"All crew Battlestations! This is not a drill!!"
The message kept repeating itself over and over again as Twilight ran to the armory, the other crew were also in a rush to get to their posts. Having four legs gave Twilight an edge in speed over any of the humans running through the hallways, finally arriving at the armory she found that Mack and Tyler had already arrived and were quickly putting on their armor.
Twilight levitating her own custom set of armor over and putting it on, "Where are Scoots and Lucy?" She asked while tightening the straps keeping each individual piece of armor in place.
"No Idea, they said they were training with a bunch of other marines." Mack responded as he grabbed a shotgun from a weapons rack and threw it over to Twilight, "Use that, a DMR isn't going to do you much good at close quarters."
Twilight attached the gun to her side quickly grabbing some ammo for it, it wasn't that she liked the shotgun as a weapon but at close quarters it would wreak havoc on enemy soldiers. suddenly feeling a bit nauseous at what she had just thought, 'Did I just analyze the lethal potential of a weapon?' She quickly banished the thought to the back of her mind to think about later, right now she needed to focus.
Twilight finished up packing her equipment as Scootaloo and Lucy came running into the armory, "Nice of you to join the party!" Tyler quipped as he finished reloading the assault rifle he had grabbed for himself.
"Had a bit of a traffic jam in the hallways." Lucy responded quickly donning her own armor along with Scootaloo, "Anyway, I take it that the Covenant finally showed up with a fleet?"
"Don't know but you're probably right." Mack replied, "We're stationed in the aft of the ship to prevent any potential boarders from getting close to either the Slipspace drive or reactor core."
"So no grenades?" Tyler asked to which Mack shook his head, "Fantastic, that takes all the fun out of it."
"Zip it Tyler, switch them out for smokes and flashbangs. Everyone good to go?" Mack asked getting an affirmative from everyone in the room, "Good, let's get moving Shadowbolts." The group quickly got moving to the aft of the ship, the hallways much clearer as almost all the crew were at their posts, they could feel the ship making course adjustments so every now and then while making their way to their designated defensive position.
Finally arriving at the reactor the group set up some barricades with crates, "So what now?" Scootaloo asked.
"We wait. If it's a fleet we're facing then there's a good chance the ship will get shot before any boarding craft will be used." Mack simply stated causing a cold chill to go up Scootaloo's spine. The following fifteen minutes the ODST's remained silent as everyone was tensed up. The ship groaned so every now and then alongside the noise of engines, the alarms had been turned off, the only thing signifying Battlestations where red lights. A sudden humming followed by a loud bang startled the ponies, "What was that?" Twilight asked.
"That was the MAC cannon" Lucy calmly answered Twilight, shortly after another shot of the MAC rang through the hull of the frigate.
Twilights breathing started increasing as more sounds came from the ship as archer missiles were fired, "Twilight, calm down there's nothing you can do against this." Lucy said, Twilight looked over at her and weakly nodded starting to do breathing exercises to calm herself down.
Thirty more minutes passed as more sounds from various weapons could be heard coming from the ship, unnerving the ODST's. Space battles are the worst of battles for regular soldiers since you can't see or hear anything unless you're on the bridge, you wouldn't know if your side was winning or losing or if your ship was about to explode or not.
Another few minutes later a loud explosion could be heard and the frigate violently listed to port, recovering moments after. The engines could suddenly be heard running at full power and the group could feel the ship shoot forward,
Twenty dull metallic thumps could be heard as everyone regained their bearings after the sudden movement caused by the explosion and the engines flaring.
"Intruders detected from sector E5 to G7" The intercom suddenly blurted shortly followed by Mack's comms to the bridge, "Sergeant Cross be advised, you have multiple enemy squads bearing down on your position" an operator could be heard saying, "Thanks for the heads up bridge, we'll give 'em hell."
Red dots started appearing on the motion sensors, and grunts started pouring into the hallway. Everyone started opening up on the little aliens who all fell relatively quickly, the next group of aliens turning the corner were jackals with shield flanked by two elites. Plasma fire from the jackals forced The soldier back behind their cover while they slowly moved forward. Tyler fumbled with one of the pockets on his belt retrieving a frag grenade from one, "Really Tyler, remember the part in the armory where I said NO grenades!" Mack shouted at him.
"Thank me later!" Tyler growled back and threw the now primed grenade over the line of jackals, the explosion throwing shrapnel into the backs of the aliens making them stagger. Using the lapse in fire the ODST's picked off the jackals before they could get their shields back facing them again. The two remaining elites now charging down the hallway, trying to reach the barricade where the ODST's were held up. A hail of gunfire impacted against their shields that were already weakened from the grenade blast, one of the two fell before reaching the barricade getting caught in the gunfire from Mack's assault rifle but the second one managed to jump the barricade and aimed its plasma pistol at Tyler.
BANG
Twilight had aimed her shotgun at the back of the elite and fired downing its shield and making it stumble forward, but did not kill it. Tyler not wasting a moment shot up letting out a savage roar and plunged his combat knife into the neck of the elite killing it.
Lucy swooped her assault rifle around the hallway in front of them checking if any of the aliens had survived, "Didn't they say a full few squads were on their way?" She asked noting that the body count was relatively low for what they were expecting.
"There must be more of the fu-" Lucy continued but then spotted a disturbance in the light between her and Scootaloo, "CLOAKED ELITES!" She shouted emptying her magazine into the disturbance, the cloak immediately dropping. The elite roared and activated its energy sword slashing at Scootaloo, the pegasus, due to Lucy's warning, tried to get as much distance between herself and her opponent.
Too slow.
The sword impacted the visor of Scootaloo's helmet and left a diagonal slash across it, earning a bloodcurdling scream from the pony. Hearing the scream Twilight's heart stopped beating for a moment fearing for Scootaloo but seeing the elite raise its sword again to finish the filly off lit a bright fire in the alicorn, letting out a roar she called on the limited magic in the area as she pulled the elite towards herself and rammed the shotgun in its face pulling the trigger. The shield of the elite, already damaged by Lucy, couldn't withstand the force of the shotgun and popped, the shotgun shell blasting a hole into the skull of the alien and letting it drop onto the deck. Tyler meanwhile had pulled a flashbang and threw it into the hallway, immediately after the flashbang subsided the shimmering form of another elite could be seen. Before anyone could shoot it Twilight charged him with an incredible display of speed, smashing the butt of her weapon into it causing it to fall backward turning the weapon back around she fired off four shells into the alien completely destroying its chest armor.
"SCOOTALOO!" Twilight threw the shotgun to the side and ran to the hurt pegasus, who had taken off her helmet and has held her face in her hooves while sobbing. "Scoots let me and Twilight take a look." Lucy said as she joined Twilight next to the filly. Scootaloo slowly let go of her face so the two medics could see what kind of damage the sword had done, the sword left a diagonal streak of burned flesh from her left forehead down to the right side of her muzzle missing her right eye by only a couple of centimeters, "It's not critical but that needs to be looked at by the doc." Lucy observed getting a shot of anesthetic and injecting it into Scootaloo who promptly fell unconscious because of it.
"Sergeant Cross, the boarders redirected their efforts to the bridge we need your squad up here asap they're already banging on our blast doors!" The radio operator told Mack.
"Mack, can you link my comms to the bridge?" Twilight asked with a growl, standing back up and swiftly reloaded her shotgun.
"Why?" He simply replied.
"I've got a plan but they need to jump into slipspace for it to work."
Mack brought up the settings to the comms on his VISR and patched Twilight into the system, "You're live Twilight."
"Captain Ross, sir do you copy?" Twilight asked
"five by five private, make it quick I don't have all the time in the world." The Captain responded.
"Sir, is it a possibility to perform an emergency slipspace jump?"
"We've been on an outbound trajectory for a few minutes now Private, but it's not going to do any good if the bridge gets overrun. We need support up here ASAP Sparkle."
"Sir, the magic field in slipspace is exponentially stronger than the one here in real space, jumping now will mean I gain access to my full repertoire of spells which will give us a massive advantage."
The radio stayed silent but moments later she could feel the magic field strengthening, "Private get up here soon because the Covies are almost through the blast door and I'd rather blow the Dawn up than give her to these bastards."
Twilight turned back to Mack, "Get Scootaloo to the med-bay for me, please?" Immediately after she lit her horn and vanished not giving Mack a chance to respond leaving only the smell of ozone in her departure.
"Well. Fucking fantastic. Lucy you're carrying Scootaloo." Mack grumbled his subordinates doing as told and the remaining three ODST's started moving.
A flash of light lit the bridge of the Stalwart Dawn as Twilight teleported into the bridge, stumbling a bit from the teleport since the teleporting while in slipspace was something she had only theoretically worked out. Most of the bridge crew was staring wide-eyed at the pony only to get drawn back to reality by the Covenant's attempts of getting through the door.
"Private Sparkle I hope your plan is more thought through than just teleporting onto my bridge." Captain Ross calmly started.
"Not really" Twilight replied while taking off her helmet, getting a confused look from the Captain. "The helmet was interfering with my spellcasting."
"Anyway, could you please open the blast doors, Captain?" Twilight asked while spinning up a new spell, black smoke starting to form around her horn and her eyes turning green with red pupils also a purple mist started leaking from the side of her eyes.
"I'd like to greet our guests." Twilight's voice disturbing everyone on the bridge as the altered voice seemed to drip with hatred.
Captain Ross recoiled a bit, the pony in front of him sounded more like a demon from hell than the pony he had first met.
Nodding at one of his officers the man got busy typing in the command to open the door, a few loud clicks emanated from the door as it quickly slid open revealing an elite with an energy sword. Twilight, not wasting time, let loose the grip on the spell she had been holding and a large pillar of black crystal grew out of the ground impaling the elite. Casting another spell that made the crystal dissipate into a cloud of black smoke she cleared the entrance route and charged out of the bridge accompanied by an ear defining screech. The sounds of various kinds of plasma weaponry could be heard going off in the hallway outside but in between the noise of weapons, various cracks of bones and splats could be heard. A few grunts managed to shout "Demon!" before the sounds from the hallway stopped and the Officer responsible for the sensors reported, "No more contacts outside the bridge, units in the port hangar are mopping up the last of the boarders right now."
The bridge stayed quiet after that as everyone was looking out the blast door where a large puddle of blood was forming. The Captain took the initiative and drew his magnum and walked up to the door peaking around the corner of the door into the hallway, his stomach turned at what he saw. Bodies in various states of mutilation scattered throughout the hall, some with severed limbs, blood was covering everything even the walls as some bodies showed clear signs of being thrown against them. At the end of the hall, he saw Twilight, her eyes turning back to their normal colors, looking around as if she had just been woken from a deep sleep. Taking in her surroundings her pupils shrunk to pinpricks as realized what surrounded her, her knees seemed to give away immediately as she slipped into unconsciousness.
It had taken Princess luna almost all night to forge Rainbows armor but in rainbows eyes, it was totally worth it. The armor itself was made up from thick sheets of metal covering her torso from neck to flank, her legs had metal boots and her shins were protected by leg enveloping pieces of armor although the upper part of her front leg was lacking armor to preserve the ability for easy movement. The forging of the plates themselves wasn't the hardest part of creating the armor, Princess luna's spellwork making the armor lighter to the point that the heavy armor felt like mere light armor had taken up most of Luna's time.
The final thing Dash got was something she didn't expect, the Princess had been hauling a package with her on the way to the castle and had yet to show it to her. When Dash finally was allowed to see what it was it turned out to be a very large longsword, the weapon had initially confused Rainbow as swords, in general, were weapons designed for unicorns, not pegasi, but after explaining that guardians of the dreamworld used to be primarily unicorns so the tradition was started that every one of them would carry a sword with them even the earthponies and pegasi but she assured that Dash would be getting a set of wing blades after reporting to the guard post located in Ponyvilles town hall.
After getting led from the Everfree forest to the plains near to Ponyville the Princess hoofed her a scroll for the guards in Ponyville and said her goodbyes before teleporting back to Canterlot to rest up after spending almost the entire night in the forge with Rainbow. Dash herself also was at the end of her energy reserves as she had foregone her naps not wanting to miss a moment of the creation of the armor, pushing through her drowsiness she flew past her house to town hall to link up with two thestrals that had recently been assigned there bringing the guard total of Ponyville up from five guards to eight, three of whom being night guards.
Arriving at town hall she quickly made her way to the guard section where she found a male and female thestral, both having a typical grey coat and the stallion having blue hair while the mare had white hair, sitting at a table playing a card game.
"Come on! Can't ya at least let me win so every now and then Moonlight!" The mare shouted while throwing her hoof of cards on the table.
"No can do, you just have to outsmart me next time Breeze." The stallion responded as he started shuffling the deck of cards again. Rainbow cleared her throat trying to get the attention of the two ponies, their ears turning into the direction of the sound before they turned their heads.
"You must be that extra set of hooves we got promised! Glad you finally showed up!" The stallion roared.
"Darn girl ya look like you can take on a manticore in that armor" the mare added, "Ah'm Arctic Breeze." holding out her hoof which Rainbow shook, "Rainbow Dash."
"Hold on you mean you're the Element of Loyalty?" The stallion asked, "I'm Moonlight Spectre by the way." he added also holding out his hoof which Rainbow shook.
"Eeyup." Dash replied in her best Big Mack impression, "My question is how you didn't recognize me, the rainbow mane is pretty distinct."
"Thestrals don't have full-color vision, it's not black and white but there are certain colors we just can't see." Moonlight shrugged, "Although we make up for that shortcoming in the nightvision department."
"Y'all want to join in on our card game?" Arctic Breeze asked, "We've already finished all the patrols for the night so we could use another player."
"Maybe next time, I've been up all day with my friends and night with my Sovereign as she made the armor." Rainbow explained getting two raised eyebrows from the thestrals over how she addressed Princess Luna, "I'm just here to drop off this scroll she gave me before I'm hitting the hay."
Arctic Breeze took the scroll and thanked Rainbow after which the pegasus set off to her cloud home. Landing on her porch she found that the armor didn't hamper her ability to walk on clouds, chalking it up to a spell she walked up to her room and without taking off her armor she dropped into her cloudbed and fell asleep.
Rainbow opened her eyes getting her first view of the expanse of stars around her. One of the other notable things were the tens of thousands of bubbles floating around, each and every one contained a world of its own where ponies roamed and did everyday tasks or where having fun. Another thing that drew Rainbows attention was a large black scar that seemed to tear the skyscape. Dash standing up and starting to walking towards the scar, that was if there was any ground to stand on. Quickly unfurling her wings she tried to keep aloft by flapping, to no avail. Panicking slightly Rainbow flailed around trying to get a hold of anything solid, the first thing she got a hold of ended up being a blue leg. Looking up she found that the leg belonged to Princess Luna who was looking very amused down at the pegasus desperately holding on to her leg, "Thine can let go of our leg, in the dreamworld thou cannot fall." Dash looking up at the princess slowly let go of the leg finding that she just floated in place and didn't fall down.
"Where are we my Sove- Princess?" Rainbow asked, mentally smacking herself for falling back to the oldy-speak caused by the spell.
Luna grinned, motioning around the world they were standing in,
"This, my apprentice, is the dreamworld."