//------------------------------// // 2: Meet the ODST // Story: My Little Halo: Harmony Evolved // by Arcane Howitzer //------------------------------// UNSC GUAM 17 September 2551 0258 Military standard time Location: Slipspace, En Route to Reach from [CLASSIFIED] ODST Corporal Jason Hoover hated cryosleep. It meant sleep, which meant a dream. It was always the same dream too: the amusement park. That damned amusement park. It was on another lost colony-he had forgotten which one-where they had been stationed. They'd been forced to leave the base to escort some package. To send Ninety-seven men with armor and air support, it was obviously a very important package. The Covenant certainly thought so, as barley an hour out, they had heard that the base they had left from had fallen with no survivors. Then came the news that the extraction point was overrun, and they were being redirected to the Dancing Jungle Amusement Park. He had been stationed as a sniper on top of the rollercoaster, and as such had gotten a bird's eye view of the battle. He could still see it now. They must have killed thousands of grunts and jackals, hundreds of elites and hunters. The landscaped was speckled with the blue flames of wrecked vehicles, and they just kept coming, even as the pathways ran black and purple and florescent blue with their blood for all that you could see it through the press of bodies. The tide kept coming, and men fell beneath it. One by one. In twos and threes where grenades and mortars hit.Ten at once when the Ferris wheel fell. They fell back inch by inch, until by the time extraction came there were only six men and a warthog in the concert hall with the package and a lone sniper on the rollercoaster. He remembered looking out the back of the pelican as it flew off. He had seen hell many times since, but there's always something memorable about the first time. He had joined the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers soon after. After all, if that hell hadn't killed him, nothing would. And so he survived to be stationed on the Guam and dream of hell once again. This one was notable only in that he was not seeing it through his own eyes. Instead he was down on the front lines, in the body of another soldier. He didn't know the kid's name, but then again he didn't need to to respect him. A plasma grenade flew out of the alien hoard before him to fall at his feet. He grabbed it and it stuck fast to his hand as they always do. Then he vaulted out of cover and ran towards the onslaught where he used the grenade-laden hand to punch the elite leading the change. There was blinding light and searing pain as he was engulfed in a miniature sun, followed by the most peaceful sleep he had gotten in fifteen years. A shame it only lasted half an hour. He felt consciousness calling him back, and he grudgingly followed. He felt the numbing chill of cryogenics leave him, and finally awoke to the hissing of released pressure as his tube opened. He collapsed forward as usual, but for some reason couldn't quite fall to his accustomed position on his knees. He then went through the routine of hacking up the residue in his lungs and swallowing it back down. He stretched out his body, working out the stiffness in his arms, legs, wings, and… Wait. Wings? Jason craned his neck to look at the new appendages on his back, and in doing so got a good look at the body that was definitely not his. Of the various animals that filtered through his head, "pony" was the one that seemed to click. A pony. Why am I a pony? He was about to present this question to the crewman who had overseen his thaw, but stopped when he saw another pony instead. Glancing around in hopes of finding some clue as to what was happening, he saw nothing of interest besides other ponies in various states of de-thaw and/or panic. He then decided that this dream, though interesting, was not as pleasant as the oblivion he had been experiencing before and he wasted no time returning to that state. After less than a minute, he felt something hard tapping his head. "Wake up, buttercup," the voice said in a mocking tone. "Who'd a thought an ODST would faint at the sight of ponies. Well we all gotta face our fears someday!" With a silencing crack! Jason jolted awake and was immediately aware that he had just clocked someone in the jaw with a hoof-weighted punch. The pony who had received the blow looked stunned form a moment, then shook it off and laughed. "Ha! Loo' li'e ya s'ill go' somn figh' lefth, bu' sa'e I' for the a'iens an' han' me tha' 'edpach; I thin' ya 'roke ma 'aw." Applying the medpack was a tricky affair, but they eventually got the bone set. His apologies were waved off by explaining that extreme confusion was perfectly natural in a situation such as that, and everyone was quickly brought up to speed on the "What the Hell happened?" front. They were told to get used to their new bodies and the peagasi were told to report to the hanger bay five for "flight testing” in a few hours, after which everyone was dismissed to try to get back into the routine of ship-life. Since for most of them ship-life oscillated between cryosleep and combat stations, this left a lot of marines with nothing to do. Jason took the opportunity to get a look at his new body, as most everyone else was doing. His coat was a mottled grey, almost like a natural camouflage, and completely hid all of his various tattoos with one exception; there was a mark on his rear that he didn't remember being there when he went into cryo. It took the form of a rifle's crosshair centered on a somewhat-transparent image of his ODST helmet. Come to think of it, didn't everyone else have a mark right there? He idly wandered around the ship, observing how everyone was reacting to the sudden shift in anatomy. The lack of fingers seemed to be the only sticking point. Aside from that, everyone seemed interested in talking about the strange marks; everyone had one, no two were alike, and they always represented something about the person they were on, be it pre-war occupation, military specialization, or just a particularly strong facet of their personality. The only time they followed any other pattern was on the ODST, whose marks always seemed to feature their helmets. Jason managed to meet up with the rest of his squad, now consisting of two unicorns and two "regular" ponies. There was Martha, their explosives expert, now a pale blue unicorn, though her fiery red hair was still evident in her mane and tale. Her mark was an equally fiery explosion with her helmet -a customized EOD model helmet she had "acquired" some years ago- in front of it. The explosion could have represented either her temper or her skill with demolitions; probably both. The other unicorn, this one olive green all over, was Kyle. Kyle was a master with any vehicle, from either side, and had at one point decimated an entire Covenant armor column with their own tanks, a tale he never seemed to tire of telling and never told the same way twice. His mark was a spinning, smoking tire, with the smoke cloud coalescing into the form of his Pilot helmet, complete with the image of an elite skull he had carved in it after seeing a SPARTAN with a similarly-carved helmet. The squad leader, Lt. Samuel Johnson, was slate grey with the fur on the right side of his face roughened from the plasma-burn scar it now hid. His mark was simply a rain of spent shells reflected in the visor of his helmet, a testament to both his quiet nature and his long and colorful military career. At the moment however, he was enjoying a meal of the one thing everyone was sure their new bodies could eat: salad. Omar was the team's close-quarters specialist, now a mud-brown stallion with a blood-red mane. His entire left rear leg was replaced with a mechanical prosthetic whose black paint now clashed with its owner's new coloration. His intimidating appearance was accentuated by the mark on his flank: two swords crossed behind (or possibly through) his matte-black helmet. The blades closely resembled a battered machete he often carried into combat, and close scrutiny revealed what appeared to be a thin trickle of blood running down the edges of both blades to gather at the tips. Jason approached the table in time to hear the tail end of another of iteration of Kyle's story. "Then some elite rips the hatch offa my tank and, I swear, he almost just walks away before he realizes that I'm not an elite myself. Of course, this gives me enough time to grab my shotgun and blow his brains out, but by that point my cover was completely blown and I had to just starte blasting all the other wraiths around me. That had to be one of the hairiest fights of my life. Hey, Jason! Glad you could join us!" "At least one of us got something out of this… whatever the hell this is." Omar's customary scowl was more pronounced than usual, causing Jason to forgo the obvious "Why the long face?" joke for the sake of continued survival. "What this is," Sam said through a mouthful of greenery, "is a situation. One we have to adapt to in the time we've got, just like every other time the higher-ups screw up. Just be glad we've got some peace and quiet in the meantime." "Easy for you to say, Lieutenant," Martha scoffed. "Your occupation doesn't have manual dexterity as a survival requirement! How the hell do you expect me to arm and disarm high explosives with hooves?" She waved the digit-less appendage at him to accentuate her complaint. "At least this didn't rebuild any of the buildings you demolished!" Kyle added his voice to the complaints. "Do you know how long it took me to carve that-" "Enough!" Sam cut them off. "Okay! We get it! This is bad! But complaining about what you do or do not have is not going to change anything, so stow the whining." A few awkward moments of silence passed before the lieutenant's glare softened. "I'm sorry. This situation has everyone on edge, and with good reason, but if we're going to be of any use from this point on we need to learn how to use what we've got instead of complaining about what we don't." There were several more seconds of silence which Omar decided to break. "I wonder if we could maybe design some sort of claws or something to strap on to our hooves. I mean, I've heard getting kicked by a horse can kill, so imagine what'll happen if we strap blades to these things!" "That's the... admittedly rather gruesome ticket! Anyone else have any ideas? Preferably ones that don't involve running up and kicking armed covies." "How about a harness-mounted missile system?" Martha offered. "We might even be able to hook the targeting system up to our helmet displays." "A Saddle Silo! That's more our speed!" "Ha ha hell no, sir. A regular harness will work, but we'll have to start packing ice picks on our drops the day I wear a saddle!" "Whatever. It's still a good idea. Someone should write it down." After a moment of awkward silence, the whole squad burst out laughing. Once that petered out, they used their improved mood to continue brainstorming how to use their new forms to bring pain to the covenant menace. This eventually devolved back into the telling of more war stories and otherwise joking around. And time, as it is wont to do, passed with lightning speed amid their conversational enjoyment until it was interrupted by the crackling of the intercoms. "All crewmembers now sporting wings, report to hanger bay five." "Well, that's my cue." With a wave of his hoof, Jason left at a trot. He somehow kept this pace all the way to the hanger, only stumbling a few times. When he reached the hanger, an immense cavern of metal large enough to house an entire squadron of Longswords, he stopped. Not because of the structure itself, as he had seen bigger while stationed aboard a carrier, but because the place was filled with pegasi crowded around on landing pads and overhanging walkways. Looking into the crowds, he could see other types of ponies as well; half the crew must have shown up! Looking into the air space of the hanger, he saw why. Out there, flying completely unsupported was yet another pegasus. The man was flying. Not just flapping his wings and not falling, but actual high speed evasive maneuvers flying, complete with barrel rolls and loop-de-loops. At one point he even reversed direction by landing on, and immediately jumping off of the ceiling! After about ten minutes of aerial acrobatics, during which a few more ponies filed in, he stopped midair and hovered there. "Now as you can plainly see," A voice which Jason assumed belonged to the flier boomed out of a nearby intercom speaker, "these wings are fully functional. In fact, they seem to run on instincts provided by our new bodies. But you know what? Instinct isn't good enough! We are going to train until all of you can repeat my stunts in your sleep! We are going to train so hard that once we get to reach, we will still be the best fighting ship in the whole damn fleet, thumbs or no thumbs! Do I make myself clear?" The hanger shook with a single, resounding "Sir, Yes Sir!" They were then divided into training groups based on combat roles, and given training regimes based on that; Medics focused on carrying heavy, human-shaped weights at high speeds, scouts learned infiltration tactics that would make any ninja proud, pilots trained in the aerobatic maneuvers that had been demonstrated earlier, and front-line grunts discovered their own meaning for 'death from above'. Each group had its own designated training hangers, where they were then directed. Jason, being a scout and sniper by virtue of his less-than-brave (though by no means cowardly, he just wasn't willing to stand in the way of a massed Covenant charge.) nature, was put on the stealth track. That was fine with him, as he had always had a bit of a knack for moving unseen from one sniper nest to another. In fact, his 'sudden instincts' seemed to be geared more towards stealth than aerobatics, as were almost all of his fellow scouts. A few, however, were reassigned to groups more appropriate to their apparent specialty. The week passed in a blur, with training taking up a noticeable amount of time. His other squadmates also had some training of some sort or another, mostly in 'hoof-to-hoof combat', though apparently the standard rocket launcher could be easily modified to work without hands. Until they could get some customized equipment, those would be their main weapon. Effective or not, the UNSC Guam was now the most unique fighting force in the whole damn fleet. * * * * * * * Author's Notes: Behold! We have a main character! An ODST sniper by the name of Jason Hoover. In case that first scene didn't tip you off, the Halo universe is not a nice place. A zealously genocidal alien juggernaut/nation will do that. As Always, Review and tell me what I did wrong so I don't make the same mistakes again! Post-Revision Note: Very little was actually done to this chapter. The only thing of note was Omar’s and Jason’s cutie marks.