Prologue: The Dragon Awakens
Credit goes to Organic-Mechanic on DeviantArt for the amazing cover, check out his other Warframe related art! This prologue is the normal tutorial for Warframe. I've changed some things like the dialogue, starting warframe and the way some events go, but it's pretty similar to the normal starting quest so this might be a bit boring for veterans or people who have done this multiple times, but bear with me will ya?
Adding some more info to this, it will contain all the normal-game story elements, though they will have major changes sometimes, and also quests/events made by myself. I'll rate this M just to make sure.
By the way, English is NOT my first language, so please do correct me where I make a grammar mistake or mess up words.
I don't own Warframe, anything about the game is credited to Digital Extremes.
See you at the end with some more notes and ideas.
Italics is for locations or messages.
They were called Tenno. Warriors of blade and gun: masters of the Warframe armor. Those that survived the old war were left drifting among the ruins. Now they are needed once more.
The Grineer, with their vast armies, are spreading throughout the solar system. A call echoes across the stars summoning the Tenno to an ancient place. They summon you.
Tenno…tenno, wake up! Why aren't the cryochamber's defense mechanisms working?" shouted a desperate female voice.
"Finally, after so long, we got a live one. Open up the cryopod my brothers, for today we finally found an inactive Tenno Warframe, and a rare one at that!" announces a raspy, old-sounding voice with cheers in the background.
After said announcement, the cryopod's "doors" opened and from it fell a metal humanoid figure, oddly reminiscent of a Dragon from orokin children's tales. The "warframe" seemed to have some kind of double-armour, the one on the outside looking like the pelt a hunter wears, in this case of a dragon-looking being, and under that a knightlike figure, although hard to identify because of the outer armour.
"That's it, I'm manually surging your Warframe's systems back on, losing you is bad enough, but I will not allow you to get captured."
As soon as the voice stopped, the metallic figure aquired a red and blue sheen, which kept pulsating for a few seconds. Seeing the movement as a potential threat, the Grineer all raised their weapons and pointed them towards the Tenno.
Vor, knowing what's happening, quickly put a strange device on the warframe's neck, which started stopped the pulses before letting them start again, then moving back to the platoon of Grineer waiting for his signal.
As the warframe started rising, everything was flooding back into its mind, memories, while some broken or livid, they all came back to the mind of the Tenno in the matter of seconds. After the intense event, the mind of the Tenno instantly puts the pieces together, realising the situation and starting to think of a battle plan, seeing as there is no other choice.
Although weak, the humanoid anemically starts rising before the beast stood at a height of roughly 2 meters and a quarter, towering over most of the Grineer Lancers. The General knew that the Tenno was trying something suspicious so he was prepared to give the attack order at any given second.
"Tenno, can you hear me?" says a voice in his head. "I am the Lotus, I will explain later the meaning of all of this, but for now allow me to guide you. You cannot fight in these conditions. Allow yourself to be captured and I will help you the best I can when the moment arrives." it said in a soothing manner.
The Tenno, seeing as it won't fruitful to fight in these conditions and ignore the only thing that seems to be friendly, looks towards the most high-rank looking Grineer, which in this case is Vor, and bows his head to show that he won't be a threat.
A Grineer Trooper started slowly walking towards the warframe with a pair of electric cuffs in his hands, before struggling to put said cuffs on the warframe's arms while being intimidated by its cold gaze and height. After the deed was done, Vor gave the Tenno one more look before telling an Elite Lancer something in the Grineer language and leaving.
After the General was well out of reach, the warframe's comms burst to life with the voice of the Lotus: "Now is the moment Tenno, I have unlocked your warframe's easiest to use ability, /b/Spectral Scream/b/. Channel your energy into your warframe's mask and use it to burn your enemies to the ground."
The warframe's face somehow twisted into a animalistic-looking smile before the whole metal carapace started to glow in a fire-like red and being projected in front of the user's visor like a flamethrower, burning the closest Grineer Lancers to a crisp, then redirecting the fire to the cuffs in order to melt them off. The other Grineer began shouting directions and some running towards the warframe, while others towards the nearest Control Panel. "Tenno skoom! Legger te pereme- (Secure the perime-)" tried to shout the Elite Lancer as the Tenno channeled energy into his fist and punched a hole straight through his face.
"Tenno, you need to get out of there. It is not safe for you to stay in combat for long durations right now. I'll mark the way on your warframe's HUD." calmly stated the Lotus. A Red smoke-like trace started being visible leading towards a path, which the warframe user could only guess was the way towards extraction.
While running along the red line, the draconic beast channeled his energy into his legs, enhancing his speed and mobility. Wanting to try new moves on the way, he started a slide followed by a powerful jump which led to him using Bullet Jump, helping him clear a good bit of distance in just a few seconds.
"Tenno, take a left for a second here." said the Lotus. Obeying, he stopped before entering through one of the weirdly structured Grineer doors. Inside, there was a sign in grineer, although his memories helped with some letters, he had to guess the others and got "Confiscated". There, he found an arsenal of weapons from most races, although the only interesting ones were the Tenno's.
Deciding to take an Assault Rifle "Braton", the " Kunai" and the "Skana", the Tenno continued on his way to freedom, with minor interruptions from the Grineer that were quickly put down due to the Tenno's amazing marksmanship.
As soon as the Tenno got outside, a squad of Elite Lancers were all waiting and pointing their guns at him and what looked like a landing site with a Tenno Landing Craft, although a powered down one. Suddenly, out of the sky came a Liset, disrupting the Lancers' aim and allowing the warframe user to make quick work out of them using finishers from behind. Although it looked like the draconid won, Vor, had other ideas, and, with a squad of Grineer troops, he shot down the Liset with a Golden Key-looking device.
"Damn it, I should've seen that coming. Tenno, I'll get you a new Landing Craft quickly, just survive for as long as you can while I work on powering the dormant one. And do NOT fight Vor in this state." said the Lotus, obviously starting to lose her cool.
The Tenno, although carefully, began valiantly slicing and shooting every Grineer coming in contact with him, while also dodging Vor's Golden Key lasers. After 4 minutes which felt like hours of attacking and defending, the warframe's comms burst to life again with Lotus' voice: "Tenno, the ship is nearly powered, get ready to move quickly once it is."
Knowing what's about to happen, the warframe user parkoured his way towards Vor, before knocking the key out of his hand, and throwing it as far away as possible, then ran back to the ship as it started rising. He immediately back-flipped in the ship's human-sized slot made for extraction, which rotated, moving the warframe into the Landing Craft, then nearly instantly shooting into space, all the while being shot at by Grineer troopers and Vor trying to power his just-found key.
In the Landing Craft
"Operator! You're alive! I thought I lost you back when I was shut down by those Grineer scum, it's so good to see you" said a robotic voice over the ship's speakers and warframe's comms. "Operator…do you remember who I am? Ordis? The ship's cephalon?" said the voice in a sad manner.
Suddenly, everything about the ship came back to the Tenno's mind. After a solid minute of remembering and living the memories, he finally looked up and nodded, hoping Ordis can see.
"Oh that's such a relief! I thought we had to go through all that again for you to remember." said the cephalon gratefully. "Though, you see, I seem to have lost some segments and my whole inventory got looted by those thieves."
"Tenno. How do you feel?" asked the Lotus, concern apparent in her voice. "It is time I explained what's happening to you and what you will need to do." continued the self-proclaimed guide.
"You are a Chroma user. Your warframe is legendary in therms of rarity and usefulness. It has the capability to take and give immense amounts of damage. Your special passive ability is why it was named Chroma in the first place. Go to your Arsenal and I'll explain more in depth." The Tenno walked over to the arsenal and awaited further instructions.
"On your HUD, select the Appearance tab and change your energy colour into one of the main elements' colour. Red for fire, blue for lightning, green for toxic and white/black for ice." The warframe user chose the black energy colour and exited the Arsenal's HUD. "Now try using your first ability." and, to his surprise, instead of the intense fire, he started spewing out black, cold smoke, which created black ice on one of the Liset's walls.
"You see, Tenno, these elements do more than that for you. Every warframe has atleast 4 known unique powers. Yours has 4 too, Spectral Scream, Elemental Ward, Vex Armor and Effigy. Elemental Ward also gets affected by your element, for example fire gives health to you and your allies, ice is armor, toxic is status and reload and electricity is shields. Vex armor gives you Armor for the cost of damage to Shields and Damage for the cost of damage to Health. The last power, your "ultimate", is Effigy, which I'll let you discover on your own like your other 2 abilities." explained the Lotus.
"As you saw here today, there are new races trying to take over the system and galaxy as a whole. There are 3 major factions, the Grineer, Corpus and Infested. You'll meet the last 2 when the time is right. As you and Ordis might remember, in the Old War we fought Sentients and then the Orokin. That war is long gone so you do not need to bother your mind with it." said the Lotus with a nearly inaudible "Hopefully", which raised a few questions in the Operator's mind.
"Our goal is to help this system get better, bit by bit, until it's pure and normal like it used to be, not infested by all these criminals and dictators. Check navigation when you're rea-" stopped the guide suddenly. The warframe's HUD started glitching for a few seconds before Vor's face appeared with a smirk. "You thought it was over, Tenno? Oh ho ho, you're in for a threat. By the end of the day, you'll be my mindless slave thanks to Grineer technology. You cannot escape our superiority. You will be mine." As soon as the dialogue ended, Ordis started talking impatiently "Operator, what does he mean by that? What has he done to you?" But the Lotus had other ideas.
"The Ascaris bolt." she responded quickly. "It cuts off the transfere- the warframe's power and weakens it until it cannot fight back. We need to get rid of it. Tenno, go to navigation. I marked your map with details of the mission, we need to get Ordis' foundry segment and the others in order to be able to craft the Ascaris Negator."
"Oh Operator it's just like old times! Let's go on a mission together again." spoke the cephalon excitedly. "Commencing space travel..."
E Prime, Earth
"This is a Spy mission, locate the enemy data vaults and steal the needed data, preferably without being seen."
Taking the "without being seen" as a challenge, the Chroma user stealthily walked through the tileset, avoiding all interaction and taking out enemies without making a single noise.
Once the first vault was in sight, the Tenno got to work, hacking into the control panel and sneaking inside. Seeing too many lasers on the floor, he parkour's his way across using a combination of wall-running and bullet-jumping. Only one Grineer Trooper was standing in the vault, defending from potential visitors. Or atleast was until he got sliced in half with the Tenno's Skana. Quickly hacking into the vault, he got the required segment out and went out the now-open main entrance into the vault.
Repeating the same process for the other 2 vaults, the Operator passes like a shadow in and out of vaults then in the same manner as when he came here, goes on his way to extraction.
Orbiter, Space
"Impressive, Tenno, but do not underestimate the Grineer." praised the mysterious woman. "I have tracked down a Black-Market merchant, one sympathethic to our cause, imprisoned in a Grineer cell for the same reason. We must go and rescue him as he can provide useful information and weapons."
The Operator nodded and walked to the navigation segment, kneeling in front of it and choosing the path for Ordis to take.
Mariana, Earth
"This is a Rescue mission, move in and out as quickly as you can. Find the target and rescue them without being seen. Be careful, if the wardens detect you, they will surely initiate the execution process. Good luck, Tenno."
Cracking his neck and knuckles, he sprinted towards the target on his minimap, killing every Grineer on the way or passing the ones that haven't seen him.
"Behind these doors is the rescue target. You know what you have to do." Nodding, he quickly pressed the button on the panel to open the door, as time slowed down and he used his silent kunais to kill the 2 Grineer guarding the door. Moving silently, he saw the Warden standing by the cells. He didn't have enough patience so he sprinted and tried to use his finisher on the Warden. Unfortunately, the Ascaris bolt started working again when he was within reach of the Warden. The Tenno fell on his knees clutching his head, which led to the Warden turning behind and spotting him. With all his might, the Operator raised his Braton and gunned down the Warden, but not before he alerted everyone of a warframe's presence.
After the Ascaris bolt stopped, he realised the alarms have been sounded and Grineer are converging on his location, while the execution timer is ticking down. Hacking into each cell panel one by one, he finally found the merchant in the second to last cell.
"Darvo's the name, friend. I'm guessing your Lotus sent you, right?" At which the warframe nodded. "Not the talking type, eh? Give me a weapon, I can defend myself too." Lending Darvo the Kunais, they went out gunning and running to the extraction point, with more and more Grineer being alerted by what's happening and trying to stop them.
After the last batch of Butchers and Lancers, they both got into the Craft and Ordis activated space travel to get them out quickly.
Orbiter, Space
"Alright Tenno, here's my part of the deal, the Ascaris Negator blueprint." said Darvo gratefully.
"Thank you, Darvo. Tenno, we need to get Ordis' foundry segment back now in order to be able to craft it. I'll mark it on navigation."
Suddenly the Acaris bolt starts working again with Vor trying to corrupt the Tenno's mind: "Tenno, Tenno, do you really think you control your energy? You poor ignorant soul. You do not control the energy. You are the energy. Your warframe is just a glass through which you project said energy. No matter, soon you'll be mine."
"Tenno, are you alright?" asked the Lotus. "We need to get rid of that Ascaris bolt fast or it will be too late. Go to navigation now."
Mantle, Earth
"This was once a place full of colonists and activity, now it was reduced to nothing because of the Grineer. Find the segment and give them as much mercy as they gave the colonists. None."
Finally, after so many missions with stealth and speed, the Tenno can take his time and enjoy eradicating the Grineer threat in this colony and also make use of his powers.
First 2 Grineer instantly froze into solid black ice. The ones that saw them got a bullet through their eyes and the others a stealthy sword in the back.
Next room, 8 grineer scattered around, some conversing while others careful of their sorroundings. Standing behind the door, the Tenno reloaded his Braton and blasted the door open with his foot, directly killing one of the Grineer standing in front of it, with the others being in shock for a few seconds before taking battle positions.
Knowing their strategies already, the Tenno shot down 3 unlucky ones still in shock leaving 4 alive behind cover. Flipping over one of their barricades, he sliced open the throat of a Grineer mid-air before landing on another one and curbstomping him. As soon as he heard the Lancer's neck break, he took a Kunai and hit another Lancer trying to sneak up on him right in the eye. The last one was in a corner crawling away from the Tenno, begging for mercy in his native tongue, but got instead decapitated by his Skana.
"There it is, Tenno. The foundry segment is in the storage containers. Take it and eliminate the rest of the Grineer." said the Lotus.
Once the Chroma user took the segment, Grineer all came out from hiding at the same time, shouting in their native language at the Tenno, a Commander pointing at his gun then making a cutting throat motion with his finger. The Tenno do not take kindly to threats. In an instant, the Commander was face to face with the metallic beast, and then in the next second his throat was cut open by his opponent's Skana. The Grineer instantly opened fire, but that's when the warframe got a sudden burst of energy and the user felt empowered. Chanelling all of his energy into his aura, then molding it like armour, he used Elemental ward and got a surplus of armour, which made the bullets that hit him drop like they hit pure steel.
The remaining Grineer started running away from the beast that was slaying all of their brethren without even flinching.
"Good work Tenno, now get to extraction."
Orbiter, Space
"There is one last step Tenno, we need to go to a Grineer settlement and steal the remaining resources needed to complete the Ascaris Negator. I'll mark it on navigation. Time is running short."
Gaia, Earth
"This is a Salvage mission, take any kind of resource you see, we'll need them for our cause and we'll also limit the Grineer from theirs."
This should be easy the Tenno thought. Get in, take everything and get out.
Container after container, locker after locker, he took every resource he could find, killing the occasional Grineer on the way and making sure no more come.
"Too calm for your taste? Don't worry, we'll get back to serious business soon. For now, go to extraction."
Orbiter, Space
"Go ahead, Operator. Craft the Negator so you can be free!" excitedly said Ordis.
Heading to the Foundry segment, the Operator selected the Ascaris Negator and waited for it to craft. After 1 minute, it's done.
As the Tenno grabs the Negator, Vor's comms come on as he transmits one last message: "What a waste." Ignoring him, they use the Negator on the bolt and find out something even worse. The bolt had a failsafe on and now it activated its self-destruct sequence.
"That's it Tenno, we cannot avoid this anymore. Vor must be stopped. Redirect Ordis towards the direction I marked. We are the ones hunting him now. We need to upgrade the navigation segment to allow travel to Mercury."
Pacific, Earth
"Find the segment, Tenno, and do it fast. Use any means necessary."
In a flash, he disappeared off to the marked location, ignoring any Grineer possible then killing those that get in the way. Survival is the number 1 priority and right now, his survival chances are ticking down.
After just a few minutes of high-speed dodging and killing, he finally got to the segment, took it then moved out towards extraction without waiting for further instructions.
Orbiter, Space
"We are ready now, Tenno. Though before you go, you should equip yourself the best you can, mod your weapons and warframes to their limit. Vor is no push-over."
"Commencing space-travel. Good luck, Operator."
Tolstoj, Mercury
"This is it, Tenno. The end of your first mission. Do not allow Vor to come out alive of this or there will be many more like you. Happy hunting."
Cracking his knuckles and powering his armour, he got to work. Slicing Grineer left and right, though mindful of time, he slowly but surely made his way towards the only thing standing between him and freedom.
With Vor
"Sir, our troopers have detected a warframe slowly advancing towards us. Should we evacuate?" said a Grineer Elite Lancer, hiding his terrified face behind his skull mask.
"No. Let him come. I will end him myself. It is time he saw what you can do with the power of the void."
Back to Chroma
This is it. Behind this door is the source of his weakness and pain. Just a control panel to hack and he can fight it.
The beast punches the Control Panel using his ice armor, breaking it in half and opening the doors in the process.
(Recommended battle music: Apashe - I'm A Dragon Feat. Sway)
Slowly walking in, he saw spotlights lighting up a platform in the middle, with Vor waiting there, his hands behind his back.
In a millisecond, the warframe bullet-jumped towards him, breaking the ground under his feet in the process.
"I see you're not dead yet. You are a resilient one, aren't you? You might make it on my wall of fame, well, your head might. But no matter, I'll end it here." said Vor in an obviously forced calm manner.
A wild growl came from the warframe as his systems went in overdrive, shaking the base with the power of his energy and making Vor wince.
Seeing Vor distracted, the dragonic beast sprinted towards him, holding his sword in his hands like a professional. Vor, coming back from his small moment of fear, blocked the attack using the armor on his wrists, then attempted to strike the Tenno back, but the Tenno was already back flipping, then holding the Trigger on his Braton and unloading his magazine on the Grineer General, forcing him to cover his unmasked head, temporarily blinding him in the process. Jumping upwards then coming down with the Skana, Chroma hit Vor in his back, cutting a bit of his armor open.
"That's it! I'll show you power!" said the General as he took the key from his chest, powering it up towards the Tenno. "Die, worm!" he shouted as the laser started tearing through everything in its path to reach the warframe.
Suddenly, the Tenno felt the familiar energy burst, but this time he channeled his energy into his shields and health, using Vex Armor. When the beam hit, it continued firing for a solid 10 seconds before stopping. Waiting to see what remained of his opponent, Vor waited out of the smoke. In the fraction of a second, a hand came out of the smoke, grabbing Vor by the neck and lifting him up, out coming the full body of the warframe, steam rising out of its armour and glowing a menacing red, shortly put, he looked pissed. Holding Vor in the air, the Tenno looked him directly in the eyes, and seemed to have said "Die." before using Spectral Scream on his head, freezing his head into solid black ice before throwing Vor on the ground and curb stomping his head, smashing it into tiny pieces of ice, with the Grineer watching the battle quickly scurrying away and leaving their weapons behind.
"You did it, Tenno. You avenged your brothers and sisters and freed yourself. You can now choose your path and what you want to do. Go to extraction." proudly stated the Lotus as the Tenno was strolling towards the extraction point in the now-empty base.
Orbiter, Space
When the Tenno got in the ship, after the congratulations and praise from Ordis, he got notified of a message from the Lotus:
"Your New Mission
Tenno,
Now that you have freed yourself from Vor and his Ascaris, you have a new mission, one of your own making. Know that I am only your guide, you are your own warrior, you decide what battles to fight. Allow me to suggest a course of action:
Seek out like-minded fighters, Tenno are more effective in groups.
Execute missions and alerts on the Star Chart to open new paths of exploration.
Use the credits you earned in battle to buy blueprints in the Market, then hunt down resources and craft those items in your Foundry.
Customize your weapons and Warframes using the Mod bench. Different enemies are vulnerable to different combinations of mods, experiment to discover the most effective loadouts.
Finally, stay alert. The Grineer and Corpus are tireless and you are the only thing standing between them and total domination of the Origin System.
I am counting on you, Tenno.
-The Lotus
Phew, finally done with the Prologue for my story, 4.4k words in 1 chapter! If this seems rushed, keep in mind that I had to make sure it doesn't get repetitive and that I don't focus too much on the stuff most people have been through. From now on, the story will be more from the Tenno's PoV. There will be the normal warframe quests, but also some special adventures created by my mind for the story to be fresh. I don't know fully how this story will go, but I'll try to keep it rolling until its done, since one of my main reasons for this is that I find it annoying when an author interrupts the story mid-way without giving some kind of ending.