In the skies and above the clouds of an uncharted planet, the air seemed to shimmer and glow, before a line split through and appeared to rip reality itself open, creating an opening which revealed nothing but a blue and white glow. Then through that glow, a spacecraft emerged, shooting out at an impressive speed, before plummeting down towards the planet's surface as the portal closed behind it. It appeared to be damaged, looking as if it had collided with something shown by numerous scratches to its paintjob and parts flying off as they shot through the atmosphere. Smoke was trailing out of several sections, which were also sparking and fizzling. As for its six large repulsor engines, only four seemed to be working. Even then, its rear left engine seemed to be burning out. Lights in its cabin also seemed to be sparking as the area was bathed in flashing red from warning lights. The entire craft shook as it continued its violent descent, its functioning engines screeching.

Inside its large reinforced glass bridge, an armoured figure sat in the ship's command chair, frantically trying to regain control of his craft. "No no no no NO!" Conrad Decker screamed, pressing every button on the holoscreens in front of him. Try as he might, the ship refused to respond to his efforts. "Why won't you work?" He grit out, slamming his fist on the armrest. How the hell did this happen? He was on his way to meet a new contract on a colony world in the Inner Colonies when he had the misfortune for his RIFT drive to malfunction, violently throwing him out of the hyperspace tunnel and falling towards some planet he didn't even recognise.

The android mercenary growled as he attempted to at least activate the ship's airbrakes or reverse its thrust to slow his descent, but as before, nothing worked. More than a little worrying as the ground was getting closer every second, a sea of trees down below.

"WARNING! Cargo bay door open. Manual override required." His ship's computer alerted. Throwing his arms up in frustration, he jumped out of the chair and raced towards the rear, which took a fair amount of time, given his ship measured at just above fifty-three metres in length. Reaching it, he saw that, to his anger, several pieces of unsecured cargo sliding down the metal floor and shooting out through the opening. Growling, he activated the magnetic clamps in his boots and sprinted over to the door controls. Of course, something had to go wrong just as he reached it.

"ALERT! IMPACT WITH GROUND IN <10> SECONDS!" The ship's computer warned with a tone of urgency as the craft's altitude rapidly decreased. He knew that because he had synced himself up with the ship itself, and he felt and saw everything its sensors and cameras did. He looked out the opened cargo bay. He was only a few dozen metres above the canopy layer. Cursing, he clamped on to a railing, the metal bending due to his strength, and positioned himself to absorb the shock.

The craft suddenly lurched as he collided with a tree, sending it tilting to the side. It vibrated and shook as it hit a dozen more in its path. Decker glanced back out, seeing to his horror that at this speed, impact would severely damage his craft, not to mention himself in the process.

"ALERT! IMPACT WITH GROUND IN <-#1&67136"

"Son of a bi-" Was the last thing Decker managed to say before the entire railing was ripped off the ground as there was a horrible metallic grinding, before he himself was thrown out through the back. His sensors went haywire, and the last thing he received through his visual feed was the craft finally sliding to a stop a few dozen metres in front of him and catching fire, before his systems shut down.

Diana Florence was trekking through some heavily wooden terrain on the way to her destination. The hardened young woman took out a somewhat dirty canteen and took a sip of water. She was quite thankful the true heat of summer was still a ways off but the air was still warm and slightly muggy, which made her bit of chain-mail rather hot and sweaty underneath. Despite the minor annoyances she was still making decent headway though had to adjust her knapsack from time to time in order to feel comfortable.

The reason she was essentially in the middle of nowhere was because of her current job. Her task was to investigate the claims that a monster den had appeared in these woods and if it existed to locate and report it's location back to the nearby town who would inform the proper people to handle the situation. It was hard and dangerous work, especially for a lone mercenary where death or worse fates could easily befall her, but it was the life she chose for herself.

Only recently had she discovered signs of life other than wild animals in the area and she had started to track a set of hoof prints that betrayed the fact the creature walked on two legs, meaning it was not an animal but a monster. As she hunted after the creature she saw more and more signs of recent travel, such as broken twigs, scuffed up patches of dirt, even some excrement which was unpleasant to stumble upon but told her that she was only a few hours behind.

"I can only hope it leads me back to its den." Diana muttered to herself as she found herself climbing over a fallen tree. "If its only a loner this will all be for nothing, but if I do find their lair I'll have to be careful not to be detected." If there indeed was a monster den in the area and if the hoof prints belonged to one of the species she was thinking of, she would soon have to be careful in her pursuit and try to avoid setting off any crude alarms systems.

Her thoughts about how to proceed were interrupted when she felt that something was amiss. Soon enough a bunch of concerned birds quickly shot up into the air and flew off. Seeing where they were fleeing she looked the opposite way and saw a glimpse of something in the sky. It was hard to tell what it was but it was big, quite big. First thought was maybe a dragon but it appeared to be mostly one color and was just too oddly shaped to be any creature she knew.

She crouched down and hid, unsure of what it was, only that it was fast and coming closer. Thankfully it was not head straight for her and would easily miss her but, what in the world was it? She lost sight of it when she hid and then came the terrible crashing sounds as the object started to smash through the forest with its sheer speed and mass. Trees snapped, were toppled and even splintered into thousands of pieces as the huge hunk of metal tore through the woods. The crashing sounds were so loud and terrifying that Diana had to cover her ears and held her breath on reflex so the monster wouldn't notice her.

One more tree topple over from the onslaught, and then all was silence. Diana gingerly peeked out for her hiding space behind a hollowed out tree and listened. She waited for a full minute but no other sounds could be heard. Extricating herself from her position, her tracking mission pushed aside for the moment, she hurried over to where the sounds were. Soon enough she came upon a section disintegrated trees and earth where the massive object had first touched ground. Following the carnage she saw it, whatever it was.

It was huge, made of what appeared to be metal, yet not. It was definitely on fire and the swath of destruction it had caused was excessive. Without closer examination it would be impossible to even guess at what it was, some secret project by a neighboring government perhaps? Bits and pieces were thrown about the woods, most of it on the ground behind the thing. She tried to identify it but it was like nothing she had even seen before, but then she saw a figure, sprawled out among the rubble.

It looked human, but the strange armor it wore was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Like plate-mail yet perhaps more like the exoskeleton of an insect that was impossible for a human to replicate. She had absolutely no clue what was going on but considering how strange this was, she needed to investigate and find out the identity of the figure. Considering it probably fell from whatever the burning metal slab was, there was a good chance it was dead but as a mercenary she never let down her guard as she cautiously approached, careful of her surrounds as well as the figure on the ground.

Before long she was on top of it, one hand gripped her short sword for defense as she circled around, trying to detect any signs of life. She gave one of its legs and nudge and stepped back quickly just in case. This whole situation was so out of the normal, Diana hadn't a clue how to proceed. "It looks dead but with all that armor its hard to be certain. What could have been flying around on that?"

She looked again to the strange object but it still made zero sense to her. This was going to be a rather strange day.

/|WARNING! PROCESSING MATRIX STATUS CRITICAL|\

/|COMMENCING SYSTEM RESTART|\

/|DONE|\

/|ERROR: MEMORY BANKS CORRUPTED|\

/|PREVIOUS DATA CORRUPTED|\

/|RESTORING…|\

/|ERROR: RESTORATION UNAVAILABLE|\

/|EXTERNAL MEMORY BACKUP REQUIRED|\

/|INITIATING STARTUP PROCEDURE|\

/|SYSTEM CHECK IN PROGRESS|\

/[SERVOS: OK]\

/|HYDRAULICS: OK|\

/[OPTICS: OK]\

/[SENSORS: OK]\

/[SONIC CANNON: OK]\

/[MICROFUSION REACTOR: OK]\

/[PERSONALITY MODULE: OK]\

/[MEMORY BANKS: DAMAGED {SUGGEST IMMEDIATE REPAIR}]\

/|ALL SUB-ROUTINES FUNCTIONING|\

/|SYSTEMS NOMINAL|\

/|RETURNING TO FULL OPERATING CONSCIOUSNESS|\

Behind his helmet, Decker's eyes suddenly seemed to flash, before they shifted to a faint blue glow as his optics focused and unfocused, adjusting to the light level. The blurriness and slight visual glitching eventually subsided, and Decker found himself staring up at a canopy of green, warm rays of sun shining through the leaves. There was some movement above, and he zoomed in to see several birds perched on a branch, chirping away, some with berries in their beaks. For a second, he felt a sense of peace, which was odd an odd feeling in his circuits.

Something nudged his legs, and he slowly turned his head to see a woman in odd attire standing a few paces away from him. She appeared to be wearing a long blue dress, with some sort of metal armour covering her top, along with a pair of boots, a bladed weapon in her right hand. She was looking at his sprawled-out form with caution, though there was a sense of curiosity in her deep blue eyes. A gentle breeze blew through the forest, causing several trees to rustle up above, and the woman's dress and long, braided blonde hair to sway in the wind.

Decker groaned as he raised his hands above his face, before he shakily got to his feet, servos in both his armour and body itself whirring as he did. His inbuilt balancing systems ensured that he wouldn't lose his balance as he stood up to his full height, which he noted was far taller than the woman. He shook his head as the last of his systems returned back to life, before giving an uncomfortable wave at the woman.

"Uh, hello."

Despite having no signs of life previously, the figure on the ground was back into action. As soon as she noticed movement Diana quickly backed off a few steps as a precaution. She had known at a glance that the individual was rather large, but as it stood up to full height it really stuck home just how much larger the armored individual was.

Diana was perhaps, 5'3" at best making the large man over a foot taller than she was. The height difference was rather intimidating but she managed to keep a straight face regardless. If the person was a human, they had to be the tallest human she had ever seen. Whatever they were they were big, physically built, and heavily armored though the ease with which the figure moved meant that either its armor was rather light, or they were just that physically strong.

As she watched it rise she could not help but grip her sword in two hands for extra power. Frankly though, considering how tough the strange armor looked, she doubted even her best swing could cut through.

"Uh, Hello?" The figure greeted her with an uncomfortable wave of its hand. It sounded friendly enough but one did not survive long on their own if they did not approach unusual situations with caution.

"I don't suppose you want to explain who you are and what that thing is?" Diana pointed with her sword toward the flaming hunk of metal that ended the lives of many a tree and unsuspecting land critter that day. "Finding a heavily armored person in the middle of the woods nearby a flaming metal fireball begs quite a few questions."

Decker glanced over to the flaming wreckage of his ship. "That? It's my ship." He said, rather awkwardly. A portion of the ship exploded even as its fire-curbing systems got to work, though the fire only seemed to grow bigger. Decker and the woman stared at each other, the only sounds besides the normal chirping of birds and rustling of leaves the cracks and pops from the fiery inferno, which thankfully hadn't set fire to the rest of the forest just yet.

For a second, Decker's processing matrix seemed to freeze as he glanced around, unsure of what to do. Then, time seemed to freeze as he quickly tried to find just where he ended up. From the scans and last footage from the ship before it crashed, there were no signs of any other artificial satellites or spacecraft in orbit, or any communications for that matter. It was still daytime, so he couldn't chart the stars either. This was an uncharted planet, for all he knew.

Time returned back to normal as he spoke up. "Look, I'm kind of lost. I have no idea where I am. My ship crash landed, as you can see over there." He cocked his head towards the wreckage. "Can you tell me where I am? What planet I'm on, everything?"

"That? It's my ship."

The answer he gave, at least it sounded like a male from under that helmet, was not one that made a lot of sense. A ship was something that sailed the seas, not something that could travel across land or the air for that matter. She had heard of secret projects to make 'airships' but the ship that kept exploding looked nothing like the vague concept designs she had seen once, for one there appeared to be not a single sign of a propeller.

Once the tall man started to talk about other planets, Diana realized that the man was probably insane. Diana sighed and relaxed her stance a bit, putting the point of her sword downward to show she would not be a threat if he didn't do anything. Taking her left hand off the hilt she scratched the side of her head, ruffling her hair a little.

"I can see you're lost in more ways than one. That being said, even if you are lost I don't have time help you. I was tracking a monster through the woods but now if your junk burning down the fortress it's gonna take me some time to pick up the trail again." As she spoke she also had no idea how the monster or monsters would react to the wreckage that had taken out a chunk of the woods. Either they would scatter, or some might be attracted to the flame and investigate, either did not bode very well for her assignment.

"I still need to go further into these woods, so if you want to find the nearest town you'd best go the opposite way I'm going." Diana continued as she started to look around more to pick up the trail of her quarry, but making sure to keep the stranger in her sights.

"With all that fancy armor though, not sure if they'll feel safe around you."

"Wait, wait!" Decker said as he ran after the woman. "I need your help. Please." He pleaded. "I honestly have no idea how I got here. All I remember is falling into the atmosphere, before waking up in the middle of a forest with my ship burning over there." By now, the fire had subsided somewhat, although it was still burning quite vibrantly. Then something else exploded inside it. Decker winced. He hoped it wasn't the ammo in the weapons locker. If the fire reached the highly volatile incendiary grenades stored in there, things would be bad. It would be even worse if the antimatter reactor had been damaged by the crash. Unstable antimatter reactors could go boom at the slightest provocation.

He turned to the woman. "I need your help. Look, if I helped you hunt this 'monster' of yours, can you help me?" He sounded like he was begging at this point. He sighed and slowly shook his head. "I'm Decker. Conrad Decker. I'm a mercenary." Decker introduced himself with some uncertainty. He looked around and began to scan the immediate area, before his sensors detected an object lying on the floor. He glanced at the woman before heading over to it. Nearing it, his sensors confirmed it as an ACAR-38, and he wasted no time in pulling out the magazine and checking its ammo. Finding that it was at its full sixty-round capacity, he switched on its magnetic coils but left the safeties activated, before he attatched it to his back, his armour's magnetic weapon clamps securing it in place.