A Titanic Destiny

by Timeless Lord Slayer

Five: A New Beginning - Warriors of the Age

Adric was currently cleaning his guns, and had been since he first arrived in the room last night. Now it was morning. His Ghost had been keeping itself busy as well, reading the books in the room that were originally on the bookshelf, but were now spread out along the bed which went unused throughout the night.

"Find anything useful?" Adric asked, taking a rag out to clean the barrel of his hand cannon.

"A bit. Apparently, there are more diverse races on this planet then there ever were on Earth. There are the Changelings, with six different subspecies. The Minotaurs, then the Sirens which apparently only returned ten years ago, with two subspecies. The Deer, the Buffalo, and the Yaks with one subspecies. The Zebras, then the Dragons with six different subspecies, and finally the Ponies with five different subspecies," Ghost explained. Adric hummed in thought.

"I'll have to learn about each race and their subspecies if I want to know what I'm going to be working with..." he mused and grunted as he placed the now clean barrel down and checked the chamber next.

"I can teach you as we go," his Ghost offered. Adric grunted again.

"Fine," he said as he finished cleaning. A knock came from the door.

"Hello? Mr. Adric?" came a female's voice. "I-I have breakfast for you-" as a scaly pink clawed hand gripped the doorknob and opened the wooden portal, Adric and his Ghost slowly turned to the door, Adric only turning his head. The door opened, and in walked a bipedal pink dragon with sleek features and an apron, carrying a tray of soup, utensils, and a cup of coffee. "Oh! I-I didn't know you were awake!"

Adric turned back to his gun, looking it over a final time as he replied, "Been awake all night." His Ghost looked over the female dragon, noting her green underbelly and golden eyes with small horns trailing the upper sides of her head.

"Hello, who are you?" Ghost asked. She seemed to stare at him in slight awe before blushing as she realized she was staring.

"O-Oh! I-I'm no one important, j-j-just a maid. My name is Sh-Sh-Sh-Shine Bright," the dragon introduced with a stutter.

"No need to be scared, Miss Bright. My friend here is a big softy on the inside, I assure you. Just have to get to know him," Ghost said warmly.

"O-Oh, um, o-o-okay," she said, placing the tray down on a table. "W-Well, here's your food! E-Enjoy!" she said before scampering out of the room.

"She seemed nice," Ghost commented as the door was closed. Adric just grunted again. His ghost stopped from reading a book to look at the food. "Are you gonna eat any of that?" Adric grunted again, placing the gun down and going on to the next. "No, then." His Ghost sighed.

After a good while of relative silence, broken only by the sound of Adric disassembling and reassembling his gun, there was another knock on the door.

"Hello? Mr. Adric? I'm here to take you to your team," said a male voice as the door opened, revealing a Guard like the ones from the gate.

"Right," Adric said, putting his gun back in it's storage with a cloud of blue particles, the hand cannon on his other hip as the sword remained on his back. Adric turned to face the guard, towering over him. "Let's get this over with," he said, motioning for the guard to take the lead. His Ghost disappeared in another cloud of blue particles.

The guard nodded and lead them out of the room and down the hall. As they walked, the guard would occasionally look back at his escortees, but quickly turn away whenever Adric glanced at him. Ghost would simply look between the two at this, not saying anything, despite what must have been a twinkle of something in it's optic.

Finally they reached a set of doors, which the guard opened for them. The outer camp sprawled out before them, and the guard once more took the lead, bringing them over to a rather large tent where a familiar bouncy pink pony was waiting and waving cheerily. The guard saluted Pinkie before trotting off to do some other duty.

"Hey Addy! Glad you could-" she began with a chirp, but it was replaced immediately with a wide-eyed expression as Adric cut her off.

"Don't EVER. Call me Addy," he hissed coldly.

"Wha-? B-But-!" she tried again, but once more she was interrupted by him leaning down and getting in her face in the span of a second, making her fall to her plot with a light squeak.

"E-V-E-R. Ever. Got it? Say it one more time and I'm punting your plush pink head into the dirt," he growled.

"O-okay, s-sorry..." she said quietly, mane deflated. Adric stood up again.

"Good," he said with a simple nod.

His Ghost looked rapidly between the many faces of those around and Pinkie's own, and nervously spoke, "Uh... Sorry about that folks! My partner has a bit of a temper is all, nothing to see here!" The mutterings and murmurs echoed around them for a time, then slowly died down, though the stares and glances did not. Ghost quickly whirled to face Pinkie. "So! What did you need from us?" He asked quickly.

She blinked a few times, then shook her head, her mane slowly returning to it's regular poofiness. "Oh, uh, I thought I would just show Add-" A brief look to Adric stopped her short, and she soon resumed with, "-I mean, you and Adric around the camp where you'll be working for a while." She managed a smile as she stood back up. "I even got your new work buddies together so you could have some fun! I mean, who doesn't like fun?" She put a hoof to her chin. "Well, I guess the shadow meanies, but still! What good pony, er, person, doesn't like fun!? You'd have to be a total meanie pants to not like fun, like those meanie pants shadow ponies and stuff! And let me tell ya, those bullies are just so gosh darned mean! Like, I offered them a cupcake, and they just tried to eat me! Who does that? And then there was that time where-!" Adric placed a finger against her lips.

"You talk too much. Fix that," he said curtly. "I understood it the first sentence in." Pinkie frowned, but nodded and pulled back.

She then raised a hoof like she was checking her watch, and sure enough, there was a watch on her forehoof. "Oh! Look at the time, gottagoseeyalaterbye!" She then sped off in a cloud of dust. Adric watched her go for a short few seconds before shaking his head and walking into the tent, assuming his new teammates would be inside.

"Well... At least I could salvage the situation somewhat..." Ghost said with a sigh before floating in the tent after Adric.

"Hi! Are you our new squad leader? You look pretty mean, do you kill a lot? Ooh, ooh, how do you do it? Do you sing when you do it? Do you, do you?!" asked a peppy yet honeyed female voice out of the blue. It came from what seemed to be a buffalo with brown fur with silvery streaks in it, a single gold band tightened fast to her left horn, and green eyes. A sling of sorts rested around her barrel, holding an ornate flanged mace mixed with an iron-wrought axe at the end. It's handle appeared to be made of solid granite, with the head being simple steel.

"Shut it," Adric said simply. The cow frowned.

"That's not very nice," she said, pouting.

"Forgive her sir, Stonecall likes to make a stir," came a similarly honeyed yet more baritone voice, and Adric and Ghost turned their sights to what seemed to be a zebra stallion with a simple green scarf around his neck along with a silver and gold clasp on his right hoof, a pure gold clasp for his long tail, and a green beetle holding a spiral, tribalistic orange sun tattooed on his flanks. His mane was done in a short warrior ponytail. He saluted. "Aberash, here to clash and smash." He had a pure black lucerne held in the crook of his free forehoof, the weapon looking to be made from segments of various bones, like arms and legs with a hoof as the hammer part, but it was polished to a sheen and still looked sound structurally.

"I'm Lullay Twinkle the Air Siren, sir, happy to meet ya!" came the warm, soft yet slightly reverberating voice of a strange female creature. She looked like a mix of sea serpent and dragon with blue scales, bearing leathery and strange purple wings with talons that doubled as hand-like claws, though there were suction cups in the palms. Furthermore, she had purple feathers on the top of her head, a short bluish-blackish beak and heterochromatic green and red slitted eyes. She held a very ornately designed repeating crossbow in her grasp, polishing it's beech wood surface that was littered with ornate silver framing with silver leaves covering it's edges.

Adric glanced at them all, then their weapons, and then grunted. "Your weapons are primitive. If you're really going to be on my team, you won't be using those..."

"What?! How dare you! My Shiny is-!" Lullay began, but Adric held a hand up and stopped her with a cold stare.

"I wasn't finished. You won't be using those as your primary weapons," he continued. His Ghost looked to him.

"Umm... Are you sure, Adric? Our weapons are kinda... Ya know, advanced, for this civilization. It could cause unforeseen problems," the little robotic eye warned. Adric nodded to his companion.

"I'm sure. Either we give these guys a real fighting chance, or we head back to the forest and fix the ship and leave," he said firmly. Ghost sighed, front segments lowering a bit, as if deflating.

"Alright, if you say so..." he replied.

"Umm... Excuse me for stepping out of line, sir, but what are you talking about that might give us advantage with any bout?" Aberash queried.

Adric would've smirked if his mechanical face could. "Simple. Guns."