Soon the quieting rumbling of the shuttle overtook the cockpit. The adrenaline seemed to die down, as the shuttle's power cores were being filled by the sweet beams of the distant sun. This silence was interrupted once John attempted to dock back, causing an alarming crash on the way. He appeared from the back, marching slowly as if the landing shuttle took a toll on his body. He reached the cockpit and let out:
"Well, Vi-olleta, I'm all torn up. I'm not sure how you do it, with all those spikes causing discomfort." He finished, stretching his entire body.
For a bit, Vi looked a bit disillusioned, albeit rather happy to see John's appearance. With no further ado, John took the hint:
"So… what now?"
"I'm not sure." Vi replied. "My transference still won't work, and I still have no Warframe."
John looked into the back, and saw the Tenno arsenal under a ceiling light.
"Don't you have more? Can't you call more?" He asked, sitting next to Vi, crossing his legs.
"I don't have any other than Nova. I was trying to recall her back but the reason why she was destroyed must be due to my transference being… you know. Gone."
"Yes… I do know." John said, peering off in the distance, lying through his teeth.
The rumbling engines once more overtook the ambience. John laid down to enjoy the trip and Travis, though tempted to continue his mute stay, instead asked:
"Can't you… get one?"
Vi looked back to Travis, who sat near the ramp.
"I mean…"
As Vi tried to finish her thoughts, John rose up. He approached the twin terminals parallel to each other in their respective corners of the cockpit. Silently, he turned to his left, and started fiddling with the terminal there sitting.
"What's this?"
"The market, it's where I can spend my credits on weapon and equipment blueprints." Vi recalled, after stuttering briefly.
"So… what's platinum?" John asked, raising his left hand to support his chin, while he tapped the screen several times with his other hand.
"I'm not sure… never got any." Vi replied, as John's monotone symphony of taps on the glassy screen filled the room.
"There we go." John finished his tampering. "I bought you 713 ten-cipher blueprints."
Vi lift up in a frowned state, and rushed to the terminal, looming over John's shoulder as she aggravated her expression of anger and frustration.
"Why?!" she, practically, shouted.
"Well, no need to thank…"
"We're bankrupt!" Vi interrupted John, while pointing and the meager amounts of credits that lingered in her credit account.
"Not entirely." John added, followed by a few more taps on the screen. "There, now."
"You idiot! How are we supposed to use the foundry now?!" Vi retorted.
"Relax, Vi-oncé." John rose and stepped out to meet the corridor. "Where do you get more of them?" He finished, pointing towards the still standing pile of metal in the midst of the shuttle.
"Uhm, that's Nova. The blueprints drop from the Raptors, but I really don't want to go through that again." Vi replied, shivering mid-way through her sentence, as if remembering woes of the distant past.
John scratched his own helmet trying to decipher the meaning of that sentence while Vi lights up as she heads over to the codex console.
"But there's one I want to get!" Vi breaks the short-lived silence, showcasing Trinity's figure drawn on the holographic screen.
The pair glared from behind Vi, silently watching her draw her rant.
"She's so dreamy! Her powerful skills mix her offensive abilities into a warm, loving aura of healing and support! None fall before she catches them! She's like Demeter but, you know, less naïve." Vi finished, as her eyes glittered like organic diamonds. All the while, Travis sketched the words 'Is she okay?' in a piece of paper before presenting it to John, to which he replied:
"I can't read that."
Upon finishing her rant, Vi averted her gaze back at the pair, who jolted back in response, leading Travis to hide the paper in a panicked mood.
"So? Can we go?" She asked, with the ever glowing expression drawn across her face while the cockpit was overtaken by a near blinding ray of light protruding from the relatively close Sun.
"Yeah… sure." John replied, covering his visor from the blinding sunlight. As Ordis shifted the windows to dim the inside, John took the opportunity to follow up:
"How do we do it then?"
"We need to rush to Ceres, and attack the node called 'Exta'. We'll need to fight Vor and Kril together. Those two folks, in particular, tend to carry them around somehow, and for some reason."
John refreshes his expression with a powered will and a strong resolve. He leapt forward and clenched his fist, then spreading open his palm across the keyboard on the solar map hovering over their figures. Ordis scorned his attempt at manually inputting information and shoved the computed coordinates itself.
"Don't get cocky, you unbearable parrot." John grunts out, as the orbiter's engines started the Faster than light drives.
Suddenly facing warping speed, the ship bolted straight to Ceres after a bit, stopping to orbit the Grineer planet at a safe distance. Ordis targeted the landing craft towards Exta while Vi practically raced to the landing craft bay.
Once the carved warframe slot drew onto their minds, only seemingly able to house a single occupant, became a huge hurdle that they have not thought of before.
"How… do we go?" Travis blurted out.
"I have an idea." John replied, with a masterful sneer added to his expression.
Without further ado, the landing craft dislodged itself from the bay and started slowly aligning with the node in order to begin its route towards the dwarf planet. John turned to Travis and exclaimed:
"Hold your breath!"
Travis barely had any time to react as John forced the bay doors open, and used the sudden explosive decompression to propel himself towards the shuttle. Although still aghast by his move, Travis followed up shortly before the shuttle began its speedy course. Travis sunk the cleaver into the craft's hull in order to hold himself, while John slipped on the appendages he relied on, only to hold himself by the Liset's back tail.
The flight was rough but as soon as the ship entered Ceres' atmosphere, it almost turned into a piercing flight of hell. The cruise speed coupled with their entry of the atmosphere, the ship quickly turned into an inferno ball, spewing fire from the sheer high velocity of the shuttle.
Travis took advantage of his hardened armor to shield his face from the unrelenting inferno, hiding his head beneath his struggling arms by holding the stuck cleaver.
After what seemed like an everlasting, impassable vile imitation of hell, the speed of the craft started lowering, and with it the flames it once spewed were no longer a concern. Not too long after, the ship made its hasty landing to a Grineer shipyard, hovering over an open Grineer structure.
Travis took this opportunity to slip down and land on his own, almost scorched feet. John, on the other hand, took the opportunity to slam straight down against a pile of crates. All the while the ship spat Vi out, carefully landing on the still scalding arms of Travis, who then jumped out in agony.
The landing craft took this as an opportunity to leave while Vi rose to dust herself off.
"Goddamn, that was a rough landing." She let out, as she cleared her light purple pants off of any dust.
Travis replied to this by frowning and shooting a stare to her, all the while a pitch black figure erupted from the ruined crates. It looked like a regular corpus crewman, and since John was the only crewman along with them, they assumed it was him. Although he was black as black comes. His blackened figure resembled only that of a silhouette of John but something odder, it was as if that particular space in that particular time was just cut with magical scissors from existence, only remaining the total dark abyss of which they intently peered into.
But, as soon they've peered into the figure, blue streaks of color erupted from the dark void of seemingly nothing, leading John to rise his head and lift his hands above him, seemingly clenching his hands, as if he was to grab something. With this, he let out a deep, half agonizing, half relieving moan that managed to echo in the somewhat open metallic Grineer structure.
Soon, the streaks enlarged, overtaking the dark abyss, ripping it and shredding it, giving place to a basking blue glow. Once the darkness was all but consumed, John's figure returned to the astounded pair still deciphering the situation, finishing with John's thick gasping. Once a moment of silence settled in, John roared out:
"Shut… The… Hell up, lady."
Silence reigned in for a bit, allowing some of the alerted Grineer to approach their location, lured by the sound and the sudden flash of blue light. As they approached the three, their shouts drew their attention.
"Tenno scum!" it was heard. The three jumped as they almost did not dodge the bullet barrage ensued by the ambushing Grineer. John jumped behind some of the fallen crates while the others fell behind ones still intact. Some of the Grineer took this opportunity to retreat and alert the base, calling further backup, while others took it as a chance to gain more ground on the three.
John managed to reply in the same way by shooting back in a fit of blue plasma, and Travis resorted to pummeling whoever came close, due to the fact he had forgotten his cleaver in the ship's hull.
"I can't fight!" Vi shouted out. "My transference still doesn't work!"
Nonetheless, they managed to push them back. The Grineer melded into the hallways leading to the open area they were making their stand and eventually lead to a moment of silence between the groups.
"Right. I think I saw only a couple of soldiers fleeing to that particular door there. Let's get to it!" John shouted, pre-emptively reloading his Dera for further firefights.
As they headed out through the metal plane, hopping catwalk to catwalk, moving in between the mountainous halls ravaged and pierced by the Grineer architecture and machinery, they noticed that the Grineer soldiers had left them… alone. None to be seen. None to be heard either, as the only sounds that replied to their inquisitive stance, where those of machinery alone.
They eventually turned up in a platform which surveyed a large opening of the cave - allowing the group to oversee the mechanical operations of the incessant crude machinery of the Grineer. The wheezing wind grazed by them as they stood in uneasy silence, they looked around as if the ambience got somehow even more eerie.
Out of nowhere, a heavy hammer of metal fell upon the group, aiming to knock them off their feet. Pushed by the impact shockwave, Vi and Travis recoiled at the sudden attempt on their lives. Once unfazed by the situation, the metallic figure raising the hammer onto his shoulders as it intently stared into the separated group.
Both Vi and Travis looked onto the distinctive figure and let out, before joining John's side:
"Lech Krill."
"So, you're Lech Krill, eh?" John inquired, walking up from the back of the group.
"Wait, where's-" Vi tried to question before the sudden barrage of Captain Vor separated the group once more.
John, unfazed, turned around and, with the same inquisitive tone as before, let out:
"So, you're an old man, eh?"
Vor scowled at this impudent crewman before teleporting to the platform where they all stood in a glaring mexican standoff, before noticing Travis. Although mostly scorched, Travis' armor still bore the shape of Grineer armor. When Vor glanced over at Travis, his voice echoed on a cold and harsh tone:
"Why have you forsaken the Queens, butcher?" He let out, piercing Travis with his stare.
"He ain't here to make you happy, old man." John walked over, putting himself between Travis and the old man.
"Why has the Corpus decided to defile this ground with its presence?" Vor then directed himself to John.
"We're here to grab your prize, Vor." John replied, reaching for his Dera, managing to release a burst of plasma, before Vor simply teleported next to Krill and evading the burst completely.
The pair sighted the group with an almost pitiful look, as if their combined power far towered above two puny henchmen and a kid. Vor laid eyes on the kid they lugged around as it was his true prize.
"Tenno." Vor smirked.
"Playing fake-out isn't fair!" John said, shooting once more at the pair.
The group fired into a combat. Krill took the opportunity to swing the hammer at Travis and John while Vor leapt to kidnap Vi. Though as soon as his mug loomed over Vi, John took a swing with his Dera, in attempts to stave off the old pervert.
"This ain't your kiddie bar, you creep." John said, while flailing his Dera up in the air, pushing Vi back with his retreating pace.
Krill seeked to smash his hammer against the distracted pair. Though confident of his attack, he felt it interrupted mid-way. Travis, with his arms crossed by the elbow and enveloping the hammer with his forearms together with the scorched armor, tanked the hit. Krill shot up into a rage never seen before. Screeching and shouting, Krill took the hammer out of this lock and once more swung at the somewhat stationary Grineer butcher. In spite of this, Travis managed to outright tank or openly dodge Krill's slow attacks, which seemed to only fuel his screeching anger.
On the other, parallel side of the battlefield, Vor still tried to reach Vi. Angered by the pesky crewman waving his gun around, he held up his key as to aim it towards Vi. The golden beam then fired produced a shield around Vi, pushing John aside.
"I grow tired of you." Vor grunted, as he now marched onwards to the prone John, aiming to drain him of his shields then perforating him with a hail of bullets. John kneeled up, though perched between Vor and what seemed to be a long way down towards the core of heavy machinery, he kept his ground and tugged at his now-turned-melee Dera.
It was at this time that Krill found an opening in Travis' defense, and struck him square in the torso, sending him flying across the field, straight ahead. Crashing through scaffolding, he disturbed the surprisingly fragile support of the structure that still towered above the group. As the whole thing came down, various beams and heavy metal disrupted the flow of the backpack that cooled Krill's armor, resulting in a hazardous flash freeze beneath the crumbling metal. Not too soon after, the metal structure hit the ground, crashing and smashing Krill into tiny frozen pieces.
Though surprised by the violent impact, Vor did not turn around in time to respond to the still flying body of Travis. Hit by a direct impact, he was sent flying past John, who saw him falling to his death.
However, in a somewhat quick motion, Vor used his teleport once again to at least grab onto the ledge and resume the fight. As he finished his travel through space and time, his eyes caught figure of the pesky corpus crewman, still tugged to his rifle, already mid-way through his swing.
"I got you now." John stated, as his rifle's butt met Vor's face after the swing, sending him to plummet towards a violent death in the innards of heavy machinery.
As the machinery coughed and wrenched the remains below them, Vi's stasis shield collapsed, releasing her into the world once again.
"Born again I see." John laughed. "Oh man, I crack myself up with these."
Travis, after a short while, rejoined the group, looking below to the stuttering machinery.
"Where… is it?" Travis asked Vi.
"The blueprint?" Vi inquired, darting her eyes between John and Travis. "I, uh, don't know. Usually when it's over, I just get it."
"Which it should be soon." John barged in the conversation, pointing towards the fallen metal structure, emitting fire and spewing molten metal. They took it as a bad news sign and started to make their way back onto the extraction bay.
This time around, the Grineer were busy with keeping the structure stable, and as such, they largely ignored the group that just invaded their private space. The odd Grineer that tried to single them out was quickly evaporated in a vicious wrath of blue plasma and fist power by John and Travis, respectively.
Practically racing down from the high up structure as it collapsed in an unrelenting inferno, the group met the rendezvous extraction place, and their presence triggered the landing craft to fly over in order to pick them up. Vi up and slotted herself in the indentation, while Travis mentally prepared himself for the ride again. John from, an unstopping sprint, screamed all the way until he jumped and held Liset's back tail with dear life. Travis picked up on this cue and followed soon after.
Not too long after the less abrasive exit flight, they docked back into the orbiter and silently put themselves inside. When they finally sat in the cockpit, the unnerving silence pressured Vi to shout out loud:
"Ordis! Mission report!"
"Success, operator! We've gathered a bunch of credits, some alloy plate alongside circuits, but most importantly: the Trinity helmet blueprint!" Ordis chimed in, for the first time bringing joy over mindless rage.
Vi jumped up in happiness as she punched up the Foundry in order to start the blueprint construction. The foundry gleefully obliged with barely enough credits to begin with and presented the 12 hour estimated time of forgery. In the other hand, Travis and John just up and sighed in relief, as the object they wanted was in fact in their hands.
"Now, where's the rest?" John inquired, after a moment of relaxation.
"The same mission." Vi gleefully added.
Travis and John interchanged looks, confused.
"They're… dead." Travis states.
"Yeah, well, we've killed them once, they return every time we re-do it." Vi adds.
"Well, alright then!" John exclaims, as he taps his right palm with his left fist.
John walked off towards the Landing Craft bay after ordering Ordis to lock Exta's coordinates once more. Vi widened her smile while Travis slumped over and sighed in despair at the transport method again.
Once again they jumped as the ship dislodged itself from the orbiter, holding themselves on the back tail. Soon the ship entered the atmosphere and the entire scenario replays for the exterior-bound folks.
When landing, the group was attacked in a similar way, to then they replied in a similar fashion and not too long after, the soldiers cleared out in an unnerving imitation of what had happened previously. It was as if the curiosity of Vor that ordered the soldiers to retreat was still present even after his timely demise.
They jumped from empty room to empty room as before, though the type of room and the order of them differed from last time. At last, they met the gruelling pair in the same scary way as they had before, in the same battlefield.
"Alright boy and girl, we got ourselves here a ballet rehearsal." John relayed his cryptic words to his teammates.
As soon as John played these words out, they proceeded to endure the fight in a painstakingly equal detail as they had before. Obviously leading to the bosses' mutual demises, the group once more fled back into space in the hopes of receiving fantastic news on arrival. As fate would have it, though, Ordis relayed the sad fact that they had gotten a duplicate item, the only one they were building at the moment.
Though frustrated, they didn't falter. John leapt back into the ship as Vi and Travis followed up. They landed again. And returned again, this time to some good news! The Chassis had been captured and immediately they started production.
This close to finishing the Warframe, they rushed for the shuttle again. Returning to yet another duplicate, they jumped back into Ceres. Once more returning to duplicate items. They continued this until the fourth or so time, before Travis and John eyed Vi as tired zombies.
"Well, the Miter is on the way." Vi giggled nervously.
After a number of agonizing hours of attempting to grind up, they finally wound up with the last part of the Trinity warframe, the Systems. Once Ordis informed the group of their findings, Travis sat down to take a breather, Vi jumped and dashed around like a hyperactive child while John resorted to knocking himself straight down on the floor to catch some zeds.
After a while, John's sleep was interrupted by a violent shaking, accompanied by the idyllic face of the purple kid shaking him awake.
"John! John! It's done!" Vi shouted, with an almost unrecognizable high-pitched voice.
"Done?" John stood up from the spot he had fallen asleep on.
"Yes! It took three days but it's here! I can't wait!" Vi replied, seemingly pushing her voice into an even higher pitch.
Travis and John eyed Vi as she closed her eyes and stood still in front of the warframe, as if she was trying to command it. After a few seconds of absolutely nothing, Vi turned around panicked.
"The transference!" She shouted, as her voice returned to its normal pitch. "I can't believe I forgot about it!"
"Oh yeah, that WAS a problem, right?" John said as he held the bottom of his helmet in an inquisitive stance and reminded himself of the fact.
"We… had… three days." Travis chimed in.
"I got it!" John once more tapped his palm with his fist. "Where is your Lotus friend?" He finished, heighting on his resolve.