//------------------------------// // Chapter 6: One Small Step // Story: 117 The Eternal Guardian // by Nanofield //------------------------------// ^Equis^ {50AD} 9:30 [John] I wake up to the sound of knocking at my door. I open it to find Luna waiting for me. “Good morning Master Chief. We are sorry to disturb you but Our sister wishes to see you. We are surprised that you arrived back so soon. We trust that all went as planned?” I nod to her, I don't feel like writing anything yet seeing as I just woke up and am still tired. My suit's computer is still analyzing their speech, comparing it to what I hear to allow me to speak their language, so I can't speak yet. I then follow her to the war room to meet up with the other princess. When we get inside, I see that Celestia looks rather distraught. ^Is something wrong? You don't look so well^ “We were up late last night. We were worried something bad would happen to you. Not that We doubt your abilities, it's just that We worry. Having you go assassinate the griffin that caused the death of tens of thousands of innocent ponies; it’s difficult to accept the fact that in only two weeks, you did what We could not do in ten years. You ended this war.” ^This war is not over yet; we will still need to contact the griffins once they crown a new king to see if they will end the war peacefully. Until then, we will have to wait. Perhaps now you can tell me how I got here.^ “We understand that you want to know, but please wait a little longer. We are at war so we still need your help.” ^I don't understand why you won't tell me but since you are so stubborn I will wait.^ “Thank you. Now, King Zoran is dead?” ^Yes.^ “Very good. We wish that We did not have to resort to assassination, but it was necessary.” Not having anything more to say, we depart to our own devises. Which boils down to Celestia's day court, Luna doing whatever Luna does during the day, and I go to the kitchen to eat some food. I'm served eggs and a potato. After eating I meet up with Doctor Whooves. I am learning more about this strange world. The year is only 50 A.D. (After Discord apparently). I am also taught about what Discord did and how he was stopped. The Elements of Harmony sound interesting. I am summoned back to meet with the princess not long after. I make my way to the throne room to meet her. ^What is it you need?^ “We have received a message from a scout in the griffin kingdom, it appears that they were able to crown a new king faster than We anticipated. They are having the coronation as we speak. Apparently, the king had a son, Zolnex. the grifon army seems to assume that we where responsible for the king's death, but they don't know who did it. Some think it is you seeing as the king mentioned you when he returned to his own kingdom. Zolnex will be the new king and has already announced his plans to march an attack straight to the castle. He should be here by the day after tomorrow. We are sorry that We must ask so much of you in so little time, but We still need your help.” ^Very well, I will help you. But when this is over, I want some answers.^ “Yes, We understand.” ***** 12:00 It has been two days; it is time to fight the griffin army. I see them marching on the horizon. It looks like they brought the entire army to face me. I have seen the ponies' military and even by medieval standards, it's lacking to say the least. I am currently standing on the top of the wall around the castle with the princesses. They wanted to watch me fight and I don't have a reason to stop them. During the last two days, my armor had finished analyzing their speech, I haven't told them yet. I have only tested it out in my room for any problems. I use the system to take what I say and use the external speakers to send out the translated sound. It works about as well as I expected it to, it only has a .1 second delay. “Good luck Master Chief.” I nod my thanks to Celestia, Luna is rather quiet. It's probably because of the fact that the war affected her rather severely. I understand how that feels. Up until my encounter with The Librarian on Requiem, I was not very expressive with emotions but they were there. Having my evolution 'accelerated' as she put it, caused me to have less control over my emotions. I have become more reckless and quick to anger, but I also find myself happy sometimes. The griffins are close enough for me to engage; I hop off the wall and march forward. When I am about 75 yards from the griffins in front of me and the princesses are 50 yards behind, I see the griffin march come to a stop. They look at me with varying expressions, some show fear at the metal thing that killed their king; others have a look of confidence at the lone warrior sent to fight them. Time to unveil my little surprise; I set my external speakers to maximum volume. “ATTENTION GRIFFINS! YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO DEFEAT ME IN BATTLE! LEAVE NOW AND NO HARM SHALL BEFALL YOU! SHOULD YOU CONTINUE TO ADVANCE, YOU WILL BE OBLITERATED!!” That got their attention. The princesses where probably surprised as well. As expected, they all charge to attack. Well, time to go to work. This will probably make a rather large mess. I activate my Lightrifle on one hand, a suppresser on the other, and start shooting at the advancing line of griffins. I take down about 50 of them before they realize that they can't charge me on foot. They stop their charge and take to the sky in a scrambled mess to avoid a quick death. They form a massive cloud of griffins and fly at me. Activating my Incineration cannon, I fire a round into the cloud of griffins. It blasts many of them apart, halting their advancement. The rest of them land in a tight circle around me. Seeing as I am now in a close range fight, I activate my Scattershot. But before I can shoot, I am knocked forward by a strong tackle from several griffins behind me. I quickly recover, spin around and shoot, three griffins fall dead, two wounded. I notice that the griffins have blades on their wings. The griffins still in the air are armed with crossbows. I am surrounded. They all attack at once; the raining bolts and the storm of blades are steadily damaging my shields. They are too close to get a good shot out so I disarm my gun and activate a Promethean blade on each arm. Using my thruster pack, I launch myself forward slicing through several griffins on each side of me. I continue with that method to take down more griffins. I must have killed hundreds of them by now, but they just keep coming. They started jumping on top of me; I am barley able to move with so many on me. My shields are down to 20%, this is getting out of hand. I adjust the settings on my armor's shields to use the armor lock to flair out and create a kinetic pulse that should send most of the griffins back so I can recover. It shoots a powerful pulse that expands in a 50 foot radius, blasting back the surrounding griffins. Doing that drained my suit's power reserves significantly, but I still have enough energy left to fight. There is just too many of them to fight. I try to buy myself more time by activating a low power camo system while the griffins are still getting up. I am used to fighting small groups, not mass armies. I might be in a little over my head. They are all up again; I can see their confusion at my disappearance. One of them said something about me blowing up and that they won. Understandable but no, I'm still here. My shields are up again so I guess it's time to get back to it. 12:30 [Celestia] “Luna, Master Chief has been fighting the griffins for a long time. Shouldn't we help him?” “I think he does rather well. Far better than We expected. Although, his ability to talk did come as quite a surprise. However, I think that there is little that we can do to help him; at best, we'll just get in his way.” “Perhaps you are right. I wonder how he managed to speak. We will have to ask him when he is done. I am happy though, reading everything he wanted to say had become tiring.” “Agreed.” Not having anything more to say, I turn my attention back to the fight. I was rather impressed at his quickness at dispatching the griffins. Both at a distance, and close up. He truly is the mightiest. I was nervous when he was dog piled, the pile reaching several yards high, but he sent out that powerful pulse sending them back, I am amazed at his ever revealing abilities. I really hope he doesn't get too mad at us when we tell him, I am not certain we will be able to stop him. He has a high resistance to magic and conventional weapons are next to useless if this fight is any indication. Perhaps summoning the most powerful being across all of time and space but having no way to send him home was a bad idea. He is still fighting, over half of the griffins are dead, and most of the others have fled. He is shooting his weapon from both arms, hundreds of beams of light firing at them. It looks as if this fight will be over soon. ***** 13:00 [John] Finally, I am done. The entire griffin army is either dead, or gone. I didn't make too much of a mess, the disintegration effect of the weapons did help. But there are still dead bodies everywhere. Now that that is over, I make my way back to the wall and jet jump up to the princesses. “I am going to get some lunch, then I am going to ask you about how I got here and you will answer. You clearly know due to your insistence that I wait. If you wish to join me, fine. But I am hungry, and I just fought, and killed, 1337 griffins. I know because I kept track. I am in no mood for 'small talk'. You know what, I'm just going to go eat alone. I'll meet you in the war room in an hour or two. I don't want to walk there and I really don't feel like flying, I activate my teleporter for the first time since landing on this crazy planet. Luckily, I make it to the kitchen just fine. (The teleporter is meant for line of sight use but I don't care right now. I'm in a bad mood if you haven't figured it out yet.) “Stupid Librarian.” I get a strange look from the chef; it's not the same chef from when I got here. That one quit because of an 'increase of stress at work' as he put it. I have a chicken made for me to eat. I finish it and then go to meet with the princesses. As planned, I find the princesses in the war room. “Celestia, now that the griffins are handled I want you to tell me how I got here.” “Well, um, you see, funny story...” “We cast a magic spell that would summon help and you came but we can't send you back so you are stuck here forever please don't kill us!!!” "Luna! I was going to tell him in a way that won't make him mad.” “But you where taking too long. If I waited you would never have told him.” I don't really pay attention to them arguing. I only focus on what Luna just said. They dragged me here and now I am stuck with no way back. I'm stuck here and I can't go home. I will never see another human again. I will never see Cortana again. I am stuck, and it's all their fault. I can't go home. I can't go home. I can never go home. I am immortal, but I can't go home. I will be stuck here for the rest of time, and I will never see another human again. I will never see Cortana again. I can't...I can't...... It's at that point I snap, mentally and emotionally snap. Activating my incineration cannon, I blast a hole in a wall and run through. Firing off more rounds as I go, I run. When I make it outside, I see that I'm in at the training grounds and the majority of the guard is there. About 50 unicorns, all ready to fight. I can't help a demonic smirk from reaching my mouth. However, before I can blast them into oblivion, they all fire their magic beams at once. My shields shrug off the blow but it is still draining. I feel many more beams hit me from behind, turning around I see the princesses and several other unicorns have joined the fight. I fire my cannon at the guards in front of me and they get sent flying. All of them are killed but in my frenzied state I don't care. My shields are still taking damage though; I turn to the princesses again, cannon aimed at them and ready to wipe them from the face of this planet. But before I can fire, my shields flair and their beams of magic hit me. I am delayed long enough for Princess Celestia to fire off a quick spell. I am enveloped in a blinding glow and I feel that same stretching from before when I was dragged here. I open my eyes and look around. I am definitely somewhere else. I see gray dirt and it is dark. Looking up, I see a planet. It's the same planet I have been stuck on for two weeks. Wait, if the planet is there, that means... “I AM ON THE MOON!?”