• Published 9th Jul 2013
  • 1,860 Views, 67 Comments

Gate Hunters Wanted - Useless Machine



Six Bearers of Harmony. Six Vault Hunters. One totally-not-a-Vault-I-swear-man. Shenanigans!

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Don't Run, We Are Your Friends

Approximately thirty minutes later all of the Vault Hunters were gathered inside of Crimson Raider HQ. Lilith had dismissed the citizens of Sanctuary to their homes and, despite the rumors that began to spread, they were planning.

The Siren stared down the other Hunters.
"Alright. First item on the agenda; is Fast Travel still working?"
Gaige raised her hand. "Yeah. I checked in with Scooter while everyone else was there. He hit on me again, not sure if he was kidding, but in any case he did say he was able to keep the Fast Travel link calibrated. Of course, uh... how do I put this delicately..."
Lilith raised an eyebrow. One hand began subconsciously charging phase energy, before she reached for a chunk of Eridium and consumed it before the fatigue of planeswalking a city that far a distance hit her.
"...his hands are kinda swollen. And slightly chafed."
Lilith nodded, her eyes faintly glowing as she didn't even bother to hide the Eridium consumption. At least he wasn't missing an arm.

Maya decided to interject. "You know, considering the Eridium fatigue that sets in after you consume a piece, you should probably stop before it knocks you out."
"Maya, I'm probably going to get knocked out considering how I just phasewalked us. I plan to be in a bed when the fatigue hits, and I plan to sleep for two days. Which reminds me, when the fatigue hits, if I don't just die up front, Mordecai, you're in charge of the city."
Mordecai nodded, the tiny little Bloodwingling on his shoulder. "And if you do die?"
"You're still in charge."
Mordecai nodded.
"Oh, and Maya? I have third-degree burns all over my body, and it's a fight to speak like this, because I was screaming in heat and light. So please, shut the fuck up."

And with that, Lilith decided it was time to broach the Scrollophant that had made its way into the room and smothered everyone in tension. "Alright. Zer0, what can you tell us about this place?"
"It's not Pandora. But that's obvious. It seems there are aliens."
Axton gave Zer0 a look. "...any of them look like you, by coincidence?"
"Shut up."
"Zer0's home planet confirmed!" piped in Gaige.
"I don't care about the peanut gallery, so please, be quiet, now." The assassin put a bit of extra intimidation into his tone, and all quietened.
After a few seconds, he spoke again. "They're not bipedal. They look sort of like horses, or perhaps ponies."

Half the room gave Zer0 the sort of look that implies you're talking about what someone made up. Salvador decided to voice this. "Hey, ninja, the fuck is a horse?"
Maya interjected before Zer0 could throw something at the Gunzerker. "I learned about those in the Order. They were old animals from Terra, used to be used... sort of like the Sheriff's skags in Lynchwood. They weren't skags, though."
Having something to compare it to, the group nodded at the understanding of what a horse was.
"Oh, and by the way, a 'pony' is just a miniature horse." Maya figured it would probably be best to get that one out of the way before anyone asked more stupid questions.
"ALL I CARE ABOUT IS THE MEAT!" came the unrequired scream from Krieg.
...seriously? Dude. Not helping.
"PAIN GOES HERE!" Another whump as Krieg's buzz axe slammed into his head, pacifying himself. The two sitting nearest to him - Brick and Axton - edged away a bit.
Lilith quietly stared at the Psycho, who merely stared back from the one open eye-hole in his mask. "...uh... okay then. Moving on, Zer0, what's the landscape like?"
The assassin folded his arms. "Picture the Highlands. Now picture Jakobs Cove, but without the zombies."
A second's pause.
"Place them together. Very wide plains, lots of trees. Think I saw a farm."
Another pause. Nobody bothered to count; it was plainly obvious Zer0 was speaking in haiku, as the ninja-assassin was wont to do. Nobody really knew why, either. But if he wasn't speaking in haiku his verbalizations were four syllables long at the most.
"There's also a town. Looks like it's from B&B, only curvier."

Lilith's response was immediate. "You're shitting me."
"Would I lie?" was the response from the assassin, and Lilith disappeared with a flash.
Mordecai looked over to Zer0. "...apparently, you would."
Zer0 let out a quiet sigh as the room waited for the leader of the Raiders to return. Which she did, several seconds later, with another flash.
"Alright. Turns out Zer0 was right. Now, Zer0, you're an assassin, which means you're good at sneaking around. Might not be as daft with a sniper as Mordecai, but Mordecai's not as subtle. You're going to be intel gatherer. We'll... Idunno, get a rope from Scooter's, lower it down to the ground, have you slide down it while cloaked. You can skulk around for a bit, gather intelligence. That sound fine with you?"
"Affirmative."

Lilith's attention turned to the other five. "Alright. Killers, you'll all be on guard duty. If anything bad happens all of you get ready for any imminent attacks. Gaige, that's not your job, you'll be running engine maintenance with Scooter, see if whatever the fuck I just did killed this place's engines or if we can still stay aloft for a while longer. Mordecai, Brick, you're responsible for running the city, as usual. I'll go out and make an announcement, you all stay near me for added emphasis, and then I can go and crash for forty-eight hours and all of you can do your jobs. It'll be great." The flash of her tattoos indicate she just consumed another shard of raw Eridium. "You all got your jobs?"
One resounding "Roger" sounded off from everyone in the room minus one, who spouted "FINGER FINGERS" in its place.
"Good. Let's get going. Might as well address Sanctuary.

With that, the Vault Hunters all headed outside, where there were still a lot of people present. Lilith swiped an ECHO recorder from Tannis, ignoring her cries to "give that back, you firebreathing simpleton", and set it to "broadcast" as she walked out into the city and cleared her voice. With a few more tabs at the recorder, she began to speak.
"Alright. I'm not going to lie to you, we've Phasewalked to an alien planet. But the Vault Hunters here already have jobs, and there's still a link back to Pandora, so try not to worry. In about a day we'll be able to figure out a couple more things about exactly where we are, but until then, everything's alright. Okay? Just want to make that clear again. Everything is okay."
Maya felt it before anything else. Something was... off. She couldn't tell what it was, but something about the immediate area felt strange. Her Hellfire digitized at her hip, and she grabbed it the second a large purple sphere flashed into existence and nine aliens teleported into view. They didn't look combat-ready.

Sadly, however, none of the other Vault Hunters knew this, as they all proceeded to grab their weapons. Gaige brought forth Deathtrap, Axton dropped the Sabre and hovered over the "Tag As Enemies" function for it, and Krieg tore the buzz axe from his back and muttered to himself as he readied himself for combat. Brick and Mordecai took a second to stare blithely at their fellow Vault Hunters as Zer0 drew his Rapier, Maya's tattoos glowed, Salvador raised an Unkempt Harold and a Rubi, and Lilith dropped the ECHO Recorder and stared at the horses who had the foresight to put a force-field up (seemingly powered by what she identified as the horns on Purple, White, Glowy Hair, Starry Hair, and Other White's heads).

They looked scared. They looked fearful for one second before their faces, as one (besides Yellow's, which took another second) turned resolute and several widgets they were carrying began to glow.

Lilith sighed and placed her face in her hands. "Ooooooooof course it's when everything's okay."


About ten minutes earlier, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony, the world-famous international superhero wielders of powerful magical artifacts that can turn evil into vending machines, the living gods that could defeat any menace alive, were currently raptly staring at the giant floating city that had teleported into place not a second prior in the skies above.

Twilight, after opening and closing her jaw a couple of times, was the first one to speak. "Well, if the Princesses already know what's gonna happen, they'll actually be able to see it."
"Just what in tarnation is that thing?" inquired Applejack, who, as her dialogue indicated, was curious like everypony else about the massive slab of floating concrete.

Twilight studied it for a few seconds. "Hrm... it's obviously hovering, but it's not made of clouds and it doesn't seem to be levitating via magic... it does have some rotating... things near the bottom. Maybe it's a machine. A flying machine."
Rainbow Dash was the second mare from the peanut gallery to fire off her shots. "So... Cloudsdale, only it's actually Manehattan."
"That's... that's a pretty apt summary, Rainbow Dash. If it were a city, anyway."

Dash stood, proudly beaming at her discovery, as Rarity raised a forehoof to her chin. "But if I may ask a question; why has this flying machine come here? Is it run by robots, or aliens? Is it a secret test from Princess Celestia? Did the gryphons send it?"
Pinkie started bouncing at the mere mention of aliens, and immediately began launching on a tirade so fast-paced that not even Twilight was able to keep up on it. Several months later after deep analysis Twilight concluded that it was a rant about wanting to meet aliens. Well, Pinkie had gotten her wish.

Back in the present, Twilight looked over to Rarity. "Well, now that I think of it there's a fairly high chance this is an alien vessel. It's either that, or-"
"ALIEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!" came the harsh squeal from Pinkie Pie as she stood as still as a rock and pointed up at the city. The rest of the Bearers followed her foreleg, and Twilight used a vision amplification spell on herself, looking exactly where she was pointing.

The creature was all black and smooth on first sight. It seemed to be bipedal, like how gryphons could be, or adolescent dragons, having two legs to balance on and two forelimbs to grasp objects with. It was a stark contrast from a quadrupedal frame - while it prevented easy sideways movement, a pony would be able to run much faster than a bipedal being such as this one would. For a second, Twilight fooled herself into thinking the black-and-grey suit it wore was its skin, until she took a look at its helmet and realized that it was likely a full-body suit of some sort. Either that, or it was a robot. Cradled in its arms was a stick... thing that seemed to have what appeared to be a sort of miniature telescope mounted atop it. It appeared to have wooden furnishings.

As she lost herself in thought about what this creature was, she didn't notice the massive flash that announced the Princesses had arrived. She was still too busy intently studying the creature/artifice before her, until, for some reason, it simply disappeared out of thin air. Her mind quickly identified it as a decoy - a simulacrum or an illusion, perhaps.

With a pat on the back, Princess Twilight Sparkle yelped, jumped a foot into the air, and decrowned herself. She spun around to face Princess Celestia and jerked back again, just in time for the royal tiara she wore to crash down, point-first, onto her head.

"OW!" The tiara was caught with telekinetic magic before it hit the ground and returned to its rightful place as Twilight blushed heavily and bowed to Princess Celestia. "Uh... sorry, Princess Celestia..."

Though Celestia's face was grim, it lightened up for a moment upon seeing Twilight unwind like a bad physics joke about elastic potential energy, and the purple alicorn's mind heaved a sigh of relief. "It's okay, Twilight. We all have our off days, even I. But I fear this is not the place for small talk."

"Indeed!" In piped a new voice that was foreign to everyone for a moment. Upon hearing it, Celestia and Luna cringed, and most of everypony assembled turned around and stared at the newcomer.

The first responder was Rarity, who merely sighed and swore under her breath at the sight of Prince Blueblood. Blueblood's situation was... strange; he was royal enough to be given some powers, but not responsible enough to be given all of them. He was astute enough to be a great help in decoding royal laws, but he was spoiled enough that nopony gave him new positions for fear that he would abuse them to the fullest extent. The spat with Rarity had further ousted his character. Blueblood was your typical royal snob, only concerned about himself and those closest to him - and the Bearers, plus that thing floating in Equestrian skies, were definitely not close to him.

"Yes, me. Surprised?"
Princess Luna played peacemaker before the fight even broke out, stepping between the two. "You are not to touch Prince Blueblood. He is here because his presence is required." Rarity seemed to foam at the mouth, before the Monarch of the Night touched her horn to her forehead.
Rarity felt the thoughts in her head. We brought him along to shut him up. Oh, apologies for the invasive telepathy, but he would hear otherwise. Blueblood gave her a dark stare as she returned to normal pose, and Rarity set her poker face back into play.

Celestia looked up. "Alright. As you are all aware, a massive mana charge gathered early this afternoon, and it exploded into the object that is currently in our skies."
Twilight nodded. "Princess, I've taken a look at it and I believe it is some sort of flying machine. There's also a form of... well, at least a defense mechanism there. I saw a black, bipedal being carrying what looked to be some sort of strange long-range viewfinder before it disappeared entirely, so perhaps it was illusory."

Blueblood looked up to it for a second. "Then we are to go there and inform them that they are in our territory, and are legally ours to deal with."
Celestia gave Blueblood a look. "Prince, that is not how we treat guests. These could be potential friends, and personally, I would rather not have them as enemies. If they exist in the first place. Nevertheless, I do believe teleporting up to the thing to introduce ourselves would be a prudent idea."
Luna cleared her throat. "I will turn myself invisible and take a look at the slab from the sky. Then I can be responsible for teleporting us to the proper avenue."

Celestia, Blueblood, and Twilight nodded, and Luna cast an invisibility spell on herself, then teleported herself several thousand feet into the air and began gliding. Though everypony had things they wanted to say to Blueblood then and there - while some were not as hostile as thought, it would be prudent to say that nopony there really liked him that much - they held their tongue, and an awkward stare-off ensued between Blueblood and six rather riled mares.

Meanwhile, Luna slowly and carefully glided over the object, to discover it looked like some sort of retro-futuristic Mild West frontier city in the sky. It seemed to be fairly large, and had a lot of those bipedal things wandering it. Some of them had strange steel objects strapped to their sides or backs, and were carrying them; a little visual amplification and Luna identified one as a "revolver pistol". It appeared to be on a guard. For a moment, she questioned why a guard would carry an entirely ceremonial weapon, and then remembered that revolvers could fire solid slugs of steel. Slugs that travelled very fast, and that even heavy enchanted Guard armor had trouble stopping; the reason why it never saw much use. The weapon was inequestriane and its aftereffects were terrible to inspect.

After looking around she returned to the ground and decloaked. "It appears this flying machine is some sort of floating city, populated by multiple bipedal beings. None were black, but most matched their descriptions. In addition, it appears as if these beings have a method of defense. I spotted one carrying a revolver pistol with it. He looked to be a soldier."

The implication of what that meant was terribly clear. Blueblood was, as usual, the first to speak. "Then we have to get up there and show them that-"
Celestia immediately interrupted. "-we are a friendly and peaceable culture, and that so long as they are open to diplomacy, we are. We will not walk in and act superior, especially when the enemy has a very rare weapon." That shut Blueblood up but good. She nodded to Luna. "Luna, if you may please teleport us? Everypony else, please prepare a barrier spell."

The horns of all of the unicorns present charged with energy, as each of the Bearers steeled themselves for what was to come. Rainbow Dash was the first one to be ready, and Fluttershy, though she took a second, was still able to conjure up a sense of calm. Once Celestia sensed each of her little ponies was ready, she nodded towards her sister.

There was a flash, and the group assembled appeared in the midst of the city, to see nine bipedal beings - one of them being the black illusion from before - take note. Two of them immediately seemed to bring up new machines, and all brandished weapons, preparing for combat. The bubble shield appeared as some of the weapons were seen to be even larger versions of the revolvers - like fully automatic cannons. Celestia felt fear, before she felt the Elements begin to charge and her resolve hardened.

It was then that one of them - a mare, from the looks of it - placed her head into both of her paws. When she spoke, she sounded incredibly tired. "Ooooooooof course it's when everything's okay."


Lilith's mind raced as she immediately thought of how to deal with this new situation. On the one hand; shielded aliens with glowy things that most definitely didn't mean anything good. On the other hand; six very itchy Vault Hunters, begging to scratch. At least Brick and Mordecai had sense.

Without ever raising her head, and ignoring the sense of growing power in front of her, the Siren began grumbling. "Ugh. Is this really how we're going to treat aliens? Point guns at 'em the second they appear?"
"Dammit, Lilith!" Axton snapped first, surprisingly. "They teleported directly in front of us, they should have-"
"Tell me how they would have been able to know about us, Ax, I'd love to hear it."
Axton raised a finger, then thought for a moment.
"Thought so. Alright, Vault Hunters, guns down and kickass death robots back into their containers. Let's try diplomacy, shall we?"
Krieg cricked his neck and smacked himself in the face with his axe again - to the surprise (and horrified recoil) of the aliens there.
Salvador shrugged as he holstered his pistols. "Do not worry about mi amigo Krieg. He is weird like that."
"SHUT SHUT SHUT SHUT SHUT UP!" Another whack.
"See?"

Lilith nodded, and opened her mouth to speak. Before she could, however, she felt a bit dizzy. The Siren didn't even get the time to say "fuck" before she crumpled to the ground. The aliens, now fully weirded out, began discussing amongst themselves - to the surprise of the Raiders, in full English. Mordecai, in the meanwhile, walked over, leaned down in front of her, and checked her pulse.
"She's okay. Just knocked out. It's a long story, believe me. Krieg, make yourself useful and take Lilith to the beds, huh?"
The Psycho nodded, ran over, carefully picked Lilith up, and then began slowly walking as if taking her comfort into mind. A strange act for the insane mass murderer.

Mordecai's masked eyes swept over the group, whose artifacts and horns had stopped glowing. A second later, the force field disappeared. "Anyways, apologies over the cold welcome, but we're not exactly used to a lot of friendly contact. I'll be blunt; we pretty much lived on Hell: The Planet. If the animals didn't want to kill you, then the bandits did, and if it wasn't the bandits, it was the megacorporations trying to carve a stake on this planet because of the Eridian Vaults everywhere."
He got total and utter silence as nine pairs of eyes bored holes through him.
"But I guess we can talk about that later. Name's Mordecai. Second-in-command of the Crimson Raiders, the only free faction on Pandora."
One of them - a white unicorn with blonde hair, he blithely identified - stepped forwards. His posture implied he was not exactly happy with them for existing, and judging by how half the group was staring at him as if they wanted to beat him over the head with something nice and blunt, and the other half raised a single... flat surfacey thing to their faces in their version of a facepalm, Mordecai reminded himself that whoever this prime specimen was wasn't the emissary.
"Greetings. I am Prince Blueblood, of Equestria, and I would like to ask what you are doing in our territory."

The Hunter's eyes narrowed behind his mask. He'd seen these on his ECHO shows; pompous royals who thought they knew it all, and here he was dealing with one in the flesh. He hadn't practiced or anything, but hopefully he'd be able to take lessons from the few he actually respected.
"Our city had a slight glitch in teleportation. We musta... Idunno, jumped across universes or dimensions or something. Either way, it was beyond our control, and I'm sorry if it disturbed you."
"And how do you expect me to believe that?"
Mordecai was extremely blunt. "Blueblood, if we wanted you dead you would be a corpse right now. We are trying to be nice. You could at least return the favor."
The Prince bristled. "Was that a threat?"
It was then that the other white unicorn with wings stepped forwards, using one of its forelegs to cover Blueblood's mouth and glaring rather harshly at him. "No, that was a warning, and you would do wise not to befoul it." Her attention turned to Mordecai. "I am Princess Celestia, the co-ruler of Equestria. No relation to Blueblood. I... apologize for him."
"Eh. Got me creatively thinking about ways to deal with assholes that didn't involve guns. S'alright, I guess."
Blueblood's eyes widened, but Celestia gave him an even harsher glare. "I apologize for your city's failur-"
"Don't." Blueblood's horn lit up, and Luna fired a blast of blue magic, counterspelling whatever retort Blueblood was to bring forth. Six pairs of hands twitched to their weapons. "Really, we did all that we could, but while Lilith was teleporting it... Hyperion shot this beacon thing down at her that screwed up her powers."
Celestia was quick to interject on her own behalf. "First off, I would appreciate not being interrupted. And second... these are all terms unfamiliar to me and my sistren. Perhaps we could hold an official meeting?"
Mordecai shrugged. "Sure, why not? Me and Brick are good talkers enough. We know enough about this place to be worthwhile."

The purple one nudged Celestia.. "Celestia? If I may."
"Go ahead."
"I think we'd - me and my friends, I mean - would be able to learn more about this place if we were to meet up with the ones who aren't leaders in turn." She pointed to the rest of the Vault Hunters.
"Are you sure of this, Twilight?"
Twilight, that was her name, nodded. Celestia's attention returned to Mordecai. "Alright. Your 'Vault Hunters' will be able to... perhaps, give a tour of this city to the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony here?"
Axton nodded. "Sure thing. Least we can do after almost killing ya and all."
Celestia nodded. "And in the meanwhile, me, my sister Princess Luna, and... Blueblood, will have a meeting with you. We'll be able to learn different things this way and get a clearer picture of each other."
Mordecai nodded, almost excitedly. "Heh. A chance for conversation with new people who aren't fuckin' crazy. I'm game. Alright, Princesses, Blueblood, follow me and Brick. Vault Hunters, take the six small ones out for a spin around Sanctuary. Bring them back broken and I'll break all of you myself. Capiche?"
Six heads nodded.

"Then it's settled. Let's go."

Mordecai and Brick retreated into the building, the three members of royalty following. This left twelve people staring at each other.
Axton spoke first. "Alright. Let's get introductions out of the way. I'm Axton, team Commando and leader, nice to meet you all. Ninja dude is Zer0, team Assassin and scout."
"Greeting, aliens. I apologize for the guns, it was reflex."
Twilight looked. "You were the one spying on us with your telescope stick, and you disappeared!" Behind her, the rainbow and blue one seemed to twitch at the word 'spy'.
"A sniper rifle and holographic decoys make life very good."
The pony nodded, before she looked... stricken by something. "Wait a minute. You speak in perfect haiku!"
"Yeah, he does that," interjected Axton. "And if it's not that it's just one or two words. Don't mind it. Book Girl is Maya, team Siren, and finances manager."
"Greetings. I look forwards to talking with you all."
"...yep. Very book-smart. Short dude's Salvador. Team Gunzerker. Enough said about that."
Salvador waved very lazily. "Hola, amigos."
"The robo-arm chick is Gaige, team Mechromancer and engineer. Enough said about that."
"I say "mechro", you say "mancer." Mechro!"
A few heads tilted. The pink one went "Mancer!"
"Mechro!"
"Mancer!"
"Heh, you pony things are awesome."
Axton finished the introduction. "And the shirtless, crazy guy is Krieg. Don't think about him. He doesn't make a lot of sense. At all. Ever."
"Pretty ponies~," uttered Krieg, for now transfixed.
Yep.

Twilight nodded. "Alright. I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle and the Element of Magic. Uh... don't worry about the Princess part. Doesn't really matter much. My pink friend here is Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter... treat her like you'd treat Krieg."
"Ooh! That sounds fun!"
"...On second thought don't. Just don't question anything Pinkie does."
Nods from all present.
"This," she pointed to the white one, "is Rarity. The Element of Generosity. And fine fashionista."
"A pleasure to meet you, darlings." Rarity curtsied. "I look forwards to the chat, like your friend Maya said."
"The cowpoke here is Applejack, the Element of Honesty."
"Howdy!" Applejack waved wildly with one of her forelegs.
"My... rainbow friend is Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty-"
"And the fastest flyer in all of Equestria. Which means you don't make any funny moves or KA-POW!" She pointed at herself, then at the Vault Hunters, in a manner that clearly suggested 'I'm watching you'.
"HA!" laughed Salvador. "I like you, rainbow horse. You have spunk!"
"And last, but not least, is Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness. Uh... don't worry about her, she's not good with ponies."
Fluttershy let out a 'hello' that was barely audible. A noticeable improvement. Had this been another situation she would have hid behind Rainbow Dash.

Maya raised her hand. "One question. Why are you the Elements of Harmony?"
Twilight was quick to respond. "Simple. The Elements of Harmony are magical artifacts, each linked to the various tenets of personality that are deemed to ensure strong friendships. When six strong friends matching each of the Elements are in sync, the Elements unleash an extremely powerful thaumic energy blast that can wipe anything evil clean off the map!"
"...That sounded hokey at first, but now it sounds kinda cool. I'd totes be Laughter, suckers."
Zer0 tapped Gaige. "Understand, though, Gaige, that none of us fit Kindness. A bad metaphor."
"Why you gotta be ruinin' my fun?"
The only response the Mechromancer got was a :P from Zer0's projector.
Twilight waited until things simmered down to speak again, questioning Maya. "Alright. And why are you all called the Vault Hunters?"
"'Vault Hunter' is just a symbolic title that means you're a badass supreme. It used to refer to the other three you'd met - there was a fourth, but he passed away recently." She left no room for mourning, despite noting pupils that dilated slightly and eyes that widened the same amount. "They were referred to in that way because they were searching for an advanced alien Vault that would grant incredible power. They were the only ones to find it - so Vault Hunter is now a term for 'awesome'."
"Yeah, Maya," commented Axton, "nevermind the fact that we were hunting a Vault."
"We found it, Axton."
"Uh, darlings, not that I'd like to interrupt your conversation, but we were promised a tour of this... Sanctuary, were we not?"

Axton focused on Rarity, and immediately recalled what was said. "Yeah. Yeah, you were. C'mon, everyone, time to go see what Sanctuary has to offer."

Twelve beings began moving towards Pierce Station.

Author's Note:

Alternate title: We Come In Peace, Shoot To Kill. I wasn't sure which one to go with so I stuck with the first.
I sat on this chapter for a while but nobody could betaread it, so I suppose I'll be without betareaders for a bit unless someone wants to take over. (One said he'll try in January).
Either way, hoped you enjoyed. Sparty out.