Marcus 657

by John 117

Chapter 7- Confrontation of the Gods

Luna had been watching with fascination at what was laid out before her: a human soldier trying to communicate with one of the shyest and most skittish ponies Luna had ever known, although one a few thousand years ago had been a contender. Once the group had realized that Fluttershy had gone missing, Celestia had reined in Rainbow Dash to help search Fluttershy’s ground sector for the missing pony. Everypony was tense and nearly silent. Even Rainbow dialed back her bravado. Their search was fruitless until they heard Fluttershy scream. In a flash, everypony bolted in the sound’s direction. Fluttershy was alright; she had merely panicked in a small, dark, hollow. Wait- there was motion; something big, metallic, and shiny was moving by Fluttershy!

There was no other explanation. They had found the human perhaps in the worst possible way. Celestia ordered the others to not interfere. They seemed to be speaking about as amicably as could be hoped for in such situations. They hoped that Fluttershy could persuade it to behave peaceably. Only she could do this. Adding anything new to the situation could turn it volatile. The human was sitting in front of Fluttershy asking her questions, and it also had its helmet off. Celestia pointed out that it was not armed, although one of its weapons lay on the ground a few feet away.
Celestia whispered, "Luna, we must do something; it could harm her."

"I understand sister, but what if it means no harm to come of her? He seems to hold no intentions of harming her and is being friendly enough," Luna responded.

Celestia mulled this over. "Can we really take that chance? It is a human as we had feared, Lu-Lu." Luna frowned at that. “Perhaps we should allow Fluttershy to handle first contact. Anything we do could provoke the human.” Thinking it over, she had to agree with her sister. They simply could not take the chance. Nodding to her sister the princess tried to go over to her when she stepped on a rotten branch. It made a small, crisp *CRACK* that was hardly very audible, but she disturbed the near by bushes. The human doubtlessly heard this. Before they could do anything, it had sprung to its feet more quickly than they would have ever imagined and rolled for its weapon, grabbing it and standing before a terrified Fluttershy. The thing grabbed its helmet and snapped it on, briefly being surrounded by an amber glow and the crackle of energy.

The tense moments felt like minutes. For a quarter second, Celestia did nothing, hoping that things wouldn’t escalate further. Then, the human’s hand darted for Fluttershy! It was impossible to gauge intent. She had to do something! The princess made a snap decision to defend her subject. Celestia shot at it with a pulse of magic strong enough to cow a Manticore, the bolt hurtling straight for the human’s chest!

The human didn't have enough time to react, let alone tell where the blast had come from. It sent him hurtling through the trees, nearly crushing Fluttershy. The human soared through tender yearlings, snapping them right in half with loud cracks.

He then was stopped suddenly by a large, old sycamore tree with deep roots. The monarch of the forest groaned under the mighty impact as the better part of a ton suddenly slamming into it, but the tree stood firm in the ground. The human reflexively covered his head and curled up into a tight armored ball. To everypony’s shock, it looked up to see his attacker and saw four more ponies emerge from the bushes, surrounding Fluttershy. It charged at them unarmed, the weapons were scattered on the forest floor.

It jumped into the air, balling one of its hands up into a fist. Luna saw that she was directly in its path! With her mastery of magic, it only took a split second for her to gather up her power and perform the correct spell. Her eyes and horn shone.

There was a tiny bit of slippery resistance from the armor so slight that Luna could have simply imagined it. The human halted as it was suspended several feet in the air. It struggled futilely against its arcane fetters

It took only a few seconds for it to realize its position. "Fluttershy, run!" He shouted, looking over his shoulder at the small pony, but she was just standing there, staring at him, but differently. It was like a drill instructor’s stare. He supposed that it would be rather intimidating if he hadn’t routinely wrested with cosmic horrors.

To his surprise, she only whimpered, "W-why i-isn't it w-working????" He was really confused, and looked back at the attackers. She was starting to panic. Suddenly, an unusually tall pony colored purple and black spoke with a strange echo yelled something at Fluttershy. HE noticed that they were all standing relatively still, almost entranced.

“Fluttershy! Thou may quit thy stare.” The small pony did. The large pony turned to the human and addressed him thusly, “Be still and civil and we shall release you, human. It does not please us to use violence. We promise that if you behave thyself, then no harm shall befall you.” The human seemed to wrestle with this in spite of the impossibility of its situation. It had just been handed a mandate to surrender, yet it still offered resistance. Luna was certain that it would not be easy to make this being come quietly. It had a warrior’s spirit- no doubt about it. There was something else too. Was it the fabled human recklessness?

"What do you want?" He demanded. Princess Celestia stepped forward. Her pure white coat stood out amidst the dark forest. Her flowing, multicolor, pastel mane, wings, horn gold finery, and unmatched size got the human’s attention. It seemed to think of her as some sort of chief adversary.

The white princess was about to speak when suddenly, a brash voice shout from the darkness, "We want our friend back, buck head!" Its source was the rainbow-maned pony. She only had wings. The human picked up on the undercurrent of fear in her voice. he smirked underneath his visor Things got spirit.

"Silence Rainbow Dash, and let us handle this," retorted Celestia. Rainbow Dash snorted, but spoke no more. The white alicorn turned its attention to the struggling human. “We simply wish to speak with you, human.”The human responded, “Let me down first and then I’ll talk.” It could sense their fear and sought an advantage.

“I won’t release you unless you swear to answer my questions and refrain from violence.” It hung its head, knowing full well that it was well and truly cornered.

Celestia didn’t believe what it tried to do next. "I’ll cooperate, but only if you answer some of my questions first. Why did you attack us? Who are you? And how do you know what I am?" Unbelievable! Was this human honestly trying to make demands even when it was being held at an alicorn’s mercy? Luna sighed and gave her a meaningful look as if to tell her older sister to just humor the human so that they could get on with it.

“Very well then, as a token of trust, know that my name is Princess Celestia, goddess of the sun. May I ask who you are?" The human gave her an incredulous stare, cocking its head. There were several minutes of silence.

Celestia was pleased when the human finally responded to her. "I am Spartan Marcus 657. Now let me down! Can you tell me why you attacked us? And where exactly am I? I've never heard of a planet called Eque-"The dark pony he had initially lunged at cut him off with that echoing, otherworldly voice she seemed to favor. "We will answer the remainder of your questions if you cooperate with us, Marcus. We promise that no harm shall come to you."

There were no alternatives for Marcus. Resistance was futile. They were suspending him high enough off the ground to make a best case scenario end with the fall simply breaking his legs. Whatever they were doing to him prevented his shields from even regeneration. Some sort of interference was being broadcast that prevented him from locking his armor. If he used his grenade, then it would either kill him by exploding in close proximity, or by convincing his captors to strike first. He had no guns. He had no backup. Even though it went against absolutely everything he had ever known from training and combat, there was but one thing he could do to escape his predicament.

“I...give in.”

Comments

[Patient X]

Not the worst I've ever seen, but certainly not the best.

Tell you what; I'll abstain from saying anything negative about it because it looks like you put a decent amount of time into it...you show potential.

[Hat and clogs guy]

If they jump him I'm gonna be pissed.

[Lunar 457]

As he neared the group, he brought up his fist and punched a dark blue pony square in the chest; making it double over. He then brought up his leg for a round house kick to the face of a taller, white one. He did a back flip and then pushed over the remaining two with a quick dash at them.

I'm glad celestia got hit but not Luna why celestia no die

[kalash93]

Review For Chapter 7

Finally! It is a short chapter that does not feel short. I'm impressed- in the space of three chapters, you've gone from groan-inducingly bad to actually pretty decent. I don't think that you needed the section break when you changed to Marcus as the viewpoint character. Now that they are all in the same place, you can do without section breaks. You took your time with this chapter and allowed the conflict in it resolve itself gradually instead of just suddenly throwing Fluttershy into it and declaring it fixed. The result is that the story flow feels much smoother and more natural. It no longer feels artificially quick. Your protrayal of canon characters has improved. I can actually envision them behaving as they are right now. The fic is now just alright. If this is your new baseline, then that's good. I will continue to read and review. You get 3/5 flutteryays.

[Dubious]

Gotta love how people portray Luna and Celestia as goddesses, they are not, the sun revolves around the galactic central point, the Earth revolves around the sun, and the moon revolves around the Earth, magic can't do shit to stop it, Luna and Celestia are just posers. End of discussion.

[Urist McWriter]

3543924 Unless of course they are in an alternate dimension beyond our understanding and the limits of our knowledge of the Universe and life itself. For all we know, magic exists and we simply don't have the capability to use it. Hell, Multiverse theory is a proposed, and supported, theory among many top scientists. It is not at all unconceivable that there is a reality where our laws of the universe are broken.

[damnaion]

8# hummmm

[UNSC Saratoga]

They attacked Marcus first and now are acting as if he started the whole thing? No. That is unaccepptable. Plus, a Spartan is strong enough to throw a 90 ton tank across the battlefield as if it were nothing.

[Just Defender]

6001588 Someone is exaggerating.

[Dented Thorn]

6125304 a spartan vanguard can throw a grizzly tank two kilometres and survive a low-velocity MAC round AT THE SAME TIME, though the grizzly would be destroyed in the process

Shit wrong halo universe

[Titan Commander Sebaste]

Ouch...

[Fire Blitz]

Resistance is Futile. We are the Borg

[Xblaster]

6125304
Also John fucking survived reentry and took on the flood, and GODDAMN ARMIES I sure he is NOT exaggerating

[X 865]

A fall from maybe a dozen feet will break a Spartan II's legs? Get real man.

[Generic2]

Great! Another story about a spartan that is completely defenceless against magic yippee.