> The Last One Standing...
>  by Promethean 27-B
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


THE LAST ONE STANDING



A My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and HALO crossover


109,067 years ago…

27 was slammed into the bulkhead once again as the ship vibrated under the stress of another blast. Her ship, the Unyielding Pursuer, was a destroyer class ship the Forerunners gave her temporary command of. The Unyielding Pursuer was a large, triangular ship, similar in structure to a Forerunner Capital ship, but smaller and bulkier and bristling with turrets. At 638.9 meters long and with firepower that can gut most of the opposition, it was a force to be reckoned with.

But today was not the case.

The Flood knew the Forerunner’s last ditch plan, and was initiating a final assault to destroy the Ark, Installation 00, to stop the firing of the Halos. But before they could reach the Ark, they had to bypass the Forerunners first and last line of defense, the last of the Forerunner Fleet, comprised of 56 carriers, 146 cruisers, 18 Dreadnoughts, 187 destroyers, and 34 scout ships supported by nearly 700 flights of fighters and drones, under the command of Offensive Bias, all in all, 441 ships and 4,200 fighters.

But there was a catch…

They were outnumbered ten to one… 

During the course of the battle, the Unyielding Pursuer had sustained heavy damage, taking two bombing raids and nearly three plasma torpedoes. Decks 2-8 are damaged in multiple places, Decks 9 and 10 were venting atmosphere, and parts of the outer hull were raging fires as fire control systems worked for the past 10 minutes to put them out. The command deck looked no better, one of the consoles even took so much damage it burst into flames.

‘I hate space combat’ 27 thought grimly.            

“Commander, that is it!” a Promethean at the helm said “This ship can’t take much more! The reactor has taken too much damage! Turrets 4, 5 and 7 are the only operational turrets ant the main gun is damaged!”

“I will NOT retreat as long as a single weapon on this ship can fire!” 27 shot back “This is our last stand against Mendicant Bias and our only shot to win this war! If you wish to be labeled a coward and a traitor to the whole galaxy, then please SPACE YOURSELF!” 

“We are with you Commander!” another Promethean shouted. 27 nodded at their quickness to recover, and began barking order once again.

“Navigator, come about 140 by 347 on that Flood cruiser!” she ordered. A Promethean checked her course and plotted it in.

“But Commander, That is a collision course!” the Promethean remarked. 27 smirked.

“Indeed it is…” she said, and turned to a monitor to her right, “can the hanger still hold an atmosphere?” 

“Yes Commander, Hull integrity around the starboard section has not yet been compromised…”

“Seal it and fill it then!” she ordered and turned to her navigator once again “Execute course!”

“Executing!” the navigator said, and the ship lurched forward with its five large engines. The Flood Cruiser, or human infested Cruiser, was much larger than her ship, but more bulky and slower, so the ship did the only thing it could, it charged its main battery.

“Commander! Flood ship has spotted up and is preparing a firing solution!” the Helm said.

“Hold fire and stay on course!” 27 ordered. The Cruiser’s Main battery charged from a dull grey, to bright blue, then white hot, and launched a salvo of six plasma torpedoes. 

“Commander, Six Torpedoes incoming, time to impact, six seconds and counting!” helm shouted. 

“Roll 90 degrees to port and hold course” 27 ordered, and the ship rolled left, now making the flood ship appear on its side. 27 turned to the monitor, “prepare to vent atmosphere from starboard hanger!” then she turned to the Promethean manning the weapons console “Overload all remaining turrets and aim starboard!”

“Yes commander!” it said.

“Four seconds!” helm shouted.

“Hold course!”

“Three seconds!”

“Two seconds!”

“VENT THE ATMOSPHERE NOW!” 27 shouted. There was a large BOOM as the pent up atmosphere was released in the blackness of space, shooting the ship to port and avoiding the plasma torpedoes by near meters, causing the Unyielding Pursuer’s weakened shields to flayer up just from the bleed of the torpedoes alone. The Flood ship’s weapons strained to track the ship as it escaped from its view. Now position under the enemy ship, 27 said the one order the Promethean's just loved.

“FIRE!” 27 roared and the remaining three, now over clocked turrets opened up, firing a straight beam of hardlight. The turrets shot out the shields in a second, then began to neatly bisect the flood ship, cutting it in half from stem to stern. But as soon as the turrets finished their work, they overheated and turret 5’s guiding rail’s had melted and deformed, rendering it useless.

“Turret 5 is destroyed and the other two need at least five minutes to recharge” the Promethean at the weapons console said. 27 nodded.

“Helm, turn us around, we are in the cavalry’s way” she said, referring to the other destroyers.

“Yes ma’am!” it said, grinning. The ship came about and face its allies who also fought their own battles, holding a lose formation together. But unknown to them, the neatly cut in half cruiser still had survivors, and from one of its undamaged bays and maneuvering around the debris field, were three boarding ships, all of which flew in undetected, and latched on the Unyielding Pursuer’s third deck with a loud Clank.

“INTRUDER ALERT!” the ships AI sounded off as warning lights began to strobe. 27 cursed under her breath, and turned to the Monitor.

“You have the Conn…” she said, “I will deal with this personally…”

“Yes ma’am”

XXX

27 crouched low to the ground on all four legs as a plasma round sailed over her head.

27’s Promethean form stood at a whole 8 feet tall, and her tail, which was separated into segments and levitated in place, twitched in annoyance. 27 unfolded her wings and placed them in front of her as a shield, her wing membrane being made of hardlight. 27’s commander designs flared bright red in further annoyance as the Binary Rifle mounted on her back fired again and again, trying to keep the flood pinned down.

‘Screw it’ she thought, and sprinted forward to her enemy’s location. Plasma bolts flew passed her head and hit her sides, but her powerful shields took the blow for her, once in range of the flood’s makeshift cover, they didn’t have a prayer.

27 jumped over the barricade and slashed at the first flood infected human with her hardlight claws. The second one roared a challenge, but was quickly put down by her Binary Rifle. As soon as the round from her rifle hit it, three combat forms dropped their weapons and vaulted high into the air, as if content to land on her and crush her with their combined weight. 27 saw them, and quickly teleported to the right avoid their attack. The combat forms landed as soon as 27 re-materialized, and engaged her.

27 jumped forward and landed on her first assailant, crushing it on the ground with tremendous force. The second was in 27’s face quickly and raised its tentacle arm for an attack, but the attack was intervened by 27’s hardlight tail blade shooting over her head, like a scorpion would, and stabbed it in the chest where the infection form resided. The third just got shot to death by her mounted rifle.

“Commander, Halo activation in 5 minutes… just kill the Flood off until then!” a Promethean said over her comm. 27 didn’t reply, more focused on the task at hand. Just then four more combat forms emerged, and 27 turned to face them, and cursed. Three of them held Light Rifles and took aim, but the last one was a Flood Pure Form; a tank that held an Incineration cannon.

That was a very big problem.

The Flood wielding light rifles had already gotten a bead on her and opened up, sending hardlight rounds downrange to meet her. 27 rolled to the right, switching out her Binary Rifle for her Suppressor and sent her own rounds down range. 27’s rounds hit her intended target, one of the light rifle wielding combat forms, that was picked up and torn apart by her Suppressor, and the other two fell behind cover.

But the Tank with the Incineration Cannon remained there, and launched an Antimatter round down range. 27 jumped out of the way, but the resulting blast created a hole in the deck where she once stood. 27 landed behind the hole, and smiled darkly with a blood thirsty expression.

‘Finally… A challenge’ 27 thought. She backed away a little more and summoned the famed sentry gun that only a chosen few Prometheans could summon. She tasked the floating gun to focus fire on the light rifle wielding combat forms as she focused on the tank. 

27 then jumped over the hole and sprinted to the tank that towered over her. 27 knew that the Incineration cannon can kill the person wielding it if the intended target was to close, so she closed the gap between her and it. Once close enough, 27 vaulted into the air, intending to throw off the tanks aim as it tried to fire upon her again, and the Antimatter round passed harmlessly under her.

27 landed on the tank’s back and her claws dug into its shoulders as it tried to throw her off by shaking like a dog. As it bucked, 27 fired a whole magazine of her Suppressor into its back, weakening its armor. It roared loudly, it was angry or panicking now and ran backwards into a wall, crushing 27 between it and the hull. 27 coughed up a mixture of blood and coolant as her body was caught between the wall and the tank.

“No… you… DON’T!” 27 growled as she placed all four legs on the flood tank’s back and pushed with all her might. The tank roared once again, in anger for certain this time and pushed against 27’s force, but losing. Its feet began to drag forward on the ground away from 27, and it was pissed. With one final push, the thing was off her and 27 rolled away from it.

But it charged forward with a massive arm low to the ground, intent on crushing her to a pulp. 27, however, had other ideas. She stood up on her hind legs, her forelegs stretched out in front of her, and she caught its massive arm, and with effort, ripped it off. The tank roared in rage and pain and raised its other arm, intent on killing 27 with the Incineration Cannon once and for all.

“30 Seconds to Halo activation!” a Promethean announced over the ship wide intercom, and 27 smiled.

“You will be dead before then…” 27 said to the tank and leaps for it. The tank, in a last ditch effort, fired once again.

XXX

Blood…

Blood everywhere…

But no bodies… no hosts… no Flood…

27 sat on the deck, a large amount of green, viscous glue stuck to her maw, as well as beads of her own orange blood. She sighed and closed her eyes wearily.

‘100 million years of war… finally over’ she thought. A smile creased her face, blood staining her metallic teeth. 27 began to quietly laugh, not in joy, but in revenge. She had her revenge, and her family can finally rest in peace with all the billions lost in this bloody fray.

But she was not at peace. 27 was no fool, she knew a lot of work and rebuilding must take part now the installations have fired. 
Life must once again take the place of death. But that would take a lot of time.

“Commander, you are requested Installation 00” a Monitor spoke over her comm. 27 closed her eyes and sighed.

‘No rest for this weary soldier after all’ she thought grimly.

“Understood…” 27 said quietly “I will take my fighter, you will take the ship and sweep the debris field for any survivors…”

“Understood Commander” the monitor replied. 27 stood up on all four legs, her powerful claws capable of tearing apart dreadnought class hull armor felt weak after years of fighting. Slowly, she walked to the hanger bay where her fighter awaited.

XXX

27’s fighter was a large multi role fighter capable of fighting in space and almost any atmosphere. The triangular ship was large, 
almost as big as a small house, but this fighter was built with operators like 27 in mind. With twin hardlight cannons mounted in the nose and a plasma torpedo launcher mounted in the belly, it was a force to be reckoned with in the terms of space combat. 27 moved up to it and crawled in through the top hatch, closing it behind her with her tail. She took up the seat that was designed for her behind the controls and locked herself down.

“Unyielding Pursuer flight command, this is commander 27 requesting authorization to leave, are the skies clear?” 27 asked. There was a slight pause over her com before someone answered.

“Commander 27-B, roger that, hanger bay clear, you are clear for takeoff” the AI responded. 27 nodded.

“Roger that, beginning takeoff…” 27 said. She then reached for a button and pressed it. Outside, the ships engines groaned and roared to life, the sound echoed throughout the hanger. The rear engine pointed down and the ship lurched up about a meter before shooting out the hanger like a bat out of hell. The fighter, now clear of the hanger veered hard left in the direction of the ark, but to get there, 27 had to go through the debris field.

27 flew through the debris field, and slowed her ship down. She looked around at the multitude of ships, all very different. The field of death seemed to go on forever in all directions, almost like a graveyard. How many people died here? A gutted human cruiser floated just off the left wing and she watched it tumble, like it was participating in a silent ballet. 27 sighed and looked around at the ships. Forerunner, San'Shyuum, Unggoy, Kig-Yar, Sangheili, Human and many more races of ship made up the death toll.

27 stopped her ship in a nearly open spot and closed her eyes, fighting back the horrors of the war, fighting back the tears. She just wanted the war in her head to end. The constant battle between machine and Dragoness raged inside her almost every time she had a moment to stop and think. She opened her eyes and looked down at her claws.

‘I’m still here; I’m still alive… why though?’ 27 wondered ‘so many others could be alive…’ 27 then shook her head ‘No, I ran the simulations, I ran the problems, and this was the only way…’ 27 looked back up to the debris field.

This was the only way

That thought echoed through her head and it tore what was left of her heart apart as a small piece of debris bounced off her fighter’s shields. 27 sighed and looked at the piece of debris that hit her ship to find… a floating stuffed animal, half its face gone. 27 tried to look away and dismiss it, but found she couldn’t.

This was the only way

27 recoiled a bit. Were there uninfected survivors on those ships? The Flood would never keep objects like that on their warships unless it was of strategic value. 27 scanned the area around her for any sign of life. There were no results, nothing survived the Halos. 27 leaned back and sighed and looked at the navigation console and discovered she was 338 kilometers away from the Ark.

‘No need to keep them waiting any longer’ 27 sighed, and ignited the engines of her fighter again and begun to speed along the debris.

WARNING! SLIPSPACE DRIVE RUPTURE DETECTED!

27 spun the ship around to the source of the rupture and found that the same human cruiser as before with its slipspace drive exposed, leaking its fuel into the blackness of space. 27 scanned it further to find that the damage to the reactor was extreme. 27’s eyes widened.

‘It’s going to blow!’ 27 calculated and reacted with the speed only a machine could produce, and slammed the ship around 180 degrees and hit the afterburners. The Fighter rocketed forward and the drive in the human ship detonated. The ship, moving at about 443.7 meters per second dodged the ships left and right, rolling around the debris to avoid the all consuming blast chasing her. 27 was moving fast, but the blast was faster. Slowly, but surly, the blast was catching up. 

‘Come on, COME ON!’ 27 thought as the blast closed in. She banked left to avoid a dislodged engine then right again to dodge a large, warped piece of metal. There was now a whole Human carrier in front of her, and without the option to go around, she flew through a large hole in the plating, spinning to avoid the edges.  

But all this dodging, fancy or not, is slowing her down, and the blast was almost upon 27. Now inches from the rear of her ship, the fighter’s sensors (as well as her own) were going crazy. Audible alarms rung over the ship, and before 27 knew it, she was engulfed in the slipspace explosion.

The fighter tumbled end over end in the artificial worm whole. The fighter, not designed for solo operations in slipspace, began to warp and violently shake its self apart, and 27 did the only thing she could do. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the ride. 

XXX

The slipspace rupture opened, spitting the ship out before collapsing on its self. The wreak of a fighter tumbled through the upper atmosphere, breaking apart. As it tumbled, the dragoness inside has shut down due to the exposure of slipspace radiation, and was blissfully unaware of her possible doom.

But the ship did finally make landfall in a dark and murky forest. The ground under the fighter shook as if in pain when the ship struck in the middle of a clearing, and was left to rest. It’s sole occupant still offline, waiting to be revived.

XXX
> Revival
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

System Restart… Complete!

27 awoke with a jolt and sat up, pain lancing up her spine… well, what was left of it. 27 looked around her once proud ship, reduced to a pile of scrap. The hull was buried in dirt, glass punctured, allowing the earth to seep in and dust to cover the various instrument panels. She looked up to the top hatch, located just above her head, to find no signs of entry. A frown crossed her metallic features as her red designs dimmed.

‘How was I awoken?’ 27 asked herself, and scanned the area.

Unknown radiation detected! 

Her systems chimed in its report on this ‘unknown radiation’, and found herself checking her results.

‘This doesn’t make any sense… this radiation is almost too powerful… chaotic if that word can be used to describe it’ 27 thought. She needed to 
find the source of this radiation and study it. 27 scanned it further, finding the source is somewhere above her.

‘Well’ 27 thought, as she reached for the top hatch, ‘time to crawl out of this tomb’

XXX

After a painfully slow dig to the serface, the surface greeted her with unrelenting rays of sun light, and 27’s HUD darkened to filter out the light. 27 stood at her whole height and shook herself like a dog to remove most of the dirt that refused to fall off.

27 stood eight feet tall, and she stretched her large, ten foot long wings. God it felt good to spread them once again. She retracted them again and pulled them close to her metal hide, her red designs coursed over her body like priceless art against the scared metal that now made up her skin. 27 looked down and dug her claws into the dirt, feeling it part under her powerful digits. She sighed and closed her eyes. The war is over. The war is won. The nightmare is over and the Flood is gone forever.

But her duty remained. She may have been born a Dragon, she may still look like one now, but she is a Promethean now and a Commander.

And this radiation that somehow reactivated her is powerful, thus deadly and a threat if it got out of hand. Her mission now clear, 27 ran a system check and the following text scrolled across her vision.

Weapons (Binary Rifle) (Suppressor) (Hardlight Blades): Online/Standby

Heads Up Display (HUD): Online

Motion Tracker: Online with 75m (meter) range 

Offensive/Defensive Sensors: Online

Shields (Hardlight Wing Membrane) (Primary Shields): Online/Charged

Abilities (Teleportation) (Active Camouflage) (Auto-Sentry) (Promethean Vision): Online/Charged

Armor: 98.24% functionality

Other Sensors: 100% functionality

‘Good, systems still operational’ 27 thought, and looked around her current environment. She stood in a small clearing, surrounded by tall, dark and brooding trees and bushes. She looked around further trying to spot something that would lead her way through this forest. She then stumbled upon something peculiar, a path in the forest. 27 raised a brow, confused, and scanned it.

‘Not natural, just as I thought, so it must lead somewhere’ she thought, and walked up to it and looked left, then right. She scanned the area again, and found the path actually took her directly to the source of the radiation! But, what if the path took her through a populated area? 27 didn’t want to risk it, so she engaged her active camouflage and followed the path.

XXX

27 followed the worn path out of the path out into the open grass plains. The Plains seemed to stretch for miles around as the hills seemed to stretch up around her. The radiation now getting stronger, 27 assumed that she was getting closer to her new objective. She looked up one of the hills that the path led up to and saw a sign. Curious, 27 engaged her 2x magnification to read the sign.

Welcome To Ponyville!

Current Population: 106!

27 raised a synthetic eyebrow. 

‘Ponyville, isn’t that an odd name?’ 27 thought. Something just then pinged off her muzzle, causing her active camouflaged to flicker as the sun became blotted out. Confused, 27 looked up to see pink clouds. Now completely confused, she scanned the clouds overhead. Only to find that the clouds are made of spun sugar.

‘That is not natural, is the radiation causing this?’ 27 asked herself. Then, the ‘sugar clouds’, opened up to a down-pore of brown rain. 27 didn’t need to analyze the rain to know what it is.

‘Chocolate milk?’ she pondered. As the chocolate milk began to soak her armor, the radiation in the rain started to mess with the light bending teck, causing her active camouflage to sputter out and fail. 27 cursed, her active camouflage can withstand water, but radiated chocolate milk is a different story aparently. 27’s hopes of avoiding contact with sentient species dwindled.

‘Okay, time for a different approach… let’s try the old fashioned way…’ 27 thought, and engaged her over shields and unlocked her teleportation matrix. 27 teleported to the top of the hill, and overlooked the village. The village was smaller than what she first expected, but it was absolute chaos down in the streets. 

The largest building in the center of the village, town hall most likely, was levitating in one place and flipping end over end in a counterclockwise motion. The streets were flooded with chocolate milk and over sized popcorn. The inheritance had boarded up their doors and windows, and the ones that weren’t in their homes were running and screaming from abominations that once were rabbits.

27 was shocked, to say the least. No amount of training or preparation could prepare her for this sight. 27 then finally saw one of the inheritance round the corner of a building, then two, followed by three more. 27 engaged her 10x magnification to observe them.

When 27 zoomed in on the beings, she found herself questioning her systems, because the six beings were multicolored ponies. The one in the lead, a lavender pony with a horn and straightened main ushered the others forward.

Wait… horn?

27 scanned her findings, and sure enough, the horn was natural, but it was also giving off odd readings. The others followed the Lavender pony through the jumbled chaos with little to no worry; maybe this lavender pony is the squad leader? So 27 dubbed this pony Lavender (Lead) for the moment into her systems, and scanned it using a colored base system: GREEN, BLUE, YELLOW, ORANGE, RED, WHITE, GREY, and BLACK. GREEN being the lowest threat and BLACK being the highest. 

NAME: Lavender (Lead)

SPECIES: UNKNOWN (DNA scans suggest augmented pony? [Addition: Horn])

THREAT LEVEL: BLUE (Civilian)

The next ‘pony’ didn’t have a horn this time; only it has a pair of wings instead. This light blue pony has a rainbow colored main and a wild, untamed look in her eye. Something 27, as a soldier, didn’t like all too much. 27 dubbed this pony Rainbow.

NAME: Rainbow

SPECIES: UNKNOWN (DNA scans suggest augmented pony? [Addition: Wings])

THREAT LEVEL: BLUE (Civilian)

The next one in the line also had wings, and seemed smaller than the others, mostly because the creature seemed nervous and cowering. In supported a yellow pelt and a pink main and tail, both the latter was the longest thus far. 27 dubbed her Shy.

NAME: Shy

SPECIES: UNKNOWN (DNA scans suggest augmented pony? [Addition: Wings])

THREAT LEVEL: BLUE/GREEN (Civilian [Possible support unit])

After Shy was a pink pony with either a horn or a set of wings, seemingly hopping along with a large grin plastered to its face. The pink pony’s main was unruly and untamed as its blue eyes scanned the area around her with unnatural glee. 27 tilted her head, confused at the pony’s action. Did she not see its home was in shambles? 27 dubbed this pony Hyper Pink.

NAME: Hyper Pink

SPECIES: UNKNOWN (DNA scans suggest augmented pony? [Addition: N/A])

THREAT LEVEL: BLUE (Civilian)

After the pink pony was an orange one, this one also possessing no wings or a horn. This orange pony walked tall and proud with a somewhat untamed yellow main and tail. Upon its head was a brown hat of some kind. 27 dubbed this one Cowboy.

NAME: Cowboy

SPECIES: UNKNOWN (DNA scans suggest augmented pony? [Addition: N/A])

THREAT LEVEL: BLUE (Civilian)

The last one, taking up position in the rear of the group was a pony, this one with a horn. Its white pelt and neatly trimmed purple main and tail suggested that it was of possible nobility.  This one walked in such a way that spoke ‘I am important’, but 27 ignored it. 27 dubbed this one Nobility.

NAME: Nobility

SPECIES: UNKNOWN (DNA scans suggest augmented pony? [Addition: Horn])

THREAT LEVEL: BLUE (Civilian)

At that moment, 27 noticed something else about the ponies; they all had marks on their flanks. Lavender (Lead) had a symbol representing a bursting star, Rainbow: a thunder cloud shooting a single rainbow colored lightning bolt, Shy: three pink butterflies flying in a triangular formation, Hyper Pinkie had what 27 believed to be three balloons, Cowboy had three apples, and Nobility had three identical diamonds. 27 tilted her head to the right a little, confused. Were these symbols some form of ranking system? If so, 27 saw no evidence supporting her hypothesis.

27 tracked the pony’s trajectory, and found they were advancing on a hill where a throne was mounted. Upon the throne was a creature that 27 has never seen before, and possibly never would have imagined herself. 

Its appearance had a deer antler on the right, a blue goat horn on the left, one long fang, a goat beard, and white bushy eyebrows. It had the right arm of a lion, the left claw of an eagle, the right leg of a lizard, and the left leg of a goat. In addition, it had a bat's right wing, an eagle’s left wing, a horse's mane, and a dragon-like tail with a white tail tuft. The shape of its body resembles that of a snake.

This entanglement of body parts that made up the creature on the throne looked as if it had been thrown together. It reminded her too much of the Flood, thus she took a nearly instant hatred for the creature, for one point two seconds. She shook her head; she will not let the war, let them, and of all things cloud her judgment. She scanned the creature and-

WARNING! RADIATION LEVELS HIGH!

NAME: UNKNOWN

SPECIES: UNKNOWN

THREAT LEVEL: GREY (Radiation bathed life form [UNKNOWN RADIATION])  

‘The radiation is emanation from that creature, that thing is causing all this turmoil!’ 27 thought, and grimaced, ‘This cannot continue…’

27’s dorsal plates opened up, and a multitude of parts levitated up out of her and magnetically attached itself together in mid air to form 27’s signature weapon, the Binary Rifle. The weapon levitated up to her shoulder so she could see through the scope. Although she could just wireless link with the weapon’s scope and see through it, 27 liked to do this ‘manually’. The rifle’s twin accelerators powered on with a low hum and she lined up the first shot, in between the creature’s eyes. But then the creature snapped its fingers, and a glass appeared in its hand. This action caused 27 to momentarily hold fire.

'This thing can summon objects out of thin air? How is that possible?’ 27 thought. The creature then reached over to a low hanging cloud, and allowed the glass to fill with chocolate milk. It brought the now full glass to its lips and said something, 27 read its lips.

“Chaos is a wonderful, wonderful thing!” it exclaimed, and brought the glass up to its lips about to drink. But at that moment, the six ponies came up to the creature and Lavender (Lead) replied to it, something about friendship.

“Oh, this again?” the creature stated, it then tilted its head back and drank the glass. No, really, it drank the glass, leaving the chocolate milk behind. It then throws the milk behind it and the milk exploded in such a way it might as well have been a grenade. 27 ran a check on her systems to make sure she wasn’t malfunctioning. There was no error, that action she had just witnessed really happened.

The orange pony stepped up and shouted something at the creature, something about friendship and breaking it apart. The creature smiled and flicked its wrist at the pony, and it began to levitate up in front of the creature and in 27’s line of sight.

“Oh Applejack, don’t lie to me” it said, the orange one now identified as Applejack, “I’M the one who made you a liar!” the creature closed its paw to form a fist, and all the ponies except Lavender (Lead) was pulled up.

“Do you ever learn?” the creature taunted. Lavender (lead) then jumped up and teleported up to the group formed some sort of bubble shield around them, allowing them to float down to safety. Now out of the way, 27 lined up her shot again as the lavender pony started shouting at the creature, but the creature replied:

“Ugh gag, fine!” It exclaimed, throwing its arms up in mock defeat, “Go ahead and try your little elements, friend me, just hurry it up! I am missing some excellent chaos here!” The lavender pony smiled and began to say something, orders to form a formation of some sort, before they were interrupted by the pink pony drinking milk rain. The pony’s comrades gave her a humors disapproving look before it fell back into position. Were these ponies going to take on this creature, a level grey creature?

WARNING: UNKNOWN ENERGY SPIKE!

27 scanned the area to find that this energy was not coming from the creature, but from the six ponies and their jewelry. Unintended blasts of energy fired from the necklaces and narrowly missing the creature.

‘What is happening?’ 27 thought.

“What’s this?” the creature asked, before its eyes widened in horror, “Oh no!” The ponies were then drawn together, and together, they fired a beam of energy that broke the color spectrum. The rainbow beam arched up about 16 meters in the air, before coming back down on the creature.

“NO!!!” the creature yelled before becoming enveloped in light. The creature under the beam then began to change on a molecular level, skin, tooth, and claw becoming stone. The light then became so intense that 27’s HUD darkened in order to see. The light grew brighter and brighter until 27 actually had to close her eyes to avoid damage to her optics. There was a large BANG and the light disappeared.

When 27 opened her optics again, everything was back to normal. The buildings were in their proper places, animals were reverted to their natural state, the clouds and chocolate milk disappeared, and the creature was locked in stone with a horrified expression locked on its face. 27 folded up and put away her Binary Rifle, but locked her optics on the six ponies who were cheering in their latest success.

Lavender (Lead), Rainbow, Shy, Hyper Pinkie, Cowboy, and Nobility have been elevated to level RED threats.

With the radiation and the chocolate milk rain gone, 27’s active camouflage returned to 100% functionality. 27 activated it, and disappeared like smoke.

‘Things just got interesting…’ 27 thought, ‘I should keep my eyes on them…’

XXX	
> Recon
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	27 moved quietly back to her crashed ship, her active camouflage back online after the creature's defeat. She maneuvered through the foliage of the forest, still trying to make as little noise as possible. 27 could have just flown over the forest, but 27 knew nothing about this world or its abilities. For all she knew, that weapon that the six ponies used could be just the beginning. 27 could not risk it.

‘What was that anyway?’ 27 thought, referencing the objects that the ponies used ‘I have never seen a weapon like that before… the capability to turn any object to stone and neutralize radiation in the process…’ 

27 mentally reviewed the attack over and over again, trying to make sense of it. The energy the weapon produced was impressive; to the point it stumped her. She has seen many things in the Universe, many strange, wonderful, and horrifying things, and this weapon is like nothing she has seen and may surpassed some weapon the Forerunners have created.

27 pushed a branch to the side slowly as to not generate noise, jumped over a bush, and made it to the clearing. She spotted the hole that lead down to the now completely covered ship and began to walk to it. In her absence, some of the dirt was blown back onto the hatch, she ignored it and grabbed the hatch lever and slammed it down. Oxygen shot out of the seams of the hatch as it depressurized and 27 moved inside.

She landed on the deck of the large fighter with an audible, clunk, and she looked around the ship. Still in the same state of disrepair as before, 27 walked over to a nearby terminal and pressed a button, the terminal however didn’t respond. 27 sighed, this is what she expected, but she thought to give it a try anyway. 27 turned around to access the other end of the ship and opened a wall mounted panel.

27 ripped the secured panel off its hinges and let it unceremoniously fall to the ground. 27 looked inside to be met with a multitude of damaged components. Many of the systems were warped or even missing, from the slipspace rupture, no doubt, but that is not what 27 is searching for. 

27 reached in and pulled out the wires with a powerful tug. She placed the wires and components on the ground in front of her and began the long, painstaking job of stripping the ship’s components of valuable metals. Everything from platinum and gold to nickel and copper had to go. 27 needed to be prepared if this society had some form of currency.

27 had a plan, in order to survive in an unknown environment, one must adept. Her teleportation matrix disassembles her down to the atom, relocates the atoms at the speed of light, and then reassembles her in her new location. Theoretically, she could reprogram the matrix to reassemble herself into new forms, but it is limited, and the mass of the object she turns into must be equal to her, and the object can’t be fully organic. The last time a person was turned into a machine and tried to turn back into full organic turned into an abomination.

27 decided that she needed to reprogram her matrix so she could turn into one of these ponies, but that brought up questions. Ponies were native to the Human home world of Earth, how are they here, and sentient? How could she understand them? Could they help her get home?

27 stopped all her possessing power and activities to ponder that one question: Could they help her get home?

Was her home world the same, even after the Halo Affect? Would they accept her? Would they try and kill her?

Dose she even want to go home?

‘No…’ 27 thought, and continued to strip the ship of anything valuable, ‘I am a promethean now, I have no home besides the front lines…’ but in that case, what is the appropriate action? Try and contact the Domain? Or stay here? 27 shook her head.

‘One thing at a time…’ she thought. Once 27 finished stripping the ship of any and all valuables, she gathered them up and stuffed them into one of her armor compartments built into her. She then climbed out of the ship and slammed the hatch down, closing it off to the outside world. 27 looked around at the foliage again, peering at it and her motion tracker for movement. It was clear. 27 cloaked herself once again, and moved to the town called ‘Ponyville’.

XXX the Next Day XXX

12:58 PM
Standing at the edge of the small village all day and night, 27 scanned it from a secure position, her active camouflage making it nearly impossible for the population to see her. Her systems had scanned the town, and that mystery radiation was gone for good. Utilizing her 10x magnification, she watched these Ponies going about their day, going to work, or just walking with friends. 27 noted all interactions between each other and what was deemed appropriate in this culture.

But she needed to get closer. True, the data she was gathering thus far was helpful to her cause, but she needed to not only see, but hear and feel their culture in order to avoid confrontation. Assuming she can pull off her transformation…

But if she just walked among in her camouflage, she would inevitably be spotted by the shimmer of the light bending tech. 27 scanned the roofs of the many homes that dotted the street, hoping that they were strong enough to hold her. Her analysis concluded that they were, but just barely, and to further complicate it, the hay on the roofs would give her away. 

‘What good is recon if I can’t properly observe them?’ 27 thought. But, luckily for her, all the ponies seemed to be gathering in or around the town hall, causing some of the streets to be nearly disserted. 27 decided to teleport to one of these streets. 27 rematerialized behind one of the many houses, still camouflaged. 27 moved between the houses like a snake among the grass, trying to avoid the crowds of ponies. 

It wasn’t long before 27 was stopped by a group of three ponies that stumbled across her path. These ponies were oblivious to 27’s presence as they talked.

“Come on, Doc! We’re going to be late!” a female pony urged (or is it mare in this case?). This mare had a gray coat and yellow eyes, the mark on her flanks seemed to be a sort of bubbles. The stallion she was urging had a brown coat and an hourglass on his flank.

“Now Derpy, there is no need to rush!” he said, and pointed to a nearby clock tower, “We still have ten minutes before the party starts!”

“Which reminds me…” the other mare started, “I need to go to the library after this, so do any of you know when the party ends?” this mare had a mint colored coat and main, a harp on her flanks.

“It ends at 7:30, Lyra” Derpy replied.

‘A party where the whole town is invited and a library, this is good’ 27 thought to herself, and looked around, trying to locate the library.

“Okay, now can we go?” Derpy asked. The Doctor sighed.

“Yes, we can…” he replied. The small group then moved off to the party and out of 27’s way. As soon as they were out of sight, 27 allowed herself to smile. Her luck may be turning for the better. 27 followed the street, looking for any signs to represent or direct her to the library. During this time, 27 increased her Motion Tracker and sensor range to 75m, if anyone was coming, she wanted to know about it.

It wasn’t long before she spotted a sign post in the middle of a six way interception. She engaged her 2x zoom to read in without stepping out of cover.

> Sugarcube Corner >

< Golden Oak Library < 

^ Town Hall ^   

< School House < 

^ Hospital ^ 

‘Golden Oak Library, that’s it…’ 27 thought, looked around, and moved on as she was sure no one was watching. As soon as she crossed, 27 stuck close to the houses on her right and off the road so she could sneak into a space between the houses easily without being detected. She didn’t need to do this often, and as time passed, the sounds of a party reverberated throughout the town. 27 continued to follow the signs down the road to the near edge of town, there, she found the Library.

The Golden Oak Library was built into a large oak tree. 27 had scanned the structure to find it was indeed a real tree, and that the tree was still alive. It seemed to be a two story building, with windows on both levels and a red door dominated the front. Upon the second floor was a porch or some form of landing pad for the winged variant of ponies.

27 was both shocked and impressed. The only other race that could possibly achieve this that she knew of was Forerunner Life Workers. The fact that Ponies could pull this off spoke volumes about them. 27 walked across the road moved up to the window to look inside.

Bookshelves that had been grown into the wall were filled to the brim with books ranging from cooking to dictionaries, and history to science fiction. In the center go the room was a table with some sort of statue on it. To the right, stairs were grown into the wall and led up to the second floor, closed off by a door.

27 scanned the interior to find nothing alive or moving inside. The Librarian must have the day off or is at the party, either way; the library is closed, leaving her free to do some research in the library until 7:30, so 27 teleported into the library so she didn’t need to mess with the door and raise suspicion.

Confident no one will come in and disturb her, she deactivated her active camouflage. 27 stretched her wings out and leaned forward a little to get her wings to respond. She was just itching to fly, but she kept her urges in check and folded up her wings again. Currently 1:09, 27 looked to the shelves of books she sighed. Time to get to work…

XXX

27 had learned much in the past six hours. She had learned that there were not three phenotypes of ponies, but four, being the Alicorn, followed by the Earth Pony, Unicorn, and Pegasus.

The Earth Pony was the most basic. From what 27 learned, they are mostly farmers and business owners. They also had a strong connection to the plants, allowing the farmers of this group to grow more plentiful crop quickly with low maintenance and also held the most physical strength of the three common phenotype. 27 found this interesting; this manipulation of the plants and the earth reminded her of the Life Workers when they constructed the habitation portion of Shield Worlds and Halos. No small task, yet these ponies use it every day as if manipulating nature to your will was normal.

Next was the Pegasus. These were the ponies with wings, built to rule the skies. From what she could understand, the Pegasus phenotype is capable to manipulate the weather and even start and stop them upon demand. Again, another Forerunner trait; on Halo installations, if the flood were to escape, Halo’s multiple structures would conjure up severe storms to kill or at least slow the flood’s progress. And once again, 27 was impressed at these ponies. They also manipulate clouds as if a solid, 27 might want to look into that…

Last of the three most common phenotypes was the Unicorn. A ‘Magic using’ phenotype of pony. Equipped with a horn, these ponies possessed supernatural abilities such a telekinesis, teleportation, and illumination ‘spells’ and those were simple ‘spells’. 27 doubted that magic existed, but that didn’t mean she would throw the possibility out of the window, but still, she wanted to see this ‘magic’ first hand. But that didn’t mean she doubted they could do these abilities, 27 herself could do telekinesis, but that ability revolved around the laws of magnetism and it also drained her power the most quickly of all her functions.

The last, but not least of these phenotypes, was the Alicorn, the most rare but most powerful of all the phenotypes. The Alicorn had the horn and magic of a Unicorn, wings and abilities of a Pegasus, and the physical strength of an Earth Pony. From what 27 could tell, there are two currently ruling the nation she found herself in: Equestria. Celestia and Luna are the rulers who represent this planet’s Sun and Moon respectively.

27 had also memorized, cataloged, and stored all the knowledge of pony antinomy on all four phenotypes, and can transform into any phenotype she wished. But now for the current question:

Which phenotype to choose?

27 automatically ruled out Alicorn, with how few they are, the ponies would go haywire to find another to the point they would blow a circuit. That left Earth Pony, Pegasus, and Unicorn.

27 also ruled out the Earth Pony. The Earth Pony could very well come in handy when it came down to hand to hand combat… or, is it hoof to hoof? But still, 27 wanted to use her abilities of Active Camouflage, Teleportation, Sentry Gun, and personal shields, which would be deemed as ‘magic’ in this world, and Earth Ponies and Pegasi can’t do magic, so they were gone too. That left one Phenotype left…

The Unicorn Phenotype is possibly the best choice for 27. It provides the cover she requires to divert attention from her, and she will be able to use her abilities without consequence or question. 27 smiled, uploaded the necessary schematics and data to her teleportation matrix, and closed the book she was holding. 27 picked up the books she read and set them back up on the shelf exactly the way she found them.

Satisfied she had set up the Library the way it was before her arrival, and turned to teleport out when…

CLICK

The sound of the front door unlocked stopped her. 27 nearly panicked and activated her Active Camouflage, and she faded into the shadows like smoke. The door opened to revile a lavender Unicorn, the same lavender Unicorn that faced down that unidentified creature from the day before with her friends. 27 checked her mission clock: 19:08 hours. 

‘This unicorn is a whole 22 minutes early… Damnit! Why didn’t plan for this!’ 27 scolded herself for being so incompetent in her planning. 27 stood in the darkest corner of the room, not moving a single muscle strand or servo. The lavender unicorn opened her maw and yawned loudly.

“Come on, Twilight… You need to go to bed” a male voice stated. From behind ‘Twilight’ came a small reptilian creature. He was about half the size of twilight with purple scales and green spines. This reptilian stood on his hind legs like a human would. 27 scanned him, and what she found nearly made her blow her cover. This reptile is a Dragon! Sure there were some differences in their DNA from his species and hers, but it was nearly a 72% match! Twilight stumbled up to a bookshelf and looked for a book.

“I’m fine spike… I’ll sleep in a little bit” she responded. The dragon sighed and moved out of the way of the door to Twilight.

‘Now is my chance sneak out!’ 27 thought, and moved for the door quietly. Avoiding any and all contact with objects, 27 was halfway out the door when Spike exclaimed:

“Whoops! Nearly forgot the door!” and the next thing 27 knew, the little dragon slammed the door on her tail. 27’s shields flared up in response to the sudden hit, sending sparks flying and giving her position away.

‘SON OF A-!’ 27 screamed in her head. 

“What was that!?” Twilight asked. 27 then teleported out of there before Spike and Twilight decided to investigate why the door didn’t close.

XXX

27 rematerialized herself at her ship’s clearing, mentally cursing and scolding herself. She should have been faster, now her whole objective of blending in may be more difficult. 27 sighed to calm herself and she disengaged her Active Camouflage.

‘I should have waited for them to fall asleep, then teleport out!’ 27 thought to herself, her claws dug into the ground in frustration.

‘Damnit… now the whole town will be on alert…’ 27 growled to vent mounting frustrations, but she banished these thoughts to the back of her 
processors to make way for the more positive news.

‘At least I have what I believe to be the minimum amount of information required for infiltration…’ she thought, and ended up reviewing all info she had obtained from the library and the town’s residents, specifically: the Unicorn phenotype. 27 had read many books on pony antimony and even scanned many unicorns to ensure the data was correct and she had all available into to transform.

It took 27 two hours to catalog and store the information, create an algorithm for her teleportation matrix, and find a way to keep her systems in check during the process. Now, after two hours and the sun now hugging the horizon, 27 was ready. She only had one shot, and if she failed anything, even the smallest miscalculation, she could probably never turn back, or worse: die. 27 closed her eyes and sighed.

‘Ancestors… watch over me…’ 27 prayed, and teleported. 27’s atoms were scattered by her teleportation matrix, levitating in a field of electromagnetic energy, and moving fast as light, began to reassemble them into the predetermined shape. As soon as they finished .0392 milliseconds latter, they snapped back together into the shape of a Unicorn.

As soon as 27 rematerialized she screamed in absolute agony, and collapsed to the ground with a nasty thump.

XXX

Back in Ponyville, a certain pink mare was walking home after another successful party. Her wacky and out of control main and tail bounced as she hopped rather than walked home, humming a tune that her friend DJ, Vinyl Scratch, played at the celebration of Discords defeat. But then her gut turned upside down, something that the mare stopped to observe.

“Uh oh… twitch incoming” Pinkie stated to no one, and began to list the twitches in order to herself…

“Left ear, Right ear, stomach, tail, eyes…” upon her mentioning her eyes, the twitching stopped, and a smile stretched from ear to ear.

“Oh! Somepony new is going to move here soon! I need to get ready!!!” she exclaimed in excitement, and spun on her hoofs to sprint back to Sugarcube Corner.

> Reveal (Lesson zero)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

XXX Four Days after Transformation XXX 

27 stirred and growled in pain. Her eyes slowly opened and shortly after, her HUD came up with a message.

Transformation complete! 

Multiple minor injuries and Reactor Breach sustained to reactor, SELF-REPAIR has been successful in repairing all injuries and Reactor Breach has been secured by using scavenged parts… 

All abilities (Teleportation, Active Camouflage, Auto-Sentry, And Promethean Vision) and scanners (Offensive and Defensive) are at 100% operational… 

Warning: Weapons (Binary Rifle, Suppresser, and Hardlight Blades) are unavailable in this form… 

27 sighed, her insides felt like they were ripped out, rearranged, and forcefully put back inside her… Oh wait… that is exactly what happened…

27 tried to stand on her new appendages, only to have a tidal-wave of pain hit her mind. She groaned in pain and fell back down to the dirt. 27 growled in frustration.

‘Come on 27, up… UP!’ she demanded herself. She placed her hooves under her and pushed up. The pain was excruciating, but she banished the pain from her mind, she had faced hoards of darkness, she will not be taken down by this pain. She has felt worse after all.

She stood up to her new height of 4 feet, 8 inches, and the pains of a new body then became tolerable, thankfully. 27 turned to observe her new features, and took in the sight.

She had a steel grey coat. Her main was messy and short, and slightly darker then her coat, but with a thick red stripe running down her mane. Her tail though was long, but not long enough to touch the ground, thankfully, and it also had the same thick red stripe as before. 27 lifted a hoof and felt the top of her head, her horn was there and was sharper than most. 27 moved her hoof down her face to her left eye, and sure enough, the scar was still there. But at least, it was the only scar that made the transition. She also didn’t have one of those marks on her flank like the other ponies, this mark most likely important, so she decided to get one soon as well.

27 sighed. The pain had subsided exponentially, but it still lingered in the back of her mind. 27 turned around to face the mound where her ships hatch was located, and spent the next half hour moving dirt over the hatch. 27 then turned to leave the forest and began to walk to Ponyville.

27 walked past the foliage, feeling it brush up against her new fur, and the humidity, all feeling things she had never felt in a long time. The only thing she could feel was pain when in her promethean form, only because the Forerunners kept her mind, spine, and nervous system. That was all that the Forerunners let her keep. But now, she can feel the heat, the cool breeze, the grim foliage brushing against her. She grinned; she has been waiting too long for this.

27 cleared the forest and found the main road and continued to walk on it. 27’s grin turned to a smile when a realization hit her. The war, her war, was finally over. The Flood is gone forever and is finally extinct. Maybe this world could be her new home. She could then claim her reward promised to her by the Forerunners: an end to strife and everlasting peace.

27’s smile faded away. Everlasting peace, there is no such thing. Besides she is now an instrument of war, even in this form, her HUD gave that clear evidence. So what does a soldier do in this situation? 27 didn’t know. She sighed.

‘One thing at a time…’ 27 thought and continued her march to Ponyville.

XXX ten minutes later XXX 

27 stood on top of a hill overlooking the town, surveying the sight. A breeze tugged at her fur, as if urging her forward. So she tugged on. As soon as 27 walked up to the first set of houses, 27 spotted a pink mare, the same pink mare that helped the others beat the unidentified creature. 27 walked up to the mare to put her observation and communication skills to the test. 27 was no more than six meters away when the pink mare spotted 27, and gasped, closing the gap in a second.

“Hello!” the pink mare greeted with a warm smile. 27 recoiled at the mare’s speed.

“Um… hello” 27 replied, but quickly recovered and smiled back.

“My name is Pinkie Pie! You must be new here, because I know everypony and I mean everypony!” she exclaimed and was about to go on a rant until 27’s chuckle cut her off.

“Well Pinkie Pie, it’s my pleasure to meet you. My name is 27” 27 extended a hoof. Pinkie’s smile grew and she took 27’s hoof and shook it.

“27? Not the oddest name I have heard, and I have heard a lot of weird names!” she said. 27 chuckled again.

“I bet…” 27 said, grinning.

“So why are you here? Are you on a business trip? Oh! Are you visiting family or long lost friends?” Pinkie questioned. 27 shook her head.

“No, I’m just a soldier looking for a place to settle down” 27 said, not seeing any point in hiding that bit of information. Pinkie went ‘oh’.

“So you’re looking for a place to retire?” she asked. 27 nodded her head.

“Yes… A place to call home” 27 said with a smile. Pinkie smiled and seemed to become overjoyed.

“Okay, do you have a place to stay?” she asked. 27 shook her head.

“Not yet…” 27 sighed.

“Well… I do know Vinyl and Octavia are looking for a new roommate, and Lyra and Bonbon might have room for you too. Or you could build your own home here, but that cost a lot of bits!” Pinkie informed her. 27 smiled and nodded.

“Thank you for the information! I will be sure to check out the locations” 27 said.

“Oh! One more question!” Pinkie exclaimed, “Ice cream or cake?” 27 was confused, she knew what these treats were, but why would… oh… 27 smiled.

“Surprise me” 27 said with a grin. Pinkie’s smile grew large.

“Okie Dokie Lokie!” she proclaimed, and zoomed off. 27 then realized she never got directions to Vinyl and Octavia’s or Lyra and Bonbon’s home. She was about to shout to Pinkie, before she turned around and returned.

“Vinyl and Octavia’s home is at the North East edge of town, you can’t miss it! Lyra and Bonbon’s home is actually in a two story shop called Sweetie Drops on the main street, again, can’t miss it! By for now!” and with that, Pinkie zoomed off again, leaving 27 both confused and pleased. 27 then laughed after reflecting on what just transpired. She was then shocked.

‘I laughed… I just laughed! Oh ancestors that felt so good!’ 27 thought with a smile. God, this must be what it’s like to be alive again. It felt good. 27 watched Pinkie run off and around the corner and out of sight. 27 then turned and began to walk down the main street.

“This might be better than I thought” 27 said as a small grin etched on her face as she entered the heart of the town.

As she walked down the road she had received odd looks, but most of which were warm and welcoming. 27’s head looked from right to left, looking for the shop Pinkie Pie described. Her HUD then flashed a proximity warning.

“LOOK OUT LADY!” a high pitched voice called out. 27’s combat subroutines engaged war emergency power, and jumped to face the voice, ready for combat, only to be greeted by a sight she didn’t expect. 

Three children, or fillies, were rocketing at her. The first was on a scooter, and bore an orange coat and a dark pink, almost purple, main and tail. Her small wings outstretched to create drag to stop the scooter. The other two were on a red wagon being pulled by the scooter. The one in the front of the wagon was also a girl, a unicorn, and had a white coat with a neatly curled pink and purple main, her green eyes wide in horror. And the last filly was female as well, but an earth pony, and bore a tan coat and crimson main and tail, with a large pink bow tied to her head.

27 had three choices: one; allow them to run her over, two; jump out of the way and let them pass, or three; run the risk of getting hit by an estimated combined weight of 165 pound going at 23 KPH and catch them. She had 2.3 second to decide.

27 made her choice. She grounded her rear hoofs and stood up on them, her front hoofs out stretched in front of her. The scooter slammed into 27 with all its might and 27 didn’t budge, but the filly on the scooter hit her head on 27’s soft chest and fell on her hunches.

“Ow…” the orange filly groaned. Concern crossed 27’s face and she got back on all fours. She reached out a hoof to the fallen filly.

“Are you okay?” 27 asked. The pony nodded and stood up with 27’s help.

“Yeah… sorry about that lady…” she said in shame, looking down. 27 couldn’t help but smile.

“No harm has been done… by the way, my name is 27, not Lady” she said, a small amount of humor evident in her voice. The filly looked up at 27, confused.

“27? What kind of a name is that?” she said. 27 chuckled.

“An odd one” she replied, “So… do you mind telling me what just happened?”

“Scooter’s brake broke…” the white filly answered, as she and the other filly finally recovered and hopped out of the scooter. 27 turned her attention to the other two fillies as they joined the other in a line.

“Are you two all right?” 27 asked.

“I’m fine” the white filly said.

“Ah am good” the tan one answered, and 27 took notice to her ascent.

“Good… now what are your names, and were you three doing when the scooter broke?” 27 asked.

“My name is Sweetie Bell!” the white one exclaimed.

“Scootaloo!” the orange pony said.

“And ah am Apple Bloom! And we were serch’en for our Cutie Marks!” the tan one proclaimed. 27 arched an eyebrow.

“Mind telling me what a Cutie Mark is?” 27 asked. The three fillies gasped.

“You don’t know what a Cutie Mark is?” Sweetie Bell asked as the others gasped. 27 shook her head.

“I don’t” she replied.

“A Cutie Mark is a symbol on someponies flank that represents their special talent!” Apple Bloom stated.

“How don’t you know that?” Scootaloo asked.

“Let’s just say I’m not from around here” 27 suggested. The three girls looked confused and looked at each other for conformation between each other before looking back at 27.

“But… don’t you have a Cutie Mark?” Apple Bloom asked. 27 shook her head.

“No, I don’t” 27 said, beginning to worry where this line of questions will end up.

“Why? Somepony as old as you should have a Cutie Mark!” Sweetie Bell said. 27 smiled, but not out of joy, but to hide her sadness.

“Well… I couldn’t explore for my special talent when I was your age because I was very busy” 27 said, lying down to get to their eye level.

“Busy with what?” Scootaloo asked.

‘War…’ 27 wanted to answerer truthfully, she hated lying to anyone, but she felt that she had too. 27 smiled.

“Now that is a story for another time young one” 27 said, hoping that they would drop the painful subject. The girls ‘aw’, causing 27 to chuckle, they have much to learn. 27 looked back at the fallen scooter and stood up to inspect it. 27 found the bake has been tightened to the point it won’t respond. She turned to the fillies.

“Did you tamper with your own brake?” 27 asked, turning to Scootaloo. She shook her head franticly.

“No, but we replaced the old brake with a new one” she explained. 27 nodded.

“I see, but your problem was the brake is on too tight, making the brake stiff and unresponsive…”

“What is un- unresponsive?” Apple Bloom asked. 27 sighed.

“It means that it can’t work properly” 27 said, “If you just loosen it, the brake will work just fine…”

“Told you…” Sweetie bell said to Apple Bloom, who smiled oddly and looked anywhere but make eye contact. 27 chuckled.

“It isn’t your fault, you didn’t know what you were doing” 27 said, she then reached down and twisted the bolt with her hoof. It was difficult without her claws, but she did it, and moved the scooter to give its brakes a test. The test was successful and 27 gave the fillies their scooter and wagon back.

“There we go… all fixed. Now you best get moving back to your families before they begin to worry” 27 said, but not as a suggestion, for one reason or another to the fillies, it had the air of an order, an order they need to follow. The fillies nodded, and hopped in the wagon and scooter.

“Thanks 27 for the fix, and we will!” Scootaloo said, “After we get our Cutie Marks!” she then proclaimed. Then, all three lifted their hoofs and yelled:

“GO, CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, YAY!” and with that, they were off. 27 laughed at the fillies antics; truly they were a sight to behold. Now, she need to get back on task and carry out her objective and find the Sweetie Drops store. 27 walked down the street, now receiving much warmer expressions and smiles from the groups of ponies that witnessed her deed, even receiving the occasional ‘good afternoon’. 27 would acknowledge others by returning the greeting or nodding in their direction.

27 smiled as she walked down the street, today was the best in her life thus far! The ponies were nice but kept to themselves, the community was small, and they were ready to hand out complements to her. They were so polite as well! 27 has never been treated like this, but then again, they think she is just another unicorn, when she is really a weapon of mass destruction with sentience.

27 was lost in her thought to the point she almost passed the store she had spent the last ten minutes searching for. The shop looked almost no different than the other two story houses that lined the street, the only thing giving it away was a large sign giving its position away. 27 crossed the street and opened the door.

DING!

The door’s bell sounded off as she entered. 27 looked around the interior to find to her right was a long glass counter, displaying a multitude of delicious looking chocolates and sweets, behind it was a desk with a cash register and some papers with a quill. At the far end on the side with the desk and behind the counter was a door. The door swung open to revile a white earth pony with dark blue main and tail with a thick, rose colored stripe running down them both.

“Hello!” the mare called out to 27. She hopped up and placed her front hoofs on the counter.

“I’m Bonbon” she introduced herself, “I own this shop, do you need any help picking out chocolates for a lover, or are you here at your own leisure?” 27 chuckled.

“Neither, I’m afraid…” 27 said, and stood on the other side of the counter, face to face with Bonbon. “I am actually here because someone- somepony told me you and a ‘Lyra’ was looking for a new roommate?”

“Ah!” Bonbon exclaimed with a smile “I take it Pinkie told you this?” 27 cocked her head to the side a little.

“How did you know?” 27 asked. Bonbon laughed.

“It is something Pinkie would do” she started, “We are not only looking for a new roommate, but I am also looking for a new employee. You see, Lyra has a job playing harp and guitar at this bar while I work this shop alone at the same time she works” 

“I just need somepony to manage the register while I make the chocolate in back” Bonbon explained. 27 nodded, knowing where she was getting at. Bonbon leaned forward a little.

“Before we think about letting you move in, Lyra and I would actually like to get to know you better!” she exclaimed. 27 nodded.

“I don’t see any harm in that…” 27 said. Bonbon smiled.

“Great!” she said, smiling, “I’ll get Lyra, you just find a place to sit, and I’ll be right back” with that, the pony turned and walked out through the same door she entered. 27 turned around to find that the wall behind her was lined with booths, specifically built to hold a pony’s frame. 27 moved to the closest one and sat in the booth facing away from the entrance. It didn’t take long for Bonbon to return, this time with a friend.

Her friend, Lyra 27 presumed, was a mint colored unicorn. Her hair was as messy as 27’s, as well as her tail, both of which were a mint color with white accents. 27 watched the two mares sit on the opposite side of her, Lyra on the right, Bonbon on the left.

“Hi, I’m Lyra” the mint unicorn said. 27 smiled.

“Hello Lyra, Bonbon… My name is 27” she said. Lyra grinned with amusement as Bonbon looked confused.

“27? That is your name? That’s odd…” Bonbon asked. 27 chuckled.

“I get that a lot” she said with a smile.

“Okay… what are you good at?” Bonbon asked.

“Well… for starters I am a good fighter. I used to be a soldier, now I am just looking for a place to call home” 27 started, then frowned “unfortunately, I have been separated from society for a long time, so I don’t know what is normal or odd for ponies. But, I am an extraordinary quick learner and a good leader, so that is hopefully something…”

“Okay…” Bonbon said, taking what 27 said into consideration.

“What do you think about fillyfoolers?” Lyra asked out of the blue. This question seemed to make Bonbon recoil for one reason or another. 27 adopted a confused look.

“Excuse me?” 27 asked. Bonbon became worried.

“I’m sorry about Lyra; it was rude of her to-”

“It’s quite alright, but…” 27’s confused look came back, “What is a fillyfooler?” the two mares were silent for a full thirteen seconds.

“You don’t know?” Lyra asked.

“What is it?” 27 pushed, becoming curious.

“A fillyfooler is a mare that loves other mares” Bonbon said. 27 chuckled, much to the relief of the two mares.

“I get it now, are you two in a relationship?” 27 asked.

“Well…” Lyra began, before looking down to hide an obvious blush “Yeah…” 27 laughed, causing both mares to look at 27 in confusion.

“There is nothing to be ashamed of! You two love each other, right?” 27 asked.

“Well yeah, but-” Bonbon started.

“Then don’t let me stop you…” 27 interrupted, smiling at the couple “I am glad you two are so fond of each other, so I won’t stand in your way…”

“Thank you” she said. 27 nodded.

“Did I answer all your questions?” 27 asked. Lyra shook her head.

“Not yet, just a few more” Lyra said.

“What are your magical abilities or spells that you know?” Bonbon asked. 27 leaned forwarded a little.

“Well, I only know a few, but they are handy for combat and scouting, not for a shop in town…”

“Mind telling us what they are anyway?” Lyra asked. 27 shrugged.

“Sure… I can teleport extreme distances if I know where I’m going, I can summon a small drone, go invisible, some personal shield spells, Some telekinesis, I can detect movement from 75 meters away, and I can summon weapons” 27 said. The couples eyes were wide, amazed at her magical ability.

“I only know levitation and minor manipulation spells, were did you study these spells?” Lyra asked.

“I was taught them when I was a soldier” 27 said.

“Soldier, were you in a war?” Lyra asked. 27’s smile and happy demeanor faded away. She looked down, trying to avoid eye contact and slumped back in her seat.

“Yeah… I was…” 27 said.

“How long of a war, and which one?” Lyra continued asking. 27 remained silent as she unconsciously raised her hoof and traced the long scar over her right eye.

“Too long…” 27 mumbled. Lyra finally got the hint that this was a personal topic, and backed down.

“Sorry… It’s just the Royal Guard are usually open about their past and battles…” Lyra said, looking down, “I’m sorry” 27 looked back up with a sad smile, but the memory of the graveyard of ships still lingered in her mind. How many died because of the war? How many screamed her name before perishing? How many dead?

The number is literally incalculable…

“You didn’t know” 27 said, “My turmoil is my own… I will learn to live with my choices” 27 sighed, and donned an honest smile.

“But the past is behind me forever, it won’t be a problem…”

“Okay… One more question…” Bonbon said, and turned to Lyra with a warm smile. Lyra looked up and smiled back, and nodded to her partner. Bonbon looked back at 27, and gave her the same warm smile.

“When can you move in?” she asked. 27’s smile grew a little.

“Now actually…”

“You can move in now?” Lyra asked “But, don’t you have any belongings?” 27 shook her head.

“Not even one bit?” Lyra asked.

“Not even one bit…” 27 said, “I didn’t get paid during the war…”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want the money because I never thought I would use or need it” 27 said. The two mares looked at each other in confusion, exchanging glances, before looking back at 27.

“So you could move in at this moment?” Lyra asked. 27 nodded in conformation, and Bonbon smiled.

“Then why don’t we show you to your room?” she stated, then gestured 27 to follow. 27 and Lyra got out of the booth to follow Bonbon up the set of stairs to the upstairs. The stairs led up to what 27 assumed was the living room. In the center of the room was a couch facing a fireplace and in between the two was a coffee table. They passed it and entered a hallway to the right and entered the first door to the right.

The room was small, with a snug looking bed in the far corner with a night stand baring a candle. Against the left wall was a bookshelf, filled to the brim with books. And next to the door was a desk with another candle on it sitting next to paper and an ink well. The window at the opposite side of the room overlooked the main street outside.

“This actually used to be the guest room, but I guess it’s yours now” Bonbon stated. 27 nodded and walked in the room, taking it in.

“Thank you, but when do I begin work?” 27 asked.

“Today is Friday and the shop just closed, so after the weekend and Nightmare Night is over” Bonbon answered.

“Me and Bonbon need to run some errands 27, so just make yourself at home” Lyra said. 27 nodded with a smile.

“I’ll be here” 27 said. The two nodded and closed the door behind them.  With her advanced hearing, 27 heard them walk down the stairs and exit the building. 27 sighed and sat on her hunches on the bed.

‘Getting a place to stay was easier than I thought it would be' 27 thought. 27 looked to the bookshelf and looked at the books and began to read the titles. Daring Do: and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone was a book that took her attention. 27 got up and grabbed the book and turned to the first page.

‘This seems interesting’ she thought, and began to read the book, ‘Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone, by: A.K. Yearling …’

XXX 3 hours latter XXX

27 set the book on the table after reading it for the fifth time with a grin. She rather enjoyed the book, the author, A.K. Yearling had talent. She looked in her H.U.D to look up the local time, 7:04. She looked out the window to see the sun nearly kissing the horizon. 27 sighed.

‘I wonder if Lyra and Bonbon would mind if I would go explore the town a bit…’ 27 thought. She shrugged and walked up to her desk and reached for the quill, only to hit a metaphorical wall.

‘Right, no claws…’ 27 thought. She sighed, and grabbed the quill with her mouth. Writing in standard was hard with a mouth, but she managed.

Went for some fresh air, will return soon…
-27 

27 put the quill back in the ink well, careful so not to spill it. She picked up the note with her mouth and walked toward the door. She nearly flew down the steps and left the note on the counter, and left through the front door.

As she walked onto the street, she realized that the street was empty. No one- No pony- was out. How odd.

27 shrugged it off and began to walk down the road. Still, not one pony in sight. 27 looked from left to right at the empty homes and shops, none of which looked touched or damaged. That was when a scream pierced the silence of the road.

27’s training kicked in and activated her combat sensors. She sprinted to the west, the direction of the scream. Sprinting at full speed, she made it to the Ponyville Park in less than minute, a 312 meter dash. She skidded to a halt at the top of a nearby hill to overlook an odd sight.

It looked like half the town was here in the park, each one fighting each other. 

‘Ancestors, it’s like the worlds largest bar-fight down there…’ 27 thought. A Pegasus then took to the sky from the middle of the carnage, carrying something in her mouth. The object that this Pegasus was carrying seemed to grab the attention of the mob on the ground. 27 engaged her 10x magnification, and was surprised as to what it was.

It was a doll in poor condition, parts of its main was gone, and patches of its coat were mismatched.

‘Half the town is fighting for THAT!’ 27 thought, disgusted. Out of habit, 27 scanned the area.

Warning!

Unknown energy signature detected around the doll!

27 slouched and sighed.

‘You’re shitting me…’ 27 thought grimly. This is getting old, fast. 27 turned her attention back to the grey and yellow Pegasus with the doll. Two more Pegasus rose out of the crowd to intercept the doll carrier.  The doll carrier spotted the danger, and sped out of the way, but the other two were faster, almost too fast, and the three Pegasus slammed into each other, sending the doll flying. 27 tracked the dolls trajectory, and watched it fall to the ground less than a meter from 27.

27 arched an eyebrow and plucked the doll from the ground with her hoof. As she lifted it from the ground, the doll made a squeak, much like a dog’s chew toy. She turned it face up to observe it’s details, and she remembered. This doll reminded her of the one that bounced off her hull so long ago…

‘It feels like yesterday the war ended’ 27 thought, ‘D-did we even win? I mean yes, we fired the Halos, the flood is dead and gone, but what about the other races? The Humans, the Sangheili, the Lekgolo… were they even saved?’ 27 sighed; this was not the time for these types of thoughts.

“THAT UNICORN HAS THE DOLL! GET HER!” a female roared over the crowd. This snapped 27 out of her trance and looked up to the crowd, now trying to reach her. 27 did the only logical thing in this situation, she ran with the doll in her mouth.

27 spun around, sprinting at max speed, her powerful hoofs pulling her forward and out running the crowd. But a shadow loomed over her head. 27 looked up to see a blue Pegasus with a rainbow mane and tail looking at her sternly.

“Listen up!” the mare said “You can give me that doll the easy way or the hard way!” 27 arched an eyebrow.

“Why do you want it?” 27 asked, oddly muffled by the doll. The Pegasus’ patience was running thin, she could see that, but she answered anyway.

“So we can take it to Twilight to un-enchant it!” she yelled. Un-enchant, is she serious? But this mare is her only lead. She nodded, and jumped, taking the rainbow manned mare by surprise.

“What are you-!?” she exclaimed, but never got to finish as she was engulfed in a bright flash of light.

XXX

27 and the Pegasus with a rainbow mane rematerialized in an ally way. The Pegasus touched down as 27 walked to the edge of the house and peered around the corner. She peeked around for any pony. Seeing nopony, she spat the doll on the ground and turned to the Pegasus.

“What’s your name?” she asked. The rainbow Pegasus scowled.

“You’re asking me that now?” she asked.

“Well what do I call you then? Do I need to come up with a nickname?” 27 asked with a grin. The Pegasus sighed.

“It’s Rainbow Dash…” she said. 27 smiled.

“Well then Rainbow Dash, mind telling me why the whole town wants that?” 27 asked, gesturing to the doll, but Rainbow Dash avoided looking at it for too long. She looked at 27 oddly.

“You’re not affected by the ‘want it-need it’ spell?” Rainbow Dash asked. 27 didn’t know what this spell was, but assumed it would be best to play along for now.

“I guess I am…” 27 replied smiling, but as quickly as the smile appeared, it disappeared, “We need to dispose of this hellish thing… you said you had a plan?” 27 asked as she picked up the doll.

“We need to get that thing to Twilight, she can reverse the spell” Rainbow Dash said with unmatched determination. 27 looked at her in a new light, and nodded.

“All right… lead the way” 27 said, and she smiled.

“Try and keep up!” Rainbow Dash challenged, and took off. 27 just sighed, turned, and followed the Pegasus. She wished she still had her wings.

Rainbow Dash flew a good two whole meters above the deck, and she led 27 through the town with wild gestures and sharp turns. 27 did keep pace with her, but by sprinting at her fullest, and 27 began to wonder how fast Rainbow Dash could go. Rainbow Dash then took a left at a road that led them back to the park 27 originally got the doll. 27 followed closely behind, head lowered as to hide the doll in her mouth to the best of her ability.

Rainbow Dash led 27 to the top of a nearby hill, where a tree stood alone, as if a silent sentinel. At the base of the tree were five other ponies, all of them were the same ones who took out that odd creature. 27 ran up to them with Rainbow Dash to her right as she landed for the final three meters.

“We got it!” she exclaimed to her allies on the hill who looked back with smiles on their faces, until their eyes landed on 27, who looked around, seeking for any threats. 27 spat the toy out of her maw, and it landed at twilight’s hoofs.

“Rainbow Dash said one of you could fix this?” 27 said. The velvet unicorn who 27 noticed as Twilight got up to the doll quickly. Her main was unruly and she bore an expression of panic.

“I can! Oh, I just need to before sundown!” she exclaimed, but the stetson warring mare beside her looked worried, and pointed to the horizon.

“Ah, Twi’, I think it’s too late” she said. 27 looked to where the pony pointed just in time to see the sun disappear behind the mountains. 27 momentarily wondered why it was so imperative that they fix this situation as if it were on a time table, but she didn’t need to wonder long.

“TWILIGHT SPARKLE!” a female voice boomed from the heavens. 27’s head shot up to a bright flash of light above her head. From the center of the nearly blinding light was a pony with a set of wings and a horn. Her white coat almost blended in with the light, and her flowing main and tail reminded her of a nebula, neatly arranged into lines of pink, blue, and green. A golden crown and chest plate, along with her composure made her status clear.

‘An Alicorn!’ 27 thought, completely surprised. Why would someone as important as her come down here? That was when 27 realized something, the way her mouth was twisted into a frown and her eyes seemingly burning through Twilight. This Alicorn was upset, and that may prove to be an understatement.

“Whoa, Nellie” the stetson warring orange pony stated, then taking her hat and pressing it against her chest as a sign of respect to the Alicorn. That was when the Alicorn’s horn was incased in a golden light, and the light around her seemed to intensify until it was so bright that 27’s HUD had to darken itself so she could see, but even then she had trouble. As soon as it became too much, the light disappeared, reviling the ponies of Ponyville stunned and dazed, but out of the spells influence, and soon, they dispersed to their homes.

As soon as they were gone the alabaster Alicorn landed before the six ponies and 27. The Alicorn looked down on Twilight with a frown. Ten painful seconds of silence later, the Alicorn finally spoke.

“Meet me in the Library” she said, and took off for the said destination. Twilight sighed, and looked down in shame as her friends came up around her, all with concerned expressions, but 27 hung back, wanting to observe the outcome.

“Good bye, girls” Twilight said with a sorrowful note, she turned back to face them with tears welling up in her eyes.

“If you care to visit, I’ll be in magic kindergarten…” she continued, and turned to leave “back in Canterlot” and then she left in the same direction the Alicorn did with her head low. When she was out of earshot, her friends turned to each other with concern.

“Magic Kindergarten?” a Butterscotch Pegasus asked in sadness and confusion.

“Canterlot?” Rainbow Dash asked her friends.

“We’re never gonna see Twilight again!” Pinkie exclaimed, panic smeared across her face. She sat down, and placed her face in her front hoofs. 27 couldn’t help but feel sorry for them as the stetson warring pony came up to pinkie and placed a hoof on her shoulder.

“What are we gonna do, y’all?” she asked. That was when the white pony with the neat purple mane lost it.

“Of all the worst things that could happen, this is the WORST… POSSIBLE... THING!!!” she exclaimed throwing her hoofs in the air. 27 recoiled, al little extreme, don’t you think? Apparently her friends had the same idea, and gave her odd looks.

“What?” she questioned, “I really mean it this time…” she said with a small smile, the others just shook their heads.

“We need to convince her to have Twilight stay!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, trying to get her friends back on topic. The orange mare frowned.

“How?” she asked. Rainbow Dash shrugged sadly.

“I don’t know how, but we need to!” she said with determination. 27 grinned a little, and stepped forward.

“Then tell her” 27 said, gaining the groups attention, “Tell her why she should stay, and why she is so important to you all…”

“What are you still doing here?” Pinkie asked with concern, “You should go home and rest” 27 smiled.

“And miss this?” she asked with a small grin.

“I’m sorry, but who are ya?” the orange pony asked. 27 smiled.

“Names latter, first, you have a friend to save” she said, and gestured to the direction of the library. Rainbow Dash perked up and began to hover.

“That mare’s right! Come on everypony, we got a pony to save!” she said, and took off to the library with unmatched speed. The others stood and took off after her, 27 hot on their tail, wanting to see the outcome of her very small push.

XXX

Rainbow Dash was the first to the door, fiddling with the handle with everypony else behind her catching up at an alarming rate. She flung open the door and barreled through. 27 was directly behind the group, just now running into the library.

“Wait!” she exclaimed, jumping in between Twilight and the Alicorn. 

“You can’t punish her!” Pinkie Pie yelled, running with the others.

“It wasn’t her fault!” the orange pony said. 27 stayed behind and closed the door quietly behind her and stood against the wall, out of the way.

“I’m listening…” the Alabaster Alicorn said, raising an eyebrow. She briefly looked up to 27, who was sitting against the wall with a small, nearly unnoticeable smile.

“Please, your highness, we all saw Twilight was upset…” the Butterscotch pony started, but other Pegasus picked the ball.

“But we thought that the thing that she was worrying about wasn’t worth worrying about…” Rainbow Dash said with a frown.

“So when she ran off all worked up, not a single one of us tried to stop her!” the stetson pony added, looking down in shame.

“As Twilight’s good friends, we should have taken her feelings seriously and been there for her!” the white unicorn said, shaking her head.

“Please don’t take her away from us just because she we were too insensitive to help her!” the butterscotch Pegasus said, looking down. The Alicorn looked around at the group of ponies that she towered over, all of whom looked down at the ground or at her with pleading eyes. The Alabaster pony looked back to 27, her smile now slightly larger than before. The Alicorn’s fake but surprisingly well conceived scowl was replaced with an honest smile.      

“Looks like you all learned a pretty valuable lesson today…” she said, addressing the group, who nodded to their princess.

“Mm-hmm” they all hummed.

“Very well, I’ll forget Twilights punishment… on one condition…” the Alicorn said as she easily leapt over them and landed near 27.

“Anything!” The group exclaimed, wanting desperately to keep their friend.

“From this day forth, I would like you all to report to me your findings on the magic of friendship, when- and only when- you happen to discover them” The Alicorn decreed, looking specifically at twilight for the last bit. The mares cheered in victory, their friend was staying!

27 watched the Alicorn turn to her, and she felt a lump form in her thought. But she swallowed it when she saw the smile on her face.

“Did you have a hoof in this little pony?” she asked. 27 smiled back.

“No, but I did give them a small nudge” 27 said, then raised an eyebrow; “You weren’t really going to punish Twilight, were you?” The Alicorn’s smile grew.

“No, but they didn’t know that” she said. 27 chuckled.

“I suppose not…” she said.

“So what is your name, little pony?” she asked. 27 gave a slight bow.

“27, at your service your highness” she said. The Alabaster Alicorn raised an eyebrow.

“27? That’s-”

“-An odd name?” 27 finished for her with a smile. The Alicorn chuckled.

“Indeed… well, I best be off 27, do keep an eye on the six girls, they can be quite a hoof-full” she said with a grin. 27 nodded.

“I will do my best” 27 said with a small smile. The Alicorn smiled and nodded, then turned, and walked up the stairs. 27 assumed she went up there to get to an elevated platform to take off. Twilight however had other ideas, as she then took off after her. 

“Princess Celestia, wait!” She called out. 27 smiled.

‘So that was Celestia?’ 27 thought, ‘I thought she would be taller...’ She then chuckled at her own jest, and decided to follow Twilight and her friends up the steps.

“How did you know I was in trouble?” Twilight asked Celestia who was now standing on the railing of the landing platform.

“Your friend Spike made me aware that you were letting your fears get the best of you. I commend him for taking things seriously” she said. Twilight turned around to see Spike standing at the doorway, listening to the conversation.

“Now, if you will all excuse me, I must return to Canterlot. I’m expecting some mail...” Celestia said with a smile. With that, she took flight, and disappeared in a flash of golden light.

“Y’all heard the Princess! Spike, take a letter” The orange mare said smiling. Before he could, Twilight walked up to him, and pulled him into a hug which he returned. The group then made their way down the steps into the main room of the library. Spike took up position behind a desk, and wrote down the following as the others sat in a semicircle. But 27 however, sat against to wall again, out of their way.

“Dear Princess Celestia, we’re writing to you because we all learned a little something about friendship…” The orange mare started.

“We learned that you should take your friend’s worries seriously…” the butterscotch mare said, but quickly handed off to the other Pegasus in the room.

“Even if you don’t think that she has anything to worry about…” Rainbow Dash said.

“And that you shouldn’t let your worries turn a small problem…” the white unicorn started, but was interrupted by Pinkie Pie.

“Into an enormously huge, ‘entire town in total chaos, princess has to come in and save the day’ problem!” Pinkie Pie said, making an overenthusiastic pose for every point in her sentence. 

“… Singed: your loyal subjects” The stetson warring pony said. As soon as Spike finished, he then quickly began writing something else, but it was his mistake he read it aloud.

“P.S. Obviously, Spike did not have to learn a lesson because he is the best, most awesome friend a pony could ask for! Unlike everypony else, he took things seriously and…” Spike was going to continue, before Twilight looked at him and shook her head. Spike chuckled nervously.

“Uh, yeah… I’ll just…” he trailed off in his sentence as he drew a large x through the part where he mentioned himself as the mares laughed at his discomfort. They began to laugh so hard some actually began to roll around on the floor. 27 smiled.

‘So alive, so naive… so much to learn’ 27 thought, ‘I wish I could have that back… be care free… forget the war…’ she sighed, and closed her eyes ‘Too bad I can’t’ she frowned.

“Excuse me?” 27 heard somepony say. 27 opened her eyes and was met with the sight of the white unicorn smiling at her.

“I would like to thank you for giving us that little push for twilight” she said. 27 donned a smiled, trying to bury her memories and feeling again.

“It was my pleasure miss…?”

“Rarity, darling” she said, and proceeded to wave her friends over.

“Girls! We have the new pony here, why don’t we introduce ourselves formally?” she suggested. Pinkie seemed to enjoy that idea and proceeded to bounce over.

“Oh I nearly forgot! You already know me! Pinkie Pie, party extraordinaire! I still need to set up your party! I got all the supplies; I just need to get it set up somewhere! Oh! I know! How about here in the Library! We could have streamers and cake and ice cream and party hats and party cannons!” Pinkie said, and would have continued if the stetson warring earth pony had not shoved her hoof into Pinkie’s mouth.

“He he… Sorry ‘bout that, Pinkie gets all excited when a new pony enters town… I’m Applejack by the way” she informed with a smile.

“You know me too!” Rainbow Dash said, she then took to the sky and hovered above the others “Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in Equestria!”

“I- I’m Fluttershy” the butterscotch Pegasus introduced, so quietly her own friends standing next to her could barely hear her.

“Ah, sugar, I don’t think she heard you” Applejack said. 27 smiled.

“Fluttershy… that is a fitting name…” 27 said. Twilight seemed surprised.

“You heard that?” she asked, 27 nodded. Twilight just shrugged.

“Well, I’m Twilight Sparkle, and this is Spike” she introduced, and Spike nodded to 27.

“What’s up?” he asked with a smile and a wave. 27 smiled.

“It is good to meet you all… My name is 27” she introduced with a slight bow of her head.

“27? that’s-” Rainbow Dash started. 

“A weird name?” 27 interrupted with a chuckle, “I get that all the time…” The girls each gave 27 a smile.

“Well, welcome to Ponyville, 27!” Twilight exclaimed. 27 smiled.

“Thanks, it’s good to retire here…” 27 said with a tired expression.

“Retire? But darling, you look barely past 18 years!” Rarity asked. Pinkie smiled and began to bounce.

“27 was a soldier Rarity!” she exclaimed.

“Whoa” Rainbow Dash said and flew up to 27, and proceeded to point at 27’s scar running down the left side of her face. 

“Is that where you got that wicked scar?” she asked. 27’s smile and happy demeanor began faded away.

“Yes…” 27 said, trying her best to remain optimistic.

“How did you get it? Was it like in some epic battle?” Rainbow Dash pressed, excitement blinding her to 27’s discomfort.

“There is no such thing as an epic battle in war Rainbow Dash” 27 said sorrowful “Only bad ones… and worse ones…” Rainbow Dash pulled herself back.

“Oh” she said, now understanding “Sorry if I stirred up some bad memories”

“No problem, Rainbow Dash” ‘My whole existence is a nightmare anyway…’ she added mentally, but smiled for their sake.

“Please, just call me Rainbow or RD, everypony else does” she said with a smile. 27 nodded and smiled back.

“OH! I need to throw a ‘happy retirement party’ too!” Pinkie exclaimed. 27 grinned.

“Any reason is reason enough to throw a party, huh?” 27 asked her, and Pinkie nodded emphatically.

“Yep!” she exclaimed, and 27 swore Pinkie started to bounce higher. 27 chuckled and sighed.

“Well, I best get going to Lyra and Bonbon’s house” 27 said “after the massive fight for that doll, I best check up on them and make sure they are alright…”

“Is that where you moved in?” Pinkie asked. 27 nodded.

“It is” she said and finally stood, and stretched.

“We should stop by and give you a tour of town!” Pinkie suggested, still bouncing.

“That might be a good Idea to do before tomorrow’s Nightmare Night” Twilight said. 27 raised an eyebrow.

“What is Nightmare Night?” 27 asked. The girls looked at her with confused expressions.

“Nightmare Night is only one of the best, scariest nights of the year!” Rainbow Dash said, doing a flip in the air. Applejack shook her head.

“You only like it ‘cus you like to pull pranks…” she said, rolling her eyes. Rainbow Dash smiled sadistically.

“Me? Why I’d never!” she said. The others laughed along with Rainbow herself. 27 just chuckled; these mares are quite silly at times.

“So it’s a holiday?” 27 asked as soon as the mares came out of their laughing fit.

“Yes ma’am!” Pinkie said jumping up and down.

‘The way their describing it reminds me of a human holiday… Halloween I believe they called it…’ 27 thought, and she nodded to Pinkie.

“All right… I guess I’ll see you tomorrow for the tour” 27 said and turned to leave. She opened the door to the cool outside and stepped out.

“See ya tomorrow!” Pinkie shouted at 27 threw the open door, and then closed it behind 27. 27 smiled at Pinkie’s mischief, and she silently hoped that it never faded away. 27 walked down the main street once again, looking at the houses as she passed them. Some homes were dark and others still had lights on the inside, giving the impression that most of the inhabitance had fallen asleep, while others are still preparing to fall asleep.

Eventually, 27 looked up from the dirt and homes, to the planet’s brilliant moon and its escorting stars that twinkled in the night sky. The sight forced 27 to stop.

‘The nights here are beautiful’ 27 thought. As she appreciated the night, 27 observed a shooting star burn up in the atmosphere in a brilliant golden light, and then watched it wink out of existence. 27 turned her attention to the stars, some were close, some were far, and some were brighter than others, all unique. All had their own orbiting bodies, and 27 briefly wondered where she was in the universe. In the end, she decided it didn’t matter, her job is done and she couldn’t possibly sacrifice anything more then she already had. 27 closed her eyes and sighed.

‘Perhaps there is rest for this soldier after all…’ 27 thought. With that thought in mind, she smiled, and continued her trek to Lyra and Bonbon’s home … silently wondering what the next day will bring…

> Shadows of the Past (Luna Eclipsed; Part One)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

ALARM! WAKE UP: 06:00 HOURS!

27 groggily opened her eyes to view the ceiling of her room, the text on her HUD flashing and blaring red in her vision. She groaned and slid out from under the covers, her primary and secondary systems coming online slowly. She shut down the alarm, and sighed with a small grin etched on her face.

‘That is the best sleep I have ever gotten…’ she thought. A loud boom proceeded to jolt 27 awake; her systems went into overdrive as war emergency power kicked her out of bed to her window.

‘Was that an artillery shot?’ 27 thought franticly scanning the outside through her window to see… a thunderstorm outside her window. She sighed and closed her eyes.

‘The war is over, 27… you don’t need to be a soldier anymore…’ she told herself, but 27 found she couldn’t simply stop being a soldier. Being a soldier is all she knows, all she has known, and all she will ever know, and to be honest, that fact both disturbed and pleased her. Disturbed because it is the one thing she will never out run or lose, but pleased because it is the only constant in her life, the simple rule of ‘to protect and serve’. She will forever be a pillar of justice and hope for her allies and a machine of death and destruction to her enemies.

27 sighed, she wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, she was a normal Dragoness, with a loving mother and caring father, with a little brother to adore her. 27 thought back to a time long ago, when she bore a beautiful ruby red hide, rather than the dull grey armor that makes up her ‘skin’ now, before the war, before the death, before her family was torn apart in front of her. But those happy memories with her family happened so long ago that even her now advanced, super computer mind couldn’t remember their faces, they were just blurs and distant voices. 27 would sell her mind and soul to see them again, to hold them and love them like she once did.

Was it foolish to want something so simple so bad? If it was, 27 didn’t care. She so desperately wanted to see them. That was when realization struck her. She was alone.

She was on a world full of unknowns with no backup, no support, and a very limited connection to the Domain. Not only that, but did they succeed in rebuilding that which they had torn down with the Halos? Was the Flood truly gone? And with the Domain given access to so little facilities, will other races learn anything about us and our history, or only the tools of destruction we have created? 27 feared that she will never know the answers of such questions.

27 turned her attention to the storm outside once again, watching the rain fall from the darkened clouds and moisten the dirt roads to mud. 27 loved the rain, it was soothing, and it nurtured people like her to sleep. It was also a good cover, when the rain fell really hard, like of the jungle world of Damascus III, it muffled sounds and grounded ill-equipped enemy air support. 27 sighed, wanting to feel the rain on her back. So she stood, and walked out of her room, and took the short journey to the outside.

As soon as 27 stepped out onto the road, there was a sickening splat as the mud splashed midway up her hoof. 27 closed the door behind her and smiled, feeling the warm rain on her fur. 27 folded her ears back to protect them as she simply stood there in the rain, enjoying every second of nature’s wrath. 27 then looked up and teleported onto the roof of the shop. The chocolate shop was slightly taller than most of the buildings, so it provided a good vantage point to view the town called Ponyville.

27 sat on her hunches and closed her eyes, feeling the warm water run down her back and soak her mane, and listened to the drip, drip, drip of rain that fell around her. 27 smiled, she enjoyed slow moments like this. 27’s tail moved from side to side, and she began to purr. It felt so good, the rain on her coat, the mud on her hoofs (now almost completely washed away), and the fact that this was keeping her from thinking about the war and the haunting memories that surrounded it. She will haft to face them again, she knew that, but for now, she will enjoy this moment for as long as she could…

No sooner she finally settled down, her motion tracker pinged for her attention. A contact has moved in behind her and was currently three meters behind her. 27 sighed.

“Hey uh, 27?” a female voice called out. 27 opened her eyes and turned around to see none other than Rainbow Dash hovering there with a confused expression.

“What are you doing out here?” she asked, her own main dripping wet, most likely from managing the morning weather. 27 simply smiled.

“Just enjoying the weather…” she said quietly. Rainbow Dash seemed to look even more confused as she landed in front of 27.

“Aren’t you worried you will catch a cold or something?” Rainbow asked. 27 shook her head.

“No” she answered, “Aren’t you worried?” Rainbow Dash scoffed.

“Heck no, its gunna take a lot more than a cold to keep this Pegasus grounded!” she said. 27 smiled.

“On that, Rainbow, we can relate…” 27 said. Rainbow laughed a little, but it was soon replaced with a serious expression.

“Seriously though, why are you up here?” she asked. 27 sighed.

“Like I said; to enjoy the weather…” 27 said, and looked out to the storm, “When I was a soldier, I didn’t really have a lot of time to myself to just relax, so whenever the opportunity arose, I took full advantage of it. When I served, it was always relocate here then relocate there, attack here and there, then run back to defend just to start all over again… Always moving, never a dull moment, but never any true brake in the fighting” 27 then gestured to the storm.

“But now, I can just take life slow for once… relax and sleep, knowing that I no longer need to worry about my life and the lives under my command”

“Lives under your command? What was your rank in this ‘army’?” Rainbow asked. 27 smiled.

“I was a Commander, the highest rank a non-native can achieve” she said. Rainbow’s eyes widened.

“You were a Commander? I heard it takes years to get that rank!” she said. 27 smiled and nodded.

“You did your homework, yes, it does take years to get the rank…” 27 said, and turned back to Rainbow, “but enough about me, tell me about you…” It appears that 27 had said the magic word, and a smile appeared on Rainbow’s face.

“Well, I am the fastest flyer in Equestria and most likely the whole world!” she exclaimed. 27 raised an eyebrow.

“Really, how fast can you go?” 27 asked, and Rainbow’s smile grew.

“I have no idea!” she said, “Nopony has ever calculated my speed because their science stuff always falls off!” she laughed as she thought back to their surprised faces.

“I’ll need to see you in action one of these days; I think I could calculate your speed” 27 said with a smile. Rainbow scoffed.

“Good luck with that…” she said. 27 looked around the streets.

“Do you know when Pinkie will be over for the tour?” 27 asked. Rainbow shrugged.

“Heck if I know… All I know is that even Pinkie is asleep by now, but if I had to guess, around 10:30 and 11:00” she said. 27 nodded.

“Thank you, Rainbow” she said.

“No problem!” Rainbow replied, but then she pointed a hoof over her shoulder.

“Listen, I need to get back to the storm to make sure Derpy doesn’t strike town hall again, so I guess I’ll catch you latter!”

“All right, I guess I will see you later…” 27 said. Rainbow turned to fly away, only to stop a few meters.

“Also, don’t stay out here too long; Pinkie and the others would be sad if you got sick out here!” she exclaimed, and then flew off at a blinding speed. 27 just smiled and shook her head.

‘I can’t get sick, Rainbow’ 27 thought with an amused grin. That was when something Rainbow said clicked. Pinkie and the others would be sad…

What others? Was she referencing the other ponies she met last night, or were other ponies going to help Pinkie give 27 a layout of the town?

‘I guess I’ll find out…’ 27 thought, and allowed herself to get lost in natures wrath once more…

XXX Four Hours, thirty-eight minutes later XXX 

27 was sitting on the roof once again after conversing with Lyra and Bonbon a little while ago. 27 had confronted them to ask for advice when it came to Pinkie and her tour, but they had simply laughed and said be prepared to run. 27 wasn’t quite sure what they meant by that, but once again, she was forced to wait and find out…

Until then, she sat on the roof, waiting for her escort. In the time that had elapsed, the storm had ended, and the Pegasi had rid the skies of clouds, allowing the sun to poor its light on the civilians below. 27 proceeded to lie on her stomach and place her head in her hoofs. She closed her eyes, allowing the sun to dry her off; the warmth it provided sent a warm shiver up her spine.

27 actually enjoyed watching the Pegasi mill about and clear the sky. It was breath taking. A race capable of controlling the weather! She wished she could just spread her own set of wings and fly. She now, for an odd reason, regretted choosing the Unicorn as her disguise.

Knock, Knock, Knock!

27 heard the knocking come from the front door. Intrigued, 27 peered over the ledge of the roof to see Twilight Sparkle and the pink bouncing ball of energy named Pinkie Pie. At that moment, Bonbon answered the door.

“Oh hey Twilight, Pinkie Pie! What’s up?” she asked. Twilight smiled.

“Not much Bonbon, we were looking for 27, is she in there?” she asked. Bonbon’s smile widened.

“Nope…” she said, and gestured up. The two mares looked up to spot 27 looking down upon them from the roof with a smile.

“She’s up there” Bonbon finished. Twilight looked up and raised an eyebrow.

“What are you doing up there, 27?” she asked.

“Just enjoying the view” 27 said. She then stood, and teleported down next to them in a flash of light.

“Are you ready for your tour of Ponyville?” Pinkie exclaimed, excited as ever. 27 smiled and nodded.

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be” 27 said, and turned to Bonbon, “I will return soon, I’ll see you later” she said with a smile.

“Enjoy yourself 27!” she said, and closed the door. 27 turned to Pinkie and nodded.

“So where is the first stop?” 27 asked her. Pinkie’s smile seemed to grow in size.

“Follow me! I know where to start!” and with that, Pinkie bolted past Twilight and 27 down the street. 27 spun on her hoofs took off after her at a speed that Twilight never thought possible.

‘Rainbow said she ran really fast last night, but I never thought she was that fast’ she thought, and took off after the two fast mares.

XXX One hour latter XXX

“Still keeping up?” Pinkie asked 27, who nodded. They had stopped near the westward side of town for a short break, Pinkie constantly testing 27 knowledge and memory to see if she was paying attention.

“I am” she replied. To the right of 27, Twilight was leaning forward, her head lowered to the ground, panting loudly. She tried to say something, but it only came out as gasps of air.

“Good! We have one place left to visit!” Pinkie said, and began to gallop eastward, but 27 raised a hoof.

“Pinkie, wait!” 27 called. Pinkie skidded to a halt and turned to 27, confused.

“Can we just w-… trot there? Twilight is starting to get tired…” 27 asked, gesturing to the gasping Unicorn. Pinkie smiled.

“Sure!” she said, and trotted back to trot back with her friends. She moved beside Twilight with a smile.

“Sorry if I did it too fast again, Twi” She said to her panting friend. Twilight smiled.

“That’s okay, I guess I should have stayed behind like you suggested…” she said, her heavy breathing beginning to subside. 27 smiled a little.

“So, what is this last place we need to visit?” 27 asked.

“Town Hall!” Pinkie exclaimed in her bubbly voice. 27 nodded.

“All right… Is that enough time to ask some questions?” 27 asked, and Pinkie nodded emphatically.

“Yep! Go ahead!”

“This Nightmare Night, what do you do to celebrate it?” she asked. Pinkie began to bounce.

“Oh it’s really fun! Everypony dresses up in a costume of their choice, and when night comes around there are lots of games and food, and the little colts and fillies get free candy!” she exclaimed. 27 raised an eyebrow.

“What type of costumes?” 27 asked.

“Oh tons! Like, there’s scary ones like zombies and mummies and ghosts, and cool ones like ninjas and pirates, even clowns and historical people! You can dress up to be anything you want!” she said, exited as ever, but then she shot a question of her own.

“Are you going to dress up and participate in one of the best, most awesome holiday ever?” she asked. 27 cocked her head to the side and frowned, thinking.

“But, I don’t have a costume…” 27 said quietly. Pinkie smiled.

“Getting a costume is easy! You just need to know what you’re going to be!” she said, 27 looked forward, again deep in thought. She then closed her eyes and sighed.

“I don’t know what I want to be…”

“How about going as a zombie?” Pinkie suggested.

“No!” 27 exclaimed, causing the two mares to recoil in surprise. Pain and Panic etched in 27’s eyes, a fact that the two mares saw very vividly. But it quickly faded away as she regained her composure with a sad expression.

“I- I’m sorry…” 27 said quietly. Twilight recovered, and gave an understanding nod.

“It’s okay… Not a big fan of zombies?” she asked. 27 looked sick for a brief moment, as she remembered the screams, the past coming back to haunt her, but she quickly banished the thoughts from her mind.

‘Don’t think about that, just DON’T! They are DEAD! The Flood is gone…’

‘R-right…?’ the thought shocked her right through her vary core. In all honesty, no one truly knows where the Flood came from, or if they even evolved in their galaxy, or even their own universe. It was a very real possibility that they were still out there, adrift in the blackness of space.

And that terrified her.

‘How Ironic… The thing I was designed to destroy is the thing I fear the most…’

“27, are you okay?” Twilight asked, trying to get her attention.

“Hm? Y-yeah, fine… just… Old wounds… nothing to worry about…” 27 lied, trying to bury the uncovered emotions.

‘For their sake, they must never know…’ 27 thought.

“Oh…” was all Twilight said in reply. She looked away and silence descended upon the group. 27 sighed, becoming frustrated at her own damned emotions; she didn’t want her new allies to worry about her.

“How about being a Royal Guard?” Pinkie asked. 27 raised an eyebrow.

“A what?” she asked. Twilight then made her move on the conversation, wanting to forget about 27’s outburst.

“The Royal Guard is Equestria’s Military Police. As their name suggests, they mostly guard the Princesses!”

“There are two main Guards, Day and Night. Day is under the command of Celestia, while Night is under the command of her sister: Luna…” Twilight continued.

“They are Lunar and Solar divisions!” Pinkie added. Twilight nodded in confirmation. 27 thought for a little, with this new information, she briefly pondered how effective they were and how many. But she pushed her thoughts to the side, and focused on the conversation.

“I think… That sounds good!” 27 proclaimed with a small smile. Pinkie began to bounce again.

“Oh, oh! Solar or Lunar?” she asked. 27 hummed to herself in thought.

‘Well… the nights here on this planet are beautiful…’ she thought, and 27 smiled.

“I’ll go with Lunar…” 27 said. Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“May I ask why?” she asked. 27 turned and smiled.

“The nights in this nation are some of the most peaceful and beautiful I have ever bore witness too” she said, “And if I had to guard something, I would like to do it in the night”

“Why?” Pinkie asked.

“Because I like to help and serve from the shadows, to stay out of the history books” she answered, “besides, I don’t want any special recognition just because I am a soldier, I’m just a mare doing her job…”

“Am a soldier?” Pinkie asked. 27 raised an eyebrow.

“You said ‘because I AM a soldier’, I thought you retired?” she clarified. 27 sighed.

“Well Ms. Pie… in the service, they taught me how to put on the uniform” 27 looked down, “They never taught me how to take it off…”

“We can!” Pinkie exclaimed. 27 looked at Pinkie as if for the first time, picking her interest.

“How can you?” 27 asked, honestly wondering how they could make her previous life fade. Pinkie simply smiled at the steel grey mare with a tinny, almost unnoticeable glint in her eyes.

“By making friends!” she exclaimed, as if it were the answer to life. 27 looked forward, pondering for a short time. Is it really that simple? Just make new friends and new memories? If so, 27 was willing to try, and she smiled.

“All right, why not?” and with that, she turned back to the mares beside her “I will try to make friends, but don’t expect me to just friend everypony at once, I will need a long time…”

“We understand” Twilight said with an ever growing smile “But you already have eight friends…” 27 looked at Twilight, confused.

“I do?” 27 asked. Twilight looked at 27 with a somewhat hurt expression.

“Of course! Rainbow, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Lyra, Bonbon, Pinkie and I… we are your friends” she said. 27 looked down and folded her ears back.

“But you don’t even know me, and I you…” 27 said quietly. Twilight smiled.

“Maybe… But you seem to need the company, I don’t know why, but you seem like a good hearted mare to me!” she said. 27 smiled.

“Thanks…” she said, but still held to a small part of her doubt. Pinkie’s smile grew.

“And we can start here” she said, pointing to the Town hall. 27 frowned and raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth to speak, but Pinkie beat her too it.

“Come on, Frowny face!” she exclaimed, and then bolted off to the building. Twilight groaned.

“Right when I got my breath back!” she exclaimed, and took off after the hyper mare. 27 just chuckled as she followed. Pinkie stopped at the double door entrance with a large grin equipped, as if she had a dirty secret that only she knew. 27 stopped next to a panting Twilight, but when she stopped, her motion tracker in the bottom left of her vision picked up movement on the other side of the door. 27 became cautious, what was Pinkie planning? As if on cue, Pinkie opened one of the doors, and gestured in. 27 raised an eyebrow, but walked in anyway.

The giant room was entrenched with shadows, the only light in the room was the open door, but even then, she could only make out the outline of a table.

‘Let’s shed some light on the subject…’ 27 thought. She then activated her Promethean vision, and what she saw made her recoil. The thermal imaging highlighted multiple targets, all ponies. At first one, then two, then five, ten, twenty, nearly thirty ponies in the room. 27 reacted with cool efficiency, and scanned for weapons and anomalies, counted all exits in the room, and chose the most densely populated part of the room and counted the ponies, formulating a plan for the worse. She knew this might not be an ambush, but she prepared and planned for anything. She slacked when she scouted out the area in the first place, it wouldn’t happen again.

That was when Twilight and Pinkie entered and closed the door behind them, and as soon as the door made the telltale click of it closing, the windows opened all at once to revile what 27 had seen before, with a few exceptions.

“SURPRISE!!!” they all exclaimed, and despite 27 knowing they were there, she jumped at the ponies’ enthusiasm. On the back wall of the room was a banner that spelled: Welcome to Ponyville, 27! 

27 deactivated her combat sensors and Promethean vision as something warm began to manifest in her reactor and odd thoughts and emotions claimed her mind. A smiled tugged at her lips.

“LET’S PARTY EVERYPONY!” Pinkie shouted. The other ponies cheered, but before 27 could do anything, Pinkie intercepted her.

“Do you like it?” She asked with an innocent smile. 27 nodded.

“I like it” 27 said with a smile. Pinkie gasped with a shocked expression.

“You don’t love it!?” she exclaimed. 27 chucked.

“Please don’t shove words in my mouth, Pinkie. I really appreciate the warm welcome” she answered.

“Oh, phew!” she exclaimed, wiping away some imaginary sweat from her brow, “As I said, it’s time to party!”

“Yep, but uh…” 27 turned to pinkie, a confused expression plastered on her face, “What do I do?” Pinkie smiled.

“Talk with ponies, mingle around, and have fun!” and with that, Pinkie took off with and unknown objective. 27 watched her run off and disappear into the crowd. 27 sighed and shrugged, wondering what that pony ate to become such a ball of energy. As soon as 27 approached the crowd, a pony in the crowd began to wave her down. It took a moment for 27 to realize it was Rainbow Dash waving her down, so 27 complied and walked over to the Pegasus.

As 27 approached, she noticed that she wasn’t standing alone. To her right was a Unicorn pony with a white coat and messy electric blue mane, a pair of magenta shades hid her eyes as she watched 27 approach, but at least she had a kind smile.

To the right of the Unicorn was an Earth pony. Her coat was a light grey tint with a black mane that was neatly combed back. Upon her neck was a pink bow, this mare also wore a smile as she approached.

“What’s up, 27!” Rainbow greeted, “How’s the party?” 27 cracked a smile.

“Don’t know yet, I just got here” she replied.

“Right, well… anyway, this is my friend, Vinyl Scratch and her friend Octavia” Rainbow said, then turned to the two mares, “Octavia, Vinyl, this is 27, Ponyville’s newest addition!” once the introduction was finished, 27 offered them a smile and a slight bow of her head.

“It is a pleasure to meet you two” she said.

“It’s nice to meet you, 27” Octavia said with a smile.

“What’s up?” Vinyl greeted. 27 looked up, and back to the mares.

“The roof, sky, clouds, sun and moon…” she said with a smile. Vinyl smiled.

“A sense of humor? You’ll fit in…” she said.

“Bonbon told me you were moving in with Lyra and her, what are you going to do there?” Octavia asked.

“I was just going to work the register while she made the chocolate in the back” 27 answered. Vinyl raised an eyebrow.

“Really?” 

“Yes, a small, calm job for the time being is all I ask for…” 27 said.

“Why would you want a calm job?” Vinyl asked. Rainbow shrugged at this.

“27 was actually a soldier before coming to Ponyville, but now she is retiring as a commander” Rainbow answered for 27. The two mares looked at 27 with a look of shock and awe. 27 sighed.

‘I wish she hadn’t said that… and here come the questions…’ she thought grimly, but she tried her best to continue to look optimistic.

“You were a part of the royal guard?” Octavia asked. 27 shook her head.

“No, I was a part of an army outside of Equestria”

“What branch of the army were you a part of?” Vinyl asked. 27 sighed.

“Special Forces and Operations…” she said. Now she had Rainbow’s attention.

“You were in Special Forces?” Rainbow asked. 27 sighed.

“Yeah… Listen, I don’t really want to talk about my past too much…” she said, then she followed up with a question of her own, hoping to denture the conversation “So what do you do you mares for jobs?” Vinyl smiled.

“I’m the DJ for the local club!” she said proudly. 27 raised an eyebrow.

“What’s a DJ?” she asked. Vinyl’s jaw dropped as Octavia snickered behind a hoof at Vinyl’s shock.

“A Disk Jockey” Rainbow Dash answered with a shit eating grin “is a pony who plays music for a large crowd at a party or club, Vinyl is very good at making awesome remix songs and dubstep, one of the best actually!”

“I see… pardon my ignorance Vinyl” 27 said, looking honestly sorry. Vinyl’s smile retuned.

“It’s cool” she said with a shrug. 27 tuned to Octavia.

“And you, Octavia?” 27 asked. Octavia smiled.

“I was the first chair cellist for the Royal Canterlot Symphony, but now I just play my cello at high class parties for the guests” she replied. 27 nodded.

“So you both are in the music industry?” 27 asked. Vinyl nodded.

“Yep, it’s our talent!” Vinyl exclaimed proudly. Octavia nodded in agreement with a smile.

“What about you, what is your special talent 27?” Octavia asked. 27 sighed.

“I haven’t found it yet…” 27 said in a quiet voice. Vinyl’s jaw dropped yet again.

“No way…”she said in disbelief.

“Really?” Rainbow asked, looking behind 27 at her barren flank. 27 nodded, in truth, she didn’t know what she was good at… well, besides killing in any type of warfare imaginable. She prayed that wasn’t her talent.

“How could you not have found your Cutie Mark yet?” Vinyl asked. 27 sighed again, a slower breath this time.

“I had no time to find it…” 27 said.

“Why?” Rainbow asked.

“War, Dash… war…” 27 answered cryptically, not wanting to talk about the subject any further.

“Oh…” Rainbow said, taking the hint that the subject needed to be dropped. Vinyl sighed.

“Sorry…” she said.

“You’re fine… it isn’t your fault, you wish to learn more about me, I get that…” 27 started “It’s just my past will need to wait”

“We understand, we won’t pry any further” Octavia said. 27 smiled.

“Thanks…”

“So!” Rainbow exclaimed, wanting to move the conversation forward, “Nightmare Night is tonight, what are you girls going to be?” she asked.

“A Vampire!” Vinyl said menacingly, lowering herself to the ground as if she was going to pounce on them.

“I was going to go as a Werepony” Octavia started, “But I misplaced the costume, so I’m going as a Scarecrow”

“I am going as a Royal Guard of the lunar division” 27 said, “But I still need the materials to make the costume and I need to know what 
it looks like”

“That sounds fun, I bet Twilight has a picture of the armor they ware” Octavia said.

“I’m going as a Shadowbolt!” Rainbow said.

“What’s a Shadowbolt?” 27 asked.

“They are kind of like the opposite of the Wonderbolts, more evil and dark…” Rainbow replied. 27 raised an eyebrow.

“What is a Wonderbolt?” 27 asked. It was now Rainbow Dash’s turn for her jaw to hit the deck. Vinyl began to chuckle at Rainbow’s expression.

“H-how do you not know!?” she exclaimed, flinging her front hooves in the air. 27 folded her ears back and recoiled at Rainbow’s explosion.

“The Wonderbolts are the coolest, fastest, best fliers around!” Rainbow said enthusiastically, “not to mention they are Equestria’s best air force!” Now that got 27’s attention.

‘So they are a group of soldiers that fly performances and are elite forces? Interesting…’ 27 thought.

“Sounds fun” 27 said with a smile.

“Fun?” Rainbow asked “Heh, the word doesn’t come close to describe a Wonderbolt!”

“I bet…” 27 said with a wide grin.

“What are you betting?” a bubbly voice chirped. 27 jumped at the suddenness of the voice and snapped around at lightning speed to face the threat, only to see a grinning pink pony. 27 was dumbfounded.

‘H-how did she get past my motion tracker and combat sensors?’ 27 asked herself. The others didn’t seem to mind Pinkies sudden appearance however.

“Hey, Pinkie” Rainbow greeted. Pinkie began to bounce in place with a smile.

“Hey, Rainbow! Octavia! Vinyl!” she greeted, “How’s the party?” she asked.

“Going great, although it’s a little slower than your other parties…” Rainbow said.

“I know, I thought 27 might appreciate that more!” she said with a large smile. 27 returned the smile.

“Thank you, Pinkie” 27 said “I just hope you speed it up for everypony else…”

“I’ll only speed it up when you want me too, this is a party for you after all!”

“Thanks…” 27 said quietly.

“No problem!” she replied, as cheerfully as ever, “Oh have you tried the ice-cream cake yet?” 27 raised an eyebrow.

“Ice-cream cake?” 27 asked. Pinkie nodded emphatically.

“Yep!” she exclaimed, “Remember when I asked you ‘cake or ice-cream’ and you just said ‘surprise me’?” pinkie asked, deepening her voice to imitate 27.

“Yes, I remember”

“Well, I thought it would be supper cool and fun if I combined the two to surprise you, and I think it’s a hit!” she exclaimed, “It’s starting to disappear faster than I thought it would”

“I see… well to answer your question, no, I have not eaten anything yet, and I just got here…” 27 said. Pinkie giggled.

“Oh, right, sorry… I think that time just moves slower for me then others I guess…” Pinkie said, still giggling away.

“Well I haven’t had any cake either” Rainbow Dash said, moving into the conversation, “I say we get some before it’s gone!”

“Yeah, let’s go!” Pinkie said, and began to bounce to the food table. 27 and Rainbow turned to the two stationary friends.

“Hey, you guys coming?” she asked. Vinyl smiled and shrugged.

“Sorry, RD, but Octy and I need to get back to the house to get ready for the Nightmare Night concert tonight…” she said with a frown.

“But you just got here!” Rainbow complained. Vinyl shrugged again and frowned.

“I’m really sorry about that, RD” she said, but then smiled, “But hey, make sure you and 27 pop by the club some time, and first round of cider will be on me as a ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ treat’” Rainbow smiled.

“Sounds like a plan” Rainbow said. 27 nodded.

“That sounds good, shall we do that tomorrow?” 27 asked. Vinyl’s smile grew.

“Now that sounds like a good Idea” she said, “I begin playing at ten at night and my shift ends at two in the morning, I’ll gladly buy your drinks then” Vinyl then slightly slumped, “Unless you can’t make that, I think another day I can do it is next Wednesday…”

“Tomorrow is fine, Vinyl” 27 said.

“YES, another night owl!”

“Vinyl, we need to get going” Octavia said, becoming slightly impatient.

“Coming!” She called out, then turned back to her two friends, “see you guys then!” With that, the DJ turned and trotted away after the dark colored earth pony. 27 watched the two ponies run off with an amused look before turning to a grinning pink pony.

“Coming slow pokes?” She asked with that bubbly voice of hers.

“Of course” 27 said with a smile, silently wondering how the rest of the party will play out.

XXX 17:36 Hours XXX

Time.

A precious resource to life and a luxury on the battlefield, had passed 27 by faster then she had liked. She wished the party had lasted a little longer, if only to keep her busy. But it had to end, and now, after helping pick up the scraps of the party with Pinkie Pie and getting some reference books to the Equestrian government (after highlighting the parts of the lunar guard), she was trotting back to the shop.

‘I wonder where I’ll get the armor for the costume…’ she thought. The sounds of her hooves striking the ground was the only thing she heard. She sighed.

‘I suppose I could salvage some from my ship, after the exposure to slipspace, it will never fly again anyway…’ 27 looked up to the ever darkening sky, the day giving way to the night once again. 

‘Besides… this will make great practice…’ she looked around, making sure she was clear of anypony, and teleported.

XXX

27 rematerialized on the deck of the large fighter, shouting in pain and stumbling through the fighter, back in her promethean form. She nearly tripped over the exposed wiring scattered across the deck. She growled in pain, but this time it was bearable.

‘I-… I- I didn’t pass out this time at least…’ she quickly scanned herself, and sighed in relief ‘and with no permanent damage…’ The pain began to loosen its grip on her mind, enough so that she could push the rest of it to the back of her mind and forget about it. She looked up to the walls of the fighter, tainted for centuries by nothing but the elements, but even then, it still looked new. Well, the parts that weren’t warped into unnatural forms. 27 looked to the cockpit, memories seeping back into her war torn mind.

27 walked up to the cockpit and looked at the control panel and joysticks, the holographic representations of the fighter’s engines, weapon systems, supplies, and other things were long dead. That however didn’t stop her from waving a metal paw over the console as if they were still there. She remembered everything, from its opening days, to its final hours. She closed her eyes and growled.

‘Don’t think about the war, it is over, we won…’ 

But did we truly win? That part of 27’s mind resented. She shook her head.

‘Of course we did!’ 

Tell that to the quintillions dead and dying on the battlefield as we slaughters the galaxy in cold blood with the Halos.

‘It was that, or the Flood taking us all’

But the Didact’s plan was a better plan then to wipe out all sentient life. 

‘THE DIDACT IS A FOOL!’ 27 yelled at the tiny voice of doubt in her head ‘his plan called for time and recourses we did not have as he slowly went insane, curtesy of the war’

What about the Warden’s plan? His Idea to give the mantle to AI rather than humans might be a smarter decision.

‘Again, a desperate plan, much like the Didact’s, much like the Halos… We don’t even have a 100 percent guarantee that humanity will ever invent AI’s when they evolve again…’

If they evolve again! Let’s face it, NONE of the Forerunner’s plans have a guarantee to work and most are not completely thought out! What will happen if the Humans find a Shield World or a Halo or another weapon of mass destruction before their ready? WHAT THE HELL WILL HAPPEN IF THEY BREACH THE CONTAINMENT FACILITIES ON THOSE FACILITIES AND THE FLOOD IS RELEASED ONCE AGAIN, RENDERING ALL OUR SACRIFICES USELESS!

‘SILENCE!’ 27 mentally shouted at the voice in her head.

OUR FAMILY, FRIENDS, BROTHERS IN ARMS! DO YOU WANT THEIR SACRIFICES TO GO IN VAIN TOO!?

‘SHUT UP!’

What are you doing here? Sitting on your ass, playing party time with an equine spices you just met? What if the war is still going on? What if the Flood is not dead or at least contained? What if we lost?

What if they still need you?

27 was silenced by the tiny voice of doubt. What if they still needed her? She is one of the only soldiers that had been there from the opening days to now, and the only one to do so on the front lines. She was the only one to face the Flood head on for so long and survive. Sure, there were others, but none with her experience and training. 27 had found that unfortunate that the Forerunners had deemed her and the project she was ‘born’ under a failed one.

Well, what other choice did they have? Out of the 75 dragon volunteers for the project, only three survived, and the other two died early in the war, leaving her the only one left. Not to mention that the cost of the program was ridicules and after the initial deaths of the many dragons, no more volunteered.

With that came a tidal wave of anger and understanding. Understanding that her race didn’t want to just throw themselves at the Flood, but anger at their unwillingness to help anyone or anything. Her version, her species of dragons, were solitary, preferring to live alone or in small family groups, not in social communities like Humans, Sangheili, or Forerunners, which led the Dragons of her world to advance very slowly, technologically wise. In fact, when the Forerunners found them, they were still using torches and candles to lighten up a room.

Just because they were not as social as Humans or Forerunners and weren’t as advanced, didn’t mean that they were Barbaric. 27’s species of Dragons evolved on a moon orbiting a large gas giant, about the size of Earth’s moon, but made of way more denser materials, making the planet a Class M-III category. Class M meant that it was earth like, with plentiful amounts of H2O and Flora and Fauna with a breathable atmosphere, while the –III meant the Gravity type, -I meant one G, -II meant two G, -III meant three G and so forth. The three G moon her race evolved on made her kind extremely strong, their bodies evolving and adapting to the higher than average gravity.

But once again, this by no means meant her race was barbaric, in fact, her race had made a monarchy. The King and/or Queen of the Dragons. These Dragons were the panicle of government, their words were law, but they were just, trained to be so from past generations. Just, loyal, brave, and forgiving, that was how they operated for thousands of years.

27 had always respected the Dragon Kings and Queens, but she hated them for sitting out of the war, believing that it was not their fight.

‘Oh how wrong they were…’ she thought grimly. 27 finally broke her gaze from the console after the two seconds of looking at it, but those two seconds felt like an eternity. She sighed, and turned to the hull of the ship, and slowly, she reached up and began to rip off the armor of the ship.

What are you-? 

Before the voice of her doubt could voice its self, she shut it up, clamped it down, and shoved it as deep as emotionally possible.

‘I have friends…’ 27 thought, ‘Although I do not know them at all, they have offered me a chance, and I am not going to let them down…’ with that, the voice in the back of her head shut up for good. For the next hour, the sound of ripping metal, welding, and construction echoed through the ship, but the surface above were blissfully unaware of the dedicated dragoness right beneath it.