Warframe – Chapter 2 - The Seeds of Lotus
The three
children went about preparing for the upcoming ceremony with sadness in their
eyes. Their father, Mikado, the Hero of the Great war and a son of the First,
was to journey beyond the Origin System leaving his family behind. The journey
itself was not their primary concern, but was the possibility of not being able
to see their father again. Mikado was greatly wounded and is now slowly being
infected with Cain's new strain of Infestation. The other Primes were coming
with him, not only to assist him in looking for new systems to colonize, but
also to assist him in suicide should he turn fully Infested.
The
eldest of the three, the zealous Lotus Vadjura, tells his siblings off for
being too soft. He points out that they are directly descended from the First
and should not act dishonorably in front of the court. Although brokenhearted
himself, Vadjura shrugs it off, energizes his Volt Prime frame and puts on his
syandana. As Vadjura was to venture outside the dressing room door, he turns
around and pats his twin sister's head. Finally relenting to the sobs of his
smaller sister, he sighs aloud and tells her several comforting words.
Sitting
on a window sill, the second son, the rebellious Lotus Dahaka lets out a
chuckle at the sight. He then mumbles that things are hopeless and that only
their father can be entrusted with the future of their race. Vadjura shifts his
attention to his little brother, pointing out that he still has not donned his
frame. Dahaka argues nonchalantly that nobody liked his Rhino Prime form
anyways and that it scared most people that saw its dark and horned visage.
Vadjura rebuffs this saying that he is lucky to have inherited their Father's
affinity and that he should be proud of his lineage. Dahaka stands up and
angrily shouts that he is proud of his lineage, proud to be their Father's son,
and that he has always done everything to live up to the expectations from him.
Dahaka further shouts that only he is really concerned about their father and
that the twins have always doted on their mother Lotus instead.
With
tensions rising, Dahaka activates his black Rhino Prime Variant frame, suddenly
exuding energy and smoke at the same time. Seeing this while on a noble stance,
Vadjura calmly charges focused electricity on his hands, readying himself for
battle. At this point, Lotus Agni stands up and screams at her siblings to
stop. But she was too late. Before she could finish her words, Dahaka suddenly
vanishes as smoke and teleports from up and behind Vadjura. Vadjura is unfazed
and Dahaka begins executing a stomp attack. Before his attack can connect, an
energy shield deploys above Vadjura's back stopping him in midair. Vadjura
still facing him backwards, sends a bolt of lightning from one his
hands,piercing the shield and plunging into Dahaka. Dahaka is suddenly flung
afar and destroys several walls from the force of Vadjura's attack.
Vadjura
turns to face his little brother, only to tell him that although Dahaka has
inherited their father's brawn, Vadjura inherited his brains. Vadjura has
perfected the energy shield the stops attacks from outside and strengthens
attacks from inside. Vadjura further comments on how predictable Dahaka's
attack would be knowing that he has a teleport attack unfitting for a large
frame. He further criticizes Dahaka's choice in using the stomp attack as it
needed a solid surface to come into contact with to trigger its chronostasis
capabilities. Dahaka suddenly screams at his brother to be quiet and suddenly
comes bursting out of the rubble, still exuding smoke from his frame.
Before
Dahaka could attack again, several Royal Guards arrive and asks the siblings
what happened. Agni just dismisses them telling them it is just sibling
sparring. Vadjura then turns his back to Dahaka and tells Agni to come with him
already to the ceremony. With a sad face, Agni activates her Ember Prime frame,
puts on her own syandana and escorts his twin brother, with the Royal Guards
behind them. Dahaka sits down on the rubble, deactivates his frame and rubs his
face.
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At the
ceremony, Dahaka was nowhere to be seen. Vadjura was apathetic when questioned
by Lotus and Agni explains the situation to her. Lotus sighs and comments that
she should have paid more attention to Dahaka. Vadjura refutes this and points
out that the three of them are already capable of making their own decisions,
and that Dahaka merely made his own. Lotus touches his face and says that he
still his brother, and they are family. She points out that Mikado, their
father, kissed her earlier and gave her instructions to take care of them. She
told Vadjura to go on and find his brother, and he relents. As he turns around,
Agni tells her mother that only Lotus can convince the stubborn Vadjura like
that. Agni smiles then rushes to join Vadjura to look for their brother. Lotus
smiles in turn as the twins disappear in the crowd.
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Dahaka
was in the high gardens, overlooking the ceremony from far and above. Having
doted on his father, he personally cannot bear to witness him ailing and bid
him farewell. Sulking from the possible loss of his beloved father, he suddenly
felt the presence of another Tenno behind him. He turns around and finds
Psyche, their nursemaid Nyx. At the time, Nyx frames were popularly employed to
take care of children since they can directly telepathically communicate with
Tenno children even before they can start to talk. Dahaka turns again to look
at the crowd and resumes his sullen mood. Psyche approaches and tells him that
even if she was not using her Nyx abilities, she could read what he was
thinking.
Psyche
then proceeds to sit beside her charge. She tells him it was fine to be feeling
this way since it is his loved one going away. Dahaka then points out how
Vadjura was so apathetic and insensitive about the whole incident. Psyche then
guessed correctly that Vadjura and Dahaka had another fight and the latter lost
again. Psyche then encouraged him saying that when the twins were born, they
had no innate frame affinity so they were given the frames that Mikado recently
finished at that time, the Volt and Ember Primes. Dahaka was to be proud of
himself because he was born a Prime just like his father, and that he just
needed to train and grow some more so that he can be stronger. At this
sentiment, Dahaka showed a small smile and nodded.
Before he
could thank Psyche for her kind words, Psyche motioned him to hurry past the
crowd and bid his father not farewell, but return steadfast. His mood uplifted,
he nodded towards Psyche again and jumped into the crowd below. Psyche shakes
her head notes on Dahaka's ever recklessness.
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Vadjura
walked with a constant pace as Agni struggled to keep up with him. Even though
Vadjura had a Volt Prime frame, his built would have been better suited as a
Rhino Prime. Agni on the other hand, was rather small for her age. Agni sighed
at this fact and kept on tailing his twin brother. Vadjura suddenly stops and
Agni slams on his back. Before Agni could say anything, he activates his frame
for battle and surveys his surroundings. Agni confused, asks him why he is
scaring the citizens with his act. Vadjura suddenly deploys an energy shield
and shoots volts to several cloaked civilians. The victims suddenly convulse
and their cloaks burn from the electric discharge heat. The other civilians
flee while several other hooded civilians suddenly gather at their position.
Agni then
screams at Vadjura for killing a civilian. Vadjura then points out that these
are not civilians, but foreign and inhuman soldiers. He points at the corpses
of his victims, and as the fires burn out, the remains reveal burnt flesh
melded with automaton parts.Most of the automaton parts were concealed weapons
such as blades and small firearms. Vadjura then pointed out that as a Volt
Prime, he sensed the unnatural amounts of electricity in several individuals
they passed. Agni then motions him to speak no further and activates her Ember
Prime Frame.
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Ignoring
the commotion coming from the nearby marketplace, Dahaka rushes to the site of
the ceremony, haphazardly getting dressed on the way, bumping away and
apologizing to civilians with his large built while trying to keep his syandana
clean. While putting on the finishing touches on his ceremonial dress, he
suddenly bumps into a big group of foreigners. He stands up to apologize but the
group leader stops him and apologizes instead. He introduces himself as
Vladymir Oskar Rasputin, the Prime Minister of the Empire, and that he would be
honored to escort the youngest son of the Hero of the Great War Mikado to the
farewell ceremony. Dahaka surprised by his reputation, was speechless until he
noticed something odd about Rasputin's entourage. They were all hooded and
cloaked and nothing about their features could be physically distinguished.
Rasputin
notices the young Tenno's hesitation and laughingly explains that he is a monk
and that he and his disciples are not very sociable. Dahaka was about to lower
his guard when a burning corpse flew and landed a few meters near them. The
corpse was half flesh and half automaton and had the same guise as Rasputin's
entourage. He gave Rasputin a hard look and before he could talk one of the
monks revealed a blade and stabbed him from behind.
Rasputin
then turned away to proceed to the ceremony, when he heard a laugh from behind
him. It was Dahaka lifting his attacker by the neck. The monk was holding a
chipped blade and his neck was slowly cracking and being crushed by Dahaka's
grip. Dahaka slowly transformed into his iron skinned Rhino Prime and then
fully crushed the monk's neck and upper torso. Rasputin calmly motioned his
followers to deal with Dahaka and started walking away. Dahaka started mowing
down enemies but there was too many for him to catch up to Rasputin. He then
tried to use his teleport but a large monk then pounds him with a large stun
rod. He buckles for a minute, then reiterates his hatred for electricity.
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Finally
whittling down the numbers of their attackers, Vadjura and Agni rush back to
the ceremony site. Agni deployed her skill World on Fire to kill any stray
enemies while Vadjura Speed energized the two of them to travel faster. Agni
started to panic as she saw the Outer Terminus Solar Rail light up in the sky.
This only meant that the Tenno Ark was readying itself for its journey outside
the Origin System. Vadjura then put on the maximum output on his Speed
energize.
They were
too late when they arrrived. As they looked to their mother, Lotus had a sad
face on her as she looked at the ship embark and vanish from the horizon.
Separated by a great crowd, they try to limit the distance between them and
their mother. Unfortunately, before they could get through half of the crowd,
Vadjura sees a man whisper something to the attending Empire Royal Family's
Queen. This sets the Queen to her feet and shout something incoherent, but
Vadjura understands the same. It was a signal for an attack. He clasps Agni
down, and deploys multiple Energy Shields. More than half of the crowd burst
into flames as the entourage and civilians from the Empire transform into
hideous automatons brimming with firearms and blades.
The twins
fight off as many as they could but they could not reach their mother. Agni
looks towards her direction and her Royal Guards are being swarmed by flesh
bound automatons like ants. She sees her despair and horror as she tries to
defend herself and the council. Pressed for options and the rank of the Royal
Guards thinning from the millions of enemies raining upon them, Agni sees her
mother mouth the word "sorry" and clutch at the Void Key their
grandfather entrusted to her. A sudden flash of light pours from the Void Key
and everyone averts their eyes except Agni. She burns the sight in her memory
as the sight burns out her eyes.
Agni, now
blind, calls for Vadjura. Vadjura tries to steel himself while fighting off the
multitude of enemies coming one after the other. As Vadjura runs out of energy,
he slowly slumps down to embrace his blind sister, closes his eyes and
apologizes. As a million blades descend upon them, Vadjura then hears a great
crash and opens his eyes to see that time has stopped around them. Baffled,
Vadjura is further surprised by the sudden appearance of Dahaka using his
teleport. Dahaka sarcastically remarks that Vadjura was right in that the stomp
attack needed to be in contact with the ground for the chronostasis to work. He
activates his Iron Skin, picks up his two siblings and makes a run in the
opposite direction of the ceremony site.
Using a
combination of charges and teleport skills, Dahaka widens the distance between
them and the enemies. Before he could finally set them down from a distance to
the ceremony site, he hears a great explosion and turns around. He sets down
his siblings as he himself kneels from the sight of the Outer Terminus Solar
Rails get destroyed. He then screams for his father.
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Mean
while, "Grin-Ear" Rasputin holds in his hand a Void Key while he
stares at the explosion from afar in his shuttle. He smiles as his dream for
hegemony for his Queen slowly comes into fruition. Having cloned himself
countless times, he thought perhaps it was time to focus on expanding the
empire to devour the whole system. Knowing that the Tenno First, the Hero of
the Great War, and Lotus were out of the picture, he relishes in the thought of
being beside the Queen as she rules over everything.
On other
side of the commotion, the Trade United Body, now known as Commercio Unione
Corpus or simply "Corpus", stayed safe by buying out information from
their informer from within the empire. Knowing that an attack on the ceremony
was imminent, the Board simply sent their "undesirables" as the
Corpus representatives to the ceremony. Not only were they able to dispose of
their non-performing assets, they were able to avert large property and human
resource damages. Overall, they believe that the money paid to the informant
was a good "investment".
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The
siblings are found in their human form by Psyche on the outskirts of Outer
Terminus. Agni was sobbing all the time, Vadjura was unconscious being depleted
of energy and Dahaka was staring off into the horizon. Psyche addresses them
politely and beckons them to rejoin the remaining Tenno as the new council
members. Dahaka is unfazed by the sentiment and continues looking over the
ruins of the Solar Rail. It was Agni that spoke first, saying that they need to
recover first before even trying to lead their fellow Tenno. Psyche then
notices that Psyche was staring blankly towards an unknown direction. This
prompts Psyche to rush over to her side to check her status.
Psyche
inspects her face and finds that her eyes are now pure white and that she is
completely blind now. Psyche holds back her tears as she embraces Agni.
Vadjura, still hazy, is awoken by the commotion but fails to stand up. Psyche
telepathically communicates with Dahaka for him to help and Dahaka sighs
briefly before standing up. Dahaka and Psyche prop Vadjura up and Psyche pulls
up some energy cells for him to consume. Vadjura slightly recovers and begins
to talk.
Vadjura,
still weakened, calmly persuades his siblings to become the Council, not
because of ambition or acknowledgement, but because they must survive together
so that they may welcome their parents when they return. Dahaka is angered by
the notion and says that the Solar Rails are now gone and their mother has
abandoned them. Agni remains silent in light of what she saw last. Vadjura
rebuffs Dahaka saying that they can still fight, but they must remain together.
If they must, they will battle again for survival and reclaim what they lost.
Vadjura promises Dahaka to repair the Solar Rails one day, but first they must
re-establish themselves. Dahaka relents and stays silent for the meantime.
Dahaka goes to carry his sister and he motions for Psyche to aid Vadjura in
walking. Psyche gives out a sad smile and follows.
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