//------------------------------// // What They Dont Know Wont Hurt Them // Story: Halo: Into a Darker Storm // by Slaphappy16 //------------------------------// The ride to Canterlot was quiet and solemn as Twilight’s friends tried their best to comfort her. As much as she appreciated it, she just wanted to be with her brother. Twilight Sparkle immediately jumped out of the carriage once it landed, dead set on finding Celestia and her brother. Celestia however, was already waiting. “Princess Celestia! Please tell me your guard is lying!” Twilight said, a tear rolling down her face. Princess Celestia scolded her guard for a moment. She told him not to tell her. The guard shied away, and Celestia knelt down next to her student. “He tells the truth. But do not worry; I’m sure it will be OK. I can bring you to the medical area if you would like.” Twilight looked up at her mentor, tears now streaming from her face at the confirmation of her brother nearly being killed. She nodded her head, and they both stood up and started walking down the hall, the rest of the ponies following. “Oh dear, I do hope Shining Armor is OK… not only because he’s the captain of the Royal Guard, but Twilight would be devastated if he dies…” Rarity whispered to the others. “I swear I’ll beat the cow out of the pony that did this!” Rainbow Dash vowed. “Well hold on now, it could’ve had its intentions. Let’s not jump the gun here.” Applejack suggested. “I agree with Applejack. She knows a lot about jumping the gun. She’s a pro!” Pinkie nudged Applejack, who had an unamused look on her face. “Fluttershy dear, what are your thoughts?” Rarity looked over at the shy pegasus. “Oh, uh… yes.” Fluttershy replied. Rainbow Dash looked at Pinkie. Pinkie just shrugged. “Yes? That’s all? That doesn’t even explain your thoughts! It wasn’t a yes or no question.” Rainbow said, slightly annoyed. “Don’t worry about it Dashie!” Pinkie said. “I’ll bet Flutters has some really smart and physically mind-bending explanation for all of this!” “Yeah, I’m so sure…” Rainbow said, still annoyed. They started to come up to the medical area. “So wait, are we all supposed to go in with her? Or just stay out her till she’s done?” Applejack asked. That could lead to some awkward situations. “Huh… That’s a good question…” Rainbow said. “Oh, I think we should wait out here for a bit. It only makes sense to let Twilight have her alone time with him.” Rarity proposed. “Eww. That sounds weird when you word it out like that.” Rainbow said, floating over to her. Rarity looked at her with a look of disgust. “Really? Is that really appropriate at this time?” “Well, cmon! It did!” she silently yelled. “She’s right Rarity! It did!” Pinkie said, suddenly next to Rarity as well. “See, even Pinkie agrees. You can’t fight that.” Rainbow Dash said, a smirk on her face. “Guys, pay attention! We’re here!” Applejack told them. The three arguing ponies looked ahead. Sure enough, Celestia and Twilight were stopped in front of a door. They could barely make out what the Princess was saying. “I’m sorry Twilight, but you cannot see him just yet. You must remember that this happened earlier today, and surgery is still taking place.” Celestia told her. Twilight nodded and sat down in a chair across the hall. Celestia then turned and walked over to the waiting mares. The five bowed down respectively, and then picked themselves up. “Is Shining Armor going to be OK?” Fluttershy was the first to ask. “To be truthful, I do not know. The knife nearly hit his heart.” Celestia said. “Well, even if he dies” the other elements cringed at the word. “you can just bring him back to life or something, right? You’re a god!” Rainbow Dash suggested. “I’m sorry, but it does not work like that. To bring back the dead or grant immortality would be against life and death itself, and it would not have good consequences. ” “Where is Princess Cadence? Surely she would know about this!” Rarity asked. “Believe me, she would, but she is currently away. I planned on telling her later, so she could come back and meet him in case he… passes away…” Celestia said, lowering her voice at the last part. Around the corner, somebody called for Celestia. “Tia, we think there is something we should show you!” Luna’s head popped around the wall. Celestia looked annoyed for a moment, then looked back down to the five mares in front of her. “I’m afraid I must go now; please try your best to comfort Twilight when she comes out.” With that, the Alicorn walked away, following her younger sister. Applejack sighed as the princess rounded the corner. “I don’t like how the Princess was talking about the possibility of Shining passing away. Do you really think it’s that bad?” “Well, she did say it almost hit his heart…” Rarity said. “What thing has a knife long enough to go up into someponies chest and next to their heart? Wouldn’t that be a sword?” Rainbow said. “C-can we please change the subject? I don’t think I’m feeling well…” Fluttershy spoke up. “Oh, I’m sorry dear… What would you like to talk about?” Rarity asked. “Hhhmmm… I don’t know. Maybe we should go sit by Twilight?” Fluttershy shrugged. “Oh, dear! That’s right! She needs us right now, we can’t let her down!” Rarity said confidently. * Luna trotted up a flight of stairs towards her room, her sister in tow. “What is this about?” Celestia asked, curious. “Well, you see, around the end of our banishment, some rather strange things landed on the moon.” She magically swung open the door to her room, two guards saluting as she walked in. Luna ignored them and walked past. Celestia, however, smiled warmly at the guards. Celestia followed her into the room, looking around at all the little constellation models and such. “Oh? Like what?” “Well, various things… Metal, metal, and, well, metal. But there were a few things in specific that intrigued us.” Luna swung open her closet. Along with some articles of clothing, some strange artifacts sat on the floor. “There was this.” Luna held up a slab of metal. There was a single letter on it, A. “Then there was this.” She held up a long rod, the end fattened with holes filled. A black powdery substance covered the dotted end. Both the objects had scraggly edges, like they had been broken. “And then there is this. It’s my personal favorite, for its more unique than the others.” She set down the other two metal objects and held up a cone-shaped thing. On the side, it had six capital letters pasted to it: F-E-N-R-I-S. Next to it, there was a small yellow circle containing three black triangles pointing towards the center. “And why didn’t you tell me about these?” Celestia asked, raising an eyebrow. “It didn’t deem itself important at the time. It was quite obvious that there were other beings that existed in the universe. It is so huge, there is just no way we could be alone. The recent discovery of our green-plated friend and the fact that he or she is obviously a soldier of some kind matches these objects, for it would seem the majority of these have been in a battle themselves.” Luna explained. “I do suppose your right. But next time, please tell me when something like this comes up.” Celestia said. Celestia picked up the tube with her magic and inspected it herself. She poked the end of it with her hoof, some of the powder smudging her golden boot. She set it back down. “Well, these items are certainly interesting. But, I have another meeting to attend. I will see you later.” Celestia told her sister as she walked out the door. Again, the guards saluted her, and she waved them off. She would have to ask her guards how the search was going and go to a few meetings about taxes and why Canterlot apparently needs more benches. The only good thing that could come out of this day is to catch this monster and try to smack some sense into it. She didn’t want to kill it, but if she needed to, she would do so to protect her subjects. After all, like Luna had stated earlier, she did kind of aggravate it… *** Jerome stopped and crouched at the body of one of the dogs. By now, little flies had gathered over them. He patted himself on the back for the clean kills. “Now, what did you say these were?” Douglas asked the pony behind him. “Diamond Dogs… really weird bunch, and not so bright. They can get real feisty to. Can we please move along though? They have tunnels all around these parts, and it won’t take long for them to notice that some of their buddies are gone…” the pegasus answered. “We need to keep moving anyway. I want to get out of this place before nightfall.” Jerome picked himself back up and started walking ahead. Ander and Douglas walked past the three bodies, completely unfazed. Wind Storm however had to keep himself from puking as he kept his distance from the dead dogs. As he walked, Jerome slid out his sniper’s magazine. He stole the last bullet and snapped it onto his shoulder pad, then tossed the spent magazine to the ground. Curious, Wind Storm picked up the box and inspected it. He pushed the little platform up and down. Something shiny on the ground caught his eye. “Oh hey, look at that!” He said excitedly. The three humans turned to see his discovery. The pegasus set down the magazine and pulled something out of the ground with his mouth. A light blue, perfectly cut diamond sat in his jaws. “A diamond? Just… sitting on the surface? In the middle of a desert area like this?” Anders stared dumbly at the crystal. Wind Storm spit it out. “Yeah! You find these kinds of things all the time around here. The Diamond Dogs like to eat them.” He explained. He looked at the diamond, then at the magazine. He picked up the box and pushed the diamond down into it. It shot back up and held in place, two curved metal flaps keeping it from shooting back out. “Ha! Now, if I can just find a few more of these, maybe I can get a couple hundred bits…” Wind Storm said to himself. Apparently though, Anders heard him. “Only a couple hundred? If your money is anything like ours, you should be able to get a lot more than that! Look at it, that’s a big diamond!” Anders said. Usually you only find small nuggets of diamond. This on the other hand was just as big as a sniper bullet. “Hey, that’s cool and all, but again, we need to move.” Jerome called back. “You may not see the importance in it, but finding Alice is top priority. We can’t keep stopping like this.” “Oh, of course! But that raises a question, what happens after that?” Anders asked. Jerome continued walking while he thought that over. That was a great question. Try and contact the UNSC? No, they had no way of signaling them… He definitely didn’t want to stay on this planet. He still had a war to fight. “I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Jerome replied. Anders nodded, then conversed with her little pony friend. Douglas suddenly came through his helmet. “Should we really wait? Or should we think up something to do?” He heard him whisper over team comm. “Like I said, we’ll have to wait. Nothing necessarily sparks itself as useful right now. Hopefully something will come up.” Jerome answered back. Douglas hung his head for a moment. “I sure hope so. I don’t wanna be stuck on a planet filled with a bunch of ponies. Especially with some kind of monarchy. Do you think they will try and say ‘Our planet, our rules’? Last thing we need is another war.” “We will do what is necessary. If they give us orders, we think them through. If they make sense, and help us in some way, we will try and follow. If they speak nonsense and don’t help us in any way, we politely disagree. That doesn’t work, worst thing that happens is push go’s to ‘filled with lead’. Doesn’t matter what planets were on, we will do what benefits the UNSC as a whole. It might not seem like killing these guys will help, but we play our cards right, and maybe we gain an ally.” Jerome explained. Douglas nodded in agreement. “Well, guess we should just hope that nothing bad happens. Only problem is, were Spartans. And, well, that naturally makes us ‘accident prone’.”