Straight up, HE-spewing, Dee-vine Intervention

by Obvious German

Left Behind

Nothing will go wrong, ‘cause you’re in a friggin’ tank.

That’s what the Marines commented on Captain Lorenzo and his main battle tank, who was thinking back to the times on board the UNSC Spirit of Fire just before they were assigned to assist the ground forces on the inner sanctums of this strange planet. Now being transported by the means of a D77-Troop Carrier, or as it was commonly known as throughout the UNSC Navy and Marine Corps as the Pelican, Lorenzo was busy maintaining his personal tool of destruction for the upcoming fight with the zealous mixture of various alien species that was the Covenant.

He had participated in the events that unfolded on Harvest, Arcadia and now here. Even before that, he had partially served in a Insurrectionist culling that stayed in his mind until now. It was only until after the incident was he given the control of a tank, in the form of a M808A Scorpion tank. After being enlisted into the many men and women of the platoons on board the Spirit of Fire, commandeered by Captain James Cutter, he had plowed his way through the hordes of Elites and Wraiths along with the various campaigns and managed to earn the ever worthy respect of Sergeant John Forge, the very man who asked him to commandeer one of the most fearsome vehicles in the UNSC’s armories, and the Marine who would be the one to end the shield world.

He felt depressed, knowing that such a brave Marine will be one of the many heroes to have died in the Human-Covenant war. Engorged in his stress, it was only when Specialist Russell snapped him out of his trance.

“You ready?” Lorenzo shook his head and responded.

“Of course, always ready.”

“Good, we’re ETA with ground forces in about a minute,” Russell responded as the Pelican rattled, causing them to dig into their leather seats. Even though they were encased in almost bulletproof armor, he could hear the faint thumping of missiles and the zapping of plasma.

“Sorry about the bump, Vampires are filling up the sky with needles. We’re moving to an alternate rendezvous with Triton 4. You know those guys,” the Pelican’s pilot chimed in as the both of them felt their stomachs lurch, corresponding with their backup plans.

“Wait, don’t we have Wolverines?” Lorenzo asked the pilot sternly as he checked the ammo counter installed onto the frame of the Grizzly tank. M9 MAATs, or as commonly designated as the Wolverine, was the premier anti-air combat support vehicle in the arsenal of the UNSC. Having grown used to serving with these useful units and their respective commanders, it was no wonder that their personal squad would have such a unit. Labelled as the ‘Hell’s Jokers’ for their highly unorthodox but efficient ways to clear out the Covenant, they were quite a surprising force to be reckoned with, provided they were actually in the mood. Lorenzo and Russell were also actual jokers onboard the refitted colony ship, and proved to be one hell of a pair.

“We’ve got ‘em, but they’re busy taking out the Banshees assaulting Spartan 0-92 and his fire team down in the field,” the pilot explained as the tank buckled under a close explosion. “There’s your buddy down there with his Wolverine, so you’ll do just fine. He’s got more of his buddies too, including another Spartan.” Another Spartan? From what Lorenzo remembered while slagging Covenant armor, there were only three of them who actively served on the field. They made up Red Team, and was the key to gaining ground on the planet both inside and outside.

Actually, the whole situation would’ve made Lorenzo’s brain melt as where they were right now, was inside of a planet. But it would do no good, as he was already here and was now going to support his squad mates as they duked it out on the ground. But who was the Spartan? It didn’t change anything, as he or she was still a Spartan. It was good enough for moral support, but maybe a Grizzly should help, Lorenzo thought as the Pelican groaned under the stress.

After a heart-racing minute, the Pelican stopped dead in the air and descended to drop off the tank. “Alright boys, time to shine!”

Lorenzo smiled and flicked open a case, promptly pushing a single black button that released the heavy vehicle from the magnetic holders of the Pelican. As the screens of the Grizzly came online, he could now carefully observe the surroundings. In front of him was a squad of suppressed marines, one who looked to his flank and waved to Lorenzo, which Russell responded to by turning his turret to his left, finding a Wraith pinning them.

“Thank god! A Grizzly! Wraith’s pinning us down and there’s about two Locusts tryin’ to take out the Spartan!” The marine barked into his radio as he swerved to pull out a rocket launcher to destroy the Wraith up ahead. As a resonating boom of a Locust sounded behind, Russell quickly adjusted the tank’s calibration and acquired lock after a second.

“Shells out!” The Grizzly roared as two 120mm HE shells went soaring straight into the armor of the Covenant artillery, shattering it to purple, slagged bits and its occupant fried. The Marines raised their MA5Bs and M45 shotguns into the air before heading out to cover behind the armor plating of the Grizzly.

“Thanks for saving our asses!” The commanding Marine said as Lorenzo gave a thumbs up.

“Always a pleasure, Triton!” At that moment, a Fuel Rod almost hit the armor and the Marines gathered around the tank from a screaming Banshee that pursued two fleeing M12s, or known as Warthogs, as their LAAGs spun and sputtered high velocity armor piercing rounds that ripped through the attacking Banshee. Lorenzo picked up on the ‘Hog’s driver and gunner as they spat out insults at the destroyed air vehicle.

“How you’d like that?! Covvie bastard!”

“Man, this thing rips stuff apart!” Then their LAAGs spun and found the Grizzly as it reversed and slowly spun to find the Spartan. “Hey! That's one of our tanks!”

“No shit! Good to know you’re here, anyway!”

“As always,” Lorenzo replied as the in-built screen of the Grizzly lit up, revealing a blinking green dot and three red dots moving erratically. This must be the Spartan, Lorenzo thought as he stepped on the gas and headed out into the thick forests of the Shield World, as the raging battle continued between the Covenant, the UNSC and the Flood, a race of parasitic organisms that consumed every sentient being in their paths. “Follow us, we’ve got a Spartan to help!”

“Aye, aye!” The Warthog convoy veered forward and matched with the speed of the tank, which was quite fast. Moving forward, Russell picked up a hostile Flood bomber form hovering towards them and adjusted so that the smoothbore cannons could blast it to pieces. Although the tank wasn’t fully adjusted to combat aerial threats, it had the capacity to take out low targets like unfortunate Banshees, Phantoms and Vampires. This bomber form was no different, as it exploded into fleshy, green blood with the thumping of the Grizzly’s cannons.

“You like that?!” Russell cried out as the Grizzly began to roll over various conifers, slowly presenting them the skirmish ahead, the Spartan and his or her green clad armor in view along with a squad of advancing ODSTs. On the opposing site was a well entrenched squad of Jackal snipers, four Ghosts, a Locust and the Honor Guard elites, emboldened with ceremonial armor and energy swords. As Russell switched his aim, Lorenzo tapped into the ODSTs and the Spartans communications line.

“Hey buddy! Here comes dee-vine intervention!” He exclaimed as the cannons flared and took out a Ghost, sending it sky high along with its driver. The Locust which was focusing its energy projector at the pinned down Spartan and ODSTs changed targets and focused on the Grizzly, scorching the thick armor plating of the tank that made Lorenzo grunt.

“And that! Take some of that!” The Spartan barked as her, judging from her voice, Spartan Laser let out a damaging stream of crimson at the Locust, causing its shield to dissipate and leaving it vulnerable to the Marines who fired upon it. Taking the brunt of the hail of armor piercing bullets, it was finally finished off by a newly arrived Sparrowhawk VTOL that ripped the Jackals apart with its autocannon.

“This is Eagle Six Oh Five, we’ll be your tour guide today to the battlefield today!” The pilot of the Hawk cheerfully announced as her gunner let another gazing blue laser beam that sliced through a fleeing Ghost. Then a fuel rod struck Eagle Six in the starboard side, causing slagged metal to steam and let out. The Banshee who swooped in to finish off the attracted VTOL burst into showering debris as the aforementioned Wolverine rolled in to finish off the job.

“Tasmania Three One, just slagged a shrieker!” Lorenzo chuckled, knowing that voice anywhere. It was one of his friends, Sergeant Macbeth, who piloted this decorated anti-air vehicle along with its prototype inbuilt AI, a first for any land based vehicle in the UNSC. The fact that Macbeth had one was worth dying for, as it gave out tactically viable options.

“I love it whenever Mac shoots down a Banshee, so romantic,” came the voice of the AI, who was...modified by himself to sound like it actually fell for him. Mac always carried a portable hologram projector for use with the AI, and her form was actually quite surprising.

It was not a human, rather it was a pony. Lorenzo silently chuckled again and reminded himself of the times when Mac tried to convince him and Russell to watch the show that the pony came from, which they politely declined. He didn’t know how he got such old artifacts, but whatever made him happy, made the squad happy. In his squad was the same Marines he rescued and the Sparrowhawk too as she was Colby Atkins, one of the flying aces of the UNSC flight academy on Chi-Ceti 7. The head of the Marines was named Douglas Gene while the Spartan, who Lorenzo recognized as an old friend, was codenamed ‘Snowdrop’. It was a subtle name amongst the brutal war, but it gave Snowdrop’s allies a morale boost.

“Well, if it isn’t Lorenzo and his best pal!” The white striped Spartan waved to him, Russell also nodding with the use of the smoothbore. Lorenzo then focused on the objective and zoomed out the map on the screen, until he realized something very, very bad.

On the corner of the screen was the time before detonation, and it was now barely a minute before the explosion. In panic, Lorenzo echoed into his radio. “By Jove! We’re going to get blown up!”

“D’awwww, shit!” The driver of the ‘Hog cursed and his gunner looked up, to see the blue luminescent lights of the portal’s gate ascending as well as the Pelican dropships that were moving to enter the outcoming Spirit of Fire. Then Snowdrop gasped audibly through the radio and started jumping to let one of the Pelicans know they were left behind. The ODSTs ahead started to scatter within the radius of the Grizzly who moved forward along with Macbeth and the Marines. Colby landed her damaged Sparrowhawk next to Lorenzo’s tank, not wanting to just leave them behind like that.

“Atkins, you’ve got a Hawk! Get out of here!”

“No can do, sir! I’m not ditching any friend of mine!” she answered back defiantly as her co-pilot started to panic to.

“C-colby! We’re not going to die now! We’ve got a war to fight on, let’s get outta here!” But she vehemently refused to abandon Lorenzo, Macbeth and Snowdrop as the AI began to send out frantic electric signals to Serina, the Spirit of Fire’s onboard AI as the Phoenix class ship hovered high up into the air, facing the sun.

“Serina! We need evac now!” The AI or more commonly referred through in Hell’s Jokers as Rarity, began to chirp rapidly.

Lorenzo then looked back at screen, to find that the red dots are slowly scattering away from them, fleeing from the soon-to-degenerate artificial star. Then the portal let loose a burst of intense energy that stunned the abandoned UNSC personnel, as Cutter’s voice reverberated through their radios.

“Sergeant Forge, all ground forces are evacuating back to the Spirit of Fire.”

Lorenzo realized that Cutter hadn’t figured out that they’re missing them, before Sergeant Forge’s voice rang in, signalling the end.

"Copy that. Get our people out of here, I’m blowing the core!” Damn it! They were left behind! Someone rescue us, Lorenzo screamed into his mind as the Marines started panicking and the Warthogs shuddering under the increasing gravity well of the degenerating sun. As bits and pieces of the inner planet began to get sucked in, the Grizzly grinded along the grassy knolls helplessly as Rarity and Colby screeched to get them out of the blast zone.

Snowdrop, who was done tired of doing jumping jacks, sat on a fallen log and shoved her helmet into her gloves in despair. Although there were many advantages to being a Spartan, Snowdrop had developed human feelings after a while, and now she demonstrated it. “Jerome...Alice! They left me behind...”

Lorenzo couldn’t help but feel dread and pain as Russell picked up the accelerating black rectangle that was headed for the sun. “Hol-ee shit! Cutter’s going to do a slingshot!”

This made Colby angry. “He’s going without us?!”

Lorenzo tried to cool her down. “It’s only because he doesn’t know we’re not there!”

Snowdrop cut in, practically sobbing. “But they... The rest of them will notice I’m gone...!”

Then followed by the commanding ODST as he threw his sniper to the ground in anger. “Fuck me with a loaded M45! We’re Helljumpers, and nobody ever forgets Helljumpers!”

Now they were all going to die, and they could do nothing but watch as the Spirit of Fire disappear into the sun, only to emerge two seconds later, headed for the portal. The gravity well was now lifting up the Warthogs, as the drivers and gunners held on for dear life. Following that is the flailing Marines themselves, followed by the struggling ODSTs. Then surprisingly, a hidden squad of Hellbringers emerged from the forest line, as if nothing had happened beside their accidental abandonment.

“Hey! The fuck is going....WHOAAAA!” The lead Hellbringer yelled as they were sucked into the sun. Colby’s Hawk was the next to go, and she screamed for help.

“LORENZO!” He felt total despair as he couldn’t do anything as her inactive VTOL was spirited away. Then the AI and Macbeth was the next one to go, screeching too.

“Shit! I didn’t want this! I didn’t want this-

“It’s okay... At least we helped save the Spirit of Fire...” The Rarity AI sadly said, admitting their incoming sacrifices. Russell silently prayed, and Lorenzo began to tear as the Grizzly was slowly lifted up into the air into the sun, with him remembering what he would be hopefully remembered for.

The Insurrectionist Culling.

The Battle of Harvest.

The Battle of Arcadia.

And now, the battle for the alien world. But he knew that without the FTL drive, the Spirit’s crew wouldn’t be able to make it back to UNSC space. He had played his part, and now he would be relieved of his sins as the Grizzly was hurled towards the degenerating star.

Then it imploded, destroying the planet and seemingly scorching Snowdrop, Colby, MacBeth with RarAI, the ODSTs, Gene and his men, the unaware Hellbringers and finally, Lorenzo, Russell with their fateful Grizzly.

---

It was a starry midnight in Equestria and Luna was enjoying every bit of it. It was a while since she last visited Ponyville for Nightmare Night, and now that she had recently cured young Scootaloo of her nightmares, she felt quite happy of herself.

Gazing out into the skies, she observed the moon and sighed. It painfully reminded her of the time she had spent as Nightmare Moon, banished by her own sister because of her enviousness. But even the toughest of punishments can have its benefits as she remembered her writings of her observations of various intergalactic species that had crossed the stars. Even though she was Nightmare Moon, she still had that insatiable hunger for knowledge coupled with her enviousness during that time.

Trotting back to her room and going to her small, cobalt oak chest on her table, she used her magic and opened it up. Its contents was a notebook and several memory orbs that she stored her viewings of battles far and beyond. Hovering the notebook up, she flipped through it, finding her own writings and accounts of the unknown throughout the blackness of the galaxy. Then she put the notebook down on the table and started using the memory orbs to recollect what she saw.

The first orb contained a battle between a massive, intimidating orb orbiting a moon which in turn, orbited a red gas giant and a fleet of bristling starships, as she would come to call them. Shortly, the starships were victorious and the orb was destroyed in a fantastic display of fiery galactic fireworks, as she heard her Nightmare Moon form chuckle at it. Sighing again, she moved on to the next one.

The second orb was one on a planet as she was using her enhance Galaxy vision in that time, between red painted and hulking machines that fought with gangly, dark green beings that made her think of Ogres except equipped with strange objects and contraptions that tore apart the red machines, who in turn blew them apart. Then through the orb, she heard herself yawn and promptly, the battle was cut out by a black void where she grunted and scowled at. Dismissing the orb, she then moved on to the next one.

The third orb showcased a ferocious battle between purplish starships which colorings made her think of Twilight Sparkle, the element of magic, and the desperate grey ships and their massive stations that let loose projectiles into the formation of purple ships, utterly decimating most of them. Then the bulbous purple ships fired at the grey ships, destroying most of them too. But from this particular memory, she could somehow feel the desperateness of the beings fighting against the purple aliens, and had a feeling that she might be able to see some of them here. Then she waited until she saw a terrible sight: the planet being scorched by the same starships, with the wrecks of the valiant grey starships floating in orbit around the planet. She didn’t want to meet the purple ones for sure, as they destroyed almost everything that the greys desperately fought for.

Then it came to the last one, but this one was emanating with vileness. Shaking it off, she went on with viewing it. This one showed a fleet of many varieties of starships facing the planet, that eerily resembled the status of the last planet she saw being scorched, with fresh ones warping in from sectors unknown. Then from the planet, she saw black squid-like starships emerge and engaged with the fleet waiting just for them. The black starships were the first to sustain casualties, but then the tides turned as they destroyed the fleet in retaliation. It was then she heard something echo in her head.

Princess Luna...

She shuddered, was this the foul essence she sensed? Or something much greater?

Do not fear me, for I am your redeemer...

I am Harbinger... the Overseer of the Reapers...

I am the destroyer, the being that you will know salvation through my wrought destruction...

Shepard... the human who made me turn against my original objective...

I was forced to help the ones I wished to destroy... But I still retain part of my old consciousness...

And so... I ask of you for help...

She took a step back and looked around in building fear. This entity was filled with total darkness, and instantly she refused to hear its plea.

“No! I will not help you destroy anything! Not anymore!” Although she was not involved in this ‘Harbinger’s during her banishment, it was now contacting her, seemingly as if it were still alive.

Irrelevant... you will help me regardless...

Luna felt something evil invade her soul, and it was none other than Harbinger’s dark intentions and will. “NO I COMMAND THOU TO LEAVE OUR BODY!” She roared in her Royal Canterlot voice as she fought against the Reaper’s growing influence.

Luna, you cannot stop me, you cannot kill me...

Assuming control...

She screamed as Harbinger took over her mind. Then threw her head back and laughed, as her irises changed to a predatory yellow that glistened in the night.

I always survive... Always.

Comments

[NightmareKnight]

3,564 words, yet 0 words total?

[StrawberryGamer]

Glad to see more stories involving Halo Wars anything else. This looks like a fun read.

[Dementia Ravenmane]

Yay! Snowdrop and Rarity AI!

M9 MAATs, or as commonly designated as the Wolverine, was the premier anti-air combat support vehicle in the arsenal of the UNSC.

You gotta fill me out here, the only Wolverine from an RTS I know of is the Wolverine Mk.II from C&C 3: Kane's Wrath.
images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080122234753/cnc/images/c/c8/KW_Wolverine_low_detail_model.jpg

[Hurgusburgus]

Well, now...

Faved.

Keep going with dis shit, yo!

[StrawberryGamer]

2446482 Okay, look at this.

images.wikia.com/halo/images/b/b0/WolverineHW.png

That's a Wolverine.

[SouthernmostDogs]

The battles that Luna saw, in order, are from Star Wars, with the Death Star going kaboom, Warhammer 40K, orks and either Chaos Space Marines, Blood Ravens, or a group of Titans on a battlefield, the third is Halo, possibly Reach or Harvest, and the last is obviously Mass Effect.

[shadowpheon]

Now here is something I can get into. I don't care to much for most Halo crossovers, but I can appeal to this since it is Halo Wars, and I really do like that game. Like the way you incorporated several of the ground and air vehicles, along with the troops. I was a little suprised you left out the Cobra and the Vulture, but I can also see how that would be overkill. Great start non the less, and I will not be able to keep up with the Mass Effect parts, beings as I never touched the game.