Chapter 6: Helljumpers
Slow rhythmic beeping was what Scootaloo heard as she woke up, slowly opening her eyes she found Lucy and Twilight sleeping next to each other. As she tried sitting up she found that there were bandages holding her wings locked to her sides.
"Twilight?"
Moments later Twilight could be seen stirring and opening her eyes before noticing that the little filly had woken up, "Hey Scoots, how are you feeling?"
"A little sore, but nothing I've never felt before." She answered, "How did the operation go? Did they fix my wings?"
"The operation was a success but you'll have to avoid using them for a while to let them heal and develop properly." Twilight said as Lucy began to stir and wake up.
"Hey squirt, how are the wings?" Lucy asked as she saw Scootaloo had woken up.
"Apparently better than ever! But anyway, when are we going to meet up with the rest of the squad?"
"The doctors want to keep you for two more days to see if any complications arise. After that, we'll be flown over to a training facility" Twilight answered, "until then you should get as much rest as possible, but you must be hungry so we got you some food beforehoof." Levitating a tray of food over to Scootaloo.
The following two days no complications were detected prompting the release of Scootaloo. The three companions were picked up later in the day by Zoey with her pelican to be flown over to the training site.
"You three aren't going to believe what the guys at ONI send over to the training facility" Zoey said as the group entered the pelican.
"I have no idea, but you look like you're going to tell us." Lucy told the hyped up pilot, sitting down and strapping into a seat along with the ponies.
"Yup, I am. By the way, Scoots, want to sit up front with me? just don't touch any of the controls." At which the filly jumped off the chair she had sat down into and sprinted over into the cockpit, being careful not to hit any buttons, and strapped into the co-pilot seat.
"But back to the surprise naval intelligence dropped on us. They didn't necessarily tell us but when we arrived we saw a tall muscular woman, like a head taller than Mack kind of tall, and instead of a name tag she had a service number on her uniform! S-062."
"Holy shit! You mean that they sent a Spartan over to evaluate those two?!"
"Uhm what's a Spartan?" Twilight sheepishly asked before the two of them could go off on a rant.
"Massive supersoldiers, not that much is known about them other than wherever they show up the covenant is going to have a really bad day." Lucy explained, "And they are rare, really rare."
"So me and Scootaloo are going to get training from one of your most elite soldiers?" Twilight asked amazed that the humans would send what was apparently one of the most elite soldiers they had to offer to train them instead of fighting in the war.
"About that." Zoey chimed in from the cockpit, "Brass decided it was a good idea to run every single one of us through boot alongside our two friends here." She told Lucy with a sheepish smile.
"So we're going through that shitshow again only this time our drill sergeant is a Spartan?" Lucy asked now really unamused, "Just the relaxation we needed."
The rest of the flight was filled with discussions about the Spartans and some information about the training, Scootaloo and Zoey went over multiple procedures on how to fly the pelican, like landing and takeoff. Scootaloo also found that the basic flight principles of the pelican didn't really differ from pegasi flight much when Zoey allowed her to make a few turns with the pelican.
The group arrived at the training site late in the evening as the site was placed in the middle of nowhere as far out of sight of anyone or anything as possible. After meeting back up with the rest of the squad the group headed over to the barracks to get some sleep as they were informed that the next day would be the start of training.
"WAKE UP SUNSHINE!"
A man shouted into Twilight's ear at the same time the rest of the squad got the same treatment.
"Aaaah!" Twilight shouted as she was rudely awakened.
"NO TIME FOR SCREAMING PRINCESS, GET DRESSED AND OUTSIDE ON THE DOUBLE!" Seeing that the ODST's were already rapidly dressing themselves and Scootaloo never undressed from her jumpsuit so she was already groggily running outside.
Rapidly getting in her jumpsuit herself and running outside after the rest of the team and lined up in the courtyard. In front of them was the supposed spartan and a few other people, "Good morning alpha-three. I'm Petty Officer Second Class Maria-062, for the next five weeks you'll be mine to train and mold into the best I can make you. Our warm-up will be a ten-mile hike, Move out recruits!"
Over the rest of the day, the group would be pulled through multiple exercises of stamina and strength. Somewhere in the middle of the day the group got split in two and were made to compete against each other in an assault course, the first group comprised of Mack, Woods, Zoey, and Scootaloo. Leaving the second group to be made up of Lucy, Tyler, and Twilight. Unlike the course that Tyler had created this one had sections where ponies and humans split up to get through different obstacles. In the end, Mack's team finished first as Twilight was a lot slower on the obstacle course than Scootaloo.
At the end of the day, the group was split up again as the ODST's were all called over to speak with a few officers, Scootaloo was retrieved by some medical officers to perform some checkups, and Twilight was taken to a field by the Petty officer and a few other trainers to perform a demonstration of magic.
"Trainee Sparkle, my reports say you're able to perform several feats of telekinesis and you have apparently claimed to be capable of more feats of magic. Is that correct trainee?" The Spartan asked,
"Yes, Ma'am." Twilight replied although uncertainty seeped into her voice as she really felt intimidated by the massive human in front of her.
"Good, in front of you you'll find several weights and targets. Please use your telekinetic wave ability so we can get a benchmark for your magical abilities."
Twilight nodded and turned to the field letting her horn charge, although something was wrong. She felt a nagging feeling in her horn as she charged but ignored it and released the wave, slamming into a target making it fly back about ten meters.
Recharging her horn and repeating the move two more times before stopping due to magic fatigue.
"Problems trainee?"
"Permission to perform a magic field scan Ma'am, my mana pool isn't passively recharging." Twilight asked.
"Granted"
Twilight relit her horn to scan the surrounding area, 'Nothing. That can't be right, can it?'. Relighting her horn to reperform the scan, ''This is bad." she stated after she got the same results as the first scan.
"I can't read minds Trainee, what's wrong." The Spartan said.
"The magic field here is weak, really weak. In slipspace it fluctuated but it was strong enough to sustain pretty advanced spells if necessary, here? levitation and light spells tops, any advanced spells will have to use my personal magic reserves."
"We'll postpone these tests for the moment, but I want a list of viable spells by the end of the week. Is that clear trainee?"
"Yes, ma'am!" Twilight replied
"Good, head over to the mess hall to get some food before evening class starts."
Twilight quickly trotting towards the mess hall so she wouldn't miss dinner.
"Eight days of running and various other exercises, even Rainbow didn't pull me through a hell like this. I probably should have started recording a few days ago when they gave me this tablet but I was to tired out to do anything after a day of training."
"I'll give a summary of the past few days, last Sunday the training began. The first day was mostly made up of exercises which every day since have only persisted. On Monday though we also started taking classes on various topics like tactics, identifying enemy types and other skills we're going to need in the field. At dinner Lucy and Twilight also proposed dubbing ourselves the Shadowbolts, Tyler acted like he disapproved but when we gave him a rough sketch of the Shadowbolt logo he started drawing something on his tablet. The next day we found out what he drew, I'll attach the picture to this log if I figure out how to. otherwise, you'll just have to get it from my tablet which Mack assures me won't be the hardest thing to do."
"The insignia is a match between the ODST logo as the skull and the wings taken from the Shadowbolt insignia, Mack told us he would try to get it official but he also told us to not get our hopes up to high since that could easily be denied."
"For the rest of the week, we got constantly chewed out by the Spartan and other instructors if we did anything wrong or didn't put enough effort into an exercise. My team did beat Twilight's constantly on the obstacle course although it's getting much closer than the first try on day one as Twilight is rapidly improving due to her earthpony magic apparently"
"Anyway, I hope the others at home are well. Tavi and Vinyl must be worried sick and I know Dash is for sure due to the dragon mail. Punishment for breaking curfew by a few weeks are going to be a bitch when I get back and yes I just cussed, no-one here to stop me now is there."
"I better get some sleep, tomorrow we'll apparently be training with real weapons for the first time. Who knows, I might even get my cutie mark in this at this rate. Cutie Mark Crusader ODST, wouldn't that be a shock for the ponies at home."
"The ponies had their first lesson using live firearms, yesterday the entire day was dedicated to maintenance and proper handling of firearms. Call us surprised when Scootaloo just stood up on her hind legs to pick up one of the rifles, apparently learning to stand on your hind legs is something pegasi do to properly learn how to balance themselves. That said she is apparently very good at it because Twilight only managed to do it for periods up to ten minutes before having to fall back on all four legs but that wasn't too big of a problem since she can also use telekinesis to hold rifles"
"In the end, it was decided Scootaloo should get an SMG since to other rifles were too bulky to effectively carry around for her, Twilight got a DMR stating that it was better to be precise than to spray with an assault rifle. In the end, they'll have to learn to fire any of the rifles anyway but the ones they've chosen now are the ones they'll specialize in using."
"They also got to choose what they wanted to specialize in, CQB, Medical, Demolition, etc. Twilight wanted to become a medic, she liked the idea of keeping everyone alive and hoped that she would pick up some things that could help her in the future. Scootaloo was actually much more interesting, she wanted to become a pilot which we kind of expected with the way she acted around anything flying but since we already have a pilot and flying isn't something you can learn quickly it was decided that she's going to do a hybrid course between CQB and flying. The CQB will have priority but all her spare time will be devoted to learning to fly pelicans. It won't make her a full-blown pilot but she'll be able to fly one if necessary."
Nothing was moving on the motion detector, Twilight didn't like it. About an hour ago a the starting signal for the match of capture the flag had been given and the fact that they hadn't encountered Scootaloo's squad yet was unnerving her as
they had expected for Scoots, Zoey, Lucy, and Tyler to attack as quickly as possible. With that in mind, Mack had opted to play defensively and the fact that they had a man less than the other team also played into that decision. But now after waiting for almost an hour Twilight's initial adrenaline was fading and she was starting to lose focus.
'I wonder if with the weakened Thaumic background a portal spell will still be a viable way to get back home.'
Twilight lit her horn briefly to get a reading on the magic field, being careful to not waste her personal reserve. With Twilight momentarily distracted a small camouflaged being moved unseen from one bush to another and kept creeping forward towards the distracted mare.
'Compensating for dilation the-.' Twilights thought process was cut off by a vicious shock to the neck moments after her entire world went black.
Scootaloo was grinning, the last hour had been extremely boring but the payoff was completely worth it. Twilight had eventually lost focus allowing for her to sneak up on her and take her out with a taser in knife form. Tapping the button on her radio twice she signaled the others that Twilight had been eliminated, immediately after tapping the radio she received on tap back from the other members of the squad. Scootaloo had been tasked to move as stealthily as possible to the location of the enemy flag, propping herself up against a ridge she scanned the surrounding area for either Woods or Mack.
PHAT PHAT PHAT
A burst of rounds hit the stone in front of Scoots forcing her back into cover as rounds flew over the position where her head had been a few moments ago, quickly pushing the send button on her radio to relay a message to the others.
"Dagger to Sword, I've been made!" She shouted into her mic, slightly panicking.
"Copy that dagger, sit tight sword's coming." Lucy's voice coming from the radio immediately after which machinegun fire could be heard to her right as they presumably engaged either Mack or Woods.
But sword wouldn't be able to solve any of her immediate issues, pulling a smoke grenade from an attachment point on her tactical vest and lobbed it over the ridge. After a few seconds of letting the smoke saturate the air, she made a beeline to a large boulder to her right. Detaching her MA37 assault rifle and peaking around the rock to see if she could spot the person who had tried to shoot her,
PHAT PHAT PHAT PHAT
Again the rounds impacted the rock instead of her head but this time she had spotted the muzzle flashes from the rifle,
'Darn, I'm in motion tracker range.' Scootaloo thought as she pondered on how she was going to get out of this situation, at that moment she looked at her own motion sensor and saw that a red dot was moving quickly to her right trying to flank her. With her rifle ready she looked around the rock and could clearly see Woods running to a new position,
PHAT PHAT PHAT PHAT PHAT PHAT PHAT PHAT PHAT
Scootaloo struggled to keep the recoil from the rifle under control as she held the trigger down and pointed the rifle at Woods, all but three of the rounds missed.
But three rounds were more than enough.
The first grazed Woods leg causing him to stumble after which the second and third shit hit him straight in the chest knocking him out cold. Scootaloo now looking at the unconscious body of Woods got a deeply uncomfortable feeling, 'I took out Twilight and Woods without a second thought, is that what I am now? a merciless killer if I need it?' Shaking off the feeling Scootaloo turned to the task at hoof, the flag planted thirty meters away from her position. She could still hear gunfire from the firefight the others were having with Mack, knowing that he wouldn't be able to stop her she made her way over to the flag being careful to not step on any booby traps,
"Dagger to sword, Woods eliminated and objective recovered. Heading back to base." She reported as she started running back to base with the flag.
"Roger that Dagger, we'll meet up back at base."
A few minutes of running later Scootaloo arrived back at the site of their flag and she dropped the captured flag at the base of their own, immediately after which a voice could be heard,
"Red team has captured blue team's flag, match over, please return to the armory."
A few minutes later Scootaloo met up with Tyler, Lucy, and Zoey. Zoey being supported by Tyler as she appeared to have two red dots on her leg from where rounds had hit.
"You did a damn good job back there Squirt." Zoey said, but she could see that there was something bothering the filly.
"What's wrong Scoots?"
Scootaloo having her questions about herself back in the forefront of her mind, "It's just that when I eliminated Twilight I just sliced the knife over Twilight's neck, no second thoughts nothing. Same with Woods, I'm scared that I might become some mercy less killer."
Lucy stopped walking and kneeled down to Scootaloo's level, "Scoots the fact that your regretting shooting your friends, even though it only was a training match, shows that your not a monster." Lucy giving Scootaloo a friendly nudge, "Let's go see the others, or at least when they wake up after the beating you gave them." she added with a grin.
Two days, it had been two days since she had been tased by Scootaloo and she still had trouble with some spells. In the end, it had been her own fault she had let her guard down for just a small moment which allowed Scootaloo to sneak over and take her out. A mistake she wouldn't repeat again.
But with her magic returning again she had managed to recast the detection spell and ran the calculations, she didn't like the results. Even if the humans had had all the necessary magical ingredients to create the chalk for the magic circles the ambient background magic still wouldn't be able to sustain a portal of the supposed power needed to transport them back to the nearest star, let alone Equestria. Performing the ritual in slipspace where the magic field was much stronger was also out of the question since they had figured out that teleportation essentially was a magic-powered short range slipspace transition, so teleporting in slipspace would drop you out into real-space which would be a quick way to die since that would most likely be in a vacuum somewhere in interstellar space.
With magic not an option Twilight had turned to physics, a subject Equestria had only a limited amount of knowledge since they mostly relied on magic. After getting a good grasp on the basics she had gotten into astrophysics to get an understanding of the movement of heavenly bodies, She didn't like what she found.
you see, even with the smallest stars the habitable zones are a few light-minutes away from the star itself. Meaning that in the hypothetical situation that a being could move a star, the effects wouldn't be seen on the planet until the light from the star had finally reached the planet and that's not even accounting for the gravitational sling the planet would get from moving a star like that.
In short, there was no way in Tartarus Princess Celestia was moving the star in Equis's system.
After panicking for about an hour Twilight had run the magical calculations and come up with the same answer, Impossible. Although she had found a workaround, if Celestia used the sun as an anchor to accelerate the rotation of Equis then the magic required would be within passable margins. Figuring all this out was good and all but this discovery meant that there was nothing really special about Equis's system and other than the habitable planet. Which meant there was nothing easily detectable about the system at all, She was back to square zero.
At this point, Twilight decided that it was getting too late and she couldn't afford to have to little sleep. Tomorrow was another match of capture the flag and this time she wouldn't repeat the stupid mistake from last time, she even cooked up a low powered shield spell that could take a couple of hits before dissipating. This time it would be Scootaloo's turn to lose she thought to herself as she dozed off.
The group before her had assembled in the courtyard of the base in front of the Spartan.
Five weeks of rigorous training behind them, they all had picked up new skills they never thought they would learn.
Twilight with her pathological need for knowledge had read up on every bit of information on healing she could get her hooves on. Her shooting abilities also were also something to be envious of, she was able to hit targets at quite long ranges considering her primary weapon was a DMR.
Scootaloo on the other hoof had become extremely proficient at close quarter combat, as it turns out that pegasi have better reflexes than regular humans which Twilight speculated was due to pegasi having to make split-second decisions when flying. She even had a few sparring sessions with the Spartan because in the end the ODST's couldn't keep up with her and even though she got beaten every time, the petty officer had still conceded that she held her ground longer than most other soldiers. Other than the SMG which Scoots had also learned to use to great effect in practice matches where she seemingly always managed to eliminate Twilight. Her wings had since the operation grown out a bit but only granted minor improvements in flight capability, still the minor improvement allowed her to jump large gaps and perform powerslides.
"All of you have made extraordinary improvements in your respective fields of expertise and it has been my pleasure to help prepare you for the future trails to come." The Spartan stopped for a moment looking over at the ponies, "Trainee Sparkle, Trainee Hurricane, Step forward"
The two ponies stepped forward as instructed so they were standing in front of the Spartan.
"As of yesterday, high command has approved your request to join the UNSC Marine Corps." The spartan stated and motioned for two of the trainers to come over both of whom were carrying a large package, "Because standard equipment wouldn't fit your unique bodies a custom uniform and armor suit have been made." At that moment the trainers handed over the two boxes.
"Wear those with pride Helljumpers, you've earned them. You'll have to get used to the extra weight from the armor so you'll have to train with it on for the next few weeks. I'll be traveling back to Earth in six hours so that training will be left to the other instructors here."
"You're all dismissed for the day." Spartan 062 said before turning around and leaving the courtyard.
Eight days had passed since the Spartan had left, the two ponies had been getting used to the extra weight the suits added to their bodies but both ponies found it manageable, also the extra features like VISR and a visual IFF system helped a lot in combat drills. The ponies were waiting to practice for a simulated insertion with drop pods as alarms started blaring.
"All military personnel report to your superior officer for deployment, WINTER CONTINGENCY has been declared. This is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill." The message repeating itself.
Six weeks ago neither Scootaloo or Twilight would have known what WINTER CONTINGENCY meant but after memorizing as many protocols and signals as possible they knew all too well what this meant.
The Covenant had found Reach.
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No chance at seeing Twi and Scoots in their armor, is there?
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9002398
Working on it, drawing armour is hard
An advice on insignia design. Without ODST logo it looks perfect. It resembles a proper pentagon while wings frame a "golden" triangle between them in which skull fits. Essentially you may overlay pentagram on top of it, a symbol of geometric harmony.
Problem is with your variant of "ODST" placement is that it breaks harmony of insignia, "squishing" said pentagon and font is too bleak compared to bold skull and fire outline.
Well-designed logos and insignias benefit from use of golden ratio, pentagon and pentagram are representatives of such (also fibonacci curve). That way they are better at being "analyzed" by human eye, an artefact known to artists and architectors for duration of couple of millenia.
Possible solution: wrap insignia into curved pentagon shield-like frame, you may find exact shape on some real life insignias. ODST would be bolder or would go onto tape across top of shield. That should look better, try it if you can. Simpler solution would be change of font, kerning and height to restore petagram-like form of sign, i can't guarantee effectivenes.
Whoa, dude, ya might need to slow things down a tad, I think you're accelerating the narrative just a bit too much. This is a fun story, and I'm definitely enjoying it, but you need to take some time to let the characters breathe. I know, cool stuff is just around the corner, and cool ponies doing cool stuff is awesome, but it's character development that really gives a story it's verisimilitude.
9002467
so like this them?
orig00.deviantart.net/9225/f/2018/174/5/c/insignia_simple_by_yognaughtsteve-dcf7j6c.png
thnx for the feedback btw
The last part of the sentence has grammar problems
I know where this is going! Halo Reach begins now!
That’s an under statement. Things go from really bad to GTFO is said Spartan happens to be THE Master Chief. Spartan 117.
UNSC Marine Core
Corps. Why is that so hard for some people?
9251898
Fixed it, I'm not a native speaker so I miss some mistakes.
That doesn’t make sense. When flying, there is a lot more time to make those decisions than when on the ground. Also, far fewer predators and they can’t really ambush a pegasus, so them having higher reflexes than humans, a species that primarily relies on its extremely high reflexes for survival against predators and accidents, is nonsensical.
In fact, given what I said, pegasi should have inferior reflexes to other ponies, who should have inferior reflexes to humans due to their lower agility and flexibility encouraging development of simpler responses to sudden attacks. Like run. Whereas humans have a wide variety of instinctive responses which depend on perfect timing without thinking.
Things have gone from bad to worse.
Will master chief or Cortana be appearing
9935176
....not spoiling the fic itself but i will give the following vague-ish answer to that question...... IT IS FUCKING HALO! FEATURING PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE AND SCOOTALOO, DESCENDANT OF PEGASUS COMMANDER HURRICANE! Take a fucking guess if you have yet to read past this chapter in two months...
10051217
Just because it’s Halo doesn’t mean Chief and Cortana will show up. The Shadowbolts may not be assigned to the Autumn, nor use her as an evac vessel.
So... Why doesn't Twilight just grab the entire armory of weapons and fire them all?
10330445
Limited pool of magic cause the aether fields surrounding her aren't rich enough to provide a significant boost
Well will they meet red team is the question
HOLY SHIIIT... YESSS!
camo.fimfiction.net/An5RkfmPHjjV769nVsbviQOXpCHs7-KxR7Cep2SHDsU?url=https%3A%2F%2Fderpicdn.net%2Fimg%2F2012%2F6%2F29%2F25361%2Ffull.jpg
O no!
Holy Shit... The fall of Reach...