A Bonus Unlikely Story – The Scared Excalibur

“An Equinox, an Ivara and a newbie Excalibur head to a bar!” the black and red Ash grinned as he dropped down from an unprotected vent. “Well, the other two bullet jump in, the Excalibur just walks…”

“Don’t make fun of the newbie,” the equally edgy black and red Ivara tutted. “Not his fault he’s literally just escaped from Vor’s influence.”

“Well, he’s only going to hold us back!” Ash’s mood dropped. “This is a spy mission after all! A Spy mission on a Grineer ship of all things. Isn’t the place for a newbie Excalibur!”

Again, Ivara tutted. “We’re in orbit around Earth. This is to be expected.”

The Equinox and the newbie Excalibur both glanced at each other. Equinox simply shrugged, not sure what to say, and waved her arms around, casting some sort of spell before she skittered off around a corner.

“At least an Equinox is nice and fast…” Ash grumbled. Ivara tutted again as Ash pulled up a smoke screen and chased after the Equinox. After a moment, Ivara followed.

Excalibur though was unsure. He uneasily took several first steps forward, then stopped. “Uh, team? Which spy vault do you want me to do?”

“NONE OF THEM!” the Ash bellowed. “Anyway, I got C. Ivara has B and Equinox, you can have A. Just stay out of our way, kid.”

With a sigh, Excalibur decided to wander around a bit. He headed in the direction of the B and C vaults, as that was where the extraction point would most likely be.

Weirdly, there were a lot of Grineer lounging around. Someone had gone around and put everyone to sleep. It was either Equinox or Ivara, maybe both of them. Excalibur wasn’t sure either way and decided to just sneak past them slowly, keeping his beloved Furis close by. He had to take out that damaged heat mod to put the silencer mod in, but that wasn’t going to be a problem, was it?

Something tinged. Excalibur’s heads-up display informed him that Equinox had finished her vault. The sound of Grineer falling asleep en-mass then followed as Equinox zoomed past Excalibur.

Not wanting to be left behind, Excalibur chased after Equinox, only to swiftly lose her. Ash was right, he was slowing them down with his inability to bullet jump as well as they all could.

Another blip on his heads-up display informed Excalibur that Ivara had completed the second vault. As Excalibur slid past an unaware guard, he caught a quick glimpse of Ivara, helping herself to whatever was in a Grineer Commander’s pockets.

Excalibur followed Ivara, who happily gave him a little bubble of invisibility, so that they wouldn’t disturb Equinox as she slaughtered everything. They eventually came to a stop outside the last vault, where Ash was being extra careful not to set off any alarms. A faint ‘Shit!’ was heard as something crackled and an alarm started blaring. The doors locked behind the three Warframes, and Ash was locked inside the vault.

“I got this,” Ivara smiled as she summoned her ship Cephalon, who quickly and quietly unlocked the doors. Ash extracted the data and met his squad mates outside.

“I had it.”

“Clearly.”

Ivara uncloaks herself and everyone bounces off, bullet jumping towards extraction. Well, everyone but Excalibur, who makes do with just sprinting and rolling. The alarms are still blaring, but no one really cares, they already got what they needed.

Of course, Excalibur starts trailing behind. Partially because he got briefly stuck. The rest of the team is nearly at extraction.

Suddenly, someone cried out. Equinox has fallen. So has Ash. Ivara had taken a lot of damage too. She slinked off into a corner, waiting for her shields to regenerate.

“FUCKING FUCKERS!” and other various swear words could be heard as Excalibur slid into the room and was immediately forced to take cover behind a small data console.

A Rampart was firing rapidly, spraying bullets in Excalibur’s direction. Considering how fast that thing has ripped his team mates to shreds, Excalibur was pretty fucking terrified right now.

“Excal, do something!” Equinox cried as she tried to pull herself out of danger.

Excalibur panicked slightly as he reloaded his gun, only to find he was out of ammo in his Braton. His Kunai were useless. He was too far away to revive his team mates. Ivara could help them, but she needed a distraction. He was going to have to get behind the Rampart and its powerful bullets, and fast.

“Excalibur!”

“One second!”

With a sigh, Excalibur summoned his Exalted Blade. He took a deep breath, then dived out, towards the Rampart. He rolled twice, then flawlessly bullet jumped behind the Rampart, swinging his Exalted Blade furiously. The Grineer who had been controlling the gun was torn apart in an instant.

Behind him, Ivara had recovered and was reviving both Equinox and Ash. After double-checking that the Grineer and the Rampart were both destroyed, Excalibur leaped back and helped his team mates up.

“Good work,” Ash tutted, almost begrudgingly. “You actually moved fast for once.”

Equinox and Ivara both slapped Ash, then thanked Excalibur for helping them.

“You did good, Excal!” Equinox attempted to smile, but it wasn’t obvious. “Let’s get out of here…”

“Sure… but there’s one problem…” Excalibur laughed. “That was like the best bullet jump ever. I’m never going to top that!”