Once Upon a Time, on an Alien Ring World

by Hi World

Chapter 28: I'm a Pony, Get Me Out of Here!

Saddled up and ready for battle, Applejack, Fluttershy, Thunderlane, Aloe and Lotus were quaking with fear. Who they were battling, well, according to their eye in the sky, they weren't Covenant. A rock formed in Fluttershy's gut as a tell-tale shriek tore through the air.

Regarding that shriek, Applejack talked to her squad, "Alright, y'all know what that means. Whatever the hay these things are, they've made it outside. We gotta be careful if we don't wanna turn into em."

Getting in Thunderlane's face, she checked, "Thunderlane, how much ammo you got?"
The dark grey Pegasus was still equipped with his assault rifle, whereas Aloe and Lotus were armed with nothing more than their pistols.
"Uh, not a lot." He shook his head.
AJ sighed, "Well you've still got yer pistol, right?"
"Yeah."
"Good. I want you to take to yer wings n' watch over us." The Staff Sergeant turned to face everypony else. "Y'all ready?"
There was no answer.
"I'll take that as a yes." Making for the exit, she pumped her shotgun. "Let's move!"
And so, into the mist filled swamp, the Ponies ventured.

The pitter-patter of the rain half-masked the gurgling of the stalking beasts as the four Mares slogged through the sloppy mud. Taking point, Applejack scanned the area ahead. Fluttershy was on rear, and she constantly rotated to check their backs. Sharing middle, the spa Ponies twitched and shuddered. And Thunderlane hovered over them all.

Even higher, Rainbow Dash's Pelican could be heard circling the swamp, and the Pegasus behind the controls updated them over the radio. "They know you're there. They're hiding in the bushes, waiting to ambush."
Fluttershy was the one with the radio, so she inquired, "Where abouts? Which bushes?"
"... All the bushes."
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she spun to face everywhere, picking out plants and branches that, at first glance, looked a lot like the ghouls.

Wading through a body of murky, knee deep water, Applejack brought the survivors to a stand still. "Y'all hear that?"
The team fell silent, listening out for whatever spooked their leader.

Splash-splash-splash-splash! Something was running at them through the water. Its crashing footfalls became increasingly loud. Whatever it was, it let out an ear splitting shriek. It seemed to come from every direction at once, so that's where the soldiers looked. Nothing could be detected though.

A second roar unfurled over the swamp, then a third, then a forth, then a dozen more. Something whispered in Fluttershy's ear, but when she spun to face it, she found there was nothing there.

Lotus became twitchy. "I can't take this any more!" She reared up and spun her hooves. "Run away!" Pulling on her wounded sister, she broke into a sprint.
"Lotus!" Applejack called after them as they disappeared in the fog. "Oh for Pete's sake!" She began running aswell, Fluttershy and Thunderlane in tow.

As Aloe and Lotus were absorbed by the fog, two different figures materialised in their places, one biped, one quadruped.
"Uh oh."

"They're behind us!" Thunderlane thundered, bringing up his assault rifle and firing the first shots of the fight.
More of the mutants came closing in, pushing through the shrubbery and running through the fog. Mud and water sploshing with every stomp.

Fluttershy and Applejack backed up against each other.
"You watch my back, I'll watch yours," the farm Pony uttered out the side of her mouth.
Fluttershy was too scared to answer, just pointed her shotgun outwards and tracked the stalkers.

She saw one skid as it changed direction, kicking up a rooster tail of water. It grew as it drew close, arms flailing, dead head flapping like a flag. Boom! She fired, but it was out of range, and the ex-elite just kept coming.

Applejack went wild with her shotgun, tearing holes the size of dinner plates into the decaying bodies.
One of those bodies had belonged to a Pony, and she stated, "Oh gosh, I recognised that one! That was Joe!"

Monster after monster came howling out of the fog, sploshing the dirty swamp water and making all sorts of gruesome noises. A handful of the little ones came slithering through the muck, and were shot out of action by the airborne Thunderlane.
"Well done, Thunderlane, keep it up!" praised AJ over the soundtrack of battle. "You too, Fluttershy! Yer doin' terrific!"
Neither Thunderlane nor Fluttershy responded; too busy trying to stay alive.

An Elite came dragging himself through the water, his legs moulded together as one big tail tipped with a spike. Fluttershy pumped the shotgun and pulled the trigger, taking his ugly alien head clean off. She was alarmed to see that the infected warrior wasn't even fazed, and it just kept scrambling towards her. Click, click, she was out of shells, and she hurried to reload.

Once one shell was in the weapon's chamber, she immediately discharged it into the alien's neck hole, triggering a vile explosion of olive blood inside its chest.

Once he, well, it, was dealt with, she resumed reloading her weapon, shuffling sideways with AJ at her back. The cowboy hat wearing Mare grunted with every kick of her shotgun, laying waste to all that came close. The parasites jumped up at her, and she reared up and kicked them away, coughing and waving the spores clear of her face.

Fluttershy's radio cracked as Rainbow pronounced, "Er, guys? You might wanna get to where Aloe n' Lotus are. They're in a spot of trouble. Keep it up! You're looking great on my monitors!"
"Ugh, dang nab it!" Applejack grunted in return. "Come on y'all, we need to push forwards!" A combat form leapt up, and she denied it's assault with a booming buckshot.

"Oh, where are Aloe and - gah!" She stopped herself to shoot down a sly ex-jackal that had crept up beside her. "Nng... Aloe and Lotus?"
"They're right by the tower - not far from you. They're hidden for now, but there's a lota bad guys surrounding them."

Back to back, the shotgun sisters shuffled through the water and into a narrow pass lined with weeping trees. A fearsome growl reverberated from somewhere behind, and a Pony came galloping through the rain to meet them. The Mare was still donning a soldier saddle, and a plasma pistol was attached to the mechanical arm. Her mane and tail had been reduced to only a few strands, and tentacles supplemented various parts of her misshapen body.

The infected Mare commenced firing its plasma pistol, and Fluttershy yelped as some of the green bolts sizzled against her shields.

Thunderlane came swooping in and rained bullets all over the living distortion, delivering a mighty buck to its head as he soared by. It was still standing though, and as Thunderlane came whooshing back down for a second strike, it leapt up to an impossible height and met him in the air, greeting him with a whip of the tentacles.

The Pegasus grunted and crashed to the soggy floor, the ugly little Mare looming over him. Before it could do anything, AJ stepped up and blasted the abomination into oblivion.
"Uh, thanks," gratified Thunderlane woozily.
Applejack helped him up. "Don't mention it, partner."

All of a sudden, Thunderlane yelped, and one of the small parasitic creatures tunnelled its way inside him. "Aaarrg!"
"Thunderlane!"
The Stallion fell to the mud and rolled around in agony.

Fluttershy was well aware as to what was happening, but she was too busy fighting off the never ending crowd all by herself.
"Applejack! Help!"
"I'm on ma way!"

Comingled red blood spewed from Thunderlane's chops. "Uurrguraahhaaa-RAAAAGH-"
-Boom! Applejack shot her own soldier in the face, just as a huge appendage burst out of his wrist in an explosion of green goo.
Lowering her head, she breathed, "Bless yer soul, Thunderlane."

With that problem taken care of, Applejack re-joined Fluttershy in fending off the next ninety nine problems.
"Applejack! What did you do?!" trembled Fluttershy, mind as blown as the next combat form's head.
"I did what I had to, Fluttershy," the cold blooded Mare answered. "He became one of em."
Fluttershy understood, but it still wouldn't sink in. She had seen things like this happen in nightmares, and horror movies that her friends would push her to watch. She never thought such a terrible thing could exist in reality.

Friends pushing her to watch horror movies - ha! It was her friends who had pushed her to join the UPSC, and now here she was, living a horror movie.

Eventually, the mindless zombie army began to thin, and Applejack and Fluttershy could run on through the narrow pass, exiting the choke point just as it started to rain head-sized parasites. Noticing the swarm, Applejack paused to chuck a grenade behind her, not even bothering to look, and sprinted on as it went off with a mighty BOOM!

Making their splishy-splashy way onwards, the two Mares gazed up at the looming structure Rainbow had told of. The base of the tower was circular, with half-rounded supports protruding from the sides. Further up, jutting out from the column itself, were wing-like platforms. Their purpose wasn't clear, but the same could be said for the whole structure. The top of the shaft was lost in the mist.

Those misshapen creatures were running rampant in the surrounding sludge, searching, hunting. Their pray came in the form of Aloe and Lotus, who held on tightly to each other, concealed between the Forerunner structure's supports. They were hidden, for the time being.

Aloe and Lotus had a funny sort of strategy. Instead of fighting their way to their destination, they just ran there, too afraid to fight, and huddled up in the best hiding place they could find. Fluttershy couldn't blame them; these monsters were horrifying. Problem was; not fighting left the hostiles alive and free to overwhelm them.

Fluttershy and Applejack proceeded to shoot their way to Aloe and Lotus' position, ripping limbs off of their attackers with the shotguns. Some of the creatures were able to get back up, and more ammo was expended on putting them down again.

Thwack! Something struck Fluttershy hard enough to trigger her shields and knock her to the submerged floor. Rolling over, she beheld a monstrous Elite standing over her, left arm converted to a whip, right arm converted to a massive cinder block with spikes sticking out.
"Aaaah!" she squealed, aiming the shotgun at the atrocity's belly.
One deadly buckshot tore it in half, and not even that killed it. The top half flailed around screeching in the water, the Elite within wailing in excruciation. Putting the poor guy out of his misery, Fluttershy squirmed up and executed it, sending green blood up onto her face.

"Eeeww," she moaned, spitting the stuff out of her mouth. She screamed as another monster launched itself at her.
Squeezing the trigger, she put the disgrace down, but was jumped by a third combat form. The two of them rolled in the water, fighting to get on top, Fluttershy wailing with fright.

Kitted out with an MA5B assault rifle, the infected Jackal fired fully automatic into the dirt right by Fluttershy's head. A sudden jerk, and those bullets were tearing directly into the shielding of her face. Even though the shields were able to prevent damage befalling the screeching Mare, she could still feel each and every bullet impact her face, and boy did it hurt. She covered her face with her hooves, whimpering, bringing the shotgun around to cease the torture.

The shotgun was powerful enough to throw the dead Jackal off of her, just as her shields popped, and she shakily rose to her hooves, delivering a second buckshot to make sure it didn't get back up. Teeth chattering, she spun around, yelping every time she was forced to pull the trigger.

Applejack wrestled an infected Jackal, hoof to tentacle, and was able to stomp it dead on the floor. Another ex-jackal lunged at her, and she blew it away with her shotgun. Out of shells, she reloaded, bucking all sorts of nasty creatures that came to interrupt her. Talk about multi-tasking.

Soon, her shotgun was full of shells, and she was able to let'a rip once more, serving up two buckshots to silence what used to be an Elite, then a third to bring devastation to a cluster of wee infection forms.

"Aloe! Lotus!" she hollered. "Snap yerselves out of it n' help us!"
Trembling, the sisters held out their magnums and took pot shots at the horde, eliciting some attention. AJ and Fluttershy galloped over to defend them with their scatter guns, providing the best offence against the creatures.

"What were you thinkin', just abandoning us like that?!" demanded Applejack, taking breaks to let her shotgun talk.
Firing her pistol at a charging form, Lotus retaliated, "You abandoned Lyra and Bon Bon!"
"For the last time, they abandoned us! Lyra ran off, and Bon Bon chose to stay behind!"
Aloe joined in. "And you let them?!"
"They're responsible for their own actions, and quite frankly, I'm sick n' tired of everypony just leavin' us!"
Two wriggling parasites sprung up onto AJ, and she instantly flicked one off, letting Fluttershy shoo away the other.

"Y'know, if you hadn't o' left us, Thunderlane might still be here!"
"Thunderlane's down?!" the twins gasped in unison.
A shrill screech echoed around the swamp, and the beasty that emitted it pounced into view, being torn apart by the two shotguns.
"Yes, he is!" Queue the sarcasm. "Too bad you weren't there to see it!"
On the verge of tears, Aloe and Lotus cuddled, lips trembling.

Getting angry, Applejack bawled, "Why aren't you shooting?!"
Proceeding to sob, the twins commenced firing their pistols at the more distant of the horde, missing most. Applejack rolled her eyes. Even Fluttershy was keeping it together better than them... kinda. When a contaminated Elite fell at her hooves, the first thing she did was cry.

Fluttershy's speaker buzzed as Rainbow contacted them. "Uh, guys? There's er... There's a bunch of flying robots heading your way."
Flying robots?
"They saw me, but they left me. They could be friendly, I dunno. They're not Covenant, that's for sure."
What on earth was Rainbow Dash on about?

What she was on about, was the boxy, floating mechanisms that descended through the mist. Fins and rudders supplemented their silvery metal bodies, and faint blue lights shone like mystical fireflies.

"What are those things?!" queried Aloe, unsure whether or not to shoot.
In response, Applejack started, "Hold up-"
-A creature possessing a Jackal's beak and a Jackal's light shield but wasn't a Jackal launched itself high into the air with a drone. AJ blasted it out of existence.
"-Let's see what they do."

What they did was pleasantly surprising. Each little flying machine whizzed around through the rain, projecting orange, super heated lasers onto the impending horde. The abominations of nature wailed and howled as, one by one, they started to drop, rise, and drop again.

One of the airborne janitors was pulled down by what had once been an Elite, and was subsequently pummelled to scrap. Blue flames flickered from the wreckage, igniting the monster. That monster didn't care however, and proceeded running on over to the equine quartet, where he met his fate at the end of Applejack's shotgun.

"Hm-hm-hm-hmm-hmmm, hm-hm-hm-hmm-hmmm," came the tuneful sound of humming from somewhere above.
Everypony looked around in confusion.
"Who on earth is that?"

Gold light spiralled around Fluttershy, her energy shields recharging. No, wait... this was something else. The golden light didn't just spiral around her. It consumed her. Cocooned her like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly, until her startled form was hidden from view.
"Fluttershy!" shouted Applejack, taking a moment to slaughter an infected Pony that strayed too close.
"Applejack!" the Pegasus squealed back, afraid of whatever was happening to her.

Fluttershy's vision snapped to white, and she felt her body dissolve into a billion pieces from the hooves up. Almost straight away, those billion pieces began to reconnect, and her vision returned to an elevated view of the swamp and the battle between the mutants and the machines. Her hooves were on solid metal ground, and she rotated to find herself standing up on one of the platforms up the Forerunner structure. It would seem that the olive green blood on her face hadn't been teleported with her, which was a pleasantry.

"Hello," a synthesised voice greeted, friendly but strange. It startled Fluttershy.
Peering up, the yellow Mare saw a metal ball with a bright blue glowing light in its centre, like a single eye. Like the rest of the machines, it floated down through the rain and bobbed in the wind.

Whatever it was, it came across as well read, kinda like Twilight, and proceeded to introduce itself. "I am 343 Guilty Spark. I am the monitor of installation 04."
343 Guilty Spark? Installation 04?
Fluttershy had plenty of questions for this robot, but being the shy Mare that she was, all she ended up saying was, "Um... hi."

A booming shotgun blast from below rang out loud around the water logged swamp, followed by Applejack's distant southern accent. "Fluttershy! Where are ya?!"

To Fluttershy, the glowing metal orb mentioned, "Someone has released the Flood."
"Um... the Flood?"
"Yes, the Flood."

Rainbow's Pelican generated a sonorous drone as it lowered steadily through a gap in the foliage, ready to pick up the Ponies.
"Ok, I'm coming down. Get ready."

Trying to sound polite, Fluttershy told the talking, floating ball, "Well... it's been nice meeting you, Mr Spark, but, um... I really should get going."
"Ah, I couldn't agree more," he replied, misunderstanding. "If we are going to prevent the Flood from leaving this installation, we must go to the library at once."
"Huh? Oh, no, that's not what I-"
"-Fluttershy?" Rainbow's voice cut in, sounding very curious. "What is that thing?"

Fluttershy twisted to realise Rainbow was hovering her Pelican at her level, watching her through the windscreen.
"Um, I-"
"-We don't have time for this, reclaimer," Mr Spark declared. "Come, this way." With that, the same gold light that had encased her before wrapped around her and the rounded machine.
Fluttershy protested, "Wait! No! I can't-" and just like that, she and the monitor disappeared.

It all happened right before Rainbow's eyes, and the blue Pegasus gawped at the empty space where Fluttershy had been talking to the weird little play-thing. The golden light reminded her of whatever had happened to Pinkie Pie when she was flying them over here.
"Fluttershy! Where'd you go?!" she yelled into the radio, praying for a signal. "Fluttershy! Fluttershy!"
No use; Fluttershy had disappeared without a trace.

As the hovering machines continued to wage war on the parasites, Rainbow shed altitude using the control collective to her left, and lowered the gangplank.
The sound of hooves on the metal deck rang into the cock-pit, and as soon as the last Pony embarked, Applejack stuck her head into her quarters and ordered, "Get us airborne."

Sealing up the Pelican and gaining altitude, Rainbow asked, "Did you see what happened to Fluttershy?!"
"It's mighty good to see ya, Rainbow. And yes, I did see what happened to Fluttershy." Over her shoulder, the orange one checked, "Y'all doin' ok back there?"
"I... I guess," came the uneasy response from Lotus, followed by a cough from Aloe.

Rainbow ranted, "She just vanished right before my eyes! Something similar happened to Pinkie Pie, or at least I think it did. What the hay is going on?!"
"I wish I knew, Rainbow, but I haven't the foggiest."
"Please, Applejack, I'm not in the mood for puns."
"I aint making no puns! I just wanna find Fluttershy. Aint she comin' up on yer sensors?"
Tapping said sensors, Rainbow answered, "Nope. She's gone without a trace."
"Con sarn it!"

There was a long pause as Rainbow took the Pelican high into the sky, keeping close to the Forerunner structure.
"So... what happens now?" raised Applejack, a look of worry on her freckled face.
"Well... I guess we circle the area and search for her. She can't have gotten too far, right?"
AJ didn't answer, just stood in the doorway and stared out at the view ahead. Well, thanks to the fog, there wasn't really a view, but still.
Under her breath, she pondered, "Happened to Pinkie Pie?"

"... So... is Rarity back there?" Rainbow eventually sounded, gaining Applejack's attention. She gestured her head towards the troop bay. "I can't hear her."
Looking down, Applejack muttered, "Oh, yeah, that."
Rainbow's face went from gloom to dread. "What?"
"I should probably tell ya when you aint flyin'."

Author's Note:

28th December 2014 Publishing Day. Ok, now I can ask where'd Berry Punch go?

Of course there was no notes from the first draft and first edit because they were all kept in the previous chapter. The previous chapter and this chapter were just one chapter, but thanks to editing and making the previous chapter somewhat good, it became way too long and needed to be sliced into uneven halves.

The Library's coming up next, and the entire mission is done in a single chapter, unless I edit the hell out of it, but even then, the chapter doesn't even hit 3,000 words! Discover the magic I used next week ;D

New cover art is up.

Comments

[NobleLeader6]

... I mean... just... . Why? I swear, this has to be the most... Words fail to describe how I feel about this chapter. Never been a huge fan of Big Mac or Thunderlane, but damn. That's all I have to say. Fuck it.

[Hi World]

5434846 At least the black guy didn't die first Joe and Bon Bon also got infected but Bon Bon was never refered to by name. The Flood are out, so this is when the Ponies really start suffering >:)

Merry late Christmas n' happy new year btw