"Twilight, are you sure you can do this? Covenant blast doors can survive a 11mm shell fired from a Scorpion."
Noble Six, along with the rest of the small pony army, were faced with yet another difficult task. Noble Six, in the few short minutes since his rescue, had come up with a plan for pushing back the Covenant from Equestria. However, this plan meant they had to make their way to the bridge of the ship, the head of control for the entire Covenant attack. Getting there was already challenging enough, as the ship still contained 1000 plus Covenant soldiers and weapons aboard. However, the obstacle most pressing now was figuring out how to get through the tightly sealed Covenant blast doors that bared their path.
It was Twilight's guess, as much as anypony's, that she would be able to blow a hole through the blast door. She had no idea how strong it could be. She also had no idea what an 11mm shell was, or what Noble Six meant by firing it somehow from a scorpion. Twilight didn't think that scorpions could shoot things in the first place.
"I have to try. It's only a matter of time before the aliens send reinforcements down here, and I doubt they'll be unarmed this time."
Noble Six admired Twilight's courage and tenaciousness. They would need it to get out of the Covenant ship alive.
"Then when your ready, do whatever it is you do and blast a hole into that door." Twilight nodded, and slowly approached the silver, purple, and menacing door that blocked her path.
Six was more nervous that any other creature in that room. He understood Covenant battle strategy. It had already been about ten minutes since the Covenant retreated. It was only a matter of time they would send troops to finish them off. Six doubted that the Covenant would send generic troops to kill them as well.
Celestia could sense Six's distress. She was feeling twice as nervous, she needed an encouraging word as much as Six did.
"It'll be alright Six. For one, Princess Twilight is plenty strong enough to blow that door clean off. Secondly, if there's one thing I've seen, its that those six over there have never let me, or anypony else down. We'll get through this."
Suddenly, from behind the pony army, Six heard one of the blast doors open. He turned as fast as lightning towards the open blast door, his Energy Sword grasped tightly in his hand. But nothing came out, so it seemed. The blast door simply opened, and shut again a few seconds later.
It took Six a few seconds to many to realize what had just entered the room.
Suddenly, from out of thin air an Energy Sword, as blue and deadly as lighting, impaled a mint green pony, taken completely of guard. It did so so silently and professionally that no other creature besides Six even recognized that the murder happened.
Then, every other blast door around the room opened, including the one Twilight had been intending on destroying. Everypony in the room, who had intently been staring at the door Twilight was going to blow up, thought that she had opened every door in the room by mistake. Some even cheered her for doing so.
Twilight knew that this was not her doing.
Six's blood turned cold when he realized what was happening. He, and the entire pony army, were completely surrounded by Energy Sword wielding Elites, under the protection of Active Camouflage.
Before Six even had time to warn the ponies, it was too late.
The Elites started to kill every pony on the outside of the formation, one by one, stab by stab. By the time Celestia and the others realized what to do, every single pony on the outside of the formation was destroyed.
Celestia knew she had to act swiftly, or her and all her subjects would die.
"Shield wall, now!"
At Celestia's command, the best of the unicorns under her command created one unified shield above and around them, separating the flabbergasted ponies from the onslaught of invisible Elites. Not even a moment after the shield was created, the Elites slashed and cut at the shimmering shield, slowly but surely disintegrating the magic barrier.
Six knew he had to get his small army of ponies fighting as one, or they would all die in vain.
"Form up, press together to make a tighter defense. Use whatever weapon in your possession to repel the Elites."
The ponies tightened together, and made a small circle of defenders. Everypony on the outside of the circle had whatever weapon in their possession drawn towards the advancing enemy, which would soon collapse the waning shield around them. Those ponies inside the circle were ready to take the place of any comrade who fell before them. The ponies had created a phalanx.
Time grew still as the magic shield collapsed. Everypony held their breath as they waited for the worst. Once the shield fell, the Elites, their Active Camouflage depleted, charged towards the ponies and Noble Six head on, swords raised.
When the two sides clashed, the world moved in slow motion. Energy Swords glided through skin and bone. The sharpened steel weapons the ponies wielded punched through Covenant armor. The Elements of Harmony fought in the front lines, using magic, strength, and party cannons to stay alive. Six fought for his life outside the phalanx, cutting down Elite after Elite as he had done so often before.
The number of Elites was dwindling with every stroke of a sword and blast of magic. Soon, only five Elites remained, then three, then one.
Six was the one fighting the last remaining Elite. Unlike the others, Six planned to take the creature alive. As he found, it was much harder keeping an enemy alive then making him dead.
Energy Sword clashed against Energy Sword in a dangerous spectacle of one-on-one combat. Sparks flew in all directions as both trained warriors fought to claim the others life. Six knew he couldn't fight this Elite forever. With a flick of his wrist, Six cut the Elite's Energy Sword wielding claw. The Elite howled in pain and the sword fell to the floor. Six then grabbed the Elite's thick neck with his hand, and held his Energy Sword to it's throat.
"You're going to tell me what your friends are planning, or I'm going to do to you what your leader planned to do to me."
The Elite remained silent.
"Answer me, now." Six pressed harder against the Elite's throat.
The Elite chuckled to himself, and looking directly into Six's eyes, said, "It's all over. For me, for you, and for those pathetic creatures. Kill me, if that is your wish. You will die very soon."
Six silenced the Elite with a turn of his hand. The Elite slumped to the floor, never to be heard again.
Six turned to face the remaining ponies. Only about twenty remained, including Celestia, Twilight, and the rest of the Elements of Harmony. They were all terribly shaken and terrified, Six could tell that just by looking at their faces. But those ponies weren't looking at him. Every pony eye in the room was fixed on the fallen ponies around them. There were no tears, nopony had enough energy to weep. Only looks of sadness and remorse for the fallen dead.
Six was used to his allies falling around him. There was nothing to be done for the dead. However, he knew that those poor ponies probably hadn't seen death and war on this scale. He gave them a few moments to pay their respects.
"I'm sorry for those lost, but we can't stay here. Nor can we bring them with us. We have to move on."
Noble Six began to move towards one of the open doors, when another sound came from behind him. It was the sound of another door sliding open, only much louder than he expected. He turned, and saw, on the far left side of the room, was a huge bulkhead. This bulkhead slowly opened towards the ceiling. Standing on the other side of the bulkhead, were the creatures Six was counting on not showing up.
Standing inside the bulkhead, were ten pairs of Hunters, twenty in all. All of them were poised to completely obliterate the mass of ponies in front of them. All at once, the massive Fuel Rod Cannons attached to the hunters glowed a fierce green as their weapons charged.
"Move, now!"
That was all Six had time to say before the cannons fired.
Good chapter, I kept getting the same vibe as when I played truth and reconciliation on the first Halo.
That ending
I imagine twenty puppies getting gobbled the fuck up by twenty black major league football players with flamethrowers and spikes.
4750568
All according to plan...
I noticed some small grammar errors here and there. Just just thought I'd bring them to your attention before you or someone rude went searching through this chapter for grammar mistakes.
Near the end of the sentence, the verb should be barred. We all miss out on that one extra key press once and a while.
"Tenaciousness" should be "tenacity".
It's "your" when it should be "you're". I make this mistake all the time in my writing.
"To many" should be "too many". I also make this mistake sometimes as well.
"Of guard" should be "off guard". Same thing that happened with "barred" happened again here, I suppose.
This sentence should be "He turned and saw a huge bulkhead on the far left side of the room." There are other ways of fixing this mistake, but this seems like the simplest way without reducing down the original sentence.
Sorry if I'm being... "that guy" about this. Other than these small misspellings and stuff, this story is awesome! Keep up the good work!
NOOOOOO!
4750679 An average day in the blood bowl,Inotherwords.
Good, but one note
Scorpions have a cannon MUCH larger than 11mm. The M1 Abrams, (America's Main Battle tank) used either 105 or 120. Given that it's Halo, I'd say 150mm would work.
Other than that, it's good.
4754498 the cannon's bore is 150 mm, but the Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-SABOT round that is the Scorpion's main ammunition loadout only has an 11 mm area of impact for the inner-shell SABOT. It's all down to force, force = velocity * surface area - basically, between a 150 mm shell and an 11 mm shell traveling at the same speed as each other both hit a block of identical-density steel, the 11 mm SABOT would travel through much more of it than the compared 150 mm shell (such as an APCBC or APCR shell - shoot me, I'm an armored warfare fanatacist).
4764385
Uuh, not to sound like a smart a$$ or some thing but you should check your info:
The Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-SABOT round is the ammunition used by the UNSC sniper rifle (specifically: the Sniper Rifle System 99 Anti-Matériel, Sniper Rifle System 99C-S2 Anti-Matériel, SRS99C-S2 AMB Sniper Rifle and the Sniper Rifle System 99D-S2 Anti-Matériel)
The Scorpion MBTs primary weapon is a M512 90mm Smooth Bore High Velocity Cannon that fires either 90mm tungsten Armor Piercing Ballistic Capped Round or S1 Canister Shell (which is a 90mm high-explosive "grapeshot")
This is also mentioned on the M512 Smooth Bore High Velocity Cannon:
Under normal circumstances you would be right and I would leave it at that, but in this case since the source materiel is sci-if based it is always good to do a little research (that, and I'm a halo fanboy)
-and then everyone died. The end
That didn't help at all
OH CRAP! I DIDN'T EXPECT TWENTY OF THOSE BEASTS TO SHOW UP!
4754498 The M1 Abrams is all well and good but I still prefer the J. J. Abrams model better. XD
6794548 I prefer the Abrams Lincoln, Vampire-killing rounds
OMG THEY KILLED LYRA!!! YOU BASTARDS!
rip and tear!
I didn't know tanks shot projectiles Barely larger than a pistol round! interesting...
Holly SHIT Lyra’s dead..Pls explain.