//------------------------------//
// CH15 
// Story: MLP FIM/Halo: Towards the broken dawn… 
// by Evident Disaster 
//------------------------------//

CH16

XXXXX

Good Intentions

XXXXX

From Dr Halsey's journal (Halo Reach collectors addition)

There is an ancient saying, "The beginning of wisdom is ignorance."

So where do we begin to create the ultimate warrior? With innocence.

XXXXX

31 years ago…

It was another sunny day on the beaches of his home town White Crest, the sun shone so brightly above, and the nearby gas giant covered a fair proportion of the day with its 3 moons, it created such a wonderful sight alright. But it was no time for sitting on the beach all day looking at the neighbouring worlds pass through the skies.

"Shinn?" He heard a distant voice called.

He turned to see a woman dressed in summer clothes with a straw hat, he knew it wasn't straw, his older brother told him most of those would be too much trouble to make; he always wondered why his brother wanted to know these things. But Shinn didn't bother recalling, he made his way over to the woman, as he got closer he could see she had blonde hair cut short and neat.

He craned his neck up and replied.
"Yes?"

Shinn was always quiet, but his mum once told him to reply to someone who wanted to talk with him, it was rude to ignore them. He looked at the woman for a moment, then knelt down to his level and began.
"My name is Valerie, nice to meet you." She said with a seamless smile.

He nodded and replied a little quietly. "Nice to meet you."

He mimicked most things rather well, he had a fair understanding of everything he came across, his parents were always happy how he managed that, his brother tutored him as much as he could, his sister, he never really saw her. This woman reminded him of his mum, but also his sister, she may never been around as much, but she always smiled to him.

"Shinn, I was wondering, but do you like games?" She asked.

He thought about it and then nodded. Valerie stood back and motioned to the person behind her. "Aaron…" Shinn heard as the man stepped forward.

He was somewhat reminiscent of his older brother, he stared at him rather passively as he brought out a small green stone, it had something engraved on it. Aaron noticed him looking at it and smiled as he explained. "It means strength in Korean." He said as he let Shinn look at it closer. He hadn't heard of Korean, at least not very well, he knew it was from earth a place long forgotten in the depths of space.

The man then pulled out 2 rocks both the size of the green stone, he then explained. "You need to catch the jade chip but you need to be fast at it." He explained as he began to toss it into the air with the stones, he caught them and began to juggle them. Shinn's eyes watched the 3 stones flying in their circular pattern.

He watched for a moment longer before he reached out to grab one of the stones, he felt it hit his hand and Aaron stopped juggling, he then pulled his hand back up and looked at his palm, it wasn't the jade stone. "Ah, such is luck." He heard Valerie muttered. He handed the stone back and then she said. "Try it again, but watch it carefully."

He nodded and Aaron got back to juggling them again, this time Shinn looked more aptly at the stones and he kept them in his view, he then saw where it would land, he closed his eyes and then as Aaron tossed it up he struck his hand out and felt it land. He withdrew his hand and then stood there for a moment before his eyes opened and then saw he had the jade stone in his palm.

He smiled at the discovery and then he heard Valerie speak to him.
"You keep trying, and eventually you'll succeed." She smiled to him. "I hope we meet again." She stood up and followed Aaron and they both departed, leaving Shinn to look at his prize.

He remained admiring the stone at the front of his home; his mum would be home soon.

XXXXX

He had dinner with his mum, who told him his older brother had gone off to the nearby academy to join the alliance military, his sister was going off to become a nurse and his father was still off world for the week, he'd be home soon. But his time with his mother was relatively good, reading stories and going off to bed.

The last time he ever saw her was that night, he never recalled what happened after that night, and he remembered being in a cramped place, it was hard to move but he was there for a long time. He then fell asleep and woke up in a place so cold, from there he was taken to a large atrium where hundreds of others were, so many children like him.

He remembered seeing Valerie there addressing them as a whole, her words echoing him to his core about what they were to do, what would come from their training and what the future held for mankind if they succeeded. For weeks he remembered the training grounds on Anomia, and then Callistan and then over at 'Prodigal Keep' and finally their medical processes.

He recalled the first genetic augmentations, their injections for hormonal enhancement and then biological augmentations into their skeletal structure; he remembered how much it hurt as they stretched their bodies to adjust to the parameters of the genetic augmentations, it took days for him to recover but he did.

That was only one of 6 augmentations the Alpha Spartans received in their youths till the final stage, he remembered each augmentations as time continued, each one ripping into his body to adjust it for all manners of survival in the field. He recalled the second last augmentation, when his body was supposed to adjust to a neural interface which would allow the control of his entire body channelled to his brain.

It failed on him, he remembered how badly it hurt screaming on the operating table as they attempted to sever the link, but the damage was done, his lower abdomen was crippled for weeks till they retried it with a different procedure. His body narrowly survived the second attempt, but they managed to get him into stable control of his body, however they decided that he couldn't continue on with the last augmentation due to his damage and decided to scrap his position.

He was recalled and then granted an alternative augmentation with cybernetics and nano-machines; he was left to survive as such and then moved him into the UCAF military as a special case and gave him an identity to assume. He never regretted ONI's decision; he was well in serving as a helldiver for the last 27 years, but sometimes he did wonder if there was a place for him as more than just some elite shock trooper.

He never questioned it and lived as he had, there was no place for regret, and he learnt that a long time ago. His life dedicated to fighting the covenant in the war, he spent so many years and he saw so many in his division die, he recalled thousands of missions and nearly millions of battles that occurred in his time.

He remembered his family only in memory, the rest of his life had been fighting for a cause which had made him see something amiable in all mankind, resilience and perseverance against so many odds. Lives were spent by the millions a day, but they were spent well in some sense, the war claimed so many, but they managed to keep fighting.

He saw the war to the battle of Callistan where they engaged the entire covenant primary flotilla; tens of thousands of ships slammed themselves against the UCAF defenders on the world. He fought there for the first and second battle till the covenant were driven off, but still he saw so much death from the attack, half the UCAF military world was turned to ash and molten glass. And yet there humanity pushed onwards.

It was only when the UCAF were sending out advanced shock forces he began to see another side of man, its determination against such devastating odds. He admitted, humanity wasn't intending to die off any time soon. The covenant threw everything against the UCAF and lost horribly, but not without at least inflicting some sort of damage in return.

Now he was here, where he saw very little war, Equestria was a place of relative peace, a place on the edge of diving towards war with the UCAF guiding them; it made him wonder what was soon to come if the war did end, would the Equestrians go back to peace or become part of the alliance? He held it out of his mind.

He then heard her voice. 'That's all I needed to know.'

XXXXX

Shinn broke his concentration; he saw there now and looked at Celestia, the goddess of this world, a goddess in some sense, but he had a feeling she was a bit more than that. She looked at him intensely thinking about what she had seen and making passive judgement of him while sitting there.

She blinked finally and then said. "You lived a pained life, where failure led to the deaths of many, but you survived, like mankind, you strived to live against the odds. I wonder why…"

Shinn replied objectively. "It was because my life was needed, I spent my life well princess, I have no regrets."

"You don't care that you lost your family? You don't care you lost so much you loved? You don't care about your future?" She asked definitively.

"It's what I dealt with when Valerie took me into the Spartan Alpha Program, I don't regret it and neither does the other Spartans, we did all we could and we could do no more than what we accomplished. Could they really have done anymore?" He replied.

"But surely there must have been something you missed from your past." She inquired.

"There wasn't much of a past for me, only the war; I got done all that I could do. I've spent my life well princess." He stated duly.

She nodded. "I can see." She smiled sombrely.

He never looked away from a person before but he did at that moment, he took a moment to think about something from his past that correlated to now, women were never his strong suit aside from those in command or those in other helldiver units. He then did remember something, his dog tags; he pulled them out to find his most precious memento, the jade stone from when Valerie recruited him, he still had it.

He smiled if only from the briefest moment indulging in his past once more. But he felt something catch his attention; it was a pale, gold nailed finger touched his chin and he looked up and before he knew it his lips were pressed against the princess's, the thing was he didn't recognise it till his mind recalled something about human social interactions. She had kissed him, she was kissing him.

Celestia broke off from the kiss and gave him a giggle as he looked at her perplexed, he still couldn't understand why she had kissed him. She said laughingly. "You kiss well for a man who lived his entire life as a soldier." She grinned.

He was still perplexed and she shook her head in amusement. "Don't worry Miguel. Your secret is safe with me." She said. "I wonder if you would be any better in bed." She added before standing up.
"You're a noble man Miguel, a soldier on the outside, but still a child when it comes to social interactions. I think you should be careful with Twilight; she has an interest in you, how you develop your relationship with her is up to you, but at most you should know this, she trusts you." Celestia finished.

He nodded and before he knew it she opened the door and stepped out, leaving him there rather wondering why she had kissed him for. He shrugged and picked himself up and looked for a data pad, he had to write down his sudden experience with the princess. He thought about something else, did Celestia want him for something? He may never know, he shrugged and began writing down the surprising occurrence.

He just wondered if he'd catch up with Twilight she'd be able to shed some light upon Celestia's behaviour, that woman must have some sort of mischief making in her history, he wondered if she actually meant something about pursuing intimacy with him. He shook his head and could only think about what Dr Valerie would say about him pursuing a relationship with a woman or for that matter an alien.

In all honesty she'd probably laugh at him about it; he wouldn't be surprised about it.

XXXXX

Twilight returned to the library back in town, she hoped all was well, she had been gone from home for a while now, she hoped Spike hadn't gone and done something silly while she had been absent, of course the only thing she would be worried about was if he had gone and invited the cutie mark crusaders into her home.

She remembered the last time they were there; she had to clean up the magical muck called Gak off her library walls which took a week to clean out. She really didn't want another situation like that again the muck in her hair was horrible and Rarity passed out when she saw it. As she returned home she was greeted by Spike who had been rather bored out of his mind since she had departed.

The teenage dragon got her in a bone crushing hug when she got back to him, she was happy to see him as well, she spent the next half an hour updating him about what happened in the past week and over. After the arduous explanation Spike lay on her bed rather tired.
"You've really got your work cut out for you." He yawned.

"Tell me about it Spike, at first I was excited about all of this, being able to meet another species from a faraway world or place, but now it seems rather…" She couldn't really think of anyone who was like Miguel, and her time around him, she then ended. "Tiring." She sighed.

"Are you ok?" Spike asked.

Twilight nodded. "I'm fine Spike; it's just that all the time I've spent my time in Miguel's presence, I just wonder if he's told me everything or for that matter if he's been honest with me." She said aloud.

A voice interjected. "He's honest enough Twilight."

Spike and Twilight turned around and saw Celestia sitting on the end of Twilight's bed. Spike nearly did a summersault when he got off the bed to bow, and Twilight nearly knocked her chair over to do likewise. "Princess you came to the library." Twilight said in a gushing fashion.

The regal pastel alicorn replied. "I came here only for a moment, I really shouldn't be here long I told Luna I'd be back at Canterlot before evening or she'd shout my ear off for leaving her with all the court duties again." She smirked with a shrug.

Twilight broke from her bow and then asked. "How was your talk with Miguel?"

"It was enticing, he's a good talker and kisser." She replied thoughtfully.

"That's good- WHAT?" She exclaimed in utter horror.

Celestia haughtily smiled. "I was showing him my appreciation to all that he did and what he still does now." She replied.

Twilight had no response aside from sitting there in utter shock from learning her mentor had gotten physical with Miguel, Twilight had some feelings to the human, but even she hadn't gone into a relationship, not to mention Miguel's interest in her was merely understanding, rather than intimacy. She didn't believe he would really want to have an intimate relationship.

Celestia added airily. "He was just as surprised as you, just that he didn't bother showing it."

"Umm princess I think you might have 'broken' Twilight." Spike said concertedly as he pointed at her.

Celestia looked over at Twilight who still had her jaw agape in surprise; she magically shut it and added. "Twilight, don't worry, he's not interested in me. I don't even think he could understand how a relationship even works let alone try to make a proper one with a random woman he only knew for a few days." She reassured the stunned unicorn.

Twilight broke from her uneasiness and thought it through, she was right Miguel wouldn't just start to get into a relationship with Celestia out of the blue, it didn't suit him. "Ok, but please tell me why did you kiss him?" Twilight asked.

Celestia pursed her lips and rolled her eyes in thought, and then shrugged as she replied. "I find him rather interesting; he's the only male I believe who lived his life to the best of their extent. He himself agrees he's lived a very long life. Besides, I thought it would be nice to know what a human tasted like." She grinned.

Twilight continued looking at her mentor with a sceptical look. "I really must get going Twilight; Luna will kill me if I take any more time. Don't' worry Twilight Miguel will be right along soon enough, hope you enjoy talking to him about me." She finished aptly before making her exit in the flash of an eye.

Twilight still had plenty of questions of what she had done that made her think of Miguel as intriguing; she just hoped he would be willing to explain what Celestia was going on about. Meanwhile Spike, was back go lying down on his bed.
"Never knew Celestia had a thing for aliens." He muttered.

Twilight added wistfully. "I never knew she had a thing for war veterans for that matter."

Spike looked up from his bed with a quizzical look before Twilight went back to whatever she was doing. Spike had a feeling meeting Miguel was going to be a very interesting situation.

XXXXX

Jordan never knew Pinkie had a taste of spicy at least not until he let her taste Orilian spices, the pink ball of energy went hopping out of the kitchen with her head on fire and came back 10 seconds later drenched in ice cold water before asking. "Got any more of that spicy stuff?"

He went through 4 hours of taste testing and menu flipping before Pinkie made up her mind, of course she pretty much sampled the entire Orilian spice menu, all 32 dishes. He couldn't imagine where in the fuck the universe had created this pink ball of iridium, but he'd hate to see the best spice eaters go against her.

After picking her way through the last dish of spicy seasoned seafood and noodles she gave a small belch. "That was pretty good." She smiled as if she was satisfied, Jordan couldn't recall anyone besides Fenrisons who has such an appetite for Orilian dishes. He nodded and replied.
"Glad you liked it, but what do you think I should put on the menu for our new recruits and for everyone else?" He asked.

"I think… you… should… do them all." She said in unnecessary breaks.

He groaned and smacked his head onto the table with a resounding thud.
"Ok, ok… I'll better start organising this as part of the main course, and then get something more subtle for entrees. You wanna start on desserts?" He asked.

But of course, Pinkie seemed to be absolutely enthusiastic about it, she actually had stars in her eyes which seemed to blind Jordan for a moment and also make him wonder how in the fuck she even managed that. The pink ball bounded over to the kitchen fridge and particle replicator, Jordan stopped her before she did anything.

"Pinkie please for the love of the base camp and the marines, do not start randomly digging through the kitchen menus on desserts and begin making all of them, I'm very strict about what I serve at one time." Jordan warned her.

Jordan was a fighter a joker, but that was when the time was available, not in his kitchen though. She nodded and Jordan let her go, he turned about to get the kitchen stoves and ovens ready, not to mention begin calling up all the chefs. He hoped that leaving Pinkie in charge of something small wouldn't present a problem for the kitchen; of course he might have wanted to take a safer choice and assign Pinkie as a waiter rather than a part of the cooks. But too late for regrets, he began to ring the bell for kitchen staff.

XXXXX

Meanwhile back in town, Jake was probably going to hang himself if he had to fill out another form, the requisition papers for new synthetic gel used in the combat suits and uniforms would be a literal nightmare for him once he got back to UCAF space. Rarity had come along and taken about 5 litres of the stuff back with her to her shop. Of course he couldn't really stop her; Jace had come along with a requisition form for the unicorn who asked Miguel.

He just hoped it was worth the paper work he was about to get, also because civilians, not to mention non-human getting access to it wasn't exactly in the manual, so he'd be in a bit of trouble when he got back to the alliance and had to fill out a full report. At least he wasn't medical officer Vinters or Dolan, being in their shoes was much harder, considering they had to report on all injuries and KIA and such, but they at least had cybernetic upgrades to help.

Nearby he heard the faint sound of snoring and grumbled to himself, that damn magician who had been bunkered with his convoy was still here after the past 2 days now and the command staff hadn't managed to move her off to some other place. Trixie as she called herself wasn't a bad person, he admitted that, problem was, she was a lousy guest.

He had a feeling this was going to be a very long night.

XXXXX

Jace was about to kick himself, when he was recalled to help organise the Equestrian volunteers he never expected that organising them would be so difficult, a few of these beings hadn't encountered actual military so he had to admit they had their reasons. But still he was getting annoyed with the few who seemed to have a problem with following orders.

Braeburn had been a fairly easy squad leader to be with, it was just his method of commanding over the others was a small problem. Jace had been getting them into the habit of early drills and introduction of weapons and gear. He had revealed them what they had at their disposal, however there were some concerns.

The use of combat armour the UCAF use they had equipped the Equines was rather insufficient, there was some talk about rearming them with better gear, UNSC marines in charge of training agreed to have upgrades for the Equestrians. The UCAF was planning on releasing better suits; of course making them was the problem, and making them effective for certain classes.

The other issues were the idea for making suits for pegasi and unicorns; however suits for magic users haven't been discovered. There was still the fact that pegasi would need to get suits for agile and versatile bodies, also Rainbow Dash has been petitioning for the new suits, the problem was the suits that RD had been asking for were made from nano-weaved plates turned into a full suit.

The skin suit that RD was asking for though was advanced, more than the heavy plated layered suits, the energised suits were also being considered for use, but it was uncertain if the UCAF would want to begin mass distribution of the armour. Colonel Jackson decided that it was for the best that the Equestrians were equally well armed.

At the moment the colonel was running it by Captain Cutter, the captain had some reservations over allowing the Equestrians access to some equipment the UNSC had at its disposal, but he was able to help deploy his own forces to supplement the UCAFs lack of troops at planned base locations. There were fire bases and easy set up defences between there and Canterlot.

As the horizon settled over the world it was time for people to enjoy the solace of the night, ponies were heading off to get dinner and others were getting some early sleep, in Ponyville a number of ponies both who had been recruited and otherwise were off to the mess hall which had been set up by the UCAF chefs. It was a public place due to the UCAFs policy on cultural exchanges.

XXXXX

Twilight hadn't exactly been someone who used to like going off to meet many people, but then she came to Ponyville and met her friends, Rarity to Pinkie Pie, they all were her friends, and the odd encounter with other ponies and the ponies she knew on a daily basis. But when she got to the mess hall she suddenly found herself amongst a sea of people she had never seen in her life.

It seemed the UCAF had decided to invite half of Manehatten into the mess hall; the place was packed tight enough that they were nearly elbow to elbow, between all the shoving and pushing it seemed everything was organised, whole rows of tables and chairs aligned and people getting their food and quickly returning to their tables.

She spotted a place where the humans were getting their food; it was separated due to their omnivorous diet, ponies around her who saw the meats the humans were picking out and cutting up seemed to look uneasily at the sight. Twilight admitted that the food wasn't exactly preferred in pony diets but still the humans needed it, at least no one got into arguments over their food.

It wasn't until she was half way down the line she looked over again and noticed something rather odd; Rainbow Dash was with the humans on their line along with a dozen or so other pegasi who had strips of meat on their plates and such. Rainbow noticed her and waved over to her. Twilight waved back and shouted.
"Rainbow, why did you get meat?"

The Pegasus took a moment to reply with a rather straightforward answer.
"It tastes pretty good, and something about getting used to their diet." She replied with a shrug.

Twilight gave her an unamused look before continuing on down the line, she couldn't honestly imagine why in Equestria the Pegasus wanted to even consider eating meat. Twilight had Miguel's memories of food that the human had in his life time, surprisingly all the food he had was mostly protein bars and pastes and such, on certain occasions he had actual solid food.

She recalled everything he had eaten which wasn't much; he had hunted a few animals in his time in wilderness of some alien worlds she couldn't really name, but it seemed relatively safe to assume that it was safe to eat for him. She spent a bit longer reminiscing memories that weren't hers, it wasn't until she reached her turn in the line she noticed a vast array of tables in front of her, all of them had different servings of food, and varying smells.

She could see each table marked out by a symbol above them, one with a green leaf shaped into a circular pattern, blue with a fish, red with a steak, and so forth. The whole area was filled with ponies going over the green section and yellow where fruits were placed, and a few had gone to the other tables, she noted most of those who were at red were going over human cuisines.

She then saw AJ who was with a group of earth ponies from Appleloosa; Braeburn was with them and not to mention half a dozen humans, as they selected something to eat AJ was picking over something chunky. Twilight felt a slight jerk as the metal gate opened for her, she nearly stumbled through it and found herself in the midst of the diners.

She decided to go grab something from the seafood table, she wasn't sure if she would like to eat the normal foods she had every other day, but seafood was good. She made it over to the nearest table and before she made it through getting one plate of seafood, a loud crash followed nearby.

She whipped about to see a human soldier, he was a UNSC marine who had gotten a large tray of food but had lost half the contents on himself and the floor. Nearby, there was a very pleased looking rabbit tapped his foot and had a carrot in other paw nibbling away. The marine was about to go chasing the rabbit but before he could she nearly knocked aside from a yellow blur.

She heard a very familiar voice cry out.
"Angel! Oh there you are."

Twilight looked around to see Fluttershy holding her 'dear' bunny in her arms, that didn't resolve the fact that the human marine was still rather annoyed.
"Hey lady, how about you take your pet outside of the damn mess hall. Or I swear I'll do it myself in a moment." The marine fumed.

"But Angel didn't mean it, did you Angel?" She asked the bunny who looked unamused, but shook his head.

"Oh right the damn fucking bunny can understand that?" The marine shouted hysterically with satire annoyance. He got closer to Fluttershy who shied away as he pointed at finger at her.
"Get your bunny out of her now lady."

Twilight, was about intervene when she saw the noticeable figure of Miguel appear behind the marine. "Is there a problem here?" Miguel asked startling the marine.

The soldier turned to face the helldiver.
"What's it to you?"

"Everything marine, your conduct is unbecoming of a marine of your stature." Miguel replied.

The marine didn't take the criticism very well. "Is that so?" The marine said. The marine stood there for a moment and then attempted to sucker punch Miguel. However the major was expecting the response and reacted accordingly, he grabbed the marine's arm and then twisted and lifted the man.

The marine was slung into the nearby stand of fruits where he smashed through the produce at speeds that would make a wonderbolt cry. The marine landed on his back covered in fruit juice and pulp, and now sporting a dislocated arm. Miguel added duly.
"Now you're in violation of your uniform code."

The nearby UCAF marines whistled at the sight, a medic and a few UNSC marines arrived to pick up the injured marine. Jordan stepped in and said.
"Oh for fucks sake you better not have started another fruit fight." He stated as he saw the mess.

"Sorry Jordan, just some hot head." Miguel replied.

Jordan shrugged.
"Clean up on aisle 4." He shouted to a small team of cleaners who appeared and began picking up the mess.

Twilight decided to catch up with Miguel who was helping Fluttershy up.
"You should keep your pets clear of the marines and military personnel; they're rather tense at the moment." He said to her.

Fluttershy nodded and replied.
"Thank you Mr Miguel."

He turned away as Twilight arrived and Fluttershy greeted her.
"Oh Twilight, I'm alright." She said as the unicorn was looking her over.

"Good to hear, you should probably take a seat with Rarity and Pinkie once they get here. Applejack and Rainbow are both testing out the human cuisines over there." She pointed where UCAF personnel were sitting. "I'd advise not going over there, but you can if you feel unsafe." Twilight suggested.

"Thank you Twilight, I probably should." She said before getting a plate of something before walking off with Angel on her shoulder.

Miguel was still there when she turned to face him.
"Thanks for looking after Fluttershy." She said gratefully.

He replied.
"The marine's attitude was out of line. She needed help, besides if I recall you care for her. You care for all of them, don't you?"

Twilight admitted.
"Yes, I care for all of them, I care for how they are, I just hope Fluttershy doesn't get traumatized from the experience she isn't one to face that kind of confrontation. She's one of the few close friends I have; actually she's more like one of the few I really understand."

"You remind me too much of her…" He mumbled as he walked off.

She perplexed wondering what he meant by what he said. But before she could catch up, he was surrounded by a squad of marines who were in his unit; he seemed to be quite familiar with all of them. Twilight realised that he had close friends as well; but she wasn't sure though about what he meant about who she reminded him about.

She grabbed a serving of vegetables with her seafood before proceeding to find a table to sit at, she located one where most of her friends had gathered, AJ, RD, and FS had picked the one table where most of the UCAF were sitting at. As she got over to them, they all noticed a group of marines who were clustered around someone, as they reached them; they saw it was Rarity surrounded by some well-dressed marines.

"Hello darlings…" She said as she pulled out a chair to sit at.

"Rarity what's with all grey and white?" AJ asked.

The marines with Rarity had rather different suits on now, from the original grey and black fatigues which were body strap sealed, they had zippers and gold studded buttons in place, it was hopefully only decorative features rather than actually replacing all of the woven connectors in their uniforms that hold it together when in active use.

Rarity explained.
"It's my gift to all these boys; they seemed to like it quite a lot." She happily stated. "The uniforms aren't as constricting and also are granted flexibility thanks to that gel they used, reflexive and comfortable, quite a useful combination in my opinion." She gestured to the UCAF marine sitting next to her who's uniform seemed to remain relatively unrumpled.

"Great to hear, how's this going to help with the war?" AJ asked.

"It'll help raise morale besides it wouldn't hurt to get something a bit more form fitting in right?" Rarity replied.

It was true in some sense, Twilight decided to inquire. "Do you intend to design formal wear mostly for the humans?"

Rarity paused a moment in thought before replying.
"I feel comfortable with it; I think they're in dire need of a makeover in my honest opinion."

"Don't expand that into pony ranks to Rarity." Rainbow added.

Twilight nodded and then asked the others.
"How was training today?"

AJ and RD looked at each other and scratched their heads. AJ went first.
"Well, it was good for a while…" RD added. "And then it went downhill from there."

"Huh?" Twilight looked at them quizzically.

AJ smiled sheepishly.
"Well look at it this way, Jace wasn't there so he didn't go kicking a fuel drum when he saw the havoc that followed right after we got into the barracks."

"Or when Snowflake accidently tipped a whole barrel of ice cold water on the sergeant's head when he screamed out, 'YEAH'." RD finished.

"How didn't we hear about this?" Rarity asked the marines at the table.

They looked at each other and shrugged but not before one with a black cap said.
"Probably because of Jackson's rule of embarrassment, he said no one should allow incompetence to show especially with the creation of a new division. We had some trouble when we started out, but whoa you girls and guys here know how to make a POG look good."

"POG?" Twilight said in confusion.

"People other than grunts, mostly civilians given uniforms and sent to do menial tasks, of course they weren't allowed in the frontlines aside from driving in new supplies and such, they rarely see front line combat. And trust me on this, your newly founded troop better get up to the Colonel's standards he expects things to be sorted soon." The marine said before digging back into his meal.

"He's right you know." Jace said as he arrived at their side of the table.

RD saluted him which made the others stare at her in confusion before she relaxed.
"No one salutes outside of full uniform RD or for that matter you don't do it here, do it when we're in the public limelight or when were on a ship. For the moment you have no need for formalities." Jace explained.

RD nodded.
"Sorry the sergeant kept emphasising the point with a shove when we forgot."

"No problem, but don't worry about Keller, he's been a hard ass since day one about grooming and formalities, don't let him get to you, he was a drill instructor on the Avidian front for about 4 years when they drafted him here. He's stuck in our sides like a thorn and the colonel only keeps him around because command doesn't want to send him some place he might fuck something up." Jace explained.

AJ sighed.
"Good to hear. So does his temper usually show?" She asked.

"Usually, it's best to ignore it, poor bastard hasn't gotten much love from his superiors in the past few years and so he's been trying to prove he could be a good instructor so they'd send him back to his old post. So far he's proven incapable." Jace replied while stirring his drink.

Twilight listened to the conversation intently between her friends who joined the infantry and what Jace was explaining. It lasted half way through their meals before RD asked.
"Any idea on what's going on with our new armour?"

Jace looked at her before leaning in.
"The armour's still in testing phase, the colonel's unsure about just making the suits, he's fine with Equestrians lasting longer in a fight, but there's a lot that can go wrong with making mass produced combat suits and leaving them in the hands of beings we've known for a short time."

"So we're not going to get new armour out?" RD asked.

"At the moment, no, but that doesn't mean there hasn't been some effort to make the suits. At the moment the colonel's been with Jake thinking if the production of some variation of our suits would be better for infantry. MK III Path Finder armour is being considered." Jace replied as he pulled a pad.

Jace hit a few buttons on his personal pad which emitted a short holographic image of a suit; it had the image of a figure encased in an armoured suit with helmet which possessed red visor and gas mask. There was also a green trench coat with worn dark pants, a pair of black boots and that was all part of the suit. It seemed quite sturdy.

"This is going to be the new armour of the infantry, I hope you get used to it, it's going to be yours hopefully in the next few days, it has infrared goggles with enhanced night vision, the breather can hold up to 10 minutes of oxygen, there should be an attached tank to it but that's only for actual riots. There are a few locations where it's not as protected, which will be supplemented by gel layers." He said as he finished going through the specs.

AJ whistled. "So it's going to be ours for the war against the covenant?" She asked.

"Yes, as for your Pegasus counterparts, we have no idea, the suits we gave are the only ones light enough to wear without having to strip down all the ceramic plates and titanium layers, we've been planning for a much lighter suit, but that's still up for debate, you're going to have to wait." He shrugged.

RD sighed. "Well I'm good with flying quickly, besides armour hold us down."

"Yeah, but it also stops covenant snipers from picking you out of the skies with impunity." A voice cut in.

Spitfire hobbled in on a bandaged leg and wing along with her there was Thunderlane supporting her.
"I see you're going over our new equipment." Spitfire said.

"Yeah, well it's not completed as of yet, and there have been plans for unicorn based magical armour, though that's just in theoretical stage if our good doctor…" Jace motioned over to the UNSC table where Dr Anders was sitting by herself with a bowl of stir fry and a cup of tea. "…Gets through it soon."

"Good, I'd rather not be left in the hospital longer than a few days next time." She replied as she sat down.

"Hey when do we get to see more action?" RD asked.

"Once you can get yourselves organised and you've done the basics we'll let you provide aerial support, after which you can do some more tricky missions. But then again the war might end in less than a month if the covenant is bottled down and we get to pressing them." Jace explained.

"Don't doubt Vesdarea, he's a lot more cunning than he seems. He's merely bidding his time." Zaro said as he appeared from behind Jace.

"Damn it man don't do that, you know you aren't supposed to be using your cloak here." Jace snipped at the elite.

"Nervous human?" He asked with an unamused look.

"No just habit, usually when someone phases back into reality it tends to end up with someone either getting stabbed in the back or someone's neck being snapped or both." Jace replied.

The elite shrugged and replied.
"Fair enough."

Zaro pushed in between Jace and another marine and took a seat.
"So where's our technical force gone?"

Twilight asked. "You mean the Dragoons?"

"Someone call our names?" A voice interjected.

They looked around to see 4 members of the dragoons there.
"How's it going?" Elson said as he got his team sitting on the other side of their table.

"Not much, we've just been discussing the current situation with our newest members, not to mention how the war is going to play out, I mean with all this activity I'm pretty sure the covenant force that Vesdarea has sitting up in his command ship are going stir crazy with waging a war with us soon enough." Jace replied in a thoughtful tone.

"Doubt it, the covenant aren't going to make a move unless to engage us on their borders, at the moment our kill teams should be gathering detailed maps of their positions, soon enough we can go ahead and begin hitting them before they can organise their army and launch a full scale spearhead into Equestrian territory." Elson added.

"And what if they attack now?" A deeper voice inquired.

They turned to see the major; Miguel had his team now sitting nearby with himself standing behind Twilight. Jace replied. "Well then we're all being deployed if they attack now, the attack would have to be countered immediately there's no hesitation about that, but why attack now?" Jace said quizzically.

"The covenant has a history of being ecstatic, Vesdarea is a no different, he'd go around killing his own officers at times and ordering his men to his death, but not now, it seems he's gone quiet. It is quite opposite of his usual behaviour." Zaro pointed out.

"It's true, either he's completely gone and changed his approach at fighting us, or he's talking to himself." Jace added.

"So where does this put us?" RD asked.

"In the biggest fucking mess you can imagine, an army of covvies right over the hill with an insane, paranoid commander who has mood swings every hour, he could be raging over the fact that he hasn't attacked or he could be consoling himself with the fact there's some target opportunity that's just waiting around the corner." Jace replied with a grim smile before downing the contents of a flask he kept hidden.

"Whatever the case may be we're going full swing on his ass as soon as he attempts to breach the defensive perimeter we've put up." Elson said confidently.

"That's good and all, but who said he's going to bother engaging the defensive formation we've built?" Matthis from Echo squad replied.

It was then the doors to the mess hall burst open with a panic stricken Young Blood marine shouting out.
"Helldiver's we've got a situation!" He barked as he stopped. "The covenant have launched a sneak attack on the Equestrian capital as of 19:15, they're attacking Canterlot!"

XXXXX

AN: Done

Finally got this damn thing completed and also I don't know what's going on with chapter names.

Next up! The battle for Canterlot!

And I am still accepting MLP OCs

Remember the story is Anthro based.

There are a lot of other things happening pretty soon, and also the next few segments are going to be big!

Also:

This is the armour i was going to equip for the Equestrians and yes i commissioned this personally 1 month ago if anyone was wondering. Artist: Avante92