//------------------------------// // Ice fighting: how to for badasses // Story: The Guardian's story // by Lon35hadow //------------------------------// The seven of us, myeself, Cybis, Rhino, Crota, Auryx, Sekana, and a still out cold Raider Twilight, were in Mirror Canterlot. Right now, we were in one of the more secured areas of the castle, with the me and my counterparts trying to bring Twilight into the shadows. Right now, the three of us had found a I have no idea what to call it, so I'm just going to call it the Light Virus. Is it just me, or does it sound like Dr Light from Megaman went evil and egotistical before making a virus akin to Sigma from Megaman X? Okay, anyway, we'd been in this version of Canterlot for about three hours, and the three of us hadn't seen Sombra. I asked Sekana about it an hour ago, and she replied with, "He's in the north, leading the Crystal Republic,"- I'll admit, that does sound better than Empire when it comes to peace- "He's our only other ally, and the Dreadnought mother arrived in is holding place over it to protect it." Well, I guess that makes sense. "Have you found a way to remove the Traveler's taint," Auryx asked us upon the end of the tenth session in the three hours. "Not yet," Cybis said. "In all honesty, I'm surprised we found that. It was hidden damn well." "Why are you having issues," Sekana asked. "Because like every Guardian from where we come from," Rhino said, "and I don't mean the Equestria we're from, every Guardian but a few are the long dead. With what you told us, Sekana, Twilight may not be 'long' dead, but she was dead enough for it to work." "The virus, what we're calling it," I said, "is in the very core of her being right now. Her Phantom is holding it there, and we don't know how to destroy them. For now, we can only keep her out cold." "Is there anyway to save her," Sekana asked, concern in her voice. "Maybe," Cybis replied. "Two maybes, actually. One is the Elements of Chaos. Here's the logic: using those to free Twilight would help to cause chaos within the Raider ranks. The other is the Elements of Harmony, of which the three of us are bearers, which would help bring harmony to this Equestria." "Neither are viable, though," Rhino added. "The Chaos Elements because they're missing, and the Harmony Elements because we may blow this universe to hell by using them here." "In short," I said, "this is the most we can do right now." She sighed. "I suppose I will have to live with that for now," she said. "Yeah," I said. "Hey, mind if I ask you something?" "What?" "Where did you find the Elements of Chaos the first time around? Because the first time Harmony Elements were found, they were under the castle of the sisters." She chuckled. "Near there for us as well," she said. "But, if we're talking specifics, I would say it was deeper in the Everfree, actually close to the center of it." "I imagine you and your sister had to fight through a lot of creatures," Rhino said. "Indeed we did," Sekana said. "Nightmare enjoyed it, and so did I. Though I doubt I would now. She, however, has become bloodthirsty, and would do it simply for the fun of it. So, what am I like in your Equestria?" "Honestly," I said, "she disappeared a week ago, we have a pretty good guess as to where, but she was a lot like you before then. Though less joking and a little more. . . you know what, I'm going to say it, she was a buzzkill." "Yeah, that definitly isn't like me now," Sekana said. Before she could say anything else, though, a Knight rushed into the room we were in, flinging the doors open, and knelt in front of Sekana. "Princess," he said, "there is an incident!" "Where," the three of us asked, we three Guardians, getting our weapons out. "The Crystal Republic," the Knight said. "The Raiders are attacking it." "What," Sekana said, shocked. "Impossible. The ship protects it from the Light." "That is just it, Princess," he said. "It is not the Raiders themselves, but twisted amalgamations of our kind that have no soul!" "The Taken," I said. "Damn it. Sekana, teleport the three of us there, now, then get your military there. We can buy you time." "Are you certain?" "Yep." "Then good luck," she said before her hands- did I forget to mention she didn't have a horn anymore?- lit up, and, for the three of us found ourselves in a crystal street, the buildings ablaze, dead bodies all around. "Where do you think they are," Cybis asked. "No idea," Rhino said before a scream was heard near the palace, which was, on the outside, unchanged from the one back home. "Though I'd say that's a good place to start." "You think," I said before the three of us ran towards the palace. When we got there, we saw crystal ponies being slaughtered by Taken Knights, Acolytes, Thrall, and Wizards. Looks like Oryx is trying to remove any potential allies for us. "Well, time to go to work," I said before summoning my Golden Gun, and, like with our world's Sombra, channeled its energy into my Vanity, and fired , causing eight explosions due to combustion, which caused a lot of damage to the Taken ranks. With that, I brought out my sword, did a little twirl with it, and I mean spinning the sword around my hand. "You guys cover me?" "You know it," Rhino said. "Let's kick some ass." With that, I charged as Rhino and Cybis gave me covering fire. Upon hitting the group of Taken, I began to slice and dice them, the covering fire taking the shields out on the Wizards and the occasional Knight. The last to fall was an Acolyte Eye via the last charge in my Dark Drinker, the blade and crystal vanishing as the hilt rested in my hand close to the ground. "HALT," the crystal guards said. "Lay your weapons down, and come with us!" "Stop," we heard a voice say before we could give a smartass reply. "Princess Sekana and Queen Auryx sent us a message about three beings helping them. Now, let me through." "Yes, your highness," the guards said before parting, revealing this world's Sombra walking towards us, and he was wearing some pretty damned ornate, and yet effective, if the Ghosts' scans were accurate as to the materials. "I imagine you three are either the Renegades or the Guardians Queen Auryx told me about earlier?" "Indeed we are, your highness," i said with a slight bow. "More accurately, the latter group." "Then can you tell me how your world's Celestia is," he asked. Ah, this I had anticipated, but hoped wouldn't happen. "I am sorry to say," Cybis said, "but, as far as we can tell, she has been reunited with our world's version of Auryx, and has embraced that part of herself as much as Sekana has." "Oh," he said, sadness evident in his voice. To avoid any kind of backlash about where we actually came from, I added, "She told us of her relationship with you before, though. We are sorry." "Why?" "Because, intentional or not, and believe me, it was unintentional, she thinks we were corrupted by dark magic when we freed our world's Nightmare, and she attempted use of the Elements, but it kinda backfired on her," Rhino said, revealing his mark. "They chose us instead." He sighed. "At least we have three Elements with us," he said. "Come inside. There are some things you must know if you are to help us." "If you say so," Rhino said before we placed our weapons on our backs, and followed Sombra inside. Once inside the Palace, which looked the same as the one back home, albeit without changelings, I wonder what they're like here, Rhino said, "Auryx told us her ship was parked above, but we didn't see it." "That is because we cloaked it," Sombra replied. "If the Raiders knew were it was and could see it, they would be able to shoot it out of the sky, which would leave the Republic vulnerable, and that is not even counting the loss of life from it being destroyed." "Makes sense, I guess," Cybis said. "Mind if we take our helmets off? Been wearing them since we got here." "Not at all," Sombra replied as he took his own helmet off, revealing the face of the stallion Celestia had fallen in love with. You know, I am now slightly terrified. Here's why: Mirror Celestia, and Canon Sombra together. Good thing I had a bunker built to withstand angry alicorns after Celestia. "In fact, I was about to ask if you were hungry." "Yes, yes, no," Rhino replied, pointing to Cybis, me, and him in that order as his helmet was taken off. "I'm not organic, so I can't get hungry." "He's not wrong," I said. "With me, at least. Haven't eaten anything in about five hours." "But first," Cybis said, his own helmet coming off, "what can you tell us about those things from earlier?" Just to see what they know. "Nothing," Sombra replied with a shake of his head. "This was our first encounter with them. Do you know anything about them?" "Yes, but that's best saved until after we get something to eat," I said. "So, where's the mess?" "This way," the unicorn king replied with a chuckle, and we followed him to a dining room that would not be out of place at the Gala back home, albeit it had actual ponies here, and not moronic, greedy nobles who would throw Celestia away if it meant another ruler that would give them a better status. I'm not kidding. Been a week, and no nobles have tried to break our doors down. Not that they can, but you get the point. They think we're morons simply because we aren't ponies and could get a higher status. I swear, you guys should be glad you didn't see what happened at the first Gala we were at, which we livened up, by the way, but still. . . . I went off topic, didn't I? Heh, sorry, that happens when it comes to stuff I like or hate past a certain degree. Pony stupidity being part of the latter. Anyway, Cybis and I got some food from a central table, which had meat, thank god, and the four of us sat at a nearby table. "So, what did you want to tell us," Rhino asked. "That scouts of mine have reported four Raiders near the glacier, and they seem to be looking for something. The Elements of Chaos, I imagine," Sombra replied. "But, if our world's Elements are like yours, they choose their bearer, not the other way around." "Yeah, well, plenty's opposite here to where here, the bearer chooses," Cybis said. "Pessimistic, I know, but some one needs to be right now." "He isn't wrong," Rhino said. "I mean, where we come from, Nightmare is Luna, and her personality is the opposite. Celestia's probably an evil Sekana now, the Raiders are the dead here, but Guardians aren't back home, and, to top it off this world's version of us are with you guys. That last one shouldn't be possible!" "Not really," Cybis said. "Do you not remember our stance with the Taken King and the Wanderer," he said, using terms Sombra wouldn't be familiar with to refer to Oryx and the Traveler. "Gray enough to where it could have gone any way here." "Still." "Regardless," Cybis said, "either remains a possibility, I'm simply stating what everyone here forgot." "Nothing wrong there," I said before we began to eat. To spare you all the boring details, I'll skip ahead to where we left the room, about to tell Sombra a little about the Taken, when a crystal pony guard came running up to us. "My king, the Raiders, the scouts report they found something!" "What," Sombra asked. "The Elements of Chaos!" Well. Shit. Nolandroid, we got our Sparrows? Yeah. "Where," I asked the guard. "Ten miles north, at the glacier." "Wish us luck then," I said. "Rhino, Cyb, come on. Got to make sure they don't get the Elements." "Right," they said, nodding before their helmets came on and we made our way to the outside, but not before Sombra asked a question. "What are you three going to do?" "Simple," I said, turning around, yes, I was running backwards, and spread my arms. "Be fucking badasses!" I turned aback around, and, once we made it outside, we brought out our Sparrows, each now being that year one veteran exclusive, and gunned it towards the north. After exiting the city, we formed up into a triangle, me at the lead. "So," Rhino asked over the radio, "think we should go Tex on their asses?" "You know it," I say. "Cyb, think we should get season eight soundtrack going?" "Only at the appropriate moment," he agreed. "Hell yeah," I said, the three of us racing across the frozen wasteland, nothing obstructing our way to the destination, which really helped us make it to said destination. After near an hour, we made it to a large glacier, our sparrows stopping. "No one say it," I said as a ring of orange lights came on before a beep was heard, and the tripmine grenades exploded, which would have killed us if we hadn't seen it coming and jumped to the survival area of the explosion. "Damn it," we heard a voice say, and four bodies came into view. It was Luna, Applejack, Forge, and I imagine this world's version of Sight. "Forge, you must admit," Luna said, "they are not ponies, and they have the same equipment as us. They would expect that." "Yeah, well, Applejack still wants to rip them apart for what they did to Twilight." "Then she can do that," Luna said, four gemstones coming to hover near their faces. "Once we turn them to stone that is." Fuck my luck. "SCATTER!" I yelled that just as beams fired form the four gems. Looks like these don't need to be in one place to be used, which means Cybis, Rhino, and I are outmatched. Still, we have our own advantage. "META!" Copy, they replied using silent comms, and we continued to avoid the gem blasts as we slowly made our way to each other. Thank you, codenames. Any way, after having dodged ten beams each, I think Luna caught on. "Stop them from getting together," she yelled, but to no avail, as it was but a second after that that the three of us created Shade orbs, which we slammed together to merge, which was the form that landed, only now the helmet looked like Unity Clade instead of the Halo Fotus helmet. I landed in a crouch, but quickly stood up and faced the four Raiders. I slammed my right hand, a fist, into my left palm and cracked a few vertebrae before saying, "You have no idea what kind of trouble you are in." Ah, Tex, such a badass. Honestly, I'm surprised no one's dressed up as her and been displaced. Oh well. Can't do anything there.(1) "Get him," Luna yelled, and, as they ran towards me, they fired their gems, but I easily dodged each one of them, side stepping, ducking, right before the first one, Applejack reached me, I side stepped as I punched her in the back of the head, knocking her to the ground before doing a back roll to avoid a punch from Sight. Upon coming back up, I gripped the knife that was sheathed on my left wrist in a normal grip before spinning it around to grab its edge in between my thumb and pointer and middle, which I then threw into the middle of her back, but not before she threw a flashbang grenade at me, which I slapped aside to where it didn't harm anyone. The next one was Forge, who got mt into a knife fight, her having said knife, while i just had my hands. Heh. Be Penny from RWBY and you may just stand a chance. Anyway, she tried to stab me in either the heart, or the head, if not slice an artery. The second time she tried to slice, aiming for my throat, I grabbed her arm, the elbow pointing out, so I decided to bring mine down on it using my Titan strength, resulting is a resounding crack as her arm bent at an unnatural angle. I then grabbed her knife, and sliced at her throat. She fell to the snow covered ground, and coated the snow in her blood, staining it red. That left Luna, who had been watching the whole time. Impressive," she said. "But I am my father's avatar, and no darkness may hide from me." With that, she charged at me, teleporting just before she got in my range behind me, which resulted in me trying to do an elbow spin on her face, but she caught my arm, and forced it down before delivering a punch to my helmet, which sent me spinning, even with me using the momentum to cover myself as I brought out my Vanity and fired the whole clip at her, but she was able to dodge the shots as she came in close enough to send my hand cannon out of my hand to the snowy ground. She then tried to hit my face with her forearm, like Locke from when he fought the Chief in Halo 5, but i grabbed her arm, and pulled her into a spin before throwing her towards the glacier. I then brought out Rhino's hammer, which I threw at her, but she was able to avoid it at the last second, resulting in, you guessed it, an avalanche. Damn, the universe loves my ideas right now, doesn't it? Anyway, the alicorn ran towards me, but I decided to just punch her in the cheek before making a run for it, as I was in the avalanche zone too. Which resulted in an almost blatant ripoff of the season eight fight from Red vs Blue between Tex, Wash, and Meta, though only one v one. I ran up a large piece of ice that had crashed down in front of me just before a bolt of black, and I mean the color here, hit where I was a moment before. Great. Crazy alicorn is firing magic at me. Any way, after reaching the top of the ice shard, I turn around in the air, and punch some of it in Luna's direction once the main portion of my body passed it. I hit the ground again, and turned to run. Only to reach the edge of a cliff a few seconds later. I turned around to see four very pissed off Raiders. "Looks like your cornered," Luna said. "Ha, nope," I say before jumping up and, thinking it wouldn't work, put every ounce of void energy into my left hand, and then doing the Nova Bomb motions, which, with all the energy, resulted in nine full power Nova hitting the ice behind them. Which caused our small chunk to begin to fall off. "Hope you losers have a ship," I said before charging them, which wasn't my goal, killing them. What I was doing was, as I call it, pulling a Meta. I jumped past them, using each jump ability to get to the wall of ice at a high speed, which allowed me to embed my Sealed Ahamkara Gauntlet like gloves into the ice. I pulled the left one out, and turned to look at the others, who were falling quickly. "If so, then I hope you can swim," I say before embedding the left claws in the ice, and climbing my way up the wall to the top. Once I make it to the top, I walk away from the edge, and then collapse as I spin around to look at the sky, which is when I split. "I think we just beat Tex in arctic badass points," Rhino said. "Ooh-rah to that," Cybis said. "Still, we have a lot to be worried about," I said. "They have at least four of the Elements of Chaos. "Not exactly," the three of us heard a voice say. I bent my head to look to where my head was pointing, and saw an apparition of a mare with a flowing rainbow hair, not an aurora hair like Celestia, two different things, and a gray coat and tail and mane, the last two having black accents. Funny, that's how I imagined- wait a minute. "Harmony?" She chuckled at that. "Indeed, Guardian," the mare said. "And no, i I am not really here. This is simply me using the three Elements you have to give you a message." "And what the hell is that," Rhino asked. "That if you wish to defeat this world's Traveler, you are on the right track, but not quite there yet." With that, she vanished. Cryptic as hell. Don't you find that annoying? But if there is a bright side, it's that prophecies are cryptic, and if you are the one in there, then you get an epic song. The Chosen Ones, by Dream Evil. "So, think we should make our way back to the palace," Cybis asked. He wasn't shrugging it off, my thoughts are simply one of the things all three of us agree on. "Actually, I just want to lay here for a while," Rhino said. "Might be the only breather we get while we're here." "Agreed," I said, and the three of us lay there for near an hour, simply resting, until Sombra came into my view after a brief pop of teleportation. "Resting?"