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Prologue1,666 words
Crash and Burn3,163 words

Crash and Burn

Golden Oaks Library

Twilight sits out on her porch looking through a large telescope. Looking just over the dark and gloomy Everfree forest at three strange lights which seem to be falling into the forest. Using her magic to write notes down about the anomaly on a scroll floating nearby. It was late into the night when Twilight's small purple scaled assistant walks up behind her.

"Twilight, you've been 'staring' at those 'shooting stars' for the past fifteen minutes, it's late, don't you think you should go to bed?" Spike said with a yawn.

"I've been "staring" at those "shooting stars" for fifteen minutes because you don't usually see an actual shooting star for more than a few seconds! Those lights are clearly not shooting stars, but meteors! which, by my calculations, are going to hit somewhere in the middle of the Everfree forest in approximately one minute! I need to know where they'll hit so I can go check them out in the morning, I'll want to know where to go with the girls." Twilight responded without taking a breath for her sentences.

"Well, have it your way Twi, I'm going to bed. Night" Spike rolled his eyes as he turned his back to the distracted lavender unicorn.

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Over the Everfree Forest

It felt strange to him, Ever since he became a pilot every drop to a planet's surface always went as followed: Drop on planet, shoot the enemy, get shot at by the enemy, almost get killed by enemy, shoot the enemy some more, win the fight, go home, eat, rest, repeat. Dropping onto a planet where the immediate task was not to shoot shit. Hell sat in his titan thinking of this until he was snapped out of his thoughts by the titans coms.

"Yo, Hell, you still with us? We're landing in a minute, what's our first course of action? Snake called out.

"We are going to need to find a vantage point that way we hopefully get a better view of our surroundings, we are going to be planet-side for sometime without reinforcements. So if we can't find a good vantage point, we'll have to make a camp and do some exploration when we've done that." Hell responded.

"Sir, command downloaded a small map of what they were able to scan of the planets surface into my data storage, when we land, I may be able to find us a reasonable vantage point." Clockwork said through the com.

"Landing in, fifteen seconds." the titan AI said.

"Alright people, get ready. We've got a lot of work to do, we wouldn't want those Militia bastards getting the better of us!" Hell shouted over the coms. Which was meet with a quick cheer from his squad mates.

"Landing in..

5...

4...

3...

2...

1..."

Hell could feel his titan's robotic ankles buckle as the titan made contact with the surface of the planet. The feeling of nausea rising inside him, the feeling quickly subsiding. Having dropped so many times, one gets used it. Not soon after Hell felt small shock waves indicating that his squad mates had landed as well. Hitting a few buttons on his titan's control broad making the Titan's hud come to life.

The forest was extremely dense, the trees were much taller the titans. they could barely see pass the brush at the edge of the small clearing. Which was only just big enough to fit the large titans. The only light that seem to be in the forest was in their small clearing from where they had dropped through the upper layer of trees.

The capsule on Snake's titan opened up for Clockwork, who then jumped to the ground below. Surveying the area for a moment before turning it's attention to Hell's Atlas.

"Commander, I suggest we find a place to set up a temporary command center. Also as we entered the troposphere of the planet, I noticed that it will start to precipitate soon." Clockwork said

"I sure hope they have a five star bed and breakfast nearby, we didn't get a chance to eat before we had to be down here." Snake grunted.

"Fuck that shit man, sleeping in the trees under the stars is the best." Ares said

"That's because your a damn tree-hugger Ares, but hey, if you like having a tree branch in your ass, that's your thing." Snake responded with a chuckle.

Hell rolled his eyes behind his helmet as the two continued to argue over the best places to sleep. He began to move his Atlas towards the treeline, calling out for his squad to follow, Hell was starting to get the feeling this mission was going to be a very strange, more strange than other recon missions. It was probably just the forest getting to him. Even while being in his titan, he felt like the dark, damp, and dreadful atmosphere of the forest getting to him inside his titan. Hell shook the thought and feeling out of him and continued to trudge through the dense forest in his mech.

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Fluttershy's Cottage

The dark interior of Fluttershy's cottage was filled with the many sounds of sleeping animals, Fluttershy awoke to the all too well known foot of Angel rapidly kicking at her tired form. Now half-awake, Fluttershy groggily sits up in her soft wood-framed bed, looking at Angel who was now standing next to her waving his hands around like a mad-rabbit. Look quite scared about something, which is rare for the little white devil.

"What's the matter Angel?" Fluttershy yawned while rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Angel changing his wild flailing to pointing to the open window that looked over the chicken coop and the Everfree Forest's edge. His ears standing up right indication he can hear something. Fluttershy now somewhat awake gets out of her soft, warm, and welcoming bed and flies to the window to try to hear or spot whatever Angel can hear. After staring out at the forest's edge and tilting her head so she could hear better, the faint noise of that of a big creature marching through the dense forest.

"Oh, Angel." Fluttershy chuckled, turning back to Angel. "It's probably just a Ursa minor returning back home for the night."

Just as Fluttershy left to window to return to her bed, a thunderous boom roared from outside making the yellow pegasus to dive under her covers in fear of the sudden sound. When the sound dissipated, and she found enough courage to emerge from under her bed sheets, shaking like a filly after a bad dream. She sees Angel who looks to just have gotten out of the shock himself after the loud noise, now looking at her as if to say, "I told you so!"

Fluttershy gulped, "I guess I'm going to have to ask Twilight in the morning to help investigate that..." starting to shake more just at the thought of having to go after whatever made that sound.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Somewhere in the Everfree Forest, Forty-five minutes Earlier

The conversation between the squad before, now long gone and replaced with the depressing silence that forest seemed to radiate. Only being broken by the rainfall and Clockwork every so often to give the team an update until they reached a large cave which was to be where Clockwork was leading them so that they can make their temporary base of operations. They would need to find a better place soon though, the forest was a good place to hide, but not very good for operating a supply base.

After what felt like hours of walking in their titans to get to the cave, now they stare at the entrance of the "large cave". The entrance was clearly much bigger than even the Atlas. The inside of the cave was even darker then the forest. As the titans came to a stop, the noise they made echoed through the cave adding to it's eeriness.

"Well, looks nice, but I bet there's better real estate somewhere else." Snake said.

"What? You afraid of the dark, Snake?" Ares said jokingly.

"No!" Snake snapped back, "It just givin' me the creeps."

Hell pushing a few buttons on his control panel , and grabbing his rifle as the cockpit's door opened up letting him jump to the soggy ground. Taking his rifle and turning on it's attached flashlight, he approaches the cave, gun forward checking the darkness for any possible threats. After a few minutes of looking around the mouth of the cave, seeing that the coast was clear Hell turns around and walks back to his squad.

"The cave looks clear. Snake, Clockwork, get the gear and set up camp, we're sleeping here tonight." Hell said. "Ares, I want you be first watch. Also I want a quick recon of the nearby brush. Make sure there's no dangerous creatures out there or any Militia scouts."

"Got it, commander." Ares respond, turning his titan around and headed back into the forest,

Hell watched as Ares walked back into the forest, his titan, even through it is a giant robot, it moved in near silence as it re-entered the brush. After the Strider disappeared into the brush, Hell turned his focus to Snake and Clockwork setting up a few tents in the mouth of the cave and turning on a few lamps which did little to light the area, but was just enough to be workable. Rejoining the two Hell helped set up the last tent and grabbed some fire wood. After all was done Hell ordered Clockwork to enter standby mode.

"Hurry up, Hell. It's cold in this damned cave." Snake said while taking off his helmet. Revealing his pale scared face and his buzz cut hair. His breath visible in the cold air of the night.

Feeling the cold as well, Hell quickly set up a fire place and lit the wood ablaze with a lighter. The fire did much more the light the cave. The soldiers could clearly see just how large their cave really was. But most importantly the fire warmed up their cold forms. After a short time of enjoying the warmth and eating rations. Hell was starting to feel his eyelids become heavy. Sleep has been a rare commodity for the past week. The thought of exploring an uncharted planet so far from any star system, and having no reinforcements to back you up if things go to shit, unnerved him. His squad was his family, he couldn't live with himself if he lost them.

As Hell was getting up to get to his tent, he heard a sound, but this sound caught is attention. It was different from the noises of the forest, and it differently wasn't a titan. It sounded like... wings, but too loud to be a simple bird's. Hell didn't know what inhabited this world, what ever was making that noise had to be big.

"Hey, Snake, you hear that?" Hell said, as he started to wonder closer to the opening of the cave.

"Hear what?" Snake replied

"Sounds like... flapping wings." Hell said, pulling out a pistol from his belt as he took steps outside of the cave. What ever was making the noise had to be getting closer, being it was getting louder and louder, very fast. Snake grabbed his shotgun and joined Hell outside the cave.

Hell put his finger to his ear, "Ares, we're hearing a strange noise here at camp, are you hearing it?" Hell waited a second for a response, but Ares didn't answer. "Ares, respond." Hell said a few times, still with no response.

Snake and Hell scanning the sky for what ever was making the sound. As the beating of wings became more and more clear. It wasn't long before they spotted the cause, the night making it hard at first but as the creature landing infront of the cave between them and their titans, they could see crimson red scales, two huge wings, four legs, and long neck with a large snake like head topped with two curved horns atop it's head.

Hell and Snake looking on in awe the beast in front of them. "I...is that what I think it is?" Snake said in the worried voice.

"Ye...yeah...I do believe that is a dragon...and honest to god dragon." Even as he said it, Hell couldn't believe it, a dragon, an actual dragon, just like all those silly fantasy stories his dad used to tell him when he was a kid.

The dragon putting folding it's wings to it's body turned to the cave, to noise the two, bipedal creatures, as it did so, it put it's head low and puffed a cloud of smoke into the faces of the strange creatures at the entrance to it's home. It wanted them gone. It reared it's head back and took a deep breath.

Hell's helmet filtered out most of the smoke making so he could only smell the sulfur the smoke left behind. Unfortunately, Snake wasn't as lucky since he took his helm off, he now sounded like he was about to cough up a lung. Hell's view changed from the ally to the dragon as he saw it's head pull back and what look like fire escaping it's mouth. Just as Hell realized what was happening, fire shot forward from the dragon's mouth. Hell pushed Snake and himself away from the inferno just in time as it flew past them and into the cave. Standing up, Hell took aim with his gun and fired at the dragon. The low caliber rounds bouncing off of the dragon's scales.

"Aw shit, Atlas, switch to Guardian mode!" Hell shouted, hearing the titan's AI voice respond, "Affirmative" Seeing his titan come to life on the other side of the fierce beast and start to charge at it.

The titan ran up behind the dragon, before it even realized the titan's presence, the titan slammed itself into the dragon causing it to stagger, before the beast could fully recover from the sudden attack, the Atlas delivered a right hook to the dragon's side. Hell watched as his mech defended him while he helped Snake.

"Looks like the neighbors, have come to say hello." Snake coughed.

"I think we might have made camp in it's house, or it's trying to eat us, either way I'd like to not be roasted on the first day on a new planet." Hell replied, still watching the dragon and Atlas fight.

"Where the hell is Ares when you need him?" said Snake

"I don't know, but we have to deal with that thing first, so watch my back I'm gonna get my titan." Hell said, as he started to run off to his titan who was blocking a flurry of attacks from the Dragon's claws.

Snake stood up getting closer to the crimson beast, as he did so, he fired a few rounds at the dragon, taking the dragons attention just long enough for the Atlas to deliver an upper cut into the monster's jaw sending the dragon reeling. Hell took the opportunity to hop on top of the giant robot, open the hatch and jump into the Atlas. Just as the hud came to life, the dragon slams itself into Hell's titan, quickly recovering from the attack, Hell swung punch after punch. keeping the beast under pressure. Now that man and titan where one the fight was becoming one sided.

Until the dragon caught the Atlas's fist, Hell responded with another swing from his other fist which the dragon also caught with ease. Hell tried to break the titan out of the dragon's grip but it was stronger then he thought. Hell began to struggle to get the titan free, this was so much more then he was expecting from the beast.

Snake watched from a distance, knowing getting too close would either get him injured or killed. Screaming internally knowing he can't help Hell, his titan would take too long to get started due to it's nuclear core. Snaked watched and hoped Hell could get free and kick the dragon's ass.

The dragon held the titans arms out stretched, it stared at the weird metal creature that ate the smaller creature, these weird beings invaded it's home. He had enough of these creatures. It cocked it's head back taking a deep breath wanting this fire ball to melt right through the metal man.

Hell couldn't see anyway out other than ejecting, he didn't want to abandon his Atlas so early into the mission but it's looking as if he needs to. As Hell refocuses his attention back to the dragon his eyes widen as he sees the dragon getting ready to breath fire again right into hull of the mech. Quickly he pushes the buttons on the control panel to activate ejection, as his hands reach down to grab the lever, a loud ring is heard before the dragon's head bursts like a watermelon spraying blood, bits of skull, and brain all over the Atlas, covering the hud in thick blood. The dragon's limp form falls over letting go of the Atlas. A hush falls over the clearing in front of the cave as the ringing fades away. Hell was surprised by the dragon's death, as he looked from where the shot came from, Ares's Strider emerged from the tree line with the barrel of his plasma railgun smoking from the full power shot it just fired. When the Strider fully emerged from the forest into the clearing, the Strider opened so it's pilot could drop to the ground. When he did, Ares stood there for a moment looking at the headless corpse of the once-was dragon before drawing his attention to his squad leader's Atlas then Snake.

Ares looked down and sighed "So, we're on an uncharted planet, that has huge dragons of fantasy, what's next? Fucking talking unicorns?"

Author's Note:

I hope you liked the chapter, my friends. Sorry it took so long to publish. I was planning on letting this story die, but after much thought and titanfall 2 coming out, I thought, "ya know, fuck it, might as well try to finish this." I'm glad to be semi-back and writing again. I hope I'll see you in the next chapter.

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