"We do not trust it, 'Tia. Something feels wrong about that being. We felt it when we held them." Princess Luna stated quietly to her sister as the pair sat silently on their respective thrones.
There were few times the sisters could enjoy each others company, mostly during meals, but this was an emergency.
The Royal Guard had received reports or an incredibly odd meteor shower suddenly popping out of nowhere over the Everfree Forest and, as Celestia was nearly exhausted from the day, Luna had taken a small detachment of Guards to investigate the matter and assess the damage.
Not in all of her years of living, both in Equestria and on the Moon, had she ever seen anything so unusual like the materials that lay embedded in trees and the ground.
She and her guards had managed to retrieve a few pieces of it, but it was so strange... It reacted very little to her magic, which felt as if it simply slipped off the material.
It was the same with that creature one of the guards had found, and Luna had to keep applying more and more magic to it if she wanted to continuing dragging it along... But she knew it would be worth it; an alien, most likely sentient and highly advanced, was sitting secure in Twilight Sparkle's old quarters! Princess Luna simply wished the creature hadn't broken her nose...
"That is understandable, Lulu, but we can't treat it with violence. You and I both know how catastrophic the result can be from agitating powers unknown." Princess Celestia replied.
"We know, 'Tia, but what are we to do? Simply let the creature sit in the dark forever? Surely it has dietary needs, but I could see not even a mouth on it! How are we to take care of it, 'Tia? We know nothing about it."
"Which is why" Princess Celestia interrupted with a small, knowing smile. "Twilight and Shining Armor will be perfect candidates to interrogate it."
"Sister, we understand your decision for including the Captain of the Guard, but why Twilight? Surely she has more important things to be doing as a new princess?"
"Shining Armor is a prime interrogator, but I wish that the situation won't require some of his more extreme methods... With Twilight there, it will likely keep him in check, and I feel as if it is a good start for her to learn about diplomatic relations. Would you disagree?" Celestia inquired, slightly as a challenge.
Princess Luna lowered her head slightly before replying.
"Sister, you would risk war with an unknown alien civilization for the sake of teaching your student?"
"Luna, we are already risking war by binding it up and bringing it here. Besides, we have no knowledge to if it even has a civilization. Do you remember Mother and Father?" Princess Celestia said quietly, to which Luna lowered her head even more and did not respond. "We are the last of our kind, sister: the last of the pure blooded Alicorns. What's to say that the creature isn't the last of it's kind, as well? That metal you found, it's obviously severely damaged. There's no telling what catastrophic event it managed to survive."
Princess Luna sighed and stepped off of her throne, heading towards the door. "We suppose you are right, 'Tia. We are retiring to our quarters, now. Goodnight, sister."
"Goodnight, Luna." Celestia whispered as her sister stepped out into the hallway, leaving Celestia alone in the throne room.
Six was amazed, but gave no indication of it.
She had managed to escape from her barely secured room and creep down the hallway, avoiding patrols of guards here and there without making contact even slightly.
And now, she was standing on a red carpet that rolled out through a rather large hallway, complete with stone pillars on either side of the room in between stained glass windows depicting odd and confusing scenes.
One showed six horses, two with wing, two with horns, and two without either, jumping up to strike a large dark horse with both wings and a horn.
Another showed some bipedal reptile holding a heart.
Noble Six ignored the odd works and turned her attention back to the door at the end of the hall, quickly and quietly closing the distance between it and her.
It was obvious that there was something very important behind this door, based on the intricate design, and Six felt like she needed a bargaining chip more than ever. If only she could get inside...
Taking a quick glance behind her to make sure the hallway was devoid of any life, Noble Six began working on a plan to get the door open.
In the center, at the points of the triangles, there was a small hole; too big for any key she'd seen, but it had to be necessary to open the door properly...
Unfortunately for the door, Six didn't have time for proper.
Taking a step back and charging forward, the Spartan hit the door with the sound of splintering wood and creaking metal as Six's barrier gave way slightly.
Taking another step back and preparing again, the Spartan was too busy to notice the three faint blue dots on her motion tracker...
Thud.
"Your majesty, we can't just sit here and let that thing get to the Elements!" Shining Armor whispered urgently to his leader.
"Be still, Captain. It can't know how to use them or what they're even used for. It will probably think it stumbled into a small treasury, if anything." Princess Celestia replied quietly, turning her head away from the scene and towards her pupil. "And what do you think it's doing, Twilight?"
Twilight Sparkle, recently turned Alicorn princess, snapped out of her thoughts and turned to Princess Celestia in confusion.
In return, Princess Celestia offered a small smile before repeating her question. "I asked you what you think the creature thinks it's doing."
"Oh, right. Sorry." Twilight whispered sheepishly before turning her gaze back to the alien, who had now successfully broken through the door and was making its way into the Chamber of the Elements. "I honestly have no idea, princess. I'm surprised it stuck around, instead of trying to escape. Maybe it's looking for something to trade it's freedom for? But how could it know something valuable was behind that door?"
"Well, the door does stand out quite a bit..." Shining Armor offered, at which point Celestia gave a small, pleased, bow of her head.
"Very good, both of you. I think it's time to meet our new friend..."
So, horses that have a thing for jewelry... the Spartan mused as she flipped the lid closed to the large, ornate chest that held five necklaces and a tiara, each embedded with a few smaller gems to complement the larger centerpiece gem.
As Noble Six exited the room, chest in hand, she immediately dropped the case and kicked it behind her; gripping the shard of mirror and taking a defensive posture against the three ponies that now stood blocking her way.
The tallest of them, the white horse she had seen before, made no reaction, while the smaller, purple winged-unicorn reared back a bit, and the white unicorn took up an aggressive stance.
Each held their ground as an uneasy feeling crept over the room. If a fight broke out, it certainly wouldn't have a pretty end.
After a few more moments of silence, the tall white horse gently nudged the side of the purple one, easing her towards Noble Six.
Giving a nervous gulp, the small, winged-unicorn cautiously trotted forward until she stood a few feet in front of the alien, who tensed slightly at her approach. Reaching her hoof out slowly in greeting, Twilight hopped she wouldn't die here; away from all of her friends and everything she loved, at the mercy of a terrifying alien.
Noble Six, however, did not return the greeting; opting, instead, to dash back towards the box, snatch it up and then make her way down the hallway in nearly the blink of an eye to the purple horse and the small white unicorn.
To the taller horse, however, clearly anticipated an unfriendly reaction from the alien and, as Noble Six neared the exit, she felt a heavy weight slam into her side, sending her down to the ground and the chest sliding across the floor.
Looking up to face her attacker, Six smirked beneath her helmet at the return of the dark blue horse, who now sported a bandaged splint across the bridge of her nose. Noble Six tried to fight back, but found that she had an incredibly hard time moving anything in her body as her shields flared once more and began draining.
The dark horse stepped off of her to make way for the white one, whose horn was glowing with a slightly breath-taking golden, wavy glow- as if it were part liquid, part gas.
Snapping out of her little trance with a jolt, Six found herself staring into the worried and confused eyes of the tall white pony, who made an attempt to communicate something to her, but slammed into the language barrier.
The horse gave another try at speaking to Six, saying whatever it was at a slow, steady pace before taking a step back.
As she did so, Noble Six found her shields recharging and she slowly sat up to see the purple horse slowly approaching once more, offering her hoof in greeting.
Noble Six slowly reached her hand out to grasp and shake the hoof.
Good so far. Breaking the language barrier would be nice.
2621035 All in due time.
Okay. Few questions. Screw questions. I love the style! It's raw and speaks of chaos, fast actions without outrunning the characters. I begin to like the taste of such stories.
Okay, maybe one question. Are the marines officially called Spartans, or is it her division or what? I didn't quiet catch that in my few attempts to understand Halo-fiction.
Okay, maybe two questions, What sis KIA supposed to mean?
Okay, maybe three questions. How does this storyverse handle the different colour-shemes of the worlds? That's the biggest problem I have with HiE.
O... How did you fuse punctuation with style? That's genius blasphemy!
2621045 1. Marines are called marines. Spartans are called Spartans. In Halo: Reach (the game in which Noble Six comes from), you fight alongside marines.
2. KIA is a military term meaning "Killed In Action", and is used when a soldier is confirmed to be deceased in a combat situation. In the Halo universe, Spartans are never listed as KIA in an effort to boost moral and feed the myth that Spartans never die, since they are genetically enhanced super soldiers.
3. It doesn't, really. I'm not planning to address it, but Six sees things a bit darker than the ponies see them, because the ponies have some mutation or what-not that literally brightens their vision.
2621065
Good enough for me.
I remember reading something sort of like this.
Let's see where this goes.
2621337 I'm sorry, did you say something?
2621477 Magically reenforced!
2621065
Great description
2621489 I pride myself on my descriptions. Thank you!
2621511 It's really hard to understand what you're saying. Maybe there's some sort of anti-rudeness filter on this story?
2621529
Are you our new FelixDawn?
2621537 Not quite sure who that is.
2621540
FelixDawn. The guy who deletes comments with any kind of criticism. Everybody hates him. Don't be like him. Halo universe is incredibly overused, and the spartans are boring. Even worse than imperial space marines from w40k.
2621555 The only good criticism is constructive criticism, in which someone gives their honest opinions about what makes the story bad without insulting the writer or the content which they write.
So what if, to you, the Halo universe is overused? I have 28 people on this story alone who say otherwise. It's the same for Spartans.
2621608 Because fuck math! But you're right.
2621568
Nope. Any kind of feedback is good. In any form. Any sort of feedback is to be analyzed no matter how rude it may seem. That's what they've taught me at the college.
I don't like it. I'm annoyed every time I see a halo crossover on the main page, for reasons stated in my previous comment. And I'm going to tell the author about it.
Because millions of flies thirteen-year old halo fanboys can't be wrong.
I have my own opinion, different from theirs.
2621655
"You're story sucks." is still feedback, and useless. They do not tell how the story "sucks" so that the author can try harder to make it better, or to better future stories.
Good for you! It's still not useful criticism, though.
How is it wrong to begin with when it's an opinion? They're not saying that this story is the greatest Halo crossover fiction to ever be written of all time. They're saying that they like it, when they favorite it.
Much better than some of the excessively violent and OOC Halo crossover fare I've read so far, so far.
2621707 I'm on the Halo Wiki for this and, apparently, Noble Six is a bit out of character, because she's/he's apparently very social in-game, but that doesn't quite add up to their back story (being a lone wolf-assassin type of Spartan) for me, so in this story she'll be more antisocial.
2621655 Noted. You seem to be alone with the intensity and starkness of your opinion however, therefore you must understand the author need not change the story on your opinion alone if he disagrees.
For the record I am ambivalent about the Halo series, and so far I have liked this story the most so far out of the (not many) Halo/MLP crossovers I've read.
The author could ask, if he really cares. That's what the good author would do.
Well, that's quite easy.
It's wrong. In my opinion.
I never said they were.
And I'm saying I don't like it, because Halo universe is one huge cliche, and because an average spartan has a personality of a doorknob. They're interesting to play with, but that's just it.
2621768
Or the criticizer, who took the 'job' upon themselves by starting this.
But you implied it.
Aaaaand hostage time
Just wondering... Does Six just have the default equipment, or is it something else?
2621853 What do you mean? She has a standard DMR with twelve shots left, no secondary weapon, and zero grenades. Her armor configuration won't be too heavily expanded in the story.
2621861 Armor! That's what I was thinking of. Strange how one can forget even the simplest of words. Anyway, I was asking about the armor. I guess I'll just assume it's the default, then.
2621655
Not all feedback is good. If you get on a story and talk about how you hate all X crossovers, or insult the author for his story it's not good in any way, and the author has the right to delete it. I agree with 2621568 here. Constructive criticism is the best, and the only useful negative feedback. Just insulting the story/ the author, or saying you don't like it and won't be reading it doesn't help anybody in anyway.
2621065
You don't even have to make it a mutation, they have larger eyes with more rods and cones for colour vision, causing colours to appear more intense.
2621065
You're fighting alongside with the UNSC Army. Marines don't use the MA37.
2922808
You're right, I was misunderstood when I said you fight alongside Marines. In most games, you do, but this game is different.
Just out of habit.