Once Upon a Time, on an Alien Ring World

by Hi World

Chapter 41: Grave Robber

The commander's Spirit soared through the night, weaving through magnificent rock formations. The mood inside was bleak. A UPSC Cruiser was not a nice place to be, especially when it was wrecked. Especially when the parasite was on board. But the fate of the ring was imperilled by it. If the Covenant were to stop the Ponies from triggering the armageddon the ship contained, they would have to secure it... again.

It had been secured before to stop the UPSC from scavenging her for supplies, just to make life harder for them. Apparently, there had been very little UPSC action there anyway. Of course the Flood were the biggest threat. The UPSC would show their faces though. And now that the Sentinels were getting in on the action, it looked like a different type of armageddon would be underway pretty soon.

BANG! Something outside couldn't wait though, and it punched its way in, prying the starboard door open with strong claws. The Elites grunted with surprise while the Grunts squealed with fear. Entering the vehicle, an ugly Flood combat form swung its arm left and right, smashing Grunts dead in single blows.

Unable to fire weapons inside the aircraft, the Elites ran up to the form, restraining it and beating it to death. More Elites came in from the port troop bay, and the pilot compensated for the skewed weight distribution. All surviving Grunts cowered at the very end of the un-breached, port troop bay.

The intruder had once been an Elite, and it took a lot to put him down. A lot more than it took to put healthy Elites down, as demonstrated by a second intruder. This one had once been a Jackal, and it ran an organic scythe through the huddled soldiers, killing two and wounding one. The rest of the Elites ducked and tried to beat the thing off of their craft, but it wasn't going anywhere.

Pulling itself inside, the ex-jackal snarled like a wild animal with a megaphone, and singled out one of the Covies. The unfortunate one, a rookie, was mauled within an inch of his life before his teammates managed to pull the mutant off of him, but then the mutant turned on them. Together, the Elites were able to rip the monster apart.

At once, three more combat forms entered the Spirit. The three newbies consisted of a distorted Jackal armed with a shotgun, a warped Elite with an energy sword, and a redesigned Pony that bore no weapon other than herself.

The Elites' energy shields were strong, but not strong enough as they began to fail. Soon, the Grunts showed up, and broke the "no firing" rule, unleashing plasma and needles into the stinking hijackers. The ex-elite gathered a tonne of needles in his lumpy torso, and the following explosion shook the Spirit.

"Keep her going!" the commander bellowed at the frightened pilot in Elite language.
He took out his energy sword and approached the two remaining Flood.

Shoving the rule-breaking Grunts aside, he lunged for the closest monster, the ex-jackal, and rolled in time to avoid the lethal shotgun blast it conjured up. The buckshot tore away at the Spirit's panelling, and the entire starboard door hinged open, introducing a new threat: Turbulence. It tugged at the troop carrier's occupants, and a couple of Grunts actually fell out, disappearing in the night.

As the pilot cautiously shed altitude, the commander grasped onto a railing and booted the ex-jackal in the stomach, sending him flying outside. However, unbeknownst to anyone, it was able to latch onto the aircraft's exterior, braving the wind and g-forces.

The remodelled pink Pony came clanging along the wall, protrusions digging in, and howled in the commander's face. In an instant, he swung his sword, but missed as the cur backed up. Quickly, it sprang out, smacking the commander with enough strength to break his wrist. He dropped his sword, and it went on its journey to the valley floor.

"Retched creature!" he snorted, head-butting the creature back.
Taking the brunt of the blow, ex-Pinkie almost shrugged as if to say "that was nothing," and delivered her own attack, smacking him with a tentacle. The long, slimy appendage struck like a bat on a ball, and the mighty Zealot was thrown overboard, along with the rail he so desperately held onto.

Now, the only healthy life forms on the flight were a quartet of Grunts and the single Elite pilot. With a noise that was a cross between a squawk and a roar, the contaminated Jackal returned, and he and Pinkie had their fun.

Sat on the dirt, the commander rubbed his aching wrist. He'd come to a harsh landing on his tush, and had even left a crater. Shining blue, his energy shields regenerated, and he rose to his feet with a grunt. He gazed up at the starry sky and saw the lopsided Spirit carry on without him, disappearing around the canyon.

He'd lost his energy sword, so the only weapon he had was his plasma rifle, and as a distant shriek bounced off the walls of the canyon, it sounded like he might be needing it.

In the Spirit's direction, he ran, his heavy footsteps and panting echoing up and down.

*****

Eyes fixated to the horribly mutated Rarity, Fluttershy knew what to do. Twilight had been over it with her, and she had refused at first, but if she didn't do this, there would be no hope for the universe, Equestria, her friends.

Here goes, she thought, raising a hoof and pulling it back.
... She didn't do it. Couldn't do it. What she had to do was so unbelievingly vile she just couldn't bring herself to doing it.

Twilight Sparkle had gone quiet; not rushing her. The war between the Flood and the Covenant was still happening in the Cruiser, and could be picked up clearly from every direction. That rushed her.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she forced herself to do the necessary action, and put all her strength into her raised foreleg.

Squelch! Her hoof punched through what had been Rarity's skull and became imbedded in the ex-unicorn's half-dissolved brain. Rummaging blind, she whimpered feebly, searching for the neural interface within her friend's head. All she could feel was soft, squelchy stuff, and the jaggedness of the skull she'd broken through.

Surprise caused her eyes to pop wide open as her hoof came into contact with something loose, square and metal. Determined not to loose it or push it deeper into the big ball of bodies, she felt around carefully, trying to get her hoof behind the device.

Once she had the chip where she wanted it, she squinted once more and sent maximum effort into retrieving Rarity's neural interface.

Her hoof made a popping noise as she yanked it out of the slimy hole, green blood oozing out of it. The interface clanked on the deck.

Shaking the mottled green fluid from her hoof, Fluttershy scooped up the teeny metal device, shook that clean as well, and placed it in her saddle bag.
Sombrely, Twilight muttered, "We're done... We have the codes... We should go."
Crying over what she'd just done, Fluttershy quivered, "We're... we're finally getting out of this place?"
"Yes... Head back to the shuttle bay... We'll find a ride there."
The pain in her gut intensified. "... Ok."

The ill Mare had just started tramping down the bridge's central podium, her back turned to the sack of corpses and the mess she'd made of its diamond, when Twilight spoke up, "Oh and Fluttershy?"
"Yes?"
"Can you hide under the podium for us? Something big's about to go down."
Putting a period to the AI's words, a terrifying shriek ripped through the walls and overflowed Fluttershy's ears. Her face became stricken with fear as she desperately galloped over to the cramped area underneath the command deck and Rarity's coffin.

Just as the AI said, the Covenant entered the bridge via the same door she'd used to get in herself, and they scanned the area for trouble. Something was different about them, but Fluttershy was too tired to put her hoof on it. Then she realised; they were all wearing black. Metallic black armour that shimmered and sparkled. There were no Jackals; just Elites and Grunts, armed with plasma pistols, plasma rifles, needlers and fuel rod cannons.

The deck wobbled like jelly as something else came charging up to the bridge. Something caterwauling. Something obvious. The Covenant knew what they were up against, and they fanned out across the bridge, taking up defensive positions. Well, all but one.

One of the alien soldiers, a black clad Grunt with a fuel rod cannon, stood still in the middle of the lower deck. He wasn't frozen if fear, he just had orders, and those orders turned out to be the smartest decision the Covenant had ever made.

Just as three of the four doors to the bridge were smashed down and the Flood came pouring in, the Grunt fired his fuel rod cannon over and over again into the humongous clot of biomass above, and icky green gloop formed a waterfall, further concealing Fluttershy.

The Grunt managed to let off a full five rounds before being mauled by the Flood. The special Covenant commandos, if that's what they were, hurled plasma grenades into the gathering horde. They fired their weapons, cutting the disgraces down, burning them, melting them. Deadly pink needles stabbed into many Flood forms, and they went up in super-combine explosions. Even larger explosions came courtesy of the fuel rod cannons, and the Flood were transformed into shooting stars trailing green flames.

Whatever department of the Covenant these soldiers were part of, they were hard-core, and they fought brilliantly. Fierce, cunning and experienced, the black armoured tacticians caused a chain reaction of explosions within the Flood. Blinding blue plasma grenades, luminous green FRPs, murky olive carrier forms, and even a couple of UPSC frags quaked the whole Honest Mistake, and once the dust settled, the extent of the damage was insane.

"Holy moley, that's a big holey!" Twilight gawked.
A gaping hole had been blown into the deck, and another floor was visible below. On that floor, there was a separate battle taking place between the Flood and the Covenant, and the aliens glanced up in confusion as debris and body parts came raining down.

The only thing more insane than the damage was the fact that the Flood just kept coming. The Covenant below were converted into combat forms in no time, and they joined the rest of the Flood in the bridge. They leapt through the hole, charged through the doors, wormed through the vents. They came from everywhere, and unleashed a variety of stolen weapons on the black clad Covies.

Loud explosions continued to deafen Fluttershy as the two sides napalmed each other.

The elevated podium that sheltered Fluttershy creaked and tilted.
"Oh no!" Twilight alarmed drastically. "Get clear!"
The yellow Pegasus took a gawp at the falling podium and spun to take one epic leap out of the way.

She crumpled into one of the two built in trenches to each side of the podium, and covered her head as the thing came crashing down, right where she'd been hiding.

"You're gonna have to get clearer than that!"
Fluttershy peeped up to witness the bulbous Flood body bag hanging on its stretching webs above her. Now that was something she definitely didn't want to be squished under.

Manically, she scrambled up and galloped speedily away from the looming flab, not watching as it plopped to the ground. Like a water balloon with a hole in it, it leaked green liquid from its wound, giving rebirth to a few absorbed Covenant corpses. One of those corpses wheezed, its body all over the place like a fried egg. Gross.

Fluttershy took cover behind a thick, purple support column and watched as something detonated, causing an identical column to topple over. A Grunt had taken up position in the column's shadow, and when he noticed it falling towards him, he expertly dove out of the way, leaving the column to smack down on a line of Flood.

Grunts were often laughed about in the UPSC. Not these ones though. These black clad soldiers were professionals, and if anypony else were here now, they'd be taking the cute little squeakers seriously.

However, the black clad Covies were still up against the Flood, and as usual, they... won?! What?! Fluttershy had a hard time believing that, but her eyes didn't deceive her. There was indeed one Elite and one Grunt left standing. A damn sight less than the original platoon, but still, two Covies and zero Flood. Oh wait, one Flood got back up. Never mind, the Elite killed it again.

Now that the fight was over, the Grunt and the Elite regrouped. The taller species brought up a radio and grumbled into it while the shorter one stood and surveyed the carnage.
"Now's our chance."

As the Grunt inspected the hole in the floor and the Elite conversed with whomever was on the radio, Fluttershy snuck up behind them, nice and quiet. She couldn't sneak past them, so she just listened to Twilight's instructions and did as the AI pleased.

After informing his superior of the situation and requesting reinforcements and a repair team, the black clad Elite put away his radio and scanned the chamber. Every surface was drenched with mostly green blood, and scorch marks ruined the shiny purple sheen. The huge potato of Flood biomass lay over the built in trench to the side of the collapsed command deck. He looked at it, puzzled, noting the odd shapes within, the great big hole that one of his Grunts had blasted into it, and the Unicorn Mare's head that had been, rather disturbingly, hollowed out. Who would do such a thing?

Something punched him in the back and stayed there, sizzling away, glowing bright blue. Well, he knew what that meant, and he only had enough time to turn around and see his pink maned assailant before blowing up in blue flames.

Startled by the noisiness, the Grunt spun to fire his needler at Fluttershy, only to find that her shields could bare the brunt. He didn't have shields though, and when Fluttershy unleashed a barrage of her own needles, he squealed in agony as each and every crystal shard punctured his flesh and thick blue blood oozed out of the stab wounds. The super-combine set off a secondary explosion from an abandoned plasma grenade, but the little feller died long before that happened anyway.

After gathering up grenades, needler and fuel rod cannon magazines, Fluttershy took a drink, tip-hoofed around the hole in the floor, turned her head away from ex-Rarity, and went back the way she came. There was no praise from Twilight this time, but she didn't mind. The AI was probably still lamenting over Rarity. So was she, and she wiped a single tear off her scarred cheek.

She slinked through a door, just in time to see an infection form burrow into a dead Jackal's chest. As the bird-like biped began to roar and convulse back to life, Fluttershy used the needler to make him fly apart in a cloud of purple blood and pink dust. She reloaded and continued.

A fresh batch of Flood were waiting for her right around the corner, although they seemed to be focusing on another threat. The doorway behind them lead to the shuttle bay, and Covenant ordinance shot into the corridor from there.

However, Fluttershy had still been spotted, and some of the bodies came shambling up to meet her, roaring all sorts of alien roars. One of the combat forms hissed menacingly and fired a captured sniper rifle aimlessly in Fluttershy's general direction.
"A sniper rifle?!" she strained as she backed up, firing her needler conservatively, not taking her eyes off the nightmares. "Oh no!"
If the Flood had gotten hold of a sniper rifle, that could mean...

The infected Pony that wielded it wasn't a tall, stick thin Unicorn, which provided hope for Fleur, but it did have something unique about it. At first glance, Fluttershy thought it was a Pegasus, but then she noticed it had bat wings. Aside from those creepy, limp bat wings, it had at least half a head, and sharp, irregular teeth stuck out from its skull, a brain hanging underneath. One of its eyes was missing, but the one that remained was orange, and the pupil was a slit, like how it was on a cat's eye.

Fluttershy had been firing at that infected Bat Pony, but an infected Elite pounced in to divert her fire. Once she'd used up a whole magazine on that thing, she primed a plasma grenade and was careful not to stick any of the Flood. If she did, and it got close, she'd be screwed.

Anyway, the plasma grenade detonated with a resounding BOOM, and all the Flood forms, including that ragged old Bat Pony, were history. All at the hooves of sweet little Fluttershy.

"Hold on," Twilight motioned, sounding generally puzzled.
With the memory of Rarity still fresh in her mind, Fluttershy sniffed and stuttered, "W-w-what is it?"
"I've got a friendly contact."
Fluttershy got her hopes up. "Huh? Is it Fleur?!"

"Ah, there it is," a friendly Mare's voice murmured from an aperture in the ceiling.
Much to Fluttershy's astonishment, Fleur de Lis dropped down with a loud thud, knees bent as she absorbed the hard landing.
Seeing Fluttershy, she spoke blandly, "Oh, and there you are," as she magiced up the sniper rifle that the contaminated Bat Pony had been equipped with and took out a cloth to polish its grip.

"Fleur!" both Twilight and Fluttershy gasped, gawping at the model Mare.
Fleur simply nodded.
Fluttershy tried to get control of her words. "Wh - b - h-how..."
"Long story."
"Well it's fantastic that you're here," spoke Twilight. "We could use a friend right now."

Monotone, Fleur interrogated, "Captain. Where is she?"
Twilight activated her sad sequence. "... It's too late for her..."
Bottling up her emotions, Fleur sighed and frowned at the deck. "... Her neural interface?" She was doing a better job at being an AI than the AI.
"Right here," Fluttershy answered, showing off her saddle bag.
"Hm. I underestimated you."
"Yeah, she gets that a lot."

A loud buzz increased from beyond the corridor, and the two Mares peeked into the shuttle bay to see a whole lota Covenant, standing on guard. They also witnessed two Banshee fighters come swooping gracefully into the hangar, banking around and creating a gust of wind. The Elite's piloting those things were extremely skilled as they avoided collision with the balconies and descended to the bottom floor for a smooth landing.

After the Banshees, a much larger aircraft entered the ship. A Spirit drop ship. Its twin bows rose up as it slowed drastically, almost coming into contact with the balcony. Levelling off, the transport stabilised in the air, holding position as the gravity locks engaged, and it bobbed ever so slightly. The long hatch that ran the length of its left hull hitched open, and a whole squad of black clad Covenant came hopping out onto the second floor.

One thing that was strange was; there wasn't a single sign of the Flood. Apart from the dead bodies of course, but aside from that, the hangar was under complete control of the Covenant.

The Covies on the Ponies' level also wore black armour, and upon noticing the equines, they fired bursts from their weapons and hurled a couple of plasma grenades.
"Get back!" yelled Twilight as Fluttershy and Fleur dove away to escape the grenades' blast radiuses.

"D'oohh! These spec ops Covenant are armed to the teeth! It's gonna be tricky getting past them!"
"Why do we need to get past them?" pondered Fluttershy, not wanting to do anything not worth doing. "We're leaving now, right? Can't we leave some other way?"
"We're leaving for the Filly of Autumn, over eight hundred kilometres away. Any idea how you're gonna get there?"
"Um... can't Rainbow pick us up?" She hadn't heard from Rainbow Dash in too long.
"I've tried, but I can't get through to her." Worried, Twilight took a little pause.

"... Plan B."
"We take those escort Banshees," announced Fleur. Probably had the same idea.
"Bingo."
The yellow Pegasus moaned, "Oh, not Banshees again!"
"Yes, Banshees again."

Jumping the gun, Fleur stepped out into the Covenant's view, fired four quick shots from her sniper rifle, and ducked back into the corridor. Covenant bellows and a fuel rod projectile answered in kind, but Fleur was able to get clear of the green explosion.

Annoyed, Twilight wined, "Fleur! We didn't even plan how we're gonna do this!"
Reloading the sniper, Fleur just looked back at Fluttershy and raised an eyebrow, face impassive.

A blood curdling shriek rattled the purple walls and echoed all around the shuttle bay. The Covenant on the floors below filed in, braced for action. The commanding Elites beckoned for the troops to move out, and they disappeared into the Mistake's infested corridors. Well, not all of them. There was still a considerably large amount of Covies defending the hangar, and they stayed alert, expecting the unexpected.

The usual Covenant on Flood fighting sounds were amplified as the two forces met each other, somewhere within the corridors. It was just a question of which side would return to the hangar, and when.

Now, it was time to leave this sunken ship.

"I'll cover you with the sniper rifle, ok," chattered the PONI operative, a stern look on her face. "You just get to the Banshees."
Fluttershy protested, "But, w-what about you?"
"Irrelevant."
"Relevant!" Twilight sang, not at all jollily.
The deck shuddered as something nearby exploded, and a massive Flood outcry pierced the atmosphere.
"I'll be right behind you, ok. Just get to the Autumn and put an end to this nightmare." She ended her sentence by leaping out onto the balcony and firing her magazine empty at a team of unseen, gibbering Covenant.

Following Fleur, Fluttershy crept nervously out of the corridor and into Covenant central. The top balcony was clear, but there was still plenty of Covies on the other two floors below.

The professional sniper reloaded once more and uttered, "You still here?"
"We're not leaving without you, Fleur!"

A particularly large explosion jostled the whole hangar, and a couple of Grunts on the bottom floor wobbled over.

Fluttershy managed to keep her balance, but then Fleur actually kicked her! Sent her plummeting off the balcony and onto the docked Spirit below.
She screeched all the way down and hit the transport's fuselage with an, "Ouch!"

A couple of black clad Elites commanded the second floor balcony where a million Flood and Covie corpses laid, and they instantly poured plasma fire on the frightened Mare.
"As if! Fleur just kicked us!" complained Twilight as lashings of blue plasma peppered Fluttershy's shields.
"Twilight!"
"Oh, er, hurry! Get to the edge of this Spirit!"

Those Elites were super accurate, and Fluttershy worked hard to regain her footing on the Spirit's fuselage. She'd landed on its right bow, and she slipped ever closer to the edge of it, mindful not to fall off.

The crack of Fleur's sniper rifle stabbed her ears, and she heard an Elite cry in return.
"Yes! Fleur's taking care of them!" elated the AI, dismissing her annoyance at the PONI Pony.
A second round cut through the air, and the second Elite keeled over, purple blood leaking from his abdomen.

"The second balcony is clear! Move up!"
As Fluttershy attempted to make her slippery way up the drop ship, Twilight rethought, "Y'know, now that I think about it, we could just take this Spirit!"
The words didn't register with the yellow Mare though; she was too busy loosing grip on the Spirit's smooth surface, and the next thing she knew, she was sliding over the edge.
"Uh-oh. Hold on, Fluttershy!"
"I can't! There's no gri-aaaahh!" And so, all the way down to the bottom floor, the Pegasus fell.

Crunch! She came down hard on a Covenant crate, creasing the metal. She flipped head over hooves and landed flat on the deck, staring up at the hovering drop ship. Her shields had been completely drained from the fall, and she heaved with the stinging she felt all around her body.

"Get up, Fluttershy!" urged the digital Princess. "Get up!"
Sitting on her haunches, the woozy Mare swayed about, rubbing her pounding head. "Uuhh."
"Covenant are talking about you. We need to get off this ship, ASAP!"

Rising to her quivering hooves, she shook the birds free from her head and glanced around in disorientation. Fleur's sniping spree could be heard above, and the Covenant commandos could be heard to her left, behind the central walkway.

Once her shields were up to full, she put her back against the central walkway, waiting for the Covenant clamour to die down.
"There's still some Covies lingering around. Wait for Fleur to pick them off," Twilight susurrated.

From her position, Fluttershy could see Fleur de Lis and her sniper rifle high above, and as soon as the skinny Unicorn motioned her hoof, Fluttershy was charging around the corner.

Dead Covies waited for her on the other side, horrific sniper wounds penetrating their bodies. One of them, a black armoured Elite, had actually lost his head to the white coated assassin, and Fluttershy squinted at the gruesome spectacle.

The two Banshees that had come swooping in were parked neatly beside each other, carapaces open, beckoning Fluttershy to take them for a spin. As soon as she was laying inside the first alien aircraft, a spec ops Elite popped out from hiding behind a trio of crates and opened fire.
"Seal her up!" the AI barked as the fearful Fluttershy reached up and pulled the elongated carapace down over her.
She was sealed in good, but the Elite outside continued to shout and spray the aircraft with blue plasma, stitching the shiny purple fuselage with steaming black spots.

Frantically, Fluttershy followed the AI's instructions, reaching for the many different switches and controls to bring the aircraft online. Once its alien engines burst to life, she took off and used maximum power to escape the Honest Mistake. She blasted out through the hangar's force fields and shrunk away into the starry night sky, leaving the three kilometre long vessel behind. A Grunt on a Shade turret attempted to shoot her down, and the purple plasma bolts joined the blue ones in chasing the stolen vehicle. However, the Banshee was able to get away, and Fluttershy sped up towards the arching ring world. Safe.

*****

Now Fleur de Lis was all alone inside the Covenant warship. She had her sniper rifle, her assault rifle, and a few grenades. She wasn't into "noble sacrifices" or stuff like that. There were two vehicles in close proximity that she knew how to operate, so what reason did she have for not taking one?

She could've just escaped with Fluttershy, but the frail Mare needed all the help she could get if she was going to get off the ship alive, so what better way to help her than to provide sniper support? Fluttershy was the priority; the fate of the galaxy rested on her shoulders, and her survival was paramount. Hence why she laughed internally when she booted her off the third floor balcony. Recklessness like that would've done Lightning Dust proud.

With an escape plan all figured out, Fleur scanned the shuttle bay from her vantage point, backed up, got a good run up, and leaped.

Author's Note:

USE MEDIUM DARK BACKGROUND.

9th April 2014. Phew! What a relief it must be to finally get out of that hell hole. I love this level. Y'think Fleur's gonna escape? See her again?

26th May 2014 Edit. Who is your best friend? Could you do to him/her what Fluttershy had to do to Rarity? What Master Chief had to do to Captain Keyes? I probably could.

It's the end of a level, and thus, 'tis time for that all important question... Where'd Perry Bunch go?

29th March 2015 Publishing day. Fluttershy is on her way to the Filly of Autumn. Pinkie Pie is on her way to the Filly of Autumn. And Fleur de Lis and that Zealot are up to something. And it is Berry Punch's last chance to return.

Updated cover art. Can't believe I made it this far. Thanks to anyone who read up to now. Queue the soulful choir :,)

Comments

[gerennez]

I have a feeling Berry is gonna end up being in the ship the whole time

[Hi World]

5800940 Smart thinking. The ship is where she disapeared after all

[gerennez]

5801074 Meant the escape ship, but that works too.

[Hi World]

5801137 Oh, you mean the Longsword? Lol I can see it now. Fluttershy escapes Halo, Berry sneaks up behind her n' scares the crap outa her xD