High up on top of an overgrown and abandoned building, at the outskirts of a Venusian city, lies a robed figure, it's eyes just peeking over the edge of the roof, keeping watch on the large group of robots that are milling about. Some are walking on two legs, others are floating by some unknown science. Their singular red eyes scanning the horizon. None of them stray far from a hollow, circular structure. The figure shifts slightly to check its inventory, patting at its pockets to make sure it has everything.
"Eliminate the targets, gather up their Blue Polyphage, return to base", For most, this was nice and simple, for Crux-18 however, this mission was very dull, especially since he's been lying in a puddle for the past half hour. He consoles himself that it'll at least pay well. The rain patters down, further increasing the weight of his already sodden robes. He shakes his head to clear the water from his helmet's visor. Crux sighs,"I really hate the Vex, they never do anything interesting". His Ghost materialises next to him shining with a bright blue shell with little yellow stripes on the tips of its spines.
"Friendlies inbound from the east, Sparrows at top speed" says the ghost, flicking a spot of rain from its spines.
Crux grunts, "it's about bloody time". he repositions into a crouch and gives the target area one last scan with his eyes.
He looks over at his ghost, "What's their ETA?"
As he asks this, he hears the whining sound of 2 Sparrow hover bikes. Crux snaps his head back to target area and see's a
Sparrow ramp up off a burnt out car and do a flip mid air. A very audible "Yeah!!" comes from the Titan who was it's pilot.
"Now, apparently" says his Ghost, its spines whirling around its core.
The Titan dismounts from its Sparrow and smashes shoulder first into a Vex Goblin, sending it flying amidst crackling bolts of electricity. The remaining Vex immediately turn and open fire on the Titan, their bolts of red energy pinging off of his personal shield. The Titan, Edge-27, according to Crux's HUD, wades into the group of Vex. he brings up his shotgun and blows off a Goblins head.
"His cockiness is going to get him killed someday" Crux says, hand on chin.
His ghost chimes in, "don't worry, Lexi has his back". As it says this the distinctive cracking sound of a sniper rifle reverberates around the area and a Vex Hobgoblin explodes, torn at the waste. Crux's eyes follow the vapour trail and he spies the Hunter known as Lexi, her bright blue cape gently flapping in the wind.
"well, time to join in" says Crux. his Ghost dematerialises and he jumps off of the roof. Utilising the power of the Light, Crux gracefully glides down towards the fight.
He draws his hand cannon mid flight and pops off a few rounds into an unsuspecting Goblin. He makes a delicate landing and throws out a Void grenade. it collides with a Goblins legs and a big ball of purple energy forms, tearing the Goblin's atoms apart. A couple of Vex Harpies get caught in the blast and quickly float away, only to be caught by Edge-27. The Titan punches one and it explodes, arcing bolts of electricity into the other Harpy. The second harpy fizzles and dies, dropping to floor.
"You're late Crux!" he shouts in an annoyingly mocking tone. Before Crux can give a witty retort a high caliber bullet flies past his face and smashes the head of a Goblin.
Crux hears the voice of his Ghost in his ear. "4 enemies remaining".
Not wanting to be bested, Crux sets himself upon the remaining Vex. He reaches out and slaps a Goblin with an open palm. The Goblin is torn apart from the impact point, totally atomised. Crux vaults over the wreck of a car, spins around and puts two handcannon rounds into a Harpy's eye, killing it. in the distance Lexi lets off a shot, felling another Hobgoblin.
The last Vex, a Goblin, runs to the structure that its group was guarding. A strange white beam comes out the goblins face and hits the structure. Edge throws a grenade at the Goblin and it explodes, emitting a bright light. The Goblin's beam falters and shuts off. A final shot from Lexi takes it down.
With the fight now finished, the three guardians meet in the middle, next to the strange Vex structure.
"some fine shooting Lexi, as usual" says Crux, full of charm. She gives him a withering look
"That was nothing compared to my entrance! did you see the look on that Goblins face?". says Edge, a hint of laughter in his voice. Lexi makes a loud tutting noise.
Suddenly the Vex structure lights up, creating a wall of light , a Vex portal, in its center. Crux's HUD is hit with a wave of static. they all turn to look at the structure, weapons at the ready. They hear a strange, unnatural crackling sound come from the structure. A second later it spits out a Vex Minotaur, a robot twice the size of a standard Goblin and with no visible weakness. Edge yelps in surprise. immediately after, two more Minotaurs come out of the portal.
"I've got 'em!" shouts Crux. he jumps high into the air with the power of the Light and unleashes a Nova Bomb at the group of Vex. A large sphere of roiling Void energy erupts from his hands and smashes into the ground. A huge wave of purple energy engulfs both groups, blasting the Minotaurs into oblivion. The fuel tanks of a few nearby cars explode, tossing Lexi into Edge, sending them both tumbling into the Vex portal. Crux cries out in surprise and launches himself after his friends, headfirst into the portal, just as it closes.
The moment he's through, immediate and intense pain hits Crux all over his body. He feels himself being torn apart. Harnessing the power of the light he amps up his regeneration abilities and rebuilds himself. He dulls the pain and opens his eyes, to find himself floating in a void, similar to space but a deep purple. He looks around and spots Lexi a few meters off. He panics a little when he sees her writhing in pain, the ends of her limbs fading away. He Blink teleports towards her.
Crux shouts out, "focus your Light on your regeneration!" she starts to calm down and Crux can see that the ends of her limbs start reforming.
Her Ghost materialises next to her shoulder, "we can't hold this for long" it says, its bright blue shell looking dull in the void light.
"Do you see Edge?" Crux asks, desperation cracking his voice.
"yes! he's over there" The Ghost indicates Edge's position, behind Crux, with a nod of its core. "oh no". its spines droop.
Crux spins around see's Edge. whats left of him. What remains of his body is fading away like dust in the wind as the Void claims him. his Ghost goes with him, a slight wisp of bright blue.
"Our light is fading" says Lexi's ghost. its voice growing weaker.
"No! i'll help you" says Crux. He cuts regeneration to his legs and uses the spare Light to shield Lexi and her ghost. His legs erupt into particles and drift away.
For what felt like hours, Crux focused on his Light and protecting Lexi. Her own power fades and Crux is left doing all the work. The strength of his Light strained, it starts to snap. Lexi loses an arm, then a leg. Crux feels his Light break away from her. With heart wrenching scream, Lexi, Ghost and all are torn apart by the Void, leaving Crux alone.
His own Light fading, Crux sacrifices more parts of his body, desperately trying to hold on. Suddenly he see's in the distance, a new portal opening. Through it he can see grass, hills and trees. "it may not be Venus, but i don't care right now" he thinks to himself. he Blink teleports closer to the portal, costing him some of his Light, along with an internal organ. Crux Blinks again and again, each time getting closer, each time losing a part of himself to this hated Void. He reaches the edge of the portal and with the last of his Light, he pushes himself through.
Crux lands with a crunching thud onto the grass. what remains of his body starts sparking, little bolts of electricity flying out his shoulder and waist. he uses his remaining arm to drag himself away from the portal. His Light, no longer strained by the Void starts to patch him back up. "Ghost?" he says, weakly. "Ghost you there?". He performs a forced summon, materialising his Ghost into his hand. the light from its core slightly flashes and the Ghost groans. It's spines fall off of its core and into crux's hand. "Not dead, thank the Traveler" thinks Crux, as he can still feel the Ghost's light. He hears a large "gasp" off to his side and the sound of... hooves? before he can turn his head to look, Crux falls unconscious.
The owner of the "gasp" was a unicorn, who is now having a bit of a freak out. She closes her portal and hides behind a bush for a while. Once she calms down she emerges from her hiding spot and approaches the strange thing that came out of her portal. She gives it a slight prod with her magic and gains no response. Deeming it safe she closes the distance and inspects the thing. Whatever it was, it's alive and very badly hurt. Feeling a wave of compassion, she picks up Crux and his Ghost in a levitation spell and trots off to her home, keeping a keen eye out for any onlookers.
Author's Note
This is my first time writing something like this so please forgive mistakes. constructive criticism is appreciated.
Emerald Star's journey home took considerably longer than she would have liked, night had fallen. She had to stay off the road and was forced to hide inside numerous bushes and behind a couple of buildings to prevent anyone seeing what she was carrying. In fact, she wasn't supposed to be away from her home village at all. Her master had inflicted upon her a state of confinement so as to give her more time to study her magic, to learn "why before how". Emerald Star knew perfectly well why she wanted to do her magic, because magic was amazing. like, create a hammer out of pure energy or slice a portal to go from point A to point B in mere seconds, that kind of amazing. Sitting around all day reading books was not going to get her very far on its own, she just HAD to go out and practice, preferably in a field, far off from anybody else, that way if a spell goes wrong nobody gets hurt. At least, that's what she hoped. Emerald never expected her poultry attempt at a portal would summon something, let alone cause it such pain. She had to get it home and try to heal it, maybe communicate with it. As she traveled, she could swear that her passenger was getting steadily heavier.
Once she got outside her own home, a three storied house with a tower built onto the side, she magicked her bedroom window open and levitated herself inside, along with her patient. Finally inside she cast a muffling spell on her door and locked her window. With a slight flare of her horn the numerous candles in the room lit up, casting the room in a warm glow. Emerald set her patient onto the floor, not wanting to get its blood on her bed sheets. she places the small glowing ball, along with its spikes onto the bedside table. no longer concentrating on a levitation spell, she could think straight and had a proper look at the, thing, lying on her floor. To her surprise it had gained a pair of legs and part of an arm. Upon closer inspection she could see its arm slowly growing, taking shape. Curiosity taking over, she gently nudged its other arm with her nose only to be met with slight pain. The arm was covered in metal, maybe armour, like the village militia? Emerald cast an illumination spell, causing her horn to light up and looked back at the damaged arm, to see that all the inner workings were also metal, some of them gently sparking with electricity. Curious.
In a bid to try and help this metal being, Emerald tried a healing spell to try and speed up the being's reconstruction, but to no avail. Due to the creature being made out of metal, as well as having an anatomy she was unfamiliar with, the spell would have done little anyway. Emerald tried giving the creature a shot of electricity. The result only made its limbs slightly convulse. Many more possible remedies formed in her mind but before she could try any a voice called out from below the floor.
"EMERALD STAR, GET DOWN HERE!"
Surprised, Emerald let out a quiet "eep" and lept away from her patient. She scrambled for the doors handle, and exited the room, locking the door behind her. Feigning a calm demeanor she descended the tower's stairs a couple of flights and walked into her masters office. Inside was an ornate desk, topped with a mixture of strange magical implements and behind that desk was a male pony, wearing a stark white robe. He also had a particularly grumpy look on his face.
"You called, Master?" says Emerald, trying to keep her voice straight.
"If you think i cannot hear what you're doing just because you muffled the door, you're sorely mistaken." Said the Master, while indicating Emerald to stool on the opposite side of his desk with a wave of his hoof. Emerald immediately drops her facade and plonks down onto the stool.
"How'd you know?" she asks.
The Master's face changes to that of a knowing smile, unable to not take satisfaction in besting his apprentice, as usual.
"You neglected to muffle the floor. A pony with hooves of your size should know better. plus, i saw you levitating up the tower." He lets out a brief chuckle. "its a good thing I've not taught you the Shroud spell yet."
Emerald smacks a hoof to her head. "The floor, of course." before she could say more, the Master's face changes again, to a much sterner look and he locks eye contact with her.
"so, what spell could be so fascinating that you just had to ignore my orders to go out to practice it." he asks.
Emerald shifts uncomfortably on the stool. "erm, just a simple, Portal spell." he voice peters out near the end.
"Evidently it worked" Says the Master. Emerald gives him a puzzled look. "Judging by the thing you were carrying up the tower with you." He sniffs the air. "Something metallic."
Emerald stutters "Oh, er, yeah. I wanted some scrap metal to practice my... Transmutation spells."
The master gives her an unbelieving look. "Uh huh, sure. you disobeyed orders to get some scrap, through a portal even though the smithy is five minutes away."
Emerald tries, and fails, to look serious. "Yup."
The Master looks her in the eye, unconvinced. after what felt like an hour he breaks contact and says "tomorrow, if i don't see any decent Transmutation results, you're going to be washing the dishes, manually, for the next month, AND i will have you removed from the bakers cupcake subscription." Before Emerald could respond, the Master dismisses her with a wave of his hoof.
Trying to remain calm, Emerald makes her way back upstairs. She unlocks her bedroom door and enters the room, immediately hitting the floor with a muffling spell. To her surprise she's met with the sight of the creature, now fully formed, hopefully. Strangely it had also reformed some clothes around it's body. A Deep red robe with a large white triangle on the side. Emerald was particularly impressed with the golden accessories found along the arms and on the chest. The creature remained motionless but she could see some lights growing steadily brighter inside of it's neck and wrists.
Emerald checked her bedside table, looking for the glowing orb and spikes, only to find that they were gone. The window was also open. Worried, she goes over to the window and pokes her head out. All she can see is the dark of night and a couple of lights in a few buildings. Suddenly she hears a voice from above her. "Hello."
Emerald jumps and smacks her head on the top of the window frame, letting out a cry of pain. she retreats back inside, tripping over her patient and falling onto the floor. She looks through watering eyes at the window to see a pale blue light, with yellow tipped spikes float slowly in after her.
"Sorry about that" it says, its light gently pulsing with each syllable. "Don't worry, i mean you no harm."
Emerald rubs the top of her head with a hoof and asks "what are you?"
With a spin of its spines, the orb replies "I am a Ghost, child of the Traveler and companion to that Guardian." the Ghost nods at the body on the floor.
Emerald's eyes widen. "A Ghost? You mean like a spirit of the dead?"
"I suppose so, though not in the way you expect"
Emerald decides to leave that line of questioning alone for the time being and motions towards the body. "so this thing here is a Guardian?"
"indeed"
Slightly miffed by the short answer, Emerald presses on. "What's it guarding?"
"The Light and the last of his species." says the Ghost, a hint of pride in its voice.
Before Emerald could ask anymore questions the Guardian let out a groaning sound. Her sensitive pony ears could hear a whirring sound start up inside him. The Ghost flies down and hovers next to the Guardians head and says "well its about time, you're not normally this slow."
Emerald moves to the other side of the room to watch from a distance. The Guardian groans again, moving an arm and placing a hand on its head. Slowly it sits up and looks around the room. A strange, almost metallic voice comes out of it's mouth, not that Emerald could see it under the helmet. "Ghost, where are we and what is that, thing, over there?"
The Ghost looks towards Emerald and replies "A species of Equine I've not seen before."
Emerald pipes up with "I'm a Unicorn actually."
The Guardian does a double take. "Ghost, i swear it just spoke."
The Ghost looks back at the Guardian. "I have no idea where we are and yes it did, but does that seem any stranger than what we've already seen in the Darkness?"
The Guardian stands up and says, "A little. I understand what you mean though." He dusts off his robe and steps towards the curious, if a little scared, pony. "Hello, my name is Crux-18 and i don't suppose you could direct us back home?"
Emerald takes a step back. "Well err, yes, I suppose. Only, i can't do it right now."
Crux crosses his arms, tilts his head and says "Oh?"
Emerald lets out a nervous laugh. "I'm not supposed to do experimental magic so close to home and I dare not try it again so soon after being told off."
Ghost flies over to Crux and floats just above his shoulder and asks "What about your master, can he do portal magic?"
Emerald looks right at the Ghost. "yes but he wouldn't be able to give you a portal back home. Only i know where my destination was and i kinda picked it at random."
Crux lets out an annoyed "urgh" and slumps a little.
Ghost drops down to Emeralds eye level, about half a meter. "So when can you make us a portal?" it asks.
Emerald glances at a clock on her wall. "In the morning. I have to get up to get bread from the baker, it'll be a good excuse to go back to the field you arrived in and i'll make you a portal home."
"Why not tonight?" asks Crux.
"The Master will have put up alarm spells by now and if we try to leave he'll catch us." Emerald lets out a yawn. "Plus i'm tired and i need to recharge my magic. Portals take a lot out of me."
Crux uncrosses his arms. "Very well." He looks at Emeralds bookcase. "can we read some of your books while we wait?"
Emerald climbs onto her bed and looks at Crux with mild surprise. "Certainly, but wouldn't you rather sleep?"
Crux looks back at her and says "don't need to."
Emerald, too tired to ask more questions, rests her head on her pillow. She watches the Guardian and his Ghost for a while as they browse her books and scrolls. She closes her eyes, feeling the magic of her enchanted pillow and falls alseep.
