Chapter 7: Q and A
August 5, 2558
0927 hours (five minutes earlier)
Ponyville
The Golden Oaks Library
The marines of Fireteam Icebreaker were standing around inside the library, answering Twilight Sparkle`s various questions while she wrote down their responses on a levitating sheet of paper with a levitating quill.
“So, how many colonies does humanity own?” asked the lavender alicorn, jotting down the last response. “And as a follow-up question, on which colony were each of you born on?”
“My, my,” said Corporal Marcus Williams. “For a princess, you are quite curious.”
“And apparently you like to read,” said Private Eugene Phillips, seemingly mesmerized by all the shelves of books in the room. “A lot.”
“Thank you both for stating the obvious,” said Sergeant Alex Thompson sarcastically.
“As of now, I believe the UNSC owns well over a hundred colony worlds,” said Gunnery Sergeant David Alvarez. “Ironically, none of us were born on a colony. We were all born on our home world, called Earth. Alex, Eugene, and I were all born in a country called the United States of America, USA, or US for short. Jenkins was born in a country just north of the US, called Canada. Marcus over there was born in a country called England.”
“And I was born in Australia,” said Private Oscar Morgan. “`s why all my mates call me Sidney.”
“Yeah, uh, the capital of Australia is called Sydney,” gunny explained. “Since it can also be a name, we thought that it`d only be fitting to call him that.”
“Which leads me to my next question,” said Twilight. “Why did you all give each other such peculiar nicknames in the first place?”
“It`s partially because we`ve become such good friends with each other, brothers almost,” said gunny. “I'm sure your friends have given you at least one nickname.”
Twilight thought about this and realized that her friends had given her, as well as each other, nicknames.
“Yeah, my friends sometimes call me Twi,” said Twilight.
“See? That`s what I mean,” said gunny. “Although, I'm pretty sure it`s mostly because when we`re in combat, a short nickname can help us call on each other quickly.”
“Combat, huh? Interesting,” said Twilight as she scribbled more notes on her paper. “Very interesting.”
“I have a question,” said Spike who, up until now, had been completely silent. “How do we know that we can trust you?”
“My god,” said Alex. “Does everything on this planet speak English?”
“You mean Equestrian,” said Spike.
“Oh, whatever you call it.”
Suddenly, David brought his hand up to his helmet communicator.
“Yes sir…” he said as he stepped away from the group and began pacing the floor. All eyes were silently fixated on him. “…You mean her tree?... Then yeah, we`re still here, sir…Yes sir, I'll tell them, sir…Yes sir, I'll ask her, sir…Yes sir…Aye, aye, sir.”
“Who was it?” asked Private First Class Ogden Jenkins.
“The Captain,” gunny answered. “He`s on his way here with the other princess. Turns out, the artifacts are here in this tre- er, I mean, house, and Twilight here knows where they`re at.”
“Artifacts?” said Twilight.
“Yeah, he said to ask you where they are and what they look like.”
“Oh! You must be talking about the Elements of Harmony.”
“Elements of Harmony?” said gunny.
“Yeah, they`re right over there.”
Twilight pointed a hoof across the room to a glass case containing five necklaces and a tiara. They were all seemingly made out of gold and each had its own unique symbol.
“*whistle*Damn,” said Private Eugene Phillips as he walked over to them. “How much did these babies cost?”
He began to reach out to touch the glass casing before gunny added, “And, Shifty, Captain Laskey also made it very clear to not touch the artifacts until he arrives with the princess. Am I clear?”
“Yessir,” said Shifty, quickly pulling his hand away and sheepishly placing it behind his head.
“Good.”
Suddenly, a frantic knocking was heard at the door.
“That might be the Captain,” said Jenkins as he began walking up to the door. “I'll get it.”
However, as the Private First Class opened the scarlet red, wooden door, the sight that greeted him was not that of the Infinity`s Captain, but of the stunned faces of five more ponies.
The cyan one with rainbow-colored mane suddenly tackled him onto his back.
“I've got the alien!” she exclaimed as she pinned Ogden to the floor with her hooves on his forearms. “Get Twilight and go!”
Suddenly, Ogden quickly wrestled his right arm free, grabbed the hoof that held his left, lifted it, grabbed it with both hands, went under Rainbow`s armpit as he stood up on a knee, and forced Rainbow to the floor on her face, thus subduing her. He placed his left knee on her back for good measure.
“Rainbow, they`re not here to hurt us!” said Twilight.
“Oh, yeah? Well then how do you explain this?!” said Rainbow, referring to the awkward position that Ogden now held her in.
“Jenkins, stand down,” said gunny as he walked up to them and the other ponies that were filing in.
“Yes sir,” said the PFC, letting go of R.D.
As she stood back up, he said to her, “Sorry, but you really can’t expect me to not react to an assault like that.”
“Yeah, well…you just got lucky!” said an irritated Rainbow before trotting back over to her friends.
Then the orange-colored pony wearing a cowboy hat approached Ogden.
“Don’ mind her,” she said. “She just don’t ‘preciate bein’ embarrassed is all.”
“I didn’t want to embarrass her,” said Ogden. “I was just focused on subduing her.”
“You think she`ll see it the same way? Wha don’ you talk to her abat it later?”
Jenkins looked over at Rainbow Dash with a look of sorrow.
I hope the Captain doesn’t make me too busy, he thought. There were so many things he had done in his past that he wasn’t forgiven for, but this was the first time in a while that he wanted forgiveness. He couldn’t tell what it was, but there was something about this pony…
Suddenly, a familiar humming could be heard outside the library, followed by a knock at the door.
“Now that must be the Captain,” said gunny as he, once again, walked up to the door.
Upon opening the door he saw the Captain with the alicorn princess at his side.
“Sir,” said gunny, saluting his commanding officer before ushering them both in.
As Laskey walked inside gunny announced, “Marines! Captain on deck!”
All the marines of Fireteam Icebreaker saluted to their ship commander.
“At ease,” said Laskey.
When gunny had lowered his arm, he gave the princess a nod, “Your highness.”
“Alvarez?” said Laskey.
“Yes sir!” said David.
“Have you located the artifacts?”
“Right over there, sir,” said gunny, pointing to the glass case across the room. “Twilight called them the ‘Elements of Harmony’ sir.”
“Elements of Harmony?” said Laskey as he approached the six golden pieces of apparel.
“Yes,” said Celestia. “This is why we need your help, for within these artifacts lies the magical power to fix any problem too big to be solved on our own, such as unimaginable chaos, great evil, and even war.”
“If it can solve war,” said Laskey. “Then why do you need our help?”
“They can only do these things if close enough to the threat. I have considered this to be far too dangerous considering the Changeling`s ranged weaponry, technology that has never been seen before on this planet.”
The Captain thought for a moment before asking, “How are the Elements used exactly?”
“They are worn and powered by the living embodiments of the Elements themselves,” said the Alicorn Princess before gesturing with a hoof to the other six ponies in the room. “Which, as luck may have it, are the mares standing right before you.”
“So…do you want us to escort them to an area close enough to the changelings so that they can use the Elements?”
“No.”
“No?”
“It`s too risky. I have already seen what they have done to my own troops. If just one of the projectiles makes contact with bare skin, it will incinerate anypony down to their bare bones.”
“Wow, sounds like not even a Spartan escort would be enough.”
“Precisely. This is why we need humanity to fight the war that the changelings wanted Equestria to fight.”
“So you`re using us as cannon fodder?”
“I completely understand if you feel that this is mistreatment, and I wish that there was another way, but if you don’t, humanity will lose it`s only chance of achieving harmony.”
“And I also suppose that FLEETCOM wouldn’t be too happy about me allowing the destruction of not one, but six forerunner artifacts.”
“Exactly. So, either way, I really don’t think you have a choice.”
Laskey thought for a moment before saying, “You saw that humanity has faced this same genocidal threat before in the past, the only difference here is that you can`t defend yourself.”
He then looked the Sun Princess in the eye, “Your species doesn’t deserve that fate.”