//------------------------------// // Escape Artist // Story: Halo: Into a Darker Storm // by Slaphappy16 //------------------------------// Seven white four-legged creatures stood around her, all pointing some sort of weapon at her. Instinct kicked in. She did the first thing every Spartan was trained to do when faced with a threat. She reacted. The one’s hand… hoof... hovered for a moment. As fast as lightning, her hand shot out and grabbed the hoof. She pulled down, and the… pony… tripped over and fell. Before it hit the ground, Alice smashed her head against its head. It was instantly knocked unconscious, a small bout of blood dripping from its forehead. She jumped to her feat and took a fighting stance, feet spread, hands up in front of her chest. Before any of the other startled ponies could move, she targeted what she thought was the one in command. A white bodied, blue maned… unicorn? She discarded it into her mind. She had to pay attention. She quickly ran and tackled it to the ground. She raised her fist into the air, then brought it down onto the unicorn. It moved its head to the side, barely missing the Spartans fist. It’s started kicking at Alice, with little success. She felt something on top of her, then another. Apparently, they were going to dog-pile her. She ignored them as they tried to push her off. She whipped out her pistol, and aiming it down, pulled the trigger three times. Just before she did, her hand was wrapped in a rosy-red aura and whipped to the side. The bullets whizzed past, piercing the wall to the right. Her hand then shot up and hit herself in the head. And again. And again. She fought the invisible force, all while the ponies kept punching at her and the one below her kicking. She still couldn’t hear a single thing. Finally, she was able to force the pistol to turn back towards the unicorn under her. Inside her helmet, she smirked. She pulled the trigger. The unicorn locked eyes with her faceplate. There was a click. What? WHAT? She pulled the trigger again and again, each time receiving a click. She looked at the ground. The unicorn must’ve accidentally dropped her clip. For a moment, she was dumbfounded. The one second she lost concentration was enough, and the ponies on top of her finally pushed her off. Alice was forced onto her back. The unicorn got up, anger burning in its eyes. She holstered her pistol, not bothering to reload. She reeled back and punched one of the ponies on top of her. It recoiled and fell off. She then kicked out into anothers gut, and he was also pushed off. She simply forced herself up, and the remaining ones just fell off. One the ponies that had dog-piled her stood up, and, revealing a pair of wings, shot forward. It flew right into Alice. Alice really wasn’t sure what it was trying to accomplish. She easily held her ground and grabbed the pegasus. She picked him up onto the air, and then drop kicked it away. The pegasus bounced to the ground, a large dent in its chest armor. She turned to face another attacker. This one was also a unicorn. Its horn glowed, and a bolt shot through the air. It smacked into her, and then dissipated away. It brought her shield down by a sixth. She flipped out her knife, and, expertly catching it by the blade, flicked her wrist and extended her arm. The knife flew straight and true, but suddenly, it just stopped, the blade a mere inch away from its head. It was covered in an aura similar to the one her hand was wrapped in, but this time white. For a moment, the unicorn stood there, shocked at how close it had been to death. A sixth guard, a regular pony, started to run towards Alice. The unicorn shook out of it, turned the knife back towards Alice, and it shot towards her. Just before the sixth guard hit, she sidestepped, dodged the knife, and kicked the sixth guard. This was becoming more like football than anything. The pony flew into its fellow guard, and they both tumbled down. The knife lodged itself into the wall behind her. Now, were was that first one… She turned and again faced the blue-maned unicorn. He scratched at the ground, and started running towards her. She noticed its horn start to glow. She bent and turned her right knee, then dug her left into the ground for support. She met the pony head-on. The horn exploded, and her shields drastically decreased. Add the surprising force of the unicorn, her shields shattered. The pony crushed her already broken ribs. She grunted in pain, but held her ground. Grabbing the pony by its shoulders, she twisted around and threw it into the wall. The pony slammed against the wall, and fell to the ground, unmoving. As the last of the seven ponies went down, she heard something… different. In the back of her mind, there was a male voice, she swear she heard it. What did it say? …Killimanjaro? She shook her head; she must’ve been imagining it. Other than that, she still heard nothing. She noticed something rather large on her radar. Quickly, she turned around, and, slamming another mag into her pistol, jammed it into the chin of a new pony behind her. For a moment, her body felt all tingly. She then found that she couldn’t move most of her body. It’s stood almost at her height, not counting the horn it also had. Alice noted it also had wings. She recognized it from Déjà’s teachings, an alicorn. It held a seldom, almost emotionless face. It was easy to tell this one was there leader, judging by the way it had a crown and all. She noticed her assault rifle across the room behind it. It looked at her, as if it could see through her faceplate. Alice staggered a bit; she was starting to lose blood. The alicorns horn lit once more, and everything disappeared. *** Celestia stared at the thing in front of her, the object it held jutting into her chin. She frowned, and with a simple spell, put it to sleep, bad nightmares to be unlocked from its mind. It would have to pay for what it did. She looked around the room. The guard that touched it was still unconscious, a red line leading from its forehead to the tip of his snout. The one that had been punched was also unconscious, a huge dent in its helmet. The one that had been kicked lay on the ground, coughing, the wind knocked out of him. The one that was drop-kicked was at the other side of the room, holding onto its chest, his ribs probably broken. The earth-pony and unicorn untangled themselves. Finally, her eyes rested on Shining Armor. He lay against the wall, sitting awkwardly. He held his head as if he had a huge headache. She sighed. Great. She was going to have to erase some of her ponies minds about what just happened, get her guards patched up, and do something with... whatever the thing at her hooves was. She looked over at Luna, who hadn’t even gotten up from her chair. Her eyes were wide, wondering what the heck just happened. The thing moved so fast, the battle barely even lasted a minute. She sighed again. Time to get to work… *** Alice’s eyes fluttered open. She was in a dark corridor, her back to the wall. She had no armor on, just her regular clothes. She looked around. She saw nothing. She got up and started walking. She walked for what seemed like a mile, twisting around corners and up and down stairs. She turned another corner when she saw something different. Jerome sat crouched, scanning around with an MA37. He stopped when he saw her. “Alice?” he asked. She tried to answer, but she couldn’t. She tried to open her mouth, but it was as if it was sown closed. “Alice, say something!” Jerome asked. She spotted something behind him. The Arbiter from the shield world slowly came into view. Alice tried to warn Jerome, but still nothing came out. The Arbiter grabbed Jerome by the neck, and Jerome dropped his rifle. He reached for The Arbiters hand and tried to pull it off, but to no avail. The Arbiter laughed as it flicked its wrist out, an energy sword flickering to life. He speared Jerome through his chest, and wrenched it sideways. Jerome jerked for a moment, and stopped moving. Alice tried to scream, but still nothing came out. Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder pull her back around the corner. She turned around to see who her attacker was. Douglas sat there, one finger in front of his face-plate, indicating to stay quiet. He slowly walked around the corner, an assault rifle raised. Alice heard something. Douglas, also hearing it, looked towards the area of the sound. Suddenly, something burst from the shadows. Something she had wished to never see again. A flood infection form jumped from seemingly nowhere, and attached it to Douglas’ face. He ripped it off and crushed it in his hand. More and more jumped from the shadows, and Douglas desperately tried to stop them. One jumped onto his back, and its tentacle pierced through his armor and into his spine. He jerked about at impossible angles, and the infection form burrowed into his body. The left side of his armor split, revealing a huge, bulbous arm. He grabbed his helmet and ripped it off. He reared back and gave an inhuman roar. He turned towards Alice. She felt so helpless without her armor. She backed away, and felt her back hit the wall. The hallway had disappeared, leaving her nowhere to go. Douglas… no, this was no longer Douglas… the flood rushed towards her, giving out a blood-curdling scream. It smashed her into the wall, knocking her unconscious. *** Alice jerked awake. She was hyperventilating, the effect of the nightmare subsiding. She sighed in relief as her green armor hugged her body. She looked around; she was in a small white room. There seemingly was no door. She dragged herself off the ground, her legs shaking. The recent events flashed in her mind. Her falling through the sky, crashing into the castle, and fighting the ponies. She also remembered why she couldn’t hear anything. Duh, she had turned her outside audio off so she wouldn’t go deaf after she opened the pod door in-atmosphere. She turned it back on and tried to figure out where she was. She had a sudden thought, ‘Damn. I got my ass handed to me by a pony…’ Well, not necessarily. She had beaten down quite a few of them. She once again examined the room. It was all the same. It reminded her of one of those lab rooms, were the scientists examine something from a safe area. If that was the case, then where was the scientist…? She ran her hand across the wall. It was bumpy. She continued to do this around the room, until finally, the wall smoothened out. She flexed her fist, getting ready to break out. * A brown pony in a white lab coat stood in a small room. On the table in front of him were three objects recovered from the room with the fight. The first, the one he was least interested in, was a knife. The second was some kind of barrel with a handle and guard, like a tiny sword with the hilt bent so there was a 90 degree angle. The third was… well, he didn’t really know how to describe it. It looked kinda like two rectangles attached by a stick with a triangle handle. Using his magic, the professor picked up the bigger object and fiddled around with it. He pushed a button next to the handle, and a box fell out and onto the ground. Curious, he set the object down and picked up the box. On the top was some kind of container with a triangle shoved into it. He set it back down and looked out of the one-sided window. Oh, look at that. The alien was awake. But, the professor didn’t like stopping in the middle of his studies, and continued to screw around with the box. As he discovered that you could take out the tiny containers and that there were more in the box, there was a crash behind him. He turned back to the window. There was a green fist through it, and it pulled itself out. He watched the alien grabbed the sides of the hole and pull it in, enlarging it. It jumped though, landing on its feet and crouched. It turned towards the professor, and for a moment, they had a stare-down. The professor was sweating. He looked over to a small lever, and then looked back at the alien. The alien looked at the lever. Etched above it were the words ‘Security Alarm’. The professor kept alternating between the lever and the alien. The alien shook its head, as if saying no. It then took a finger and dragged it across its neck. The professor decided on what he would do. Using his magic, he picked up the large barrel thing on the table and smacked it against his head. He swirled for a second, and then fell over. * Alice couldn’t help but laugh at what she just saw. That was just too good. That was one extra thing about her armor. Intimidation. She grabbed her assault rifle and smacked the clip into it. She then grabbed her pistol and holstered it. Lastly, she grabbed the knife. Inspecting it, she decided it was still nice and sharp and slid it back into its sheath. Now, her new mission. Get out of this place at all cost. Her equipment set, she looked around the new room. A door was directly across from her. She walked over and opened it. The room was at the end of a hallway. At the other end, she could see a guard pony keeping post. A thought came to her mind. She remembered that she had The Arbiters cloak unit. Pulling it out of her pack, she inspected it for a moment. She also took out her tac-pad and searched through the forerunner database. Finding the icon she wanted, she tapped its replica on the cloak unit. She watched her own body fade away. She was, essentially, a whisper in the wind. A ghost. She silently went through the door and crouch-walked down the corridor. She pulled out her knife as she silently came up onto the pony. She stood over it and looked to the left, then to the right. To the right, she saw a pony, a unicorn, walk past. Once it was gone, she covered the guards muzzle and swiped the knife along its throat. The guard made a guttural cough, started grabbing at its neck, and went limp. She opened another door next to her marked Janitor and dragged the body into it. She continued down the hallway and went left instead of right. It continued down until the end, were it took another left. Being it the only way to go, she obviously went left. She peeked around the corner. She spotted two more guards, each one facing opposite ways. The one facing her was a pegasus, and the one facing the other way was a unicorn. Ever so slowly, she crouch-walked over to the pegasus. She twirled the knife over her palm and grabbed the blade. She jumped out, grabbed the pegasus’s head and threw the knife. The knife planted itself through the helmet and into the unicorn’s skull. She then twisted the head of pegasus and broke its neck with a wet snap. They both fell to the ground and the Spartan faded back into a shadow. She walked over and pulled the knife out of the unicorn and wiped the blood away. She didn’t really know where to hide these ones, so she left them and hoped she would be out of thi- She stopped as she turned around. Another guard stared back at the bare shimmer. Quickly, its wings snapped out and it flew away. God damnit. So much for stealth. She got up and ran towards the end of the hallway and turned in the direction of the pegasus. She saw it go around another corner and vanish. She again followed it around said corner, and stopped as she met two more guards. Behind them, she watched the pegasus continue onwards, probably to get help. She whipped out her pistol and shot twice, hitting both ponies in the forehead before they could even react. She once again turned a corner and watched the pegasus smack a big red button. Nothing happened. The pegasus looked around and saw her. It started pushing the button over and over, but nothing happened. The second time the pegasus turned around, the Spartan was right behind him. The pegasus yelped as the Spartan kicked it down, and then brought the knife down onto it. Suddenly, it stopped, an inch away from its head. Alice looked at her hand. It was covered in a rose aura. She turned and looked at the doorway. There stood the same unicorn she had fought back at her crash-site, it’s eyes burning with anger. She forced her hand out of the spell and ran towards it. The unicorn’s horn lit up a bit, and a purple see-through wall appeared in front of her. Using her free hand, she took out her pistol and shot the shield three times. It cracked, and Alice burst through it without breaking stride. She tackled the unicorn against the wall and stabbed at its neck. Her hand was pushed to the side again by its magic. Its horn lit up and blasted her with some kind of bolt. It pushed her back a bit, and her shields went down to half, but she still kept her hold on the unicorn. The ponies eyes looked at something behind her and Alice saw a blip on her radar. She quickly turned around; still keeping her body pushed against the unicorn, and pulled out her pistol. The pegasus was running towards her. She quickly shot twice, each in its chest. The pegasus stumbled, tripped, and fell to the floor. The unicorn was stared at the guard lying limp on the ground. Alice took this moment and brought the knife up into its chest. She wrenched it back and forth, and took it out. She let the pony fall to the floor. Looking back out of the doorway, she could hear more guards coming. She didn’t have time for this. She examined the room she was in, and spied a big wooden door. She burst through it, revealing a place different than the pure white hallways. A nice big room with color and statues of various things stood before her. She ran through it, startling a few random civilians. She turned a corner, and was rewarded with a bigger door, wide open, revealing the outside world. She also found another bigger-than-apparently-normal pony. This time a navy blue coat and a dark blue mane that seemed to hold the stars within. It turned around as it heard her. What she said was surprising. “Why hello there mysterious alien that fell from the sky! We must say, we have been meaning to meet you! Wait, did our guards let you out?” She stopped for a moment to think. “Uh, yeah. They did. Nice to meet you, but I have to get going.” Alice ran past the blue alicorn and out the door. “OK then, please visit us sometime! We have many questions!” The alicorn called back. Alice ignored her and kept running. She burst through the opening and was surprised to find a huge set of stairs. She tripped and fell down 10 of them before regaining balance. The two guards sitting at the opening were startled, and stared awkwardly at her. Alice just kept running. She reached the bottom of the stairs when she heard the guards yelling at her. She turned a corner at the bottom of the stairs, behind some house. She clicked the cloaking unit back on, and watched the guard ponies turn the corner and keep going. She sighed. Now what was this place, some kind of city? If that was the case, she would have to wait until nightfall to go anywhere. She was sure some civilians had already seen her, not only in the castle, but as she ran down the stairs and around the corner too. ‘Great.’ She sat down, still cloaked. ‘Guess it’s time to wait.’