Rest in Peace

Mae and Rose stood on Mercury, a couple of weeks after their claim of Atheon's eye in the Vault. Since then, both of them had been busy building the device necessary to enact their plan. Since Mae was the only one who could wear armor, and thus, tolerate the vacuum on the moon, she was the one who studied Ikora's device so that she could remake it. She then went slaughtering enough Vex to build the machine from their corpses, and forged the components. Meanwhile, Rose put those components together in a separate location, and placing the beacons on Mercury to transmat the device in once it was time. And now it was finally time to pull the trigger.

"And we're sure this won't just kill us?" Mae asked, staring at the massive gate to the Infinite Forest.

"Considering we're pulling a Cayde, no," Rose replied. "Jeeves, fire transmat."

A voice, one a stereotypically British butler might possess, answered, "Transmat firing."

Bright light winked to life behind them. A massive metal ring began to form, piece by piece as the Vex and Guardians in the area stood still and watched. The sands and hot wind of Mercury soon became still as the device was finished, and Atheon's eye was slipped into the targeting control. Everything was in place for their plan. All they needed now was to power the device up.

"Standby for charging," Mae said calmly as she approached the frame.

The Titan flared her Light, arc lightning chirping around her. Arc Light coated her body and armor, concentrated in her fists as she leapt into the air before slamming both fists back down onto the frame. Immediately, the device absorbed the electricity, and began humming with ominous purpose. Lights built into the device began to circle around the frame as reality within its bounds weakened.

Much the same as it had in the Vault, Atheon was summoned piece by piece. Feet, legs, body, arms, head. The massive Vex dropped to the harsh Mercurian sand abruptly, its confusion at the anomalies of its location obvious. The Guardians nearby began screaming and firing their weapons at Atheon, while the nearby Vex units stood stock still, just as confused by Atheon's presence as Atheon itself was.

Mae and Rose smirked, turning back to the gate of the Infinite Forest as they made their wish:

"I wish to find Luna Noctis, the Final Night, our friend, our Hunter, our sister-in-arms," they said in unison. The pair leapt up into the air, disappearing as they were transmatted into their ships. Without waiting for anything more, they entered the Infinite Forest.

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Luna sat at a table, across from the princesses and the ~changeling~ Queen. The three ponies had been talking for hours, and there were plenty of words used that she had yet to learn. Well, it was talking now, but the first couple hours had been mostly yelling. From her experience during the Taken War, she felt it best to let the ponies fight amongst themselves and not drag herself into it. After all, they had plenty of arguing to do, and Luna had plenty of thoughts to think.

I wonder how they're doing without me? Luna mentally mused. Maybe Mae's beaten her kill-record? Or maybe Rose has finally gotten Shaxx to one-vee-one her.

"~Violet?~" ~Luna~ asked softly, gently nudging the woman from her thoughts.

Luna shook her head clear and looked up at the three. "~Yes?~"

"~Chrysalis wants to stay in Ponyville instead of Canterlot,~" ~Celestia~ said. "~They would need a —... someone to watch over them. We would ask you, but we cannot, because you are not a —.~"

"~Okay, what is a... si-ci-... citizen...? And where could I find one?~" Luna asked.

~Chrysalis~ put her hoof in her face and sighed in exasperation. The princesses, on the other hand, barely held back laughter.

"~A citizen is one who belongs to a country,~" ~Luna~ explained. "~We could make you one, if you want.~"

Luna took a moment to mull over the offer. "~Would making me a citizen... cause you problems with other countries?~"

"~That is not your concern,~" ~Luna~ said with a kindred smile. "~Any threat against you would have been met with Equestrian force anyway. Becoming a citizen would just put it on paper that Equestria is your home.~"

Luna smiled softly. "~I accept your offer. I will become a citizen and... sponsor... the changelings.~"

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Word traveled quickly in the Sol System. Atheon had appeared on Mercury, at the gates of the Infinite Forest. A copy of Ikora's device had appeared and summoned Atheon. Every available Guardian flocked to Mercury to kill it. Even Osiris had come out of the Infinite Forest to check if the talk was true. Upon seeing for himself, he took charge of the situation, organizing teams as copy after copy of the so-called Time's Conflux were summoned and slaughtered.

Meanwhile, Mae and Rose flew through an endless expanse of white, broken Vex and simulated Cabal hashing it out below them. From their vantage point, they could see each and every corridor and its connections. Platforms of simulated stone, pools of Vex radiolaria charged with Arc energy, bright red laser grids, doors to nowhere and nowhen. The Forest was indeed broken, and the Vex still struggled to fix it. Gone were the floating bridges in the sky, and gone were the thinking storm clouds.

Rose held a hand over the black fox tattoo on her arm, her thoughts on her missing teammate. It had been a year and a day since she'd disappeared. Saint-14, the legendary Titan who was supposed to be dead, had been brought back to the world of the living. Guardians had found and destroyed yet another Vex "Garden" and the towering Minds ruling over it.

But neither she nor Mae cared about those things. What she cared about was that her friend was missing. Luna had been struggling after Cayde's death, and after her failed raid in the Dreaming City, she'd become even more reclusive. Where normally the three lived together and saw each other daily, after that raid, she was lucky to see Luna once a week. Soon, weeks became months. Until one day...

Mae clenched her fist, lightning arcing around it. Where had Luna gone? Could she and Rose have kept her from going? Was she okay? Was she truly gone? Every question raced through her mind on separate circuits. Each of them brought down a sense of anxiety as the moment of reckoning grew closer.

Color intruded from their windshields as they found themselves in orbit above a planet that looked much like Earth, though the landmasses were entirely foreign. The two Guardians stabilized their orbit, both shutting down their navigation systems and rebooting them.

"Guardian, I'm picking up a few of Luna's transmat beacons," the butler-voice said, immediately earning Rose's attention. "There are three active now."

"What now, Rose?" Mae asked, turning to look through her windshield at Rose's ship.

"We wait," Rose replied calmly. "And we run scans of the planet, and we set up a few relays out here."

The Titan pulled off course. "I guess I'll go set up the relays. Transmat me yours, aye?"

"Gotcha covered," the Warlock answered.

As Mae began her journey around the planet, she looked down at it. It was remarkably similar to Earth, but felt just slightly different. She observed regions of everything that Earth had; grasslands, forests, deserts, mountains, glaciers, the whole nine. One by one, she began to place the relay satellites in geostationary orbit around the planet, placing a total of fourteen. The beacons oriented themselves, beginning to broadcast their map and scan data to Rose and Mae's ships. When Mae returned to Rose's position, and their maps fully filled in, they noticed something odd.

"Where's her ship?" Mae asked, staring incredulously at the map.

"Not on that planet, apparently," Rose replied. "Her beacons are—"

"What about her Ghost?" Mae interrupted. "Is her Ghost's signal down there?"

"Can't tell," Rose growled in response. "Interference from an energy field around the planet."

"Then what are we still doing in orbit?" Mae hissed impatiently.

"Cool your tits, woman!" Rose shouted. "I want to find her too. But we can't just fly down there without a plan. Look at the map. The northern beacon, on the mountain. Zoom in!"

"Is that a city built into a mountain?" Mae murmured.

"Yes. Cities mean intelligent life. We're the aliens now," Rose said sternly. "We can't just fly down into the middle of a city. We don't know the language. We don't know their tech. We don't know if they're friendly or if they'll stab us in the knees when we touch down. It could be a Darkness Zone down there. We need to be careful."

"So... what do we do, then?" Mae asked with a heavy sigh.

"We find a better landing zone."

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Twilight watched the night sky from her library balcony. The stars above shone brighter than they ever had in her lifetime and not just because of new light-pollution laws and her locale in Ponyville. No, with the world's magic at play, and her knowledge of the pony responsible for the night, it was easy to figure that Luna's emotions were brightening the sky. Soft blues and warm ambers and brilliant violets painted the night, and just as it reflected Luna's mind, so to did it reflect the subject of Twilight's thoughts.

Violet. The Being. The alien from beyond the stars; born of a lover's wish upon a dragon. Bearer of unknown magics. Undying, eternal warrior.

Violet was still a mystery to Twilight. Her thought processes were just as alien to the pony as Violet was to this world. She carried weapons even in safety, wore armor like normal clothes. Sure, she'd drawn out what her life was like before she came here, but Twilight still just couldn't understand. How much death had she seen? How much had she delivered unto others? How many lives had she ended? How many times had hers ended, only to continue with a pulse of light from her Shape?

What kind of world had she come from that needed warriors that could just keep getting up after death?

A pair of stars appeared in the night sky, new, and moving. They hovered next to each other for a little while before one flew away, darting across the black. The other remained still, unmoving, as though watching or waiting. The moving star disappeared over the horizon, re-emerging on the other side of the world a few minutes later, returning to its companion.

That's weird...

The stars waited, and Twilight pulled over her telescope, trying to focus it on the anomalies. As she fiddled with her telescope, the stars began to move once more, heading north through the sky. By the time Twilight had managed to focus the device, the stars had developed long streaks of light behind them, and began to blaze with orange light.

Are they... entering the atmosphere...?

Sure enough, the stars appeared to be approaching quite rapidly, flame trails growing behind them by the second as they tore through the air like it wasn't even there. Slowly, Twilight began to feel the approach of two powerful magic sources. They both felt different to each other, and to any Equisian magic sources.

Twenty bits says they land in the Everfree Forest.

Not even a minute later, both shooting stars broke their flame trails, revealing their arrowhead-like shapes. The two flying objects continued on their rapid approach to the ground. Her horn began to ache as the objects grew closer. The sheer power of the magic within them was enough to disrupt the aetheric field to the point where she could even feel Violet's power, despite her being in Canterlot at the moment. Violet's magic, combined with the magics of the two objects, felt oddly complementary to each other, as though the three were all parts of the same whole. Violet's magic felt like a vast emptiness, a void in which all was silent except her. The approaching powers felt like the static just before the strike of lightning, mixed with the heat of desert sun.

Just as the objects reached the Everfree, they slowed to a halt in the air before descending beneath the canopy, just as predicted.

"SpiiiiIIIIIIIKE!" Twilight called as she immediately began to pack her saddlebags with parchment and ink.

"What now...?" Spike grumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"Something, or probably someone just landed in the Everfree," Twilight said. She threw her saddlebags on her back. "I'm going to go investigate."

"I'll send a letter to the princesses," Spike replied with a yawn and salute. "Be careful."

"I will," she said. With that, she leapt from her balcony, spreading her wings and taking flight.

The mid-spring night air was cool, but not cold. Though she could feel the static and warmth of the foreign magics, they were much less prominent feelings than the anxiety making her feathers itch. This time, there'd be two of Violet's kind, and both would have magics she'd never seen before. Would they be as calm as Violet? Were they searching for her?

Would they be a threat?

As she passed over the treeline above the Everfree, the feeling of static and warmth only intensified. In the distance, in the same clearing Violet had appeared in, she saw the familiar orange glow of firelight. The familiar sound of timberwolves howling echoed in the night, sending shivers down Twilight's spine and making her dip in altitude ever so slightly. She looked closer at the clearing, seeing the clearing filling with the wooden monsters. The sound of Violet's explosive weapons soon followed.

Two figures stood on opposing ends of the clearing, each fighting off dozens of timberwolves in the same way Violet did. The first figure was encased in heavy-looking armor, but still moved with the graceful dancing moves of Violet. Her weapon fired in quick, continuous tempo, and she moved it in circles, juggling it across her armor. Each round it passed, another circle of timberwolves fell to scrap wood.

The other had no armor at all, and danced in a way that made no sense rhythmically. Her weapon, much the way Violet used hers, punctuated steps but never beats. Each time a timberwolf leapt to attack, it would fall to scrap. One managed to scratch her, and the figure switched weapons to one only slightly larger than what she'd been using, faster than Twilight could blink. The weapon hissed into the night, its report a soft rattle like that of a venomous snake.

A deafening roar resounded through the night as the last of the timberwolves fell. Twilight felt her fur begin to itch with fear as she watched a hydra break into the clearing. It roared again as the two figures approached it. The figures were unfazed.

The armored one flared their magic as they leapt into the air. Static electricity began to flow, and Twilight's jaw dropped as she saw it happen. From one hand, a massive beam of blue lightning shot forth, piercing the hydra with the ease of a spear through water. The hydra went still instantly as its body slowly disintegrated into smoke and static charge. As the beam of light faded, Twilight felt the eyes of the figures turn upwards to focus on her.

The unarmored figure leapt upwards into the sky, her feet blasting fire to push her further up, and Twilight felt her breath catch in her throat as she saw a weapon and the hardened gaze of a killer pointed at her.