Chapter 18
War is the remedy our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them all they want.
-William Tecumseh Sherman
“Ya got ta have something, Twilight! It's been days!” Applejack exclaimed, doing nothing to reduce the headache I'd had for days. I was barely functional as it was, not having slept for... Two days? Maybe three?
“And I've been working tirelessly, Applejack, you know that,” I sighed, rubbing a hoof against my temples as I walked down the hallways of my castle. “You also know I've had to help the guard keeping up the wards on their armour, the storm may be calming down but the timberwolves around the Everfree are still acting erratically.”
I could see Applejack hold back her immediate reply, her posture tense as she wanted to argue further. “Ah know... It's jus' that she's been in there for a week Twilight! What if she an' her friends are in trouble!?”
“They may be troublemakers but I'm sure they managed, Applejack, for all we know they're sleeping over at Sunset's place and waiting for the connection to stabilise,” I argued back, coming to a halt in front of my bedchamber. “And if they aren't, Discord has been getting back some of his powers and I've gotten him to try and detect where exactly they were sent.”
“Never thought Ah'd be relying on that mismatch of bits 'n pieces,” Applejack said with a deep sigh. Gathering the last bit of energy I had left I placed a hoof on my earthpony friend's shoulder.
“We are going to get the three of them back, I already promised that... But I am going to need some sleep. My estimation say we can make an attempt at crossing dimensions in about two days, when I'm ready you and the girls will be the first to know.”
Applejack grabbed a hold of my hoof, pulling me in. “Ah'm holdin' you to that. Now go get some rest, we need yer head clear when ya gonna save our sisters.”
“I will.” Leaving Applejack at the door I walked straight into bed, taking only seconds to fall asleep. My dreams weren't kind to me, images of Apple Bloom being sucked into the portal haunting me. Of course, like I'd told Applejack, there was a possibility that they were at Sunset's place but the combination of the storm and the manner the portal had been acting... I feared the worst.
“Oh, Twiiiliiight!~”
I groaned.
How late is it?
My window blinds were pulled open, light streaming in and blinding me. “Discooooord!”
“Yesss?” the draconequus innocently asked, taking a bite from his teacup. I grunted again as I sat up, the inevitable pounding headache from staying up drilling into my skull.
“What do you want?”
“Pshh, what do I want? What do you want? You wanted me to look into finding those three balls of chaos. Or do you want me to-”
Wait...
“Did you find them?!” I exclaimed, ignoring the pounding in my head for the possibility the draconequus had actually pulled off finding the three fillies.
“Well, no...yes? Maybe? I haven't exactly found them directly, I was sort of busy juggling guinea pigs when-”
“Discord!”
“Right, right, always business with you ponies,” He huffed, “There's an entirely new dimensional cluster attached to ours, timestreams still seem a little wacky right now but I'd make a good bet they're in one of them.”
I let out a relieved breath only for a new wave of anxiety to hit me. That means they are not with Sunset... And different timestreams?!
"Wait, just how wacky?! and is it stabilizing?!" I jumped forward and shook the draconequus in the hope he'd answer faster.
Disappearing in a flash, Discord reappeared above me floating in the air. With nothing holding me back I faceplanted off of the bed. "Hey, I'm not at my maximum power yet! I'm still well below nine thousand! It was just off, don't know how much!"
I rolled my eyes as I rubbed my nose. "Fine, fine," I grumbled, pushing out of my bed chamber and into the hall to find some coffee down in the kitchen. "I'll try to probe out and calculate the difference if you can't do it."
"I left some notes in your lab downstairs," Discord shrugged and snapped his fingers, leaving me alone to suffer my headache alone. Fine by me. I've got enough to do.
"So you found them?!" Rarity asked excitedly, leaning forward onto the map table. Applejack was also leaning forwards as I informed them of my potential lead. It had taken no more than a few hours to find an anomaly in the new cluster of dimensions after I had decyphered Discords childish drawings.
"With a very high likelihood," I answered. "There's a problem though, the timestream of the new cluster of dimensions is off and I cannot figure out by how much."
"What does that mean?" Rainbow asked, listening with rapt attention to me for once.
"It means time either is going slower for them or faster," I explained, "Faster, in this case, so more time has passed for them than for us. Not by much now from what I can gather by probing but I don't know how much it has normalised by interacting with our dimensional cluster."
"Get to the point Twi, can we get our sisters?" Applejack said a little rudely.
"I need to figure out what the difference really is first..." I bit my lower lip. "Since I don't know what the state of magic is in that world... I can't use magic items and measuring it naturally would take a month... but a live pony to go through to figure it out..."
"Can't you do that with the Crusaders?" Fluttershy asked quietly.
I shook my head. "No, the equipment I need to track the timestreams needs to be calibrated incredibly finely. I don't have the precise signature of the girls, so I can't trace them."
"Well, what are we waitin' fer?" Applejack exclaimed. "Do your thingamajig with yer machines and Ah'll be off!"
"Hold there, darling, you don't know what you'll find on the other end so maybe we should send somepony with more diplomatic skills?"
Rainbow snorted in turn. "No offence to you two but none of you have gotten search and rescue training, this is something a Wonderbolt should do. And if that time thingy is a thing then you might be there for a while."
"Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!" Pinky suddenly exclaimed having remained remarkably silent. I rubbed my temples again as everypony but Fluttershy was practically begging to be sent off to another strange world.
"No. I'm not just sending one of you!"
"Darling, if you don't we are marching down to that basement of yours and will figure out how to operate the equipment ourselves," Rarity cut me off, pointing out what I already knew. Of course, they would never be able to figure out what machine was the one they needed, much less operate it.
That didn't mean they wouldn't try...
And with the portal still acting up so every now and then...
"Rainbow Dash."
"Pardon me?" Rarity questioned as I said the brash pegasus' name.
"I'm choosing Rainbow Dash," I repeated. "She's right about needing somepony with search and rescue experience." Turning to the pegasus I locked eyes with her. "Rainbow, I need you to gather the equipment you need, buy it in the crown's name if needed. I shall get everything ready for a transport."
Dash saluted with a wing and shot out of the room.
"Now hold on a jiffy-"
"No. My decision is final," I said without hesitation to Applejack's protest. "It's either Rainbow Dash or nopony at all."
Applejack scowled but I had to put my hoof down. I wasn't going to let more of them go either. Risking a single one of my friends was bad enough already.
“You should get down to your work, Twilight, Rainbow will probably be back in 'ten seconds flat',” Rarity said, standing up from her chair. I nodded in agreement, getting up myself.
“I'll be ready in about an hour as long as I don't get disturbed.”
“Well let ya work. As long as it gets mah sister back.”
"By my calculations, the time stream will be synced up in about a year and a half at the rate it is going now. So until then, we are not able to create a stable portal," Sunset explained to us, showing the calculations on the holoprojector. We weren't the only people in the room, various ONI officers were also present in the room and there were surely more people watching over a video feed. "Until such time I will be present on Harvest to set up the necessary equipment to go the moment a viable opportunity to open the portal arises."
"What is our role in that operation?" Maria asked.
"None," an ONI officer said, stepping to the forth. "Your team will be deployed to the frontier systems past Harvest until agent Shimmer is ready to open the portal. Despite the fact that they've been routing our forces we know almost nothing of them. We want you to sally out, gather intel, and raid any possible Covenant facilities and colonies if and when you find them."
My eyes widened, the proposal was incredibly daring and no less dangerous but also to get the chance to hit them where it hurt...
"What kind of assets will be allocated for this mission?" I asked, wanting to know what we'd get to work with.
"A prowler is being made ready and two additional special operators are being pulled back to Reach to be attached to you and the rest of your Chimera team," The ONI officer expanded.
"Define special operators, sir," Maria continued to push.
"Spartan Oh-Five-Eight and Spartan Oh-Nine-Three. The additional sniper support and explosives expertise was deemed necessary for mission effectiveness." Maria's pupils grew ever so slightly along with a small hitch of her breath.
Guess we'll have a small family reunion soon then.
"Understood, sir."
"In preparation, the five of you will be running exercises against A company from Reach's 49th ODST brigade until every member of your new team has arrived in the next month," the ONI officer informed us as he showed a roster of the company that would be opposing us followed by a mission briefing. "As of the start of this briefing, the two hundred troopers have been assembling for an assault of this base, all personnel has been moved to safe locations so any remodelling of the base is authorized. Your gear has been moved to the armoury in the next room and the objective is to stop them from reaching this place. Good luck. Move out."
There wasn't a moment of hesitation in any of us as we jumped up and sprinted into the adjacent armoury to pick up our gear and armour for those who weren't wearing it.
Fuck me, two hundred of them bastards... well, let's see how we hold up.
We quickly raided the well-stocked armoury within the complex in which the briefing had taken place, our personal rifles and gear being stored there as well most likely a courtesy from ONI. Sweetie left her usual Stanchion sniper rifle in the box and pulled a custom DMR with larger than usual scope, arguing that she needed the increased fire rate and ammo rather than a ridiculous range and few shots. The logic was sound.
Scootaloo quickly got her new flight armour on, simply grabbing an assault rifle and a few light 'explosives', They were the kind of training ordinances that would only incapacitate.
Maria too took a standard assault rifle, though she would probably be doing some magic shenanigans to make up for the generic weaponry.
Though what was I to say about generic, personally I still preferred my shotgun and a standard magnum. Both strong and reliable.
Ana though was the most interesting of the bunch, she had an entirely new set of armour unlike the regular ODST BDU it was much more organic, less sharp edges and such. Her weapon of choice wasn't her regular assault rifle but a suppressed SMG.
"What's that stuff, Anna?" Sweetie asked as we finished loading.
"Experimental tech, it's a stealth suit," Anna summarised quickly as she grabbed a whole bunch of explosives and other tools. the
"Andrews has been trialling it for a while, seeing how closely she's able to observe people before she's noticed," Maria clarified.
"And ya didn't tell us?" I questioned my friend, to which she held up her hands defensively.
"Orders from above. Not like you weren't keeping things on the down-low, miss power armour," she shot back.
"So why does the petty officer know?" Scootaloo asked as we ran outside.
"She tried spying on me," Maria simply answered, turning to face Sweetie. "Belle, I need a pulse."
"Yes, ma'am," Sweetie saluted and knelt down, placing a hand on the ground and pushing magic into it. There was a slight tremble in her posture as she did so, not all that unsurprising considering the amount of magic exertion she'd had in her match against earlier in the day. I could sense the faint magic presence in the ground for the briefest of moments before it disappeared again. "Major force coming in from the north, smaller detachments east and south. No more than two squads for each of the smaller forces and they're both still in the forest," she reported, pointing in their general directions.
"Understood. Firewing, into the sky. Hit the eastern flanking force from above. Belle, find a vantage point and start picking off targets on the north side, make them fear the open spaces there. Andrews, north too, harass them from the shadows, make them mad. Bloom, take the southern force."
We saluted and ran, or flew, in our designated directions. Ana, though not perfectly hidden blended in fairly well with the environment. If one wasn't looking for her you could maybe be forgiven for not spotting her...
unless you're specially augmented... Why do I get the feeling I totally missed her at some point?
My adrenaline was way up, enhancing my already augmented senses immensely. The clarity it brought was... Breathtaking. Nothing escaped me, every detail, every anomaly, registered as I came to a stop close to the southern perimeter but not yet in view. Jumping forward I went into a full sprint, the last few building that stood between me and the other fence going by in a flash. The outer fence wasn't much of an obstacle either as the Mjolnir gave me power in combination with thrusters to jump the fence.
My systems started picking up movement, having me slow down and find a good spot behind a set of rocks to just hide and listen. Noticing short-range radio frequencies lighting up so every now and then I quickly set up my systems to listen in on them.
"...movement from the base," one of the assaulting ODST's spoke, my system tagging him appropriately as 'one'.
"No IFF and nothing on scanners," a second responded, the signal giving me a rough direction of where he was located. "May just have been a deer or bird."
"Intel was vague, keep your eyes peeled. We don't know exactly what's waiting for us in there and I don't like surprises..." It only took a fraction of a second for the armour's systems to track back the signal from the last person to call out as every time someone spoke or signalled the armour got a closer bead on them...
A healthy bit of luck and knowledge of the terrain around the base helped too.
Pulling my magnum off its mag clamp I aimed it at the brush and pulled the trigger. The squad leader was halfway through another set of orders as he got hit in the neck by the training round loaded into the sidearm, knocking him out cold.
“Sergeant's down!”
“Where the fu-”
My second shot cut off the man mid-sentence, hitting him in the same location as I'd hit his commanding officer. Targets lit up as their sudden movements gave Mjolnir's tactical sensors lots more information to work with. They dropped like flies after that point. Of course, the troopers resisted as much as they could, but it really was only a matter of time before I felled all of them. They had never even seen me.
“Southern area cleared, twenty contacts down,” I reported with a steady voice as the last contact was felled and I'd checked if all of them were out properly. While I had been busy with the southern group gunfire had started throughout the base and to the east where Scootaloo was confronting the other flanking unit.
"Understood. Firewing, status." Maria responded.
"Heavy fire, got a decent amount of them in the initial strike but they got smart quick. Leading them to the base now to give me some better cover," Scootaloo replied.
"Bloom, go assist her." the Spartan then ordered as she got the report.
"Copy that, on my way," Going back into a full sprint I barrelled back towards the base, running straight through the outer fence. The speed I was now capable of running at was astonishing, Scootaloo's land-based speed was impressive, yes, but the Mjolnir in combination with the augmentations... it wouldn't be a fair match.
The gunfire got louder as Scootaloo's tactical feed fed into mine, showing me the position of the two half-strength squads she was facing. She came in for a landing on top of a building within my view as I stopped, the two of us glancing at each other for the fraction of a second. "Make sure they're focussed on you and draw their attention north, Imma get in close."
"Copy," Scootaloo simply reported, taking back off again. After a few seconds, I could see the troopers turn to face the direction Scootaloo had flown in.
Perfect.
Sprinting forward I came up on the rear of the group...
"What the-"
Thunk.
Bang!
The trooper that had been making sure the rear was being kept secure was bowled over and sent flying, a shotgun blast hitting the second person in line with a full blast with my shotgun. The third had his assault rifle wrenched from his grasp and got himself thrown into the fourth. The fifth actually got a shot off only be downed from the other end by Scootaloo who joined in. A very short firefight ensued but once again the ODST's simply couldn't keep up with me.
Hopefully Ah didn't hurt 'em too bad...
I scowled slightly as I'd had to pull my punches to avoid simply shattering their bones. Of course, this didn't go unnoticed by Scootaloo.
"Damn Bloom, give me two seconds to check if they're still alive." Plugging into each and every single one of the ODST's systems to check their vitals, applying Medi-Gel to two of them.
"Damage?"
"Couple of broken ribs, could have been more serious."
"Bloom, Firewing, move up north and support. Waypoints on location," Maria ordered as she probably saw there were no more ODST's left in either flanking force.
"Yes ma'am, coming up now," I replied, not even needing to instruct Scootaloo as she shot up into the sky, shooting in the direction of the waypoint. I followed her, though nothing on the ground would be able to keep up with Scootaloo while in the air. Explosions and gunfire was the one constant as I approached. The ODST's were steadily pushing forward through the base simply due to their sheer weight of numbers meaning they couldn't be opposed everywhere. My systems tagged Ana as she approached me, uncloaking as she slid into cover.
"There's a group making a rush for the central building. I'm out," Ana panted, showing her magnum which had the slide in the empty position. Her left arm hanging and covered in red paint blobs so she probably wasn't even able to move it a little. Taking my own magnum I offered it to my human friend who took it after holstering her own. "Thanks."
"I'll take care of them," I stated, pulling up the tactical map of the base that had red dots all over it, putting a waypoint over the group that was making a rush for the centre. Just like the two earlier groups they were no match for me. It was actually starting to scare me a little how easy it all was, it shouldn't be this easy to just walk over squads of ODST's. Even back in training it hadn't been such a one-sided affair...
"They're pulling back," Sweetie reported in from wherever she was perched, "Not a lot of them left now."
"Firewing, get onto their flank and delay them as best as you can, we're not letting them get away. Andrews, set up a sniping position. Bloom, form up on me."
"Aye ma'am," I said as I moved over to the Spartan who was carrying a rotary barrel heavy machinegun turret around, firing controlled bursts at groups of ODST's.
"The base armoury has two more, make sure to check the ammo," She recommended as she tagged the closeby building on my HUD. A quick raid of the armoury's stocks had me running back with a second one of the usually stationary turrets and some extra ammunition.
"No offence to you girls but can you please hurry up?!" Scootaloo called out, "They're going to simply walk over me very soon!"
"Hold out, we're coming." Neither I nor Maria stuck to cover after that, steadily advancing on the remaining ODST's while laying down an alternating but withering hail of fire. Resistance slowly became fractured until it was just small groups of troopers trying to fight a retreat. They were cut down in short order.
I felt another magic ping going through the ground. "I've got nothing. All down."
"Nothing on scanners either," I reported as I went through what my armour was telling. "You, Scoots?"
Silence.
"Firewing, report," Maria demanded, dropping the turret and turning in the direction she had been when fighting. A quick check of her vital signs showed them to be lower than they had any right to be. "Damnit!" It was actually the first time I'd heard the Spartan swear, right before she sprinted off in the direction of our unresponsive friend.
The first thing the two of us saw was her wing poking out from behind a rock formation. Scootaloo was on her back, her helmet laying some distance away. A fairly deep cut ran across her right cheek and a knife was sticking out of the same side's shoulder while her armour was covered in red dots from where training ammo had hit it. In her arms was an ODST which she'd choked out, still firmly being held in place. "I'm... good..." she said hoarsely, pushing off the other ODST before collapsing into unconsciousness.
"Get her to medical. I'm going to report to the officers," Maria stated as I picked up Scootaloo, her voice was her regular steady business voice but there was a dangerous edge to it.
"Understood, ma'am."
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its nice to see this updating again! i really enjoy this fic and things seem to finally be moving in terms of getting the CMC home!
Dun worry about it! They're fine, it's fine, everything's fine.
Honest.
Triggered somebody's fight-or-flight response in the wrong way I think. Those ODSTs, they are unstable...
Silly Commander, that's not right. Don't you know Spartans can't sprint?
Ooh, Rainbow enters the scene! Can't wait to see her reactions. Thankfully Sunset should be there to lessen the shock somewhat.
About a year and a half, huh? Looks like they won't be here to see the events of the games after all. Let's just hope they can hold onto Harvest long enough to go home, especially that hill.
Who brings a combat knife to a training exercise?! I kind of wish we got to see the ODST's reaction to a flying person, but that's probably what triggered the poor soon-to-be-demoted troopers' deadly attack.
so rainbows coming huh? This should be interesting. If I could be so bold I have a few ideas on how to place her in terms of strength in the halo world. Ether way it's your story. I look forward to seeing how you will progress.
I love the smell of new chapter in the morning.
Keep up the good work. 
And the plot thickens
It seems like the 200 didn’t know it was a training match, based on the knife sticking out of scootaloo…
I wonder how they will react when the 6 met them again or if Discord is able to give them more information about them first.
10950517
Nah, they were firing training rounds. My guess is, it was a genuine panic response, given this platoon hadn't met the flying member of their little band of oddballs yet.
Is it bad that I kinda want a crossover with helljumpers in the epilogue or in the ending chapters, maybe that versions of Twilight and Scotaloo know something about the storm that started this?
Did the marine try to actually kill Scoots with a knife?
10950653
Sounds like the most logical. She goes down, he freaks out when he sees the wings. About an hour of their team getting hunted and slowly destroyed and he snaps at the sign of an abnormal humanoid.
He cuts her cheek, she starts to choke him and he gets the knife into her shoulder.
Dude is gonna have a hella bad time waking up.
Glad I got caught up before dropping off for the year. Can't wait to see what happens when I get back!
10950523
Even if Discord found things out about the CMC he'd be as vague and technically correct as possible. The way I've seen Discord act he is just as interested to see the m6's reactions as we are so even if he could spoil it he wouldn't.
I can't wait to see how this ends. Is it possible that Celestia would send in the Royal Guard to assist in the war effort?
10963457
Considering their performance in the series I think the guard would be less than useless
10998002
In the series, yes. But this wouldn't the first fanfic to buff them for the sake of plot.
Awesome updates! Keep up the good work.
One of the ODST actually stabbed her.
Oh, oh someone is *dead* when ONI finds out. That is if Maria and Bloom don't turn them into a fine paste first.
10963457
Psffff the royal "Guard" are nothing more than show pony's