//------------------------------// // The stars are coming // Story: No sounds in space // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// The four tenno had been taken to the recruit training grounds. It was one made for the earth ponies and had been placed within a giant barracks close to the castle walls. The place was immense and outfitted with several walls covered by cardboard griffons outfitted with ancient armor. Twilight noticed this after seeing a few broken boards placed against a wall to the right of the entrance and asked Celestia: "Why are the targets griffons with that really old armor? I've never seen any of their soldiers wearing those." The armor in question was quite bulky and seemed to be mainly made of brown leather wrapped around their bodies. Only the front chest and the shoulder areas of their forelegs seemed to hold any kind of metal armor, although what kind of metal Twilight didn't know. She could only see the immediate front of the griffon, so it was unknown if there was more metal plating elsewhere. "Oh. This is a very ancient training arena for the Royal Guards. It was before my time. Apparently, it was made for the predecessor of the Royal Guard: The Council's Militia." "They had their own army?" "In a way. I think we had entered a war with the griffons. I don't recall. The militia had an outright sadistic Supreme Commander at the time. He had a habit of impaling griffons on poles and would leave the weapons on the field of battle like that." Twilight gulped in fear and felt an electrical tingling in the air. "Speaking of supreme commanders, here is the current one," Luna said. The Supreme Commander had limped through the glass doors, a cast on his leg and patches on his ribs and head. One of the bands were wrapped around the right said of his face, covering his eye. It seemed, though, that he burnt a hole through it in order to see with that eye again. As always, the stallion was emotionless in both expression and posture. "What are you doing here?! I told you to report to the nurse and have yourself healed," Celestia sighed. "I must attend to my duties. Physical hampering will not prevent me from doing such. Might I inquire as to why the intruders are currently in the training barracks of my Royal Guards?" "We..." "We're going to test their abilities. We...discovered some unusual information regarding them and want to see what exactly they're capable of," Twilight said. The lavender alicorn looked at Celestia apologetically, but the sun princess simply gave a nod so as to indicate her thanks to that quick intervention. "Will they be timed?" the commander asked. "Well, we didn't think of that, but that would be a great idea," Twilight said with joy. "A pegasus is always used to view the recruits go through the obstacle course and measure the time it is required for them to complete the course. Several courses are present in this facility. The one in front of you is the obstacle course for earth ponies. The intruders will attempt to pass this one." "I can check on them!" Rainbow Dash shouted with excitement. The supreme commander handed her a stopwatch and watched her fling above the course next to an instructor who was frightened by the immediate appearance of another pony next to him. "The best time was done by Ellamus Onionweed. He completed the course in one minute and twenty seconds. Who will be first." The four tenno were standing behind the group, watching and observing the events, actions, and sounds happening around them. They were oblivious to the conversation about them. Twilight sighed and rubbed her forehead in frustration. "I'll draw another picture," she said. Taking the usual from a nearby table, the mare drew a little maze showing the tenno going through it. It had a strange looking stick figure in front of the maze with a long line in front of it, leading to the exit where the stick figure was jumping in joy. There was also a clock in the upper right corner. Once the four had properly analyzed the depiction, they nodded, and Volt was the first to go to the starting line. He lowered himself in a the running many position and waited. "Ooo! Ooo! I want to let him start!" Pinkie Pie said as she bounced in excitement. "Okay! Here. Take this flag and wave down when you're ready," Luna said as she handed a make-shift white cloth stuck to a wooden pole. The pink pony bounced towards he entrance and, the moment she got near it, stomped on the ground and put on a frightening serious look. She glanced left and right for a moment, raised the flag, then lowered it while saying: "Go!" Volt energized its body with electricity, giving off a weird buzzing sound as he did so. Much to the ponies' surprise, the warframe had already bolted off. It had barely been seven seconds and he was already halfway through the course. From her aerial perch, Rainbow could see it running along the walls, then skipping off them to run on another and continue its momentum. When faced with a tall wall, it ran up the obstacle then flipped over it once reaching the top. Even the obstacles requiring a pony to crawl on the ground were of little inconvenience as Volt simply slid underneath the lengthy distance. The pegasi who were training around the aerial course had stopped to see the biped quite literally 'bolt' through the course. When Volt finally reached the end, Rainbow Dash stopped the timer and said, in disbelief: "T...Twenty seconds." There was an eerie silence in the building after Rainbow said those words. Even she couldn't believe it. Expecting a reaction, Applejack took a peek at the commander, only to notice that he wasn't fazed at all. "Impressive. A new record. Next," the commander said. As Nekros prepared for his turn, Applejack slowly slid towards the two sisters, creeping Luna out as she looked like she was slowly approaching her with a terrible poker face. "Princess Celestia, that supreme guard gah really creeps me out." "That project was made so that the soldiers would be emotionless and every and all regards. The problem with it is that they become completely incapable of living on their own. Luckily, he was raised by the guards and knows right from wrong as well as how to live on his own." "Wasn't that a bit wrong ta let guards take care of him? Ah mean, he was just a colt." Celestia had no real answer and shrugged. Applejack became skeptical at this point about the princess' intentions. Nekros' run was much longer, ending at thirty-five seconds, but he seemed to not care about the obstacles at all what with him non-chalantly jumping over everything. Next was Frost Prime. Despite being very slow, he still managed to finish in around twenty-seven seconds. As for Teech, he plowed through the entirety of the course, smashing through the walls and platforms. Frost Prime seemed disappointed in this display of barbarism. He seemed to be scolding the new warframe at the exit. At long last, the supreme commander showed a smidgen of emotion. His eyes widened as the obstacle course collapse into pieces. "That obstacle course was created using armed concrete. It charged through the material without effort." "Armed concrete? I thought only dragons could destroy those? D-d-d-does that mean they're dragons?!" Fluttershy stuttered. "Don't be silly, Fluttershy. It's clear that they aren't from here. I think it's even clearer that they aren't from our world," Rarity noted. "Wh-what do you mean?" Twilight asked. "Come now. Have you ever seen anypony with those kinds of powers or outfits? I mean, the only bipeds we know of are the minotaurs, and these gentleponies have nowhere near the same body shape as them. I mean, if you think about it, they aren't similar to Iron Will in any way." As the conversation was about to become more complex, strange sounds started to come from outside. Ponies were heard yelling, and the building shook slightly. Without warning, the doors were torn out of their hinges, showing what looked like a gigantic, misshapen biped wearing weird armor. It was a bombard of Captain Vor accompanied by around ten troopers. This bombard deemed to be decorated with some sort of golden lining around his helmet. "This is where that orokin artifact's energy was traced. Search for it." Celestia and Twilight stepped in front of them to block their way. The sun princess was the first to speak. "Who are you and what are you doing on my castle grounds?" The creatures did not speak but continued to circumvent the princesses. Twilight didn't take too kindly to this and, with a bit of magic, lift the other grineer and threw them back towards the entrance. "What? How DARE you defy the Grineer Empire. I will teach you your place equi--" The bombard stopped and immediately looked up to see the four tenno standing right behind the ponies. They were just staring at the bombard without so much as holding a weapon. They were taunting him, and it was working judging by how he was shaking and nearly crushing his ogris rocket launcher. "TENNO SCOOM!" the bombard roared as he let loose several missiles. The tenno dodged out of the way, leaving the ponies behind. Luckily, Luna managed to shield everypony from the missiles with a magical barrier, but the explosions surprised everypony. These new creatures were obviously familiar with the four bipeds, but they possessed weapons of destructive potential that the four had not yet shown. Even with a shield up, a few of the missiles ended up deviating from their trajectory and crashing into the walls and the courses, destroying everything and tossing debris everywhere. "Supreme commander, evacuate the area of rookies," Celestia ordered. "What about combating these threats?" "We will take care of it, now do as I say." "Yes, your highness." Celestia turned to the mane six and her sister and said: "Knock them out and hold them down. I want to interrogate them, except you, Fluttershy. I need you to see to the well-being of the recruits." "Okay." The yellow pegasus flew towards the supreme commander while avoiding the bullets being fired by the grineer soldiers. As much as the ponies wanted to get near, they couldn't get past the projectiles being fired by the weapons the new creatures held. Rainbow Dash was sneaky and fast enough that she managed to fly around the shield and punch four of the soldiers in the face, stunning them. Unfortunately, she had to get away just as quickly. The giant one yelled something, and one of the troopers reacted by tossing a strange projectile towards the ponies. Luckily, Luna's instincts reacted better than the curiosity of the others, and she pulled everypony back. It's a good thing she did that, too, as the ball exploded, creating a tiny crater and damaged surroundings. "Rarity, now!" Twilight shouted. The two ponies concentrated their magic together, then threw a rope of magic which entangled the group of grineer. They struggled as best as they could, but they couldn't get free. Heaving a sigh, Luna dropped her barrier, allowing the group to go forward. "Ah'm glad that's over. Ah thought we would've been able ta stamp 'em, but they got those weird weapons that--" "Go pewpewpew!" Pinkie interrupted Applejack with a wide smile. "I shall apprehend these creatures and interrogate them in the dungeons. Then we'll know what they're doing here," Luna said. "Princess, watch out!" Twilight shouted. Luna had gotten too close to the group and three of them managed to free themselves from the magical restraints. Twilight tried to intervene as fast as she could, but the creatures already had their weapons pointed at the blue alicorn. Every event seemed to be happening in slow motion for the ponies, but especially Twilight. She wouldn't make it. She wanted to so badly, but she knew he couldn't, yet Twilight still tried even though she saw the fingers pushing against the metal apparatus under the weapon. Closing her eyes as she didn't want to see the event, she awaited for that horrible banging noise. It didn't come. Instead, she was met with the sound of a painful grunt, then a scream. The grineer's arms were on the floor, and Nekros was there with his ether reaper. He had dropped from the ceiling and was compressed against the floor with both arms sticking out towards the back. Before the other two could figure out what happened, the warframe spun immediately into action. Letting the weapon spin around its body one time, it took the momentum by the hilt and sliced through the wounded grineer's stomach, letting the top half slowly slide of the abdomen. The other two began to fire their weapons, but Nekros spun the weapon around, deflecting the rounds. When the clips were empty, the grineer saw that the bullets had splattered the surrounding walls with puncture holes. They needed to reload, but it was too late. One fell into three pieces, and the other slid apart diagonally. More tried to free themselves, but Volt's glaive was heard bouncing off the walls and floor until it bounced off the wall next to the restrained soldiers, slicing clean through five of them. Teech smashed into another fired one of his cannons through the trooper, cutting a nice hole in its body. As for the other, the tenno took out its melee weapon and impaled the trooper on it. The weapon had a curved hilt and two blades placed into it. Both were rounded, but both had an opening near the top in order to lock another weapon into the blade allowing easy disarming of the opponent. It took no effort for Teech to lift the grineer in the air, have it slide on the blade, the slice upwards, cutting the upper portion in half. When Frost Prime landed, the bombard broke free and aimed at it, but the grineer was too slow. The bombard found its strength slowly fading as it slid apart, falling on the floor. He then began to drag gimself towards Celestia where he grabbed hold of the princess' right foreleg and raised his right arm towards her neck. All she did was look at it with her eyes in pure terror. She was too frightened to move her head. As the grineer began to slowly loosen its grip, the white mask covering his face unhinged itself, hanging off the lower right part of the helmet. Celestia's eyes widened even more when she saw the face of a pale, gray creature with several scars and what looked like decaying skin staring at her with eyes full of hatred and rage. The fires soon died out as he finally let out his last breath. Looking at the scene, Celestia could see Teech trying to perfect his stabbing technique, Volt shrinking his glaive to put it back on his arm, Nekros poking and prodding the dead grineer pieces, and Frost Prime who was simply looking back at her with a dreaded red liquid dripping from his blade. They were cold-blooded killers... "Princess Celestia! There's a weird machine taking off near the castle!" a servant yelled as it ran towards the training grounds. Indeed. The machine mentioned was similar to the style of these deceased creatures, at least to Rarity's eyes, but it didn't get far. Something struck it, causing it to explode several times and collapse back onto the ground in flames, inciting the reaction of the fire fighting ponies at the castle grounds. Several manta-ray looking ships began flying overhead towards unknown directions, but a very large one, looking like a very sleek and sturdy ship landed right in front of the training hall. Something lowered from it, and three floating objects immediately went to Volt, Nekros, and Frost Prime. Many long-legged machines with giant cannons on the top of their heads jumped out of the ship and surrounded its entrance. They had been painted with streaks of blue for some reason. Two more creatures came down, but one of them looked rather...normal compared to what was obviously a comrade of these four. The skinny one was rather pale and had a rather strange demeanor. The suit he was wearing seemed rather bulky for him, but he didn't seem to mind. It had a dark blue, leathery exterior, and the knees were made of what looked like a solid black ring of an unknown material. These rings were also present on his shoulders, but there were two on both sides. The feet also seemed elongated and were black, but this strange attire seemed to give the ponies a better perspective of what was under the warframes. He was a wearing a helmet of sorts. Two large circular objects were covering his ears, but he still seemed to hear easily from them with what looked like metallic enhancers in the middle of these. The top of the helmet jutted forward and rounded over his forehead. There were also strange thread things coming out of the circular portions that wobbled every time the biped would move his head. Walking next to him was a tenno with a more feminine structure than the other four. Her arms were covered with what looked like individual armor pads with the shoulder pad the left arm before extremely tall compared to the one on the right. It almost looked like an archer's vest covering leather armor when looking at what looked like folds going around the neck and over her chest. The armor on the legs seemed to stretch backwards when going towards the end of the legs, and the footwear stretched backwards like a thorn. As for the helmet, there was what looked like a small horn above the forehead which sat atop an extremely large fold going towards the back of the head. What seemed strange is that the armor looked like it was composed of several waves of something. There were many 'rings' or 'waves' gliding on the surface as decoration. "Tenno! It is good to see my favorite customers once. Believe it or not, but I intercepted a distress call from the grineer and came to see where they had landed. I was expecting to find a rich source of ressources to obtain and sell. Maybe even a new rare resource that would boost my revenue ten-fold...Oh, but you would have had your share, of course. I know how fond you are of your orokin artifacts and how much you wish to restore them," the creature said. "You speak our language?" Pinkie Pie asked. The biped knelt down and looked at the pony with curiosity and surprise. "How strange. An equine creature that talks? Hmmm. Perhaps I could open up trade routes with them?" he thought aloud. "I'm Pinkie Pie, but I think you should have told me your complete name as well," Pinkie sterned. "True. I am Darvo. I only work for myself and my entourage. I must say that I was quite surprised by the immense amount of tenno coming towards this sector. I was hoping to avoid getting a misunderstanding, but she went into my ship, destroying ALL of my sentinels in the process." Darvo turned to face the banshee. "You owe me in damage costs," he yelled angrily. Banshee did not flinch nor react at all. "Anyways, I am sorry to say that your planet has the taint of infestation upon it." The initial tenno group jolted upwards in shock, scaring those who managed to recover from the event. Luna was worried for her sister who had barely even moved. She still had the crusty red of the bombard on her coat. "I suppose I should let Lotus tell you the rest. I'm out of here. I'll come back when everything is back to normal. Good luck, Tenno," Darvo said as he ran off. The Banshee pushed something on the side of her helmet. What it was, nopony really knew. All they did know was that Banshee began to speak. "Natives of this world, I am Lotus of the Tenno. I oversee their operations everywhere in the Solar System, but this place is far beyond our borders." "Ah! Finally. One that speaks," Twilight said with exasperation. The ponies all seemed exhausted after what they saw. "You mistake, equine. I am speaking through the warframe of this tenno operative. I do not have much time. My tenno are exploring your world, and I had the sentinels of the Obion Three placed in Darvo's ship. They will be invaluable to their future operations." "Three? There's four." "Four? Indeed. I have never seen that model anywhere. Interesting. It seems to have the physical prowess of Rhino, but abilities all of its own. I will speak to him after I have warned you of the incoming threat." "What threats?" Rarity asked. "You have just met with the Grineer Empire. These ones seemed to have been forward scouts sent as reinforcements to Captain Vor and his stranded soldiers. The main rescue fleet will be here in a few days. The empire is a merciless faction that conquers and destroys anything that does not follow or obey them. The Corpus, a mercantile faction armed with robotic sentinels and machines of great power are going to be arriving as well. Darvo has said that they have most certainly intercepted the transmission as well and will come in order to ascertain the resources here. If they find things of value and you are not willing to negotiate a trading contract with them, they might take the sources by force, and seeing how you have been aiding fellow tenno, they will not take kindly to your civilization. Their machines are an incredibly dangerous threat, so try and stay on their good side. As for the infestation, it is an ancient disease that infects flesh and transforms it. This disease seems to have been growing along a mountainous area to the north of here." "Montains to the north? That's where the griffons are," Twilight said as she started to think. "Why weren't we alerted to this? Gaddaveer should have known about this. There's something more sinister going on with what happened here than I thought," Luna remarked. "If the infestation is not immediately stopped, then your world and all those who live on it will die. Because of the impending threats coming to your world, I am placing it under tenno protection. Do not worry, we will only intervene with the threats concerning those we know. We will not do anything relating to your everyday lives or politics." "We understand. If this is the case, I would like to meet with you in pony so we can discuss this together," Luna said confidently. "I...I cannot. We will send you messages when possible. For now, I must tend to those in our own system. Trust in the tenno. They will protect you." Quite an energetic life was going to come to Equestria and the world as a whole. What worried Twilight the most was Celestia. She just wouldn't move. She seemed paralyzed. The princess might need to be put to rest in her private chambers. Nopony knew what was going to happen next, but it was going to be something truly terrifying.