Chapter 15: Delta Halo - part 1
Scootaloo jerked to one side of the pod she was in as the ship decelerated from slipspace, her comm immediately came to life as it was still connected to Johnson's.
"Report!" The captain shouted. An operations officer quickly checked his systems and responded, "Both engine cores have spun to zero. We're drifting."
The weapons officer reported in immediately after, "Archer pods are cold. I'll need to re-key the system."
"Do it, and find out where we are." The captain ordered her bridge crew, turning her attention down to the sergeant-major afterward, "Sorry for the quick jump, sergeant. You in one piece?"
"I'm good. Chief? Hurricane?" The sergeant replied,
"We're fine." Cortana replied for the Spartan. "I'm green." Scootaloo reported in after her.
"Ma'am, there's an object. Coming into view now." An officer in the bridge said, pulling the captain's attention away from the comms again.
"That... is another Halo." Cortana answered for the operator. The sergeant chocked on his cigar for a moment, "SAY WHAT?!"
"So this is what my father found... " Keyes pondered, "I thought Halo was some sort of superweapon." She asked after.
"It is. If activated, this ring will cause destruction on a galactic scale." Cortana summarized, baffling the pegasus. "Wait, that thing is a weapon?!" she asked amazed, looking at the massive ring on a holo-screen in front of her.
"Yes, it is." Cortana answered her question.
"I want all the information you've got on the first Halo. Schematics, topography, whatever. I don't care if I have the clearance or not." Keyes ordered the AI, getting a confirmation from her. "Where's our target?" She asked the communications officer, "The enemy ship has stopped above the ring, ma'am. We're going to pass right over it."
"Perfect. Given what we know about this ring, it's even more important that we capture the Prophet of Regret. Find out why he came to Earth, why he came here. Chief, take First Platoon. Hard drop, secure a landing zone. Sergeant, load up two flights of Pelicans and follow them in."
"Aye aye, Ma'am." Johnson replied getting out of his pod knocking on Scootaloo's and Chief's pod, both knocking back in confirmation.
"Until I can move and fight I'm going to keep a low profile. Once you leave the ship, you're on your own."
"Understood." the chief answered. "Hurricane, reset your bio-monitor. It's giving off impossible readings." An operator on the bridge told the pegasus. "The monitor is working fine, sir. I'm just not a human."
"Over the target in five..."Another crewman announced.
"Come again, Hurricane." The first operator asked but before Scootaloo replied Cortana cut in, "I forwarded the relevant data to the bridge for review, Luitenant."
"Now hang on to your helmet!" she added as the drop-pods were being fired from the ship.
Scootaloo's heart rate immediately shot up as the pod accelerated being reminded of her last drop. The pod shook as it hit the atmosphere of the ringworld, "Mind the bump." Cortana commented as she felt the airbrake engage properly. Her monitor started displaying warnings indicating enemy fire but by that point, the pods were too close to the ground for that to matter anyway.
Just before the pod smashed into the ground the retrograde thrusters fired slowing it down to a point where it wouldn't kill the passenger. Scootaloo quickly hit the release on the door which flew off with an explosive bang, grabbing her SMG she jumped out to scan the immediate area for hostiles. A cloud of smoke suddenly burst into existence next to her dropping a scroll, not having the time to read it she stashed it into a pocket to read it later. The Chief was beside her shouldering a SPNKR rocket launcher. Alongside a few other ODST's and the Spartan, she pushed up towards the temple like structure further up on the cliff. Clearing the building and waves of reinforcements that came after two pelicans came in, one dropping a warthog.
"Saddle up! We're movin' out!" A marine called out as he jumped into the driver's seat, Scootaloo jumped into the passenger's side while the Chief took place on the gun. Driving up the ridge they got a view of a large structure sitting in the middle of a lake, "Whoa...it's like a postcard! 'Dear Sarge: kicking ass in outer space, wish you were here.'" Their driver commented.
"I heard that...jackass!" Johnson replied over the radio causing Scootaloo to snicker.
They drove back down the ridge to a bridge that the covenant had taken control of and cleared it, killing a wraith on the other of the ravine in the process with an airdropped scorpion. The Chief slowly rolled through a temple-like structure and blasted anything in his way while Scootaloo and a few marines were catching their breath on the side of the tank,
"So. What kind of ONI experiment are you?" One of the marines asked the pegasus who rolled her eyes under her helmet.
"The how to integrate aliens species into the UNSC marine corps experiment." She told him, severely annoyed at the question. "Seriously, I'm just doing whatever the hell I can to survive and hand the covenant their asses."
The marine held up his hands in a defensive posture, "Don't get mad at me, I'm just glad someone's on our side."
Chief stopped the scorpion and left it in what looked like the middle of the temple, "They're all pouring out of the middle! Let's get in there." Cortana shouted, the Chief and taking point with Scootaloo on his tail. Clearing their way through the internal of the structure they left the marines to secure the site and headed into a cave. At the end of the cave, they found themselves at the top of a waterfall with a jackal sniper pointing away from them looking over the valley. The Spartan snuck forward and plunged his combat knife into the back of the sniper and disarmed it. Tossing over the energy weapon to Scootaloo he pulled the human counterpart to the weapon from his own back, the two silently sat on the edge of the waterfall scoping out all the enemies in the small valley, "Eliminate all snipers on the left side of the valley on my mark." The chief told the pegasus, Scootaloo aiming the rifle at the first jackal who was casually standing around.
"Mark," the chief said, a beam of plasma coming from Scootaloo's rifle at the same time a shot rang out from the rifle the chief was holding. The beam tore apart the first jackal with ease, allowing Scootaloo to switch targets with a jackal further up in the valley. The second sniper was in the process of lining up a shot to hit the chief as Scootaloo got the scope on point,
"Not today." She said as the beam of plasma hit the second jackal, melting a hole in its head. The chief having taken care of his targets jumped down onto a ridge below, firing a few more shots as he spotted them. Scootaloo was about to jump down after the Spartan as she heard the loud buzzing of insect wings, "You always bring me to such nice places." Cortana commented dryly as she also detected the swarm. Dropping the sniper Scootaloo pulled a knife and took to the air, a few unstable flaps later she impacted an unsuspecting drone and plunged her knife into its carapace. This naturally attracted the attention of the other drones who weren't used to see enemies in the air, Green blobs of plasma began being lobbed at the pegasus who immediately started flying in an evasive pattern.
The chief meanwhile also opened up from the ground steadily dropping the drones from the sky, Scootaloo got her hooves on another drone who didn't get out of her way in time and plunged the knife into its spine, dropping it from the sky. She suddenly saw a green bolt in the corner of her eye, turning just in time for it to hit the main plate of her chest armor she let out a small yelp and dropped back down to the ground. The Chief finishing off the last drone who had hit Scootaloo, "Hurricane, Status." he asked, looking at the ridge where Scootaloo had gone down. The pegasus was inspecting the main plate of her armor that had partially boiled away, "I'm good, It hit the armor plate." She said as she hopped down to the chief.
The pair made their way up to the back of the valley were chief once again took point and destroyed a squad of jackals supported by two elites. moving up through another cave they ended at the edge of the lake that had the big structure in it, a few weapons pods were stuck in the ground near where they exited the cave.
"Good, still no word about In Amber Clad on the Covenant battlenet. It's odd, the Covenant knew we made landfall, but they don't seem to consider us a very serious threat. Boy, are they in for a big surprise." Cortana said, reporting on the state of the Covenant's communication.
The chief grabbed a battle rifle for the spent sniper he was carrying while Scootaloo grabbed one of two SMG's so she was back to her preferred weapon. The Chief scoped out the roof of the building ahead and picked off two snipers before signaling Scootaloo forwards.
They entered the main structure and slowly turned the corner, "Watch yourself! Honor Guards!" Cortana shouted as the in red and yellow clad aliens noticed the two. Both UNSC soldiers opened fire on the closest of the two Sangheili who had already lit his sword and charged the two, the first one went down just shy of the two but the second one by that point was also almost upon them. Getting off a few shots at it before it got in a swipe forcing Scootaloo and Chief apart, the Elite backhanded the pegasus into a wall and focused on the chief. Not out of the fight completely Scootaloo jumped back at the elite clamping herself around the sword-arm of the alien, slowing it down and giving the spartan time to empty the clip of the battle rifle into the head of the elite making it collapse.
Scootaloo went limb, letting go of the arm of the elite catching her breath. The chief picked up the energy sword and activated it indicating that Scootaloos short reprieve was over, she picked her SMG back up and reloaded the weapon.
The two re-entered the main room and scanned for more enemies, another honor guard dropped down from the first floor and also charged the pair but this time they were ready. Scootaloo emptied the clip of her SMG weakening the shield of the elite giving the Chief the opportunity to stab it with the sword he had taken from the other honor guard.
"The last one is on the balcony, I recommend using grenades." Cortana told the two, who both promptly lobbed all their grenades on the balcony hearing the elite scream as shrapnel ripped through its body.
The two started walking past the chanting hologram of the prophet of regret as they were stopped by the AI.
"Wait, go back." Cortana said.
The chief inserted her into a holoprojector and she appeared in front of the two, "That's what I thought he said. The Prophet of Regret is planning to activate Halo!"
"Are you sure?" The chief asked echoing Scootaloo's sentiment. Cortana snapped her fingers and the chanting translated to English, "I shall light this holy ring, release its cleansing flame, and burn a path into the divine beyond!"
"Pretty much." She smugly said as she snapped her fingers again, freezing the hologram.
"Commander, we've got a problem." Chief said, opening a comm link to the In Amber Clad.
"So I hear. But from what I understand, the Prophet will need an object, the Index, to activate the ring. I've located a Library similar to the one you found on the first Halo. If the rings work the same way, the Index should be inside." Keyes surmised.
"I'll bet the Covenant are thinkin' the exact same thing." Johnson Chimed in.
"Then, we'd better beat them to it, Sergeant. Extract your men, and meet me at the Library." The captain ordered Johnson.
"Yes, ma'am." He replied, disconnecting his feed to return to the In Amber Clad.
"I'll secure the Index, Chief. You take out the Prophet. He's given us all the intel we need." She said before also disconnecting her feed.
"Hurricane, on me." The chief ordered Scootaloo, the two of them heading out the structure towards the prophet's location.
The two made their way over the balconies of the structure towards the main platform, Scootaloo focussed on the close range enemies with her SMG while the chief alternated between sniping and supporting Scootaloo at close range. A relatively short fight later the two reached the platform they were gunning for and they could see Phantom on approach. The two took cover from the cannons that were mounted under the dropship and waited for it to drop its troops and leave.
They heard Two loud thumps as the dropship unloaded its passengers, "Buck. Hunters." Scootaloo murmured as the dropship flew away. She looked at the chief who ended up with an energy sword alongside a plasma sniper as loadout after their fight to get to their position.
"I'll distract them while you cut them in half with that thing." Scootaloo said, pointing at the sword on the Spartans hip. He nodded approving of the plan and headed to the other side of the cover, waiting for Scootaloo to start the distraction. The little pegasus Suddenly burst from her position into the air, firing a few rounds in the direction of the two giants to get their attention. "HEY! OVER HERE MOTHERBUCKERS!"
The two hunters turned and started to light their cannons, Two streams of superheated plasma flew closely past the pegasus as she clumsily dodged them being only a novice flyer. The chief burst from cover, energy sword lit, towards the first hunter who never saw the Spartan coming as the sword ripped through the unprotected back. The second one saw what happened to its mate and took a furious swipe at the Spartan with its shield. The chief nimbly slit under the Swipe and jumped up the front of the hunter and stuck the energy sword in the 'head' and down into the body of the alien, landing behind it and firing a shot with the beam rifle into its back for good measure.
Scootaloo landed beside the two corpses as the Chief retrieved the energy sword that blinked out moments later due to being depleted. A pelican came overhead carrying weapons pods with it,
"Cortana, the Covenant are getting nosy. I don't want to give away my position, so I'm rerouting a few stragglers back to you. I apologize these Pelicans are all the support you're gonna get." Keys called in over the radio.
"Understood, ma'am." Cortana replied as the pelican dropped its payload and flew off again.
"A gondola's launching from the far towers. Big surprise, it's full of Covenant reinforcements." Cortana added as a gondola started heading over to their platform. The chief swiftly headed up to the weapons pods and grabbed a shotgun and a sniper. Scootaloo went up to two pods with SMG's in them and attached a second SMG to the magnetic holster under her wing, Dual wielding was nearly impossible for her due to having to have her second hoof on the foregrip to stabilize when firing but having a second full weapon to quickly switch to would be beneficial.
The chief took up a sniping position and fired a few shots at the gondola, the two elites that were on there dropping before they even got in range to get off a shot. As the gondola arrived the Two UNSC soldiers burst aboard, eliminating the few jackals and grunts that were still present. "Well, they were nice enough to bring us a ride." Cortana commented as the chief activated the gondola so they were moving towards the large structure in the middle of the lake. The familiar buzzing of drones came from their backs and the two quickly occupied themselves shooting down the small pack that had flown over to the gondola. After killing the drones the Chief noticed a second gondola coming towards them, taking out the sniper again he waited for a shot to present itself. Scootaloo having none of it took off and prematurely landed on the other gondola, rolling her last frag grenades down the ramp into the lower section of the structure, she could hear the aliens screaming as the shrapnel tore through their bodies. She heard Chiefs sniper fire a few times as she headed down into the hold, checking if there were any survivors.
Looking around at the mutilated bodies she stopped to reflect for a moment, a tear rolling from her eyes at the carnage she had caused. She shrugged off the feeling, they were the enemy... weren't they? Remembering that ponies also did stupid things when they were stuck in a religious belief system. Her thoughts got interrupted as Cortana called out to her, "Hurricane, the gondola's are moving again. We're going to have to leave you behind if you stay on there."
"Copy that, Ma'am. I'm on my way back." Scootaloo replied running back up the gondola and took flight once again up to the chief's position. The chief used his sniper to shoot the jackals off the roof of the large structure before the gondola even arrived and switched to his shotgun as they headed into the structure, clearing the single internal room from drones and jackals.
"Ah, now I see. There's a submerged section that connects these towers to the outlying structures. Looks like we're going down. Unless you'd... prefer to swim." Cortana said as an elevator was coming up.
"Company." Scootaloo said as she looked down the shaft into the elevator. The chief held a plasma grenade in his hand as he waited for it to arrive. The moment the doors opened he lobbed it inside and held his shotgun at the ready, one jackal jumped out to avoid the blast of the grenade and promptly got a shotgun shell to the face while the others got caught in the blast from the grenade.
Heading down into the water below with the elevator Cortana started picking up covenant transmissions, "I've intercepted a secure transmission from Regret's Carrier to something called High Charity. It seems to be a formal apology to the Prophets of Truth and Mercy. Apparently, Regret jumped the gun when he attacked Earth. He's asking the other Prophets to 'forgive his premature arrival', arguing that 'no human presence was foretold.' That explains why there were so few ships in his fleet. But it's odd that a Prophet would have such bad intel about his enemy's homeworld." Cortana finished as the two re-emerged into an underwater section of the building. the two quickly cleared the first passageway of grunts before heading on into a larger room, the chief dispatching an honor guard as they made their way through the room. Two hunters revealed themselves as the soldiers reached the halfway point, "Not again! god dammit." Scootaloo said as she noticed the two hulks, "Engage or avoid?" She asked the Spartan.
"Engage" He replied, jumping in between the aliens with an energy sword he had retrieved from the honor guard. Scootaloo jumped after him onto a hunter, planting a plasma grenade into its neck. The hunter managed to shrug the small pegasus off and used its shield as a bat to knock her away into the door at the far end of the room, it aimed its plasma cannon but before it could fire the grenade detonated, killing the alien. The chief dealt with his opponent moments later and ran over to Scootaloo to check on her injuries, "No broken bones? peculiar." Cortana commented as she read out the data from Scootaloo's bio-monitor.
"I've got flexible bones. Dash once explained that it helps pegasi in the case of high-speed impacts." Scootaloo recalled, "Hopefully there's no internal damage because that would be a problem."
"Nothing on the scanner, you should be good private." Cortana replied, "We should keep moving."
The chief and Scootaloo headed further into the building where they encountered another hallway, seeing a few disturbtions in the light Scootaloo hoofed her second SMG to the chief who held it in one hand while the sword rested in the other. Saturating the hall with SMG fire the two walked forward, every time they dropped the cloak of an enemy the chief would shoot forward and kill it with the sword. making their way over to the other end of the hallway they found another elevator and took it. Along the way, Cortana intercepted another transmission.
"Regret's carrier just received a response from High Charity. A very well encrypted message from the Prophet of Truth. Listen to this: 'Your haste has jeopardized the fulfillment of our Covenant, threatened our grand design. That you shall be spared a public display of our contempt is thanks only to Mercy and his wise counsel.' Truth, Mercy, Regret. Three Prophet Hierarchs. Killing Regret should shake up the Covenant leadership. But frankly, it sounds like you might be doing Truth a favor."
The elevator came up to a structure again and the two quickly made their way through it to the outside, assassinating two honor guards along the way. clearing the outside structure as well they grabbed another gondola and headed over to the temple the Prophet of Regret was located in. Along the way, they took out another gondola that had a few elites on it before continuing to their final destination.
"How's it going, you two?" Captain Keyes asked as they approached the temple. "So far, so good. We're approaching the main temple now." Cortana replied.
"Roger that. I'm as close to the Library as I can get. There's some sort of ... barrier. We're trying to find a way around it. I'll keep you posted." Keys said cutting off the comms.
The chief used a sniper once again to kill the majority of the grunts and jackals before they arrived and the rest quickly fell as they stepped onto the building, their gaze was drawn upwards as they saw a massive covenant fleet exiting slipspace.
"That's the largest Covenant fleet I've ever seen... the largest anyone's ever seen." Cortana commented aghast at the size of the fleet. "Get inside the temple and kill Regret, before it can stop us!"
"That thing is massive!" Scootaloo said as she saw a huge space station materialize from slipspace.
The two quickly made their way inside of the structure clearing a few elites along the way and entering the main room.
"The Covenant fleet has launched multiple waves of Phantoms. Too many for me to track... we don't have much time." Cortana said urging the two to work faster. Taking out two honor guards as they entered they quickly moved to the prophet's location.
"There's the target, take him out!" Cortana shouted as they got a visual on Regret.
"You dare to interrupt my sermon?!" He shouted at the Chief and Scootaloo, the pegasus took a shot at him but the bullet bounced off a shield that was being projected by his chair, "Warriors! Attack! The Demon and that other heretic must die."
Not having any of it the Chief jumped from the balcony, evading a blast from the chair and in an impressive display of speed he latched onto the chair and started beating the living shit out of the prophet. Not being able to withstand the power of the Mjolnir armor he slumped in his chair and died. "Bad news, the Phantoms are turning around. The fleet is preparing to fire on our position. We need to get out of here!" Cortana reported in, Scootaloo's blood ran cold as she knew what that meant.
Any fatigue she had vanished in a flash as the two ran outside, a large carrier was preparing to open up on the structure. The two ran as fast they could away from the beam that was steadily closing in on them. The chief jumped off the building into the water as the beam was almost upon them. Scootaloo jumped after him, nearly knocking herself out due to the speed she hit the water at. Her eyes began to feel heavy as fatigue set in with a vengeance, before blacking out she felt something wrap around her barrel and she heard a voice in the back of her head.
"This is not your grave..."
"But you are welcome in it."
Scootaloo sat up and looked around, she was in some sort of colorful land with various floating buildings and objects scattered about the landscape.
And it was raining.
Chocolate milk...
"I must say it's nice of you to drop by. Not that you had any choice in it that is." A voice came from behind her, Scootaloo spun around to the voice, her eyes going wide. "DISCORD!" She shouted with malice in her voice, she checked if she still had her weapons.
She did.
Pulling her SMG she pulled the trigger... only for water to come out the end of it. Discord was yawning at the futile display Scootaloo was giving. Angered at this Scootaloo threw away the SMG and let magic seep into her wings, lightning springing up from them again. "Generating lightning out of anger, now that's something only a Hurricane would be able to do." Discord said, looking at the display Scootaloo was giving. Lightning arched over to the draconequus as Scootaloo roughly guided it.
"You know any violence is pointless in the dream world." He pointed out as the lightning just bounced off him. Scootaloo let out a scream of irritation and sat down, "What do you want? Tell me I've become some murderer? Or to tell me how much chaos I've been causing?"
Discord chuckled, "Although you've not disappointed in the slightest on those fronts but that's not why I'm here now." He walked up to Scootaloo and snapped his fingers, the environment changed so that they were now floating in space in the distance they could see a Halo floating with the Covenant fleet in orbit alongside it. "You see there is this superweapon that has, among other planets, Equis in its sights and there are some idiots that want to fire it."
Scootaloo's brain ground a few gears and she came to a conclusion, "And you are not immune to the effects of this weapon."
"No, I'm not." Discord frowned as he looked at the Halo in front of him. "I planned to send some help to the humans in the form of Twilight Sparkle, but then again, who plans anything with chaos magic and expects it to go as he wants."
"Wait but Twilight made that portal on Princess Celestia's request? How were you going to send her to human space?" Scootaloo asked, still suspicious of the draconequus.
"Who do you think gave the Princess the inspiration for that idea." Discord said with a grin, "I left Luna a present in the dream world that I can use to manipulate the minds of ponies. Also, that portal would have collapsed anyway and although you weren't planned you did a marvelous job of destabilizing it even faster."
Scootaloo scowled at hearing that information, "So why are you telling me all this now?"
Discord snapped his fingers again, the scene around them turning back to the initial chaotic landscape, "Because I can't contact Twilight Sparkle due to the Element of Harmony blocking my access to her mind and she isn't in a position to help stop the firing of this ring anyway."
The dreamscape rippled in a sickly green, Discord suddenly panicked unnerving Scootaloo. "Don't Trust it! It is as dangerous as the ring itself!" He shouted as the dream collapsed around them, pulling Scootaloo back to reality.
Scootaloo opened her eyes and looked around, she was being dragged by some sort of tentacle, alongside the chief who was also being dragged along. The two were being dragged into a large chamber where they were held up by the tentacles as a large mess of meat and bones rose up to meet them. Scootaloo ending up paralyzed with fear.
"What...is that?" Cortana said as she saw the monstrosity.
"I...? I am a monument to all your sins." It replied in a warped voice, sending a shiver up Scootaloo's spine. An elite was being dragged towards the pair by two more tentacles and eventually held in place.
"Relax. I'd rather not piss this thing off." The chief told him as he struggled against the creature. The elite took notice of the chief and immediately responded, "Demon!"
The abomination huffed and brought the chief closer, "This one is machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded." It said, running a small tentacle over the chief's helmet before proceeding to bring the Elite closer to him. "This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded." it said playing around with the other alien. Finally turning to Scootaloo it looked over at her, "Capable of manipulating neural physics but yet so primitive."
"Kill me or release me, parasite. But do not waste my time with talk!" The elite bluntly said.
"There is much talk. And I have listened. Through rock and metal and time. Now I shall talk, and you shall listen." It replied bringing up two more tentacles, one with a prophet embedded into it and another wrapped around some sort of machine.
"Greetings! I am 2401 Penitent Tangent. I am the Monitor of Installation 05." the machine said, indicating it was some sort of AI.
"And I am the Prophet of Regret, Councilor most High... Hierarch of the Covenant!" The prophet said, baffling the pegasus since she had seen him die in the temple.
The monitor adorned with a red 'eye' floated up to the Chief, "A Reclaimer? Here? At last! We have much to do. This facility must be activated if we are to control this outbreak!"
"Stay where you are! Nothing can be done until my sermon is complete!" The prophet shouted at the monitor, prompting an argument.
"Not true. This installation has a successful utilization record of 1.2 trillion simulated and one actual. It is ready to fire on demand."
"Of all the objects our Lords left behind, there are none so worthless as these Oracles! They know nothing of the Great Journey!" The prophet shouted.
"And you know nothing about containment! You have demonstrated complete disregard for even the most basic protocols!"
"This one's 'containment'... And this one's 'Great Journey'... are the same." The creature lowered the two tentacles holding the prophet and the monitor.
"Your Prophets have promised you freedom from a doomed existence, but you will find no salvation on this ring. Those who built this place knew what they wrought. Do not mistake their intent, or all will perish as they did before."
The chief turned to the Elite who had stopped struggling against the creature, "This thing is right. Halo is a weapon. Your Prophets are making a big mistake."
"Your ignorance already destroyed one of the sacred rings, Demon. It shall not harm another." The elite replied with religious zeal prompting the abomination to speak again.
"If you will not hear the truth, then I will show it to you. There is still time to stop the key from turning, but first it must be found. You will search one likely spot."It said pointing at the chief And you two will search another. Fate had us meet as foes, but this ring will make us...brothers."
"Wait, what!" Scootaloo shouted as she was paired with the elite, but before she could say or do anything else she and the others got teleported.
This chapter got extremely long at some point so I split it in half to make it a bit more manageable. Enjoy 
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The.
Replace full stop with comma.
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How.
Pooh that was a bit of a twist at the end. Xp
I mean, in fairness, people do horrible things to each other, religion or no. Only about 7% of wars are religious in nature, and Communism (which is explicitly a-religious) earned the title of "highest body count" in about thirty years flat. The real danger is in close-minded zealotry which dehumanizes those who think differently, and that manner of thinking can be present in any system of thought.
(Sorry. Military historian passing through. Minor rant over)
I think it interesting that Discord more or less subliminally suggested all this to Celestia. To be fair, sending Twilight to deal with the Flood/Halo is not a bad idea. If I had to pick one of the main cast, it would have been her. But there's no way Celestia would have agreed to it. That was a good twist that I didn't see coming, so well played.
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I picked religious belief systems since I think Scootaloo would have been the most familiar with those. When Twilight finds Starlight's village in the show she doesn't recognize it as a form of communism so that makes me believe ponies, thankfully, have no experience with it. So yes I agree any type of zealous belief is bad, be it communist or religious, I just picked the latter since I think it's more likely to appear in Equestria
The problem isn't that they're stuck in a religious belief system. The problem is that they are stuck in a religious belief system that espouses genocide. Pretty sure the ponies didn't have that problem with religions. Even religious terrorism is less "kill everyone who isn't us" and more "kill everyone who refuses to join us". The Covenant even exterminates species they consider useless to them, not just those who refuse to join or offend their faith. Most religions are good and proclaim good things...which many of those people who claim to follow those religions proceed to ignore and do their own thing while claiming their religion allows it even though their religion actually explicitly states those things are evil and will send you to eternal punishment. The Covenant religion does not claim that the things the Covenant does is evil and those covvies just ignore it. Their religion fully supports every wicked deed.
I suspect this is why religious war tends to have a lower body-count and fewer atrocities committed than things like "purges" by political motivation. People in a religious war have a good chance of being aware of what their religion actually states, people in a political purge are fully supported by their beliefs.
Besides, fanatics will be fanatics. Zealots will be zealots. If not for a religion, then for something else. As we've seen with the SS and Stalin's loyal little psychos, etc. I'm sure the irony is lost on most people that secular extremists are more harmful, wide-spread, and violent than religious extremists but it is the religious extremists who are focused on. Perhaps if the focus was placed on political extremists in the world, there would be far fewer atrocities and less violence in the world.
9209734
I think Celestia would have agreed to letting Twilight decide for herself. Especially if it was about "let your student enter extreme danger to try to save a species, or don't and know the consequences are all your fault." Besides, it would be more like "Send your student to stop a galaxy-wide extinction event." and Celestia agreeing because duh.
That makes sense as to why RD can survive so many impacts.
This was when I realized it was the Gravemind.
Equetecere. It means holy f***ing s*** in Fade.
Discord did it,
of course he did. Why wouldn't he?
I'm back
When I played that mission, the warthog was driven off the cliff, glad I wasn't on it
I probably would’ve replaced Scootaloo’s section with something like this:
“This one is speed and growth, and is equally uncertain.”
10315277
Replace that last word with something that means the same but rhymes with ‘concluded’ and ‘deluded’ and that would perfectly.
Surprised discord fears the gravemind of all things
Lieutenant
2 plotholes!
- Master Chief is in a closed suit, he can't drown or be infected by Flood super spores in the air. One singel spore mutating a living individual unavoidable over months or weeks into a Flood form.
- Scootaloo didn't drown?
But most certainly breathing in massiv amounts of Flood super spores!