“Wowee, it’s dark in here!”
Three of the four Tenno turned around slowly, looking at Excalibur.
“No, really?” Wisp snorted. “We hadn’t noticed, new guy.”
“He’s right though!” Chroma took Excalibur’s side quite quickly. “It IS really dark in here, more so than usual. Far, far darker than us-”
Chroma’s sentence was interrupted by the sound of Nova tripping up and bumping into him.
“Like I said, darker than usual.” The dragon knight tutted as he helped Nova up off the floor. “Are you alright?”
Nova brushed off dirt and what felt like slime off her shoulder, then adjusted her Syandana. “Oh I’m fine. I just want to get this damn weapon part and then get out of here.”
“Same,” Mesa agreed. “How do we even get the part?”
“Just have to kill the boss, I assume…”
The Tenno all paused as they reached an overly infested door. They were already walking through an infested Orokin ship, but there had been almost no Infested running around. However, on the other side of the infested door, that old, familiar and terrifying commotion of squeaks and growls could be heard, echoing around. As Chroma ran his infested-immune claw against the door, a heavy shudder rumbled through the air, the door splitting in two and being pulled apart by infested tendrils.
“Welcome… You are welcome… From Eris… we come…”
Standing behind the door was a humanoid being, covered in a weird, infested bodysuit and holding an infested blade.
“Uh, hi!” Excalibur squeaked from the back of the team. “Who are you?”
“Arlo’s Disciples, his Prelates. We welcome… the myriad you shall become.” The being’s words were annoyingly bubbly and hard to properly hear. “Will you join us?”
Chroma growled, pulling out his trusty Arca Plasmor. “No, we will not. Tenno, you know what to do.”
Mesa, Nova and Excalibur immediately grabbed their weapons and started firing at the horrible, human-shaped monster. The monster however barely retaliated, preferring to just absorb the injuries it was receiving. After a good ten seconds of gun fire though, the Prelate teleported away.
“Come to me…”
The creature’s voice echoed from the back of the room. Stepping over infested gunk, the four Warframes chased the voice, following it down narrow, slimy passageways and over still-wriggling tendrils. Eventually, they reached a slightly more open room, with an infected, twisted tree at its centre.
“Come down and fight us then!” Wisp shouted. “Don’t run away like a coward!”
Squelching footsteps rang through the room. The Prelate revealed itself, hovering over a large swarm of Infested. Again, the Tenno fired their weapons, but they quickly discovered that their weapons weren’t even tickling any part of the slowly approaching horde.
Under its infested mask, the Prelate smiled, pointing at the Tenno.
“You… are beautiful. Except for you, yellow one.”
“Hey!” Nova exclaimed, pulling out her melee weapon, a large polearm. “Just because I’m yellow, doesn’t mean I’m ugly!”
“You will… join us… nonetheless…” the Prelate mocked the Tenno. “We are protected by Arlo’s flame… kept inside us all… You do not… stand a chance… without it…”
Chroma stepped back uneasily. “They have some sort of organic shield generator. We have to find a way around it.”
“We need to keep him distracted too…” Wisp added.
“Indeed,” Chroma growled. “Nova, stay here with me and keep the Infested slowed down. Excalibur, Wisp, find anything that you can kill and report back to us if you find anything.”
On Chroma’s signal, Nova knew what she had to do. With a blast of antimatter energy, the monsters around her were massively slowed down, moving at a snail’s pace. However, they still seemed to be immune to the Tenno and their weapons.
“Go, you two.”
Wisp grabbed Excalibur by the hand and pulled him out of the central room, heading out the way they came. Outside of that hall, the infested spawns were much lower, but a trickle of them came and went, being lured in by the Prelate’s weirdly slimy yet honeyed words and ignoring the Tenno completely.
“So, uh, what do we do?” Excalibur asked.
“I don’t know, I’m working on it!” Wisp snapped back. “Trying to get in touch with Ordis.”
“What shou-”
“Just run around and see if you can kill anything.”
Excalibur shrugged, not really sure what Wisp meant. Every Infested he had seen so far had been protected by the Prelate. However, as Excalibur ran into yet another dead end, something caught his neural sensors. Bullet jumping over a handful of Ancient Healers, Excalibur ducked and dodged through Infested to get a better look.
Whatever it was, the being wasn’t particularly large. It was human-size AND human-shaped, looking a bit like the Prelate. Unfortunately, in Excalibur’s surprise that he could hurt something, he had accidentally cut the being in half. Where it rested though, a small lantern appeared. Excalibur Wandered over and picked it up, lighting the room around him, and also lighting up the Infested.
Suddenly, Wisp appeared around the corner, obviously in a rush.
“Oh good you found it!” Wisp exclaimed, taking hold the lantern. “I’ll carry this, you start killing Infested!”
“Oh yay I get to kill stuff!” Excalibur cheered. “We should take it back to the Prelate.”
“Exactly!”
“His light is not for you…”
Somehow, despite being a good few rooms away, the Prelate’s voice echoed across the infested site. Wisp and Excalibur though ignored it. The light from the lantern would fade and wane, but as Excalibur killed more Infested, the ring of light grew brighter. By the time they made it back to Chroma and Nova, the lantern filled most of the room.
“Go, guys, go!” Wisp shouted over the screams of infested. “Kill him!”
“You have not earned his gift.”
The Prelate’s voice trembled slightly as it realized what was going on. The Tenno were stealing his light. As the Prelate directed more enemies to chase after that lantern, the Tenno killed them just as quickly. And before the Prelate knew it, the Tenno had caught up and were now on top of him.
With a reluctant sigh, the Prelate stopped running and opened up his arms. For one last time, the Tenno fired everything they had at the Prelate, until it was nothing more than a bloody smear.
“This… is but a breath… before… the next.”
The Infested, sensing what happened, immediately fled and disappeared. As they did so, the rooms around them began to lighten up a bit.
“Well, that was… weird…” Nova shrugged. “I assume that… thing is not dead, right?”
“Knowing the Infested? Probably not. They always find a way to remake themselves. But that takes energy and time, so he won’t be back for a while…” Chroma patted each of his fellow Tenno on the shoulder. “Either way, we did a good job here. Let’s go home…”