Twilight was lying on a rather hot and hard type of ground, which was rather uncomfortable. As each of her senses came to her, sight last, she noticed different things. Taste; the air had an odd flavor to it, much like Sweet Apple Acres in the summer, but with a new scent she couldn't identify. Smell; there was the disgusting scent of burnt rubber, but was then overrun by the smell of grass and vegetation. Touch; as earlier, she was still lying on the uncomfortable ground. Hearing; at first, it was just a ring, then as that faded, she heard a peculiar sound; children playing. Sight; she snapped her eyes wide open, immediately regretting it because of the bright light of a sun.
As her eyes finally adjusted, she inspected her surroundings. She was standing atop an odd, flat, black, slab that was made up of many small rocks. To her right were some building with the number 119 on the side of the wall. As she was looking around, she spotted her friends, mentor, and the human, who was yet again in full body armor, making it impossible to read his expression.
"Princess Celestia! What's going on? Where are we?" Twilight yelled out to her mentor.
"Do not worry, my student. This is only part of the spell I cast on the human. We are viewing his memories when things actually start to get interesting; I decided to start at this point in his life, which is where it seemed to have begun." Celestia turned away from her student and continued talking, "Well then, let us continue with this memory shall we?"
They all looked to the Chief who should know his way around, but was instead standing there looking at a couple sitting at a table. The woman wore a broad hat and sundress and was checking her appearance in a small handheld mirror, which was turned towards he children playing a game of king of the hill. The man wore loose pants and a shirt and was standing ramrod straight; he looked incredibly uncomfortable and was talking to the woman. As the group neared, they could hear their conversation.
"Is that him?" The male whispered.
The woman looked up, towards the group of children playing on the hill. It was a rough game, with at least a dozen boys rough housing with each other. Twilight was rather shocked at how the boys fought and enjoyed it. She looked to her mentor, seeing the disapproval in her eyes.
The woman suddenly remarked, "King of the Hill." It was obviously what the human boys were playing. One boy, however, was taller than the rest by a head. He also had a small gap in between his front teeth. "That's our boy."
The man in the couple, who at this point they assumed was the Master Chief, began to speak, "He seems, um, very animated." Yet again, the two adults were proven true as the group looked over to the group of boys again.
The large boy was laughing as he tossed one of his class mates over his soldier. Suddenly, three boys ganged up on him; two grabbed his legs while the other wrapped his arms around the boys chest. The bundle of boys rolled down the hill, with the big one kicking and biting all the way. He broke away from the other boys, ran up the hill, pushed another boy off, and announced that he was now king.
"Yes," the woman said, "We may be able to use this one." The ponies had no idea what she was talking about, but the metal giant standing next to them seemed to have a pretty good idea of what was happening. Nopony bothered to ask since they somehow knew he would just stay silent. "Stay here and watch me, Lieutenant," she said, passing him the small rectangle that she had been holding, "I'm going to have a closer look."
The man was about to say something but the woman was already walking away. The man had a scowl on his face the group followed the woman. She halted about four meters from the base of the hill.
"You're in trouble," said one of the boys to the big one, pushing him forward. The boy pushed back and then turned to the woman, a defiant look in his eyes. He stood tall, while his friends and classmates backed away with embarrassed smirks on their faces.
"Can I speak with you please?" said the woman, still staring into the boy's eyes. He finally broke contact and trotted down the hill, ignoring the taunts from the others. She led him a little ways away from the hill and turned to him. "What's your name?" she asked.
"I'm John," said the young boy as he stuck out his right foreleg. It appeared to be a symbol of greeting, yet the woman still had a surprised look on her face. Then, she smiled and shook his hand.
"It's very nice to meet you," she said, getting down onto one of her joints on her back leg. "I wanted to ask you what you were doing?"
"Winning," he said.
While the other boys had backed away from her, scared that she would punish them, this one had stayed, obviously unafraid of what this older human could do to him. "You like games," she smiled, "so do I."
John sighed, "Yeah, but they made me play chess last week. That got boring. It's too easy to win."
Twilight was now both surprised and confused. How could these two different species that had never met before have the same strategic game? She looked to her mentor, seeking to ask her this but Celestia simply nodded her head back to the memory, so Twilight continued to watch as the boy spoke again.
"Or, can we play gravball? They don't let me play gravball anymore, but maybe if you tell them it's okay?" His pouting mood was quickly replaced with curiosity as the woman reached into her handbag.
"I have a different game I want you to try." She pulled out a small metal circle about a millimeter thick and held it up in front of the young boy's eyes. "Look. People used coins like this for currency a long time ago, when Earth was the only planet we lived on."
Poor Twilight was beginning to go into shock. How could these humans be so incredibly advanced? From what she had seen, they didn't use any obvious types of magic, yet they were still able to travel between stars! She decided to try and calm down and watch through the rest of the memory.
John looked at the small object in her fingers and reached out to grab it. The woman pulled it just out of reach of his little hands. "Each side is different. Do you see? One has the face of a man with long hair. The other side has a bird, called an eagle, and it's holding-"
At this point, John must have gotten impatient and finished the sentence for her, "Arrows." The woman got a look in her eyes that Twilight often had when she was analyzing an object.
"Yes, good. We'll use this coin in our game. If you win, you can keep it." John hesitantly tore his gaze away from the coin, and looked to her.
"Okay, I always win though. That's why they don't let me play gravball anymore." This young human seemed plenty arrogant enough and seemed to think he would always win.
"I'm sure you do."
"What's the game?"
"It's very simple. I toss the coin like this." She flicked her wrist, snapped her thumb, and the coin arced, spinning into the air, and landed in the sand. "Next time, though, before it lands, I want you to tell me if it will fall with the face of the man showing or with the eagle holding the arrows."
"Got it." John tensed, bent his knees, and then his eyes seemed to lose focus on her and the coin.
The woman picked up the quarter. "Ready?"
When the boy gave a slight nod, she tossed it into the air, making sure to get as much spin as possible into it. His eyes watched with that unfocused look in his eyes. It went up, and then down. Then his hand suddenly shot out and caught the coin in the air, yelling out "Eagle!" as he caught it.
Sure enough, when the woman pried open his hand, the eagle lay face up, glinting in the afternoon light. John pull his hand back, a look of suspiciousness on his face, "I get to keep it, right? That's what you said."
The woman smiled and said, "Yes, you can keep it, John."
Suddenly, everything in the picture froze and began to dissolve as the memory ended. Celestia stepped forward and spoke to the entire group. "I am sorry that took so long, since it appeared to wield nothing too special, but I needed to pinpoint who he will be throughout each of these memories. He was the young boy who was bigger than the rest, wasn't he?" she said, turning to the Master Chief.
When he merely nodded in response, Celestia turned to the rest of the group. "Now that we know who we're watching, the rest of it will go quite quickly. These memories will appear in flashes, but we will know everything that's happening behind them." And so, the rest of the memories came flooding in, in flashes of images.
As the group stood there, they watched a group of about seventy-five children, John included, being led into a very large auditorium, the same woman as from the previous memory standing on the stage at the front of the room. "You will become the best we can make of you." These children had been kidnapped and inducted into a military experiment to crush human rebellion before it overthrew the government and chaos would ensue. How was this fair? They had no right to kidnap these children! Twilight began to feel anger build up but pushed it down; there would be more to come.
John began his run along a gravel path, over a bridge and past some cinderblock structures. He was with the other children and they were all exhausted, but they were given no rest stops until the came to a courtyard with a flag on a pole in the center. A woman that seemed both real and fake, young and old, was walking down the steps. "My name is Déjà and I will be your teacher. Please come in; class is about to start." Twilight was still mad about the treatment of the children, but was curious as to what this woman would be teaching them.
The memory flashed forward, showing the children sitting in a dark room around a holographic landscape. Upon further investigation, the hologram sported a small battlefield. The woman explained about warriors called Spartans. They were the elite, and could never be beaten.
Now, the group stood in a room about the size of a hoofball field. There was a small skirmish going at a bunker in the center of the room. John was now much older, at least fourteen now, and much stronger too now, as he ripped a metal contraption off of the arm of a mech suit. The chemical augmentations they had gone through had obviously been successful; their bones were nearly indestructible, they could practically see in the dark, they could run three times faster than any other human being, their strength was now ten times that of before, and they were now almost three meters tall.
The memory flashed again, leaving them in a an even bigger space; easily able to hold a city. Suddenly, large metal doors on the side of the room exploded, forming a hold into outer space. They spotted the group running into a drop ship with a large metal box. The rear door closed and they flew off.
John was in another underground cavern, however this time, he was being suited with a set of armor similar to that of what he was wearing now. When it was on, he went through a large obstacle course, treading through barbed wire like it was wet paper and punching holes in concrete dummies.
There were now three of the humans, one of them John, and the other two his friends and comrades. One of them had a giant hole in his armor. "You've got to leave me.," said the one with hole softly to the other two. They were standing in a purple room, not unlike that of the structure they had been staying in the previous night.
John and the female Spartan were now floating through space as they watched the ship explode into a ball of blue flames, taking the other Spartan with it. This was the beginning of the Human-Covenant war, and the humans would fight with everything they had, just to survive.
Suddenly, they were on a completely different planet than the ones from before. There was smoke in the distance and giant purple vessels that were two kilometers long flying through the skies. Human civilians, at least half the size of the Spartan, were running through crowded streets in mass panic. The vessels in the sky however, began to ascend to greater heights. The humans paused in confusion; were the Covenant running away? They were soon answered by bright blue orb of light, so high in the atmosphere that it had to be in orbit. Just the light shot down, the group zoomed out into space next to a pelican that was holding the Master Chief. They had each felt the heat of that beam and knew it was plasma, which was coming from a ship at least nine times larger than those they had seen on the surface.
Fluttershy began to have a breakdown and burst into tears while the others stood there in shock. Who could do something like that? Commit genocide on an entire species? They looked to Master Chief with pity in their eyes. However, they did not know his entire part in this yet.
The years flashed by, showing almost nothing but scenes of combat. In each of these, they could see John and others in identical suits of armor fighting back against the Covenant; they were the one thing that could always beat the Covenant on the ground. They watched as he mercilessly slaughtered thousands of grunts, jackals, and elites. This was no normal human. In fact, this was what a human could become if you took the best and brightest and pumped them full of drugs and training to be the ultimate killing machine.
The speed of the memories slowed to normal speed as they him standing in a room speaking with an aging man who held a pipe in his hand. With a sudden revelation, the group realized that it was the man who had first observed John with the woman many years ago. Since it was so quick, they caught the man saying something about a "Cole Protocol" which followed with John taking a small rectangle out of a podium to his right. It was odd, since there was a small woman who had no physical body, much like Déjà. She had multiple colors going between green and blue.
The next five days passed in less than five seconds. John landed on a strange ring shaped world, later discovering that they might be able to use it as a weapon against the Covenant. Then he was standing in a room, watching the feed from an abandoned helmet.
He dropped the helmet and shot upwards to a standing position, swinging his weapon around as he checked for enemies. What could have gotten him so alert and worried. There was the sound of bending metal as one of the doors on the side of room burst open, revealing small popcorn-like things; the Flood. As John fought through several waves of the tiny abominations, new horrors joined the fight. Bipedals that used to be humans and elites were now so disfigured they were a new species altogether. There were giant holes in their chest, claws made of bones sticking out of arms with unnatural degrees, and their heads hung at about waist level.
Celestia stumbled away from the rest of the group and vomited her supper onto the ground, with the others soon following suit, excluding Master Chief. How could he be so unaffected? He had experienced this first-hand. When they were all finished they turned back to look into what part of the memory they were at now.
Just a couple of images of a silver orb with a blue eye named 343 Guilty Spark speaking with John, them retrieving the index, John grabbing Cortana and defeating the sentinels, then flying away in a Longsword fighter with the Halo ring breaking into pieces as a miniature sun appeared on its surface.
Wanting the horrors to end, Celestia began to fast forward through the last few memories. John, Sergeant Johnson, and Miranda Keyes being awarded, the same trio following a giant Covenant ship through a portal, finding another Halo, and then Master Chief returning to Earth on a Forerunner ship.
The group flashed to the ground where John was speaking with Johnson, telling him he was ready to go. The rest was over quickly, going through the Spartan liberating Voi, destroying the Flood infested ship, following the same Forerunner ship through another portal, Miranda being shot in the back, a Halo rising out of the water, Cortana being retrieved out of the Flood hive, Johnson being lazered by Guilty Spark, the Halo being activated, and ending with John going into cryo in the back half of the Forward Unto Dawn.
The group watched with rapt attention, as Cortana woke John up, both of them then escaping from the ship, flying over Ponyville in the process. When they witnessed his fight with the Timberwolves, it only drove home how dangerous he was. The last scene was of him destroying the Hunter, defeating the rest in battle, Celestia's magic bolt, and leaving them standing in the white space between memories.
The ponies were in terrible shape. Fluttershy appeared to be in a coma. Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack all sat there in shock. Pinkie Pie was no longer; replaced by Pinkamena Diane Pie for now. Luna stood there watching the Master Chief with a mix of fear, pity, and anger in her eyes. And lastly, Twilight and Celestia were talking about what to do with this dangerous creature.
After several minutes of talking, Celestia stepped towards John while Twilight used her magic to keep him from moving. "Master Chief, or John as is your name, I have decided that you are too dangerous to let live at all. I have spoken with my student and she agrees with me. Just be thankful that you will no longer have to suffer through any more battle. None of the other ponies made a move to stop her because they were still in shock. Celestia's horn began to glow a brilliant gold once more and Luna was about to object when the most unexpected thing happened; the magic around Celestia's horn flickered and a golden light ran like water out through her horn.
The white space flickered as well for a moment, but then went back to normal. The entire group including Master Chief were confused for a few seconds as Celestia's magic residue flowed towards a new figure approaching. When they were within sight, the group saw that it was Cortana, flickering between hues of red and blue; and she looked pissed.
"How dare you make assumptions! You may have seen his memories, but you were never able to read his thoughts!" Cortana grew to about twice her size as she absorbed Celestia's magic. She was only able to do so because they were technically still inside the Master Chief's mind. As she grew, a golden haze gathered around her right hand, quickly brightening. "You. Make. Me. SICK!" She screamed this as she rose her hand and shot forward, gripping Celestia's horn. Then, a familiar blackness took over everypony's mind, and they all sank into more memories.
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Author's note:
I'll admit it. I hated writing this chapter. However, it needed to be done for those who only needed the quickish synopsis. If you want a much more detailed description of all these events, go to youtube or read the books. Anyways, I can't wait to get these memories out of the way. I have so much planned for this story but these memory chapters are an obstacle. Oh well, the next chapter will probably be shorter and easier to write. Until then, enjoy. :)
~We are the Meta