//------------------------------// // Epilogue // Story: Halo ODST: Feet First Into Equestria // by DontBeThatGuy //------------------------------// Dash walked forward in a half crouch, keeping a firm grasp on her battle rifle. The weapon felt cold to the touch, due to the frigid external temperature. Nevertheless, she pushed her squad forward, through this muddy ditch. Her breath turned to fog before her eyes in the crisp night air, obscuring her vision slightly. She kept the weapon in front of her, lowered slightly so that her line of sight would be unhindered. Dash held up a hoof signaling ‘freeze.’ Every pony in the squad froze where they were, some halting mid-step. Breathless seconds passed while Dash scanned the area before, trying to figure out what was wrong. Something was wrong. What was it? She could hear her heart beating in her chest as she scanned the burnt countryside for that missing component. From her vantage point on the hill she saw everything. Charred corpses, smoking skeletal buildings, burnt grass, and destroyed hills. This was what she had been looking at for the past ten kilometers, why was this different? Maybe it wasn’t something she could see. She closed her eyes, listening intently to the surrounding environment. Fires crackling, her soldiers breathing, a few bugs clicking… nothing really out of the ordinary. Oh, there we go. Smell. Something smelled different. What was that odor? Something smelled horrible… rotten almost. A hail of plasma fire erupted less than one hundred meters or so below their position. All the troopers splashed into the ditch with a grimace as the freezing mud started caking their suits. But the fire wasn’t aimed at them. Dash had expected to see a hail of plasma fire come flying over their position, but nothing was happening. She crept forward, peering down below. She could make out the Covie positions easily, blue and purple flashes illuminated their covered positions within the ruinous town. Plasma sizzled through the air, burning holes in… what the hell were those? Brownish figures distorted in ways too hideous to describe sprinted towards the Covie line wailing inhuman howls. Dash made a snap decision, once those things had finished off the Covies, they’d surely come for Dash and her squad. She had to work with the enemy. Dash motioned thrice, and a hail of grenades landed in the open space that these new-found foes were storming across. Dash’s squad lit the area up in a firestorm of death. Tracers licked back and forth across the open field, sometime starting small fires in the crispy grass. These sons-a-bitches did not care about losses. The squad was quickly running low on ammunition. As Dash reached for her last magazine, they suddenly stopped coming. Dash doubted highly that they were out of personnel. More likely they decided it was going to be easier to attack from elsewhere. Needless to say, Dash didn’t stick around to find out. They were out of ammo and deep in enemy territory. Time to haul ass back to base camp to report what they saw and re-arm. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Lord Hood apparently had some genius plan to follow the Covenant through a portal and attack them on their own turf. Dash didn’t really care where they fought. The best part about this whole plan was that they finally got to use the Navy’s ships for a bit. Showers and hot food. Finally. The rest of her squad stormed the showers first, but Dash opted for food. As soon as she entered the mess hall she realized this was probably a bad idea. She had her helmet tucked under one leg, and needless to say nopony there was expecting her to walk in the door. Every pair of eyes in the entire place tracked her every movement up to the counter to get a tray. The chefs gawked at her until she motioned towards the tray, irritably. They slowly ladled some of the ‘food’ onto her plate, never taking eyes off her. She rolled hers in annoyance, not making them feel any more comfortable. She grabbed the tray off from the counter, striding over to a table and promptly sitting down. Despite her ravenous hunger, she forced herself to eat in a civil manner. Some random buck private showed up at her shoulder, staring down incredulously. “Hey, who the hell let horse in the mess hall? Why is it even on the ship?” “You mean, ‘who let a pony in the mess hall, sergeant.’ “ she said, stressing her rank. She gestured to the stripes adorning the shoulder of her ODST armor. “I… uh…” “Oh, so no you want to address me, instead of talking about me and referring to me as an ‘it’? Genius plan there, private.” “You’re a horse.” “Pony.” “But that’s not the point. How are you talking? I’m not the only one hearing this, right?” He glanced around, noting the incredulous nodding of the deathly silent mess-hall. “Well, private, I’m not from around here.” “Obviously.” Dash raised an eyebrow. “Might want to watch your tone there, private.” Dash glanced down at her rank again. “I’m not from your dimension. Me and my troopers are here to help though. Show some respect.” “Er, ok. Sorry.” “Want to try again?” “Yes, sergeant. My apologies, sergeant.” The private left with a bewildered, ‘what just happened’ look on his face. Dash looked across the table at a human staring blankly at her. She noticed he also wore Sergeant chevrons. Dash grinned lopsidedly at him. “Fucking privates, am I right?” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “You know, I never did get to say goodbye. The war’s over now, but somehow that doesn’t seem to help. You even gave your life for a group of ponies who you just recently met. Hell, we weren’t even your same species!” Rainbow Dash stood in front of a lone piece of granite. Sure, there were thousands of other slabs of nearly identical rocks in perfect rows, but this one was special. This one bore the name and rank of Jennings. “You’d be proud of the good work your Troopers did. Well, they’re my Troopers now. So I guess they are our Troopers. They fought hard. We lost some good ponies. Gained a lot of good friends. And we fought the Flood. Never even imagined such a thing could exist. Sure was a shitty war. And hell, we were only part of it for a few days. You fought it for years without the slightest complaint. “But now, the Elites and the Humans are working together. Kind of weird to think about. We both had the war introduced to us with Elites killing our family and friends. But in a weird turn of events, I ended up fighting alongside a bunch of them against Brutes and Flood. Kind of crazy to think about. I try not to picture what would have happened had one of them decided he’d had enough of this UNSC-Elite truce. They could have killed a lot of people. They were already in our lines. Would have been bad. “Speaking of never saying goodbye, I never said thank you either. You saved my life in that house. I never even saw the jackass coming, but you did. You finished him off even after you’d been stabbed through the gut. I’ve seen more ponies… er people… aliens… whatever, get stabbed by those swords, and most of them just flop over and accept death. Not you. I have to give you some serious kudos for that. Ah, shit. Looks like somepony is telling me I have to go. Don’t worry, Jay. Earth’s safe. We did everything we could to make sure it’s safe. Some eggheads in Canterlot made a device that opens a small portal between Equestria and Earth, so we’ll keep coming and going, probably even start trading after a while. Who knows, we might even start vacationing to each others dimensions. You never know. Anyways Jay, I gotta go. Thanks for the chat. I’ll be back when I can.” Dash rendered a crisp salute, facing the white slab. She turned to leave, forcing herself to walk out without looking back. It was hard. Dash was part of the last group to leave Earth. She glanced back over the still-smoldering landscape with sadness. Countless had been lost. Only very rough estimates could be made as far as the combined number lost between Human, Covenant, and Equestrian. She was going to have some heart-wrenching letters to write when she got back home. She sighed, and stepped through the portal. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Their ranks had been depleted. It was high-time they start filling them again. Fortunately, Jennings’ plans for training were still there, the framework was still there, Dash only had to restart everything. It had been relatively easy, too. Just lots of paperwork to do. Forms for this, forms for that. I mean seriously, who needs to eat on a daily basis? Absurd things like that were just endless paperwork. Troopers can survive on a meal every three months or so… right? In processing was over, and Zero Day was about to begin. Dash watched with impatience as the clock finally clicked past midnight. 0001. Dash grinned, tossing the flashbang grenade she held in her hoof. She depressed the button, tossing it inside the bay. Screams of pain and confusion came from those poor souls inside. Dash smashed the door open with her shoulder, ramming it in painfully to an unlucky Trooper. “Wake the fuck up!”