//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: First Contact // Story: Helljumpers // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// "Twilight!?" Scootaloo called out.The last thing she had seen at the library was Twilight leaping at her and putting up a shield. But right now she seemed to be in some kind of city. A very large city. Only there were a few major things wrong with this city. For starters, there was no-one around, the city seemed to be completely empty. Also, there where burn marks and fires everywhere and not some small burn marks, no. Very large patches of buildings and roads. There also was rubble everywhere from parts of buildings that had collapsed. 'Okay Scootaloo, you're just dreaming. I mean there aren't any destroyed cities in Equestria are there?' "Princess Luna! Are you there!?" She sat down and hoped Luna would answer, so that she could wake up from her nightmare, only to sit down in a pool of liquid that felt like water, purple water. She slowly turned around to figure out why the water was purple, only to find a tall creature with a weird jaw made up out of 4 pieces... With holes in its chest... Bleeding Letting out the most girlish scream she ever had,Scootaloo jumped up and scrambled away from the body as fast as possible, taking cover behind some rubble. Immediately throwing up what little she had in her stomach before starting to freak out. "Nononononononono, nope! This isn't happening." While panicking behind her little hideout a loud 'Thud' could be heard in the distance along with some other loud noises. Scootaloo looked over to where the noise was coming from only to see a large black cloud forming further up in the city, 'There might be somepony down there, but there might also be more of those creatures there.' "Come on Scootaloo, there are probably ponies willing to help somewhere around there." As the sounds stopped Scootaloo made up her mind, If anypony was here in the city they would be there. Slowly getting up from her hiding place and trying to avoid the weird body lying in the street,she headed towards the large black cloud further up in the city. Pain. The first thing Twilight felt after waking up was the pain, the combination of magic exhaustion and getting thrown into a building as she exited the portal that had seemingly formed in the library. 'Large buildings, smells of fire, definitely not in the library anymore.' Slowly getting up, Twilight studied her surroundings, burning carts of some sort of which she had never seen before, starting to slowly walk around the seemingly abandoned city. Suddenly she realized something really important. "SCOOTALOO!" She rushed back to the spot where she exited the portal, frantically looking around, trying to find Scootaloo. "Oh, sweet Celestia, Scootaloo where are you?" Twilight froze as she heard footsteps behind her, quickly jumping into cover behind one of the weird carts scattered around the street, at the other end of the street a group of short bipedal creatures rounded the corner followed by another bipedal creature, this one much taller than the others, wearing some sort of blue armor. Okay Twilight those things definitely aren't from Equis, just how far did you teleport? Peeking over the edge of the cart, Twilight could see the little creatures scavenging the carts and surrounding area, seemingly looking for something. The tall creature was walking down the street shouting at the little beings, seemingly being in charge. 'At this rate they'll find me in no time, although they might be able to help me find Scootaloo' Twilight deciding to step out of her cover she called out to the tall creature. "Hello!? Do you understand me? I need help!" The large creature turned to Twilight, his face changing to an expression that looked like confusion to Twilight only to turn to what looked like the most hateful glare Twilight had ever seen. The tall creature shouted to the little ones which all ran back to the street pointing these weird metal tools of some sort at Twilight. After presumably giving orders to the little 'Grunts' he turned back to Twilight and spoke a single word to her: "Heresy" 'Heresy, blasphemy, apostasy, dissent... Oh horseapples, they're religious fanatics!' Twilight decided that she wasn't going to stick around as the tools that the little grunts were holding started glowing bright green. Performing a short teleport across the street, she looked back at the spot she had just stood, it was burning with green flames. 'They just tried to kill me!' Twilight, now in a full-blown panic started running down the street, away from the group of creatures. Behind her she could hear the large one roaring and start running after her. Just as Twilight rounded the corner, green bolts of fire impacted the ground behind her. She sprinted a bit further down the street before stopping and looking back at the street corner. 'I need to find Scootaloo. If she runs into these things she wouldn't stand a chance.' She lit her horn in anticipation of the tall creature coming around the corner. The moment the 'officer' came sprinting around the corner, she sent a telekinetic wave at it knocking it back across the street into a wagon. Not waiting to see if the officer was ok, she turned back around and started to run further down the street and into an alley, hiding behind some boxes. 'Okay, what do I know? Burning city, 2 species, hostile, possibly religious extremists, could be a war between religious factions. but making this more complicated is that the 'officer' said Heresy, so it clearly knows how to speak common Equestrian' Before Twilight could continue her train of thought, one of the grunts stepped into the alley and started poking around and looking for Twilight. Twilight lit her horn again, but this time she could feel the fatigue running through her body. She hadn't recovered yet from the teleportation spell and everything else that had happened today yet. She'd risk blowing out her horn if she wasn't careful. She waited until the grunt was on the other side of the box she was hiding behind. The moment he was close enough, Twilight jumped from her cover, bucking the little thing in the chest and sending it straight against a wall. Before the grunt could get up, Twilight sent another telekinetic blast at the grunt, sending a painful sting through her horn and knocking the grunt's head against a wall, knocking him out cold. She picked up the tool the grunt had been holding and studied it. 'Clearly a claw held device, a switch placed at the top for the uppermost claw acting as a triggering mechanism.' Firing it once, a large green blob came from the weapon and scorched the ground where she aimed.'Holding down the trigger overcharges the thing, good to know' At least she wouldn't have to rely on her magic to defend herself now. Any further train of thought was disrupted by a very loud 'Thud' somewhere further up in the city followed by a few less loud bangs. She quickly took off further down the alley, Scootaloo might be attracted to the loud noise and she had to find her before anyone else did. The dark cloud Scootaloo had seen from the distance was now only a block away. On the way to the smoke cloud, she had passed the bodies of a few more creatures, only these were smaller and had orange blood. On a few occasions, the loud bangs had returned, making Scootaloo jump into cover. Now, very close to the large cloud of smoke, more fires and burn marks where appearing. There also were these weird grey pod like objects stuck in the ground with their lids blown off. Just one more corner and then she would be at the site of the explosion. Slowly,sneaking from cover to cover, she made her way to the corner. "Hello!? Anypony here?" Scootaloo called out as she peeked around the corner of the street, only to quickly stumble back to her hiding spot. Bodies. Lots of different types of bodies. If her stomach wasn't empty already she would have thrown up again. She silently started to cry a to herself. Further up the street two figures stepped out from cover and started moving down the street, checking if any of the bodies were still alive. "Lucy to Mack, Alpha-Four's landing got fucked. They're all gone," a voice came from one of the two creatures, causing Scootaloo to snap back to reality. 'There's somepony out there!' She carefully looked over the top of her hiding spot to see who had called out. "Contact! West!" one of the creatures shouted as both of them dove behind nearby cover, Scootaloo, already being on edge, didn't hesitate a moment and bolted away from her hiding place, starting to run back towards the street where she had come from. "Phat" An intense pain shot through one of Scootaloo's hind legs at the same time the loud sound came from the thing the creature was holding. Faceplanting into the ground, Scootaloo slid forward far enough to reach cover, before getting back up and limping further. Before Scootaloo could stumble any significant distance one of the creatures came storming around the corner, aiming its tool at her. Falling back down on her stomach, due to dizziness from the pain in her leg, Scootaloo did the only thing she could still effectively do. Shout. "Anypony, HELP!" Scootaloo shouted causing the creature to flinch and seemingly making it hesitate. Scootaloo still trying to get away, started to feel her head get heavy and her vision starting to black out. The other creature also came rushing around the corner before stopping and staring, before losing consciousness she could hear the new creature say one more thing. "What the fuck?" "Anypony, HELP!" Lucy looked down at the alien in front of her pointing her assault rifle, the MA5C, in its direction, 'Did that thing just scream for help? And in English of all bloody languages?' At that moment Tyler came sprinting around the corner only to stop dead in his tracks looking over the creature in front of him. "What the fuck?" "Tyler, Lucy, report! What the fuck is going on?" Mack's voice called out over the radio. The alien had now passed out on the road in front of them in a small pool of its own blood. "Lucy to Mack, we just encountered some new kind of alien, sarge." "Alien? Lucy, it's a fucking winged orange horse with purple hair!" Tyler bluntly pointed out. Lucy walked up to the horse, inspecting the bullet wound she had given it, "Lucy, what are you doing!" "Filling that bullet wound up with biofoam, if the spooks at Naval Intelligence find out we left an oppertunity to capture an alien they'll rip us a new one." Lucy filled the bullet wound on the 'horse' with biofoam, stopping the bleeding. "If you two are joking about this, the ONI spooks will be the least of your problems," Mack chimed in over the radio. His voice clearly indicated that he didn't believe his two subordinates. "We're not Mack, Tyler help me tie her up and gag her." Lucy motioned Tyler over and grabbed a climbing rope from her backpack. "Her?" Tyler looked thoroughly confused at Lucy who, to demonstrate her point, yanked the horse's tail up. "NOPE! I get it she's a girl!" He shouted as he quickly turned around. "What's wrong big boy? Never seen a girl's junk before?" Lucy said, grinning widely under her helmet. They finished tying up the horse and creating a harness for it so they would be able to attach her to Lucy's backpack since Tyler would: 'Under no circumstance carry a live alien on his back.' "Lucy to Mack, alien is secured and we're on our way to the Rally point," Lucy reported as both Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, ODST's, started jogging towards the rally point. "Affirmative, I just ran into a sniper from Alpha-Two. We'll be at the rally point in five. Mack out." "So Tyler, think that thing is covenant? I mean cute and cuddly doesn't really fit their MO," Lucy said while tightening the ropes securely to her armor, securing the alien on her back. "I have no idea but if it so much as looks at me the wrong way, I'm shooting it." Tyler clearly was not a fan of the alien. "Really Tyler, look at her and tell me that doesn't look adorable." Lucy turned her back to Tyler so he could clearly see the horse. "If you want to cuddle with the alien so badly, that's your problem. I'm not letting the thing get anywhere near me. Lets just try getting to the rally point without getting shot, please." Lucy shrugged. "Your loss." Both ODST's silently jogged on to the rally point. Twilight had been traveling from street to street for the last half an hour now, getting closer to where the large cloud had come from. But now there was another obstacle in her way, two new creatures clad in grey armor had set up a small barricade seemingly waiting for more of their friends to arrive. 'I might be able to distract them but if those other creatures are any indication they will probably just try to kill me.' She snuck in closer and held her stolen weapon ready in her telekinesis. Hearing more footsteps approaching, Twilight quickly got behind some cover. The two creatures she had initially seen, turned to see what was approaching, "You're late," one of them said. 'That thing just spoke Equestrian!'Twilight's mind was now running overdrive, trying to figure out how that could be possible. "We had a special package we had to take with us, remember?" One of the two new creatures turned around to show something on it's back, Twilight tried to get in a better position to see what the creature had shown to the others. "Jezus you weren't joking, is it with the covenant?" one of the creatures said to the one with the 'special package' on its back. "I don't think so. When we spotted her she bolted away from us and screamed for help. That doesn't really sound like covenant, does it?" the one with the package said. Now in a good enough position to peek, Twilight carefully looked around her cover. "Wait, it spoke English? as in UEG standard English?" Twilight now had a good view of the group of creatures and her heart skipped a few beats as she saw what the 'special package' actually was. Scootaloo. She readied the weapon she had stolen from one of the grunts and got ready to charge, 'Okay Twilight, breathe slowly, you need to get Scootaloo away from those things before they can cause her any harm.' As she jumped from cover, she pointed the weapon at the creature with Scootaloo on its back and held down the trigger. "LET HER GO!" She flared her wings to make herself look intimidating, only then to notice that her stolen weapon wasn't glowing or making any noise. The four other creatures were already out of their initial shock also seemed to take note of that fact and all charged her. Twilight, now panicking, tried to use a telekinetic blast to shove the creatures away only for her spell to just fizzle out on her horn. At this point the closest of the creatures had reached Twilight and tackled her to the ground, immediately after which the second creature also jumped on top of her restraining one of her wings and a leg, grabbing an item from his hip and ramming it into the side of Twilight's head. "STOP MOVING! OR I'LL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT!" the creature shouted into Twilight's face. Twilight, now not moving a muscle, looked fearfully at the mirrored glass of the helmeted creature on top of her as it softly spoke again. "Now, you're going to answer a few of our questions."