//------------------------------// // Free Falling (Revised) // Story: John-117 in Equestria // by Blaze Spectrum //------------------------------// Orbiting above the mysterious planet, at the edge of the hanger of the half-destroyed Forward Unto Dawn, John-117 stared, aimlessly down at the planet. He had been wondering for a hour what could be down there. "Well, I hope my luck doesn't betray me now," he said with a surprisingly straight voice. "It never has, Chief," Cortana tried to sound as assuring as possible but, John wasn't deceived. He put her back in her data chip. Also about his luck, he knew it had only betrayed him, about twice in his whole life. One when Thel' Lodamee knocked his Assault Rifle from his hands, the other was the slipspace drive teleported only half of the ship, and he was unfortunate enough to be in the end section. And that was over four years ago. But being frozen in cryo statis more or less guaranteed that he didn't have to wait, so that was a plus. "That planet's moon somehow looks surprisingly similar to Earth's, but I know its not. I can name around three thousand reasons why." Cortana said in an attempt to change the subject. The Master Chief said nothing. And the populace of the planet - if it had any, would be more than surprised to see him. Unless Covenant were present, they would be scared, or hostile. "Well, it's now or never," he thought to himself. He grabbed a random MA5C Assault Rifle, and searched around for some reserve magazines. He found one, and slammed it home. Unfortunately, he only found two others. He would have to be conservative of his ammunition. After that, he slowly stuck his firearm to his armor's magnetic back. Finally, he turned around, spread his arms out to make a t-shape, and fell backwards towards the planet's surface. After a few seconds, he initiated Armor Lockdown and braced for impact. He stayed calm, Armor Lockdown was even more effective than a Re-Entry Unit. But it'll take a while for him to go move. He was going to enter the planet the same way he had re-entered at the beginning of The Battle of Earth. The friction in the air gradually increased, his armor's olive-green plates were turning white, but he still didn't feel much of the heat at all. Although his speed was rapidly increasing, he only barely felt the heat by the time he was flying downwards at several hundred miles per hour, maybe that was because he was a Spartan-II, maybe that didn't even matter. "Here goes nothing," he thought. Meanwhile... Pinkie Pie was at the Sugarcube Corner, happily prancing down the stairs. Her fluffy, pink, mane shook wildly, and her cerulean eyes were closed. A huge, wide, grin was spread across her face. Then, she felt her tail twitching, she didn't sense anything good. Her eyes opened, her smile faded, and a second after all this happened, a deafening explosion was made, right on the street. Either Rainbow Dash had come down. The windows within twenty five meters from the impact zone were shattered. Screams were heard from all around. Basically, it seemed as if the apocalypse had come. Definitely earned a spot among some of the most interesting things that happened in Ponyville since Discord came. Pinkie rushed down the rest of the stairs and bucked the door open. Rainbow Dash had been roused from her sleep, but was still quick enough to fly over, even if she was groggy. When Pinkie had only gotten three meters on the street when Twilight teleported to the scene. Some civilians were saying that it must be Discord's fault, some said aliens were invading, some just plain said that it was the apocalypse. After that, Fluttershy flew to the area of incident. It was about a quarter of an hour before most of the group was present. They all started talking at once. "I think this might be something dangerous," Twilight put in. "What?! It is dangerous!" Fluttershy screamed. She then shied away after realizing how loud she just was. "Aw, come on. It can't be that dangerous," Rainbow Dash assured them. "Well, if it is friendly, then I'll throw it a welcome party!" Pinkie Pie said at first uncertainly then enthusiastically. "Well, I'm not touching that crater!" Rarity screeched. Then in the distance Applejack came in sight. "Well you never know what it is until you see it, Sugarcube!" Applejack shouted so she would be heard. "Girls! One at a time!" Twilight cut in. "Well that's correct, I think somepony listening would get confused," Pinkie blurted. Everypony gave her a confused look, then just continued with the conversation. "Applejack's right," Twilight told everypony."We'll never know until we see for ourselves. And so, everypony cautiously approached the crater, except for Pinkie who haphazardly dilly-dallied to the crater. Everyone looked inside the crater that had caused all this mess, their eyes went wide. It looked vaguely humanoid. Which none of them were quite glad to note, considering most of the story books which involved humans in Equestrian Mythology depicted them in a negative light. What they saw was, a humanoid object, clad with dark green metal plates supposedly titanium, where the joints were, were extremely durable but flexible underarmor, a golden visor glinted off the head, and stuck on to it's back, was a gray and black thing, with a scalene-like pyramid with a blue screen with 32 on it.There was another scalene on the back, except below and had a triangular hole. In front of the back scalene, was a cresent surrounded by a right angle, and in front of that, was a black grip like the scalene, except below. In front of that, there seemed to be a torch. "I don't think that is harmless," Twilight piped up about the object on John's back,"Kind of looks like those things the Griffons used to hunt down ponies in the Dark Age. Although the chance of it being a musket is remote." "Uh, is that thing on it's back like from those books, what is it called again?" Fluttershy anxiously said. "...Humans," Twilight said slowly. "Oh, you mean those things that raided villages and ate foals?" Rainbow Dash deadpanned. And so, they ultimately decided to bring the inanimate figure to Fluttershy's garden, against her protests. The noise made when it was plopped down on the grass was plenty audible, and any grass that was below it probably wouldn't survive for long. "Ugh," complained Rainbow Dash."How much does this thing weigh? Did somepony construct this armor, fill it up with cement, and throw it off a mountain as a prank?" Twilight glared," Your idea has been noted. But really, you didn't do half the lifting." Then, its leg twitched.