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[Fan Fiction] The Collector


Morec0
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(( With any luck, whoever reads this will enjoy it. ))

 

“You guys see anything suspicious?”

 

“Negative, nothing here to report.”

 

“Affirmative.”

 

Heavy footsteps, clanking hard against the metal plating of the ship, signaled the three were stepping away, heading elsewhere to continue their constant patrol of the Galleon.  The trio of guards, big and bulky and heavily armored, shifted their weapons in their hands, not holding them at the ready but keeping them a mere second away from an easy firing position.  Trained soldiers.  Bred and birthed to kill.  Three of many of the best.

 

In the shadows they had been nearly facing seconds earlier, a humanoid shape dashed forward.  For a brief moment it was in the light of the ship, but the dark of its colors made it appear that, for the short time it was out of the darkness, it had never left.  The shape vanished, still and silent, into another patch of darkness.

 

“Hrm?”

 

“What?”

 

“Thought I heard something over there.”

 

“Okay, okay, I’ll check.  If I find anyone I’ll bring you back his head.”  One of the three teal-armored soldiers walked away from the group, towards the shadows on the side of the room.  A flashlight lit up the darkness, scanning the area for signs of what his companion may have heard.

 

There was nothing to see, just the plating of the ship and the dust it collected.

 

Before the soldier even began to turn back to his companions, he heard two muffled grunts of pain from behind him.  Spinning around as fast as he bulk would let him, he saw only a dissipating cloud of bluish-white dust.  Mere specks of dirt in the air.  His comrades were nowhere to be seen, but he did not have to see to know what was happening.

 

The eyes of this bloodthirsty fighter, this soldier who had only known war since the day he was birthed, filled with fear.  He turned once again and ran towards the nearest consol, letting his weapon and the one hand that still held it drop to his side.  He reached the small command box just a few paces from the door and quickly plugged in the access code; but before he could press the red button that read “alert,” an arrow pierced through his free hand and impaled it against the wall.

 

The soldier dropped his weapon and reached towards the consol with his other hand, but was too slow.  A smaller but stronger hand grabbed his, pointed fingers wrapping around the soldier’s metal wrist, and pulled him back.  The teal-armored soldier could only look at the intruder in terror before he was thrown to the ground and ended by the three blades of a spinning weapon.  His remains vanished into the still air in seconds.

 

As his body vanished into dust like that of his companion, his murderer stepped up to the activated consol and pressed a series of keys.  The red “alert” button disappeared and was replaced by a layout of the entire galleon, names of each section flickering on the screen as the intruder scrolled through it, staring at the screen with a faceless face.  Finally he found what he was looking for, the quickest route to the portion of the ship labeled “Armory.”

 

With another few taps the consol powered down, and with a few steps the red and black character vanished into the shadows.  No trace was left of his presence, save an absence of life.

 

 

A portion of the patrol squad of the third level’s port quarter had failed to report for roll-call.  This would have been unusual under typical circumstances, but because of the events of the past months it had become all but terrifying.  All but, but only slightly.

 

Captain Kreg Ehl Mrul of the Grineer Galleon Talkah was not above fear, but his training and loyalty to the Grineer outweighed any cowardice in his heart.  He knew what was crawling somewhere in the shadows of his ship, he knew that even full battalions of Grineer could fall to just one, but he also knew he refused to roll over and die.  If his epitaph would be written today, then it would not be his corpse backed into some corner; it would be his dismembered remains torn to bloody shreds and smeared across the hull of his ship – for that was the only way he would allow himself to die.

 

No Tenno with their ridiculous Warframes would make a mockery of Captain Kreg Ehl Murl.

 

He all but slammed his hand onto the communications panel.  "This is Captain Kreg Ehl Murl,” he yelled through all communication channels on his ship, “there is a Tenno hiding in the shadows, whoever brings me his lifeless husk will be rewarded with promotion!  Kill any and all intruders!”

 

With that the Captain ended his orders, turning off the channel and palming his Kraken in anticipation.  This was an assassination, he knew it.  The Tenno had gone after his fellow Captain Vor, they had gone after his superiors General Ruk and Lieutenant Kril, and now they were here for him.  He would not go down without a fight, without a glorious dance of blood and pain.

 

The consol lit up; an incoming communication from Sector Eight, at the starboard bow of the ship.  He answered the call; “speak.”

 

“Captain, the Tenno is here!” the voice the spoke was not frantic, but the panic the speaker felt was noticeable.  “We sealed him in one of the halls with some of our finest men, but the battle has fallen silent and we have heard no call for the doors to open!  We need reinforcements im-.”  The communication was ended, cut short not by the death of the speaker but by interference from a third party.

 

Growling in fury, Captain Murl sent out a call to the barracks.  “I need a squad of Heavy Gunners to Sector Eight immediately!”  All he received in reply, however, was static.  Barking a swear and slamming his fist into the consol so hard it dented the metal and cracked the glass, he turned and stormed away from the bridge.  “With me,” he ordered a group of nine Troopers, the yellow-armored Grineer falling into formation behind their captain.

 

The group of Grineer stormed through the bulging corridors of the Galleon, Captain Murl, his twisted cloned face twisted even further by sheer rage, at the lead.  Why Sector Eight?  There was no way to the bridge once you entered there, you had to turn around and return through Sector Seven and then to Sector Five from there.  Sector Eight was a dead end, leading to…

 

Captain Murl barked another swear.  The Armory!  The ship’s armoryThat was what the Tenno was here for!  This was no assassination mission, this was a raid!  A raid for what he could not say, they had nothing of interest aboard, but that didn’t matter.  He knew where the Tenno was going, and better yet: he knew he would have no way out.  He was walking into his own mausoleum; they would corner him there and put him down like a rabid mongrel.

 

The Grineer stormed into Sector 8 and went deeper and deeper in until they reached the second-to-final stretch to the armory.  Gathered on their side of the door, the alert lights glowing orange to signify a lockdown, was a squad of Lancers, a few of which were tinkering with the wiring of the nearest consol.  “Get the doors back on!” Captain Murl demanded as he and his Troopers approached.

 

“We're trying, sir,” one of the Lancers said.  “He’s sealed the door from the inside and cut it off from the rest of the system.  We’ll need to link it back to the main system.”

 

That would take too long.  “Force it open,” the Grineer Captain ordered.  The Lancer just stared at the captain with dumbfounded shock.  Murl snarled in rage and grabbed the Lancer by the collar of his armor with one motion and slammed him against the hull of the ship as hard as he could with another.  “Force it open!”

 

He released the soldier and the teal-armored Grineer, afraid for his life, hurried back to the door.  He and the other Lancers all took a grip on the heavy steel doors barring the Captain’s path and with all the physical and mechanical strength they could muster began to try and pull the doors apart.

 

At first nothing happened, but when Captain Murl barked at them to work harder they doubled their efforts and slowly forced the door open wide enough for the Captain and then his nine Troopers to move through.  When the last of them was safely on the other side they let their grip slip and the door slammed shut behind them.  Murl and the other Grineer proceeded down the hallway, to yet another door sealed by lockdown.

 

Murl did not even need to give an order this time, his Troopers stepped up and began to pry the door open.  It took time, but eventually they were able to make a hole wide enough for their Captain to crawl through, putting him in the armory proper.

 

And there, on the far side of the room, tinkering with the wiring of a Grineer Roller, was the Tenno, red smoke wisping out of his Warframe’s left arm.  As Murl reached for his Kraken and another Tropper began to crawl through the doorway – much slower, as was necessary because of the strain it put on the other eight – the Tenno looked up from his work.  Blinking red-orange energy came from his palm and consumed the Roller, leaving nothing of the weapon behind.

 

With swift motion, the Tenno grabbed handfuls of weapons from dispensers attached to the legs of his suit and threw them towards Murl.  However, the tiny metal blades passed by the Captain harmlessly, and instead flew into the faces of the Troopers holding the door open.  The pain – and even death, for one – of the weapons forced two them back in recoil, and without their aid the others could not hold the door open.  They were forced to let go of it as it slammed shut, cutting – if blunt force could cut – the Trooper who had been crossing through in half at the waist.

 

Murl grabbed hold of his Kraken, but the Tenno was faster than he.  He grabbed the spinning glaive that had been attached to his inner forearm and, without warning and without so much as a run or jump towards him, was within melee range of the Captain.  The Tenno’s weapon was jabbed into the left side of the Grineer Captain’s chest.  There it spun, trying to cut even deeper than it had already managed to.  Sparks and blood sprayed from the growing wound.  Screaming in rage and pain, Murl brought up his Kraken and fired a pair of shots into the Warframe at point blank range.

 

There were two bright flashes of blue light and the Tenno was sent flying back, where he landed nimbly on his feet, but there were no signs that he had even been touched by the gun’s shots.  Captain Murl hastily began lining up his next shot, planning so that the recoil would land the second bullet right into the Tenno’s forehead, but, again, the Tenno was faster than he.  Two shuriken landed into either of the Captain’s shoulders.  Murl was nearly forced to drop his weapon, but he held onto the gun and fired the shots he had been planning.

 

Again: a bright flash of blue light for both shots when they impacted the Warframe, but no noticeable damage to the suit.  The next five shots came off quick, without as much forward thought, and the Tenno dodged out of the way for each of them.  The Captain quickly began to switch out clips, needing to get more shots fired, and it was with this time that the Tenno grabbed the bow slung across his back and readied and arrow.

 

Instinctively, Murl brought his arm up to block the arrow, and instead of piercing his skull it cut through his armor and into the meat of his arm.  Another met its mark there, and a third after that one.  Taking cover behind some crates, Murl lowered his now badly-wounded arm and finished reloading his Kraken.  Now armed again, he was ready to rejoin the battle.

 

Then he heard the beeping.

 

He looked down at his arm.  The arrows that had pierced it and were still in it were primed with explosives.

 

And he was hiding behind a crate of ammunition.

 

The explosion and resulting chain reaction blasted Murl into the hull of the ship, nearly breaking through it and leaving the largest dent he had ever seen be put into Alloy Plate, and then fell back to the floor.  He, bleeding, burned, half-dead, looked up, seeing the Tenno reaching for another arrow.

 

Then there was a familiar sound; a drawn out tone that Murl knew meant the doors had been reactivated.  The Lancers at the first door and managed to reconnect them to the system.  The rest of his assault team and the Lancers before them would be here soon, and they would make the Tenno pay.

 

But the Tenno was aware of this as well, and he placed the arrow back into his quiver and slammed his left fist into the floor.  Smoke poured from his Warframe to envelop the room and he vanished into it.  Like a ghost into the fog.  As the Troopers opened the door to aid their commanding officer the smoke poured out into the hallway and into the hallway past the Lancers after that.

 

No one saw him.  No one was able to fire at shot to try and slow him.

 

He was gone.

 

 

A lone Tenno transport coursed through space at incredible speed, and docked against a Corpus ship that might as well have been an abandoned derelict for all the damage it seemed to have suffered.  But while the outside portions were beyond repair, much of the deepest interior –a small backup reactor, the prison level, and a few other rooms – was very much intact.

 

The Tenno in the Ash Warframe that exited his transport into the familiar air of his own personal base knew that.  That was why he had set up here.

 

He strode through the corridors, once sterile and pristine now blemished with the blood of those who had been unable to escape their ship’s fate – whatever that fate had been, not even the Tenno knew what had transpired to leave this ship as it was – down into the depths of the ship until he reached the largest room – save the Prison Deck – which was still habitable.  He entered the room as the doors opened for his presence.

 

Inside were his trophies.  Weapons of all kinds, of all make.  Tenno, Grineer, Corpus, even parts of Infested bodies.  Across the walls they were lined, all manner of weaponry, sitting there, all placed on display for him and him alone.  But weapons were not the room had to show; screen hanging from the roof gave a live feed of the Prison Deck, of the cells and their occupants.

 

There were twenty-four cells, and three of them were filled.  One housed a Corpus Crewman, another housed a Grineer male, and the final one was home to an Infested Ancient.  While Corpus and Grineer pounded against their confinement in the vain hope of freeing themselves, the Infested one stood silent and still.  Dormant, or simply waiting, it was impossible to tell, but it was just as good that it was in whatever state it was in.

 

And lining the wall the door was on were the pride and joy of his collection:

 

Warframes.  His own Warframes to use or neglect as he wished.  Saryn, Loki, Nyx; these were what were present, and there were already stands set out for more.  He was planning on increasing his stock, planning on expanding his collection.

 

The Tenno in the Ash armor walked over to a stand which displayed a Nervos and Latcher, and after the red-orange light reconstituted the Roller, he placed it next to them.  There.  The set was complete; for now, at least.  There would be more in time, and there were still other pieces of other sets to collect.  But he had time, he had patience.

 

He walked back to face his collection and Warframes and knelt down onto both knees in silent meditation.  His stare – as unsure as that was without a view of his face – was at the Warframes.  He looked at them as if deciding which he would take next, which would be the best choice for him to use to add another piece to his collection.

 

But there was a larger and more unnerving question: what piece, creature, weapon, or Warframe, would that be?

Edited by Morec0
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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

I had a Loki-inspired one of these thought up, as well as a character sheet for what might have been some kind of series. Lost it all when my computer burned out, though, so it's not likely that I'll be making anything more along these lines.

 

Still, wont stop me from reminiscing on the past and what might have been.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 11 months later...

so, when is the book coming out?

 

Seriously, ever since I started playing Warframe, I've been longing for a novel series for Warframe's lore.

 

This was really fun and engaging to read, you were able to grasp the essence of the Warframe environment really well. Spot on!

 

Cheers mate, hope you have more up your sleeve (and soz on the lost manuscripts)

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