One Ugly Grub

by Sgt GobSmacker

Hail to the Chief

*(Mark's P.O.V)*
*(Earlier that day)*

"They see me rollin'. They hatin-... Ohh what have we here?" I stared at a little Halo figurine on the shelf, inspecting it. The funny thing was that the armor was a purple color with hot pink highlights going across the plating, with one of the strangest emblems I have ever laid my eyes on, emblazoned on the left shoulder pad. Behind the figure was the color pink...

I looked around in the aisle that I was currently in. I stomped my foot in embarressment and anger.

"Aw goddamnit! This is the girly shit section!" I whispered in annoyance under my breath.

"Yo Mark I got the staff!" I heard the voice of my brother echo off the walls of the shop.

"Okay!" I called back. "I'll investigate this place some more!"

"A'ight!"

I sighed and glanced off down the lane, prepared to rummage around the next aisle.

'Hopefully something a little le-'

My thoughts were cut short as an old, brittle looking Chinese man came into my field of vision. He stood there, rubbing his chin in thought, marveling me from a distance as if I was some piece of art. The feeling of being creeped out was an understatement.

He looked at me with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, apparently he found something amusing that I didn't quite latch onto very well. The man started to chuckle, raising a what looked like an accusing finger pointed at me. His laughing grew into hysterical fits that would make the Joker proud.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" I questioned him, half-yelling, spittle spraying over my visor.

His laughing died down to weak chuckles. "Heh, heh... brothers it detects, this is very interesting indeed..." As soon as the words left his mouth my eyes were assaulted by a bright light emanating from the front of the store, making the man appear as some sort of angel. (Not the good type mind you.)

"OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUU-!" That sounded like Cian's voice.

"Cian!" I tried running to the front of the store, but no movement came from my limbs. The Chinese man snapped his fingers and in that moment in time, the stores shutters grinded down on the front entrance, bringing the shop to a close.

The sensation of pins and needles spread across my body like a wildfire. It felt like I was a statue, trying my best to move. This lasted for over a minute and during that time, the light compared to that of a thousand suns ceased to exist. I was sweating profusely, letting out shallow breaths of fatigue.

I looked up at the man, glaring at him down the aisle with a stare that would make Superman cower in fear, if he could see it past my visor that is. My eyes stung as sweat dripped down my face, I blinked to get the salty liquid away from my vision. As I opened up my eyes, my gaze was greeted by the face of sadistic mirth. I shuddered in fright.

He inspected me for a few seconds, looking like he was admiring the work I put into my Master Chief cosplay, before snapping his fingers.

"That will do..." That was the most sinister thing I heard in a very long time. He brought his hand up to his eye-patch, slipping it right above his eye. Seeing the eye itself made my skin crawl.

His eye was glowing a deep, navy blue, a tint of green, added to the hue. (Hey! That rhymed!) Swirling in an anti-clockwise direction, comparable to that of a vortex.

"See you later." His eye began to glow a rich cyan color, blinding my vision. I felt myself being slowly lifted into the air, an icy grip wrapped around my neck like a coil of rope.

I felt myself becoming one with the atmosphere, my atoms and molecules splitting apart. Until I could feel nothing no more.
_____
*(Location: Unknown)*

"Mark!"

"Wake up!"

My senses returned. My body whole. I could hear the rush of air fly past my being. I opened my eyes, to be met with the sight of black storm clouds. I gazed around my surroundings quickly enough to comprehend what was going on.

I was falling.

I have ever told you that I have a fear of heights?

I started to scream in terror (in a manly manner), but that was cut short as my voice sounded croaky and gruff. I started breathing heavily in fear, this was all too much to take in at once.

I fell down into the clouds, lightning whizzing past my being and thunder echoing off of my ear drums. The vapour compression fogged up my outer visor, I couldn't see a thing. This lasted for a few minutes before the cloud started to fade away a little. That was defintily one of my top ten scariest moments of all time, coming in at number two. Number one being Cian chasing me around the house with a hatchet intent on harming me for waking him up... Good times...

The earth came into view. My eyes going wider with each passing second. I started to scr-

"Chief! Use your jet pack!" Who the hell was that? Was that Cortana?!

"Jetpack?!" I panicked. But as the words sped past my lips, the aviators dream of a machine roared to life. I felt myself beginning to slow down a notch, the air rushing past me quickly faded to nothing but a mild wind. The jetpack slowed me down a great deal, saving me from inevitable death.

As I neared the earth, I could see tree's littering the landscape for miles. I glanced to my left to see a large castle in view a few miles to the west. I cast my gaze back up to the cumulonimbus a few hundred meters above my head. Only to see it was gone.

"Strange..." I thought aloud, a spark of curiousity in my new, wooden voice.

I could hear the rumbling and shifting of the jetpack, it sounded like it was about to die.

"We're going to faaaal-!" Cortana was trailing on as we fell for the second time in a matter of minutes.

The canopy was getting closer with every millisecond that passed. Air whizzed past my body, cold winds going up through the helmets filters, this carried on for a few seconds until I had crashed through the bushel of leaves, hitting branches and snapping twigs. The ground was rushing in at speeds comparable to that of a motorized scooter, slow was a good statement.

I whacked and smacked against branches of variable sizes for a good minute. My armor's shields flaring an orange glow, the bar in my helmet flashing a slight red.

I collided with the ground, an audible thud was heard along with it. I layed there, splayed on the leaf ridden earth. I let out a heavy breath before getting up groggily. My breathing was becoming sharper and quicker with each intake of oxygen.

"Are you okay?"

"Agh!" I let out a frightened gasp, before realizing that was Cortana. "...I'm good..." I was very skeptical of the fact that I was now a Sci-Fi video game character, with an A.I companion, but after the Merchant fiasco I was willing to believe anything at this moment.

I let out an exasperated sigh. "Cortana?"

"Yes?" She replied.

'Now I know she was actually Cortana... Come to think of it, I don't remember putting in an E.V.A foam chip into the back of my helmet...'

"Did you see that castle to the west?"

"I did, human construct possibly. Though I am not entirely sure... I managed do a scan whilst we were falling... scans show there are no human lifeforms within a two mile radius, though there is something close to resembling a homo-sapien within the area."

"Should we investigate the castle?" I asked, not willing to go tango with an unknown creature.

She contemplated about my idea. "It seems like our best bet." She paused for a second. "Marking a waypoint on your H.U.D."

I cast my gaze to the left, my waypoint marker showing an approximent distance of three miles. This was going to be a long walk. Especially through a dense forest, it was going to take a while.

My armor's shields flashed back to life as a yellow glow was cast on my being. The bar in my H.U.D sped back to its original blue color.

"Alright, we're good to go." Cortana said, pleased with the fact.

I chose not to reply, but instead nod my head. I raised my foot, prepared to take my first steps in an unknown world, my armored appendage landed on the ground, with the soft squish of mud and leaves following after. I did the same with my right foot, the same noises following behind.

I felt the sense of accomplishment.

'Now I know how Neil Armstrong must have felt on the moon.'

*(Third-Person P.O.V.)*

A thought suddenly landed in Luna's mind, blocking all sense of hunting the being known as Skorge.

'A pony on the moon? That is preposterous!' The thought departed...

(And we all know you'll be the first one there!)

*(Mark's P.O.V.)*

I trudged through the forest, my boots veiled in mud, leaves, and a few twigs. I clambered over logs and slided inbetween trees, the waypoint getting closer ever so slowly. The woodland was hard enough to tranverse as it was, and from what Cortana had told me, approximentely an hour had past since we had begun the trek.

I kept my eyes locked with the marker, my gaze unfaltered. I ducked under low hanging branches, and went cautious around knots of tree roots, prone to trip on them at least once in your lifetime. Happened to me a few years ago, cracked my skull on a rock. It was not pretty in the slightest.

"Chief I detect movement." Cortana said with a hint of angst in her voice.

"Which dir-"

*"BU-GOCK!"*

I turned around, in a dramatically slow manner. What I saw turned my mind into a cloud vaporized of farts and farts alone. The head of a chicken... noticed how I said 'the' head of chicken, yes? The head of a chicken with the body of a dragon, barely reaching my knee. This was crazy in and itself.

It cast an unholy gaze into my visor, like it was trying to sever my mind in half.

'How the fuck does it know where my eyes are?'

"Cortana?" I asked quietly. "Do you know what that thing is?"

"From what I've gathered, it's a cockatrice from the look of it. A creature of ancient Greek legend, turns people into stone just by looking into its eyes."

An idea had popped itself into my head after a moment of thinking. "I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"You'll see."

*(Third-Person P.O.V)*

Mark walked cautiously up to the cockatrice, gazing down at the animal. The lizard hybrid just looked at him with a bewildered expression, contemplating why its bitter glare was not working on the bipedal being.

Mark kneeled down in front of it, his arm rested on his left leg, while his right hand was splayed on the ground. Mark stared right into its eyes, the visor covering his face. The cockatrice focused its eyesight on his visor, only to see its own reflection looking back at it. The mutated chicken could only stare off in horror as it felt its feet going numb with cold and its lower half rapidly being turned to stone.

The stone travelled up its neck, the beast now knowing how its prey must have felt when being turned. The cockatrice let a tear slide down its cheek before the stone finally over took the entirety of its body, leaving only a husk of its former self.

*(Marks P.O.V)*

"That was easy." I turned back around, continuing my saunter to the castle.

"That was anti-climatic." Cortana stated.

"With me around, everything is anti-climatic." (Think about that sentence in Chiefs terms)

"I can't help but agree with you for some reason..."

I didn't reply as I was now too focused on the task at hand. The waypoint was only a mile and a half away. That was at least another hour on the clock, and it was getting darker every minute, with the sun dimming from the sky.

I walked through bramble and briars, my armor obtaining extremely small slits with it. The chittering of insects and squawks of birds were heard overhead, I was cautious of another beast, or that 'thing' Cortana mentioned a couple of hours ago, having no weapons sucks major ba-.

The forest suddenly became silent, deathily so. A faint noise could be heard in the background, but soon turned into sounds that chilled me to my very core.

Howls of pain were heard from what sounded like the roar of a lion, combined with the shredding effect of a chainsaw. It ended as soon as it started. I stood there in fear, my heart going into overdrive.

"Movement to the east!" My A.I voiced out hastily.

A yellow dot had appeared on my motion tracker, and it was coming in fast.

With my senses kicking in, I shrouded myself behind a nearby tree, not willing to go on a date with death and craziness. I had enough of that today, thank you very much.

The snapping of twigs and heavy, scratchy breathing assailed my eardrums as the creature sprinted past my location. I took a peek over the right side of the tree. Nothing was there, only paw, claw like prints were engraved in the mud, in the direction of the castle.

"Damnit." I cursed under my breath. I stayed quiet for a full five seconds before sighing out. "What was that?"

Cortana was contemplating my question. "From what I know of, it was the sapient being I mentioned earlier... It was marked as a friendly on your tracker, so it might be a possible ally."

"Will it be worth while trying to talk to it?" I was unsure of it.

"There is no harm in trying, we might be able to."

I could only nod my head in understanding, having no words to say.

I had one foot in front of the other, keeping a decent pace into the direction, of the castle and a likely ally. I gazed around my surroundings, with darkness creeping in, the forest was giving off a sinister vibe. Birds flying out of trees and animals scurrying out of bushes gave me a few decent frights. I turned on the flashlights on each side of helmet, giving off an even more ominous feeling to my surroundings. (You don't know what its like having a headlight in the dark... it's creepy as hell.)

I kept my ears on high alert, listening in on any noises that sounded out of balance. It was just as well that I had done that as I heard the flaps of wings just up ahead, big wings. I turned off my lights.

"Clearing up ahead." Cortana whispered.

I walked cautiously into the assumed clearing of woodland, hearing the affirmed beats of hooves on the grass. I activated my lights to see what I was dealing with.

My brain needed some bleach at that moment. You would too after seeing a god-damn horse with a bloody horn and a pair of wings stare at you with fear and confusion!

In fact this one looked familier, that white coat, that multicolored hair dye, that wavy mane and tail, that gem encrusted tiara.

I knew exactly who I was dealing with...
...
...
...
"Princess Molestia..." My voice trailing on under the wind.

Author's Note:

This was extremely hard to write thanks to good 'ol writers block! Right now my thoughts are revolting against there blocky hybrids. Patriots assemble!

Comments

[DEMADNESS13]

hmm molly. I wonder how this will play out. Dose the cheif have any weapons?

[Sgt GobSmacker]

4626502
Nope he doesn't have weapons, and no thats not Molly, it's just Celestia. Mark read too many memes.

[Deathm0nger]

Shotgun!

[SeventhBrony]

poor little Cockitrice, it's called poetic irony

[Paladin Redflare]

Princess Molestia....HAHAHAHAHA, THAT'S A GOOD ONE!
Can't wait for them to talk... and for "Skorge" to evetually wake up.

[NoLongerSober]

Oh this can only end well.

[Golden Script]

Molestia's mane is a different color than Cellestia's. just saying. of course, i could understand his confusion between the two.

[qamar-ling]

it is nice being a fan of halo and gears of war. also vary nice story so far.

[Sgt GobSmacker]

4627070
Thank you

[qamar-ling]

4627096 no problem.

[Sgt GobSmacker]

Dislikes with no comments justifying why? Human ignorance at its finest!

[Sgt GobSmacker]

4627961
A lot of things! whats got you bemused?

[Old Diggy]

Oh Gods, just thinking about what Celestia's reaction would be to some giant green-armoured creature with a yellow-orange visor calling her Princess Molestia when they see each other.

[Sgt GobSmacker]

4627993
I explained it in the chapter *(note)* and it's also in this chapter, its a bit random I know.

[atomic nom]

You can not imagine how hard I laughed at that last sentence.

Love the story, keep up the good work.

[Br2nd66]

and he said that OUT LOUD in FRONT OF HER

[ShadowsInTheDark]

Rofl! XD