//------------------------------// // One Man Tank // Story: Noble Six // by InfinitySlayer //------------------------------// Noble Six held his ticked out of that basement in the palm of his hand. A small Covenant device called a Plasma Detonator would blow the Banshee he had fashioned into a bomb to smithereens. The section of castle he was standing in would be completely destroyed. And, obviously, a gaping hole would open his way into freedom. As he ran the plan through his mind, Noble Six thought it to be perfect. But in reality, though Noble Six would shield himself from the blast using Armor Lock, everything within a 300 foot radius would cease to exist. Was his escape worth hundreds of innocent lives? Noble Six corrected himself. Those lives were far from innocent. Noble Six looked behind him at the ponies he had incapacitated. After checking their vital signs, Noble Six found that, somehow, all of them managed to stay alive. The creatures with horns on their heads had somehow healed themselves with unknown power, but remained unconscious on the floor. The ponies that he had burned with plasma weren't so lucky. They were barely clinging to life as the remaining plasma evaporated out of their systems. Noble Six could do nothing for them, nor did he want to. He had finally won a battle. He didn't want to start another one. Noble Six looked down at the purple Plasma Detonator in his hand. He noticed the blue flashing button in the center, urging him to press it and be done with the entire problem. Though that button was the ticket to his freedom, the ramifications of pressing it would be irreversible. It didn't matter, Noble Six realized. He now considered the alien life forms on the planet to be against humanity. For all her cared, they may as well be The Covenant. Certainly, the small, colorful, somewhat adorable creatures were doing a better job keeping him detained than any other Covenant species had ever done. It was time to put an end to this, once and for all. Noble Six put his thumb on the flashing button. He hesitated. He was doing exactly what The Covenant would do. Those merciless alien life forms would push that button without a moment to lose. They wouldn't think of all the creatures the blast would murder. Noble Six wasn't a Covenant. But then again, the locals hadn't hesitated to engage him. Noble Six looked back at the wounded soldiers behind him. They were in agony. Noble Six knew how plasma felt when it melted through flesh and bone all to well. There was no worse pain he could describe. Noble Six suddenly remembered that he had a duty. It had been in the back of his head, in his dreams, since he had escaped Reach. He remembered what Noble Team had done for humanity. Noble Six had an obligation to them as long as he was alive. He had to fight for humanity, because there was no one left to fight for him. Humanity would go extinct if Noble Six did nothing to intervene. He still had a fight to fight, and it wasn't with these creatures. Although, Noble Six thought, these local aliens are still in my way. It was time to get back in the fight. Noble Six looked again at the flashing blue button of the Plasma Detonator. He had already set the timer of the bomb for two seconds, long enough for him to enter Armor Lock safely. He pushed the button without hesitation. Princess Celestia, like most alicorns and unicorns, could sense danger. Princess Celestia had been sensing danger ever since the monster had arrived at her castle. Most of the time, this sixth sense only kicked in when times of extreme peril were imminent. For the past few seconds, for some reason that Celestia couldn't identify, that danger sense was of the charts. Something of unbelievable destruction was about to destroy everything. Celestia could just feel it. Celestia had been anxiously waiting in her bedroom for her troops to finish the job. She had vaguely heard some type of weapon go off, and she hoped that it was her unicorn soldiers blasting the creature to pieces with their magic. It had been a few minutes since she had heard those shots. Celestia hoped that her loyal troops were still alive. It was around five in the morning, and Celestia realized that it was about time to raise the sun. Her faithful student and her companions were still fast asleep, Celestia didn't expect them to wake up for a long time. They had been through a level of trauma none of them had been through before. They needed time to rest and recover. Celestia wanted to do something about the creature herself. But, she realized that nothing she could do could stop the horrible monster. That creature had her in his grasp, on death point, just a few hours ago. If Celestia wanted to keep on living, the best thing she could do was avoid getting fried into dinner. However, that danger sense of hers was still growing fiercer by the second. Celestia had to find out why. Summoning all the magic she could possibly muster, Celestia began a Foresight spell. It was an extremely difficult spell, even for a perfectly healthy alicorn. But Celestia had no choice. Golden light shimmered and danced of Celestia's horn as she began the impossible spell. As her strength quickly waned, Celestia began to doubt she could complete the spell without frying herself again. But, she just before she was about to give up, the spell was complete, and Celestia saw what was causing that intense danger sense inside her. Through her vision, Celestia saw the creature standing in front of the odd ship it had crashed in. The craft had been built into something else, it looked even more dangerous than before. What terrified Celestia the most were her loyal soldiers,scattered around the floor, seemingly dead. Without warning, the strange ship erupted into a flash of blinding white light. For a few seconds, Celestia could see nothing but whiteness. Then, the light ceased, and she saw the horror of what it caused. A huge hole had been carved into her castle right where her underground basement would've been. Everything around her was blackened and crumbling, and most everything else was on fire. Ponies, her loyal subjects, were running around in circles, completely panicked. What startled her the most was the creature standing in the middle of the chaos, completely unfazed by what had just happened. As suddenly as the spell started, it ended in a flash. Celestia found herself back in her room, exactly where she had been before. Now she knew what was going to happen in the next few seconds. There was no time to lose. The spell she had just performed did the opposite of what she expected it to do. Instead of feeling drained, Celestia felt more powerful then she had that entire day. It was as if that spell revived the magic inside her. Summoning every single ounce of magic power within her, Celestia performed a Protection spell over herself, those in the room, and everypony else in all of Canterlot. The gigantic spell barely took anything out of her. Celestia felt like she could do anything. For the first time, Celestia felt like she could actually beat the beast, not just hold it of for a little while or keep it detained for a few minutes until it eventually escaped and killed a bunch of ponies, Quickly, Celestia, and every other pony in the entire mega-city were shrouded in an invincible golden shield of magic. The powerful magic shield only had one drawback, while shrouded in it's magic, the user was completely immobile. It looked to everypony in Canterlot like some golden glue suddenly stuck them to where they were standing, making them completely unable to move. In a blinding flash, what Celestia saw in her Foresight spell came to be true. For a few moments, Celestia saw nothing but white light. Then the light dissipated as swiftly as it came, and Celestia saw the same amount of destruction she had in her dream, only none of her loyal subjects were injured in the explosion. Of course, a huge gaping hole had been blown into her once beautiful castle. The remainder of the castle was not left unaffected, it was mostly on fire and chard, as were the surrounding buildings. Everypony in Canterlot would be panicking, only they were still encased in the Protection spell, only able to scream and run around in circles in their minds. A few seconds of gawking at the destruction later, Celestia released the Protection spell. She was confused by the sensation that then occurred. It was like she was... Celestia hit the hard, cracked ground like a sack of potatoes. She was completely unable to move for a few seconds, the wind knocked out of her. Gasping for air, Celestia slowly got up on her hooves. Her vision was blurry initially, but the pain in her eyes and head subsided quickly. As fast as she could, Celestia looked around her surroundings. She, and all six of her accompaniment, had fallen from her no longer existent bedroom into the crater the human had caused. The rest of the citizens of Canterlot, now free from the Protection spell, were panicking, aimlessly running around in circles, just as Celestia saw in her vision. Most terrifying of all, just about five feet in front of her, was Noble Six. The creature seemed to notice Celestia's hard landing, and turned around. In one of it's claws the creature held it's liquid fire weapon, in the other the shimmering sword of blue light. Both were directed towards Celestia. The creature looked...satisfied. Like it had finally got what it wanted all along. "If you interfere with me again, I will kill you. Do you understand me?" The creature did not look like it was kidding. At all. Celestia tried to reply, but all that came out of her mouth was a croaking groan. "I'll take that as a yes, for your sake." After saying this, the creature turned around, and started running for the gates of Canterlot. Again, Celestia was completely helpless. If the creature decided to kill all her subjects, there wasn't a thing she could do about it. Her six most loyal ponies behind her were far to injured to even get on there hooves, the fall did a lot more to them than to Celestia. There was obviously no way to use the Elements of Harmony. For the very first time in Equestria's history, there was absolutely nothing anypony could do. They were all at the will of the merciless creature known as Noble Six. Noble Six didn't stop sprinting after he started. The panic his explosion had caused was enough for him to run through the city undisturbed by any of the creatures around him. They were all to busy running aimlessly around in circles and screaming to even try to do anything about his presence. If anything, him passing by only caused more panic in the city. As long was the ponies were distracted, leaving the city would be an ease. Fortunately, Noble Six didn't have to wind down side streets to find the gates to the city. There was one long, wide road that lead straight to the end of the complex. A few minutes of running down this main street later, he found the large gates. They were decorative but practical, made out of a dark black metal that Noble Six couldn't quite identify. The only problem was, the gates were shut and bolted, and around thirty or so armed guards were preventing anything from leaving or coming through the gates. Noble Six gradually came to a halt around twenty feet away from the somewhat pathetic pony guards. When they caught sight of him, they almost proceeded to panic just like the civilians surrounding them. They just managed to keep it together long enough to pull out their short, silver tipped spears and organize into formation. "Ready soldiers, on my command, charge the beast!" The leader, who was wearing silver colored armor to single himself out from the others, called the command. All thirty of the soldiers held their spears directly at Noble Six's chest. "Charge!" The command guard shouted as he and his fellow troops rushed towards Noble Six, their deadly spears raised. Noble Six pointed his Plasma Rifle at the group in response. He hesitated for a moment before pulling the trigger. It was still somehow hard to justify killing the adorable, pastel colored ponies. Then he realized he was never going to get of the planet with them in his way. Noble Six pulled the trigger. He moved his arm in a sweeping motion from left to right while firing the Plasma Rifle to get maximum coverage on all of the creatures. The ponies were smothered by a barrage of plasma as the boiling heat quickly disintegrated their armor. Within a few seconds, the rushing formation the ponies had assembled themselves in had completely fallen apart. Every creature in the front of the formation were completely overwhelmed by plasma. The ponies behind scattered in all directions. Soon, there was no ponies left to challenge him. Around a third of the initial charging formation were lying on the ground, deep in the melting power of neon blue plasma. There was no way they were going to survive, magic healing abilities or not. Among these fallen was the distinguished leader, also slowly being disintegrated by plasma. Noble Six felt a swift pang of guilt. Death by plasma burns was the least pleasurable way to go he could imagine. He wished he had a UNSC rifle of some kind, to at least kill the ponies swiftly instead of the slow, immeasurably painful death they were all going through. Noble Six turned on his Energy Sword, the blue blade of light popping out of it's sheath. He then walked over to where the leader lay, curled up in a ball, it's face marked with indescribable pain. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have stood in my way." The pony used the last of it's energy to speak. "It's..your.. a TANK! A ONE MAN TANK!" Noble Six lifted the Energy Sword above his head, and brought it down. The pony died instantly. Noble Six looked up and around himself. The gates were unguarded, and breaking them open wouldn't be a problem. For once, nothing stood in his way. He bolted towards the gates as fast as he could, desperate to get out of that forsaken city. None of the ponies panicking all around challenged him as he sprinted headlong for the gates. He didn't stop once he reached them, using his momentum to break open the gates. The fell over like they were made out of paper. Noble Six just kept on running without looking back. Around twenty minutes of continuous running later, Noble Six reached a small, scraggly woodland. Because he was on top of a mountain, as Noble Six quickly found out, the trees on the rocky hillside were few and far between. At last, he had found at least a meager forest, hopefully containing water, as his supplies available were dwindling. Noble Six didn't come all this way to die of dehydration. He stopped, sensing something wrong. The air didn't feel right. It was as if the atmosphere itself was being broken by something huge. Then Noble Six heard it. The huge, banging roar of a ship first entering the atmosphere of a planet. For a few seconds, Noble Six thought that help had finally come. He hoped beyond hope that UNSC forces had located his IFF tag and found him at last. What he saw then, however, quickly dispelled all hopes of rescue. Breaking through the clouds was a huge purple and steel colored ship. A Covenant battle cruiser. "You've got to be kidding me."