Chapter 5: Causalities
If the square hadn’t been deserted everyone would have died. It was not a poetic battle, full of heroics and ironic tragedies. It was a single bloody engagement between a lone Spartan crippled from exhaustion, and fully armed, fully manned (well, aliened?) Phantom cruiser. Most battle tacticians would agree that these were insurmountable odds to go up against, of course, these tacticians weren’t Richard.
He stood near the tree in the square, carts of food and other goods were arranged in a haphazard pattern around him; cutting off mobility and providing flammable material for the Phantom’s super-heated blasts. The only suitable cover of any size would be the very tree he was attempting to get to, which would also mean jeopardizing any civilians who remained inside. Namely, Redheart. Richard found his hopes turn from her being there to her not being there, losing his only native contact would be devastating.
He was faced with a difficult position, open area engagement against a Phantom, or risking his only ally? If he were dead than it wouldn’t matter if he knew a lot about Equestria now would it? He positioned himself behind the tree as the first volley of plasma blots hit him, the bark of the tree, amazingly, did not catch fire or even sizzle! Richard found himself thanking whatever divine being had granted him this reprieve.
Oh, by the way, this all took place in under three seconds.
Richard hoisted his pistol, aiming it around the tree and taking random shots to distract the pilot. This in turn allowed the gunner to get his exact location, plugging the area with plasma-fire. Richard used the smoke in the air to his advantage, sprinting along the other side of the tree and settling down in one of the Phantom’s blind-spots. He marked out the engines and cooling vents on his helmet, highlighting them in red and allowing the computer to do most of the aiming.
The Phantom took several well-placed shots to one of its cooling vents; the craft automatically sealed itself when injured, closing off all of the vents. Richard noted this with pride; his plan was to overheat it to the point that it was forced to land, then swiftly overwhelm the crew. He continued to cover himself with the tree, dodge the occasional bolt that got past it, and keep the vents closed. After only a few minutes the craft lowered in altitude, as if landing. This confused Richard, who knew the craft would take much longer to overheat than that.
The answer to the confusion came in the form of the blood-curdling shrieks of an elite pack, descending from the ship they formed a slowly moving phalanx that advanced toward Richard. The man himself noticed every detail from their moment of departure to their odd tactics. How they had released themselves from anti-gravity slots and descended slowly to the ground, how half of them carried the ever-feared energy sword, and how they seemed to be taking an almost human approach to the battle. Humans were the ones who generally favored defensive capabilities and methodical approaches, elites were known for rushing and overwhelming the enemy with superior force.
The troop ran forward, the front two firing off plasma bolts from dual guns, forcing Richard to take cover behind an abandoned apple cart. The bolts hit the apples repeatedly, smashing through the squishy fruit but failing to set it alight, which Richard was grateful for. Richard kicked up the zoom on his helmet, aiming his gun for any place on the elites that weren’t armored.
His volley stopped up two elites; they went down with purple blood gushing from their mid riffs. The last three drew closer together, making good use of the scant cover the carts gave, and only peeking out to fix Richard’s location, once achieved they fired off several shots giving them a few moments to advance. Richard noted with annoyance that he wasn’t able to get in any shots, pinned down as he was by the clever aliens. The only choice left to him was hand-to-hand combat, a nearly suicidal tactic to use, especially when they were armed with energy swords.
Too late for anymore thought on the matter, the elites rushed forward, crashing through the scorched fruit carts and trampling the goods underfoot. This set Richard off for some reason, it just seemed like such a, a, waste, for of all this specie’s hard work to be erased by a group of frantic elites. He rolled from his cover, raising his pistol in perfect form to fire off three bullets, all of which found their mark in surprised elites. Two more went down, clutching their wounds and screaming shrilly in pain. The third stared daggers at Richard, flicking his three-fingered hand in a smooth motion, releasing an energy sword from its curled tube handle, Richard tensed in anticipation; his adrenaline levels spiking to the highest they had been that day. But instead of coming after him, the elite turned to its fallen brothers, in two broad strokes their heads lay severed from their bodies, blood squirting out on the remains of an upturned carrot cart. Richard knew why the elite had done this, to be wounded was worse than death to an elite, and this wasn’t the only mercy killing he’d witnessed, by elite or human.
Kicking the corpses aside the last elite turned to face Richard, shuffling its feet soundlessly to get a better foothold on the blood-slicked ground. Richard reloaded his pistol, turning off his suit’s auto-aim feature to study the alien’s movements more closely. Suddenly it pounced forward, swinging the blade in an electrifying ark, almost clipping Richard as it passed. He swung around the elite, pressing his left leg between the elite’s and locking their feet together while his arms tugged in the opposite direction. The elite, already off-balance from its wild attack was knocked forward, turning in the air to try to land softly, it didn’t. It hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud, knocking the sword out of its hands and dislocating its shoulder, Richard untangled himself quickly from the mass before jumping back down to wrap his arms around it. The elite, while suffering from several injuries, was still in better condition than the Spartan, almost breaking the dead-lock hold the human had on him. The elite surged once more, breaking Richard’s hold and throwing him to the ground. Richard willed himself to get up, but didn’t have any more energy to do even that. The elite stood and brushed itself off, popping its shoulder back in place; it stalked over towards Richard, delivering a sharp kick to his side. Richard grunted in pain, cursing his weakness and stupidity for what was inevitably going to occur, his death. The elite crouched, took Richard’s helmet in its hands, and turned Richard’s head around to look it directly in the eye.
“You are weak demon. My brethren gain no honor in their deaths, such as you have sullied your own honor have you condemned them.”
Richard coughed inside his helmet, swallowing the blood pooling in his mouth.
“I don’t much care for death… but facing it is hardly the most difficult thing I’ve faced in life… But I can take solace in one fact…”
“And what is that, filth?”
“That I won’t die today… at least not right now…”
“How is that so, I will kill you as easily as a helpless child!”
“Most children don’t have an M6c pointed right at your skull.”
The elite’s eyes widened in anger, knowing that his gloating had been his downfall; Richard pulled the trigger, sending the majority of the elite’s head skyward. He rolled over onto his stomach, knowing he wouldn’t be able to kill another grunt if he had a rocket launcher in his hands, the crippling exhaustion kept him from doing most anything but breath. He looked over at the Phantom, which had risen once again during his struggle, it was fair enough that he was being killed by a pilot rather than face-to-face; made it easier to accept the inedibility of his death. The Phantom leveled out and began moving its forward guns, Richard heard the plasma bolts hiss as it left the chamber, overheated death sailing right towards him. He probably should have closed his eyes, but at that time the moment seemed to stretch on, erasing his need for fear. The moment still stretched on, unnaturally so, shouldn’t the bolt have reached him by now? He noticed an odd glimmer about the entire ship, so distracted by morbid thoughts that he hadn’t looked over the ship at all. Indeed it was covered in a shimmery sort of light, strangely familiar yet he couldn’t place from where. Suddenly he remembered where he had seen it, it had surprised him, yet he had disregarded it. But now, in so much vaster a form it didn’t seem like an odd biological trick, it seemed like a miracle. The source of it identified itself shortly after, a high, annoyed voice that only the firmest librarians mastered. Now he knew why she had been so interested in the book. In front of him stood a purple Pony, its horn illuminated in a fierce violet light, Richard noticed it was reading the same book as before. A leather-bound how to book, labeled “Time-Shield Spells, A Hundred Things You Wanted to Know but Were Too Afraid to Ask”.
“Now just what are you doing outside my library?!”