//------------------------------// // 16) Preparation // Story: Fireteam Odium // by EchoTheFloof //------------------------------// Exodus’ ship soared through the sky towards the town the Val had said he was staying at. It was quite a distance from Solacium, but wasn’t far enough to be an issue for the Galliot. As the town came into view, he noticed a few ponies coming out to greet the ship. It seemed that they had heard of the guardians and their ships, making it easier for Exodus to prepare, as he knew they wouldn’t attack him when he landed. As his ship approached, he placed his Tlaloc on his back and stood, now being ready for teleportation. His Ghost got the hint immediately and sent the Warlock down to the surface, a small group of ponies greeting him with smiles. “Hey there! Are you one of those guardians?” A smaller red pony asked. The Exo gave a small laugh and began walking into the town, ruffling the pony’s mane a little. He didn’t mean to look ignorant, but he needed to speak with the Cabal as quickly as possible. As he walked, he kept an eye out for the pony the Val had described. Apparently she was the one that housed them, and so she would likely be able to help him find them. It wasn’t long before a pony came into his vision that looked identical to what the Cabal had described. She was speaking with a taller red unicorn with a wide smile, nodding rapidly to the unicorn’s words. He began to hear what they were speaking of as he got closer. “-ey aren’t all that bad, Scarlet. I promise.” The smaller pony said. “I will have to take your word on it, I suppose. Though, I would still like to speak with these creatures.” The red pony replied with a sigh. “Of course, they are just over here!” The smaller pony turned to walk in a direction, but this finally allowed her to notice the Warlock, the larger pony quickly noticing him as well. “Is this one of the creatures?” The unicorn asked. As Exodus moved closer, he could make out more of the unicorn’s features. Her mane and tail were a deep blue, as were her eyes. Her cutie mark was a blue rose, still attached to its stalk. “U-uh, no, m’lady. This is one of the guardians that helped to evacuate Manehattan.” She explained. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Exodus said, giving a short bow. This unicorn was clearly respected within the town, and he didn’t want to upset the ponies that lived there. “Likewise. I must thank you for the work you did. Even I could see the column of smoke from the city, though I didn’t think it was as major as it ended up being. I’m sorry that you had to go through that alone.” The red pony said this with a gentle smile, her eyes darting over his armour. Though her eyes seemed to rest for slightly longer upon the weapon stowed on his back. “Thank you, but I had my fireteam beside me. I just wish we could have done more.” “Yes, I can imagine. Now I am not opposed to conversation, but I doubt you came all this way to chat with me.” “You are correct. I have come to speak with the Cabal that are residing here. I was hoping that you would be alright with me doing so.” “Of course, I was going to do the same, as a matter of fact. Would you care to join us?” The red pony asked. “Sure, you lead. I have never been to this town before.” The unicorn’s smile grew wider slightly at that, “Ah, then I welcome you to Despectus. I do hope our little town is to your liking?” She had began walking, allowing the guardian to follow closely as they spoke. “It’s a nice-looking town from what I have seen so far, though I may need to stay a while longer before I can give an accurate opinion on it.” She gave a small giggle and a nod before continuing, “I don’t believe I know your name. I am Scarlet, leader of Despectus.” “Then it’s an honour to be here with you. You can call me Exodus.” The rest of the walk was spent with idle chit chat, mostly around the guardian. Scarlet seemed incredibly interested in their presence within Equestria. “M’lady, we are nearly there.” The smaller pony pointed out, bringing the duo’s eyes up to see a somewhat-decayed building, ponies surrounding it with building equipment. “Certainly not what I expected to see. They’re in there?” Exodus questioned, walking towards the large structure. “They should be. Normally the Mages notify us when these, Cabal have left to do something. They have been waiting in there since they arrived a little while ago.” “Ah, best not keep them waiting then, hm?” He said, walking up to the wooden doors and giving a knock. He had to put a little more force into it to make sure he could be heard through the thick entrance. It wasn’t long before the door opened, revealing a Centurion. Its weapon was stowed on its back, but when it saw the Warlock, it rose its shields up in caution. Exodus was painfully aware of the fact that they couldn’t converse with each other, as it seemed only the Val was capable of speaking their language. This, naturally, was unknown to Scarlet. “Hello there!” She called out, trotting up to the Cabal soldier, “I am Scarlet. I was hoping to speak with you and your leader, if at all possible.” The soldier gave her a long, blank stare before turning back to call out in its language. A few moments later, the Val appeared in the doorway, allowing the Centurion to go back inside. “Greetings. How may I help you?” He asked, looking down at his visitors. “I don’t suppose, you are the leader for your, uh, team of soldiers?” Scarlet queried, her smile unwavering. “I am.” He replied, “And who do I have the honour of speaking with?” “Oh, sorry. My name is Scarlet, you may have heard of me from time to time if you have been living here.” She said, introducing herself for the third time. “I recognise the name. If memory serves me correctly, you are this town’s leader, correct?” At the nod of the red pony, the Val gave a short bow, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, and I thank you for allowing us refuge in your town.” “I try to look out for as many ponies I can. You may not be a pony, but I am still willing to offer safety to you and your kind should you require it.” The Val was about to speak up when Exodus stepped forward, looking up at the towering Cabal, “I hate to interrupt, but I actually came here to speak with you.” He said. The blank stare the Val gave did little to help the Warlock determine his reaction. After a few moments, he stood aside, granting the guardian entrance to the building, “Go in, I am just going to finish my conversation with Scarlet.” Exodus gave a short nod and passed him into the hall. Various seats and tables had been placed around the room. While the hall itself looked old, the furniture seemed newly made, leaving him to assume the ponies had given them to the Cabal recently. The Cabal at the tables paid him little attention. A few glances from them every now and then was all the indication they gave to his existence, something the Exo appreciated as he didn’t have much to speak about with a race that spoke a different language. After a minute or two of wandering the hall, the Val closed the door and began walking towards him, attracting the attention of the smaller Cabal around him. When he reached a respectable distance, he stopped and looked down at him. “You wish to speak with me?” He asked. “I do. You appear to want to protect these ponies, something we as Guardians naturally also want to do. I feel we may benefit from an exchange of information.” “Understandable. You are correct in thinking we wish to defend these ponies. We have little to do now that we have no legion, and none of us truly agreed with what the Primus was doing, but none of us could speak up about it. Now that we are free, we can act on our own accord, and we all agree that these ponies’ lives mean more than the legion returning home.” The Warlock stared at him after the Val had finished talking. He hadn’t expected to ever hear a Cabal say that he wanted to save lives more than take them. Hundreds of records would have to be altered should that information ever get back to the Tower. Straightening himself up, he gave his reply, “As for the information, we need to know about the legion’s carriers.” “Oh, and what exactly is it you need to know?” “Which ones hold the prisoners?” - - - Slowly, Chrome walked through the dimly lit streets that made up Solacium. He hadn’t been able to sleep at all with the new energy coursing through him. Even though he had used a lot of light training, he still had enough to feel it merging with his own magic. The feeling was odd enough to prevent him dropping off to sleep, leaving him incredibly tired, but unable to fix it. He was holding the two suits of armour Exodus’ Ghost had made him, the garments trailing slightly behind him as he tried to focus on walking and keeping them up in the air. Eventually, he reached the familiar door of his cousin’s home, knocking on the door when he got close enough. It was just a few seconds before the door cracked open, revealing the pink mare. Her eyes widened when she saw the blue unicorn, throwing the door open to look at him face to face. “Chrome, you look exhausted! Are you alright?” She asked, worry etched on her face. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s kind of an odd story though.” “Well, come on in. I was about to start making breakfast.” She said, stepping back to allow him in. When he had entered the home, he closed the door behind him, following the seamstress into her kitchen, “Would you like anything?” She asked, gathering a few pans from the cupboards. “Um, no thanks. I actually came here to speak with you about these.” Chrome explained, raising the two bundles onto the kitchen table. The mare gave the piles a short look before trotting up to them, moving the fabric around to get a feel for it. “What are these? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a material like this before.” She muttered, still toying with the fabric. “Exodus gave them to me. It’s guardian armour refitted for-” “Guardian armour!?” Cross exclaimed, cutting her cousin off. “Yeah, one is for me, the other one was a suit Exodus wanted you to have. He was hoping you could make new sets of them if you had this one to work off of.” “W-What? Even after what happened, he was still happy to give me this?” She said, looking at the armour before her. “Hey, you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. He knows it was an accident, and he is treating it as such.” “I… I guess. But why did you bring me the other suit as well?” She asked, giving the other bundle an odd look. “To tell the truth, I can’t figure out how to get this stuff on. The only clothing I ever wear is my armour, and that stuff is easy to wear.” Cross gave a smile and raised Chrome’s armour up into the air, getting a better look at its assembly. When she was satisfied with it, she moved the larger piece over to Chrome. “I think this is the body armour. Want to start with this one?” She said. “Sure, you’re the one who knows what she is doing. I’ve got no idea how to work with this stuff.” Sighing slightly, she wrapped the fabric around his barrel, allowing him time to move his legs through the holes that were cut out on the bottom. When it had entirely covered him, she looked under it to see if there was any easy way of fastening it through the middle. However, as much as she looked, she couldn’t see any obvious way to attach both sides together. She was about to mention it when the two sides merged together, a strip of light covering the gap. After a moment, the strip of light vanished, leaving the seam gone completely. “Wha? How did it-” “Trust me, it’s a fairly long story. I would rather see if this stuff fits me before I start explaining it.” Chrome said. A grumble left her lips as she picked up the four greaves that lay on the table. This was a much easier step, as they easily slipped around the blue pony’s legs, the light showing up four more times to seal them to the body piece. Next, the helmet came up. It was in two segments, as it wouldn’t be possible for a pony to put on if it was in one. “You ready?” She questioned, raising the two parts up near her cousin’s head. “Yeah, go ahead.” With confirmation given, she pushed them either side of his head, his mane being allowed to come out the top of the helmet. When the helmet joined, a couple of beeps could be heard within the armour. The visor was blacked out for a little while as they waited patiently, Cross slightly nervous at what it may do. After a minute, the visor lit up, giving Chrome a clear view through the helmet. On the other side, however, it remained opaque, giving her no indication he could see her. When the visor had activated, various icons began displaying on his side of the helmet. A group of smaller icons appeared at the bottom left, a longer bar showing up just above it. At the top left, a circle had shown up, splitting itself into eight segments. He could see a small blue dot within the circle, that moved to point at Cross as he turned his head. The last object to show up was another bar, this time at the top of the display. Two of the sections were empty, leaving the final section flashing a bright red. The helmet gave one last bleep before going silent, allowing its new user to gaze over the new icons. “Chrome? Is it working?” Cross asked, looking at the black plate on his helmet. “Yeah, I think so,” He replied, his voice slightly muffled by the helmet, “Do you see all this stuff?” “See what? All I can see is a black plate. Is it different on your end?” “There are icons all over it, and I can see everything just as clearly as when I wasn’t wearing it. This technology is amazing.” “Well, there’s one last piece.” She said, picking up a large ring from the table. There wasn’t anything immediately interesting about it. It seemed to be made of the same white fabric and metal the rest of his armour was made of, “I think it’s meant to go on your leg.” Chrome hummed in agreement and took the ring, pulling it up his left foreleg until it reached the top of it. When it stopped moving, it clamped down a little to prevent it falling back down again. The pressure was barely noticeable, but it gave him a feeling of strength that he wasn’t expecting. “How do I look?” He asked, giving himself a quick glance over. “The design is certainly interesting. As it is meant for warfare, I can’t really give a real opinion on it, but the metal seems to cover all the most vital areas of your body. Is that all the protection it gives?” “I don’t think so,” Chrome said, “I have seen the guardians talking about shielding in the past. I think there is meant to be an extra layer of energy that covers the armour, but I don’t know how to make use of that sort of shield.” “Fascinating. I don’t think I have ever read of armour that makes use of magic for added protection.” Cross muttered, raising a hoof to her chin in thought. “That’s because it’s not a viable option. Creating a shield that covers armour is immensely taxing on a unicorn’s magic. And even when it is surrounding an object, it requires the caster to be nearby in order to replenish it. It used to be used for training, but ponies just use normal armour these days.” “So how do the guardians do it? From what I can gather they don’t have magic like we do.” Chrome gave some thought into that. The guardians had never explained to him how they created their shields, so he had to make a guess based on the little he knew of them, “They don’t use magic, no. They have their own variant of magic they call light. From what I can gather, the push their light outside of their bodies, using it to shield them. When it depletes, they need to channel new light into it.” “But how are you going to do that?” The mare asked, “You don’t have this light that they use.” The stallion gave a smile at that, “Remember that story I mentioned earlier?” - - - Just outside of town, Elana and Kalis stood together, the human holding her new rifle. They had been practicing for a little while now, and Elana had almost got the hang of considering bullet drop and wind speed when firing from long range. “In combat, you won’t have this amount of time to take aim.” Kalis said, “You need to be ready to draw your rifle, take aim and fire all within a split second. If you can’t, you will put both you and your team in danger.” “But how would I manage to hit anything?” Elana asked, looking at the Exo. “That’s where the practice comes in. It’s one thing to hit a stationary target, it’s a whole other to hit a moving target within a second.” “This is gonna be tough, huh?” Kalis laughed at that, “Yeah, it will be. The best way Kervis showed me to train using a sniper is to spar with another guardian. That guy is incredibly fast for a Titan.” “Wait, you want me to fight with you?” “Yeah. Did you ever hear of the Crucible?” Elana gave a nod. Most guardians hear about the Crucible when they arrive at the Tower, though not many actually take part in it until they become stronger. “Guardians fight all the time. It’s a sport, in a way, that allows them to gain increased skills, while also arming them with rewards for participating in it.” “But how would fighting you improve anything? You are way better than me in this, you would just flatten me.” “How else are you going to learn? You can’t make trees avoid your shots. In order to become a better sniper, you need to learn how to kill moving targets.” Elana sighed at that. She understood what the elder Hunter was trying to explain to her, but she wasn’t entirely comfortable trying to kill her allies. “Listen, it’ll be fine. I’ll notify the others of what we are doing so they don’t freak out, and then we can start. All you need to do is hit me before I hit you. You don’t need to kill me, you just have to land a shot.” The human looked up at the Exo and gave another nod. She really didn’t want to follow through with the idea, but she knew she wouldn’t get anywhere if she didn’t. “As soon as I lose invisibility, we begin, okay?” Kalis said, creating a Smoke grenade in her hand. “Yeah. Let’s do this.” Elana replied reluctantly, readying her sniper. Before she did anything, Kalis sent a ping to the rest of the guardians. The ping was well known within Odium, as it had been used many times when Kervis trained Exodus and her. The ping was a simple message allowing the others to know of why guardians were dying. As the ping sent, the Hunter before her threw the grenade at the ground, her armour making her invisible. Elana could faintly see the guardian as she back off, which gave her an idea of where to be looking. After a few seconds, Kalis became visible once more, and she quickly took aim. Aiming at the mobile Hunter was difficult to say the least. She was using a variety of tactics to move herself closer to Elana, including shrouding herself in Void light to evade sideways, throwing the human off whenever she got the reticle on her. She was about to pull the trigger when Kalis stopped moving and crouched, her sniper creating a red glow to signify her aim. Before she could even react, a searing pain ripped through her shoulder, her HUD notifying her of a loss of shields. The final red bar was slightly depleted, but it stayed strong. “What are you, a statue?” Kalis called out, standing straight and reloading her weapon, “You need to keep moving, regardless of whether you can fire a shot of your own off. If you stand still during a real battle, you’ll be cut down before you can do anything.” The pain had ebbed away, her light fixing the hole rapidly. As her shoulder healed, the white bars on her shield bar replenished, re-shielding her once again. “Do it again, but this time start moving.” The Exo commanded, making herself invisible once more. Elana took an easier stance, readying herself for the rapid movement she had to use. Kalis was correct in saying that she should move even if she can’t fire a shot. If her enemy ran out of ammo, they would be out of the fight, giving her an opportunity to go for the kill. When the Exo became visible once more, she immediately started running to the left, firing off a double jump to send her in the air. As she retained her height, she managed to get a look at where Kalis was. She had been using similar tactics to the ones before, keeping herself on the ground, but moving too fast to keep an eye on. Seeing the older Hunter take a pause, she took her chance. As she fell back to the ground, Elana raised the scope of her rifle to her eye and fired a shot. The round barely missed Kalis, tearing past her shoulder and ramming into the dirt behind her. Before she could fire again, however, Kalis took aim herself. Elana immediately came to the realisation that if she took fire while landing, she would be a sitting duck. She needed to do something to evade the incoming round, or it would hit her with ease. Thinking fast, she pulled her gun back and used her light to turn her around. As soon as she hit the ground, she went into a slide, feeling the vibrations of a sniper round fly just behind her head. She looked in the direction the bullet passed her in shock. She hadn’t expected to dodge it so easily, and was about to smile when another shot hit her in the arm. She clutched the limb in pain, her eyes clenching as her light repaired the damage. “Nice moves, but you didn’t keep them going.” Kalis commented, standing up and reloading once more, “If you can keep that up for longer, you probably have a pretty good chance of dodging shots fired at you.” Elana grunted and stood up, looking at her sparring partner, “Keep going. I think I can get the hang of this.” Kalis chuckled and charged a new Smoke, “With pleasure.” - - - “Primus! We have moved the resources you requested to the surface.” A legionary said, standing to the right of the colossal leader. “Good. Are the soldiers prepared?” The Cabal leader questioned, looking over the fleet of drop ships that flew before his carrier. “As prepared as they can be. Will Goliaths be authorised for this battle?” “No. It shouldn’t take that long to finish this. Keep them on alert, but they are to be used only if I give the command.” “As you wish, my Primus.” The legionary said, giving a salute and walking away to notify his brethren of the orders. “Oh, Thovog. I wish you could be by my side,” The Primus muttered, his eyes crossing over each individual ship, “Our homecoming is nigh, and there will be nothing to stop us this time.”