//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Freedom to Squeak // Story: Halo Derpy Grunts of Equestria // by Grazy Polomare //------------------------------// Fliyap was in a dream. He saw his home planet Baholo. There was fire and chaos as the planet was invaded. It was being glassed. Flipyap stirred, his gut suddenly tense. It was a Covenant cruiser glassing his home world. There were no humans, just the Covenant. He woke with a startle to find himself in what may be to him a large demon settlement. A blanket had been keeping him warm. He had slept soundly with his armor on, for it had been a good many times where he had needed it on nighttime patrol. A delectable assortment of toast and cookies lay before him. In an opposite bed, sat his two grunt minors. He flung a piece of toast and watched as it marked Yapyap Jr.’s head. The grunt woke with a shout that made Yapflip flip out of his bed and onto the floor with a loud thump. There was a sound of clopping as someone came up the stairs. Yapflip looked up, his eyes revealing his emotions once more. This time though, it was a mix of bewilderment and fear. A yellow figure on four legs looked up at them, startled. Her hair was a bright blossom pink and its eyes were large and had teal-colored pupils in them. Her face showed gentleness and kindness, as if all the innocence of the world had been packed into one creature. Yapyap was the first to speak. “Who…who are you?” The yellow pony shuttered back, revealing a pair of yellow-feathered wings. “I…my…I…” the pony whimpered, and fled downstairs. “Uhhh,” Yapyap said,” what did I say?” Fluttershy locked the door and trotted towards Ponyville. When she had saved them from the manticore, she had thought she had saved a bunch of animals. However, they apparently could speak her language, with only their squeaky voices indicating that they were of another planet. Apparently, they were likely aliens. She was scared of aliens, although she never met any before. She began to think about the time that Twilight had helped her in taking care of some foreign animals that had fallen off a circus cart. Maybe Twilight knew a thing or two about aliens. Twilight was stacking books on her shelf when she heard a tentative knock at the door. Only one pony knocked that way. She hastened to open the door to see Fluttershy. “Why hello Fluttershy,’ Twilight cheerfully said, “I was worried when you ran towards that meteor shower. We were scared that you had gotten injured.” Fluttershy gave a small smile, and it seemed to make the day grow brighter and the trees stronger. Fluttershy had that sort of aura about her. “Well I wasn’t hurt, but a few of the creatures in the Everfree Forest were.” Fluttershy seemed to whisper,” I had to nurse this big manticore back to health because he was struck by one of those things. Good thing I did too because afterwards I found that he was trying to eat these weird little creatures.” “What kind of creatures?” Twilight asked in confusion. “Well I was thinking you could help me with that. I have never seen creatures like this before in the forest. They can also speak our language, which is even weirder if you know what I mean. I think they came in that shower and that they may be…aliens.” Twilight gave a laugh before saying, “Oh Fluttershy, everypony knows that there is no such things as aliens.” However Fluttershy answered back, “Well I think you should come and see for yourself…if you don’t mind.” Twilight had nothing else to do. Today was supposed to be organizing the agricultural books but she figured that she could have Spike do it for her. “Why not.” The purple unicorn and yellow pegasus walked up to the cheerful looking cottage. There, they entered silently, only to hear a commotion upstairs. Twilight could make out words she understood, although they were loud and squeaky. Maybe I was wrong Twilight thought. If these were indeed aliens, or at least something Equestria has never seen before, it would be all the same to message the Princess. Maybe she would know what to do. Upstairs, the grunts were arguing over what to do next. Flipyap and Yapyap wanted to run for it but Yapflip thought that the creature they had seen was rather nice and kind-looking. “Are you crazy?” Flipyap scolded his brother,” you have no idea what she could do to you.” “Well it can’t be anything worse then that big monster in the woods. What if we bump into another one?” remarked Yapflip,” That thing wanted to eat us, if this creatures wants to eat us, wouldn’t we have been eaten?” Yapyap admitted that Yapflip made a good point. That was when they heard the sound of clopping. The grunts froze, for their window of escape was now closed. Two creatures came up this time. The creature accompanying the first was purple and had a protrusion on its head. It also had no wings. Flipyap saw that the new creature had a bewildered look on its face. The grunt didn’t know how to respond to this but then she spoke. “Are you really…ummm…aliens?”, Twilight asked. Before anyone but Yapflip could blurt out a response, the grunt said, “Listen here four-legged demon, we are…” Yapyap gave Yapflip a look of disgust and cut short the grunt. “Hold on to your nipples Yapflip,” interjected Yapyap Jr., “I haven’t seen any demons like this before. We are aliens, now are you demons?” The unicorn took no time to think about her answer before answering. “No we aren’t demons. My name is Twilight Sparkle. As you know, this is my friend Fluttershy. We are ponies from Equestria. I myself come from the capital Canterlot and Princess Celestia is our leader.” The grunts were as confused as they knew little about ponies. From what they heard, a pony was something that the demons rode, but nowhere did it say that they were intelligent. “How do we know you aren’t a demon spy?” “Well what do you call a demon?” asked the unicorn. “Well where we come from, there are these big bad demons that try to kill us with their big guns. They ride things like you and so that makes you the enemy…I think.” Twilight gave a loud laugh before responding, “That’s just silly, no one rides a pony. We don’t know what humans are but believe me we are just as stumped as you are.” Flipyap was the first grunt to ask the question that was on everyone’s minds. “How can you speak the language of the Demons then?” “What?” Twilight asked, confused, “we aren’t speaking any language. We speak the Pony language. Its you who are speaking our language.” The grunt had a quizzical look on his face before he said, “Well, we learned how to speak Demon when the Covenant taught us.” “Ummm, if I may ask…” Fluttershy silently motioned, “what’s a Covenant?” Now the grunts knew that these ponies were not with the enemy. Fliyap had heard stories of grunt interrogations and knew that demons got straight to the point. If these were demons, they were rather dumb for questioning a grunt so low in ranking. The low ranking grunts never got any attention or were given access to relevant Covenant information. Probably the most Flipyap himself got was a few bits, but most of his initial training was how to use a gun. “Well the Covenant,” Yapyap Jr replied, “is the army we came from. You see, our race was sort of mashed in with these big, meanie giants and well we fight along these large things called elites. We have all these cool vehicles and weapons. However…” “If you want a real grunt’s opinion of the Covenant…” Yapflip interjected, “the elites are mean, the war sucks, we are the lowest of the low, and the food is the only yummy thing.” “Shut up you loud-mouth, do you want be killed by the leader?” hissed Yapyap. “Why would he be killed?’” asked Fluttershy. “He’s betraying the Covenant,” Flipyap replied, “Yapflip isn’t supposed to say bad things about the Covenant or the Great Journey. He can get into big trouble for saying…” “And just who is going to kill me?” the angry grunt uttered. “You don’t know if they will come looking for us.” Yapyap said. “And then what?” Yapflip sardonically remarked, “What if they don’t look for us. You saw the wreckage. No one was supposed to live through that. If they know anything about what happened to the vessel, you’d think they care? There isn’t anything to look for and they’re far too busy fighting their loony war while we grunts are all being put on the front lines as cannon fodder!” “Yapflip!” Flipyap’s voice rose, “don’t say that. At least we have guns.” “But we didn’t before the Grunt Rebellion!” his brother yelled back, “The Covenant gave us nothing until we fought back. Then they gave us weapons, but never our freedom. I heard that we didn’t even have a choice. We joined because we were scared?” “Regardless of choice,” Flipyap argued, “the Covenant keeps us safe from the Blue Death and the harsh winters. We would be killing each other for food if it wasn’t for them to save us. Let’s face it, we are better off with the Covenant.” “No we aren’t,” Yapflip spoke, “we are bullied and thrown into a war we don’t want to fight. I have kept quiet for too long but now for the first time ever, Flipyap, we don’t have the Covenant watching our backs while we talk. Remember our family? Our whole egg clutch, thrown in this big ugly war? I want to see our family Flipyap.” Flipyap saw the hatred and sadness that had been in his brother’s beady eyes speak out all at once. He had to agree with his brother. Yet there were some things that they did have now. “Remember Nipple Academy?” Yapflip asked. “You mean boot camp.” Flipyap quietly replied. “Yeah, but the only good part about it was the food nipples.” “What is…errr…Nipple Academy?” Twilight asked, a sound of embarrassment in her voice for obtruding on the grunt’s argument. “I remember.” Flipyap said.