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GUARDIANS2,969 words
“So I guess that sorts who you’re bringing to prom.”3,447 words
“Oh, dear.”1,505 words
"Fuck-me-sideways!"4,048 words
"They must love the smell of hero!"4,804 words
“Oh, shit. This princess is pissed.”5,550 words

“Oh, shit. This princess is pissed.”

There was no subtlety to their breach whatsoever. Even as they shouldered open the doors, Twilight Sparkle’s magic gave the entry a little more oomph.

The doors exploded off their hinges, sending them flying across either end of the throne room. One unsuspecting grunt was even wiped out, reduced to a fluorescent smear on the polished floor. The sight had Marko whooping excitedly.

Twilight hadn’t been kidding, the throne room was very open and very exposed. But as on the palace’s porch, the disadvantage worked both ways. The Covenant wouldn’t have cover either. And thankfully the mission objective was covered, so there was no fear of stray rounds taking out a princess.

In the center of the room was a bubble of light, a shield protecting four inhabitants from the dozen or so Covenant surrounding them. The aliens were stubbornly firing their weapons at the magical shield to no avail, and through the ripples of energy dispersed through the bubble Flintlock spotted four ponies.

They focused on the hostiles first. Twilight Sparkle erected a similar bubble shield over herself as well as a pair of pillars of light for the headhunters to use. All it would take for some simple verbal commands so she knew when to raise and lower the barriers.

“Firing!” both headhunters shouted and Twilight lowered the shields bar her own.

Marko and Ishmir ripped and tore into the unsuspecting enemy. Marko sprinted ahead and made short work of a jackal, pumping his shotgun and quickly flooring a brute with the next shot. A follow up put the monkey down for good and he moved into polish off some of the smaller aliens on his side of the throne room.

Ishmir jumped on a brute’s back and put half a magazine through the back of its head. It fell and the Spartan rolled smoothly on impact with the ground. Without missing a stride he yelled “reloading!” and dumped a mag from his assault rifle.

The MA5C clip hadn’t even hit the ground when Twilight erected a shield for Ishmir, absorbing some of the plasma fire directed at him from a line of jackals. Ishmir completed the reload and popped around the pillar, shouting “firing!” as he fired.

The shield popped out of existence as Ishmir moved out of the line of fire, firing a burst into the jackals. Unfortunately he didn’t drop them in one go.

The jackal shields interlocked frustratingly. Ishmir’s rounds just splashed against the disks of energy. The only way around them was literally to get around them. Which meant he’d need to get Marko to flank if he wasn’t terribly busy.

Or Ishmir could just go through.

Reaching back he pulled his frag grenade from an anchor point on his armor and primed the device. He linked the fuse to a timer on his HUD, counted, then flung the grenade directly at the jackals. It hit the polished floor, skipped like a stone over a pond and the object flew right between two jackals whose shields weren’t quite overlapped.

It was timed perfectly, the grenade thumping into an explosion right between the jackals. Consumed in fire and shrapnel, the two closest jackals were flung into a gory cartwheel. The others toppled, thrown off balance by the explosion. Ishmir immediately snapped up his assault rifle and raked the dog shit out of them while they were exposed.

Ishmir lowered his rifle for a second to turn and check on Marko when it hit. A freight train came ploughing through the Canterlot Palace throne room and collided with Ishmir, snapping his rifle clean in half and throwing him onto his back. The force of the impact dropped his shields down to a quarter. He was pretty sure the chest plate of his SPI was dented as well.

The halves of his assault rifle fell to either side of the Spartan as he lifted his arms over his head. The metaphorical freight train, which turned out to be a brute – go figure – lifted its own arms and started bashing the headhunter into the ground. His shields flickered some more until the energy bar was just a glowing sliver. Ishmir wouldn’t be able to take much more before the brute crushed him like a sailor crushing a beer can.

That was when something hit the brute back, and it wasn’t the Spartan.

With a splash of energy a small caliber round smacked into the brute’s temple. Then two more followed. Then another five rounds smacked into the helmet, the exact same place every time until the brute’s armor hissed and breached. Finally a quiet ‘twip’ sent a round into the brute’s temple and out the other side.

Two more rounds followed, practically passing through the same hole and the alien collapsed.

Ishmir pushed the brute off him and sat up, looking to see where the shots had come from. He half expected to see Marko had switched out his shotgun for a weapon with some more finesse. But instead he saw Twilight Sparkle with her shield down, levitating the smoking M6C pistol that had been holstered to her side in front of her.

Her eyes were wide and stunned. Ishmir couldn’t even tell if she was breathing, that was how still she was. Finding his feet he quickly moved closer, crouching in front of her and holding out his hand. If she accidentally fired again she wouldn’t breach his charging shields, but he wanted to be sure she didn’t hurt herself either despite clearly knowing what she was doing.

The level and angle at which she levitated the pistol allowed her to look through the sights with her magic manipulating the trigger and safety quite easily. And she was a darn good shot; Spartan-like grouping on her first go with a gun. She must have been watching the headhunters technique closely this whole time.

In the background he heard Marko yell “clear!” but he ignored his buddy for the moment. He trusted Marko enough to do a full sweep of the room, letting Ishmir focus on Twilight Sparkle for a minute.

“Warlock…” he started to say. “Twilight, are you okay?”

Ishmir edged closer reaching out for the gun. That was when Twilight blinked. She looked like she’d just woken from a trance and was figuring out where she was and what was going on. Then she withdrew the gun from Ishmir and looked down at it. The safety clicked on a second later.

Looking up again, Twilight swallowed, opening her mouth but unsure what to say. Looking past Ishmir she noticed the shield bubble still in the center of the room and suddenly the fact she’d just ventilated another living thing’s brain with bullets was forgotten.

“Celestia!” the princess cried galloping towards the shield, slotting the pistol back into its holster on her side.

As she ran up and planted her forehooves on the pink bubble of magic, Marko swaggered over with confusion clear in his voice. “Hey, Ish. What happened?”

“Warlock just dropped a brute.” Ishmir nodded to the brute with three neat holes in its temple.

“Oh, the virgin princess of friendship popped her cherry,” Marko laughed. “That’s great!”

Ishmir huffed, holding up a finger to tell Marko off. “We are not encouraging this,” he said moving after Twilight.

“Oh, come on, pops. You can’t protect the little ones forever.” Marko gave the dead brute Twilight had killed one more look then followed while pointing at the holes in the head. “That’s badass grouping though!”

Twilight Sparkle in the meantime was knocking her hooves on the bubble shield frantically trying to contact the pony-shaped blobs inside. “Hello!? Princess Celestia, are you in there?”

The bubble flickered then popped out of existence revealing the four ponies inside. Three were alicorns like Twilight, albeit taller. Another was a white furred unicorn in a fancy looking purple and gold permutation of the Royal Guard armor.

Twilight gasped with a smile at Princess Cadance and her brother Captain Shining Armor. Though they looked worse for wear, fur and mane a singed mess and tired bags under their eyes. Their horns flickered and spluttered, clearly having held that shield up together for a very long time while the Covenant assaulted them. Their magic was likely completely shot.

“Twilight?” Cadance asked wearily. “Oh, Twilight we thought we’d lost you!”

Cadance quickly scooped her little sister-in-law into a tight hug that Shining Armor joined in with.

“Shiny! Cadance! Thank goodness you’re alright,” Twilight nearly sobbed.

Shining Armor blinked then stepped back, checking out his sister’s combat harness and helmet. “What are you wearing?”

“Hey, I think she looks really fashionable,” Marko commented, drawing attention to himself and Ishmir.

The two ponies looked up and gaped, wide eyed.

Twilight quickly introduced her human friends. “This is Ishmir and that is Marko. They’re the Spartan headhunters I told you about. They’re here to help. You can trust them.”

“They’re real,” Cadance said with some disbelief and awe. “The aliens from the Everfree Forest you told us about… they’re real.”

Marko on the other hand greeted the ponies with a casual glance over his shoulder. “Hey, how you doin’?”

While the two stared at the tall Spartans, Twilight Sparkle tried to get back on track. “Cadance, have you seen Celestia and Luna. Were they...?”

She froze mid-sentence as Shining Armor stepped aside to reveal Celestia and Luna were nearby. And they looked worse than the married couple.

Luna’s injuries were less extensive despite the amount of blood in her coat. Burns and gouges in the skin spider webbed down the side of her face, narrowly missing her eye but connecting with the flank of her slender neck.

Princess Celestia lay on her side in a steadily growing puddle of blood that was connected with a smear of red indicating she had been dragged into the throne room. There was a massive raw chunk of meat missing from her chest with zig-zag cuts and bruises spreading down her side, across her ribcage and cutting into her wing quite a bit. Most of her body was stained crimson, but some of the bleeding was being stemmed by the magic emanating from Princess Luna’s horn.

The Spartan-3’s had seen the telltale gouge and burn of the brute maulers all too often. Normally any marine on the wrong end of the mauler would be an instant goner, but this princess was hanging on. She seemed strong, but they figured something to do with her sister’s magic was helping her hold on too.

Ishmir shook his head, not liking the looks of it none the less. “She’s not healing fast enough. Marko, biofoam.”

Marko nodded and threw Ishmir a can that was latched to his belt. Ishmir wasted no time kneeling opposite Luna as he deployed the can’s nozzle with a sharp click. But as he did the princess lifted her gaze and her eyes began to glow with the same light on her horn.

“Step away from our sister-…!” the princess began to bellow until Twilight Sparkle quickly jumped in.

“Princess Luna, wait! Let Ishmir help!” she cried almost pleadingly.

The familiar voice of her fellow princess drew Luna out of her rage as she averted her bewildered gaze to Twilight Sparkle. Satisfied the princess of the night was subdued for the moment, she gave Ishmir the nod and the Spartan set to work.

Pushing the nozzle as gently as he could into the hole in Celestia’s body he depressed the pressure valve and filled her up with a mixture of blank cells, disinfectants and anesthetic. Ishmir knew full well the cold burning sensation the biofoam gave you, having had holes in his body plugged with plenty of the stuff before. Celestia obviously felt the same sensation, twitching and drawing a ragged gasp of surprise. But then the anesthetic quickly set to work and she relaxed.

Pulling a field dressing from his kit, Ishmir finally set to work covering up her injuries to keep the biofoam in place. As he did the princess looked tiredly upward.

“You’re real,” Celestia whispered softly.

“So they keep telling me,” Ishmir responded as he tied down the field dressing. “The biofoam will kill some of the pain and help stop the bleeding, but you need to keep doing what you’re doing.” Ishmir looked up at Princess Luna to catch her staring into his visor. Angrily snapping his fingers in her face, he got her to focus again. “Did you hear what I said!?”

“We… err…”

“Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Luna swallowed, hearing this time and she set to work. Her horn glowed again and the midnight glow of her magic took to Celestia’s injuries. The white alicorn winced for a moment, but kept her eyes open and Ishmir saw some of the smaller gouges in her skin begin to heal again.

Lifting his gaze he nodded to Twilight Sparkle, who broke into a relieved look. The alicorn would definitely need magical healing therapy for a few hours but she’d pull through.

The time to celebrate was short lived though. Through the thunder of battle raging outside and rattling the throne room windows in their panes there was a loud, sharp ‘tchock!’ The sound of metal striking marble grew with each pregnant moment, sounding out with a steady predictable rhythm.

“Well that’s ominous,” Marko commented on the sound swiveling to face the source.

Where the streak of Celestia’s blood over the ground met a doorway, the door swung open and framed the hulking figure of a brute too large to fit through the frame. It had to lower its head and shoulder through, and as it straightened up, growing before their eyes, Marko let out a tired groan.

It wasn’t another regular brute the Spartans so loved to deal with. This was a chieftain, the alpha of the pack outfitted with tougher armor systems and a big old hammer that could squish a Spartan-3 with one well-aimed swing.

The creature observed the five ponies and two demons, then huffed at the sight of Luna healing her sister. The mauler shotgun pistol on its belt was obvious and it didn’t take much brainpower for Flintlock to figure out who had injured the alicorn.

“Now would be a good time to earn that trust,” Shining Armor whispered to the headhunters.

Ishmir and Marko glanced at each other then readied their weapons. Ishmir drew his pistol and Marko slid shells into his shotgun.

Assuming a battle ready stance, Ishmir addressed Twilight Sparkle without looking at her. “Warlock, get the royalty out of here. We got this.”

“But…”

Marko held up a hand to stop her. “You heard the man, Warlock.”

“We got this,” Ishmir promised, gaze locked on the chieftain’s eyes.

Twilight frowned, then nodded and levitated her pistol to her front before beckoning the others to move. It took some doing, a little support here and there and the gentle application of telekinesis, but eventually the four ponies working together managed to get Celestia to her hooves and helped her hobble towards the exit.

The chieftain watched them go the way the headhunters had fought their way into the palace and took a step to follow. At the same time the two Spartans shimmied over keeping themselves between the brute and the ponies.

The chieftain looked straight at them as if only noticing them now and gave a deep throaty chuckle.

“You stand between me and my prey, demon,” the brute growled.

“We got a talker.”

“You speak pretty good English, Bobo,” Marko sniped.

“Know your enemy as you would know yourself,” the brute replied. “Now step aside before you get hurt, child.” He noticed the headhunters glancing at each other and let a smile creep over his thick lips. “I have met your kind before. The demons called headhunters. Assassins… children. Only humans would be so barbaric to have their children fight the wars of men.”

“Keep talkin’, asshole,” Marko snarled glancing over his shoulder to check Twilight had made it out with the other ponies. “We got all the time in the world.”

“Unfortunately I do not.” The chieftain shifted his hammer into a two-handed grip and begun to stride forward.

The Spartans prepared for hell. Ishmir racked his pistol. Marko made a ‘come-hither’ motion with his shotgun. It was time to dance.

The chieftain lurched forward into a charge which was met by the Spartans. Ishmir ducked to one side as the chieftain yanked its mauler from its belt and tried to draw a bead on the red headhunter. He drew his aim to one direction while Marko lined up his first shot. The bark of the shotgun caught the brute’s claw in the muzzle flare, forcing the alien to drop the weapon.

Roaring with rage the chieftain swung its hammer one handed down at Marko who dropped to his knees and slid in as close as possible. His shotgun was held up and blocked the strike along the handle, keeping the deadly hammer’s head crackling with energy far away from him. The impact may not have been several metric tons of artificial force, but it was still the full strength of the brute, enough to bend the shotgun into the shape of a boomerang.

Shifting aside, Marko turned his shotgun into a club and swung the stock into the back of the chieftain’s knee as hard as he could. The brute’s stance yielded and it fell to one knee, giving Ishmir on the far side of the monster time to swing his armored foot around in a neat roundhouse kick that caught the back of the chieftain’s head.

The proud creature was levered face down into the marble flooring by the headhunters’ combined efforts where Marko attempted to hold the creature down and Ishmir shot it repeatedly in the back of the head.

The rounds flattened against the chieftain’s helmet and disintegrated, not even coming close to penetrating.

With a roar the brute heaved itself up with a powerful push-up that threw Marko off balance. With room to breathe the chieftain grabbed Ishmir by the foot and swung him around, batting Marko across the throne room one way, then flinging Ishmir in the opposite direction.

Flintlock-One smacked into the ground and tumbled. Sparks erupted from his armor as he hit one more time and twisted in the air, landing on his feet before he bounced a third time. Sliding to a halt, Ishmir wind-milled his arms for balance and gently came to a stop before cratering into a wall.

He reloaded his pistol with three quick motions, then ran headlong back into the chieftain’s roaring challenge. Seeing him coming the brute lined up for a horizontal strike. But Ishmir saw it coming as much as the chieftain saw his charge coming.

Ishmir dropped to the deck and flattened himself as best he could, skittering over his flaring shields and right underneath he chieftain’s clumsy swipe. Ishmir kept going, sliding between the brute’s legs before he dug his fingers and toes into the marble and scraped to a halt, firing his pistol into the chieftain’s back as he did.

Rounds popped out of existence against the shielded armor as the chieftain tried to turn. Ishmir immediately threw himself forward and collided with the hilt of the hammer to keep the brute from powering up a swing.

Locking the weapon against his chest, Ishmir used his pistol to strike downward on the brute’s arms in an attempt to loosen the weapon from its grip. But when that didn’t work he went for the face, a quick strike for the nose or anything else that might be soft and fragile.

The brute was faster though, catching the back of Ishmir’s fist with ease before lifting the combined tonnage of the boy’s enhanced musculature and armor into the air like he weighed no more than a children’s toy.

“Whoa-whoa-whoa!” Ishmir cried out, kicking for some kind of purchase as he was flipped head over heels and smashed into the deck.

Little explosions of pain materialized in front of his eyes as he tried to make sense of which way was up and down. The claxon indicating his shields were dead droned monotonously keeping him just conscious enough to spot the chieftain hefting his hammer.

Soon Ishmir realized he was at the striking pad on one of those carnival strength testers and the chieftain was about to flatten him. He held up his arms for whatever good it would have done… and suddenly something snagged his foot.

Marko heaved and pulled Ishmir from his Spartan-shaped crater, pulling his buddy clear of the hammer as it came down. When it did there was a shockwave and a lot of debris, but both Marko and Ishmir were very much clear of the blast radius.

The alien ape brought the weapon up again, howling with frustration as it turned to Marko, but the Spartan was already leaping forward.

His custom knife came down, ending Marko’s short flight as he slipped the blade into the chieftain’s collar bone. Then bracing his armored boots on the beast’s gut, cocked back his free arm and flexed his fingers into a solid fist.

The servos in his arm powered up to borderline dangerous output with a soft ‘bweeeeee,’ and Marko unleashed the fury. Punch after punch hammered the chieftain square in the face, with enough force and frequency to force the fucker back a few steps.

“Go to sleep!” Marko shouted with every jab that would pulverize concrete to the chieftain’s face. “Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep!”

Marko kept jabbing and punching, but it seemed he wasn’t doing any damage. And all progress halted when the chieftain caught the headhunter’s fist like a sniper snatching a fly out of the air as a neat parlor trick.

The chieftain smiled and Marko sighed with frustration.

“You’re going to smash me into the ground now, aren’t you?” Marko deadpanned.

“I’m going to smash you into the ground now,” the chieftain confirmed.

Lifting Marko clean into the air by his neck, the Spartan managing to drag his knife bloodied knife with him, the chieftain turned the young warrior over and smashed him straight into the ground. Then to follow up he kicked Marko in the chest, draining the rest of his shields with a powerful enough belt to send the Spartans sliding away.

Picking up his hammer again to follow through and pulverize the Spartan, the chieftain was distracted by a swarm of bees swatting his armor. Turning he averted his charge towards Ishmir who was scrambling to his feet and emptying his pistol into the brute’s chest.

None of the rounds had any effect and the chieftain howled with triumph and excitement. “You fight like young ones; with fire and rage! Refreshing! It reminds me of how I fought in my youth!”

Ishmir and the brute connected; and the chieftain swept Ishmir off his feet. They smashed into a wall, then went clean through the fine masonry and crashed into the floor on the other side. The corridor just outside the throne room was narrow and low, almost like a servant’s access tunnel rather than the grand royal tunnels the headhunters had explored thus far.

The chieftain’s hammer skidded off to one side in the aftermath of their crash, and the brute quickly brought a fist down on Ishmir’s helmet, killing the remnants of his partially charged shields and cracking the boy’s visor. Satisfied the groaning demon would stay put for the moment, the brute casually stood, brushing off its armor and sauntered to where his hammer lay.

“And then I learned to fight smart,” it said while lifting up the gravity hammer and inspecting it for damage.

“Too bad for you, I learned how to fight smart too.”

This confused the chieftain until the prone Spartan waggled his fingers at the brute. On each of the armored fingers glistened the safety pin from a grenade and with some horror the chieftain looked down to its grenade belt… every one of the devices was blinking a warning as the timed fuses counted down.

Ishmir laughed defiantly as the brute struggled to undo the grenade belt buckle.

“Tick-tick-b-…”

BOOM!!!

The explosion blossomed between them with enough force to split the supporting struts of the corridor and the ceiling came crashing down on both of them.

Nerbyus followed the long dried blood trails Celestia and Luna had made and back tracked to the skydocks. There were a number of fallen jiralhanae littered among the larger number of dead equines in guard armor. The drop ship had long pulled away to move more troops up and down the palace, and from his vantage point spotted a few of the ships in motion whizzing by with banshee escorts.

The chieftain brushed some of the chalky marble dust from his fur, then winced with pain. He had managed to undo his grenade belt in time and throw it aside, but he hadn’t managed to clear the blast radius in time. A jagged piece of grenade shrapnel was sticking out of his shin. He could barely put weight on the leg and used the hilt of his hammer as a crutch as he hobbled to the edge of the docks. He had been cut off from the demons that had given him such trouble, and he could only hope the red armored one had been buried alive and was now suffocating slowly to death.

He relished the thought.

His beacon blinked and the ops-coordinator aboard the Purveyor of Truth pinged his comms. “Chieftain. We can commence bombing of the palace once you are clear!”

“Negative,” Nerbyus responded hiding the pain of his injury from his voice. “Withdraw all troops and prepare for ascent to low orbit.”

“But chieftain! We have the advantage!”

Nerbyus nodded. “Maybe. But hubris has already cost us the lives of many brothers. We must reconvene. Meditate on what we have learned today. Have you completed the luminary scans?”

“Yes, chieftain. A phantom is coming for you now. I shall beam the results to a terminal for you.”

A gentle breeze played at the ends of Nerbyus’ longer strands of fur while a drop ship swooped down and turned to hover directly overhead. A beam of light connected with the jiralhanae and lifted him into the air, relieving the burning pain in his shin.

The relief was short lived though, as he reached the inside of the phantom and was set on the ground again. The sudden shift of his weight took the wind out of his lungs and a few jiralhanae warriors already aboard rushed to their chieftain’s aid. Any other chieftain would stubbornly roar at them, not willing to show any weakness. But these jiralhanae had Nerbyus’ unrelenting respect already. He taught them the physical muscle was not the only muscle that mattered in a fight. It was the intelligence of a warrior coupled with brute strength that won the day. Controversial thinking of course, but Nerbyus had made the philosophy work time and time again.

He brushed off his underlings and limped to the terminal at the front of the troop bay. The troops returned to closing off the flanking hatches and disabling the gravity lift as the ship gained altitude to rendezvous with the Purveyor of Truth.

Pulling out the terminal he ran his claws over the holographic panel. A luminary scan report blinked at Nerbyus and he began to read, making sure not to skip a single line.

A traditionalist jiralhanae chieftain would have pressed on stubbornly with the bombardment and wholesale slaughter. He could theoretically just bomb the ponies from orbit, incinerate them with divine fire. But they had proven a hardy and resourceful race thus far, should he turn their capitol to ash there was no telling how lethal and fanatical their retaliation may be.

Nerbyus was no traditionalist and he had no interest in making martyrs.

The report made him smile. Today had not been a waste of time and manpower. He had what he wanted, and what he had wanted this morning was time. Now the real work could begin. He accessed the ship’s weapons and vehicles inventory and found the item with associated schematics he was looking for.

With a single button press he sent the orders to release the Kraken.

“That’s right, you degenerates! Run!” Sergeant Buck Shot yelled with a volume that had Twilight thinking she would surely need an ear-drum healing spell.

At the bottom of the palace’s front steps the collection of leftover aliens Buck Shot’s team of guardsponies had successfully held off turned tails and ran for a waiting drop ship that took them away. In fact, all over Canterlot the alien ships were being recalled to the Covenant cruiser which was beginning to ascend in retreat. Though Twilight Sparkle couldn’t figure out why. The aliens had ponies dead to rights. Why pull out now?

Twilight Sparkle didn’t watch the Covenant. Her gaze was turned to the palace doors with an intense focus. Sensing her former pupil’s concern, Celestia limped closer and draped one of her ruined wings over young princess’ shoulders.

“They seem capable. I’m sure they are fine,” she assured, and Twilight nodded.

Celestia was still being seen to by Luna’s magic. It was a slow go, but more of the torn flesh staining her white fur red was knitting and healing. Shining Armor and Cadance were exausted on the other hand. The Covenant had been hammering their shields so hard they were too exhausted to even levitate a pebble. They just stayed in the cover provided by a few Royal Guard shield bearers and caught their breath.

Averting her glance from the other princesses back to the doorway she suddenly noticed one of the doors edged open a little more and Twilight Sparkle’s ears perked up. Then stumbling out came Marko, his olive green armor and numerous visceral trophies impossible to mistake. But burdened over his shoulder was a large red ragdoll.

“Ishmir!” Twilight gasped, running over as Marko fell uneasily to one knee, sliding his buddy off his shoulders.

Ishmir hit the deck with a loud metal clamor and didn’t move. At least, not until Twilight jumped on him, her forehooves connecting with his abdomen. As if he could feel the pressure through his armor, the Spartan gave an “oof!” and jerked to life.

“He’s fine,” Marko assured, brushing some of the dust and shrapnel from his armor. “Dumbass just thought it was a good idea to go playing with hand grenades.

Looking at the pistol carried in his hand, Marko threw it up, caught it by the barrel then offered it back to Ishmir. The Spartan lifted his head, glanced between the weapon and Twilight then took the pistol and tried to get to his feet. Marko took him by the wrist and with Twilight Sparkle’s magic pushing under his back they managed to get him upright.

“Gahd, you’d almost think you had just been blown up,” Marko joked.

“I was just blown up.”

“Ah, walk it off, ya’ pussy.”

“We need to get ready for round two,” Ishmir said once he was steady, and Shining Armor looked confused for a moment.

“Why? The aliens are retreating.”

“It was too easy,” Luna said darkly. “They don’t seem the kind to just retreat.”

Marko nodded at that. “Moon Princess is right. Covenant don’t just pull out. They’re either going to come back with a vengeance, or they’re going to try and bomb the shit out of us from higher up.”

“Celestia?” Princess Cadance asked timidly. “What should we do?”

Celestia seemed deep in thought for a moment. There was evident pain in her eyes, and nobody could tell if it was physical or mental pain… but Twilight’s money was on the pain of regret. They locked eyes for a moment and suddenly something in Celestia’s gaze clicked.

There was a darkness in her eyes the youngest alicorn princess had never seen before in all the years she’d known the matriarch. But at the same time there was a determination.

Lifting her head, Princess Celestia looked to the Covenant ship and said; “Kill them all.”

Marko scoffed, but did so with a smile. “Oh, shit. This princess is pissed. Covvies started a fight now.”

“They did start it.” Ishmir looked down and saw Warlock levitating her pistol in front of her, making sure it was ready for a fight.

“And we’re going to finish it,” the young princess added.

Flintlock shared a fist-and-hoof-bump and an unbreakable will to see this through to the end.

Flintlock is not out of the fight yet…

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