An Alien in Need, is a Friend Indeed

by Word Worthy

Chapter 7: Et Tu Brute?

“Ooh! Mister Dadab? Mister Dadab?! I have a question!” A young colt in the crowd jumped into the air with excitement, trying to catch the Unggoy deacon’s attention.

Light jumping was a universal gesture of cheerfulness and sociability among young Unggoy, so it caused Dadab to notice the colt at once. Looking down at him from the podium he was presenting from, Dadab inclined his head curiously. “Yes?” he asked in a kindly voice.

“Is that guy over there an alien too? Is he one of your friends from outer space?” the colt inquired, his voice almost as squeaky as Dadab’s.

“Huh?” Dadab glanced quickly across the crowd into the distance. Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie all looked towards Carousel Boutique, assuming the colt was referring to Chur'R-Yar and Rarity, who were indeed leaving the shop and making their way over towards the crowd. Neither groups had yet seen what Dadab now noticed. The deacon shook nervously in his armor once again that day, as he observed the being marching towards him.

The alien was a snow-furred juggernaut, his wicked hammer shifting from massive paw to massive paw like some bringer of the end of days. This was no ordinary brute, to Dadab this was for certain. The crowd of townsfolk collectively gasped as the Jiralhanae titan drew nearer, before stopping to regard them with cruel, malice-filled eyes. The ponies returned his gaze with mixtures of fear, and shock: borderline panic.

Raising and pointing a thick finger at Dadab, the brute finally uttered words. “Little Unggoy! Have you been hiding the Engineer from us?!”

The gasping, combined with the Brute’s clearly audible growl of a voice, caught the girls’ attention. Twilight peered at the alien, trying to get a clearer view of his features. “I can’t believe it! Not one, not two, but three aliens in one day? Princess Celestia will freak when she learns we made three friends all in one day... and extraterrestrials at that!” Twilight could scarcely contain her own scientific curiosity and enthusiasm.

Pinkie Pie on the other hoof, begged to differ. “I’m not so sure about this one, Twily, he looks like he’s a barrel full of scary! And not in a fun way either, not like a barrel of apples, or a barrel of monkeys, even considering he looks like a huge monkey...” The normally jubilant mare’s face was etched with worry.

“Umm, for once, I think I’m going to have to agree with Pinkie Pie on this one, sugar cube. That two-legged feller seems like bad news to me,” Applejack agreed.

Hovering in the air with her wings, Rainbow Dash glared at the distant giant with mistrust and slight distaste. “I really don't like that guy's body language. That monster better not try to do anything to harm Dadab or any of us, else there’s going to be trouble!”

Nearby, Rarity and Chur froze in their tracks. Chur was already reading the Jiralhanae's body language, and upon seeing that Rarity’s friends were likewise alert and wary, the jackal now had enough evidence as to the nature of the situation. Quickly, she pulled out her needler and ignited her defense gauntlet, its energy crackling the air around it.

Rarity immediately noticed her future business partner’s newly adopted battle stance. Looking from Chur'R-Yar to the brute and back again, she frowned with concern. “I say, dear! What has you and the others in ever such a tense mood?”

Chur shook her weapon in the Brute behemoth’s general direction. “The tall furry one you see over there? It is a Jiralhanae Captain! The Jiralhanae are the most savage warriors in all the Covenant. This one seems to be hostile, like he's about to go berserk!”

Taking a closer look at the hammer wielding giant, Rarity could finally understand her friends’ reason for alarm. “Come to think of it, that creature does look a bit like a Diamond Dog at first glance. I could believe anything resembling such uncouth savages would be a little trouble maker,” the alabaster unicorn said with graceful certainty in her voice. “Or in this one’s case, big trouble maker...”

Over on Dadab’s end of things, the situation was rapidly going from discomfort to downright heart attack-inducing fear for the Unggoy. The lumbering brute lowered his finger, and then grasped his hammer with both hands. “Talk whelp, before I start collecting skulls!” He bellowed.

The poor ponies closest to him were certain the ape-like alien had just started an avalanche somewhere on the nearest mountain slope.

“Wha...? I'm not sure you’re talking a..abo...about!” Dadab quivered like a jellyfish as he attempted to reply. “Maybe...you have...wrong Unggoy? Yes?” Growling, the Brute shot him a death glare. “Umm, okay maybe not...”

“Mighty Ferus tires of your nonsense, you little runt!” His paper-thin patience now run dry, the brute roared and lunged over the crowd, hammer swinging through the air with a loud ‘WHOOSH’. The ponies beneath him scattered like leaves in the wind as he soared over them. Acting on instinct, Dadab shoved the Mayor out of harms way, before jumping out of the brute’s path just in time.

The podium and every piece of furniture around it was vaporized to splinters as the hammer’s gravity drive exerted its force on the world around it. Turning around with a single fluid motion, Ferus snarled at the still living but shaken Dadab with utter contempt.

Without giving any prior warning other than a growl to rival Ferus’ own, Rainbow Dash soared at the large Jiralhanae, her sky blue face contorted with pure anger. “Pick on someone your own size, you dumb, giant walking sack of rotting Changeling flesh!”

The brute only understood half of the mare's insult, but it, coupled with the pegasus mare’s sudden attack proved enough to make the Jiralhanae warrior go 'bananas'. In full berserk mode, Ferus was seeing in red. Just as Rainbow was about to ram her entire body's mass straight into his fortress of a chest, the brute fired off a five-round burst from the spiker carbine he had drawn.

Three of the quill-like projectiles fortunately missed, but the two that remained managed to find themselves buried in the bone of the pegasus’ right wing. She toppled to the grass and cobblestone with a pained yelp.

“Rainbow!” The girls and Spike shout in unison. Ferus looked up from the groaning pegasus to her friends. He giggled at them cruelly, a low grumble within his chest. Twilight and Pinkie Pie stood with their eyes widened in disbelief, Spike tried to hide behind Twilight’s forelegs, and Applejack looked on at the Brute with absolute loathing in her eyes. Fluttershy shook fearfully behind her mane. First safe chance she got, she would rush towards Rainbow Dash and get her as far away from the brute as her wings and body would allow.

Applejack stomped her hoof into the ground violently. “Y’all are gonna have to pay for that dearly now, stranger. This town may be welcoming and hospitable, But there ain't no way, no how, we’re just gonna let you waltz right on in here and start trying to murder people, 'Least of all, our friends!”

Ferus rewarded the farm pony’s courage and duty to her friends with another unsettling chortle, this one sounding like the groaning of some massive old machine in need of a good oiling. “Such fierce determination to protect such a worthless little creature as an Unggoy,” the brute captain snorted, and spit upon the ground, causing Rarity to cringe in disgust. “Such idiocy is beyond pity. The Hierarch will only be wasting his time with your lot.”

For a few moments, he stood there, as if sizing them up to determine their possible combined nutritional value. “Now...prepare to die, meat!”

In the precious seconds between Ferus’ analysis of the mares, and his re-quipping of the gravity hammer, Dadab suddenly faced a moment of great courage. Staring at Fluttershy’s scared-looking form nearby, her words from just minutes before played back in his head. I believe you can do it.

Putting not even a millisecond to waste, Dadab drew his pistol, and fired a charged shot. The latent green energy of the plasma bolt detonated itself in the white of Ferus' back, charring his coat and melting the flesh underneath, leavening behind the sickening smell of burnt tissue. The Jiralhanae yelped in pain and flailed about, dropping his hammer in the process. Seeing the fuel rod cannon still strapped to the brute’s back, Dadab got an idea.

He quickly leaped onto Ferus’ shoulders, and clamped his hand on the trigger of the cannon. Dadab was also quick to turn off the audio sensors in his combat harness for a brief moment. The weapon discharged its deadly uranium bolt into the unoccupied grass nearby, creating a thundering boom that reduced Ferus’ hearing to nothing but ringing Tinnitus.

Taking advantage of the brute’s momentary handicap, Dadab shouted to his friends, trying to imitate a Sangheili officer's tone of voice. It didn't sound like an elite, but Dadab's words still carried the necessary weight. “Twilight, please go and get brave Rainbow, friend Spike, kind Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie out of the battle if they cannot fight! Shipmistress, you will help Dadab distract the bad guy while Applejack knocks the Brute down...” Ferus growled, trying to shake the Unggoy off, but he held fast, clamping down on the brute’s ears with his hands. “Okay?"

Applejack raked at the grass defiantly with her forehoof, nodding. “I hear ya sugar cube. Give the word, and I’ll have that overgrown ape straight and felled as a dead old apple tree!”

Twilight, despite her wish to pay the Jiralhanae back for his unwarranted violence and destruction, decided to leave the fight to them so the others can get away unharmed. “I’ll get everypony out to someplace safe. But as soon as they are safe, I’m coming back to help, if I can!” At that, Twilight picked up Rainbow Dash gently in her telekinetic aura. With a firm magic grip on the pegasus, Twilight looked to Fluttershy and Spike. “Guys! Come on! I’m teleporting us back to the library!” Without hesitation or words, both grabbed on, and with a shining of her horn Twilight zapped them all out of the battle.

Watching the four take their leave, Chur chattered affirmatively as she rushed towards to Applejack’s side. Looking back towards Rarity, she waved her needler in the air like a Sangheili field marshal ordering an infantry lance into combat formation. “Stand with us and fight, or be on your way, Rarity!”

Rarity narrowed her eyes at the flailing Brute. “While I do not truly appreciate the arts of fighting and...warfare...” The word rolled of her tongue uneasily. “It will help to have some magic on your side.” The fashionista galloped after Chur. With the force assembled, they faced the brute captain. Standing before the still struggling Ferus was one very angry and very strong earth pony. Accompanying her were a precise, graceful dressmaking unicorn, and a nimble, incredibly fast Kig-Yar. Observing Dadab's struggle, they all knew he couldn't keep Ferus under control for long.

Wasting neither time nor breath, the trio jumped into the fray. Flanking right, Chur fired her needler at the brute captain, the pink crystalline projectiles embedding themselves almost harmlessly in his thick leathery skin beneath his coat of fur. The rounds were unable to acquire the appropriate critical mass in one area to trigger a super combine that could kill Ferus instantly.

Simultaneously, Rarity used her magic to conjure protective shields around her compatriots. While not as powerful as Twilight’s magic, the shields were undoubtedly better than fighting with just bare skin or armor alone. In addition, flanking to the left, Rarity used her telekinesis to throw random debris such as wood splinters, pebbles from the cobblestone, and needler shards from Chur's discharged rounds at the brute.

Fueled by adrenaline and primal rage, Ferus finally managed to throw Dadab off of him. The Unggoy landed with a loud groan, as well as a slight grunt. Meanwhile, Chur and Rarity’s combined attacks only served to enrage the massive Jiralhanae even more.

With one massive swing of his hammer straight into the ground before him, Ferus knocked Rarity and Chur away like rag dolls, who each made hard landings on the ground next to Dadab. The deacon was still trying to regain his senses that had been knocked out of him. Rarity’s now collapsed shields barely protected her and Chur'R-Yar from spraining or fracturing any bones.

Upon seeing that his hammer pounding did not reduce his enemies to meager craters as he had so desired, Ferus finally gave into his primal urges. With reckless abandon, the brute ditched his own gravity hammer, and charged at the three on the ground, tapping into the hidden reserves of muscular energy all Jiralhanae possessed. Ferus was intent on finishing the job, with his own two hands if need be. What he hadn't accounted for, as his three would-be victims rolled out of the way, was the earth pony mare that had been trailing his backside the entire time.

With a quick, vengeful cry of exertion, Applejack bucked him in the back with all the strength her hind legs could muster. She had been bucking apple trees since she had been a wee little filly, and all that work had honed and sharpened her hind leg muscles into a powerhouse. The directed kinetic energy inflicted massive damage to the brute’s back muscles and vertebrae. Letting out another piercing yelp of pain, the behemoth toppled over like so many sacks of flour that had been poorly stacked upon one another. His fuel rod cannon clattered harmlessly to the ground near Dadab.

“Bested by an Unggoy...” Ferus wheezed. Applejack’s force had been enough to knock the air out of his lungs as well. As the brute warrior lay upon the cobblestone, trying to regain normal breathing, Dadab, Rarity, Applejack, and Ria surrounded him, looking down with angry gazes.

Suddenly, the brute seemingly lost all consciousness. Taking a long look at him, the four victors moved to approach what was left of the podium, to take stock of the damage Ferus had wrought. No one saw the giant move until he was already upon them. Seizing Applejack by her neck before she could react, the brute roared in fury. “Worms! Did you really think me finished? Twice more you insult me this day. Now, you shall meet the fate of all who would defy and humiliate a servant of the Hierarchs!”

Ferus held Applejack straight up in the air as he attempted to squeeze the life out of her. Rarity looked on helplessly in horror, discovering that her telekinesis alone was not enough to break the alien’s steel vice grip.

Chur's response was to equip a weapon of which Rarity hadn't noticed a whole lot before, but Dadab recognized quite well. It was an energy baton, often used to keep unruly jackal and grunt underlings in line, as well as the occasional Yanme’e drone. Chur re-purposed the weapon for a much more nobler use, attempting to save an ally in need.

Hissing and rasping wildly in the Kig-Yar language, Chur ferociously struck out at Ferus, first targeting his sides, then his actual arms. It worked. Reeling back from the burns and shocks the baton emitted, Ferus unceremoniously dropped Applejack to the ground. She drew in air with long, ragged breaths. Rarity quickly rushed to her side as Ferus went after Chur, while Dadab kept his eyes glued to him and his close acquaintance's new foe.

Gazing at the alien that had fought to release her as Rarity fussed over her own prone form, Applejack saw something inside Chur she couldn't easily detect back at Twilight's library. A certain inkling of hers, as she regained her breath, was that Chur'R-Yar secretly valued those she kept close by, but she was reluctant to make it obvious. They would need to have a heart-to-heart chat sometime soon, Applejack privately concluded in her mind.

Rarity followed up on Chur's attacks with a surprise move. Picking up the brute’s discarded fuel rod cannon with her magic, the ordinarily civil, mare rammed the butt of the weapon straight into the brute captain’s snarling snout as he attempted to stick a spike grenade into Chur's flesh, her shield gauntlet having collapsed moments ago under the barrage of his fists. The T'vaoan felt a sharp pain in her torso, and guessed that a rib or two most have been broken.

“That’s a very important pony..er, person to me you’re messing with, you barbarian!” Rarity barked. Ferus fell to the ground. Rarity then floated the canon over to Dadab, who happily took his favorite explosive weapon type in hand. Grabbing the now active grenade Ferus had drawn, Dadab summoned a martial spirit he never knew he possessed, and shoved the spiked explosive right into the alien's chest. Its barbs hooked into his flesh with a sickening squelch that made Rarity involuntarily grimace.

“This one’s for Rainbow Dash!” He then grabbed two of Ferus’ plasma grenades, repeating the process. “This one's for Lighter Than Some, and this one's for hurting Applejack! Die, devil!”

Ferus emitted a howling shriek when the fuses went off. The resulting explosion from the chain reaction-detonated grenades on his belt sent him flying straight through the air.

Plotting out the flying brute’s trajectory in his mind, Dadab: the deacon-turned Unggoy explosives enthusiast, shouldered the fuel rod cannon and fired. “I'll send ya on the Great Journey, early!” he declared.

The rounds were aimed not at Ferus, but where his brick of a body was heading. Almost flawlessly, the fuel rod projectiles slammed straight into the white-furred Jiralhanae in succession, further hastening his flight straight into the Everfree. When his large smoking form disappeared over the rooftops of the buildings, a welcoming change occurred in the skies above. Entirely coincidentally, the Sun emerged out from behind a thick white cloud that had been hovering overhead for some time, shining brightly and radiantly on the four triumphant friends.

Now gathered around Applejack, Chur look down to the farm pony, her throat purring in concern. “Are you alright? Shall we contact a physician of yours, perhaps?” She now looked on to Rarity. Before she could reply, Twilight Sparkle teleported back out from the Library.

“Dadab! What’s going on now, I...Oh no, Applejack!” She rushed over to the still standing trio’s side, trying to examine her friend for injury.

AJ looked up at them with a weak smile. “Ah’m fine, ah’m fine! Don’t ya go fussing over me now, just a little throat ache. Nothing to break your horn over, Twi.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Applejack! That monster nearly killed you!” Rarity interjected. Twilight’s eyes widened in horror at this.

“Yeah, nearly.Were it not for our ‘pirate’ friend here, I’d been a goner! Ya have muh thanks, Shipmistress. I’m sorry for doubting your good intent, that was awfully hasty unfair judgment on mah part.”

Chur chuckled lightly. “You need not thank me, apple farmer. I am glad you have not blamed us for this one Jiralhanae’s hostilities. As you can see, not all of us in the Covenant can be... civil. And, I admit.... it is most pleasing to me to see that you were not seriously harmed.” Chur declared. "It would be most unbecoming for a friend of my newest associate to face a tragic turn of events."

Applejack stared at Chur in agreement, her smile widening a bit, even as Chur clamped her hand to her chest painfully. Twilight stepped in, noting every single scrape, bruise, and injury on those around her. “We need to get you guys back to the library so we can assess everything, then I can see about getting you and Rainbow Dash to Ponyville Hospital as quickly as possible!” Twilight noticed the Kig-Yar’s pained grimace as well. “And you as well, Chur. No protests."

They all gathered together around Applejack, as Chur offered a hand and pulled her up, ignoring the pain flaring in her own chest. The battle weary group teleported together back to the Golden Oak Library to see to the mending of injuries, and hopefully make lasting alliances. For with the appearance of Ferus and his superiors, Chur and Dadab's situation has changed, dramatically.

Comments

[qazse]

[Dadab Wins]
[FATALITY](Hopefully)

[Word Worthy]

3131628 I always enjoyed taking down Brutes in H3 and H3: ODST by throwing their own german Stielhandgranate spike grenades at them. They always went berserk, trying to grenade hug you. Positively....crazy.

[Hi World]

I remember Dadab, but does anyone remember Yayap? And his Elite friend, Zuka Zamamee? Of course you do

[Word Worthy]

3139967 I was originally going to make them the main characters, but then that could lead to the UNSC getting involved, and I don't really want humans appearing in the story.

So instead I chose Dadab, The Shipmistress, and Lighter Than Some from Halo: Contact Harvest because it was at the start of the Human-Covenant war.

[DarthMalentai]

Isn't what they did gonna harm them in the longrun if they happen to go back into the Covenant?

[Hi World]

3140272 Legit. I've been reading this story. "You seem nice, me like you. I go now to get gas so I don't die. Bye bye nice lady." Roflmao that was priceless

I take it you enjoy the Halo books. Did you read Halo Evolutions Vol II? Did you read The Mona Lisa? ... Wanna read a ponyified version of The Mona Lisa?

[Word Worthy]

3144032 I actually saw the motion comic version of the Mona Lisa. It was pretty creepy

Oh, I saw your story too. I'll have to give that one a read later today or tomorrow. Ponies fighting the flood, that should be interesting.

[Hi World]

3144106 Ossum possum The story is better than the motion comic since there's a lot of stuff the comic leaves out like characters n' events n' stuff lol. Then add Ponies!

[Ninjahzzzz]

....Damnit,Now IM gonna be running from grunts

[boothnat]

Inb4 they realize dabab just killed the dude, then blew apart his charred remains. Seriously, the mane 6 aren't supposed to be ok with killing.

[boothnat]

Inb4 they realize dabab just killed the dude, then blew apart his charred remains. Seriously, the mane 6 aren't supposed to be ok with killing.

[Dreadknight garen]

4557586 shhh its okay, its not canon