//------------------------------// // Origins: Part II // Story: Origins: Equestria // by Sunsette //------------------------------// Earth 2198, The Rainforest wars The sound of gunfire roared the sky as both insurrection group's battled to the death toward's the newly formed "UNSC." Each time they would rush in with all their might, only to be pushed back to the depth's of the amazon forest. Several insurrectionist ship's had taken off and fled to the nearby asteroid belt. The UN had exhausted it's resource's on developing planet's such as Mar's and Jupiter's moons, so it had no military power to surpress the rebellion. With the formation of the UNSC, they've devised a plan, they would capture both of rebel leader's and force them to sign a peace treaty among each faction's. In just a few short month's the insurrection was finally over, and everyone can sleep in peace once more. Twilight woke up in a dark room, she checked her surrounding's to see if anything's different. She looked down at her body to see herself as a human. Twilight gulped but soon relaxed as the humanized Starlight walked in to the room. Twilight tidied up her and turned on the TV, while sitting on the couch. Starlight raised an eyebrow at Twilight before shrugging it off, she sat right next to Twilight on her couch. "Soo... Good morning purple hair?" Starlight asked nervously before looking toward's the TV. It was explaining about something very important that can benefit all of mankind. "Ummm Starlight?" Twilight asked, Starlight turned her head to Twilight. "Yeah Twilight?" She replied. "What year is it and what's with all the talk about mankind thing?" Twilight asked curiously, Starlight gasped softly before embracing Twilight, she blushed a little before shrugging it off. "You don't know?" She asked sarcastically, almost like she's insulting Twilight. "The year is 2295 Dumbie, man and i thought you were the smart one" She mocked before watching the TV once more. "O-okay?" She said nervously. "Humanity had been imagining the wonder's of the cosmos ever since god created them, finally we can travel to the star's themselves and finally asking that one question, will we thrive? or shall we go extinct due to our fragile body's and spirits, I say that we have thrived for hundred's of year's and look where we are today, sending our first ship's to the Epsilon Eridinai system." The man continued his speech for another five minute's before the crowd shouted out in joy. Twilight was gazed in awe struck as 3 massive ship's exited out of the ground and ascend to the sky, she felt some thing weird though, last time she was human, she felt a massive force of energy flowing in their world, but this time even though she's human, she felt no presence of magic whatsoever. She began to fade away and passed out on the couch. Harvest October 31st UNSC calendar, 2525 Today was a monumental day for all of mankind, the local AI had detected unknown slipspace anomalies a few day's ago but didn't took that much attention until it got closer to the planet. It was discovered that the slipspace anomalies were caused by an Alien civilization, The local governor of the planet greeted them with open arm's and was kind enough to show them around the planet. It was only a few day's after first contact that the Alien's discovered that they were the son's of their god's. The prophet's knew that integrating the human's will most certainly caused a schism in the inside, so they declared war against humanity and glassed Harvest into hell. Twilight once again woke up inside of a building, though it didn't look like the last room she went. Outside she can hear loud bang's everywhere and light luminating before fading off to darkness. Growl's and screaming can be heard outside the room as well, she began to panic and exited out of the building, to find a bipedal creature stabbing a human with some kind of sword before throwing him off the ground. The alien looked toward's Twilight and began walking toward's her, she began to panicked and as the alien was about to hit her, it didn't, instead it just walked passed her and ran toward's another human shooting some sort of machine. She watched the alien destroy's the machine and ripped off the human's head and growl's loudly. The alien was followed by other alien's that are half their size and dragging the human body's to a nearby fire. The smell of corpses made Twilight's nose close itself for a while, there was a light above Twilight and by the sound of a huge horn playing from the ship, she knew that something's going to happen. The alien ship fired it's death ray and burned any living or non-organic thing's around her. She zoomed out of the planet to see 5 more of these ship's firing their ray to the scorching land below them. She began to teared a bit before breaking out and crying, why would anypony do such a thing? moment's later she passed out once again Battle of Reach, July 15th 2552 it has been 27 year's since the battle of harvest, and all human colonies began to fall left and right. Already half of their population has been glassed to hell along with the planet and the alien group known as the Covenant see's no peace between them. To the eye's of the Covenant, the human's are heretics and should be cleansed from the galaxy in which they owned. After the battle of Sigma Octanus IV, a lone UNSC fleet entered slipspace and made it's way to Reach, not knowing that the Covenant implemented a tracker on board the ship's hull. Now with the covenant fleet of Particular Justice beginning it's assault on earth's footstep's, there was absolutely no way humanity will survive this war Twilight gasped and layed her hooves on her horn, she had already seen death's by the tens and she wished that she had never seen it. Although just as she thought that she could finally have her peace, the same sound that she had previously heard ready's it's ray on a... very big human city, with building's reaching high up the sky, not even Canterlot's castle reached that high, and it's the tallest structure in all of Equestria. She saw each building fall beneath the cloud's and erupting huge earthquakes that rocked the foundation's of all the buildings. She descend below and see hundred's if not thousand's of human's running towards a ship in some sort of balcony. After seeing each one of them entered the ship, it began to ascend to the cloud's only to be shot with the beam Twilight had saw earlier. The ship crashed into another ship, this time 20 time's larger then it and exploded, causing the ship that it just crashed exploding as well. The bit's of wreckage fall down to the ground causing even more shockwaves. The alien's below engaged more human's in the street's and building's only to be repelled by large and muscular human's. Twilight knew that she will be here for a while. It had been 46 day's since she last passed out and it only felt like the time she passed here on the planet felt only like an hour. She had saw more death's then Equestria seen dead ponies dying in the battlefield, although this wasn't exactly Equis, and she was far from home. Twilight looked up in the sky to see the last great city in the horizon, coming to ablaze and crumbling down to the ground, Alien's cutting down any human's they can see and decapitated their head's and growled with Joyce. There was only 1 human ship remaining on the planet, and even that to has exited the planet's atmosphere and entering some sort of portal, followed by a large alien ship, easily the size of the entire Canterlotian mountain, following behind. She could only pray to Tartarus that they all had escape the onslaught that was Reach, then her vision began to fade once more, but not without another bang coming from across the planet. Pillar of Autumm, September 9 2552, Location Unknown "Did we lose them Cortana?" Asked Captain Jacob Keyes. "I'm not- what is that" The AI pointed to a large ring like structure, the captain irritated with her response again. "I don't care what it is did we lose them?" He asked once more, but before the AI can respond the covenant ship exited out of slipspace and stayed dormant in space, "Well i think you just got your answer Captain, incoming Covenant dropship's inbound to the Autumm." She said, the Captain signalled the alert button and alerted all troop's to be ready. A large human, claded in shining green armour walked into the bridge to meet the Captain, he said that this was the utmost of importance, the human already knew what the captain wanted and what to do, he grabbed his MA5 Assault rifle, fully armed and headed inside the bridge. "Sir you called?" He asked, the Captain looked to his back and meeting him at his visor. "Dear god Chief, you scared me a little for a moment" The captain joked, although not getting the respond he had intended. "Ah yes, the Covenant has boarded aboard the Autumm and report's of fatalities are recorded across all decks." he paused for a moment. "All deck's except here." He continued. "I did encounter several pack's of elites and grunt's on the way, but what's the problem?" The chief asked, lowering his weapon behind his back. "Cortana asked me to assign her to you, seeing that you are one of the only capable spartan onboard this ship" He took the AI chip out of his console and handed it to Chief. "Do not let those bastard's get her, if they do they'll learn everything; Military tech, weapon's design" He paused for a moment in fear. "Earth..." Said the captain, he snapped out of his gazing and sat on his chair once more. "What exactly do you want me to do now?" He asked, putting Cortana inside his helmet. "Simple i'll activate Cole protocol and you and the other crew of this ship get the hell out from my vessal" The captain responded, he continued commanding the officer's onboard of the ship to triple check any covenant activity, near within the bridge. Luckily, the last covenant activity near the bridge was when grunt's lifted an Elite major inside the boarding phantom's. "What about you sir?" Asked the Chief. "Well every captain goes down with her ship, so it's easy to say that me and my hardy crew won't be leaving this ship as soon you get off my vessel" He joked once more, before coughing to break the awkwardness. Chief nodded and saluted to him. "It's been an honour sir" He saluted to the wavering captain, before walking out from the bridge to regroup with the other marines. The captain saluted to the exiting chief. "It's been an honour working with you as well son." He grinned before sitting on his chair, continuing to give further order's to the bridge. Battle of installation 04, somewhere deep in the Forerunner facility, September 11 2552 Twilight again woke up in some sort of room, this time a little bit more decorated and technological then the other previous rooms. She curled when she heard the sound's of plasma fire and gun fire clashing together. The battle seem's to be outside this door, she opened the door not to see the Covenant violently attacking the human's but working with them against some sort of disgusting parasite. Left and right, each human and elite get's infected by the parasite and turning them into a disgusting and deformed variant fighting against the remaining Covenant-human forces. It didn't took long before the last Elite get's infected and turning to one of those...savages. Twilight crept backward's slowly before running into another group of human's alongside a pack of elite's, they engaged their fallen brother's with such haste and took them out in 10 shot's. However the flood spore's take on the counter-offensive and began to infect each of the alien's one by one. Some even tried to flee but was cut down by the parasite, as when all hope was lost, a tall figure in shining green armour engaged the spore's on the floor and killing the remaining parasites. In the outcome of this little raid, the human's were the one that suffered most casualties, although some of them did managed to survive in the end thanks to the Chief. The alien's though weren't so lucky, all of them were infected and there aggressive style of fighting led them to their own demise. She didn't are about the alien's nor the human's now, what she's interested now is in the tall green figure. She followed him as he fought his way through hordes of enemy's, both from the Covenant and the flood though the flood has proven to be a far more challenging adversary then he had anticipated. He made his way to the index room where he would find the key and contain the parasite from rampaging the entire system. On his way there, his weapon's ammo ran out and he resorted to melee-styled fighting, using a sword made of pure energy to slice his way to the room. Eventually he reached the room and grabbed the index with relative ease, he walked back to the Cartographer with the occasional firefight's and grenade explosion's setting off. Twilight was surprise when an metallic orb came up behind him and hum in delight. As they both made their way to the console, Chief would stay silent and this "AI" will talk about his creator's and such, she didn't really care anyway, she just want's to see the end of this bloodshed. Just as Master Chief about to insert the key inside the console, a blue female human appeared out of nowhere from the console. Twilight was surprisingly shocked by this, but she stayed focus on the hologram. "Not so fast chief" She pushed the key away from the console and downloaded it to her database. "What do you think you're doing?" She asked angrily, the figure only stood there in silence with his weapon drawn on his hands. "Activating the ring. Containing the Covenant and the flood." He responded, the AI only gave an disappointed sigh while she put her hand on her forehead. "You don't know anything about this place don't you!?" She shouted loudly, almost like she was about to scream. "This ring isn't only to contained the flood, i've did my researched on this ring and it doesn't sound good chief" She said sarcastically while trying to keep her voice very seriously. "This ring was built to starve out the flood, and by starving it i mean killing all intelligent or sentient life in the 25,000 galactic radii" She crossed her hand's and a huge holographic ring appeared behind her. Twilight was a bit skeptical at first, no species can do that without mastering all known and unknown spell's and other magical attributes. But seeing that none of these alien's or human's rely on magic, she came to a conclusion that this was made through technology. Though no species can wield that much power, power that can wipe out all life in the galaxy. She dozed off a bit, hearing the 2 AI ranting and arguing each other can be very boring but the sudden sounds of growls and screams of agony woke her up. The Chief managed to fight his way through hordes of flood once again and make a run for it, Twilight fell down to her hooves and fell to the ground, passing out. She saw glimpses of the future, the past, the fire, the screaming, the pain. It had been all so real for her, Starlight never told her that it'll be an emotional trainwreck. Finally she woke up in her final destination... The Ark Inside the citadel control hall, The Ark, December 11 2552 The high prophet crawled his way to the console, trying to stop any heretics who dared oppose the mighty covenant and their journey to salvation. It was then when the "Demon" and his former ally and friend, Thel' Vadamee walked towards him. He grabbed Truth's neck from behind and light's up his energy sword. "You are all blind! can't you see the great journey is upon us-" He coughed a bit, as tumours began growing from the back of his head, he was turning into one of them The demon walked up to the console and saw a green option on the bottom middle of the console. He tap's it gently and deactivate's the firing process. The prophet shouted in agony, the great journey was so close, it was within his grasp, but the heretic's prevented it from happening. "Fools, you have not learn a single bit from our encounter" Said the prophet in a deep and disgusting tone, he coughed out more green smoke, supposedly tinier flood spore's. "You all shall be cleansed, I am the high prophet of Truth, and I am the voice of the Covenant" He shouted, a tentacle began growing at the side of his neck, it was slimy and painful at the same time. "If so your voice must be silenced" Threaten the arbiter, just before the prophet could say anything, he lifted the prophet by his neck and stabbed him right in his heart. The elite gave out a large growl as he decapitated the prophet's head and toss it aside the controls. Twilight woke up once more, in a ship this time; How peculiar. She felt a course of adrenaline coursing through her blood as saw the an entire installation blowing up left and right around her. She trotted to the hangar and saw another halo ring alongside another form of installation that could five time's the size of Auries. She waited for a moment, spotting out the occasional flood passing by the ship without even noticing her, then a vehicle entered the hangar and crashed to a nearby vehicle. The Elite seem's like jumping on the crate's and avoiding the falling crates. The Master chief ran to a nearby port inside the hanger and inserted Cortana in. "Hang on!" She shouted, the ship soon went to a very upward course, causing another vehicle to crash to chief and lifting his hand from the railing's. He slammed his fist inside the ship's hull and continued to do so until he reached the port. He went to the right side of the port and lay's his body there. "hey John?" Surprise with the AI calling by his real name he instantly responded. "Yes?" he responded while keeping his regular mono-tone. "It's been an honour" She replied, and soon enough they were inside the portal... Twilight's vision was soon turned to white as the explosion had caught up with the ship, collapsing the portal and sending the ship drifting afloat space. When her vision cleared she saw the human inserted his companion to a nearby port and tucked himself inside a pod. Before that he had his rifle, and pistol right beside the pod, whenever the time was right to use it once more. The AI looked to herself once more and began to worry. "I'll set up a beacon, it'll be a while before anyone get it anyway's, year's even..." She whispered. "I'll miss you" She said to the chief full of sorrow. "Wake me. when you need me" The AI looked at his pod in surprise and watches the pod closes before her, she lay down and closed her eye's and started tearing a little. Twilight only wished that she could comfort her until her companion is set loose once more, but she can't, well not right now but one day. She saw her hooves disappearing as well as her body. "It's been an honour" She thought to herself as she fades away from their existence for good.