The ponies had rested for a week, starting the day after the encounter with the Walker, in which time they had explored the city much more on a more civilian basis. They'd found many small shops and restaurants, among them a coffee shop that Pinkie had broken physics in, they liked and would end up frequenting during off periods like that. In addition to interacting with the civilian population, the six interacted with Shirska, getting him used to seeing them and interacting with them. When they awoke that morning and realized that it was time for them to go find the Stranger on Venus, all of them felt rested enough to do so.
They shopped around the Tower for some new weapons and got a new set of free armor from the Cryptarch, Master Rahool, and 'saddled up' as it were. However, while they were waiting for their new armor to be made, the Cryptarch asked them if they had Sparrows, as they would quickly find themselves tired and sore if they chose to make the entire trek on foot. He told them to ask the Shipwright about getting some Sparrows. They thanked him for the advice, and then left to do just that.
As they moved, Twilight stuck to the back of the group, hoping Fluttershy would slow down with her for a moment of relative privacy. To her luck, her pegasus friend noticed and fell to the back of the group, letting the others move ahead a little ways. At first, Twilight was silent, unable to say what was on her mind. It took Fluttershy's hand reaching for hers to get the unicorn to speak. "I've been thinking about this since that night... with the drunk guy... A-are you... u-um... into guys?"
The pegasus smiled at her friend, and gave her hand a light squeeze, before giving her head a gentle shake. "No, and I've never been with anyone that way."
"A-are you... um..."
"Yes," Fluttershy interrupted, knowing what she was going to ask. "When we come back from Venus, I'd like to take you to a little place in the City I saw the other day. Would you like to do that with me?"
"Just fucking kiss already!" Rainbow called from a few meters ahead. "We all know you two want to be a thing and we've tried to let you go your own pace but Celestia damn, you two."
Twilight looked down at the ground to avoid eye contact, a deep blush infusing a red tint into her face. Just when she thought her face could not get any redder, Fluttershy responded, "I have to at least buy her tea first. You don't just kiss somepony before the first date. That's weird!"
"Look, as much as I'd love to gush over how adorable and meant-for-each-other you are and design dresses for your hypothetical wedding," Rarity started, walking over and physically pushing the two of them forwards towards the hangar, "we've got a Stranger to find and talk to."
"Wait what."
"You heard me!" Rarity huffed, passing the two as they finally started walking on their own.
"Dibs on the reception!" Pinkie giggled.
"Back off they're mine," the alabaster unicorn hissed near demonically, drawing frightened stares from everyone. "I mean, um, let them decide?"
------
The flight to Venus was more brief than they had expected. It took about the same amount of time to get down to the City as it did to get to within eyeshot of Venus. Once there, they had to slow down to keep themselves from slamming into the planet at near the speed of light. After that, the remaining minutes of approach were spent with everyone prepping their weapons, Shirska included. The Fallen had chosen to come with the ponies to Venus, the extra muscle probably necessary to ensure success, hitching a ride in Applejack's ship. Should they find the seventh ship, they would give it to him. If not, then they would check out the other hangars in the LAX cosmodrome when they got back.
They touched down in a spot with a beacon and an emblem that looked like a Ghost's eye imprinted into the ground. When all of them got out of their ships, the Ghosts set them to autopilot and return to orbit. The stone and dust was gray there, and it felt quite humid and sultry, even though their armor was air and water tight. Were Twilight any more of a geology nerd, she'd have been gushing over the rock formations and other things. "Alright, everyone, Sparrows out." The ponies' Ghosts brought their Guardians' Sparrows out from wherever they stored things, but Shirska had to do things a little differently, seeing as he was not a Guardian. On his lower left wrist, he tapped at a small machine, pointing it away from his new comrades. Once he had summoned his Sparrow, they mounted up and pulled the throttle, tearing down the dusty trail that led to the right of the landing site.
For the most part it was quiet, the sounds of Fallen weaponry off in the distance, but not close enough to be considered a clear and present danger. Shirska, having repainted all of his armor white, looked determined to accomplish something here. Applejack, though seemed comfortable with his presence. Perhaps they had conversed on the way here, and gotten to know each other a little better; gained perspective and context to each other to clarify who they were and why they fought. As Twilight understood it, the Fallen were a merit-based society, which opened up the possibility that he wanted to prove his worth as an ally here. Whatever his purpose, Twilight maintained that it would be a bad idea to allow suspicion to turn him away. They were up against foes whose strength outweighed their own, possibly even with the Elements. For all intents and purposes, Shirska was their friend now. If they were to survive, they needed to not repeat Kabr the Legionless' mistake. They needed to count on those next to you, regardless of their race, faction, or gender.
As they arrived at the research station, the ponies began to feel anxious, and paused just before entering the small canyon where the buildings were. The whole way here, there'd been no enemies trying to stop them. No incursions from the Fallen House of Winter, and not a trace of the Vex, aside from the unusually shaped blocks of stone. There weren't even scouting parties simply watching for them. With the lack of information and the unsettling stillness of the air, Shirska spoke softly to the group, "I anticipate a trap."
"I agree. Something feels wrong here," Twilight concurred.
"What do we do?" Rarity asked.
"The Vex are going to try to learn everything about us before trying to deliver a killing strike. If it's Vex, we should go right through it, make it look like we didn't see it coming," Twilight planned.
"So basically play stupid so they underestimate us when they try to kill us," Rainbow summed up.
"Essentially, yes," she confirmed. "Now, if it's a Fallen trap, the best way to handle it would be to sneak around an ambush them while they wait for us."
"House of Winter lost Kell recently," Shirska piped in. "Trap is machines you call Vex."
"Well, I guess we should speed right ahead," Rarity said, turning on her Sparrow to dart forward and spring the trap. When she pulled the throttle, the others followed. They sped down into the small canyon, following the trail over a river that flowed out from beneath the research station. The trail curved up and around a central building before suddenly taking a hard right between two perfectly flat stone walls. It was when they went between the stone walls that they met their first Vex opponents. They were thin of body, reminiscent of the Frames in the Tower. Whether this was to save resources on their production, or a tactical design to make them smaller targets, they did not know. But Twilight saw glowing red eyes from each of them, and thought to herself that in their fanned out heads behind those red eyes was the mind core.
The group hopped off their Sparrows and drew their weapons while evading the low-velocity fire from the Goblins. As though carefully orchestrated, Rainbow Dash pretended to fumble with her hand cannon before drawing it and blasting off the head of the nearest Goblin. The machine's now headless body fell to the ground, seemingly dead. The others fired upon the remaining machines, focusing fire on the heads. Their experience fighting the Fallen led them to believe this a proper course of action, as no creature they'd encountered had a different weak spot. But this was a grave mistake, as the Vex were not "creatures" in the sense that the Guardians and their new ally thought of them.
So when the headless bodies of the Vex Goblins lifted themselves back up screaming, everyone jumped, startled at the sudden reanimation of the enemies. But this time, they were firing more shots from their small hand weapons. They seemed to be in a sort of frenzy, charging towards Rainbow Dash and firing erratically. But Rainbow was quick on her feet, and shot the thing another two times in the chest, making it fall to the ground lifeless once more. Everyone fired a few extra rounds into the headless Goblins just to make sure they stayed down.
"Shooting head bad idea," Shirska observed, looking down at one of the Goblins. "Make machines crazy."
"I'm going to try shooting that white part of its body," Rarity said, reloading her scout rifle. As everyone else reloaded, she sighed to herself, looking back down at her belly. Though covered by her armor, and virtually unscarred, she still had the feeling that that shard of metal was still there, sticking through her body. Perhaps it was her mind playing tricks on her, telling her things that weren't. Or perhaps it was a scar in her mind, one that her thoughts had to pass through to get to the areas therein that processed them. The only diagnosis she could think of was post traumatic stress disorder. Rarity, though, thought herself a proper lady, and ladies couldn't have post traumatic stress disorder. That was a man's problem, she believed, a man's risk.
"Are you okay?" Shirska asked her in his rough voice. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm okay," the unicorn dismissed, nodding to him. "Thanks."
"Alright everyone, our destination is directly below us, but we need to detour about a mile that way," Twilight said, pointing off in the direction the trail led, where the stone was in perfect blocks. "Keep your wits about you, and remember to downplay your abilities."
"Lead the way, egghead," Rainbow huffed.
They moved forward, all of them with weapons at the ready. All was eerily silent once again, the Vex nowhere to be seen.
"Egg...head?" Shirska asked Applejack. "I am not knowing this word?"
"It's an insult meaning that Twilight is intellectual to the point of being socially awkward," the farmer explained quietly.
"Why she insult Twilight?" he asked.
"We're all close enough friends that we can use certain insults among ourselves as jokes," she answered. "It's for humor."
"I see," he grunted, pondering what she had told him. "Are there any for me?"
"None yet," she said. "But one day, we'll be close enough friends to do that."
"I am not sure if I would enjoy that," he murmured.
They walked for a while, watching around them for any signs of Vex activity, but the only life aside from them were the vines and grass that grew on the blocks of stone. The circular plates that stood from the ground in some places looked to be damaged by heavy weapons fire or perhaps by explosives. What purpose they once served was unknown, and Twilight could only take wild guesses at which possibility was correct. After passing by a few of them, they came to a clearing with a few scattered blocks sticking up from the soil. Large puddles were scattered here and there, some of them opaque with byproducts of bacterial metabolic processes. Off in the distance, they could see great clouds approaching, carrying rain closer to the jungle they would be exploring soon. To the ponies, it felt strange that those clouds were moved at random instead of by careful planning by weather teams. They were so used to having the weather manufactured, that seeing nature replicate the process on its own was unsettling, if not outright frightening. It made them feel small and insignificant.
Rainbow said, "I'm going to experiment with something. Don't wait up." With that she unfolded her great wings and jumped off the cliff to their right, flying off towards the clouds. Even without the wind in her hair, Rainbow still loved the feeling of flight. Even the magnificence of star flight paled in comparison to just soaring through the sky, with nothing but the wind under her wings and her thoughts to occupy her mind. As she approached the clouds, she tilted her wings to give her a bit more altitude. When she was directly over the clouds, she swung her legs back down below her, reaching out tentatively to see if she could still stand on them, or if that ability had been lost when she was reforged. At first, she felt her feet sink into the cloud, but then, just when she was about to give up, she felt the cloud pushing back on her. She smirked, and folded her wings, letting the cloud bear her full weight. "Perfect!"
Back with the remaining six, a new group of Vex had appeared. These were Harpies, however, and they were quick. Whenever Pinkie thought she was bound to hit one, they rolled out of the way of her shots. While she and the others were focusing on the three moving about, another three had gotten into position atop some stone blocks with a good view of the entire area. They expanded their flaps, and began firing upon the Guardians. In response, Applejack pulled out her shotgun and blasted one of the attacking Harpies, some of the pellets hitting the Harpie's eye and making it explode in a bright ball of fire and shrapnel. She pumped the shotgun and fired again, this time at one of the evasive Vex Harpie's, managing to hit it in one of its flaps, tearing it off. Destabilized, the floating Vex fell to the ground and exploded with a metallic squeal.
Shirska roared, frustrated that the machines were being such pests, and pulled a hand cannon from his hip with his lower right hand, firing it without aiming down the sights. The high-impact round slammed into a Harpie that was firing upon the group, and then continued through it, making the mechanical enemy collapse on itself shrieking before exploding. Another shot, and the last of the shooting Harpies was destroyed much like its comrades. One evasive Harpie remained, managing to dodge the combined fire of the Guardians and their ally. But it too fell in battle to death from somewhere far away. The sniper round pierced the Harpie through the side, where a ways away, Twilight and her friends could see Rainbow crouched on a cloud with her sniper out.
The group turned to see that the way down was a massive 'staircase', each step as tall as Shirska. Along the way, there were outcroppings where grass and tall trees grew, vines descending down towards the jungle below like ropes. Twilight warned the others that she suspected that the Vex would try to ambush them there, where there was enough open space for them to use the warping ability that she'd heard about, and started thinking about whether they would venture down into the jungle below. In response, Shirska pulled another hand cannon from his belt a mirror image of the one in his lower right hand.
Twilight was correct in her prediction, a pair of Harpies and five Goblins warped onto the platform. The phenomenon looked like a storm cloud coming, and delivering the machines via lightning strikes. With precision fire from Shirska's hand cannons, the Harpies fell as soon as they attempted to stabilize and fire. Rarity, true to her word, brought her scout rifle to bear on the Goblins' white bellies. When the bullet tore through one, the Vex exploded into boiling white fluids that stained its destroyed frame and the ground beneath it. She conveyed her success to the others. Without warning, a powerful energy shot tore through Twilight's shields and leg armor, melting through a portion of it and burning the skin underneath it. The force behind the round knocked her leg out from under her, sending her sprawling to the ground screaming and clutching at her leg. "Sniper!" Immediately, Fluttershy grabbed her by the collar of her cuirass and dragged her behind the tree in the center of the area, the others joining them there.
"Any idea where it is?" Rainbow asked over the communications line in everyone's helmets.
"Give me a minute and I'll shoot the bastard myself," Twilight grunted in pain as her Ghost started healing her wound and repairing her armor. "You won't have a shot."
As soon as she was able, she lit her horn with magic and teleported herself up into the tree, the leaves hiding the flash. She knelt down on a branch as thick as Applejack hugging Rarity and Shirska. She brought up her sniper, aiming down the high-magnification scope. She lined up the creature's white belly in her crosshairs, carefully observing it before she pulled the trigger. Instead of its head being fan-shaped like the Goblins, it had two horns that stuck out sideways, smaller spikes jutting out from them. It also seemed to have a tail, which swished around like a cat's. Satisfied with her observations, she pulled the trigger. The machine exploded much like its comrades below her. She hopped down from the tree, slowing her fall with a quick levitation spell.
A metallic roar behind the tree soon raised the hairs on the necks of the ponies. Suddenly, a machine with the same distinctive red eye as the other machines appeared. Its body was build brawnier. Its metal hide was blackened to protect it from oxidation, and it lacked the white core in the belly as its smaller comrades. This beast roared again, raising its arm far above its head as though preparing to bring it down like a hammer or axe. Applejack quickly fired a shotgun shell into the thing's chest, but was then slapped aside by the sizable robot, the shell being stopped by shielding that glowed purple. It fired a round from its weapon, which exploded and scattered everyone. A shot from Rainbow out on the clouds slammed into the Minotaur, causing the shield around it to burst and the Vex machine to turn to her. Shirska, annoyed at the machine, sprinted at it and jumped, kicking it with both feet. It stumbled back six meters, and fell off the edge of the cliff. But it did not stay down, its ability to warp forgotten or perhaps underestimated. It reappeared back on the cliff in front of Shirska and delivered a heavy punch to his gut. Another sniper shot from Rainbow made contact, piercing a point just above the eye and making a panel around the eye pop off. Sparks flashed from inside, and the machine roared maniacally, firing its heavy weapon towards everyone nearby. When a round made contact with Shirska's chestplate, Applejack switched her trusty shotgun out for her newest and largest weapon: a heavy machine gun. She hefted it up and sprayed from the hip, its recoil almost negligible against her sturdy muscles. Bullet after bullet slammed into the Minotaur's iron hide and tore through its innards, shredding wires and circuits and motherboards. When the Vex fell to its knees and its red eye's light faded, she switched back to her shotgun, and thanked Rainbow for the support.
The rest of the trek down was relatively uneventful. Rainbow returned to the group, abandoning her post on the cloud. At the bottom of the steps, they found that the trail led into the jungle for a little ways, but was being overrun by the vegetation. Figuring the trail wouldn't be tame enough to warrant using their Sparrows, they opted to just walk. Just as the Stranger had said, exactly one hundred meters into the jungle, right where the trail was swallowed by the flora, the seventh ship of Hangar 1 stood proudly. Its canopy was polka-dotted with raindrops, and the massive blue things on either side of the main body gleamed in the sunlight that hit it. Next to it, a small pole stood stabbed into the ground, the top of which split off into six directions to hold a crystal. Around the crystal was a visible rainbow aura, much like that which appeared around the horns of unicorns who were actively using magic. Upon further inspection, Rarity determined that the pale crystal was one that she'd seen in a museum in Equestria, called a Light Crystal, and that the light it gave off was being produced, not refracted, by it. On one side of the pole, a steel nail was stabbed through, pointing off deeper into the jungle. When Twilight looked where the nail was pointing, she saw another pole with a Light Crystal standing within eyeshot, its rainbow aura and bright light undoubtably serving as the beacons the Stranger had told them they had placed.
"Alright, Shirska, this is where we part for this mission," Twilight said, looking to see if she could see the beacon after the next. "You take that ship and head back to the Tower."
"No. I go with you," he said. "Bad feeling. Danger ahead."
"We need you to secure that ship," she replied. "Whatever danger may be ahead is ours to handle."
"Shirska, take that ship, head to low orbit above this spot. We'll call you if we need you," Applejack offered. Shirska thought for a moment and then accepted the terms, clambering up onto the ship and opening it with a few taps of the device on his wrist. "If we don't call to say everything's fine within an hour, come find us."
"Eyes up," he called to the group as they began trudging through the mud and thick foliage towards the next beacon. "Eyes down. Eyes all around. Don't stop moving."
With that, Shirska claimed the pilot's seat of the aerospace craft, turning on the main power and carefully taking off vertically, as it was designed to. He hit the throttle forwards and tilted the flying machine's dual-stick piloting interface back to gain altitude. Once out of the clouds, he punched the throttle to the max, breaking the sound barrier and shearing through the atmosphere like a sword. "Remember, friends, shoot heads makes machines crazy."