As Twilight rushed out the door to the Library, she saw that the townsfolk were already working themselves into a panic. All around her ponies were rushing about, screaming in horror. Twilight looked around desperately, searching for a way to calm the herd. She was beaten to it, however, by a loud cry of “EVERYPONY CALM DOWN!” coming from the direction of Town Hall.
Twilight turned toward the source of the call, and saw Mayor Mare standing on the Town Hall’s balcony, one hoof still raised in a silencing gesture. As a hush fell over the assembled ponies, Mayor Mare slowly lowered her hoof and cleared her throat. “Now, everypony, there is no need to panic! I don’t know what the source of that blast was, but I can assure you that it was not the result of an attack on Ponyville! We all simply need to calm down, and see if we can figure out what exactly is going on.”
The assembled ponies seemed unconvinced, muttering nervously amongst themselves. Sensing the panic that was quickly rising in the townsponies, Twilight focused and, in a burst of magic, teleported herself onto the balcony. Mayor Mare jerked back in surprise, but her shock quickly turned to confusion as she beheld the unicorn before her. “Twilight Sparkle?” She said. “What are you doing here?”
Twilight responded, “I’m here to make an announcement.” She then turned to face the rest of the town and proclaimed, “Attention, everypony. My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I know what the source of the blast was. I was looking through my telescope when I suddenly saw what appeared to be a shooting star. However as it passed overhead I realized that this wasn’t the case. When it was directly above me I was suddenly blasted with a concentrated burst of pure magic.” This caused the nervous muttering to increase in its intensity, and Mayor Mare quickly raised a hoof to silence them once more. “I am uncertain what exactly this object is, or where it came from, but I was able to see that it landed in the Everfree Forest. I propose that we send a team of ponies, myself among them, to find this object, and if possible, bring it back for study. Now who’s with me?”
The silence that met her proclamation was all the answer she needed, and Twilight felt herself deflate slightly. Thankfully though, a pink hoof suddenly shot up from the crowd, waving erratically. “Ooh, ooh, I wanna go!” Pinkie Pie shouted, still keeping her hoof extended. “You said this thing came from space? That is so super duper cool! Maybe it’s aliens, then we can meet them! And that means I can throw them an alien WELCOME PARTY!” Everypony around the mare was now edging away slowly, but Twilight smiled at her friend’s willingness to help.
Turning back to the crowd of ponies, she continued, “Alright, Pinkie Pie’s on board. Anypony else?” She was met with a few more nervous mutterings, until an ivory unicorn stepped forward, her violet mane done up in curlers and a mud mask on her face.
“While a trip into the Everfree Forest was not what I had in mind for tonight, I very well can’t let you two go into that dreadful place alone, now can I?” In a flash of light the curlers and mud mask disappeared, leaving Rarity alone in her usual beautified glory. “I shall go as well.”
Twilight’s smile grew wider at her friends’ dedication, and turned to face Mayor Mare. “It’s settled then. Pinkie, Rarity, and I will head out and find whatever this object was, and ensure that it holds no threat to Ponyville or Equestria.” Mayor nodded in acknowledgement, and addressed the crowd.
“You heard her, everypony. Twilight will lead the team to find this object, and make sure it poses no threat to the rest of us here in Ponyville. Now I must ask you all to calmly return to your homes.” The crowd shared another round of nervous chatter, before slowly beginning to disperse. As soon as the last pony save for Rarity and Pinkie Pie had turned to leave, Mayor Mare returned her gaze to Twilight, a stern expression on her face. “Miss Sparkle, I am glad you were here to defuse the situation, but I am unsure about this expedition you have proposed. The Everfree Forest is a dangerous place, and I don’t want to see you or your friends hurt. What is more, whatever you find in that forest could be dangerous. I need you to promise me Twilight, that if you think that whatever you find out there will be a danger to Ponyville, you will NOT bring it back here. Do you understand, Twilight? Can you promise me that?”
Twilight nodded grimly. “I understand, Miss Mayor. We will find whatever it was that landed here, and we will make sure to protect Ponyville from whatever danger it poses. You have my word.” Mayor Mare smiled, and Twilight began to concentrate, teleporting away before reappearing next to Rarity and Pinkie Pie. “Are you ready girls?” Seeing her two friends nod in affirmation, Twilight turned and galloped toward the Everfree Forest, her two friends following close behind.
------
Carter looked at the armored figure before him, trying to grasp the concept of Six, like himself, being turned into some sort of quadruped. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Carter said assertively, “Alright Six, status report. Where are we, and what happened to us?” The Lieutenant shook her head in response.
“Sorry Sir, but I don’t know. I woke up only a few minutes before you did. I would say we were on Earth, but from the look of us, along with this thing,” She gestured to the corpse of the wooden wolf. “I’m not certain about that anymore.” Carter frowned, pondering the best way to proceed. After a moment of thought, Carter nodded determinedly and said, “Alright, first thing we should do is get the rest of Noble on their feet.” If they can even be called ‘feet’ anymore. He thought. “Come help me wake them up.” Six gave a firm “Yes Sir.” In response, and together the two Spartans stepped towards their unconscious comrades.
Carter started with Kat, not only because she was the one closest to him, but also because he simply had to make sure it was really her. Slowly, hesitantly, Carter reached out with a foreleg and shook her gently. Aside from a muffled grunt, he received no response. He shook her harder, and felt his spirits rise as she began to stir.
Looking up from Kat’s softly groaning form, Carter saw Six roughly shaking Jun, and chuckled slightly. Casting his gaze back downward, he looked down just in time to catch a solid jab to his face.
Carter’s head snapped back, his shields flaring from the blow, before he felt himself thrown away from Kat, landing on his back with a solid thud. Then, before he could right himself, he felt a large weight press itself against his chest, pinning him to the ground.
“What the hell are you? Where am I? Answer me!” Kat growled, bringing one leg up to press down on Carter’s throat, cutting off his air supply. In his peripherals, Carter could see a gray figure stepping towards them.
“Hold, Six.” Carter choked out, feebly raising a hoof to stop the Lieutenant. Focusing his attention on Kat, he rasped, “Kat, it’s me. It’s Carter.” Kat jerked back in surprise, immediately removing her leg from Carter’s throat.
“Commander? Is that really you?” Hesitantly, she stepped off of Carter, allowing him to clamber to his feet. Once he was standing, Carter looked to Kat and saw her staring at him, stock-still, no doubt gaping behind her helmet. “Carter… What happened to you?” Suddenly she looked down, examining her four-legged stance. “To all of us?”
Carter attempted to shrug, but found it difficult on four legs. Sighing, he simply said, “That’s what we’re trying to find out, Kat. Help me get the rest of Noble on their feet, and we’ll see if we can figure out what the situation is.”
Kat looked uncertain. “But how did we get here? The last thing I remember we were all heading toward the shelter in New Alexandria. We were running for the shelter, then, nothing.” Carter’s eyes widened at the realization. Of course. The last thing I remember was my death, and I had seen it coming. Kat didn’t. She doesn’t know that she… He frowned; pondering how to tell Kat that she had been killed.
“Kat… I don’t know how to say this, but you never made it into the shelter.”
Kat took a step back. “What are you talking about? What do you mean I didn’t make it?”
Carter shot a pleading look toward Six, only to find both her and Jun staring at them, silently observing them with rapt attention. Seeing that they would offer no help in this matter, Carter looked back to the Kat, the Lieutenant Commander staring at him expectantly. “Kat… you were killed. A Covenant sniper shot you in the head with a needle rifle. You died instantly.” He looked away, unable to meet her gaze.
“Wh-What? What do you mean I- How can you say that?!” Kat was dumbfounded, desperately trying to comprehend what Carter had just told her.
Carter shifted uncomfortably, searching for the words to explain to her. “Kat, I’m sorry. There was nothing anyone could do. We… We managed to recover your body; Six managed to bring it into the shelter.”
Kat was slow to respond, but eventually said, “I-I can’t believe this.” Carter laid a foreleg on her shoulder, attempting to comfort her.
“Kat, it’s alright. We’re here now, so let’s find out how and why that is, alright?” Kat nodded resolutely, and the two turned towards the remaining Spartans. Apparently this chat had distracted both Six and Jun from awakening the others. Carter couldn’t see their faces through their helmets, but Carter suspected Jun had a knowing grin on his face. Six was most likely wearing her usual blank expression.
Kat suddenly turned to Carter and said, “By the way Carter, why do you have a horn?” Carter stopped dead, subconsciously lifting a foreleg to feel the fluted appendage sprouting from his forehead. Oddly enough, touching it gave him the same sensation one would get from touching a tooth. It had no nerve endings of its own, but it was clearly sensitive. He looked from Kat, who was watching him expectantly, to Jun and Six. Jun was holding back laughter, and Six had her head cocked to the left, a motion that Carter had come to associate with curiosity or confusion, in this case, most likely the former.
“Uh, I don’t know, but you do too.” As Kat began to tap her own horn in astonishment, Carter quickly turned to face the rest of Noble. “Six, Three, go wake up Emile and Jorge. We need to get everyone on their feet.” The two Spartans nodded, and they each proceeded to wake one of the remaining unconscious Spartans.
Eventually the entirety of Noble Team was awake and on their feet. Emile and Jorge, while understandably confused at the fact that they were alive, reacted somewhat better than Kat. They had, after all, expected their own deaths, Emile slowly bleeding out and Jorge manually activating a makeshift bomb.
Now, the six Spartans were gathered in a rough circle. Carter stepped forward, regarding each Spartan before saying, “Alright Noble. Somehow, we have been transported into some sort of forest, and transformed into… whatever we are now. Furthermore, I don’t know about you three,” He gestured to Jun, Emile, and Six. “But the rest of us are supposed to be dead.”
“Actually,” Said Jun, stepping forward as well. “I was killed at Castle Base. Halsey’s safe, though.” Jorge cocked his head in confusion at this, and Carter made a mental not to explain the entirety of the situation to him later.
“Me too.” Said Emile. “I was defending the Autumn on the MAC gun, but some Elite bastards jumped me.” He chuckled darkly. “I got them in the end, though.” The assembled Spartans all looked expectantly at Six, who only nodded in response.
Carter took a moment to process this development, before continuing, “Okay, so we’re all supposed to be dead. I’d say this is the afterlife, but last I checked you didn’t need armor when you get there. Plus, I’ve never heard of creatures like that,” He gestured to the corpse of the wooden wolf. “Appearing in any sort of paradise.” The rest of Noble observed the carcass and, minus Six, looked from it to Carter in confusion.
“What is it?” Said Kat, approaching the body and prodding it with a foreleg.
“It looks like a wolf.” Remarked Emile. “’Cept it’s made of wood.”
“A timber-wolf.” Said Jun with a laugh.
“I don’t care what it is.” Said Carter, stomping one leg to silence the others. “All I care about is that it isn’t friendly. I don’t want to have to fight more of these things, especially in a new body.”
“There are more of them out there.” All eyes turned to Six, who turned to look out into the blackness of the forest. “If this really is a wolf, it was probably part of a pack.” She turned to Carter, and grimly said. “I recommend we leave before they find out what happened to it.”
Carter nodded in affirmation. “Six is right. We need to find a way out of this forest, see if we can find some sort of civilization. If there is any on this planet.”
“And then what?” Huffed Emile. “For all we know this could be a Covenant home world, or an Insurrectionist stronghold. Even if we do find someone sentient, I doubt that they’d offer us any-“
“HEEEEEELP!” Emile was cut off as a chorus of voices cried out in terror. Immediately the Spartans whipped toward the source of the noise.
“That was close by.” Said Jun.
“And it was in English.” Added Jorge.
Carter quickly decided on the next course of action. “Alright, Noble Team. We have a human in danger. New bodies or not, we’re still sworn to protect. Let’s move.” The other Spartans nodded in confirmation, and as one the team sped off into the blackness of the forest, heading toward the source of the scream.
Author’s Note: Okay, done with the second chapter! I like how this one turned out, the exposition leading up to the climactic meeting! Expect the next chapter to be up very soon! In fact I’m already working on it! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I’ll see you in the next one!
i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/299/356/c8d.gif
Yay~ update!
934436
Second dam you.....
Write more, and just as a suggestion, Add in a line or something when the story setting changes like a -------- or ~ or something. So its like this:
“Are you ready girls?” Seeing her two friends nod in affirmation, Twilight turned and galloped toward the Everfree Forest, her two friends following close behind.
-------
Carter looked at the armored figure before him, trying to grasp the concept of Six, like himself, being turned into some sort of quadruped.
934463
Thanks for the advice. Don't worry, the coming chapters will be longer. This one would've been longer, but it's 3am, so... yeah. Also, good idea with the ------ thing, just put that in now. I really appreciate constructive feedback like this, so thank you!
I feel so sorry for whatever is about to get destroyed by Noble team.
Dear goddess this is good!!!! MOAR!!!!!!!!
"but last I checked you didn’t get need armor when you get there.
I don't get need many things either
Otherwise, promising. Still plenty that could go wrong, so I'll save my thumbs till later, but I've enjoyed it so far. Will this regularly update as quickly as today?
934614
Amen
gotta admit, you've got me hooked. With all of Noble team together, I can only wait for the badassness that they will bring into the MLP world. Keep goin and stay golden^^
when Twilight was gathering people for the search party i was like "what about Applejack, Rainbow, and....*realization* NO NO NO NO NOT RAINBOW!!!!!"
make new lines when someone new is talking. easier to understand who is talking. make sure the ----- is an entire line on its own. all i can realy say about it other than media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxxlopbQZd1ql7aks.gif
good story but it was a bit hard to read without proper indentation. Whenever someone speaks, you're supposed to start a new paragraph (hit Enter key)
EX:
"Hi, I'm Bob"
"Sup" I said. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This chapter has some serious formatting issues. Seperate your paragraphs, please, or at the very least don't indent in the middle of a sentence. It's one giant wall of text.
I mean it, the first chapter was good. This one, complete and utter mess that is hard to read.
Hell, I'll do the work for you this one time.
This is just getting better and better! So let it continue!
Hey there everypony, sorry about the errors in this chapter, for some reason it didn't translate right when I transferred it in. Huge apologies here, readability is one of the things I pride myself on, so this is a real embarrassment to me. But I've thankfully fixed the errors and it should be all good now. Enjoy!
935556
You mean I did all that editing work for nothing?
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU....
Seriously though, it's much easier to read now... except you missed one paragraph
935582
Sorry to waste your time. I knew I'd missed one. But really, thank you so much for pointing this out to me. I'm looking to make this story as correct as I can, and it's people like you that are helping me to achieve that. Thanks!
Awww, you made Six a girl... Oh well, I'll get over it. Keep up the awesome work.
YUS, this pleases me. Moar.
935854
Yeah, sorry if its not your thing, but I prefer a FemSix. It gives Noble team some diversity and opens up a few more romance options.
935874
It's okay with me, it's your story. Plus that makes any Six/Mane Six () pairings sexier.
You have no idea how much I was excited when i saw this update. THANK YOU!!!
love the ending, can't wait for the next chapter.
Shitstorm incoming, Everypony brace yourselves for impact!
Sir, We're going down!
Not on my watch
*Crash*
This was a good chapter, I liked it. A lot
I swear to god the over shields in the next chapter if applejack or rainbow break one of the Spartans over shields they will die the energy blowback of an over shield is like getting hit with a car even if they did survive they would be in the hospital for the rest of their lives there and applejacks kick wouldn't even make one of them flinch sorry I had to go halo nerd mode but I had to to prevent that mistake
936426
I'm sorry I have to go against that. For that to be true it would mean that any Elite that punched out your shields in campaign would immediately die, or at least get blown back. Besides, if that were the case then nothing in Equestria would be any match for a Spartan's overshields, seeing as everything except unicorns and dragons rely on attacking things up close. Once again I'm taking the game's canon over the expanded universe here, and say that when a Spartan's shield breaks, it just breaks. There is no recoil that can hospitalize somepony. And even if they don't drop, its just like hitting a solid wall, there is no energy blowback. Sorry to disappoint but for the sake of dramatic effect I will keep the shields limited to their effect in-game.
Female Noble Six...I'm already considering ignoring this fic now.
I like it. Faved and tracked.
935874
There ARE no romance options, dude. The SPARTAN's have no sex drive whatsoever, and they also don't get all feely with civilians. They only have emotional connections to each other, and to Halsey or people they've fought alongside with for long periods of time. They also wouldn't get romantically involved with one another because they are more like brothers and sisters than anything else. I mean, if you want to do FemSix, that's fine with me, but just don't do it for an unrealistic reason.
you made six a girl????? god fucking dammit... to show my disappointment i shall like and fav... you bastard
you made six a girl????? god fucking dammit... to show my disappointment i shall like and fav... you bastard
934436 did you notice in your gif dash randomly turns backwards why flying over twi?
We've still got humans to protect.
lol nope.
hmmm...female noble six eh? interesting to read. what made you want to make six's gender female for this fic?
Good so far but why the hell is six a girl
2223209 in halo reach you can choose to have a male or female spartan
you didn't mention kat's leg. its robotic. and i don't recall if you said anything about emile or jorge's species.
We would Six assume they were on Earth? Reach would be more logical and I'm not sure if he'd ever even been to Earth.
Man, liking this a lot already (nerd note: Jorge wouldn't have died instantly, or maybe even for a while. It wasn't an "explosion" bomb, it enveloped a part of the cruiser and sent it elsewhere (taking Jorge with that part of it))
Erm... no. I don't know where people keep getting this, but Noble 3 is most definitely still alive. He recruited Sarah Palmer for the Spartan-IV Program in Halo: Initiation.
Really? I would've put him and/or Six as earth ponies.
4107336
This story was started in 2012, initiation came out mid 2013, so, at the time, no one knew he was still alive. Well, except those who worked on the game.
2716116 I think there earth ponies
I'm curious as to why you made Six a mare for the story. Was that your character in Reach?
They all died on Reach, not Earth, by the way. Just felt the need to point it out.
4980495
Are you saying that because Six guessed that they might have been on Earth, if not for the Timberwolf? I put that in because given that they were in a forest, with trees most likely similar to ones found on Earth, it seemed unlikely for her to assume that they were on Reach. Therefore, she never made the assumption. That makes sense, right? Given that Reach is a different planet, and just looking at the geography we see in the game, a large, dense forest like the Everfree seems out of place there. I totally get what you're saying though, that was a little unclear.
(I know this is story not cannon)
Jun survived reach in fact hes still alive training spartan IVs
I still have no god damn idea what happened to jun in cannon. They say the only Spartan to escape was 117, but we never see Jun die, I am torn
6034826 Jun is alive.
6664222 Emile is alive...hehe...Emile is alive...YYYYYYEEEEESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6903900 All enemies of Noble, sleep in fear...
...Or Emile will come out of your closet and stomp your heads in.