if the Grineer would be able to keep their data more safe if they didn’t put hackable consoles on anything, but Volt knew full well that Grineer were not logical. Then again, Volt was a space ninja working for a strange lady whose eyes he had never seen before and often claimed to be looking after him and all the other Tenno. There was no logic to be had anywhere.
With the data secure, Volt pretended to breathe a sigh of relief. He couldn’t actually breathe, it was the thought that counted. But just he did so, the lights began to flicker. Not normal Grineer flickering, due to the awful wiring in Grineer bases, but a weird, wholly unnatural flicker. Black with red bits, perhaps.
Suddenly, a voice, an angry, mightily pissed off voice, boomed from somewhere behind Volt.
“I AM YOUR RECKONING!”
Volt seemed confused. Why was he being reckoned? What was going on?
“YOUR SENTENCE IS DEATH!”
Sentence? Volt didn’t remember there being a trial or something. He MIGHT have accidentally gone to Mercury to punch Captain Vor repeatedly in the face, but apart from that, Volt had been a good Tenno.
“YOU SHALL NOT LEAVE THIS PLACE!”
A cloud of smoke blasted into existence, revealing something somewhat threatening. It was a black and red Excalibur-looking Warframe with a strange head and its own weapons. The Stalker had come for him.
“What did I do to deserve this?” Volt thought as Stalker charged straight towards him. Volt quickly jumped out of the way, while Stalker tried to hit him with a pretty cool-looking scythe. As much as Volt wanted to stick around and admire how cool that scythe was, he needed to get out of there.
“DIE!”
Realising the inexperienced Tenno was too fast for melee, Stalker decided to switch tactics. Volt instinctively threw up an Electric Shield, only for a bladed arrow to fly right through it. Strangely though, the throwing knives bounced right off it.
“Oh right. Punch-through…” Volt thought, thinking back to his troubles with a Trinity spectre with a Paris bow.
“GIVE UP, LITTLE TENNO.”
Volt shook his head. He wasn’t just going to give up. He liked having a head attached to his shoulders. Realising that his shield was not working, Volt decided to go for another tactic. He fired both grenades in his Tonkor, only to miss both times. He then switched to his Lato and emptied an entire clip, before realising that he was doing pretty much no damage to the Stalker.
“YOU ARE PATHETIC. YOU ARE GUILTY!”
Really, the Stalker was just toying with him now. At some point, one of those bladed arrows was bound to hit Volt and pin him to a wall or something. After that, it would be game over. Volt couldn’t fight the Stalker, and he’d heard stories about Tenno who ran, only to be scythe’d in the back.
Suddenly, as Stalker’s arrows bounced off a console, Volt had an idea.
With a burst of electricity, Volt unleashed his Discharge, shocking and stunning Stalker.
“T-THIS W-WILL N-NOT S-STOP M-ME!”
He was right, it wouldn’t. That wasn’t Volt’s intention. Instead of shooting Stalker while he was stunned, Volt activated Speed and rushed off towards the exit, where the laser fences that activated the magnetic room were, doing a perfectly timed roll through them.
Behind Volt, a heavy metal door slammed shut, trapping Stalker on the other side. The field though had stripped Volt entirely of both his speed boost and his remaining energy.
“THIS DOOR WILL NOT STOP ME EITHER!”
Stalker roared and shouted at Volt through a glass window.
“ALL I HAVE TO DO IS TELEPORT BEHIND YOU…”
Volt readied his Tonkor. He wasn’t sure his plan would work. Stalker bashed on the glass, his rage getting stronger. But there was a strain in his voice. His teleporting ability wasn’t working.
“… I SAID, TELEPORT BEHIND YOU…”
Still nothing.
Not wanting to look a gift kubrow in the mouth, Volt decided that now would be a good opportunity to run. Stalker continued to shout and scream as the stupid Tenno sprinted away, leaving him alone in the data vault.
“I WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THIS!”
After much running, the Stalker’s cries finally faded away, and Volt made it to extraction, where his landing craft was waiting for him. The landing craft happily picked him up and flew him away to safety, taking him back to his ship.
Once he was safe and sound, Volt stared at his rewards, all laid out neatly on a screen. Two thousand credits, fifty Endo, a Vitality mod and one bottle of Nitain Extract.
Volt sighed, then set coordinates for Tolstoj, Mercury. He needed to punch someone.