The Impossible-to-Access Zanuka Mission
Zanuka sucks. It really does.
“Skip into the night, where all the stars are bright… We’re back again to do this, and we’re gonna do it right…”
“You know that’s a song sung by Infested, right?”
Nidus pretended that he hadn’t jumped in surprise, but he’d clearly failed miserably, as Wisp giggled at him. However, Chroma crossed his arms and tutted, blatantly unamused by Nidus’s singing.
“Damn, I thought I’d come here alone!” Nidus exclaimed. “Just wanted to do a quick exterminate to calm my nerves before I take on whichever Archon has cropped up again.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you are singing along to literally infested music!” Chroma, dressed in the fanciest red and gold, was still annoyed.
“Well, if anyone’s going to sing along to On-Lyne, it’s going to be Nidus, I guess?” A blue and orange Excalibur landed next to Wisp, loading his Vectis.
“It’s infectious! Almost literally!” Chroma snarled.
Nidus stared at Chroma. Chroma stared back. The two of them stared at each other a little too long.
“Do you two, like, fancy each other or something?” Wisp suddenly giggled, wedging herself between them. “Silly Chroma! Nidus here is the infested Warframe, of course he’s gonna be singing their music! Badly singing, but cutely singing nonetheless!”
“It’s also pretty catchy?” Excalibur added. “I mean, we all sing along to that Corpus ship worker song, Sleeping in the Cold Below, and the lady who sang and spread that around is directly working for Parvos Granum now and trying to kill us…” Excalibur paused for a moment, lost in thought. “Is the opposite of Sisters, Below Below something like Brothers, Up High, Up High?”
Chroma stopped staring at Nidus and started staring at Excalibur. “What the fuck are you on about, kid? You… you’re a normal Excalibur, not even Umbra!”
“I’m just saying, sure, they’re bad guys, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have bad music.”
Chroma stared at Excalibur a little more, no longer caring about the fact that Nidus was singing along to infested propaganda from a distant past that may or may not have happened yet.
“What?” Excalibur asked innocently.
“You’re a newbie.”
“Hang on!” Nidus snapped. “I thought Chromas were supposed to be friendly to newbies!”
“That’s a different Chroma, and he only cares about Smolts. The other person you’re thinking of is an Oberon. I hate people who drag me back.”
“Don’t worry!” Excalibur chirped as he threw down an energy pad. “I won’t hold you back!”
With that, Excalibur darted off, summoning his Exalted Blade and slicing through a bunch of unaware Corpus. Nidus and Wisp both glanced at Chroma and tutted.
“What’s your problem?”
“You’re a dick…” Nidus frowned. “We were all newbies once.”
“Yeah, well, that guy’s a perma-newbie.”
Nidus frowned some more, then decided to get back to the mission on hand. It was an exterminate mission against Corpus. Not even that high level Corpus. Occasionally, Corrupted would pop in, but no one minded, they all had relics and everyone liked a bit of free loot.
Excalibur was enjoying himself, despite Chroma’s constant complaints. For reasons unknown, he was trying to get armour boosts off these Corpus, but everything was dying far too quickly. And with Wisp throwing down her motes, they were blatantly speeding through the mission.
All of a sudden though, Excalibur to a halt. The squad all caught up with him.
“Is something wrong, Excalibur?”
“Kinda? I just saw a bright flash. I think… I didn’t even think I did that many faction missions against the Corpus…”
“Is it Zanuka?” Wisp asked.
Something blared, an alarm. The room the squad were in suddenly went on lockdown. Wisp spawned some more motes, while Nidus placed down his infested floor stuff, spawning a ton of maggots as he did so. He then cast his Parasitic Link on Chroma, to boost his defences and give him more ability strength. Chroma tutted some more. Sure, he appreciated the boost, but he was now covered in infested gunk.
“Reminds me of those old breakable glass lockdowns on older Corpus ships…” Nidus muttered. “Used to accidentally break those all the time. While I hate the modern Corpus, I am so glad hey fixed their shitty windows.”
“Oh, I remember those!” Excalibur chirped. “But yes, Zanuka has targeted me. So I guess, uh, we be careful? I have… an awkward thing to ask though.”
Chroma snarled. “You want us to kill Zanuka for you?”
“Not at all!” Excalibur frowned. “I was actually going to ask, could you guys try NOT to kill Zanuka, please?”
“You want to kill it yourself?” Wisp asked.
“No… um… I kinda… like… I heard that there was a secret mission. If Zanuka captures you, you have to escape a mysterious facility before Alad V chops you up for parts. And I… always kinda wanted to go there, if only so I can punch my way out.”
“That is a really weird request, but, well, I guess we can try-” Nidus abruptly paused as something exploded behind him. Zanuka had spawned… and immediately died, having been blown up by a combination of Nidus’s maggots and his pet Vulpaphylla.
“Oh.”
Nidus took a deep breath, then apologized. “I’m sorry, Excalibur.”
Excalibur though didn’t seem too upset. “Eh, it’s not a problem, mate! Means I just need to go and do more faction missions. Genuinely didn’t think Zanuka would die THAT easily!”
Wisp just shrugged. “Yep! Not that surprising! I mean, I’ve never done that secret mission either, for exactly this reason!”
The sirens all stopped and the lockdown was lifted. This meant that the squad could finish off the mission. Chroma immediately charged off to do just that. Thankfully, they had already gathered enough reactant to open their relics and there weren’t many enemies left, so Excalibur, Nidus and Wisp were happy to let Chroma get to work.
“So, do you want to open more relics after this mission?” Wisp cheerfully asked.
“Depends on what we get on this mission, I guess…” Nidus frowned. “But frankly, I just want to get the Archon hunt done then head off to Fortuna to chill out for a bit.”
Excalibur nodded in agreement. “I need to do some more faction missions for the Grineer to get a new Zanuka mark anyway.”
“ARE YOU GUYS COMING OR NOT?” Chroma shouted from extraction.
The rest of the team all glanced at each other and shrugged some more.
“Yeah, sure, let’s get out of here…” Nidus muttered as he rushed off, humming to the tune of Party Of Your Lifetime as he did so.