Manehattan, Equestria, UNSC Fortress Iota
Rainbow Dash sat with her friends at entrance gate to the UNSC's recently established Fort Iota. They were waiting with four member's of Fireteam Majestic, who had been sent to escort her and her friends, along with Gunnar and Twilight. The fifth member, Majestic's leader DeMarco was inside the base after being called up to acquire a datapad containing details and a short briefing of a potential rescue op. Gunnar and Twilight had never arrived.....
Rainbow's mind was dominated by worry as she waited for the news from DeMarco. Her friends, both pony and Spartan, were visibly just as anxious. They almost jumped, even the Spartans, when the gate opened to let DeMarco out.
"BOSS!" Hoya yelled out, "What's the verdict?"
DeMarco let out a sigh before responding. "Their craft has been spotted crashed down south of Ghastly Gorge. Details are sketchy but it seems Gunnar, who was piloting at the time, was trying to use the Gorge as a means to shake off Covenant aircraft."
"Fuck...." Madsen muttered under his breath.
"Broadsword overflights and satellites confirm that there is indeed Covenant vehicle wreckage down there. Investigation teams found the wreckage of two Banshees a little bit after they arrived, and about an hour later, located the wreckage of a Seraph buried under the rubble of a rockslide at the south end of the Gorge. I suspect Gunnar tried some uncanny methods to knock the Covies off their tail. Most UNSC pilots wouldn't have the guts to try something like high speed evasion in a Gorge. The were also the fragments from what we now know was the engine of a non-Covenant craft, obviously Gunnar's Dropship....." he paused, knowing they wouldn't like the next part, but he mustered the courage to tell his friends the grim news, "The markings on the fragments indicate without a doubt that Covenant heavy plasma weaponry scored a hit on the friendly craft. There is wreckage and smoke to the south confirming that they went down, but there is some kind of interference preventing us from getting a clear reading in the area. We can't even pick up an IFF tag. Hours later, we picked up unusual energy signatures popping up sporadically around the crash site as if they stirred up some kind of hornets nest. Majestic.... you and I would recognized these signatures."
"We've seen these signatures before sir," Grant asked.
DeMarco nodded. "On Requiem."
"Prometheans!" Thorne realized.
"FUCK!!!!" Hoya exclaimed.
"No briefing was necessary, they gave all the details on these datapads," Paul said as he gave the datapads to the squad, "You know the music Majestic, its time for a rescue op."
"I'm coming too!" Rainbow piped up.
"You sure as heck ain't goin' without me neither," AJ spoke up.
"I had a feeling you'd wanna come," Paul smirked, and he tossed them individual briefing datapads. "Study up, you need to know the enemy and the mission. WHEELS UP IN THIRTY PONIES AND SPARTANS!!!!"
They went off to prepare. DeMarco stayed behind a moment and looked to Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie. "You three have been asked to hunker down in the fort here. It's clear now that the Covies are going to put up a real fight if the Didact's Hand is sending Prometheans. They likely have a larger, more replenished fleet now too. Hunker down, get safe, we'll be back soon."
The three ponies nodded in response, not sure what to say in their nervous and fearful state. DeMarco pointed them to a saferoom inside the main structure before heading to the Pelican to await his squad. Minutes later, the full squad had arrived, including Rainbow and AJ in their full armor, which had been sent to the Fort in case they needed it. They boarded the Pelican, determined to rescue their stranded friends before it was too late. The Pelican left ten minutes ahead of schedule.
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Northernmost edge of the San Palomino Desert, Equestria, Phoenix crash site.
Gunnar awoke with a start when he heard an alarm in the cockpit start going off. Sensors had survived the crash and something was tripping them. He got up, trying not to disturb Twilight. When she detected the loss of self security as he got up, she too awoke.
"G-Gunnar? What's going on?" Twilight asked with curious yet troubled look on her face after fully waking up.
Gunnar looked at the radar to check the position of the disturbance. He discovered that it was coming from the mesa about two kilometers south of the crash. He looked out cracked viewport to see what it was. Out there, in the distance, on the edge of the mesa facing the crash, was a large, somewhat disproportionate humanoid figure. It pointed at the crash before dissipating into a field of energy that shrunk, then blinked out of existence. He caught on just as it vanished. He knew what it was from the briefings with Majestic.
"Promethean Knights," he finally answered.
Twilight groaned in frustration, "Can't anything ever be easy for us?"
"War is never easy...."
"I suppose so...."
"Hey, if we survive this and get out of this conflict, we'll settle down okay?" Gunnar promised reassuringly.
"I.... o-okay.... I'd like that," Twilight said with a smile, albeit a nervous smile with what they were likely about to be fighting, but a smile all the same. She felt somewhat reassured with what he said and felt a higher resolve to fight harder in order to get just what he promised: a peaceful life with the one she loved.
Gunnar grabbed his armor and donned it in less than two minutes. He put on his helmet, which activated with the interaction. The HUD in the visor blinked into existence, initializing and coming online, then linked with his Phalanx Plasma DMR when he picked the weapon up. He would be ready for those Promethean bastards.