Xadric Mota looks down the scope of his sniper rifle, Devil’s Dawn. In the center of his crosshairs is a Hive Knight. Under his Graviton Forfeit helmet, the Awoken smiles. He pulls the trigger and the Knight’s head explodes. The dissolving chunks of it’s armor impact the dusty surface of the moon. There is a light thud to be heard in the thin atmosphere.
“Tell Lakshmi we secured the area,” Xadric says.
“Got it… We’re getting a message from the Vanguard.”
Xadric slings his rifle over his shoulder, “Get me to the ship and patch the message through.”
H teleports into the cockpit of his ship, Laughing Behind Your Back, with his ghost appearing beside him. They begin to exit the moon’s orbit as the message plays.
“Guardian,” the voice of Commander Zavala says, “We’re getting some strange readings from the Dreadnought. Eris is afraid Oryx is about to make a move. Your fireteam will rendezvous with you there. Good luck, Guardian.”
“Looks like we’re going back to the Dreadnought,” Xadric pulls off his helmet and takes the controls.
“I hate that place,” Ghost sighs… as much as a floating ball of space magic can sigh.
“So do I, Ghostie. So do I.”
Xadric presses a button and the ship jumps to warp speed. He leans back in his chair and puts his feet on the console. “I’m going to take a power nap. Wake me when we get there.”
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Xadric lies in the wreckage of a crashed ship. He stares across the wreck and sees an Awoken woman with dark hair trying to claw her way towards him.A loud, whining sound rings through the air and a Hive ship appears. A Wizard and some Acolytes fall out of the ship and begin to walk to the ship.
The Hive come to the woman and the Wizard raises her hand. The woman floats out of the wreckage, broken and bleeding. The Wizard lifts her hand, crackling with Dark energy. She plunges her hand into the woman’s chest.
Xadric jolts awake, “Sai!”
He holds his head and feels hot tears start to run down his face. He sniffs and runs his fingers through his light purple hair.
“Was it the dream again?” Ghost asks.
Xadric nods, “I can still hear her screams.” His face hardens. “Let’s get to the Dreadnought!”
The ship drops out of warp and begins to zoom towards the Dreadnought. Chatter begins to come over the comms.
“Look who’s late for the party,” a slightly synthesized voice says.
“Nice to see you too, Sly. How are things on your end Ash?”
“Not good, Boss,” a female voice says, “My sensors are picking up Vex energy signatures on the ship.”
Xadric’s eyes look like they are about to pop out of his skull, “Are you sure?”
“I’m picking it up, too,” Ghost says.
Sly begins to laugh over the comm, “It looks like we’re going to have some fun tonight. Do you think we’re facing Vex or did Oryx’s lackeys get a piece of tech?”
“Hopefully we’re fighting the bots,” Xadric says as he puts on his helmet, “They’ll be on our side. Do we have a lock on the signal?”
“That’s a negative,” Ash says, “We’re going to have to go through the long way.”
“Fine. Ash, take point. Sly, stay on my port. Let’s move out.”
The trio begin to fly towards the giant ship. As they get closer, the sensors in Xadric’s ship start to go off. Ghost takes a look begins to spin around.
“Not good!” it calls out, “Energy levels are starting to rise.”
The group starts to skim along the hull of the Dreadnought.
“We should get out of here and regroup,” Ash says, “Something is wrong.”
As the group starts to pull away, the ship starts to pulse with green energy. A wave of energy is released from the ship, enveloping the Guardians. The console of Xadric’s ship starts to spark and he instinctively shields his face.
“What’s going on?” he calls out.
“Don’t know. Our systems are going down. The last signal from our sensors indicated a field similar the Vex transmat fields.”
“So we’re going for a ride.”
Xadric looks out the viewport and sees a field of bluish-white. Suddenly, space and a planet appears in the distance. It resembles Earth and has a moon, but he can see that the placement of continents are different.
“What is-” Xadric is cut off by alarms going off.
“The Dreadnought is firing on us!” Ghost calls out before slipping into its pocket dimension.
“Engines?”
“Barely intact. They might blow before reaching the planet.”
“Gotta risk it.”
Xadric shoves his controls forward and LBYB darts ahead. Suddenly, the air around him becomes distorted. A spot of red appears on his tracker and he turns around. He pulls out Backhanded Compliment and fires two shots into the Taken Thrall, killing it. The air goes back to normal as he begins to enter the planet’s atmosphere. As the ship falls from the sky, the engine suddenly gives out. Xadric holds onto his seat with one hand as he tries to regain control. He closes his eyes and exhales the moments before his ship crashes into the ground, killing him.
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Applejack is running through the orchards, trying to reach her sister’s clubhouse. She had seen three shooting stars crash near there and fears for the safety of her sister and her friends. As she runs she crashes into Sweetie Belle.
“Applejack!” the filly cries, “I came down from the clubhouse to use the bathroom when something crashed in front of it! Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are scared to come out.
Applejack’s eyes widen, “Go grab Big Mac and have him get Twilight. Ah’ll look at what happened.”
The two part ways and Applejack runs towards the clubhouse. She stops when she reaches a somewhat deep trench. On the opposite side of the trench is the tree with the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse.
“Are you alright?” Applejack calls out, inspecting the trench.
Apple Bloom sticks her head out of the window, “We’re okay. What is that?”
“Ah’m not sure. Just stay up there.”
Applejack walks to the end of the trench and sees a hunk of smoking metal inside. She gasps and holds her hoof over her mouth. There is a mangled corpse half-hanging out of the object.
“What in tarnation is that?” she whispers.
A roundish object appears out of nowhere and flies out of the trench. It looks at her with a singular glowing eye and parts of it spin.
“Hello,” the thing says, “Sorry about the mess.”