No sounds in space

Chapters

Dimensional distortions
War or Civil War
The Obion Four
Volt vs Lightning
Lephantis reborn
Golden battery
The stars are coming
The garden of zen

Dimensional distortions

Author's Note

The Grineer do not speak english, so to show this, I shall be putting their dialogue in italics for basic dialogue and bold for their thoughts.

If you wish to start off the story from the point of view of the ponies, please read the second chapter first. If not, well, here you are.

Dimensional distortions

The deserts of Phobos were just as intense as always, with dust storms blowing over the grineer buildings etched into the rock and stone. What lived within these settlements wasn't unknown, but what was performed within them was. Crates and cranes were abandoned almost in the middle of their work, and the sounds of electricity sparking in the air accompanied by the sounds of metal smashing together. Across one of the desert patches of this moon several transport vehicles had parked to render their supplies available. These flattened vehicles were of both immense length and width, and their tires were just as bizarre as they barely sunk in the sands of the desert, leaving the dust storms to blow over them like a sea current. In front of these gargantuan land transports rested a very large cave carved into the rock. This one seemed to have cables coming from it and connecting to several generators resting outside. Grineer troops were stationed here and prowling the environnements for any suspicious activity. As any Grineer clone, these ones had been affected by genetic deterioration, and many limbs had to be replaced by bionic ones.

These grineer troops sported desert camoflauge on their body, shoulder, chest piece, and outside leg plating, and the lower portion of their legs were covered in a thin black armor that showed there was no longer any meat there. Starting from their knees, however, their bulk climbed to extremes, with their legs holding several pouches to hold munitions and such. Their main bodies were covered with a large plating of armor similar to a slug. As for their arms, these suffered the same traits as the legs, but they were covered with additional black armor whilst their shoulders were covered with enormous shoulder plates. Their armor was extremely uneven at many places, but it stabilized at their heads. Completely covered for many, the majority of grineer troops wore a white mask over their faces, reminiscent of the front of a skull without the nasal ports. The only 'holes' in them were two, glowing yellow holes for the eyes.

Several more of the troops were stationed within the tunnels, with many prowling and patrolling while others were working on consoles to stabilize energy flow and observe the security system. All the way at the end stood an Orokin artifact of great importance. This giant circular portal seemed to peer into space with no destination, but a bizarre machine similar to a capsule with a slot on its forward-facing side had been hooked up to it, and the image flickered ever so gently every now and then. A low hum emanated from the machine itself, but this was muffled by the loud roars of grineer technology all around it. Standing next to the machine connected to the portal were several more grineer with an orange coloration and masks showing one single orange view point, and a very old grineer captain.

This man's body had clearly seen better days in its youth, as it had practically become mechanical. Vor's legs had become mechanical extensions ending in bird's feet with raised extensions at the tips of the three front toes. His armor was of a complete brown shade with tubes coming from his back into various portions of his body, such as his stomach and his left leg. His head, though, was bare, and showed a very pale whitish skin color. As with all grineer eyes, his sclera was black with glowing orange-yellow pupils, with his right eye having long been replaced by what was clearly a bionic eye. The left portion of his mouth, starting from his cheekbone, curving around the nose, and finally ending at the start of his chin, was completely replaced by metal plating. The most interesting thing about this grineer was the slot he had over his heart that held an orokin key. This golden artifact is his prized possession, besides his hybrid pistol made from grineer and orokin technologies.

"How are the preparations coming along? I have no need to stay here longer than I must. I have preparations to make with Lecht Krill concerning a method to properly dispose of the tenno." Vor asked a lancer working on a security board to the right of the portal.

"It is almost complete, sir. I am also pleased to report that no tenno have been noticed yet."

Vor rubbed his chin and looked above himself.

"It is unlike Lotus to ignore something so valuable. Her mute slaves should be here any minute. I do not wish to make a repeat of the same mistake as before." Vor said.

"No, sir. I will double patrols and ensure that all corners and backs are watched. All that oppose us shall feel our wrath."

"Enough of your blather. The sisters need only your work, not your speech."

"Sorry, sir. Continuing my work, sir."

Vor was not convinced of the actions and preventive measures undertaken to keep the tenno out. He knew how crafty and discreet they were. He had fought some and killed quite a few himself, but they were never easy to deal with. He had to verify.

"Soldier, demand a status report from the patrol at the entrance."

"Yes, sir." the lancer replied as he began to type in some commands on his security board.

"I have a bad feeling about this whole endeavor, but no matter. The tenno shall fall to our empire no matter how hard they try to stop its progress.."

Despite the silence, the grineer lancer responsible for a portion of security began to switch from frequency to frequency whilst trying to get into communication with the patrols. Nobody answered any of the calls. Captain Vor noticed and became angered. He stormed towards the station.

"Get out of the way!"he yelled as he tossed the soldier aside onto the floor."Troops, report! This is Captain Vor speaking. Answer at once or be condemned to rehabilitation.They aren't answering...The reason is obvious."

Vor smashed his fist on the alert panel, causing an alert to echo throughout the complex.

"All grineer, the tenno have reached our base! Stop them at the costs of your lives! I will not have them rescue another of their own! All heavy grineer must report to the chamber at once!"

Several grineer bombards and grineer heavy gunners ran into the room and surrounded the portal. Grineer bombards looked similar to their lighter, lancer counterparts, save for their white armor and a weapon they held which resembled a red box and fired rockets. The heavy gunners, however, were females, and although their white armor was thinner, said armor was very similar to the lancers'. One unfortunate aspect of the heavy gunner was that both her arms and legs were mechanical, but this did prevent her from being knocked over due to the added weight and the gyroids built into them. Unlike her bombard counterpart, the heavy gunner held a long green weapon with its cartridge held diagonally on the side, allowing for quick load and reload while still aiming at her enemies. A rapid firing machine gun is always welcome to the grineer arsenal.

The soldiers waited calmly and with stress while Captain Vor sternly waited with boredom in front of his machine, his Seer pistol firmly held in his grasp. Subtle noises of armor moving and fingers tightening around the weapon grips were the only true noises still being heard in the air as each grineer soldier scanned every nook and cranny of the large cave opening, much to no availing, as the incoming teno could not be found, until a Nekros flew from the sky and smashed into a grineer lancer with an ether reaper, spraying blood everywhere. This Nekros' armor was reminiscent of a necromancer. Its head having the appearance of a lich's cowl, save for the mechanical apparatus underneath portraying nothing but metal and two small vertical optical viewports of an orange color. Its legs were very thin and spindly, as if they were nothing but bone, and possessed three metal handles pointing downwards. Its elbow had the same decorative appearance, with the addition of two miniature arm blades pushing forward. The back of its shoulder and a small portion of its arms held another one of these "handles", although this one was closer to Nekros' body. As for its chest, it just looked like purple flesh pulled over it to reach the neck. The inner portion of the legs, the bony hips, the inner portion of the arms, knuckles, as well as the cowl were all white. It even gave the impressions that the ribs of this warframe had melted out and were falling down. The rest of its body was purple, and there were small glowing lines of orange energy laid from the front of its ribs and on the lower part of the Nekros' wrist.

It expelled a very desolate aura of death and decay as it raised itself up ever so slowly. Its ether reaper scythe's blade being just as invisible and etched with energy as what lay beneath the tenno's mask. The grineer took a short time to realize what had happened, then they finally retrieved their senses.

"T-Tenno scum! Kill it!" a lancer shouted before he was cut in half by the nekros.

Several of the blue armored lancers began to open fire on the Nekros who would slowly walk towards them as it almost 'danced' between each and every bullet. Somehow, it appeared in front of one of the lancers in an instant and smashed its palm against him. An orange energy blasted out of the nekros' palm and expelled what looked like the grineer himself, against his comrades. He did not survive the process and fell down limply. The others were simply cut down by the Nekros a he would backflip onto some, cut them in half, then throw their halves against other grineer after attaching its deathly energies into hikou shuriken jammed into the halves pieces. This went on for awhile until the nekros was blown away by a shot from one of the larger bombards.

"Hahaha! Tenno scoom. Va nes ga gva tyr," the grineer taunted.

Nekros was having trouble dodging the shells from this bombard and had to jump away several times using its hands. It tried to get its cernos bow unfolded from its back to fire a few arrows into the head of this grineer, but the tenno was completely pinned. That is, until the bombard suddenly fell into two separate halves. A glaive had been thrown from behind the group in complete discretion. Its owner was a Volt. This warframe simply thrust its hand forward and erected an enormous shield of electricity in front of it as it took out its own gorgon machine gun that had been customized into a wraith variant by a faction unknown to all but the tenno. As it fired at the grineer, its bullets became coated in an electric field and would electrocute the impact target, making for some rather amusing muscle contortions.

The Volt stood in place and stared at the grineer through its shield, the bullets bouncing back and creating tiny little distortions in the shield. Its legs were completely purple, just like the Nekros nearby, but the joints of its ankles and the toe placement and fingers of its armor were blue. The knees pushed forward into pseudo-horns as did the nose area of the helmet. His chest was a complete white as were several linings around the body. The rest had a similar purple tint as before, giving suspicions of a pattern between the two warframes. The helmet held two vision ports on both sides, and the whole warframe tingled with electricity as it coursed through the armor. This was all amplified by three coils on each arm that intensified the current when it reached them, and allowed the tenno to harness thunder itself.

As the Volt drew attention to it, Nekros raised its hand and let out a pulsating stream of orange enemy that twirled like several snakes around its body. A loud, frightening scream echoed through the cave while a burst of orange energy emanated from it and covered the whole group of grineer that surrounded the Nekros. The soldiers suddenly began to yell and threw their weapons at nothing and ran away. Vor looked around at them with surprise and angered and clenched his fist.

"What are you doing, cowards? Get back here!" the captain shouted.

As he did so, a few sounds of gun fire muffled the screams of the grineer as they were pinned to the far cave wall by their heads. Golden bolts had pierced their heads completely. Through the main entrance came a third warframe, this being the obvious elder of the group. The weapon it held was a boltor prime; a fearsome weapon of great power. It was long like any rifle, but was lined with a golden frame. Its butt, handle, and even its iron sights were all golden. The boltor had an elongated barrel and six golden rings surrounding the main portion of the rifle. While said main portion and stock of the rifle were purple, the long portion of it holding the sights and the barrel were white. The warframe was also a prime version of what was a commonly used by tenno. This was a frost prime, and the prime warframes were extremely rare and possessed tremendous power compared to their 'knock-off" counter parts. After all, the primes were the original versions created by the ancient Orokin.

The frost prime was the most organic looking of the three. Its lower leg armor was very bulky and had an almost "chewy" looking spike rising from the knees. The boots were similar to a thorned cocoon of white while the main body looked like it wore a thick overcoat, with three distinct portions with two hanging off the sides and a large portion hanging off the rear. On the sides of its waste were laid golden trips echoed with wiring, and on its back was a cryo-inducer with two tubes, one atop the other, flowing from it into the warframe. Like the boltor prime, these also had golden portions. The forward arms, like the legs, were very thick, but the underside was completely flat, white, and had golden cryo tubes flowing through them. Most astonishing, however, was the head. A single, vertical blue line served as a viewport. The viewport itself rested in a rectangular golden holding on the rather large helmet. One golden ring, similar to the boltor prime's, surrounded the visor in a semi-circle. Three more covered the rest of the helmet, with the one directly after the visor ring being the largest in size, the other two progressively diminishing. The helmet itself was rather flattened and very large, with a blue line going around it like a flowing crack in ice. One last aspect concerning this warframe were the bizarre exhaust ports on the rear sides of its arms. These constantly emitted shockingly freezing cold mixture of white mist and blue gas.

While the majority of this frost prime was black, the inner portion of its "overcoat" was white, as were the sides of its body. The rest of the overcoat, however, were etched in magnificent designs of a purple hue.

This tenno walked forward casually with no fear whatsoever of its surroundings. He didn't seem to consider the grineer besides Captain Vor as being a threat and had unsheathed his dragon nikana katana; One of the most powerful melee weapons in any and all tenno weaponry. Only the most elite were authorized to carry one. Said threat simply nodded his head and began to laugh as he walked towards the machine and moved himself in a taunting manner.

"So, I see that the Lotus has sent the Obion Three after this operation. No matter what tenno rescuing operation there has ever been, she has rarely ever sent you three towards one of these operations. It truly is a pity. What must hide behind this portal that she is so eager to keep from us? No matter. I have explosive drones ready to jump into here the second the portal opens, so say goodbye to your precious artifacts!"

There was almost a moment of slow motion as the Frost Prime resheathed its dragon nikana and pulled out its boltor prime while running towards Vor. The grinner captain pulled the golden key from his chest socket, creating little bolts of energy as the key protested its removal, and moved towards the slot of the machine connecting to the portal. The Nekros had thrust its ether reaper into the spine of a grineer and was raising it into the air, and the Volt seemed to have jumped on a half of a lancer after throwing its glaive and slicing through several soldiers at once. He was aiming a bolt of electricity at the captain, but it was too late for the three. Vor had already placed the key into the slot, and the portal was beginning to stabilize. One could see the forming of the white marble architecture of the orokin void ship appear, but there was something else behind that. Something seemingly dark orange and mobile. Before Vor's drones could ready themselves, the volt's electric bolt struck the machine, followed by several boltor bolts. The machine began to short circuit, belching explosions and sparks at Vor who took several steps back as he shielded his face. The portal began to form erratically as it started to collapse on itself. the explosions chained throughout the complex as the energy began to overflow.

"What have you done?! Idiots!" Vor yelled as he pulled out his pistol.

There was no point, as dimensional energies flowed throughout the room and distorted reality, creating a bizarre, extremely wavy view to those affected. Before anyone could react, the entirety of those held within the cave were sucked into a black singularity. This vision of black, silence, and calm were the only things any of the tenno or grineer could experience for quite a time, until the tenno were blinded by a bright shining of light. They seemed to be hurdling towards an exit, but the speeds were such that they could not distinguish anything. Finally, they left the dimensional anomaly and landed on their feet with a great acrobatic feat, although the Volt had to land on a wall and backflip off of it onto his feet. The vision of the three was still blurry, but they recognized the sound of a loud 'thud' as being that of an orokin capsule. The three walked towards it as they waited for their sight to readjust, then stood next to the object. With utmost haste, the frost prime input several commands into the console on the stasis pod's side, and it reacted just as quickly. The pod opened, expelling cryonic air, leaving the tenno to eventually thaw out on its own and recuperate progressively.

The Obion Three were going to have to protect it from the grineer, no matter where they were. After a long period of patience, the three tenno met an unfamiliar surrounding. They had landed in what seemed to be a palace of the grineer, although it was very bright and not as bizarrely technological and organic as the grineer had a habit of creating, but what struck the three most were the 'intruders'. What seemed to be a white and blue equidae surrounded by smaller ones wearing a golden armor were being threatened by what seemed to be a large assortment of angry and frustrated griffons from ancient folklore. They had all stopped their activities and stared at the armored figures for quite a long time as well as looking at the pod. The frost prime unsheathed his dragon nikana, preparing for combat. The other two did the same, with the volt readying its electric powers, and the Nekros preparing his gorgon wraith.

War or Civil War

Author's Note

If you're reading this chapter first, don't forget to read the actual first chapter.

War or Civil War

"Okay, Twilight. You and the other elements remember what you must do?" Celestia asked.

"Yes, princess. We must be as formal as possible and try not to say anything that would disturb them." Twilight answered.

"And?"

"Ooo! I shouldn't throw a welcome party!" Pinkie Pie replied with a bounce.

Celestia had called upon Twilight and her friends quite a few days after the new crystal castle was created in Ponyville. There had been an uproar in nearby countries and provinces about a newly created alicorn kingdom, and the griffins were the first to react. For some reason, they were very edgy about the whole situation. The same had happened with the Crystal Kingdom after it was "reconquered" by Cadence and Shining Armor, but that was a different story. They had all been placed into a dressing room with a wide window behind them all covered by a thick white cloth. Closets and clothes hangers were all around the beige colored room as were vanity mirrors.

"So, do you think Princess Luna is doing well with the guests?" rarity asked aloud.

"My sister has a rather...similar mindset to the Griffon Empire, as both are used to executing rather violent laws and tasks in the judicial system. Luna has yet to fully accept the new laws and how they work." Celestia spoke with frustration and regret. "I must especially express my need for you two to remain quiet." Celestia pointed at Rainbow Dash and Applejack.

"What? Why?" Applejack asked.

"Yeah. I don't understand why you would say that to us, um, your highness." Rainbow was appalled.

Celestia rolled her eyes. She had understood quite a lot about them in Twilight's old messages sent to her in the past.

"Come. The griffins await us in the Council Chambers." Celestia spoke.

"Th-The Council Chambers?!" Twilight half squeaked."But that's where the most prestigious and knowledgeable of ponies are. They help you work on matters concerning Equestria. Why would you need to discuss matters there?"

"Because, as you put it, they help run ALL problems in Equestria, not just the economical and diplomatic ones--"

"But militaristic ones as well." Rarity added.

"Yes. That is correct. This means that the Supreme Commander of all Equestria's military resides in that chamber right now."

"The Supreme Commander?!" Rainbow's eyes glittered."I heard he singlehoofedly took down an entire fight between ten ejge and dragons."

"Some stories might prove themselves to be an exaggeration, but this one was...modified a bit." Celestia rubbed the back of her head in shame.

"Why? What is the real story? Please! You gotta tell me, princess!"

"He took out twenty of each, He isn't what he seems, so be cautious. He is extremely calm, but I think he is emotionless. He might be a--"

"Princess! They are growing impatient!" a guard shouted after barging into the room.

"Oh! That's right! Come! Come! We mustn't stagger here any longer."

The group rushed out of the dressing room and into the large hallways of Canterlot castle. Galloping on the red carpets strewn upon the floor, the many paintings of portraits and locals on the walls flying by too quickly to make out their details. Twilight did notice, though, that many guards were moving about just as much as they were. This was clearly more serious than initially though. Finally, they arrived in front of the entrance to the Council Chambers, only to be greeted by a waiting griffin. This griffin's posture showed it to be of the proud and noble type. His head feathers were black, with white ones surrounding his black eyes. As for his body, it had a rather cyan color to it with lines of yellow painted on there as well. He was waiting in front of the immense oak doors, and he wasn't pleased.

"Princess Celestia and Princess Twilight Sparkle. It is quite the...displeasure to meet you two in person." he said with a bow and monotone voice.

"What? Ya can't talk ta our friend like that!"

"Applejack. Please." Celestia begged."And why do you wait for us in front of these doors, Gaddaveer of the Ranchor House?"

"Impatience and annoyance. They all squawk like newborn chicks within the chambers, and your Supreme Commander has not uttered a single word. He simply sits in his chair, staring into the void. He adds nothing to this dispute and, rather, is more of a visual annoyance."

"Then do not block us any longer. Like us join my sister and the others." Celestia answered.

The griffin, despite his pride, opened the door for the princesses to pass through, but the second they did, he let go and flew in, letting the door nearly smash into the other five ponies if Rarity and Ranbow Dash didn't block it. Rarity huffed in frustration.

"He's not very nice." Fluttershy noted.

"I suppose not all griffins are like the chef from the dessert competition, and more like Gilda." Rarity said.

The chambers were actually enormous. A single, enormous rectangular table sat in the middle of the room. Griffins were on one side while the ponies were on another. While the room was made for a circular table, the griffins demanded to be separated from the ponies, so this inconvenient method was chosen. Three wooden benches, similar to those used by judges, towered over the tables, with the tallest, in the middle, made for Celestia.

"Ah! There you are!" yelled one of the council members.

"Take your seats, please." Luna asked.

There was a loud brouhaha coming from the griffons on their anger at the ponies, their tardiness, and anger at Gaddaveer, countered by the yelling of the ponies and their justifications. Twilight took her spot on the bench to Celestia's right, while Luna flanked said white alicorn's left. While Twilight did so, though, she caught glimpse of the Supreme Commander. He was on the opposite of the table, but he was quite frightening. Judging by his hooves, his legs were yellow before slowly becoming blue as they progressed towards the main body. The conversion was met with a natural appearance of lightning shapes on the fur. Unlike other generals, captains, and guards, his armor was green and emblazoned with topaz gems, and his helmet spiraled onto his horn. His eyes were yellow and lifeless while his mane was blue with jagged yellow streaks flowing across them. His tail was the exact opposite of his mane, bizarrely. He literally did not react to anything around him.

"I apologize for our tardiness." Celestia roared above the noise."I was informing the princess and the elements about the situation. I had them summoned in an untimely matter as, you all must know, the griffons gave us no time to prepare."

"Yes. I am pleased to meet such esteemed members of the Griffon Empire." Twilight nervously spoke.

"Hmph. This is the new princess?" a griffon mocked."I doubt she is a threat to anything!"

"How DARE you insult one of the six original elements! Without her and the other five, you would be at the mercy of Discord!" a council pony shouted.

"Oh, please. You think that he is the ONLY being of chaos? We have our own" another griffon interjected.

"Who was defeated with the help of ponies!" a council member countered.

"ENOUGH!" Luna spoke with the royal canterlot voice."Why have you called to this supposed 'important' meeting? If you are simply here to butt egos, I suggest you take your soldiers to a tavern and fight together."

"How dare--"

"Be silent, fool. Gaddaveer ordered."

"But--"

"I told to be silent."

"Princess, why is he so close to us?" Twilight whispered in Celestia's ear.

"Because he is the princes of the Griffin King."

"Wh--"

"Shh!"

"Yes. We are here because we have complaints about your trading and the appearance of a new weapon in your arsenal." Gaddaveer said.

"Weapon?" Pinkie Pie wondered aloud.

"Pinkie Pie..." Rainbow rubbed her face in annoyance.

"Yes. A weapon. Your 'Rainbow Powers', as we have been told. The elements were known to only affect true threats, but what is this new power you possess? It clearly doesn't have any guardian value as before. You also haven't told us about the new army this 'Twilight Sparkle' will create for her new kingdom and its expansion."

"What?! I would NEVER create something like that! They are simply guards being trained to house my new home and protect Ponyville." Twilight yelled as she stomped on her bench.

"Tsktsk. Because of your little war endeavors, we have been receiving less material in our trades across the mountains. Your troops also threaten our militaristic capabilities, as the Crystal Kingdom has already demonstrated with its immense amount of aerial and terrestrial guards."

"Nonsense! Twilight Sparkle only gets guards based on OUR selections and that of the generals. She does not need an army." Luna said.

"Yes, but in the mean time, we are running short on foodstuffs and building materials because of your growing armies." a griffon spoke.

"We already told you that that is because of the ravages Tirek caused to our lands. We have need of the materials for the refugees and to rebuild homes."

"That is not our problem. It violates our trade agreements and--"

"You are but a mildly irritating insect in this room." spoke a very frightening monotone voice.

"Wh--"

"I have not authorized any such creations for the new princess. Her guards shall total twenty-five, with three captains to supervise training and distribution and one general to send me reports. They have no need for more than the basics in supplies, and the recent incidents provide enough incentive to belief the reports we had given to you. If you will excuse me, I have reports to review."

With that, the Supreme Commander bowed, backed away from the table, and left, much to the baffling of the remainders. The pony guards seemed to become less tense after he left. They were frightened to death.

"This is unacceptable! We have no reason to trust the words of a silent puppet!" a griffon said."Equestria has been threatening our borders for far too long! You even create new magical weapons regularly that you test in the mountains near our borders!"

"THIS COUNCIL IS ADJOURNED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE! Your incessant paranoia tires us. We shall return when you have sorted out your imagination from the actual repercussions you so fear."

Luna stormed out of the room with the other ponies, leaving the griffons in utter shock and silence. Celestia and the six followed, leaving the whole group in the corridor.

"Ah felt like ah was just there fer decoration." Applejack moaned.

"I really don't see why you brought us here, princess. We didn't do anything." Rainbow Dash complained.

"I do admit that it seemed rather pointless to bring us along. I don't like to be gawked at by others." Rarity fluffed her mane.

"I think I should throw a cheering up party for that creepy stallion guy. He seems very depressed." Pinkie thought out loud.

"I don't think that would be a good idea. He didn't seem very normal." Rarity warned.

"Fluttershy, could you take care of Philomena for me? She is going through another rebirth, and I would need your help in taking care of her." Celestia suddenly asked.

"Of course, princess. Where is she?"

"She is in the garden. You will spot her right away."

"Thank you."

While Fluttershy scampered away, Twilight said:

"The Princess summoned us because you still represent the elements, albeit the new ones."

"Indeed. Without you, we would be negotiating in a position of weakness."

"How come?" Pinkie asked.

"Because griffons see everything in power. The griffons you saw here all have a very important position in the Griffon Kingdom. Now, I will let Twilight take you to your waiting chambers whilst Luna and I begin to talk and tend to the few civilians that can pass through here."

Twilight nodded and the situation became rather calm. There was a short discussion with Luna and the tact she need to perform when confronting the griffons, but it went without much incident. Some civilians came by, but the third one was interrupted by the griffin group smashing into the throne room with weapons at claw their guards around.

"We have come to a conclusion, that Equestria has indeed been developing an army to take over the Griffon Empire. Your secrecy and refusal to tell us important things regarding your militaristic budget and overproduction of materials and resources proves this point further. We know of the magical weapons you have been developing, as well as your treaties with the minotaur tribes."

"What?!" Celestia stuttered.

"We refuse to have the ponies try and harm our beautiful country and will stop your militaristic expansion now!"

The Royal Guards surrounding the thrones in a circle of pikes, but the griffins kept trying to get through the blockade by trying to wedge through the spaces between the spears and striking at the guards with their own weapons and claws. Twilight was the first to come crashing through the doors, with two griffon guards being tossed right through the wood. The would-be restrainers were taken good care of.

"What's going on here? Leave the princesses alone!"

"Twilight! Leave this place at once! They'll try and kill you too!"Luna shouted

"I will not leave you! I'll get these crazed lunatics out of here! They haven't even made sense since they came to the castle!"

"I told you to--"

The whole room became silent as an enormous gust of wind tore through the area, with a blinding light illuminating the whole area. The winds were powerful, but not enough to toss anyone but a foal around. When it was finally over, the ponies stared at three humanoid creatures standing over a transparent capsule of sorts. They seemed dazed and had trouble standing. These creatures were frightening, but no one knew what was going on, and simply stared at them. One of these bipeds started to push something on the large capsule, causing it to open and expel what looked like mist. After a minute, the bipeds fixed their gaze onto their surroundings and suddenly noticed the commotion going on. What were they and how did they get there?

The Obion Four

The whole room had gone quiet. It was just as soothing as the meditative chambers of the tenno dojos. There wasn't even a movement caused by the slightest breeze, but while this remained true for the tenno who remained perfectly still and immobile, the griffins and ponies were slightly moving due to their breathing patterns.

"What in Equestria..." Twilight exhaled.

"What's goin' on, Twi?" Applejack yelled as she was followed by the others.

"We heard commotion and rushed here as fast as...we...could..." Rarity stuttered as she looked at the scene in front of her.

The griffins were the first to react to these newcomers.

"What are these? Your 'secret weapons'?" a griffon barked. "Kill them and we'll ensure the safety of our nation!"

Several of the griffin soldiers broke off their attempts to break into the circle of troops and set off towards the humanoids. The frost prime certainly relayed a message to his comrades as they put their weapons back into their sheaths. The prime smacked two spears to the side with the back of its hands before punching the two griffins away. The volt simply grabbed one of the swords and electrified it, giving off the fresh scent of fried griffin in the air. As for the nekros, sweeping underneath the incoming griffins, kicking them in the air, then jumping up and smashing the soldiers down with a split was more than enough to take them down, but griffins were resilient. They hadn't managed to fight against the minotaurs during the Frontier Wars so long ago just because of their flight capability. The tenno did not know the physical composition of the griffins, so they could not disable them by attacking the nerve clusters. Right before the Volt was going to unleash a surge of electrical energy throughout the area, the capsule creaked open as the warframe within slowly got out, still covered in frost. The thumping of rebooting systems emanated from it until everything reactivated.

The frost quickly melted into a torrent of water and steam surrounding the frame like a cloud as it jumped towards a group of spear wielding griffins, pushing the prime away. As it ran towards them, it took out what looked like a cutlass with a hand guard and a watery blue blade and smashed the sword against the spears, literally causing them to explode into pieces and shards. a little orb of energy remained in place and seemed to be accumulating energy towards its center until releasing it all into a violent explosion, blasting the griffins and the shards into all directions. The entity then took out what looked like an old flintlock pistol, the barrel slightly widened at the end with crossbones serving as the protective casing of the pistol. A long cartridge was held underneath and seemed to have false green kelp designed onto it with the kelp slowly climbing upwards to stop at the middle of the gun. The weapon fired off several times, creating small explosions as the pellets hit their targets. Finally, the sounds of mechanical movement and gear spinning came from the mist as flashes blinded everyone looking at it. Several cannonballs had fired into the air and came crashing down, creating immense explosions that the frost prime protected its group from with an orb of extremely solid ice. Celestia and Twilight protected themselves with the help of a their own magic shields.

As the smoke cleared, it gave way to a catastrophe. The throne room had been devastated. Holes and cracks were everywhere. Pieces of the walls had crumbled, and the floor seemed to want to do the same thing. The griffons lay strewn about like confetti and their weapons would certainly not see combat anymore, but the bombardment was not finished. Two cannon balls flew towards Celestia, where they were blocked by the shield with some difficulty. Before another shot could be fired, however, the Frost Prime jumped in and signaled the newly awoken warframe to stop, much to the surprise of the two alicorn sisters and the ponies around them. The frost prime grabbed the warframe by the shoulders and shook it gently, much to the confusion of the surrounding entities.

A short few minutes of recuperation, and the mist had receded from the awoken tenno. Its appearance caught the Obion Three off-guard. This was a brand-new warframe model with a pitch-black coloration and lines running all along its body. It was about the same width, girth, and showed an extreme muscle-mass similar to the very bulky and power-oriented Rhino. On its back there seemed to be two rounded, very long vertical lumps. They had the length of the torso, and judging by the smoke emanating from the portion near the neck, these were two cannons built into the frame. The white lines running along the body seemed to round themselves up around the knees and elbows of the frame. The body seemed rather...fleshy, as it was not smooth, as technology would be, and seemed to be rather wavy and "melted" along the surface. Two circles lined themselves on the chest as well with a line on the stomach, but these lines were practically unviewable. As for the helmet, it was pulled back and had some torn cloth hanging from the back of its head. A row of six white optical cameras lay in a circle upon the right side of the helmet while only two were on the left, and these two were the lower optics. Several pieces of the helmet had been chipped off from some unknown cause, with a large chunk having been removed from the left side of the helmet, giving the impression of an eye patch. The head itself seemed to have been pulled back from all sides towards the back, but the face was still rather squarish, if not for the pieces missing and the very 'melted-flesh' appearance shared with the rest of this warframe.

Twilight carefully tiptoed around the humanoids towards Celestia and Luna, nearly tripping over a crater in the process.

"Princess, what are those things?" Twilight whispered.

"I...I don't know." Celestia answered.

"Oh my. It seems I was late to something." Gaddaveer said as he vaulted over the rubble of the entrance doorway.

Celestia quietly gestured to him to come towards her. The griffin, as usual, seemed disinterested in the whole ordeal. He did notice that a very large black one of these bipeds seemed to be getting analyzed by three others. It didn't seem to react much. It did, however, open something from its mask and belch out a whole ocean of water before closing it back up, retaining much of the water.

"I think your people have done enough for today!" Luna violently whispered at the griffin.

"I am more than aware that my compatriots have been...rather strange lately. They went from discussing diplomatic and economic issues to a full blown war with you. I believe that they were intoxicated and hallucinated, although there's naught we can do for them now." Gaddaveer said as he non-chalantly kicked a charred griffin corpse

"Intoxicated? By whom?"

"If you haven't noticed, a few of the griffins here are missing. While it is true that your new princess threatens the military balance already shattered by the return of the Crystal Kingdom within your domain, this isn't the main concern. Our people have undergone an immense drought, and wild fires ended up destroying more than sixty percent of our cities and towns. Not only that, but we are having diplomatic issues with neighponese accusing us of invading their territory and stealing artifacts. For several reasons, that land is not theirs."

"Do you REALLY think this is the time?! These...THINGS are here for who knows what reason! We'll take care of diplomatic matters when we can assess the current situation." Celestia scolded.

"Fine. I will give you a forty-eight hour reprieve. In the mean time, I shall search for somepony to verify my claims of intoxication. I must attend to other matters, furthermore. Good day."

Gaddaveer proudly walked out of the room, nearly scraping the electrified sides of the Volt in the process. Meanwhile, the alicorns began to talk amongst themselves who would greet these humanoids. Twilight was chosen, so she hesitatingly walked towards the group and said:

"H-h-hello th-there. Wh-wh-wh-what's your name?" she asked the frost prime.

The tenno ignored her.

"H-hey! I'm trying to say hello..."

The group continued to ignore her and continued with whatever tasks they were giving their fellow tenno. Twilight just turned around towards Celestia and shrugged. This wasn't going to be easy if they neither understood the equestrian language nor spoke their own. Without warning, however, the black warframe bowed to the golden one who nodded in acceptance and did something which properly reactivated the new warframe's systems, as shown by what looked like a growing blue bubble that quickly receded around it. A simply was carved into the shoulder of the new tenno with a quick slash of the nikana, but it was too small for the ponies to make out. Celestia called back to Twilight as the humanoids, seemingly certain that their environnement was harmless, crouched down and began to meditate for a short period, certainly to help their new comrade properly reawaken his mind.

"Twilight, these four look like they have some cultural similarities to the Neighponese. It might serve us to get one of their meditative masters over here."

"But that's a bad idea! They-Woah!"

The four warframes let out blasts of energy as they meditated. The nekros let out energy that filled the ponies around with fear, the black warframe let out ash and cinders, the frost prime let out a chilling wave that covered the whole room in a thin layer of frost, and the volt let out an electric wave that broke away the mist.

"As...As I was saying. That's a bad idea because they clearly have immense powers and are extremely skilled in martial arts, if what we've seen is enough. Plus, we have several treaties with the Griffon Empire, and you know how the Neighponese are with griffons. What if he or she sees Gaddaveer? Tensions are already grown like this, and now we have these things!"

"I know, but that best we can do is try to direct them into the garden using picture messages. The golden one seems to be the leader, and I'm not sure why, but I think what we just witnessed were the actions of a confused individual who just awoke from a long coma."

"I hope you're right. Well, I just need some ink and paper..." Twilight nervously said as she slowly turned around to see the tenno looking at her.

The lavender unicorn gave a deep gulp as she looked at them. It was quite frightening to have practically two frames of sight to see them already up and looking directly at you.

"Gah. What happened? Where are we? The forests of Earth?" Captain Vor wondered as he returned to his senses.

The other grineer all rose up steadily as well, but they were just as groggy, if not more.

"You. Lancer. Come here. I need to contact the empire."

"Y...Yes. Yes, sir. Allow me a moment to reach you."

The grineer had all landed in what seemed to be a thick forest with no mountains nearby, at least, no mountains that could be seen.

Vor took a communications device from the lancer and activated it, spinning several holographic crescents in the process, then pushed something on his left ear.

"Empire. I require exfiltration. The plan to reach into the void has met with some...unexpected consequences." Vor said as he tore his key out of the hands of a soldier."Empire? Any troops? Answer your Captain this precise moment or be executed for failing your duties."

"Sir?" the lancer wondered.

Vor slammed the communications device into the chest of the lancer and looked around.

"The dimensional collapse tossed us across the solar system, if not, the galaxy. If worse, across into another galaxy entirely. If it is only in our galaxy, then rescue ships will reach us within days after activating our distress beacon, that you have done, I hope?"

"Yes, captain."

"Good. We cannot stay in unknown territory. As this is an alien planet, we need to make a camp somewhere safer. While open plains would make us easy targets, it would be much easier to spot threats and to defend than waiting to be ambushed or dragged away in this forest."

Vor took a spiked orb from a socket in his armor and threw it at something behind one of his bombards, creating a violent shock and expulsion of yellow electricity. It seemed that a gigantic simian was about to make off with the soldier in secret. The captain stepped on it and pulled out his shocker, putting it back in his socket.

"Do not use your ammunition. Melee weapons only. Until we can find suitable materials, we cannot craft more bullets. We will make our camp with trees from this forest, then I will choose a group of scouts to send to the areas around for sustenance and materials."

The grineer all nodded and followed their captain wherever he was heading. They knew no better, but they lived for the empire. That was reason enough.

Author's Note

Yes. The Teech warframe was an idea of mine that, like several others, never took off on the forums.

Volt vs Lightning

Twilight had met up with Celestia who seemed to be discussing something with her guards about the current events. The lavender alicorn had overheard that there was a commotion in front of the castle. Apparently, the whole conundrum had been heard in the city below and the citizens became concerned with the well-being of their rulers.

"No. You need to tell them that our alchemists had been performing experiments within the basement and an accident occurred," Celestia said.

"Wouldn't that just stress them even more?" the guard wondered as she scratched her head.

"You've already forgotten all the 'accidents' they seem to cause in one month alone?"

"True. Fine. I'll try and spice the report up a bit more to make it seem like it was a rather enormous project."

The guard saluted and galloped out of throne room, nearly bumping into Twilight during the trip.

"Twilight?" Celestia noticed."Back already? How are our guests?"

"Well, Pinkie Pie has been...bizarrely helpful. And Fluttershy seems to like them...save for the boney looking one," Twilight said as she averted her eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"Apparently, these beings have a great understanding of necromancy."

Celestia's breathing nearly stopped as she stared at Twilight, anger filling her eyes.

"What?"

"Well, there was a rabbit who had died awhile ago in your garden. Fluttershy was going to bury it, but then the boney one was moving the body with strange orange tendrils coming from it fingers. I don't know how to explain it."

"I see...They have already demonstrated technology far superior to our own. I wonder..."

Celestia began to rub her chin in thought.

"Well, anyways, I came here to know about the griffons."

"You want to know about the current incident?"

"No. Gaddaveer said he would be taking care of that himself."

"Right. Then what do you wish to know?"

"What exactly is with Gaddaveer?"

"Well, as you know, he's a prince."

"That may be, but why is he...like that? And why is he here? I know he's supposed to represent his people, but isn't it dangerous for a prince to leave his kingdom?"

"Not exactly. In a way, he IS the prince of the kingdom, but he isn't anymore."

"I...what?"

"Well, he revoked his title to found the Ranchor house."

"You can do that?"

"Yes. In the tradition of the griffons, a male can secede from the house to found his own, provided he is or has attained a status of noble. Gaddaveer has always been...something special," Celestia said as she rubbed the back of her neck."He refused to take over the kingdom after his father would die, which enraged the king. He didn't want to be part of the same lineage, you see. Gaddaveer then gathered some allies and founded the Ranchor house after he officially declared his secession. Strangely enough, his 'friends' ended up being rather powerfully positioned griffons, with some being leaders of manufacturing companies while others had minor or major positions in the governmental stature."

"So...he acts that way because of...stress, maybe?" Twilight wondered with nearly crossed eyes.

"I think it's more likely that is his personality. He's blunt about his thoughts and feelings and doesn't care about the state of others during his 'revelations'."

"Huh. Anyways, there's also the matter of the territorial conflicts between griffons and neighponies."

"Yes. Unfortunately, until the two parties send us information regarding the sites, and our own archaeologists, being of a neutral party, analyze everything there, we can't discuss it yet aside from making simple assumptions."

"And that wouldn't be effective in the matter," Twilight sighed.

The sound of thunder crackled outside, giving off an ominous feeling to the ponies within the castle, dragging the attention of the two alicorns to watch the random flashes outside."

"That's strange. I don't recall seeing anything about there being a thunderstorm by the weather team," Twilight said with a frown.

Rainbow Dash hurried through the already destroyed doors and stopped right in front of Twilight, blowing wind in her face.

"What's wrong?" Twilight asked.

"I couldn't find the supreme commander in his office after asking the guards where it was then I looked around the castle really fast like I always do and went outside then this started to happen," Rainbow Dash took in a deep inhale.

Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash with an estranged look while slowly turning to face Celestia.

"Did you understand anything, princess? Princess?" Twilight asked.

Celestia's face was suddenly overflown by fear.

"I have the worst idea on what could be happening. We need to reach the garden right away!"

Celestia rushed through the hallway with Twilight and Rainbow Dash asking what was going on. The look of the staff watching the flashes outside and the sounds of thunder were giving off a more fearful emotion from the situation until the three reached the garden. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were hugging a wall just underneath a tower while watching the scene. The whole middle of the maze had been completely destroyed and looked like a charred crater with dead branches growing out of the ground. The supreme commander was attacking the volt with lightning and thunder. He was somehow capable of controlling the weather in order to create lighting and thunder. The sight was nothing, if not impressive, as, while the commander was launching lighting from the clouds, the volt was dodging the blasts and throwing its own lightning at the commander, who jumped to the sides as well. Bizarrely, though, the other three were nowhere to be seen.

The three galloped to the two ponies against the wall. Twilight was the first to ask a question to the two ponies hugging the wall.

"What's going on? What happened? Why is the supreme commander fighting the electric biped?"

"WellwewerehavingalittlediggingpartywherethecoldguywantedtomakeazengardensowestartedtodothatthenFluttershystartedtalkingtotheskinnyguyabouttheanimalsbutIdon'tknowifhecouldunderstandhersowekeptdoingsomediggingthenthescarystallioncameupsaying'Intruders. Must remove from grounds.'orsomethinglikethatthentheskiesgotdarkandtheystartedtofightsoIgrabbedFluttershyandwewentagainstthewall," Pinkie smiled.

"...What?" Celestia moaned from a headache.

"They were doing things then the supreme commander arrived, accused the four of intruding, and wants to remove them from the premises."

"Oh, great. I need to stop them."

Celestia had barely put a hoof forward that an enormous cannonball slammed right in front of her. The Volt had raised an enormous shield of electricity which was holding back the strikes coming from the commander. The warframe took out its glaive and threw it to the left, making it ricochet and catch the stallion off-guard, causing him to tumble over. This allowed the nekros to come out of the remaining bushes and strike at the pony, nearly slicing him in two if he didn't raise his own shield of electricity. The invisible blade only cut him slightly, but still caused a good bleeding. He was going to jump out of the way and thunder the nekros when the teech warframe jumped in front of him. The cannons on its back extended, twisted a bit, then faced the ground. The barrels fired, belching out an enormous amount of black soot and smoke that engulfed the garden. The ponies nearby began to cough and squint in pain as they inhaled the fumes, but the commander did not. His eyes teared up, but he continued to be vigilant.

"What...the? What's wrong with him?" Twilight asked aloud.

Lightning began to strike randomly in every direction in the smoke while the commander began to look around for the position of his enemies. Without warning, an enormous avalanche of ice and snow smashed through the smoke and caught everypony in its trap. Using his powers, the commander melted away the ice and snow by channeling extreme electrical through his body, only to be kicked in the air by the Volt, punched several times, causing him to spin in place, then to be kicked further into the grasp of the teech warframe who smashed him painfully into the ground. Even after this ordeal, the stallion wasn't about to give up, even with what seemed to be a broken foreleg.

"That's enough! The puppeteer holds the strings still," Celestia shouted at the commander.

"Huh?" Fluttershy wondered aloud.

The warframes standing around the commander seemed to be taken aback by the sudden immobility of the stallion.

"The puppeteer tells its doll to return to its case," Celestia added with worry.

"I shall return to my office," the supreme commander said.

Unfortunately, he was limping rather fiercely and his eyes seemed damaged, what with them being red like a bell pepper and leaking like a raining cloud.

"No. You shall report to the infirmary for health inspection and assessment."

"I shall do that."

The group of ponies just watched the commander as he slowly limped into the castle, sometimes nearly tripping over whilst doing so. Pinkie Pie just looked blankly into the void, bringing the attention of Rainbow Dash to her.

"Pinkie? You okay?" the cyan pegasus asked as she waved a foreleg in front of Pinkie's face.

"That...was...AWESOME!" she yelled as she ran towards the four tenno and began to yell about everything she saw.

"Princess, what just happened?" Twilight asked.

"It's what I was afraid. The supreme commander is from project 'Puppet'. He is a puppet."

"A what?" Rainbow wondered.

"It was...I'll tell you tomorrow with my sister. For now, I suggest you see to the wellbeing of these aliens and get some rest later."

The four just looked behind them to see Pinkie Pie laughing as she was being tossed hard and high into the air by the teech before being caught and going through the same process. The other three just seemed to watch as he did this.

"At least Pinkie pie is having fun with them," Celestia thought to herself.

Author's Note

This was more of a "mystery and question" chapter than anything. At least I gave enough to ponder on. :D

Lephantis reborn

The day was just starting to reveal itself once more with the tired, orange colors slowly dissipating from the horizon. Everypony was starting to wake up after a comfortable nap in their warm, cozy beds and were ready to take on the day once more...but this wasn't the case for everyone. A heavily armored fort was sitting in the only pass of the mountain, and the griffons were suffering relentless strikes from infested. The walls of the gigantic mountain pass gradually closing in from the sides and the clear sky above them were the only landscapes the griffons of the fort were used to, but today. Today, there were swarms of bizarre creatures, fleshy growths running along the ground, and bizarre flying orange spore swarms. The fort's stone walls were high enough that the creatures could not jump over them, and they were thick enough that the walls could not be punched down. The ballista imbued with special tribal magic only known to the griffins was capable of rapid firing immense bolts of corrosive power at any invader, so the strange creatures weren't capable of properly attacking the solid fort.

"Sir, we're going to run low on supplies soon. The ballista are holding, but what happens if one of these things starts to fly?" an exhausted griffin asked his commander.

"Then you fly up and claw them to death. We don't have these razor sharp talons for manicure sessions, soldier!" the commander bellowed.

"But everyone who has tried to gut them without gauntlets became infected with something."

"They sacrificed themselves for their empire. Why don't you?!"

The commander simply looked at the soldier shrink and cave in under his menacing glare. It didn't take long for the soldier to speed up towards the walls to take up defensive positions. It had literally started just hours ago after the daily reports from several small towns were never sent. Strange fleshy growths had formed within the forests and had begun to stretch even further. They were apparently growing over the mountains and invading the griffin kingdom. Such ferocity and devastation had not been seen since the war against the crystallions, but an alliance with the minotaurs and a few tribes that had long departed the world had been sufficient to destroy them. With these creatures...it was another tale. Luckily, no flying ones had been seen yet, but the commander had the feeling that something big was coming. Several more explosions from experimental claw-bombs were heard in the background before all the griffin in the fort keeled over and held their heads in pain.

"You refuse us, yet we accept you. If you cannot see your own for what we are, then you will accept us with regret."

After that message, the entirety of the griffin force raised their heads in confusion and looked around in hopes of discovering the source of that message.

"What is that? It looks different from the rest," a soldier said.

The whole field in front of the fort was strewn with bodies and the strange spore swarms flying around. At the horizon, on the edge of the hill stood the halo creature. It wasn't movie, and the other strange abominations weren't moving either. It was as if they had been paralyzed or frozen. The griffin garrison was completely confused.

"Sir, they aren't moving. I think they...shut down, or something."

"Shut down? Why would they--"

The commander was interrupted by violent shaking in the ground. The tremors weren't slowing and stopping as would be expected. These ones just became more and more violent until pieces of stone were sliding out of their positions and falling on those unlucky enough to be below them. Suddenly, a long serpentine shape blasted out of the ground, flipping the ground and tearing away at the rocks around it. As the gravel and dust fell off the body, it revealed a monstrous being with an enormous, triple-segmented maw. This creature was blue grayish in coloration, and its two arms had fused together to form an organic scythe. As the commander looked at it twist and turn its head, there were several moments of painful and frightening silence. Expectedly, the creature roared very violently, opening its maw and revealing what looked like a face with a bright, glowing red mouth. It swung the scythe at the commander who promptly dodged. He shouldn't have, as the scythe smashed into the buildings built within the camp, tearing them apart and throwing debris over the walls.

"What in the abyss is that thing?! Shoot it!" one of the soldiers yelled in a panic.

The ballista was turned around and began to launch their corrosive bolts at the creature who did not notice the threat and found itself pierced by several enormous spears. It howled in pain as the mixture ate through its flesh. It quickly retreated below the surface, filling the tunnel it had just made. Many of the soldiers were gasping in a panic and looking around.

"What is going on here?" the commander thought to himself.

"The others still aren't moving," a soldier on the walls shouted.

"Did we kill it?" another asked aloud.

"It isn't coming back."

More rumbling started to shake the mountain pass, prompting the garrison to ready itself for the scythe wielding monstrosity to return within. Instead, they heard the ground get upturned from the other side of the walls.

"There it is! Shoot...Wait. Something is wrong," a scout noticed."It's not the same one."

This one bore more of a resemblance to the halo creature from afar. Both had the golden halo construct behind their heads, but this one had an extremely elongated maw reminiscent of a caiman. At the end of this maw sat one red eye that viewed everything in front of it. It swayed gently from left to right, apparently assessing the situation.

"What does it plan on doing from that distance?"

"I don't know. I'll just shoot it with this ballista and...It's vomiting..."

A loud, disgusting and gooey belch came out from the mouth of this creature, but it had its head turned upwards. The griffin were unfortunate enough to notice strange objects flying towards them and started to panic. As soldier slammed into soldier, little black balls glued themselves all over the walls, towers, and inner portion of the fort. The troops readied themselves to get attacked by something, but relaxed when they didn't do anything. One of them even went close to one that had stuck to the wall's pathway and poked it.

"H-hey! They're not doing anything."

"That thing disappeared."

"It's okay, commander. They're harmless."

As the griffins began to mock the projectiles, the commander saw them begin to glow with an orange tint throughout what seemed to be veins and yelled:

"No! Get away from them!"

"But commander, they're harm--"

Several loud and violent explosions followed each other in succession, tossing debris and corpses in all directions. The commander shielded his eyes from the event, only to be given a scene that would cause any inexperienced griffon to heave their breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Those that were standing by in the garrisons carved into the mountain walls came out, spear in claws and ready to fight. They didn't exactly like what they saw.

"Wh-what happened?" one of them asked.

The shaking happened again, this time, revealing yet another of these serpentine creatures.

"JUST HOW MANY OF YOU ARE THERE?!" the commander yelled.

This one had a bluish base which returned to a white-gray after reaching one-third of the body. Whatever this creature was, it had incredible long and wide tentacle arms which covered what appeared to be an enormous, white, rectangular head. This time, there was no hesitation, and the archers behind the group were ordered to shoot at the creature. This had little to no effect, as the arrows either broken once they hit the tentacles, or they simply bounced. Removing said tentacles, the creature spat out several large, glowing green balls at the archers, then dug deep into the ground.

"Get out of there! They explode!" the commander shouted.

The archers panicked and were about to fly off, but the balls erupted into virulent clouds of green smoke. It took mere moments for the griffons to cough in pain and drop dead. The cloud quickly dissipated, but someone had to get to the king and warn the empire of this doom.

"You!" the commander said as he pointed at a rookie."You're young. You're new. Bring your experience and knowledge of these creatures to the king. The empire must know."

"But--"

That's an order!" the commander shouted at the top of his lungs.

The rookie stumbled over and ran away throught the mountain pass. The others just stared at him then looked back at their commanding officer.

"Why did you let him go?"

"He's young, and he was the only kid sent here. Might as well send him back. He still has lots of things to see."

"Yes...but we don't know anything about him. How do we know if he'll do it?"

"It was my order. Do not question me again. Now, let us kill these beasts before they kill u--"

The ground had quite literally rupture like a crater, leaving place to a rising abomination nearly twice the height of the previous serpentine creatures.

"What in the name of the air..."the commander gasped.

The three creatures had joined together, with their 'tails' having become three legs on a conjoined lower body. The scythe weilder looked at them and said:

"We are Lephantis. We are the ancestor. Consume us. Be reborn."

[/hr]

Twilight groggily walked towards the garden of the castle, her eyes stinging with fatigue. The dim sunlight didn't help her, and she just wanted to go back to sleep. She had been up all night studying for the actual owners of whatever land it was the griffons and neighponese were fighting over, but she was also studying the way these creatures used magic. They didn't have any horns which suggested they channeled magic from somewhere else. Although it looked like they used their hands to control and channel it, where was it stored?

As these thoughts still swept over Twilight's mind, he opened the door to the gardens and got a face full of chilly gust. The alicorn shivered a bit and looked at the two guards stationed at the door. They were wearing coats of fur-grass colored white in order to match their own appearance. The four creatures were sitting in a seiza position and didn't even seem fazed by the elements nor the luminosity. All four were placed in a sort of x position and were facing an empty center with a bizarre shaped was formed with rocks.

"Huh. That must be how they sleep. I thought they were staying in the middle of the maze."

"After the event with the supreme commander...they somehow went outside of the castle grounds," the guard to Twilight's right said.

"What? And you didn't stop them?"

"By the time we noticed, they had disappeared. We didn't move from our spots."

"We simply blinked, and they had disappeared," the other guard said.

"What? Why didn't you call me or the princesses?" Twilight stomped on the ground.

"We didn't...want to worry you..."

Twilight's face puffed up in anger.

"Anyways, after a few hours, they returned," the other guard said.

"Y-yeah. They had plants in their...claws? Talons? I don't know. They just had several plants."

"What kinds?" Twilight wondered as she looked towards the creatures.

"Well...Onions...mormers...fur-grass...some polywraith mushroom.-, some--"

"Polywraith mushroom? Those are extremely difficult to get! They grow near the Ivamora in the Everfree. Even if they managed to travel such a distance so quickly and got them, that mushroom emits a cloud of spores that dissolves anything but the ground!"

"Well, some say the mushrooms also grow within the feces of the pourpros," the left guard added.

"I...I'll want a full report on the occurrence later today. What did they do with those? Did they eat them? Cook them to eat them?"

"They put them into a stone bowl and boiled everything together. The giant one put a weird powder into the mixture then let the rest simmer a bit," the left guard scratched his head as he tried to remember everything.

"The cold one took the bowl, then its sword, poured the substance on it, then let the product slide along its sword onto the ground where the lightning destroyed the maze," the right guard said.

"I remember that..." Twilight groaned.

"Yes, but do you notice anything with the garden?"

The lavender alicorn looked around the garden, then noticed Pinkie Pie sitting with the four bipeds. She had tried her best to sit as they did, but settled with sitting on her flank like ponies usually do...unless you count Lyra.

"Pinkie Pie!" Twilight whisper-screamed."What are you doing there?"

The pony didn't move. Twilight was about to move towards her friend when the right guard stopped her with a wing extension.

"What?" Twilight asked in frustration.

"We weren't talking about your friend," the left guard said.

"Or how...they've been...sitting there...since nightfall..." the right guard twitched.

"They've been..."

Twilight Sparkle stared once more at the four bipeds. Even though she noticed that it seemed to be turning into a habit, she just couldn't fathom what kind of creatures these were. Was this immobility a sign of extreme discipline and training, or was this something inherent for all their species?

"Notice anything with the maze?" the left guard asked.

"Yeah. It's still burnt and destroyed since...yester...day..."

The maze entrance, which had been uprooted and destroyed the day prior was now fully green and seemed even bigger and healthier than before. Twilight couldn't believe her eyes, so she took flight. She was going to see just exactly how much the maze had regrown. To her shock and disbelief, the entire maze had been reborn. No scorch marks remained. No dead bushes and burnt branches were still on the ground or strewn about the garden. The zen garden was still there along with what looked like typical neighponese garden ornaments and a carved statue of an unknown creature who seemed to have a head covered with little balls overlooked by a giant one all the way at the peak of the head, but she couldn't get a proper view of the rest of it from her angle and height. The entire place had been regrown, and it seemed that, around the zen garden there were patches of freshly dug dirt. Perhaps they were also gardeners? Their knowledge of biology was astounding. It had become apparent that they had never been on this world before, but they already had so much knowledge of Equestria's botany...or perhaps, Equestria's plants were very similar to those they knew? She had to report this to the princess.

In a feat of acrobacy that even Rainbow Dash would be jealous of, Twilight immediately flew into the throne room, not realizing that Luna, Celestia, and all her friends were already.

"Princess Celestia! It's incredible! You won't believe what the bipeds did! They...Pinkie Pie?! But you were--"

"We do believe that you were instructed to be here early in the morning to hear our story and the explanation of what the supreme commander is," Luna frowned t the newest alicorn.

"But, the creatures! They--"

"That is enough! Sit with the elements. You may be an alicorn, but you must learn restraint. You may speak to us of whatever mundane feats these creatures have performed at the end of this story. In the meantime, the gardeners shall be here soon to see how they might fix the maze," Luna said as she rubbed her chin.

The alicorn sat next to Pinkie with an angry scowl on her face. Pinkie's muffled chuckling didn't seem to help the situation.

"Right. Thank you, Luna. We told you, at least, we told four of you that the Supreme Commander was a puppet, correct?"

"Yes," Fluttershy nervously said.

She nearly shrunk away when Luna looked at her.

"Well, a long time ago, the council had perceived a threat coming from the lands up north. A large army had been conquering lands far and wide and were coming towards Equestria. To prepare for them, we had been developing our technology and magic, but it wasn't enough. We needed what Luna calls 'super soldiers'."

"Some time ago, when my sister and I were still foals, a strange object had landed somewhere near the castle. We don't exactly know where. Unlike my sister, who was sleeping at the time, I was awake. It was night, after all. A group of the council's militia and arcans had secured the object and were taking it to a place we do not know. What we do know about the object itself is that it was glowing with an incredible brightness and it took ten arcans to transport the object."

"Um, excuse me for my interruption, princess, but what exactly is an 'arcan'?" Rarity asked.

"Ah, yes. I forgot that ponies of today use different terms. Arcans are arch-wizards. These are some of the most powerful magicians of the world. They possess power second only to my sister and I."

"AND IT TOOK TEN TO HOLD THAT THING?! That's like...a bajillion gazillion alicorns!" Pinkie exaggerated.

Applejack simply facehoofed.

"Yes. Well, the council at the time of the threat tried to use that object to empower ponies. Experiments were...dire, to say the least."

"As my sister was imprisoned at the time, I had to supervise the plans. They were horrid and awful and, in the end, I was about to cancel the project. The ones who lost their lives didn't deserve it. The lines north of Equestria were fortified and our alliance with the griffons had just formed to aid us in the upcoming conflict thanks to our trade agreements. Mountains are rich in ore, and Equestria was rich in forests and farmlands, so the trades were perfect for this alliance to last. Strangely, the same day I was going to cancel the project, news came to us at the castle. It had seemed that some sort of...thing had appeared out of thin air and was blocking an enormous amount of land. It was the easiest point that allowed four different nations, ours included, to travel to each other."

"The Nyum-Bunet," Twilight whispered.

"Exactly. Whatever it was, my scouts had told me that the army had created over two-thousand ski-boats to cross the sandy landscape and into our lands. These had been made after several failed attempts with others sinking into the ground."

"One of the scouts still remembers the stories and still laughs to this day," Luna rubbed her face in irritation.

"Each of these boats was big enough to house over two-hundred troops."

"How many got through?" Rainbow Dash asked in excitement.

The pegasus was eager to hear the stories of defense of Equestria against the surviving invaders. Her face was ripe with excitement.

"None. No boats got through. Of the four hundred thousand soldiers, zero made it here."

Rainbow Dash immediately went pale at the thought of whatever could have destroyed them all. If Twilight was right, this 'nyum-bunet' was something to fear.

"Still, this has protected our borders from the invaders and any potential ones, and the project was shut down with zero successful attempts."

"Recently, one of the council members came by with a young stallion. He was rather...absent, but seemed to obey every order we gave him," Luna said.

"He possessed tremendous strength and this frightened even us. He was similar to the arcans of old. I studied the subliminal messages of the project and still remembered them, but I never used them. I wanted to forget. What I saw yesterday confirmed that somepony continued the project and succeeded."

"How do ya know it ain't the council guy?" Applejack asked.

"Because he is too afraid of offending us to do anything. He has a kind heart, but his backbone is poorly developed," Luna chuckled.

"After a unanimous vote, he had become supreme commander of the guards and has worked hard for that task ever since," Celestia frowned.

"We have succeeded in getting the object transported to the castle in order to let you observe it. You might recognize it from something. We are not sure. You can bring it in n--" Luna was interrupted in her order by one of the gardeners who had just arrived.

"Princesses, I am sorry if I seem impertinent, but is this a joke?"

"What do you mean?" Celestia asked.

"There's nothing wrong with your garden. In fact, it looks more like it needs to be trimmed."

"Let's see what you're talking about," Celestia said.

Everypony but Twilight left the throne room with curiosity. Twilight waited, then followed with a frown and a face that said "I told you so". Much to her lack of surprise, her friends and the princesses had their mouths wide open. The four bipeds didn't seem to have moved, though. Luna slowly turned her head around and stared at Twilight with the same face of stupor.

"Perhaps you guys could tell Princess Luna the whole story."

Golden battery

"So they have an immense understanding in botany? But even our arcans were never capable of such feats," Luna pondered.

The moon princess turned to face Twilight and said:

"I apologize for my attitude earlier, Twilight Sparkle. I am...on edge. Is that the expression?" Luna looked at her sister.

"Yes. Pinkie Pie, perhaps you should bring them inside?"

"Why her?" Rarity asked.

"Because I know them better than anypony, silly," the pink pony laughed as she hopped towards the meditating tenno.

"This still doesn't explain how they managed such a biological exploit with what they used. There has never been anything significant to note about those plants except some deadly properties in a few," Luna said.

The alicorn immediately jumped back in fright as a freezing hand touched her shoulder. It was the tall biped etched in gold.

"O-oh. There you are. Follow us," Luna said.

The group starting moving to the throne room, but the tenno stayed in place. This dragged the attention of the ponies who lacked at them in confusion.

"Why aren't they moving?" Luna asked.

" 'Cause they don't know how ta speak our language," Applejack said.

Pinkie Pie bounced towards them again and incited them to follow by using her foreleg and waving it several times towards the hallway. To everypony's surprise, they followed, although their presence within the castle seemed to stress all the servants and attendants. After finally returning to the throne room, Celestia called for the transport team to finally enter the room. They had been waiting patiently, as they considered the object to be very dangerous and not for the faint of heart. From the left they came in, a wooden platform holding a cement case with a glass opening at the top. Whatever was in it was glowing rather fiercely, as if not wanting to be in there. Four ponies wearing what looked like specialized, white and green hazmat suits carried the platform while two others, unicorns this time, contained the case with their magic.

"Here it is, your highness. Please be extra careful. We still don't fully understand it." one of the containment ponies said.

"Thank you," Celesta said with a light nod.

The platform was placed in front of the small amount of stairs made to reach the two thrones of the sisters. The ponies all awwed at the sight. Not all reactions were the same, though.

"It's...beautiful. If I could something like that for one of my dresses," Rarity gawked.

"It could help us see through the night when we need to perform emergency weather clearing," Rainbow Dash wondered.

"Oh, Rainbow Dash. So uncouth. Something like this couldn't be used for such a...trivial pursuit. It is meant to be used in a more decorative manner."

"Ah think Rainbow has a point, darlin'. That thing there could scare off quite a few nasty critters back at mah farm," Applejack lifted an eyebrow.

"I think it should be kept in there. Something so bright...It could scare my poor animals," Fluttershy whined.

"That's the point! Keep all them nasty bats away from mah apples and them crows from mah seeds."

"That's a horrible thing to do! They'll be panicking and having anxiety attacks for days!"

While the others were bickering, Pinkie Pie and Twilight leaned in to have a closer look. The artifact in question didn't exactly have a definable shape. It was rounded, yes, but that was more because of its inherent smoothness. The front was the largest part and seemed to have two small arms waiting to clamp onto something. The sides looked like speckles of golden light glowing outwards before fading and then having the process repeat itself, and this area seemed to be in carved portion. Below it were four vertical stripes on each side that followed the same glowing pattern as the middle portions.

"That would be great as a candle," Pinkie laughed.

"Be serious, Pinkie Pie."

"What dost thou...ahem, what do you think of this contraption. As my sister and I have many duties we are obligated to uphold, we cannot study as proficiently as you can. Have you come across anything that resembles this?" Luna asked.

"Wait...your researchers never figured out what it was?" Twilight chuckled.

"Well..." Luna blushed and looked away.

"They were too preoccupied with my sister's return and the project to figure out its origins."

"Well...I've never seen this kind of construction. It's something foreign. That's obvious enough. Hmmm. Maybe the creatures above the 'crack' in the ocean know? They seem advanced enough."

"Nopony has ever caught a glimpse of these supposed 'Guardians of the Abyss'. They don't exist," Luna growled.

"Maybe it's from space?" Pinkie Pie said aloud.

"Pinkie Pie, don't be ridiculous. It couldn't have survived the entry into our atmosphere. It's far too small."

As the groups blabbered on, they didn't notice the nekros who had walked calmly through the group and towards the artifact. As it opened the case, the light flashed brightly and a very loud humming noise filled everypony's ears.

"What are you doing?! Put that back! You could get hurt!" Celestia pleaded.

As the containment ponies were about to restrain the tenno and the artifact, the glowing and humming stopped, and the object rested in the warframe's hand. The alicorns and the containment unit gasped as they saw it non-chalantly walk towards the frost prime with the object in hand. It looked like they were having a discussion, but, as usual, they were silent.

"Wadda ya think they're talkin' about?" Applejack wondered.

"I don't know. They managed to grab that object without hindrance and don't seem bothered by it," Celestia noted.

"Maybe it's only that one who can hold it?" Fluttershy thought.

After a few instances, the frost prime grabbed the artifact and tossed it to the teech who grabbed the item and allowed some sort of strange hatch to open in its chest. It inserted it vertically and, with a click, the object began to glow again before the opening closed up. No later did the tenno put the orokin reactor in its warframe that a massive outburst of energy swept through the throne room, forcing the ponies to shield their faces. A shield of blue energy surrounded its body as its systems adapted to the added power it received.

"It...It used it..." Luna pointed at the tenno with a trembling hoof.

'It was theirs this whole time..." Celestia struggled to say."Twilight, I think we'll have to put their powers through a test before we can properly accept them, now. If they utilize this power, then we have been fools to stop them. I believe they can bring a halt to the war between griffons and neighponese if it ever starts," the princess continued.

"But princess, I have several complaints about that!" Twilight said.

"And what are they?"

"Well-"

[/hr]

Grineer troops were ransacking the nearby village to frighten the inhabitants, but for what reason, they didn't know. There was a long line outside of the town where grineer troops were counting the numbers of their new workers. As there was a language barrier between the two, grineer showed what they wanted with tools they would toss at the newly accounted workers. There was one stallion, though, who did not accept what they were doing and was fighting the grasp of a trooper.

"Let go of me you malformed abominations! We'll never work for you!"

'Stop...struggling...Someone help me deal with this unlawful creature."

A commander teleported in the place of his trooper, confusing the latter with the sudden position changing. The commander looked exactly like the normal troopers, save for the helmet that was elongated upwards. Without hesitation, the commander took a cleaver from a nearby butcher class soldier, and thrust the weapon into the skull of the stallion and letting it rest there for several moments before letting go of the arm and allowing the body to limply fall on the ground. Several of the ponies were horrified, with some vomiting.

"These are new worker slaves for the queens. If they are disobedient, dispose of them. We don't have time for their complaints. We've already established a foothold here and must wait for rescue," the commander said.

"Provided the tenno scoom don't detect the signal don't discover it and trace it to us," a scorpion complained as she dragged the corpse.

Vor came from afar, surrounded by a few of his bodyguards. He looked around at the display, cleared his throat and calmed his breathing. He frowned as he saw equines being registered and given tools. He even spotted a tiny foal trying to hold a pickaxe and have it tumble uncontrollably from its grasp. One of the grineer near the register grabbed the foal and lifted it in the air with a single hand. The grineer immediately dropped it as Vor arrived, a face of apathy painted over it. Apparently, the foal interpreted this as him being a 'good guy' and, thinking he would protect him, jumped on his leg and began to cry. The grineer around looked at it and kept a face of stern seriousness. Internally, though, they were laughing.

As Vor looked down at it, he understood that it saw him as a possible ally, and as he stared at it, it looked back at him with adorable, big watery eyes. It seemed cute...but what did he care? Without a moment of hesitation, the captain kicked the foal off of his mechanical leg and through a house's window, horrifying the mother who spouted some sort of rage filled sentence and charged at the grineer. The captain took out his seer pistol and shot a yellow beam through the mother's skull. Her horn stopped glowing and she fell, head first, onto the ground, and slid forward before stopping at the captain's feet. The grineer captain wiped his mechanical feet then look at the register and asked:

"Why are you registering these...pets?"

"They...We searched through the entirety of this village, and not one human was found. Only these equidae. After awhile, we came to the conclusion that they were the intelligent species of this planet. They are very strange looking," the register said as he looked at the line.

The Captain heard more commotion from afar and turned to see an equine rolling on the floor in pain with red coming from it.

"Hey captain, look. This one has wings," a grineer noted.

"Hm. They could escape. The hellion jetpacks can't go very high and we don't know the capabilities of these things. Lock down the fliers and get the majority of them mining for ore. We need to start building ammo for our weapons to prepare for what might be a lengthy stay here."

[/hr]

"Tenno, we have intercepted a grineer distress beacon three solar systems away. It is possible that your comrades are with them. Go there to investigate. I will upload the coordinates to your navigation consoles. Get there before the grineer reinforcements."

The stars are coming

The four tenno had been taken to the recruit training grounds. It was one made for the earth ponies and had been placed within a giant barracks close to the castle walls. The place was immense and outfitted with several walls covered by cardboard griffons outfitted with ancient armor. Twilight noticed this after seeing a few broken boards placed against a wall to the right of the entrance and asked Celestia:

"Why are the targets griffons with that really old armor? I've never seen any of their soldiers wearing those."

The armor in question was quite bulky and seemed to be mainly made of brown leather wrapped around their bodies. Only the front chest and the shoulder areas of their forelegs seemed to hold any kind of metal armor, although what kind of metal Twilight didn't know. She could only see the immediate front of the griffon, so it was unknown if there was more metal plating elsewhere.

"Oh. This is a very ancient training arena for the Royal Guards. It was before my time. Apparently, it was made for the predecessor of the Royal Guard: The Council's Militia."

"They had their own army?"

"In a way. I think we had entered a war with the griffons. I don't recall. The militia had an outright sadistic Supreme Commander at the time. He had a habit of impaling griffons on poles and would leave the weapons on the field of battle like that."

Twilight gulped in fear and felt an electrical tingling in the air.

"Speaking of supreme commanders, here is the current one," Luna said.

The Supreme Commander had limped through the glass doors, a cast on his leg and patches on his ribs and head. One of the bands were wrapped around the right said of his face, covering his eye. It seemed, though, that he burnt a hole through it in order to see with that eye again. As always, the stallion was emotionless in both expression and posture.

"What are you doing here?! I told you to report to the nurse and have yourself healed," Celestia sighed.

"I must attend to my duties. Physical hampering will not prevent me from doing such. Might I inquire as to why the intruders are currently in the training barracks of my Royal Guards?"

"We..."

"We're going to test their abilities. We...discovered some unusual information regarding them and want to see what exactly they're capable of," Twilight said.

The lavender alicorn looked at Celestia apologetically, but the sun princess simply gave a nod so as to indicate her thanks to that quick intervention.

"Will they be timed?" the commander asked.

"Well, we didn't think of that, but that would be a great idea," Twilight said with joy.

"A pegasus is always used to view the recruits go through the obstacle course and measure the time it is required for them to complete the course. Several courses are present in this facility. The one in front of you is the obstacle course for earth ponies. The intruders will attempt to pass this one."

"I can check on them!" Rainbow Dash shouted with excitement.

The supreme commander handed her a stopwatch and watched her fling above the course next to an instructor who was frightened by the immediate appearance of another pony next to him.

"The best time was done by Ellamus Onionweed. He completed the course in one minute and twenty seconds. Who will be first."

The four tenno were standing behind the group, watching and observing the events, actions, and sounds happening around them. They were oblivious to the conversation about them. Twilight sighed and rubbed her forehead in frustration.

"I'll draw another picture," she said.

Taking the usual from a nearby table, the mare drew a little maze showing the tenno going through it. It had a strange looking stick figure in front of the maze with a long line in front of it, leading to the exit where the stick figure was jumping in joy. There was also a clock in the upper right corner. Once the four had properly analyzed the depiction, they nodded, and Volt was the first to go to the starting line. He lowered himself in a the running many position and waited.

"Ooo! Ooo! I want to let him start!" Pinkie Pie said as she bounced in excitement.

"Okay! Here. Take this flag and wave down when you're ready," Luna said as she handed a make-shift white cloth stuck to a wooden pole.

The pink pony bounced towards he entrance and, the moment she got near it, stomped on the ground and put on a frightening serious look. She glanced left and right for a moment, raised the flag, then lowered it while saying:

"Go!"

Volt energized its body with electricity, giving off a weird buzzing sound as he did so. Much to the ponies' surprise, the warframe had already bolted off. It had barely been seven seconds and he was already halfway through the course. From her aerial perch, Rainbow could see it running along the walls, then skipping off them to run on another and continue its momentum. When faced with a tall wall, it ran up the obstacle then flipped over it once reaching the top. Even the obstacles requiring a pony to crawl on the ground were of little inconvenience as Volt simply slid underneath the lengthy distance. The pegasi who were training around the aerial course had stopped to see the biped quite literally 'bolt' through the course. When Volt finally reached the end, Rainbow Dash stopped the timer and said, in disbelief:

"T...Twenty seconds."

There was an eerie silence in the building after Rainbow said those words. Even she couldn't believe it. Expecting a reaction, Applejack took a peek at the commander, only to notice that he wasn't fazed at all.

"Impressive. A new record. Next," the commander said.

As Nekros prepared for his turn, Applejack slowly slid towards the two sisters, creeping Luna out as she looked like she was slowly approaching her with a terrible poker face.

"Princess Celestia, that supreme guard gah really creeps me out."

"That project was made so that the soldiers would be emotionless and every and all regards. The problem with it is that they become completely incapable of living on their own. Luckily, he was raised by the guards and knows right from wrong as well as how to live on his own."

"Wasn't that a bit wrong ta let guards take care of him? Ah mean, he was just a colt."

Celestia had no real answer and shrugged. Applejack became skeptical at this point about the princess' intentions.

Nekros' run was much longer, ending at thirty-five seconds, but he seemed to not care about the obstacles at all what with him non-chalantly jumping over everything. Next was Frost Prime. Despite being very slow, he still managed to finish in around twenty-seven seconds. As for Teech, he plowed through the entirety of the course, smashing through the walls and platforms. Frost Prime seemed disappointed in this display of barbarism. He seemed to be scolding the new warframe at the exit.

At long last, the supreme commander showed a smidgen of emotion. His eyes widened as the obstacle course collapse into pieces.

"That obstacle course was created using armed concrete. It charged through the material without effort."

"Armed concrete? I thought only dragons could destroy those? D-d-d-does that mean they're dragons?!" Fluttershy stuttered.

"Don't be silly, Fluttershy. It's clear that they aren't from here. I think it's even clearer that they aren't from our world," Rarity noted.

"Wh-what do you mean?" Twilight asked.

"Come now. Have you ever seen anypony with those kinds of powers or outfits? I mean, the only bipeds we know of are the minotaurs, and these gentleponies have nowhere near the same body shape as them. I mean, if you think about it, they aren't similar to Iron Will in any way."

As the conversation was about to become more complex, strange sounds started to come from outside. Ponies were heard yelling, and the building shook slightly. Without warning, the doors were torn out of their hinges, showing what looked like a gigantic, misshapen biped wearing weird armor. It was a bombard of Captain Vor accompanied by around ten troopers. This bombard deemed to be decorated with some sort of golden lining around his helmet.

"This is where that orokin artifact's energy was traced. Search for it."

Celestia and Twilight stepped in front of them to block their way. The sun princess was the first to speak.

"Who are you and what are you doing on my castle grounds?"

The creatures did not speak but continued to circumvent the princesses. Twilight didn't take too kindly to this and, with a bit of magic, lift the other grineer and threw them back towards the entrance.

"What? How DARE you defy the Grineer Empire. I will teach you your place equi--"

The bombard stopped and immediately looked up to see the four tenno standing right behind the ponies. They were just staring at the bombard without so much as holding a weapon. They were taunting him, and it was working judging by how he was shaking and nearly crushing his ogris rocket launcher.

"TENNO SCOOM!" the bombard roared as he let loose several missiles.

The tenno dodged out of the way, leaving the ponies behind. Luckily, Luna managed to shield everypony from the missiles with a magical barrier, but the explosions surprised everypony. These new creatures were obviously familiar with the four bipeds, but they possessed weapons of destructive potential that the four had not yet shown. Even with a shield up, a few of the missiles ended up deviating from their trajectory and crashing into the walls and the courses, destroying everything and tossing debris everywhere.

"Supreme commander, evacuate the area of rookies," Celestia ordered.

"What about combating these threats?"

"We will take care of it, now do as I say."

"Yes, your highness."

Celestia turned to the mane six and her sister and said:

"Knock them out and hold them down. I want to interrogate them, except you, Fluttershy. I need you to see to the well-being of the recruits."

"Okay."

The yellow pegasus flew towards the supreme commander while avoiding the bullets being fired by the grineer soldiers. As much as the ponies wanted to get near, they couldn't get past the projectiles being fired by the weapons the new creatures held. Rainbow Dash was sneaky and fast enough that she managed to fly around the shield and punch four of the soldiers in the face, stunning them. Unfortunately, she had to get away just as quickly. The giant one yelled something, and one of the troopers reacted by tossing a strange projectile towards the ponies. Luckily, Luna's instincts reacted better than the curiosity of the others, and she pulled everypony back. It's a good thing she did that, too, as the ball exploded, creating a tiny crater and damaged surroundings.

"Rarity, now!" Twilight shouted.

The two ponies concentrated their magic together, then threw a rope of magic which entangled the group of grineer. They struggled as best as they could, but they couldn't get free. Heaving a sigh, Luna dropped her barrier, allowing the group to go forward.

"Ah'm glad that's over. Ah thought we would've been able ta stamp 'em, but they got those weird weapons that--"

"Go pewpewpew!" Pinkie interrupted Applejack with a wide smile.

"I shall apprehend these creatures and interrogate them in the dungeons. Then we'll know what they're doing here," Luna said.

"Princess, watch out!" Twilight shouted.

Luna had gotten too close to the group and three of them managed to free themselves from the magical restraints. Twilight tried to intervene as fast as she could, but the creatures already had their weapons pointed at the blue alicorn. Every event seemed to be happening in slow motion for the ponies, but especially Twilight. She wouldn't make it. She wanted to so badly, but she knew he couldn't, yet Twilight still tried even though she saw the fingers pushing against the metal apparatus under the weapon. Closing her eyes as she didn't want to see the event, she awaited for that horrible banging noise. It didn't come. Instead, she was met with the sound of a painful grunt, then a scream.

The grineer's arms were on the floor, and Nekros was there with his ether reaper. He had dropped from the ceiling and was compressed against the floor with both arms sticking out towards the back. Before the other two could figure out what happened, the warframe spun immediately into action. Letting the weapon spin around its body one time, it took the momentum by the hilt and sliced through the wounded grineer's stomach, letting the top half slowly slide of the abdomen. The other two began to fire their weapons, but Nekros spun the weapon around, deflecting the rounds. When the clips were empty, the grineer saw that the bullets had splattered the surrounding walls with puncture holes. They needed to reload, but it was too late. One fell into three pieces, and the other slid apart diagonally.

More tried to free themselves, but Volt's glaive was heard bouncing off the walls and floor until it bounced off the wall next to the restrained soldiers, slicing clean through five of them. Teech smashed into another fired one of his cannons through the trooper, cutting a nice hole in its body. As for the other, the tenno took out its melee weapon and impaled the trooper on it. The weapon had a curved hilt and two blades placed into it. Both were rounded, but both had an opening near the top in order to lock another weapon into the blade allowing easy disarming of the opponent. It took no effort for Teech to lift the grineer in the air, have it slide on the blade, the slice upwards, cutting the upper portion in half.

When Frost Prime landed, the bombard broke free and aimed at it, but the grineer was too slow. The bombard found its strength slowly fading as it slid apart, falling on the floor. He then began to drag gimself towards Celestia where he grabbed hold of the princess' right foreleg and raised his right arm towards her neck. All she did was look at it with her eyes in pure terror. She was too frightened to move her head. As the grineer began to slowly loosen its grip, the white mask covering his face unhinged itself, hanging off the lower right part of the helmet. Celestia's eyes widened even more when she saw the face of a pale, gray creature with several scars and what looked like decaying skin staring at her with eyes full of hatred and rage. The fires soon died out as he finally let out his last breath.

Looking at the scene, Celestia could see Teech trying to perfect his stabbing technique, Volt shrinking his glaive to put it back on his arm, Nekros poking and prodding the dead grineer pieces, and Frost Prime who was simply looking back at her with a dreaded red liquid dripping from his blade. They were cold-blooded killers...

"Princess Celestia! There's a weird machine taking off near the castle!" a servant yelled as it ran towards the training grounds.

Indeed. The machine mentioned was similar to the style of these deceased creatures, at least to Rarity's eyes, but it didn't get far. Something struck it, causing it to explode several times and collapse back onto the ground in flames, inciting the reaction of the fire fighting ponies at the castle grounds. Several manta-ray looking ships began flying overhead towards unknown directions, but a very large one, looking like a very sleek and sturdy ship landed right in front of the training hall. Something lowered from it, and three floating objects immediately went to Volt, Nekros, and Frost Prime. Many long-legged machines with giant cannons on the top of their heads jumped out of the ship and surrounded its entrance. They had been painted with streaks of blue for some reason.

Two more creatures came down, but one of them looked rather...normal compared to what was obviously a comrade of these four. The skinny one was rather pale and had a rather strange demeanor. The suit he was wearing seemed rather bulky for him, but he didn't seem to mind. It had a dark blue, leathery exterior, and the knees were made of what looked like a solid black ring of an unknown material. These rings were also present on his shoulders, but there were two on both sides. The feet also seemed elongated and were black, but this strange attire seemed to give the ponies a better perspective of what was under the warframes. He was a wearing a helmet of sorts. Two large circular objects were covering his ears, but he still seemed to hear easily from them with what looked like metallic enhancers in the middle of these. The top of the helmet jutted forward and rounded over his forehead. There were also strange thread things coming out of the circular portions that wobbled every time the biped would move his head.

Walking next to him was a tenno with a more feminine structure than the other four. Her arms were covered with what looked like individual armor pads with the shoulder pad the left arm before extremely tall compared to the one on the right. It almost looked like an archer's vest covering leather armor when looking at what looked like folds going around the neck and over her chest. The armor on the legs seemed to stretch backwards when going towards the end of the legs, and the footwear stretched backwards like a thorn. As for the helmet, there was what looked like a small horn above the forehead which sat atop an extremely large fold going towards the back of the head. What seemed strange is that the armor looked like it was composed of several waves of something. There were many 'rings' or 'waves' gliding on the surface as decoration.

"Tenno! It is good to see my favorite customers once. Believe it or not, but I intercepted a distress call from the grineer and came to see where they had landed. I was expecting to find a rich source of ressources to obtain and sell. Maybe even a new rare resource that would boost my revenue ten-fold...Oh, but you would have had your share, of course. I know how fond you are of your orokin artifacts and how much you wish to restore them," the creature said.

"You speak our language?" Pinkie Pie asked.

The biped knelt down and looked at the pony with curiosity and surprise.

"How strange. An equine creature that talks? Hmmm. Perhaps I could open up trade routes with them?" he thought aloud.

"I'm Pinkie Pie, but I think you should have told me your complete name as well," Pinkie sterned.

"True. I am Darvo. I only work for myself and my entourage. I must say that I was quite surprised by the immense amount of tenno coming towards this sector. I was hoping to avoid getting a misunderstanding, but she went into my ship, destroying ALL of my sentinels in the process." Darvo turned to face the banshee. "You owe me in damage costs," he yelled angrily.

Banshee did not flinch nor react at all.

"Anyways, I am sorry to say that your planet has the taint of infestation upon it."

The initial tenno group jolted upwards in shock, scaring those who managed to recover from the event. Luna was worried for her sister who had barely even moved. She still had the crusty red of the bombard on her coat.

"I suppose I should let Lotus tell you the rest. I'm out of here. I'll come back when everything is back to normal. Good luck, Tenno," Darvo said as he ran off.

The Banshee pushed something on the side of her helmet. What it was, nopony really knew. All they did know was that Banshee began to speak.

"Natives of this world, I am Lotus of the Tenno. I oversee their operations everywhere in the Solar System, but this place is far beyond our borders."

"Ah! Finally. One that speaks," Twilight said with exasperation.

The ponies all seemed exhausted after what they saw.

"You mistake, equine. I am speaking through the warframe of this tenno operative. I do not have much time. My tenno are exploring your world, and I had the sentinels of the Obion Three placed in Darvo's ship. They will be invaluable to their future operations."

"Three? There's four."

"Four? Indeed. I have never seen that model anywhere. Interesting. It seems to have the physical prowess of Rhino, but abilities all of its own. I will speak to him after I have warned you of the incoming threat."

"What threats?" Rarity asked.

"You have just met with the Grineer Empire. These ones seemed to have been forward scouts sent as reinforcements to Captain Vor and his stranded soldiers. The main rescue fleet will be here in a few days. The empire is a merciless faction that conquers and destroys anything that does not follow or obey them.

The Corpus, a mercantile faction armed with robotic sentinels and machines of great power are going to be arriving as well. Darvo has said that they have most certainly intercepted the transmission as well and will come in order to ascertain the resources here. If they find things of value and you are not willing to negotiate a trading contract with them, they might take the sources by force, and seeing how you have been aiding fellow tenno, they will not take kindly to your civilization. Their machines are an incredibly dangerous threat, so try and stay on their good side.

As for the infestation, it is an ancient disease that infects flesh and transforms it. This disease seems to have been growing along a mountainous area to the north of here."

"Montains to the north? That's where the griffons are," Twilight said as she started to think.

"Why weren't we alerted to this? Gaddaveer should have known about this. There's something more sinister going on with what happened here than I thought," Luna remarked.

"If the infestation is not immediately stopped, then your world and all those who live on it will die. Because of the impending threats coming to your world, I am placing it under tenno protection. Do not worry, we will only intervene with the threats concerning those we know. We will not do anything relating to your everyday lives or politics."

"We understand. If this is the case, I would like to meet with you in pony so we can discuss this together," Luna said confidently.

"I...I cannot. We will send you messages when possible. For now, I must tend to those in our own system. Trust in the tenno. They will protect you."

Quite an energetic life was going to come to Equestria and the world as a whole. What worried Twilight the most was Celestia. She just wouldn't move. She seemed paralyzed. The princess might need to be put to rest in her private chambers. Nopony knew what was going to happen next, but it was going to be something truly terrifying.

Author's Note

If any of you felt that this felt rushed when the grineer appeared, that was the feeling I was trying to give. You'll notice if you analyze everything.

The garden of zen

Author's Note

So far this story has been getting good reception. Bare with me, though. I'm writing in the heat, and I can't stand any temperature above 20°C/68°F. I should probably move to Antarctica. It should be lukewarm enough. I think this chapter might be a bit sloppy, but for some reason I can't think straight with said heat.

The garden of zen

Twilight nervously drew on the paper that Pinkie Pie had somehow pulled out of her mane, along with a quill and ink. Nopony had said anything since the little fight, but it was no longer because of confusion, but the fear of the unknown. After all, they didn't know the mindset of these creatures, where they're from, or how they would react to any sudden movements.

After a short moment of drawing something with levitation, the lavender alicorn took a good peek at her art. It was a crude drawing of stick figures. The masterpiece depicted a pony bringing the bipeds in a place with bushes and trees...but not much else. Pinkie Pie looked over Twilight's shoulder and stifled a chuckle, making the unicorn blush and puff up her mouth in embarrassment and frustration. The red quickly turned to white when the alicorn walked towards the giants, the paper trembling in the air. She was just an arm's length away from the tall one expelling frost from said arms, and with one last look at the drawing, she levitated the paper closer to the biped and gave a nervous smile at it. The fourth biped leaned to the side to get a better look at what was happening. Everypony, except maybe Pinkie Pie seeing how she had somehow gotten more paper and ink from her mane, were expecting this 'leader' to violently snatch the paper from Twilight's magic and read it, but it simply lifted its arm, with hand outstretched, and gently grabbed said object. The observers were gladly surprised that their initial assumptions were wrong, but the biped had trouble understanding the message and showed the sheet to its comrades.

It took a while, but they finally understood the message, much to Twilight's relief. The biped knelt down and returned the paper to the pony, then the four spread apart to let the alicorn walk between them. The pony looked back at Celestia, who nodded in acknowledgement, and let Twilight do what she had to. Pinkie Pie followed with her typical bounce and took the others with her while the four bipeds followed the lavender alicorn. Before they left, though, the fourth biped took the enormous capsule and slung it over its shoulder for transport.

Their travel through the hallways was met with shock and fear by the staff and guests of the castle, but the four tenno seemed rather intrigued by the environnement they were in.

"Hey. Look. They like the castle." Pinkie whispered to Rarity.

"I guess so, but I find it strange how they act. I hope that pony from Neighpon comes soon. Who knows what is going through their minds."

Sometime later, the whole group reached the garden where Fluttershy seemed to be conversing with some squirrels.

"Why, no, Mr. Squirrel. I haven't seen your friends. What? No. I haven't seen them nearby. Maybe if you told me what they look like."

"H...Hello, Fluttershy." Twilight spoke nervously.

"Oh. Hello Twilight. Are you done talkiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIII!" Fluttershy squeaked.

The pegasus caught sight of the four tenno standing her friend and jumped five feet into the air without flapping her wings.

"Wh-wh-who--"

"I don't know, Fluttershy. I need you to watch over them until a teacher from Neighpon comes to Canterlot. We haven't received news about his or her arrival yet, though." Twilight rubbed her head.

"Are they going to...hurt anypony?"

"Not that we've noticed...except those griffons." Rarity wondered aloud.

"Heh. I don't really think Fluttershy will have much trouble with watching over her animals." Rainbow Dash said.

"Why? Oh. Oh my." Fluttershy answered.

The four tenno were apparently very interested in nature and its creatures. The frost prime had stood on one foot and was meditating in this position. Several birds perched themselves on him meanwhile. The Volt was experimenting the effects of static electricity on the squirrels who decided to come close to him. The Teech wanted to see more of what the plant life had to offer, and was observing a nearby flower patch with bees flying around said flowers. As for the Nekros, he had spotted the corpse of a deceased bunny that had long since passed away. Rarity caught glimpse of this and slowly walked towards the crouched tenno.

"Oh. This is a shame. Fluttershy, perhaps a proper burial would be in measure."

"Yes. I don't like it, but that's how life is. I'll try and find a good spot to put the poor little bunny. I'll--"

Fluttershy had grown accustomed to death of animals due to her living through several occasions of critters she would rescue be too far gone to be saved. She didn't stop because she caught a glimpse of the decaying body, but more because the Nekros raised a hand above the corpse and channeled several strains of its serpentine, orange energy around its body and place a bit around the corpse, which slowly rose up because of the energy, then gently lowered back down onto the floor, clumsily moving about as much as the decayed tendons allowed it.

The vanilla pegasus began to tear up as she saw the biped move the body like a puppet with its right hand. Rarity backed away in abject horror to the sight while Applejack and Rainbow Dash just stared at the revolting display of power. Twilight, however, was staring at the event with widened eyes:

"These creatures know necromancy?! If they're already that advanced in magical abilities, I'm afraid we might be in contact with an extremely magically advanced species. It didn't even seem to concentrate at all on doing that either. Perhaps these are Archmages?"

"Oy! Dats black magic dat is! Ah'm takin' you under arrest for usage of forbidden magics!" yelled a random patrolling guard.

"No! Wait! You can't stop them!" Twilight said as she bounced in front of the guard.

"Stand aside, missy. Ah think ah can deal wif sum metal biped thingy."

The guard lift a spear with his right foreleg and took one step towards the still crouched Nekros with obvious intentions. There was literally no time to blink that the Nekros already had its ether reaper underneath the pony's throat. Trembling, the earth pony looked to see that this 'metal biped' was still crouched, although one leg was on the ground, and its body was twisted to the left, leaving the blade to be sticking behind it. Normally, this position would not allow proper movement and wouldn't be more than a taunting threat, but something told this stallion that the creature before him held a skill unknown to even the supreme commander. He slowly dropped the spear and began to back away.

"Ah'll...Ah'll just get on wif mah business then, sirs." he said before sprinting off.

Just as the guard did this, the rabbit body comically fell to the ground with a little flopping noise. The Nekros walked back towards its meditating leader and started to look around, analyzing the surroundings while Rainbow Dash landed next to Twilight and whispered in her ear:

"I think he's the scariest of the four."

"Okay...Now what do we do with them...and where's Pinkie Pie?" Twilight said.

"HAPPY WELCOME PAR--"

Pinkie had burst out from the bushes with her typical party cannon and confetti. The problem is, she wasn't expecting such a reaction as nopony had demonstrated such things. The minute she blasted out of the bushes with confetti and cannon blast, said giant party popper had been cut into three and she was pinned against a tree by Volt and its arm-wielded glaive. The others were aiming their weapons at her as well. The pink pony was looking at the glaive blade with a nervous smile.

"Woah woah! It's okay! Let go of her!" Twilight shouted as she ran in front of the Vol to push him away.

The tenno acknowledged and backed away, the glaive shrinking back into its resting position on the volt's arm. Rarity and Applejack helped Pinkie Pie back up.

"Ya okay, Pinkie Pie? We told ya not to do anythin' with 'em."

"I couldn't help it...and that was AWESOME! Did you see how fast they moved! They were like ninjas! Oh! Speaking of Neighpon-"

"You didn't say anything about Neighpon..." Rainbow Dash sighed.

The pink pony pulled an enormous bag of sand out from nowhere and held it to the frost prime. The tenno grabbed it and put it on the floor. It gently grasped its dragon nikana then let go. A piece of the bags top slid off as if cut.

"Wow. They REALLY know how to fight with a sword." Rainbow Dash remarked.

The prime put the sand in its hands and let it slide through his fingers to feel the texture. It nodded and thanked the pony by bowing. Although it quickly turned to Twilight and showed her the bag.

"Yes...It's a nice bag." she said.

The Teech went to the prime and put a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to turn around. The two clearly began to have a conversation, although of what subject, the ponies did not know. Finally, the prime turned back towards Twilight, pulled out its sword, then slammed it into the ground, causing the ponies to hop back in fear.

"It looks like..it's drawing something." Rarity noticed."Huh. He draws rather efficiently."

The drawing in the ground showed the four tenno meditating in front of a zen garden. Much to Twilight's added frustration and jealousy, the biped had drawn exquisitely. Thinking of a solution, the mare finally recalled that there was a rather large area in the maze with a pond that would be perfect for them to create a zen garden and meditate while everything is assessed, from the griffins to the arrival of these creatures. The lavender alicorn caught glimpse of Fluttershy coming back from around the corner of the maze's bush wall. She had apparently gone out of sight to bury the rabbit body.

"Applejack, go get Fluttershy." the alicorn asked her friend.

"What fer?"

"To get her to lead the creatures into the middle of the maze. She could even help them get accustomed to this place, at least, until they return home."

"Okay. Hey, Fluttershy." Applejack yelled.

"Twilight, I don't meant to be annoying or anything, but have you noticed that the big one has kept that...container over its shoulder since we left the throne room."

"...Huh. You're right. It might be very important, although I don't see how."

Fluttershy nervously poked Twilight on the should, prompting the alicorn to turn around.

"I finished burying the bunny, but Applejack said you wanted me to help them into the maze? I can't do that."

"Why not? Is it because of what that one did with the bunny?"

"Yes."

"It might just be a culture thing, sweetie. After all, we don't know what they're like." Rarity interjected.

"That's...true."

"And they've shown that they don't want to hurt the animals, so that's also a good thing." Twilight added.

"I...Okay. I'll help them inside. We have to go to the pond?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Okay."

"Don't worry. Rainbow Dash will go to the Supreme Commander and ask for patrols. I have to go to the princesses to talk about the griffins and how we're going to treat these treaty problems. Pinkie seems to like them already, so I guess she'll be with you while you walk these things in there."

Fluttershy nodded with a gentle smile, then turned to face the bipeds, who were looking at her as well. To this little pony, they seemed like giants, and she felt herself shrinking more and more under their gaze until Pinkie Pie stepped in.

"Hey, Fluttershy! Let me introduce you!"

"Um, I don't think--"

"It'll be fine! You get to talk to them while we walk in the maze."

"She heard that?" Twilight thought to herself.

"What do we do, Twilight?" Rarity asked.

"I don't know. You can visit Canterlot, if you want."

"That sounds like an excellent idea. I can look at all the latest fashions and get some new bows for Opal."

"And ah can look fer some new workin' boots and some new pie pans fer Granny Smith." Applejack said with confidence.

"What are these things?!" a griffon yelled.

"Don't touch them! They'll eat you!" another shouted.

A griffin village was being assaulted by strange creatures coming from the nearby forest, as said village was near the base of the mountains. There were bizarre, orange particles flying through the air in curves almost everywhere, and strange patches of fleshy orange and gray growths had 'climbed' the mountainside after somehow absorbing a large portion of the forest, as shown by bizarre tissue-like masses covering large portions of tree branches like enormous spider webs. Bizarre, twisted creatures had begun pouring out of it and were infecting the city as they moved on. A few of the griffin militia stationed there had tried evacuating as many civilians as they could, but barely a sixth had evacuated that the rest were assaulted by the creatures. Countless of these things were coming, and more after that.

'What are these things?! We have to go! The rest are lost!"

"We can't just leave! There are still some here that are alive!"

"GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!" the griffin yelled wile shaking his companion."They're lost! We gotta go!"

"Then you go! I'm staying here."

"I...I...fine! Stay here if you want. I'm leaving."

"COWARD!"

The griffin watched the other militia griffon fly away in cowardice, leaving his weapon behind, but the one remaining did not fear the invaders, that is, until a large figure slowly began to raise itself from behind the mountain slope. At first, it looked like a semi-halo of silver with a few bars growing out of it and pointing upwards, then what looked like a head began to show itself. The head was rather gray, save for the many green veins heading down long tentacles ending in bright, pulsating green ends. Thanks to its hunched over appearance, the griffin could make out that its skin was a dark hade of teal, and the further it rose up, the further the griffin could see just how true this was...for limbs. The arms were long enough to drag across the ground, and although the front side shown was gray, the back was teal as well. The stomach of this creature was of a metallic silver and covered in glowing green dots randomly strewn across said anatomy. The legs were black, but progressively turned to teal and bent at the knees, where they ended in narrow flipper-like feet. The creature, as a whole, glowed a bright neon green from the tentacles, the tips of the bars in its semi-halo on its back, and the dots on it, and it seemed to be perpetually excreting a green mist that was killing what little plant life had grown on the slope.

"What is that thing? It must be the leader. If I can kill it, the others will become uncoordinated and give us the time to evacuate the survivors. Let's do this!"

With courage, the militia griffin flew over the tide of invading creatures and, sword in claw, sliced through the tentacle head of the tall creature, who remained in place after the strike. The attacking griffin turned around in mid-air and yelled:

"Yes! Got it. Now the others should be...They're still running forward. Why?"

"We are your flesh. Your future. Your pinnacle of evolution. Why do you refuse us so?" spoke a strange voice.

"Who is it? Who said that?!" the griffin shouted as he began to panic and swing his sword around.

"Become one with us."

"What? AAAHHHH!"

The griffin's scream was heard across the kingdom that day, and the survivors who managed to flee the town despite the invasion and spreading infection managed to warn everyone about the incoming threat. Whatever the tenno and grineer had brought with them, it held an ill perceived future for the Griffin Kingdom.