Finally back with our unit, once again I wrote this one. Not one of my best if I'm being honest, but it's something.
At first Stock thought that his battalion had been assigned a completely new tenno. This one was wrapped in a sleek, pearlescent sheath of dark slate colored metal, the frame distinctly female, the helm and face plate smooth and mirrored the same color as the body suit, the sleeves and leggings starting out the same dark slate as the body but fading to a pale blue. The whole frame in its entirety seemed to be clamped, soldered, and riveted together in gleaming gold filaments, and the boots encasing the feet had gleaming gold toes and heels.
He noted that several of the male marines seemed to have been reduced to drooling school boys, and even some of the females were openly staring, one or two attempting to hide their blushes. If he was honest with himself though he had to admit that the frame was rather beautiful.
Still, he couldn't help feeling slightly apprehensive. The first warframe had been so badly damaged protecting him and his squad that they had actually been able to see the faintly glowing tenno, Anya, operating the thing. When the dust from the fight had settled, he and his squad had been forced to remove her from the wreckage of the warframe. He himself had been tasked with carrying her back to the command post since none of the others had even been willing to touch her. Things had gone from bad to worse when they'd gotten her back to the command post, the commander had come unglued on seeing him holding the tenno in his arms. It had taken all of Anya's ability to beg and persuade to keep him and his whole unit from being sent straight to the firing squad.
"Stop gawking, marines!"
The order made the whole battalion jump to attention, and Stock heard a few breaths hitch as the frame turned gracefully to face the new voice. He clocked out at that point, he simply couldn't appreciate having a new tenno, if another frame was destroyed and another tenno lost then his unit would definitely face the firing squad. The whole debriefing went in one ear and out the other, his brain had gone into overdrive trying to see some way out if the worst should happen. He jumped again on noticing that things were moving again and the tenno in the warframe was standing there facing him expectantly.
"Tenno," he croaked, then started to fall into step with his fellow marines.
"Stock, wait…" That voice…
"Anya..?" Stock looked at her in disbelief, "I thought you were dead, I thought your frame overloading like it did…"
"Heh, gods no," she chuckled, falling into step beside him, "I couldn't walk for a couple of days, but that was it. They figured out why my frame fried its circuits and well, this is the new and slightly improved version."
"My dad would have liked to see this thing, you know," he sighed.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because he liked to work with his hands," Stock explained, "He liked metal work, built the bed frames for my brothers and me… I think that was why, even after everything, he still enjoyed his work."
"He sounds like a wonderful person," she said softly.
"He was," Stock answered, "He died a few years back."
"Oh, I'm sorry," she said.
"It's alright, you didn't know," he said, then he stopped short, "Oh gods…"
"What?" she sounded concerned.
"I missed the whole debriefing," he admitted in a rush.
"You were standing right there," she giggled.
"I know, but… I thought they were assigning the battalion another tenno, I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen if another warframe was destroyed," he said.
"Stock, it's ok," she assured him, "The smith built this frame specifically for me, this thing has been tested so much that if it were going to crash like the last one it would have done it by now."
"I don't know the orders…" he informed her.
"That's fine, I'll tell you on the way," she said, and Stock could hear a smile in her voice.
"So what is this thing designated anyway?" he questioned once she'd gone over the operation for him a second time, "I mean, I've heard that your warframes have classes, what is yours?"
"This frame is a nova," she replied, "Remember how you were surprised that I glow when I'm not all clamped up in a box? That's because I'm partially made up of anti-matter. This frame makes holding my power in much easier on me, and it's better for the frame. The one before was a nova, but that was a prototype. It couldn't properly handle the weird mixture of matter and anti-matter, and that's why it crashed. Now I can do pretty much anything I want."
A quick drop of her body, bend of her knees, an elegant movement of her hands, and she was suddenly orbited by multiple golden orbs that gave off a faint glow the same soft pink he'd noticed the one time he'd seen her out of a warframe.
"What are those?" he wanted to know.
"The best way I can describe them is, they are anti-matter particles," she explained, "They are part of me in a way, anything that is my enemy is automatically their enemy. When I or an ally is threatened they will fly at the threat, and they can deliver a… a very nasty wound, to the point of ripping off chunks of flesh."
"They make you look like a star," he informed her.
"Well in a way I am, I'm a walking, talking, anti-matter charged star," she shrugged, "The particles are just as deadly as they were before though. I even know what they do, and it's still a bit of a shock sometimes to see them split something wide open. It was even worse with the prototype, I didn't dare use them for fear they'd hit someone they weren't supposed to. At least with this frame I have much more control over what they hit. So they're still deadly, but safe for anyone not a threat to me."
"And how does the frame help?" he asked.
"Well, before I was put into the first contraption, I couldn't avoid setting off explosions left and right, they had to keep me and all the others like me in special containment chambers because we blew things up on a regular basis," she said, "The first prototype was built out of desperation because the chambers they had only worked in the short term and anti-matter is quite volatile. The prototype couldn't handle the charge I carry, and after enough use it just locked up and fried. This one is better, it's attuned to my specific anti-matter signature and it can handle the daily wear and tear of having to contain me."
"But you can be out of it, at least sometimes, if you want to, right?" he clarified, "Things won't just explode randomly the minute you're out of the warframe?"
"No, they won't," she laughed, "The frame is a fully functional living unit, it takes care of everything I need it to do so I can live in it indefinitely, but I can get out of it if I need to. This one is more articulated than the prototype was, and if the frame is damaged enough to be life threatening to me the whole thing will release."
"That's a good thing," he told her, "I was afraid I was going to hurt you really badly getting you out of the first one with it seized up the way it was."
"Well it was split wide open, seized up or no it was pretty well ready to disintegrate," she chuckled, "I think if you'd given it a good kick it would have fallen into a pile of spare parts."
"Maybe," he gave in, "Anya?"
"Yeah?" she faced him.
"I'm glad you're back," he said.
"Me too, Stock," she smiled.