Rilik and Johnson had been in slipspace for a day now after they failed again at finding a peaceful place to hide out in, every planet they came across was either glassed by the Covenant or was barren and couldn't support shit. The two former ODST's had been going around all planets they could for a place to hide.
"Hey Ril, the drive is going out, we gotta pull out of slipspace." Johnson said as he was checked all the screens on the ship, moving around uncomfortably as his bulkyness in his armor caused him extreme chafing and he was large by normal standards.
"Alright Rob pull us out and start checking where we are on the map." Rilik said as he moved around the cockpit of the fighter, his bulky ODST armor making movement difficulty. They pulled out of slipspace and Rilik took in the surrounding planets, "Ok there's a planet that looks like it could sustain people and it isn't glassed, ok what does the star map say?" He studied the planets features "Ok it has oceans and inland lakes, plains are green and looks like it has forests." He thought.
"Should we check it out bro?" Rob asked as he began the descent towards the planet.
"Yeah let's hope this isn't a waste of our time, so what's this planets name and does it have a colony?" Rilik was checking the systems when he thought about fuel consumption, "So how much fuel we have until we are on the fumes?"
"We're on bingo fuel with the Slipspace drive and got about 15% remaining fuel on the primary thrusters, rerouting the fuel to the drive will be useless, we're to far out to get anywhere with a fueling station, as for the planet it isn't even charted on the maps." Rob said.
"Wait what? Then how did we get here? I thought we needed coordinates to get somewhere?" Rilik asked, confused by this coincidence.
"Well after awhile I got tired of having to search for proper coordinates and just set us in a direction that was cleared awhile back by one of the fleets." Robert said as we began the breach of the planets atmosphere.
The flaming craft rocked as the g-forces being exerted on the ship were great, the turbelence stopped after a few minutes, Rob whisteled at the sight below them, "That is one gorgeous scenery down there, clear night and it's all awesome." He said in awe.
"Yeah bet we can scavenge something if there's people here, check the radio frequencies for any comm traffic just in case there's people here." Rilik had begun setting up a broadcast for help when he noticed a many lights on the ground. "Dude something's going on down there! If we can just get a proper landing zone we can start looking" Rilik announced as he started flying the ship around.
"Hey Ril there's no comm traffic any frequency that I can get on this thing, we'll have to just land somewhere, alright if we-" Rob looked up to see a humongous dark cloud forming over the ship, "Oh my god Rilik where did that storm come from?"
"What are you talking about bro the sky was clear not even five minutes ago." Rilik looked up at the sky to see the cloud looming over the ship. He was about to start flying away from it when something rocked the ship and warning lights started blaring in the cockpit. "What happened Rob!?"" Rilik demanded as the ship began to plummet to the ground.
"I don't know! Something hit the starboard engine and completely tore the wing off!" Rob was trying to regain control of the ship, as it careened downwards.
"The one thing they don't put on their prototype is ejection seats! Get ready for a crash Rob." Rilik shouter over the noise of the alarms sounding off as they got to close to land by the ships sensors. They braced themselves as best as they could for an impact, Rilik pulling up the nose of the fighter just a few seconds before it hit the ground.
The prototype fighter smacked into the ground with a high pitched grinding noise, Rilik was groggy and a bit hurt as he lifted off the broken remains of the canopy, he stepped out to a war zone, around him he heard the sounds of battle, men screaming battle cries or screaming because of pain, he looked up as silence usurped the field, he saw colorful equines before him, some odd shades of purple, teal, and orange. The battle resumed as the ponies seemed to lose interest in Rilik.
"Hey Rob get up here I think I might be going crazy!" He shouted down at his friend still clamped into the seat, fumbling with the harness securing him to it. Rilik had looked around when he heard a whizzing sound go by his head, he looked back at a long metal spike coming out of the ship behind him. He dove for cover, a boulder a few yards in front of the ship, Rilik tried to locate a source of the spike and didn't see a man or woman around to do it. He noticed some of the equines had wings on their back and some had horns on their head, the ones with wings had metal armor and the horned ones didn't have armor as much but an aura surrounding them.
Rob peaked above the ship and was almost nailed by multiple projectiles as he rushed for the same boulder Rilik was behind, "Ril you're seeing the warring ponies with horns and wings to right?" Rob asked as he looked around.
"Good news: we're not crazy, bad news: we're surrounded by hostile horses! Did ya grab the guns man?" Rilik asked his pal.
Rob sighed and began to talk, " Shit shit shit! They're on the ship, you're the faster one see if you can grab 'em real quick bro." Rilik tensed up as he ran towards the ship trying his best not to be hit by the spikes that were landing on the ground near him. He dove for the safety of the cockpit, he opened some hidden compartments in the lower parts of it, he grabbed and armful of weapons and ammo and ran back to the boulder almost getting nailed in the leg by a spike.
"Alright I grabbed some." He panted as he laid out all the weapons and ammo on the ground, he had grabbed two MA5 assault rifles, a shotgun, a BR55HP SR Battle Rifle, and two magnums. The two former ODST's grabbed a MA5 AR and Rilik grabbed the shotgun, while Rob grabbed the battle rifle. A winged pony dove straight for Rilik he fired a slug into its face, causing half of its face to be almost melted off and it plummeted to the ground not moving again. A regular pony charged Rob from the side, Rilik shot again this time into the ponies side making a deep crater in it, the pony cried out and died bleeding.
Rob poked out of cover and fired a burst of his battle rifle into a horned ponies face, its eye blew up in a gorey mess and the next two rounds hit the center of its head, it was dead before it even knew it. Rob took aim at an armored wing equine and fired another burst, a round bounced off the armor while the other two tore of a wing making it tumble into the ground below.
"Helljumper, helljumper, where you been?" Shouted Rilik over the sounds of battle. He jumped out of cover firing more slugs into two regular ponies they died before they hit the ground.
"Feet first into hell then back again!" Shouted his friend in response as he fired more bursts into the fray of ponies.
"When I die please bury me deep!" Rilik yelled as he and his friend performed the old ODST slogan just like before they deserted.
"Fix my MA5 down by my feet!" Pronounced his best pal in the world as Rob beat down a tan normal equine. Rilik found his next targets in the form of a much taller equine with a rainbow mane that flowed like it was alive. The figure vanished and Rilik looked around for the larger pony, he fired two slugs into two advancing winged armored ponies, the rounds easily punching through the meager armor, he looked around the field, he saw his friend fighting off more advancing equines as he backed up a bit, he turned his head toward a giant mass forming on the horizon.
"Rob we got a big incoming!" Rilik announced pointing at the mob of mixed ponies rushing them, he heard them yelling something as another army came out of nowhere from behind them.
"For Equestria!" Rilik heard the ponies rushing from behind them chant, he heard another chant from the opposite group.
"For Celestia and Luna!" Chanted the others as they appraoched he activated his HUD visor and was able to see the tall pony he saw earlier leading the army opposite of Riliks position. The army that had appeared behind them was quickly beaten back to the ship's position. Rilik's shotgun clicked when he tried firing.
"Fuck I'm out! What about you Rob?" Rilik yelled over the cries of the battle. he heard no response from his friend, he tried again on the comm, "Hey Rob you run out of ammo?" Still no response he looked over to where his friend had been to see nothing but ponies in a big circle around his friend. "Rob!" Rilik noticed the magnums on the ground and picked them up, clamping them both to his sides. He pulled out his MA5 and poured rounds in the equines surrounding Rob, multiple ones fell from the sixty rounds that had just been pumped in the group, the remainders turned on Rilik and started to rush him, he reloaded as fast as he could and pumped more rounds into the group, bullets ripped into the lead ponies flesh and they fell, even if they survived the bullet hailing the stampede that followed would have sure killed them from trampling. He batted a winged pony away with the butt of his gun and smashed another ones head in as it prepared to stab him with its horn. He turned to the next one too late and was greeted by two hooves colliding with his chest, he tumbled through the air, the power of the kick sent him gasping for air.
Rilik looked over to his friends form sprawled on the ground, the large pony lifted him up in a blue aura and ripped him in half with some sort of twisted magic, Rilik got up and pulled the two pistols off his back and fired into the ponies that surrounded him, one shot peirced a big red ponies head and two more ripped into the chest of a dark grey one. He fired rounds into the larger equine to have all his bullets stop short of the horse and be redirected back at him, he caught a round in the left arm and dropped a magnum. He fired one handed into the large equine with the same failure as last time but the round collided with his chest, he checked his armor, it didn't peirce as he felt in the hole it made, he decided to draw his tactical knife and ran up to the large pony, "Your armor can't protect you now" Rilik thought as the knife peirced the eye of the large horse and he shoved it deeper into the thing's eye socket. It slumped over, dead, he got up on wobbly legs and watched as the angered army approached him in a stampede. He muttered a prayer and looked at the ground while the horde approached him.
Rilik thought of an idea, he ran to the remains of the crashed prototype, he checked the slipspace drive, "It's still functional, good." He thought while he toggled multiple switchs in the cockpit, A red light blared and a countdown started down on the screen. He climbed up the broken ship, he saw his MA5 rifle that was forcefully discarded from him earlier lying on the ground in front of it, he rushed for it, a regular pony blocked his way, he made sure that move was its last as he stabbed it in the head with his knife. He heard a clank of metal come from the skull and tried pulling out his knife to find that it had been shattered from the rough impact, he ran down to the assault rifle and grabbed it, he fired whatever was remaining of the clip of the assault rifle into four advancing horned ponies, ripping ones head off and the others were caught in the hail as multiple rounds caught their chest cavities.
He looked at the countdown, the screen read ten seconds till core detonation, he looked out at the army drawing near to him as he reloaded his last magazine into the assault rifle.
"I'll be right behind you Rob, first ones in and the last out." Rilik said as he fired a five round burst into a lead winged horse, the shots dinged off the armor, he noticed as this one got closer it had a horn and was much larger than the others, its midnight blue color gleamed in the night, He watched the screen turn to a giant one.
"Burn you son of a bitch!" Rilik yelled as white light enveloped all that surrounded the ship for a two mile radius.