//------------------------------// // Chapter 22: Torture // Story: The Protectors of Harmony // by Delta Blade //------------------------------// Chapter 22: Torture August 10, 2558 0915 hours 50 miles outside of Appleloosa Gypsy Company Captain Robert Peterson stood in a foxhole with Lieutenant Daniel Dietz and another Sergeant, and all the way up and down the line, the rest of the marines of Gypsy Company had built foxholes of their own as well; all were just behind a tree line overlooking a clearing and an opposing tree line. “Sergeant?” asked Dietz. “What’s Shadow Company’s status?” “They’ve started their retreat sir,” the NCO responded, looking up from his radio. “Changelings’ll be coming right at us!” “Shit! Already?!” said the Lieutenant. “The Scorpions are still 5 mikes out.” “Looks like we gotta defend the old-fashioned way,” said Captain Peterson, bringing a hand up to the side of his helmet. “Gypsy Company, prepare to hold this line; Shadow Company decided to fake their retreat a little early. You all have defended against worse alien attacks, so you know the drill!” As the line of entrenched marines began loading their guns, including some M739 Light Machine Gun emplacements, Shadow Company began running out from the tree line in the distance. Seconds later, a horde of changelings followed, charging and flying across the clearing! Marines began shouting at their comrades to hurry and get behind their line, not wanting to risk shooting past them. The second every marine had crossed over, thousands of bullets began to be fired downrange. Every other M739 would be firing at any one time, switching off when their neighbors had to reload, while marines holding DMR’s would pick off the airborne changelings; shotguns were used if any got to close, but none managed to get into a single foxhole. Bodies and guts covered in green blood began to pile up all over the once pristine clearing as the marines tore their foes to shreds. Five minutes felt like an hour, but eventually the scorpions arrived, bursting through the forest behind the marines; some climbed aboard the dozen tanks while others jumped out of their foxholes and started chasing the now retreating changelings. Many of the already wounded shapeshifters were crushed under the tracks of the advancing armor; if they were fleeing, most were shot in the back before receiving the same fate if a marine didn’t execute them in the head first. . . . August 10, 2558 1015 hours Somewhere 200 miles southeast of Ottapaw General Hives entered Rainbow Dash’s cell and had one of his subordinates put her back against the wall and put his horn up to her face. In a flash of green, the pegasus violently stirred into a half-awakened state to the feeling of her facial bones and some of her ribs shifting back into place. The changeling who had just healed her then released her, before saying something that caught her completely off guard. “Sorry,” he said earnestly. “I should’ve warned you that would hur-” “Thorax! Stop apologizing for everything!” interrupted the General. “It’s humiliating!” “Y-yes sir!” As the drowsy pegasus was attempting to make something of the duo before her, she couldn’t help but notice how her face barely hurt at all anymore, nor was her eye blackened. “Leave us,” said Hives after a moment. “Right away, sir!” said Thorax right before scampering off. The robed changeling walked up to and knelt before Rainbow. “That was our healer, if your tiny Equestrian brain hadn’t figured that out already,” he said condescendingly. “But don’t think of him as helpful to you, I’m only having him fix your body parts so that we can keep breaking them over, and over again.” “You’re twisted!” she responded after a shaky inhalation. Hives simply grinned before calling over three changeling guards, two of which carried a bucket full of water. “You don’t know the half of it,” he said simply before trotting out of her cell. “Your human friends ignored our request, and have made another advancement on our turf,” said one changeling as he took solo ownership of the bucket. “We warned them.” At this, he poured the bucket of ice-cold water over the pegasus, shocking awake the parts of her that weren’t already. Another changeling almost immediately smacked her across the face, punched her in the gut, and grabbed her by her mane before shoving her face onto the small puddle that had been forming underneath her. “Think this is water? Think again!” he whispered into her ear. “Or are Equestrians incapable?” Before Rainbow could figure out what he meant, he began biting her ear, shortly after which he kneed her in the lungs. Once again, her three captors stomped, punched, kicked, and bit her for the next five agonizing minutes before finally leaving her on her back, wishing she could clutch her chest. As she laid there, writhing in pain, her thoughts went back to the changeling’s comment about the water, and it was then that she noticed the smell. This wasn’t water, it was somepony else’s blood! Her eyes widened and her pupils shrank as she tasted it; earlier, the blood had been too cold for the smell to be prevalent, plus the adrenaline wouldn’t have helped her notice it either. As soon as the pegasus had mustered up the strength, she shrieked in shock and disgust. . . . August 10, 2558 1649 hours 100 miles outside of Appleloosa Changeling Army 1st Division Some scorpions were lined up, facing the mountain range between them and the Broken Leylands, forming a kind of makeshift artillery battery; the changelings had retreated into those mountains by mid-afternoon, and were now being pelted by a barrage of shells from both the line of scorpion tanks, as well as the rest which moved uphill towards their enemy’s entrenched positions. Along with the advancing tanks were hundreds of UNSC marines, still wearing their gas masks as facial protection. Up on the ridge, the changelings shot back at the advancing human force from their trenches; though they had just taken a beating, they were still numerous, and they held the high-ground. The marines then formed up behind their scorpions, using them as cover in order to move up the hill; when they had gotten close enough, they charged out from behind their advancing armor and directly at their enemy’s trenches, aiming to jump in and seize control of them. Realizing that their spears’ projectiles were ineffective, the changelings decided to attempt a frantic, last-second experiment to see if the marines’ body armor was stab-proof. “Are you cowards? Or are you changelings?!” yelled a superior changeling officer. “Charge! CHAAAAAARGE!” “FOR THE HIIIIVE!” the changeling line cried as they leaped from their entrenched positions downhill to meet their human opposition. Within seconds, the whole scene devolved into a chaotic maelstrom of hand-to-hoof combat. Like most changelings, one attempted to stab a marine in the gut, but was unable to penetrate the armor; the marine quickly smacked the changeling across the face with the butt of his rifle, before his friend behind him shot him full of bullets. All seemed lost until another changeling managed to slash a large gash through that marine’s leg. “The legs! Go for the leeegs!” he shouted before promptly stabbing back into the wound and firing his spear, disintegrating the human inside. “Noooo!” yelled his teammate. “Motherfucker! That was my friend!” He avenged his fallen comrade, shooting the changeling as he was pulling his spear out of the now empty husk. The marine then proceeded to rampage through at least a dozen more changelings before one managed to get to his exposed leg too, instantly disintegrating him from the inside as well. Skirmishes like this were happening all across the hillside, proving to the changeling’s shock and horror, that their experiment had backfired, only invigorating the humans even more! So, despite their newfound strategy, they soon found themselves being completely overrun by the now very angry UNSC marines. In all the violence and death, a lone, wounded changeling managed to dive back into the trench; he then used his magic to send a telepathic message. “General Hives!” he said aloud over the noise. “First Division has been overrun, and the humans are headed into the Broken Leylands! I repeat, First Divis-AAAAAH!” A marine had stabbed him in the back before he could finish; the human then proceeded to slit the changeling’s throat before shanking him in the gut, continuing to communicate his screams telepathically to his leader, cutting out only when he had passed out from blood loss. . . . August 10, 2558 1721 hours Somewhere 200 miles southeast of Ottapaw To maximize Rainbow Dash’s suffering, General Hives would keep Thorax from healing the Equestrian until just before her torture began; in another flash of green, her face and body was healed once more, wordlessly this time. The already traumatized pegasus then had yet another bucket of blood poured over her by a changeling that had walked in as Thorax had walked out. “We’ll try our best not to focus on your face this time around,” said Hives to his shivering prisoner. “This time, we’ve got a special treat for you.” What in Equestria could be more “special”?! thought Rainbow in terror. As if on cue, two more changelings appeared in the doorway; each held a branding iron, the ends of which were in the shape of an aperture contained within a circle large enough to contain her entire cutie mark! The moment she noticed the glowing red tips, she knew immediately what Hives’ plan was. “No! Please! N-not that!” she begged as she backed up into the wall behind her, vainly attempting to delay the inevitable. As the tearful pegasus continued to plead, the only changeling subordinate not holding a branding iron turned her around and pinned her, from her chest down to her knees, onto the wall. “Don’t do this,” she sobbed as he held her there. “PLEAhehehese!” Without another word, the other two changelings simultaneously stuck their red-hot, metal prods onto both her cutie marks. One, long screech followed as Rainbow felt the heat searing away at her flanks, both from the physical pain and the mental anguish of losing her special mark; the changeling holding her had to hold her chained hooves in place behind her back to keep them from knocking away one of the branding irons, and her wings pulled at the ropes that tied them together as Rainbow instinctively tried flapping them. The white-hot pain from her strained and broken wing barely compared to the burning sensation at her flanks. Though it felt like an eternity for Rainbow, the irons were pulled off just as she ran out of breath from screaming. She took another breath as she laid upon the wall in exhaustion before bawling onto it; she was a mix of sadness at her loss and relief that it was over, until she saw both changelings reheating their irons with their horns. Still crying, but now out of regenerated fear, the changeling holding her pulled her off the wall and dragged her on her knees to face her cell’s entrance. Hives grabbed her mane and forced eye-contact. “You didn’t think we were done, did you?” he said playfully. He released her and took some steps back as one of his subordinates walked in front of her, holding his reheated branding iron. Rainbow simply gazed at it with wide and fearful eyes, still wheezing from the first onslaught of heat; said wheezes increased in frequency as the other two changelings held her in place the shoulders before the one in front of her stuck the iron’s end onto her chest. She let out a guttural scream this time, as her throat was already damaged from seconds earlier, until the changeling finally pulled it off of her. Quivering uncontrollably when they let go of her, she simply fell flat on her face, almost welcoming the pain of the impact on her nose over the burning sensation at her chest as she tried to catch her breath for the hundredth time. Without warning, the other changeling holding a branding iron, who had been holding her shoulder, stuck the end of his straight onto her back. Outside, Thorax winced at the blood-curdling scream behind him as he slowly walked away from Rainbow’s cell. . . . August 10, 2558 1950 hours UNSC Infinity SOEIV Launch Bay Fireteam Icebreaker Five out of the six marines stood in the drop-pod launch bay, now wearing their ODST armor, as they watched a live video feed from a drone displaying the aftermath of a recent battle; strewn about were changeling corpses, green blood on and around each of them, along with what seemed like the bodies of dead marines. “M-mate? W-why isn’t there any red blood?” asked Private Oscar ‘Sidney’ Morgan, clearly rattled at seeing dead humans en masse for the first time in a long time. “That’s eerie as fuck!” “It’s ‘cause they’re just husks of armor,” said PFC Ogden Jenkins, pointing at one marine’s body as the drone camera zoomed in. “See? They must’ve gone for the legs and fired a bolt straight inside.” “Poor bastards,” said Private Eugene ‘Shifty’ Phillips. “Calm down fellas, at least our legs are protected this time,” said Sergeant Alex Thompson. “They try to stab us anywhere, we’ll be safe enough to rip’em a new one!” BEEEEEEP-BEEEEEEP- BEEEEEEP As yellow warning lights began to whir above their heads, Gunnery Sergeant David Alvarez walked in with a familiar, purple alicorn. The squad leader now wore standard ODST battle armor, albeit with a blue stripe going down the middle and a little blue fire design on the chest-plate; his helmet, which he held like a soccer ball, had the same blue stripe down the middle with a blue visor to compliment it. “You know the music,” he said to his marines. “Time to dance.” He then turned to Twilight. “I always wanted to say that,” he mused. “Huh,” was all she could say, tilting her head to one side. She then looked at the rest of Fireteam Icebreaker as Gunny donned his helmet and walked to the nearest pod. “Just be careful,” she said. “And please bring her back in one piece!” “No worries your highness,” said Sergeant Alex as he donned his own helmet. “You got six of the best professionals on the job. We’ll bring her home.” She smiled, seemingly content with that answer, before Alex’s visor obscured his face; he, along with the rest of Icebreaker, got into their pods, Twilight leaving the room once they were all fully encapsulated. . . . Jenkins’ pod was carried out into a large hangar with no floor. Just as all six of the squad’s pods were shifted into position, live feed from Gunny’s pod was transmitted onto everyone’s screens. “Okay Icebreaker, intel says there’ll be some mild atmospheric turbulence on the way in,” he briefed. “We’ve all been sent a waypoint to a rendezvous location, just in case it splits us up. Now, let’s get our girl back! Oorah?!” “Oorah!” said the other five ODST’s in unison. With that, all Jenkins heard next was a pause, followed by three quick beeps, followed by a longer, louder third, as one after the other, his and everyone else’s pods were rocketed toward the ground. Ogden’s cage rattled as the gravitational pull of the planet below took near full control over it; he then took hold of the two joysticks to steer as Corporal Marcus William’s live feed got transmitted to his second screen. “Uh, sir?” the Brit said nervously. “That looks like more than just ‘mild’ turbulence!” “Relax,” said Sergeant Alex. “It probably looks worse than it is.” “Intel couldn’t be that wrong, could it?” asked PFC Jenkins rhetorically. It was then that their pods penetrated the clouds, and a few moments of smooth descent followed before a series of rapid lightning strikes burst all around them; suddenly, as he saw his teammate's pods get heaved out of his view, Jenkins felt his pod get tossed around like a softball! “Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!” he yelled, now holding on for dear life. “Brace! Braaa-!” came Gunny’s voice before it was consumed by static.