AN: Chapter 2.2, is locked and loaded. Nothing much happens here, but we can't always dance the dance of high-octane gunfights, now can we? Or maybe we can?

Enjoy!

The Path Down

Silence

"Shera… Where's your rifle?" Zeifer asked his teammate, after a good while of pondering what exactly was different about her. The vagabond was missing her gun, that she almost never let out of her hands.

"Oh, uhhh… It's a bit difficult to explain. All I know that it is missing, but I have no idea who'd have taken it." the woman looked back at him, as they were trekking through the desolate tunnels.

Since the encounter it had all been silent, and the only actual indication that they are not rounding the same sharp corner over and over, was that the sand had given way to a black, monolithic stone.

"What'dya mean?" Dala joined their conversation.

"There was… a sort of skittering around me, after I was downed. Like an endless horde of tiny bugs moving all around me." Shera shuddered, at the memory. "That, and something or someone was calling me deeper."

"Calling you? Like… by name?" Dala started prodding.

"No. Not by name. I can't say that whoever it was used actual words. I just got this strong sense to get up and head deeper, along this path that we are taking." Shera explained.

Vaan stopped suddenly, and Dala bumped into him, cursing loudly. The Frost silenced her with a finger, and pointed forwards. The scenery had slightly changed. After a long winding path downwards, they had reached an antechamber of sorts. It was clearly visible that there were at least three more pathways out of it.

He silently turned to Shera and whispered:"When you said that you heard skittering, was it, by chance, the same as that one, audible ahead of us?"

The others focused their hearing and did indeed pick up a rhythmic, metallic skittering coming from the left hand tunnel. Under Vaan's guidance, the cell slowly advanced, preparing their weapons.

Four beams of light lit up the tunnel, only to reveal nothing aside from the engraved stone surfaces. The group moved forward slowly, and Vaan holstered his bow, and lifted his hands in a pseudo-defensive stance. The Kogake class kinetic enhancers, fastened to his knuckles and feet, flared up as the Frost channeled his suit's energy through them.

The skittering came from a doorway on the right side of the tunnel. The four Tenno swiftly took place on either side of the portal, and Shera flipped out her Regulator pistols.

"On the count of three, I'll open with an Ice Wave, and you three immediately follow up by opening fire." Vaan transmitted his plan text, appearing on the other's heads-up display.

"One."

"Two."

"Three!"

The white warframe swiftly rotated around the corner, channeling his energy into his right fist, striking the ground with it, and causing an eruption of sharp blade-like icicles covering most of the room like a frozen wave. Without losing a second, he rolled backwards and Dala took his place opening fire with her Ignis. Shera and Zeifer took place on either side of the Ember and paused for a second.

Their hud lit up with countless bug-like machines the size of dinner plates. Some of them already were heading towards the group, and they seemed to move over each other and the ones that had been disabled by the preliminary attack. Both the trickster and the gunslinger started taking careful shots, in as rapid a succession as possible. It, however, was not enough, and soon the machines were upon them, their bladed legs swiftly damaging the trio's shields.

"Careful everyone, I'm starting an Avalanche!" Vaan shouted, and rose his hand, to cast the most potent of his abilities. He pooled the remainder of his energy into his right hand again, and pulled it down in a swift motion. The energy traveled through him, and expanded in a shockwave of near-zero temperature wave, freezing a large portion of the bug machines. The ones unaffected still surged forward, but the total number of them was severely diminished.

However the firefight drained the team's resources, and Shera soon ran out of energy. She cursed loudly, and reached over to Zeifer grabbing one of his Fang daggers, Just in time to pull it in front of a Scarab leaping at her. The machine impaled itself on the blade, and the force of it's assault made Shera stumble backwards. Noticing a break in the Tenno's line of fire, the remaining beetle bots targeted Shera, only to be stopped by swift punches from Vaan.

Both Dala and Zeifer had run out of ammo too, and resorted to melee, the Loki using his remaining Fang Dagger and Dala drawing her Heat Sword and Dagger. The melee was short, but even the remaining dozen beetles managed to tear down the shields of the frames and damage their structure.

Punching the final machine mid-leap into the nearby wall, Vaan sighed.

"Well... That was something. Zei, can you scan and catalogue these things?" the cryomancer asked, leaning against the wall. The Loki nodded, picked one of the more intact bots up and started examining it, while Shera headed into the room. Aiming her flashlight at the furthest wall, she saw a row of odd metallic statues. They were shaped similar to an Orokin skeleton, if it was coated in metal and layered in protective plates. The statues' ribcage was oddly exposed, compared to it's arms and legs, and housed some odd tubes. Shera guessed they were meant to imitate intestines, though she could not fathom why.

The Mesa got closer and ran her hand over one of the statues. She noticed that the crest on the statues' sternum possessed a faint green glow, but her gaze was quickly drawn to the odd looking rifle at it's side. It had an odd glasslike barrel, housing a thin, greenish line in it, an axe bayonet and seemed to have no clip. As she picked it up, the statues' head shifted slightly towards her. This made the Mesa swiftly retreat a few steps.

"Huh. Must've jostled it…" she sighed, turning around and inspecting the odd gun closer. A light green pulsating light came from the vents on the main body of it. She took aim at the closest disabled beetle bot and opened fire. The glass barrel lit up and spat out a stream of bright green lightning. This came as a surprise to her, and naturally - her squad, who were not expecting gunfire, and she swiftly released the trigger.

"Sorry, guys…" the woman apologized and knelt down to inspect her 'victim'.

"Yeah, warn us next time, will you? I'd say we're under enough stress as is." Dala scowled at the Mesa.

"Hey, I said, I'm sorry. Didn't expect the gun to actually work…" she retorted.

"What is that gun anyways?" the pyromancer inquired.

"Dunno for sure. Shot lightning, but instead of frying this bug, or blasting it, it seems to have chewed a hole in it." Shera lifted up the scarab she had shot. "Maybe it would do the same to that wraith-thing we fought earlier."

"Wraith?" Vaan chuckled at the word.

"Well, yeah. It could become incorporeal and slip through walls… seems fitting to call it like that." Shera answered with a nervous chuckle of her own.

"By the way - bugs seem to be a smaller version of the 'wraith'. Their internal electronics are ridiculously advanced for what seems to be a scavenger bot." the Loki looked up from the bot he'd dissected. "These 'scarabs' also lack the self repair function that the 'wraith' had. And thank the Lotus for that. Judging from the number here… they are deployed en masse, or have a steady supply of replacement bugs…"

The other three Tenno looked at the trickster, and the distress this realisation made was almost palpable. Each of the Tenno shifted uncomfortably, and checked their weapons, trying to catch an early sound that would warn them of more 'scarabs' approaching.

"I suggest we retreat back to the tunnel we came from and take a moment to rest." Vaan spoke up, and headed out of the room and back to the first tunnel.

"Alright, who's up for lookout duty?" Dala encouragingly exclaimed.

"You?" Zeifer chuckled, earning a flame-wreathed single digit gesture.

The group set up on the slope and Dala sighed, staying nearer the door to the antechamber. While Vaan told Zei and Shera to just 'do something to focus themselves on anything but here', the scarlet pyromancer shone her flashlight in the opposite tunnel.

Dala cursed under her breath. The stress was getting to her. She could've sworn she felt the distant beat of marching feet in the silent sepulchral air.