These are three (mostly) true stories about times that I have faced The Stalker in Warframe. The first encounter is pre-parkour update, the other two are post-parkour update.

I do not own Warframe.

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The first time I ever saw the stalker, I had a tank build Rhino that I was working on. I was soloing a Grineer exterminate mission, and as I was looting an intersection room, the lights started flickering, and a guy with a smoky background started talking to me. I thought that this was maybe the start of the "hidden messages" questline, since the description of that was to investigate the Warframe Mirage, and this looked like a mirage of a Warframe to me.

This was the point at which I noticed that the room had locked down, so I jumped down to the console and started hacking it. As I finished, however, I received a hit that collapsed my shields. I activate Iron Skin and turn around, raising my weapon into a blocking position, and get a single glimpse of a shadowy person before I receive a second hit that completely drains my stamina and still has enough damage left over to kill me.

I immediately revived, ready to smash this mysterious figure into tiny little pieces, but he had already disappeared. I looked up what had happened to me the moment I finished the mission.

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The third or fourth time he came after me, I was working on my brother's profile, using his rank 18-ish Excalibur with an agility build. I was entering a Grineer survival mission as part of a squad, with the start point being the little storage room that has a hole in the middle leading down into a large, open room. As I leave the room, the lights flicker. I'm about to ask who's got a syndicate after them, when I see an all-too-familiar smoky figure. I immediately run back to the large room, knowing that I would need the space if I wanted to drag this out.

And drag it out I did.

Like a demonic rubber ball, I zipped, bounced, and flew all over the place. The counter read about 8:30 when he finally killed me. Truth be told, I was surprised that HE'D survived that long. You see, he'd drawn a lot of attention from the Grineer, and whenever I was facing anywhere near the center of the room, I would see a huge mosh pit of Grineer all bashing, slashing, and shooting at a point roughly in the middle of the group.

Let me tell you though, his bow is scary. There were a number of times that I would be ending my run in one direction (having reached the end of the room) and was turning around to start bolting the other direction, and I would do a forward roll and watch as a perfect line of Grineer died, with an arrow flying where my head had been a split second ago.

But, like I said, he eventually got me, although my teammates successfully completed the mission, so everything was fine.

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The next time he came after me, which was also the most recent, I was soloing an Orokin Derelict Exterminate mission. My loadout was my boosted mod capacity rank 30 tank build Rhino, my boosted mod capacity rank 30 Shattering Storm stance Fragor, a rank 30 scavenger Kubrow, some other weapons that I was getting experience for, and a hobbled dragon key. The Fragor regularly one-shots Infested Ancients, so you have a reference for how much damage it does. About halfway through, I started fighting Grineer instead of infested for some reason. Then, halfway through the Grineer, as I was passing through a small intersection room, I saw the lights flicker, and the Stalker's entrance message.

The moment he appears, I bullet jump towards him and do a slam attack with my hammer, but he disappears in another cloud of smoke. I do a quick 360 swing, hoping to get lucky and hit him, but no luck. I bring my weapon up to block, and wait for him to appear again. In a normal situation, this is when I would have activated Iron skin, but my research on the Stalker had told me that he is not only immune to Warframe abilities, but he can negate them at will as well.

He reappears, bow in hand, which actually saves my life. I roll over to him before he can fire, and just start laying into him with my hammer, using my strongest combo. He switches to his scythe and lays into me with that, and we spend the next three seconds just slaughtering each other when his health runs out, causing him to retreat. By that point, he had gone through my 1000 point shields and 200 of my 400 health. If he had started with his scythe out, he would have been able to start his attacks a second earlier, easily enough time for another 300-damage swing.

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That doesn't sound nearly as interesting on paper as it did in my head.

Oh well, I'll go ahead and post it anyway.