Halo: Into a Darker Storm

by Slaphappy16

First published 30th of September, 2012

Alice S-130, Douglas S-042, and Jerome S-092 destroyed the Shield World, but the fight is not over.

Spartan Red Team destroyed a Shield World out of UNSC controlled space, destroying the Forerunner fleet that was hidden inside. They leave behind a destroyed world and dieing Covenant fleet, stuck in cryo-sleep until they reach help. Unfortunately, anything but help finds them, and they are thrust into another battle, but a new pawn is thrown into the game, and Equestria is unsure which side will lead not to victory, but survival.

Follows the events of Halo Wars, some parts may seem confusing unless you've played the game. First fan-fic and experimental. Tell me what you really think, whether its a diamond of holy proportions or a piece of crap that should be shoved up a baboons ass.

Prologue

Alice, SPARTAN-130, walked silently towards the cryo chambers. Douglas and Jerome had already crawled inside their pods and were ‘sleeping’. She came upon the shut pod of Sgt. Forge. The recent fight on the shield world filled her mind. From The Battle of Arcadia, the nightmarish Flood, to the Apex.

The three Spartans had defended the Spirit of Fire’s Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine, or in layman’s terms, the thing that makes you go very very fast, from a force of Elite Honor Guards. While this happened, Sgt. Forge dueled with The Arbiter. After he had killed The Arbiter with his own sword, Alice had the honor of rolling the dead beast over the cliff. She also policed his camo unit. The spooks at ONI will want it.

After the attack was cleared, Jerome had volunteered to ensure the engine was destroyed, for its destruction would demolish the forerunner ships previously activated and make them useless to the covenant. Sgt.Forge had denied his request, stating ‘they would need every last Spartan in the fight’.

He stayed back and sacrificed himself for all of them. He was one of those rare soldiers- might as well of been a Spartan in that armor.

Alice continued on towards her cryo pod. As she came upon one of the last open pods, she had that feeling that something was going to go wrong…

She shook the feeling away as she stepped into the pod. The pod closed and she was slowly eased in unconsciousness by the ever-so freezing temperatures.

***

It was two weeks since the Spirit of Fire had left the shield world to its explosive destruction, and almost nobody walked around the ship, as they were still in cryo sleep. Only a few still wondered about, two of which being Captain James Cutter and Prof. Ellen Anders.

“Anders, you did a great job. You got all of them out of there alive.” Cutters stated as he escorted her to the cryo pods. From what he knew, she hadn’t slept at all since her time off the shield world. He was finally forcing her to get into the cryo pod.

They stopped at Anders pod. She turned and looked him in the eye. “Not all of them.” She sadly stated. She then turned around and stepped inside the tube. Cutter watched as she was frozen into a dormant state.

Cutter turned away and started the small trek towards his own pod. True, they had lost many men, one of which Cutter would have trusted with his life. But that was war, and that fact has been nailed into his mind, sinking deeper and deeper with every passing battle.

He stopped momentarily in front of his own pod to undress. Wearing clothing in cryo sleep led to freezer burn, blisters and rashes for a few days after getting out of cryo. Now that he thought of it, Anders was going to regret going into cryo with her clothes after she woke. He stepped into the small pod, letting the slow freeze take him under.

***

“Captain, wake up. Something has happened.” Serina, the AI that helped run the ship, said as she quickly awoke Captain Cutter from his pod.

“Huh? What?” Cutter groggily replied as he stepped out.

“Get to the bridge, we have a problem.”

Cutter quickly dressed himself and made his way through the barren ship towards the bridge. Once he walked through, he noticed Serina’s female avatar hovering over the command table. “What is it Serina?”

“I’m picking up slipspace signals. Two, to be exact.” Serina answered.

“Well, can you tell if they're ours?” Cutter asked.

“No, we just have to wait. If there Covenant, it won’t be long.” Serina said.

“Either way, wake everybody up from cryo and scramble. Last thing I need is to be caught by a pair of covenant ships with no means of defending ourselves.” Cutter ordered.

A few minutes later, the bridge crew started to trickle in. As they sat down, Cutter turned back towards Serina. “Any idea on how long this could take?”

“To be frank, I wish I did. I’m bored already.”

Cutter couldn’t help but smile slightly at that remark. She was a ‘smart’ AI, she could process more and acted more human than the ‘dumb’ AI’s. She also had a strange love for chocolate.

“Then I guess we will have to wait.” Just like Serina said, they didn’t have to wait for long. Soon, two ships melted into view from seemingly nowhere.

“Aaww, fuck.” One of the bridge crew whispered as he stared at the two purple bulbous ships slowly turning towards them.

“Covenant. Great.” He looked over to the ghostly figure on the dashboard. “Serina, initiate Emergency Priority Order 098831A-1, the Cole Protocol." Cutter glanced over at one of the officers sitting at weapons. "Lieutenant Lea, I want Archer missile pods A-E hot and ready to fire onto the closest ship. Also, charge the MAC cannon and give me a firing solution to gut the ship after the missiles hopefully take down the shields." He turned to one of the officers sitting at navigation. "Lieutenant Dunkan, give them the smallest possible target, but allow the firing solution a clear course."

“Aye Sir!” Serina, Lea and Dunkan said in unison as they saluted. The ship shuttered as they turned their nose towards the purple giants in the distance.

Cutter could do nothing for those precious seconds but watch as the two covenant ships loomed ever so closer. “Sir, firing solution ready. Making a couple tweaks... done. Mac at 60% charge. Archer missiles ready to fire.”

“Good. Fire on my command…” Cutter waited for a moment and examined the firing solution before giving the order. “Fire!”

Large thumps could be heard across the ship as 150 missiles arched and weaved their way through space. The sides of the closest covenant ship glowed before it sent off its own torpedoes.

The globs of boiling blue plasma impacted on the missiles, destroying a quarter of them. The torpedoes that didn’t hit the missiles streaked for the ship. Meanwhile, the remaining Archer missiles hit their target. The ships shield shimmered, changed color to red, and popped. 5 Archer missiles impacted on the surface of the covenant ship.

“Serina, how is the MAC?” Cutter asked as he watched the battle through the front screen.

“87% sir. We will be ready to fire in a few more seconds.”

“That’s not gonna be fast enough, Serina! Cut some power from the support engines and use it to speed it up!” Cutter angrily said as the second covenant ship started to charge its own torpedoes. The glowing blobs on the Covenant ship condensed and started fly towards the ship. “MAC ready sir.”

“Fire!”

The ship rocked as the special four-shot MAC gun shot, but it was cut off by a bigger rumbling as the plasma torpedoes impacted.

The bridge rocked, and some of the crew were thrown to the ground. Cutter held on to the rail to keep himself steady.

“Serina, status?!” Cutter asked, his hands started to sweat.

“Direct hit to the MAC, it was cut short and only three shots made it out. It is unusable. Direct hit to our Comms unit, max communication range dropped to 1 mile. Fires throughout decks D-F. Venting. Archer pods M-Z destroyed. It would seem they're crippling us and are going to attempt to board.”

Cutter watched the screen as he heard the devastating news. The three tungsten shells from the MAC obliterated the covenant ship, one demolishing their engines, another hitting close to the top, sending them spiraling out of control. The last missed and continued its journey through space. “Like hell they will. Serina, initiate main engine meltdown. Dunkan, set a course for the last covenant ship. Alarm the ship of a collision course. Heat up and fire whatever missiles we have left. Tell the Spartans to take the Professor to the lifeboats, and that it was an honor serving with them.”

“Sir?” Serina said, a hint of confusion in her voice.

“Were about to be boarded, sending a few hundred covenant into our ship. Even with the Spartans, they will get to something important before we can stop them. And if they do stop them, that cruiser has at least a thousand ready covenant troops. They might get to the bridge, and there they will find the location of earth. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen. The battle we just had against the covenant back over the Shield World basically depleted us of all ship-to-ship weapons. We have nothing left but a few hundred marines, and maybe 20 ODST’s. Time it so we blow ourselves and that covenant vessel.” Cutter went through the list.

“Aye, setting collision course for the last covenant ship. Alerting the Spartans now.”

***

“Alright, we need to be ready for anything. Take what yo-“ Jerome was interrupted by an alarm and red flashing lights. A voice he recognized as Serina’s was heard throughout the deck.

“Collision imminent. Self destruct sequence set. Abandon ship. Repeat, abandon ship.”

The Spartans looked at each other. Serina’s voice came up again, but within their helmets. “Captain Cutter wants you to take Professor Anders off the ship. She will be meeting you at the lifeboats. The Captain gives his regards; it’s been an honor serving with you.” Serina finished. There was a small click, then nothing.

“All right, change of plans. You heard her. Take what you can and get to the lifeboats. We have no idea where in space we are, for all we know, we're right next to the covenant capital.” If that was so, they would all be dead by now. But Jerome hated not being prepared for anything.

Douglas grabbed a standard issue M19 SSM Rocket Launcher. He hefted it up and checked its condition. When he was satisfied, he grabbed one of the dual-rocket 'magazines' and snapped it into place. He then grabbed 3 more and placed them into their respective areas around his armor. He then picked up an MA37 Assault Rifle, and 9 32-bullet magazines. He finished his arsenal with the M6D Personal Defense Pistol and 5 mags and a silencer.

Jerome checked over an SRS99 Sniper rifle. This thing could wreck a Scorpion tank with enough shots, and a skyward Banshee with no ease at all. As a plus, the magazines were small, and he could also take rounds and refill them. He took 6 mags and slapped another into the sniper, adding up to 28 rounds total. Unlike Douglas, he grabbed a single M7S Caseless Submachine Gun. With 48 rounds and a silencer, it was the perfect close-range weapon for a sniper. He snapped 4 magazines into place around his armor, and finished with the same pistol as Douglas.

When Douglas and Jerome were finished, they looked to see how Alice was doing. Alice lifted up the biggest gun a SPARTAN could carry and use on the battlefield. An AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun turret. She looked down towards the bipod. She kicked it off as if it was an annoying bug. Now happy that it was fit for her, she looked up and noticed the other two staring at her. “What?”

“Is that really necessary?” Douglas asked.

“Hey, you get a rocket launcher, and you get a sniper rifle. Am I supposed to take a regular machine gun and be happy? Cmon, give me a break.” She said and continued picking up the same setup as Douglas, minus the rocket launcher and plus the HMG. She stuck a 200 round box-mag into the turret, and grabbed two more and stuffed them into her backpack.

“Alright, are we ready?” Jerome asked as he inspected his team.

Alice nodded, but Douglas hesitated.

“Cmon, we don’t have all day. What do you need now?” Jerome was getting impatient. In case they forgot, the ship wasn’t that far from giving a death-kiss to that covenant destroyer.

“Just one more thing…” He grabbed a medium-sized backpack. Jerome knew exactly what it was. A Damage Pack, or ‘Blow Pack’, was a backpack that carried C-12. Two of these packs had enough explosives to blow three meters into the standard UNSC armor plating. Solid, but just malleable to be shaped to stick to any surface or fitted into tight spots, it was a force to be reckoned with. Douglas was the demolitions expert of the team, and he hated not going somewhere without the stuff. He also clipped the detonator the pack.

“Ok, I’m ready.” Douglas said.

“Professor Anders is waiting for us, let’s move.” Jerome started to run towards the lifeboats. Even with the heavy machine gun Alice toted and all the explosives Douglas was carrying, they kept up easily. A lot of the crew gave them various looks. Some of awe at the sight of the legendary SPARTANS, and some in fear. After all, they looked like they were getting ready to fight a small country. When they reached the lifeboats, seven still remained. Professor Anders stood waiting, a worried look plastered to her face.

“Hello, Ma’am. Sorry for the wait. Shall we get off this time-bomb?” Jerome asked as he walked up to the civilian.

“That would be much appreciated, but why so packed with weaponry?” Professor Anders asked as she started to step into the closest lifeboat.

“We don’t like to be unprepared.” He simply stated.

“I see…”

Jerome followed her into the lifeboat, the metal chair buckled a bit as he got into the pilot seat. It was almost too small for the behemoth. He tapped a button on the dashboard, and the door to the lifeboat closed, a loud bang as the air-tight slab of metal slammed against the boat.

“We're leaving the other Spartans?” Anders asked, confusion in her voice.

“Of course not. They’re taking different pods. More chance of survival, between being shot out of the sky and oxygen levels emptying faster.” Jerome explained as they shot away from the ship.

The small metal egg bounced for a bit, but slowly stopped. The battle raged on in front of them. The Covenant destroyer continued to batter the Spirit of Fire. The small boarding-ships continued toward the UNSC ship. He could also see Alice’s and Douglas’s lifeboats following closely behind. Jerome took one last look at the ship. He had grown to respect Captain Cutter, he was smart. He knew what the hell he was doing. He just hoped he knew what he was doing this time.

***

“Captain Cutter, the Spartans and Professor Anders have cleared the ship.”

“Good news. It will be our last of the kind, other than knowing were gonna blow the hell out of this damned covenant ship.” Cutter smiled as the boarding craft made an attempt get out of the way of the speeding UNSC ship. There was a small bump as one of the boarding craft got to know his ship a bit more than it probably wanted to.

He knew the covenant ship wouldn’t shoot down the lifeboats; they were too focused on him. This was confirmed as they took another hit.

“Fires in decks G and I. Venting now.” Serina reported.

“How is the evacuation?” Cutter asked. He obviously knew the Spartans and the professor were out, but those weren’t the only ones he cared for.

“The majority of the lifeboats are away. Seraph fighters incoming to take them down, though.” Serina warned him.

“Activate the point defense guns. Don’t let them take down any of them.” Cutter ordered. He knew he couldn’t save all of them, though. Hopefully, at least the Spartans and Anders would survive. He watched from the camera view as little bright lights wizzed across the battlefield. Flickers of shields and small explosions accompanied them.

“Sir, I think they know what we’re doing. They're increasing speed, and attempting to move.” Serina voice came up once again.

“Adjust course. Don’t let them get away.” If the covenant ship survived, there would be nothing left. Nobody to warn the rest of humanity of The Flood. Nobody to tell them about the forerunners. Nobody to tell there story. Of course, there was still the chance everybody was going to rot away inside their lifeboats until they die. But that’s not the bright side, and as of now, Cutter needed an entire bloody supernova.

“Course re-adjusted. Collision in twenty seconds.”

“You know Serina, there was something if always wanted to ask you.” Cutter began.

“Yes sir?”

“Why do you have such an obsession for chocolate?”

“To be honest Captain, I have no clue.” Serina answered.

“Huh. I’ve never met an AI quite like you Serina. It was great working with you.”

“Ditto, Captain. Collision in five. Four. Three. Two. One.”

Cutter couldn’t help but laugh as the entire ship blew up around him. If only he could see the look on those covenant bastards faces.

***

Anders watched as the Spirit of Fire collided with purple covenant ship. She would miss Cutter. And Forge.

The Seraphs had retreated their attacks and returned to their ship, which was strange seeing as they were only going to meet their death’s there. And they had to know it.

Either way, it was no longer her problem. Her new problem would be floating around in space for god knows how long.

“Jerome, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you really so armed to the teeth?” Anders figured time would pass faster with small talk.

Jerome was still in the ‘drivers’ seat (you couldn’t really drive it, just aim it and hope for the best). “You ever get that feeling that everything is about to go to hell?” he asked without turning.

She had. The Flood. The moment she saw one take over a marine’s body… “Yes. Did you have one of those?”

“In a way. Something is going to happen, I just don’t know when. Whether it’s bad or good, can’t tell you. All I know is that something will happen…”

*

They had floated about for two days. They had passed the time with little word games. Anders almost never won. They were much smarter than they looked. They would sleep in shifts. Somebody would always be looking for some livable planet or sign of civilization.

And today was their lucky day.

Alice was sitting back in the driver seat, snacking on some crackers from an MRE. She looked out into the infinite void. A sun slowly started to grow as they came closer to it. So peaceful. Spartans almost never got time of serenity like this. It gave them the chance to think. She wondered how all the other Spartans were doing. This reminded her of her childhood. CPO Mendez. The ‘Playground’. The Augmentation. Her body shivered at remembering that living hell.

It was like hammers smashing down onto her bones, a hot knife slowly melting through her, liquid napalm seeping through her veins.

She shook her head. It was all worth it. It had made her was she was today. She took it as an honor to be called a demon by the stubby little grunts.

She looked about the vast blackness again. They were passing the sun now. Not far, she spied a little planet. She enhanced zoom. How had she just now noticed it? It looked like it could hold life…

“Jerome, Douglas, I got something.” She said over her mic. They were able to talk, as long as they didn’t get out of radio range.

There was some fumbling on the other end, and Douglas’s voice came up. “What did you find?”

“You see that planet?” She tagged it so they knew where to look.

“Yeah… Looks inhabitable.” Jerome spoke up. “I’ll take a scan really quick and see what we get.”

There was a moment of silence as Jerome worked the scanner, checking the atmosphere and its various gases.

“It shows up nearly identical to Earth. I mean, you can’t get any better than this! 79% nitrogen, 19% oxygen, and it has all the other small gasses, but I’m detecting another gas. Not even sure if it's gas. Either way, there is not enough there to effect us. I’m also getting traces of water vapor. Good eye Alice. I think you just saved us.” Jerome stated.

They all turned using small puffs from the small RCS modules planted on the side of the pods, and were slowly pointed towards the planet. Looked like they were going to end up on the bright side. Ever so slowly, they made their way to the growing ball until it took up the entire window of the lifeboat. The sides of the window started to show little spots of red. When they started to grow brighter, she hit a button on the dashboard. The engines on the front powered up, and the lifeboat slowed. She could see one lifeboat a ways away. Looked like they were gonna have to walk quite a ways to find each other.

She was about to deploy the parachute when there was a small explosion on the front of the lifeboat. That couldn’t be good. She franticly checked the boats diagnostics. One of the four engines had overheated!

This was proved as the uneven ship started to slowly spiral. This was bad. It was slowly getting faster. She started to sway farther away from the other pods. She quickly went through her possibilities. A: she could stay in the ship and say hi to St. Peter on her way down to hell, or B: she could jump.

The second possibility was certainly not unheard of among Spartans. They had been trained for that kind of situation, and that looked like her only option. She assorted all of her equipment as fast as she could, except for heavy things like (though regrettably) her Heavy Machine Gun. She waited until they were further within the atmosphere. If she jumped now, her armor might be able to take the heat, but on the inside, she would cook like a turkey.

By the time she was ready, the lifeboat was whipping angrily side to side. She punched the airlock, and immediately everything flew about, a loud roaring flowing through the air. She shut off her external speakers so she didn’t go deaf. Without another thought, she jumped away from the lifeboat, which tumbled down away from her.

She spread her arms and legs and put her shield right under complete armor lock. It was harder to move, but it would ultimately save her life. Next part- she looked for the closest possible area, like a mountain. She spied the closest mountain, and though not the biggest, she aimed herself towards it. It had an awkward shape. Her shield slowly started to drain. The closer she got to the mountain, the more it looked less like a mountain. By the time she was ready for part three, she was completely sure there was something… different about this mountain. There was a castle planted right on the side. Well, she couldn’t reposition herself now. Looks like she was about to meet the occupants. Just before she hit, she curled herself into a ball flew straight into it.

***

Luna sat next to her sister Celestia with a bored look on her face, her arm bent so that her head rested on her hoof. They were at some meeting for taxes or something like that. She wasn’t really trying her best to listen. It almost made her happy she wasn’t here for the past 1,000 years, so she wouldn’t have to put up with these.

She started poking at her magical, constantly flowing hair. She had always thought it looked like a giant glob of goo. Oh, how cool. There was a star blowing up in her little miniature space. They were so fun to look at. After a while, another star would take its place. She was so content watching her hair that she didn’t notice it. A slight change. In… what? Something was happening though. She could feel it.

“Uh, Tia?” she poked her sister.

“Yes, Luna?” she whispered, trying not to interrupt. Though on the inside, she hated these things just as much as Luna.

“We have felt something… but we are not sure what it is.” Luna explained.

“Like what?”

“We don’t know, just some feeling. Like that strange pink pony Twilight is friends with gets.”

“Pinkie Pie?”

“Yes, that one.”

“Yeah, she is a bit strange, isn’t she?”

“You know, I th-bah! We're getting off track! Point is, I really think we should-“ She was cut off by a huge crash in the room above them. The roof suddenly exploded and a green object flew across the room, skipping three times before implanting in the wall. The room went dead silent. The earth pony that was explaining some tax problems jaw dropped. Luna looked up into the hole above them. A red pony head slowly came into view as he looked down at them. It had came through the wall of the room on top of this, and then through their roof. Man. It must’ve been going fast.

The door burst open, and six guard ponies ran into the room. They all turned to the green thing in the wall. It was like a starfish. A big green starfish. They too went silent. The thing started to slowly peel of the wall, and landed on the ground unceremoniously. It had a big gold piece staring up at the roof. A few passers-by’s poked their heads through the door, and Shining Armor came running in.

“What the hay was that-“ He stopped for a moment to look down at the green metallic thing in front of him. He looked around at the startled guard ponies. “Don’t just stand there, do something!” He ordered.

They all snapped out of there trance and gave their yes-sirs, and then circled around it defensively, swords and spears pulled out.

The thing suddenly started to glow for a moment, and stopped.

“Well, what now?” one of them asked.

“I don’t know…” another said.

“What is it?” a third reached down to poke it.

***

Alice slowly came to. She heard nothing. She checked her diagnostics without moving, not wanting to risk breaking something further. The screen took up her vision for a moment. Her rib cage took some heavy damage; she would have to tend to that soon. Other than her high blood pressure, which was perfectly normal, she was fine. She checked her weapons. Her assault rifle was apparently missing, but her pistol was still in its holster, nothing wrong. There was a small sound as her shields recharged.

She double checked the diagnostics, making sure everything was fine. There was a slight prod to her head. She blinked away the screen, and looked about. Seven white four-legged creatures stood around her, all pointing some sort of weapon at her. Instinct kicked in. She did the first thing every Spartan was trained to do when faced with a threat.

She reacted.

Author's Notes:

Man, dat cliffhanger during my first few days writing this... it made me proud. Edited some of the grammar and changed up the Ship-to-Ship fight scene a bit, added two of the bridge officers, Cole Protocol, etc. THERE ARE SOME THINGS IN HERE THAT ARE NOT CANON AND/OR ARE MADE UP, BUT WITHIN BELIEVABLE BOUNDARIES (i.e., pods having RCS, the two bridge officers which are not mentioned, etc).

This chapter... man. Basically set the entire story up. It makes it different, sets a new boundary in a sense compared to your average Halo crossover. I say this not to think highly of my own story, but I honestly want you to go out and tell me how many halo crossover's you find where John-117 or some OC ODST (not hatin on OC ODST's, I already have a new story involving a squad of em in mind) instantly become friends with pony-kind under such weird circumstances. They are out there, but there isn't enough. I could go through a huge rant about it, but I'm sure I've made one already in the comments section or a blog or something.

Fire and Ice

Douglas helplessly watched as Alice’s pod span out of control, and then watched her jump out. He hoped she would be okay. From where he was at, he couldn’t see Jerome’s pod, but he hoped they were doing good to. Right now though, he had to worry about himself. The front thrusters slowed him down. As he came into optimal range, the parachute popped out, and he was slowed even more, but it would still be a hard landing. It looked like he was headed for a small mountain range.

Nothing big, just high enough for a tad bit of snow. Overall, it wasn’t very high. Still, he felt uncomfortable landing on a mountain with this thing. The windows were covered in the red flame that surrounded the life boat. The mountain grew and grew until it took over the entire window, and the side clipped a mountain to the right. That could be good; it slowed him down even more. He smashed into the next mountain, and he was thrown across the lifeboat.

He grinded to a stop. He looked around the lifeboat. He saw his rocket launcher lying on the ground. He snapped it onto his back and looked around for his assault rifle. Spying it a few feet away next to the pilot seat, he also grabbed that and slung it around. His pistol was still hidden safely in its side holster. He checked the blast pack and his ammo. One of his assault rifle magazines were smashed, making it unusable. The C-12 was OK.

He hit a button on what was left of the dashboard, and the hatch hissed open. Taking a step out, he found that he was in a cave. Two miles away, he could see the mountain range come to an end, and Jerome’s lifeboat fly threw the sky.

“Well damn. Guess I better start moving…” He said aloud to himself.

“Why not stay a while?” A deep growl rumbled behind him.

Quickly bringing up his assault rifle, he snapped around to face whoever had talked. At first, all he saw a giant dark blue rock. But, as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darker side of the cave, the rock took shape… into… a dragon?

“Damn, I must’ve hit something big on my way down…” he said to himself.

“Other than that mountain?” the dragon asked him. Its head rested on its hands.

‘OK, so it has good hearing.’ He thought.

Keeping his assault rifle aimed at the dragon, he asked it a question. “What the hell are you?”

“I should ask the same thing. After all, you did just crash into my cave.”

“Fair enough. I am a human, now you go.”

“I am a dragon. An elder, if we need to be specific.”

All at once, thoughts shot through his mind. It calls itself exactly what humans do. It speaks English. And, in a sense, he just discovered an alien. This really couldn’t be happening, right? I mean cmon. A dragon?

“Where am I?” Douglas asked.

“As in the surrounding area? The Crystal Mountains. You are not from around here, are you?” The dragon growled.

“Not even from this planet. Do you think you could help me?”

“With what, exactly?”

“Did you see that other meteor?” Douglas pointed to the almost fainted smoke trail.

“Yes.”

“I need to get there.”

“For a trade, perhaps?”

…. A trade? Douglas barely even understood his situation so far, and now he was trading with a dragon. “What do you have in mind…?”

“That metal egg you came out of.”

He looked back at the lifeboat. Well, it was a dragon, he was pretty sure it wouldn’t be able to do much with it, and he got everything he needed from it. Also, it’s not like he could take it with him. “Why do you want that?”

“I am a dragon. We are naturally attracted to rare and ‘shiny’ objects.” The dragon lifted its tail, revealing thousands of gold coins, diamonds, and other expensive gems. “ And you don’t see one of those every day.”

“OK, deal. So what, are you going to fly me out or something?”

“And leave my treasure for other greedy dragons? No. But I will tell you how to get out.” He started as his tail wrapped around the lifeboat and lifted it away. “It’s not as easy as just walking out. I’m not the only dragon, and the small ones can be testy. They think they can take on whatever they see, and they also tend to stay in groups. Stay away from warmer areas, which are where they usually keep to themselves. Also keep away from other caves. Me being an elder, I’m not one to fight. But others usually resort to the first thing that comes to their mind, which is to kill you.” He finished up, observing and toying with his new treasure.

As he talked, Douglas walked over to the edge of the cave. Looking over the landscape, he noticed some area’s with a small amount of smoke trailing up. Looked like a good 10 mile trek to get to the field Jerome crashed in. He turned his head and looked back at the dragon. “Uh, thanks, I guess?”

“Hhhmmm.” The dragon just growled, setting the lifeboat next to him and lying down to rest.

The Spartan stood there for a moment more, shrugged, and jumped down onto another ledge. It cracked a bit under his weight, but held. He continued this routine until he got near the bottom. For the last 20 meters, he slid down, one hand sliding across the side of the mountain to slow himself. He hit the ground, a small thud escaping from under his feet.

He took a small look around. The snow had melted higher up, and the dirt shined freely in the sun. A small, shriveled up shrub here and there, but other than that, barren. He kept his assault rifle unslung as he crept along the small valley.

As he reached the base of another mountain, there was a flash on his radar to the left. He scanned the area, but there was nothing. Maybe the cold was getting to his radar? Doubtful, but as CPO Mendez had always said, never rely on technology. He continued along the base of the mountain, but more wary. He peeked his head around the corner of a boulder. He spotted a faint smoke trail floating into the sky. OK, that area was blocked.

He spun back around and took a detour. He slipped past another mountain. He poked his head around this one to. Clear of life as far as he could see. Still keeping to the shadows, he ran across to the next mountain. He heard a small rockslide behind him. Snapping to attention, he turned around with his MA37 in hand. Again, nothing. These mountains were starting to get to him. Before he could even turn around, there was another red blip behind him.

It rushed towards him, and Douglas attempted to spin on his heel and smack out with the butt of his rifle. Something lashed at his legs and tripped him. He landed on his side, and the thing smashed on top of him.

He turned his rifle at an awkward angle towards his attacker and pulled the trigger. The creature screeched and fell off of him. Jumping back up, he finally got a look at his attacker.

Another dragon, though much smaller and light green, toppled backwards from the rounds. Blood oozed from 5 small holes across its stomach area. As he watched, there was another flash of color behind it, this time red. He took a closer look around him. As he did, he noticed three more, counting the red one, all growling at him from behind cover.

Damn, had they been hunting him?! He gave them credit, that was one hell of an achievement. He hadn’t even noticed them.

The red one he had seen burst from cover and ran towards him. As he did this, he spied two other red blips on his radar rush from behind. Figuring the pair was more of a threat, he turned to meet the others. The one on the left was a dull orange, while the one on the right was a pure white. The orange one looked more bulky, so he aimed and shot 5 times towards its stomach. The bullets bounced off its scales. Okay, they don’t all have thins scales like that poor guy behind him. As he turned to take aim at the white one, something tackled him in the back.

Damnit, he forgot about this one. He was making too many mistakes. That’s how you die.

The red one stomped down on the arm with the rifle and ripped it out of his hands, tossing it behind him. With that, it looked down at his face, and, opening its mouth wide, sent a burst of fire down at him. His shields easily took the damage, but on the inside, his skin started to blister.

As he burned him, Douglas’s free hand shot up and smashed into its face. There was a loud snap, and the dragon roared, releasing his other hand. Douglas reached up and grabbed its face. He dragged its head back down and slammed it onto the rocky ground. His knee flew up into its gut, and he kicked out, knocking the dragon off of him.

The other two had just gotten to him as he pulled out his foot long knife and attempted to bring it down on the red dragons head. The white one’s arm grabbed his hand and head-butted the Spartan with surprising power for such a small dragon. His shield shimmered and threatened to overload. Douglas reeled back from the attack.

The orange one moved to punch him. Douglas easily ducked under it and retaliated with an upwards slash across its face. It left a bloodied scar along its cheek. He pulled his elbow back down onto the back of its head. For a moment the dragon was stunned, and Douglas kicked it down.

Whipping out his pistol, he aimed for the eye. Just before he shot, the white ones tail wrapped around his foot and tripped him. The shot landed next to the oranges ones face and harmlessly pinged away. He landed on his stomach, and was dragged backwards. He turned himself around and aimed for the white one. It kicked out and knocked his pistol away. He lifted his other arm and attempted to stab its other foot.

It caught his hand with his own, and opening wide, sent a blue stream of ice down on his hand. Frost formed around it, then ice, until his hand was completely frozen. The dragon’s hand, though, was unaffected.

Using this to his advantage, instead of aiming down, he swung his frozen arm up onto the dragons chin. It broke, sending ice shards through the air like shrapnel. The dragon recoiled backwards, and Douglas picked himself up. Running forward, he tackled the dragon to the ground.

Before it could move, Douglas grabbed his face and shoved it into the ground and used his legs to pin down its arms. Its tail and legs flailed around, trying to push away the Spartan.

He took a moment to look around. The green one he had originally shot was still curled up in a ball, hands over its bleeding stomach. The red one was apparently unconscious, and the orange one was still dazed.

No buddy to save this one. He looked back down at the dragon. The anger he saw before in its eyes was gone, now filled with desperation. He couldn’t count how many times he had seen this. Marines, civilians, even other Spartans. He tossed the knife and caught it so it pointed down, and brought it down onto its neck, pulled out, got up and stepped back.

The dragon grabbed its neck and desperately tried to suck in air. It helplessly scraped at the ground as the life left his body.

Walking over and retrieving his pistol, he executed the orange dragon. He did the same for the red and the green one.

Once again, he looked around him. The only thing that came to his mind was ‘Damn, what have we gotten ourselves into?’

Picking up his discarded MA37, he quietly turned around and continued out of the mountain range.

Author's Notes:

Didn't edit this one as much. Just a bit of grammar and word choice. Definitely one of my favorite chapters, kinda presented the fact that Equestria wasn't sunshine and lollipops all the time.

Rising Tension

Jerome rocked back and forth in the small pilot’s seat as the lifeboat flew through the atmosphere. Being the farthest behind, he was able to watch Alice tumble through the sky and crash into a mountain, and Douglas glide into his own mountain. Jerome risked aiming a tad bit downwards to get a hopefully less dangerous crash-site.

Professor Anders sat in one of the chairs behind him, holding tightly onto the safety harness. Without a pressure suit, chances were she would be unconscious for the crash. He resumed paying attention to the task at hand.

As he flew downwards, he noticed something peculiar. A cloud, with... rainbow rivers. And rainbow waterfalls. Now, obviously, Jerome knew clouds were made up of water particles and dust, and rainbows were merely the reflection of the sun’s rays on the water, but this appeared to be an actual liquid, flowing through the sky and onto other clouds, forming small ponds.

He stared a bit longer when a rough shaking brang him back to his senses. He was starting to drift off course. Again readjusting his position, there was a small pop and sudden deceleration as the parachute opened. Jerome jerked forwards slightly, creating a small screech from the metal chair he sat on.

Soon, he was able to make out little landmarks, like a forest a far ways off and a lake in between the mountain range and where he was going to land. As he got within a few hundred feet, he got out of the chair and pulled himself into the chair in front of Professor Anders to shield her from the incoming crash. He looked over to her. Just as he predicted, she was unconscious.

The pod smashed into the ground, the front mirror exploding inwardly, sending shrapnel throughout the pod. It skipped once, twice, and three times before smashing into a tree and skidding to a stop. Jerome snapped open his harness and stood up. He looked over to Anders. A few cuts here and there, nothing a bit of bandaging won’t help. He collected his gear and walked over to the pods ‘door’.

With a loud clank, the entrance hissed for a moment, but other than that, nothing. He tried again, slightly harder. Again, nothing. With one final tug, he ripped the handle off. A bit more hissing, but still nothing. Great. He turned back to the half-buried front end, then back at the door. He could probably man-handle the thing, but then again, it is made to keep out the vacuum of space. Also, why waste some energy when there was an alternative?

He turned back around at the front of the pod. Dirt and rock covered the entire dashboard. Walking over, he started to dig a bit off. He found what he was looking for under a small rock. A conventional giant red button with a hard plastic cover over it, the words CAUTION printed in red.

The button turned the door of the pod into something similar of an ODST pods door, High pressure was kept and could be used to blast the door straight off its hinges with the push of this button. As he flipped open the plastic cover, he heard something at the door. He turned and looked in its direction; hand over the hilt of his pistol. He quickly discarded it as the pod merely buckling slightly under its weakened armor.

He continued opening the cover and punched the red button. There was a sudden plume of steam and the door shot away. There was a high pitched screech as it flew through the air. It sounded like a living thing…

This time completely taking out his pistol, he crept towards the outside world. He checked each corner, and, making sure nothing was there, more carefully checked his surroundings. Far to his left, a light forest area began. To his right, the mountain range. He could see the lake from here.

He took a look at where the pod door had landed. It was indented into one of the few trees in the grassy area. He shrugged and looked away for a moment. As he turned away, he did a double take. He noticed something at the last moment. He carefully watched a green feather gently float to the ground. He looked at the door, then back at the feather. Did he? No, what were the chances. But that would explain the screech… But still, the chance was too slim.

He carefully walked over to the tree, pistol raised. He stopped in front of it and slightly lowered the gun. He raised a hand to move the door, but it dropped by itself, revealing something behind. A green horse with a lighter green mane was planted into the tree, a wide circle around it, marking were the door had been. Upon closer inspection, it had wings.

Well, that explained it. He was going crazy. A pegasus. The stuff of ancient myth and kids stories. How this thing wasn’t obliterated was a mystery, too. As a matter of fact, it looked like it wasn’t that badly damaged. A few broken bones, maybe a bit of internal bleeding, other than that, it was a miracle. He grabbed the poor thing and took it out of the trees grasp. He looked back at the tree. It had left a rather comical outline of the small horse.

One thing was for sure though, they wouldn’t have to worry about a shortage of MRE’s for a bit. Circle of Life.

He heard a noise behind him, and turned to watch Anders undo the harness around her chest. She stood up and attempted to stretch. This ended with her painfully holding her head. She walked out and shielded her eyes from the sun. “Were on Earth did we land?” she asked nobody in particular.

“Couldn’t tell you, Ma’am.”

“Oh, quit with the ‘ma’am’. It’s annoying and I don’t like i-“ She stopped mid-sentence and look at what was in Jerome’s arms. “I- Is that?”

She walked over to the green horse in his arms. “A pegasus? This is supposed to be a myth! And what happened to the poor thing? We gotta fix it up!”

Well, so much for trying something new.

“Oh… uh, yeah. I was going to do that.”Jerome replied as he walked over to get a medical kit.

Anders stayed inside for a moment, probably looking for a tech pad to record science-y stuff. He gently set down the pegasus and opened up the med kit. He cut open a tiny hole in its chest and inserted a can of Bio-foam. The white liquid quickly expanded into a soft solid, blocking any internal bleeding. He bandaged the area and searched for anything else. Its right wing was bent unnaturally. Nothing bad, just a bit dislocated it seemed. He snapped it back into place.

The horse suddenly came to life and yelped loudly. It stared at Jerome and backed away, breathing heavily. As it put a good two feet in-between Jerome and itself, it became aware of his injuries. It gave another yelp and held its bandaged chest. Jerome continued to sit there, legs crossed patiently, his hand still holding the bandage rap. Ander’s head poked out of the pod behind him. “What happened, what did I miss?”

Her eyes focused on the pegasus. She still couldn’t believe it! A real live pegasus. Which wasn’t really possible, but still! Here one was, right in front of her. She would like to see Dr. Halsey’s face right now.

“Oh! Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you!” Anders moved slightly towards it.

The pegasus looked towards Anders this time, still hyperventilating. Its breathing sounded different, almost human-like. Anders continued to move towards it.

“Don’t, you’re just going to scare it. After all, you did just come out of the thing that nearly killed him.” Jerome continued to watch the pegasus.

“Speaking of which, you still haven’t told me what happened.” Anders said, curiosity easily heard in her voice.

Jerome simply pointed over to the tree. Anders followed his finger and stopped at the tree. She saw the door on the ground, the indent of the pegasus in the tree, and a few green feathers on the ground.

“YOU BEAT IT WITH THE DOOR OF THE POD?!” Anders yelled.

Jerome inwardly face-palmed. “No. The door was stuck and I had to blow it off. It was lucky enough to be standing in front of it.” For a moment, he wandered what Alice and Douglas were doing. Maybe they had found some other mystical creature? Heh, for all he knew, this entire world was inhabited by pegasi.

Either way, he was sure that his team was OK. The pegasus again attempted to put some distance between them, but failed for asecond time. Jerome laid down the bandage and put both his hands out. It was starting to calm down, but they couldn’t sit here all day. He tried whistling for it. He tried handing out some grass. Finally, he was out of patience. “Alright then. It’s getting late, we need to move. Anders, grab what you can. We are leaving.”

“But what about the pegasus? You’re not going to leave it, are you?” Anders asked.

“I’m not going to take it with me, no. It would only cause problems. Come on. We will get Douglas first, he’s closer.” Jerome harshly stated.

Anders took one last look at the green pegasus in front of her. There would be more, right? Were there’s one, there is another. She obediently turned to follow.

“W- Wait! Hold on!”

Jerome and Anders stopped and turned around, looking about for the source of the noise.

“Don’t leave me here! I can’t even walk!” the green pegasus begged.

Anders and Jerome stared for a moment. “…Say again?” Anders asked; a hint of confusion in her voice. It…. Spoke English?

“I can’t be out here during dark, who knows what could be lurking around!”

Anders looked at Jerome, but the Spartans didn’t stop looking at the pegasus. There was no way of knowing what his thoughts were behind the gold faceplate.

When he spoke though, he didn’t seem surprised at all. “You had your chance. Like I said, you’re only going to cause problems. I can’t go around carrying some random talking myth everywhere I go.”

Jerome turned back around and continued walking. Anders looked at Jerome, then back at the pegasus. “Jerome, we have to take it. It’s a talking pegasus! Think of what we can learn! We can’t leave it here to die!”

Jerome stopped and turned back. “With all due respect Professor Anders, my Spartans are more important to me than some horse. I have control of this mission, and you will obey my commands.”

“I think my spot in ONI overpowers you!” Anders remarked.

Jerome thought for a moment. She was right, even if Cutter gave him control. “We are light-years from any human civilization. For all we know, this war is over. ONI doesn’t exist here. I. Said. No.” Jerome spat.

“That doesn’t make a difference! Even if I am a civilian, I have just about as much power over you as Dr. Halsey!” Anders ran back over and gently cradled the pegasus in her arms, being careful not to harm it. It was very heavy,
considering it was a pegasus and all. Yet, it was very small, and chances were, its bones weren’t that dense (probably so it would be able to fly), so she would be able to manage. "You're a Spartan. You follow higher officials no matter where you are.

Jerome scowled at her. In a sense, Dr. Halsey was a mother to all the Spartans. He knew Halsey and Anders had some kind of rivalry, and was surprised she brought her up in the first place. “OK then, it’s yours. Don’t expect me to ‘care’ for it or anything.” Jerome angrily said as he resumed walking.

The pegasus let out a sigh of relief. Then something struck his mind. “Wait, I live the other way!”

“Darn. We’ll drop you off on our way back.” Jerome continued walking.

Anders kept her distance; she knew she had really pissed him off. To pass some time, she asked the pegasus questions. The usual ‘what planet is this’, ‘are there others’ and ‘how do you fly’ stuff. The pegasus was still nervous talking to an alien that fell from the sky, but after a while, he became comfortable with talking to the Professor. She was in the middle of asking what other kinds of species were on this planet when she accidentally bumped into Jerome.

Jerome stood still, like an iron wall. He held his sniper up to his face, as if he was scanning the area. Anders noticed the lake getting closer. She squinted and looked off into the difference. She didn’t see anything.

Suddenly, Jerome spoke up. “I got Douglas on the Comm. We’re going to meet him at the other side of that lake. C’mon.” Jerome continued walking.

Anders was glad to finally be able to stop and rest. Her arms were starting to burn. She didn’t dare ask for a break, it would only piss Jerome off more. Not to mention she still had a point to prove.

As they reached the other side of the lake, Anders was able to spot the second Spartan sitting down, a small bit of wood and dried grass in a pile in front of him. Douglas spied the two. He dragged two fingers across his faceplate, the Spartan ‘smile’ sign. He then noticed Anders new pet.

“I see you met with some of this worlds inhabitants?” Douglas asked as they got closer.

“You don’t seem surprised. Have you?” Jerome replied with another question.

“Yeah, except bigger, scalier, and not good at making friends.” Douglas told them.

“Oh? Would you mind telling us more?” Jerome sat down as Douglas started the fire, ignoring Anders behind him, who was re-bandaging the pegasus. The sun started to creep down over the horizon.

“Sure” Douglas explained everything that had happened in the mountains. The pegasus cringed at the details.

Anders noticed this and continued asking more questions. “So, I never did catch your name.”

The pegasus turned his attention to the Professor. “Huh?”

“Your name.”

“Oh, I’m Wind Storm. And you?” the pegasus pointed at her with his nose.

“I am Professor Ellen Anders. Pleasure to meet you! I have to admit, you acted calmer than I expected you for meeting aliens. Especially after we accidentally crushed you with the back of our pod…” Anders chuckled to herself, making it slightly awkward.

“Why were you by the pods anyway?” Anders asked.

“The same reason you probably would’ve. Curiosity.” Wind Storm simply stated.

She nodded in agreement. Immediately, the saying. ‘Curiosity killed the cat’ came to her mind. Except, the cat had wings and was hit by a giant piece of space metal. She felt it was getting to awkward, and stopped the conversation.

She listened back to Jerome and Douglas.

“I don’t suppose you know anything about Alice?” Jerome asked in a somber tone.

“No, just that she landed pretty hard into that mountain.” Douglas replied, nodding towards the strange looking mountain in the distance.

“Well, for now, all we can do is hope she’s okay.” Jerome said.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure she didn’t even have it as bad as me.” Douglas assured him. “Cmon, you get some sleep. I’ll keep post.”

Jerome nodded to himself. Not bothering to use his thermal blanket, he simply laid down next to the fire and drifted off. ‘Yeah… Alice can handle herself. What’s the worst that could happen?’

Author's Notes:

More basic editing, added a reason for Jerome to follow Anders orders. As for word choice, I'm gonna start using Wind Storms' name a lot more often now. This chapter was obviously to explain what happened to Jerome and Anders and then some, including the meet-up of Douglas and the two, and more importantly, a small rivalry of who controls the mission which will show up later.

Escape Artist

Seven white four-legged creatures stood around her, all pointing some sort of weapon at her. Instinct kicked in. She did the first thing every Spartan was trained to do when faced with a threat.

She reacted.

The one’s hand… hoof... hovered for a moment. As fast as lightning, her hand shot out and grabbed the hoof. She pulled down, and the… pony… tripped over and fell. Before it hit the ground, Alice smashed her head against its head. It was instantly knocked unconscious, a small bout of blood dripping from its forehead. She jumped to her feat and took a fighting stance, feet spread, hands up in front of her chest.

Before any of the other startled ponies could move, she targeted what she thought was the one in command. A white bodied, blue maned… unicorn? She discarded it into her mind. She had to pay attention. She quickly ran and tackled it to the ground. She raised her fist into the air, then brought it down onto the unicorn.

It moved its head to the side, barely missing the Spartans fist. It’s started kicking at Alice, with little success. She felt something on top of her, then another. Apparently, they were going to dog-pile her. She ignored them as they tried to push her off. She whipped out her pistol, and aiming it down, pulled the trigger three times. Just before she did, her hand was wrapped in a rosy-red aura and whipped to the side. The bullets whizzed past, piercing the wall to the right.

Her hand then shot up and hit herself in the head. And again. And again. She fought the invisible force, all while the ponies kept punching at her and the one below her kicking. She still couldn’t hear a single thing.

Finally, she was able to force the pistol to turn back towards the unicorn under her. Inside her helmet, she smirked. She pulled the trigger. The unicorn locked eyes with her faceplate. There was a click. What? WHAT? She pulled the trigger again and again, each time receiving a click. She looked at the ground. The unicorn must’ve accidentally dropped her clip.

For a moment, she was dumbfounded. The one second she lost concentration was enough, and the ponies on top of her finally pushed her off. Alice was forced onto her back. The unicorn got up, anger burning in its eyes. She holstered her pistol, not bothering to reload. She reeled back and punched one of the ponies on top of her. It recoiled and fell off. She then kicked out into anothers gut, and he was also pushed off. She simply forced herself up, and the remaining ones just fell off.

One the ponies that had dog-piled her stood up, and, revealing a pair of wings, shot forward. It flew right into Alice. Alice really wasn’t sure what it was trying to accomplish. She easily held her ground and grabbed the pegasus. She picked him up onto the air, and then drop kicked it away. The pegasus bounced to the ground, a large dent in its chest armor.

She turned to face another attacker. This one was also a unicorn. Its horn glowed, and a bolt shot through the air. It smacked into her, and then dissipated away. It brought her shield down by a sixth. She flipped out her knife, and, expertly catching it by the blade, flicked her wrist and extended her arm. The knife flew straight and true, but suddenly, it just stopped, the blade a mere inch away from its head. It was covered in an aura similar to the one her hand was wrapped in, but this time white.

For a moment, the unicorn stood there, shocked at how close it had been to death. A sixth guard, a regular pony, started to run towards Alice. The unicorn shook out of it, turned the knife back towards Alice, and it shot towards her. Just before the sixth guard hit, she sidestepped, dodged the knife, and kicked the sixth guard. This was becoming more like football than anything. The pony flew into its fellow guard, and they both tumbled down. The knife lodged itself into the wall behind her.

Now, were was that first one…

She turned and again faced the blue-maned unicorn. He scratched at the ground, and started running towards her. She noticed its horn start to glow. She bent and turned her right knee, then dug her left into the ground for support. She met the pony head-on. The horn exploded, and her shields drastically decreased. Add the surprising force of the unicorn, her shields shattered. The pony crushed her already broken ribs. She grunted in pain, but held her ground. Grabbing the pony by its shoulders, she twisted around and threw it into the wall.

The pony slammed against the wall, and fell to the ground, unmoving. As the last of the seven ponies went down, she heard something… different. In the back of her mind, there was a male voice, she swear she heard it. What did it say? …Killimanjaro? She shook her head; she must’ve been imagining it. Other than that, she still heard nothing.

She noticed something rather large on her radar. Quickly, she turned around, and, slamming another mag into her pistol, jammed it into the chin of a new pony behind her.

For a moment, her body felt all tingly. She then found that she couldn’t move most of her body.

It’s stood almost at her height, not counting the horn it also had. Alice noted it also had wings. She recognized it from Déjà’s teachings, an alicorn. It held a seldom, almost emotionless face. It was easy to tell this one was there leader, judging by the way it had a crown and all.

She noticed her assault rifle across the room behind it.

It looked at her, as if it could see through her faceplate.

Alice staggered a bit; she was starting to lose blood.

The alicorns horn lit once more, and everything disappeared.

***

Celestia stared at the thing in front of her, the object it held jutting into her chin.

She frowned, and with a simple spell, put it to sleep, bad nightmares to be unlocked from its mind. It would have to pay for what it did. She looked around the room. The guard that touched it was still unconscious, a red line leading from its forehead to the tip of his snout. The one that had been punched was also unconscious, a huge dent in its helmet. The one that had been kicked lay on the ground, coughing, the wind knocked out of him. The one that was drop-kicked was at the other side of the room, holding onto its chest, his ribs probably broken. The earth-pony and unicorn untangled themselves.

Finally, her eyes rested on Shining Armor. He lay against the wall, sitting awkwardly. He held his head as if he had a huge headache.

She sighed. Great. She was going to have to erase some of her ponies minds about what just happened, get her guards patched up, and do something with... whatever the thing at her hooves was.

She looked over at Luna, who hadn’t even gotten up from her chair. Her eyes were wide, wondering what the heck just happened. The thing moved so fast, the battle barely even lasted a minute.

She sighed again. Time to get to work…

***

Alice’s eyes fluttered open. She was in a dark corridor, her back to the wall. She had no armor on, just her regular clothes. She looked around. She saw nothing.

She got up and started walking. She walked for what seemed like a mile, twisting around corners and up and down stairs. She turned another corner when she saw something different. Jerome sat crouched, scanning around with an MA37. He stopped when he saw her.

“Alice?” he asked.

She tried to answer, but she couldn’t. She tried to open her mouth, but it was as if it was sown closed.

“Alice, say something!” Jerome asked.

She spotted something behind him. The Arbiter from the shield world slowly came into view. Alice tried to warn Jerome, but still nothing came out. The Arbiter grabbed Jerome by the neck, and Jerome dropped his rifle. He reached for The Arbiters hand and tried to pull it off, but to no avail.

The Arbiter laughed as it flicked its wrist out, an energy sword flickering to life. He speared Jerome through his chest, and wrenched it sideways. Jerome jerked for a moment, and stopped moving.

Alice tried to scream, but still nothing came out.

Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder pull her back around the corner. She turned around to see who her attacker was. Douglas sat there, one finger in front of his face-plate, indicating to stay quiet. He slowly walked around the corner, an assault rifle raised. Alice heard something. Douglas, also hearing it, looked towards the area of the sound.

Suddenly, something burst from the shadows. Something she had wished to never see again. A flood infection form jumped from seemingly nowhere, and attached it to Douglas’ face. He ripped it off and crushed it in his hand. More and more jumped from the shadows, and Douglas desperately tried to stop them. One jumped onto his back, and its tentacle pierced through his armor and into his spine. He jerked about at impossible angles, and the infection form burrowed into his body. The left side of his armor split, revealing a huge, bulbous arm. He grabbed his helmet and ripped it off. He reared back and gave an inhuman roar. He turned towards Alice.

She felt so helpless without her armor. She backed away, and felt her back hit the wall. The hallway had disappeared, leaving her nowhere to go. Douglas… no, this was no longer Douglas… the flood rushed towards her, giving out a blood-curdling scream. It smashed her into the wall, knocking her unconscious.

***

Alice jerked awake. She was hyperventilating, the effect of the nightmare subsiding. She sighed in relief as her green armor hugged her body. She looked around; she was in a small white room. There seemingly was no door. She dragged herself off the ground, her legs shaking. The recent events flashed in her mind. Her falling through the sky, crashing into the castle, and fighting the ponies. She also remembered why she couldn’t hear anything. Duh, she had turned her outside audio off so she wouldn’t go deaf after she opened the pod door in-atmosphere. She turned it back on and tried to figure out where she was.

She had a sudden thought, ‘Damn. I got my ass handed to me by a pony…’

Well, not necessarily. She had beaten down quite a few of them. She once again examined the room. It was all the same. It reminded her of one of those lab rooms, were the scientists examine something from a safe area. If that was the case, then where was the scientist…?

She ran her hand across the wall. It was bumpy. She continued to do this around the room, until finally, the wall smoothened out. She flexed her fist, getting ready to break out.

*

A brown pony in a white lab coat stood in a small room. On the table in front of him were three objects recovered from the room with the fight. The first, the one he was least interested in, was a knife. The second was some kind of barrel with a handle and guard, like a tiny sword with the hilt bent so there was a 90 degree angle. The third was… well, he didn’t really know how to describe it. It looked kinda like two rectangles attached by a stick with a triangle handle.

Using his magic, the professor picked up the bigger object and fiddled around with it. He pushed a button next to the handle, and a box fell out and onto the ground. Curious, he set the object down and picked up the box. On the top was some kind of container with a triangle shoved into it. He set it back down and looked out of the one-sided window. Oh, look at that. The alien was awake.

But, the professor didn’t like stopping in the middle of his studies, and continued to screw around with the box.

As he discovered that you could take out the tiny containers and that there were more in the box, there was a crash behind him. He turned back to the window. There was a green fist through it, and it pulled itself out. He watched the alien grabbed the sides of the hole and pull it in, enlarging it. It jumped though, landing on its feet and crouched.

It turned towards the professor, and for a moment, they had a stare-down. The professor was sweating. He looked over to a small lever, and then looked back at the alien. The alien looked at the lever. Etched above it were the words ‘Security Alarm’.

The professor kept alternating between the lever and the alien. The alien shook its head, as if saying no. It then took a finger and dragged it across its neck. The professor decided on what he would do. Using his magic, he picked up the large barrel thing on the table and smacked it against his head. He swirled for a second, and then fell over.

*

Alice couldn’t help but laugh at what she just saw. That was just too good. That was one extra thing about her armor. Intimidation. She grabbed her assault rifle and smacked the clip into it. She then grabbed her pistol and holstered it. Lastly, she grabbed the knife. Inspecting it, she decided it was still nice and sharp and slid it back into its sheath. Now, her new mission. Get out of this place at all cost.

Her equipment set, she looked around the new room. A door was directly across from her. She walked over and opened it. The room was at the end of a hallway. At the other end, she could see a guard pony keeping post. A thought came to her mind. She remembered that she had The Arbiters cloak unit. Pulling it out of her pack, she inspected it for a moment. She also took out her tac-pad and searched through the forerunner database. Finding the icon she wanted, she tapped its replica on the cloak unit.

She watched her own body fade away. She was, essentially, a whisper in the wind. A ghost. She silently went through the door and crouch-walked down the corridor. She pulled out her knife as she silently came up onto the pony. She stood over it and looked to the left, then to the right. To the right, she saw a pony, a unicorn, walk past. Once it was gone, she covered the guards muzzle and swiped the knife along its throat. The guard made a guttural cough, started grabbing at its neck, and went limp. She opened another door next to her marked Janitor and dragged the body into it.

She continued down the hallway and went left instead of right. It continued down until the end, were it took another left. Being it the only way to go, she obviously went left. She peeked around the corner. She spotted two more guards, each one facing opposite ways. The one facing her was a pegasus, and the one facing the other way was a unicorn.

Ever so slowly, she crouch-walked over to the pegasus. She twirled the knife over her palm and grabbed the blade. She jumped out, grabbed the pegasus’s head and threw the knife. The knife planted itself through the helmet and into the unicorn’s skull. She then twisted the head of pegasus and broke its neck with a wet snap.

They both fell to the ground and the Spartan faded back into a shadow. She walked over and pulled the knife out of the unicorn and wiped the blood away. She didn’t really know where to hide these ones, so she left them and hoped she would be out of thi-

She stopped as she turned around. Another guard stared back at the bare shimmer. Quickly, its wings snapped out and it flew away. God damnit. So much for stealth. She got up and ran towards the end of the hallway and turned in the direction of the pegasus. She saw it go around another corner and vanish. She again followed it around said corner, and stopped as she met two more guards. Behind them, she watched the pegasus continue onwards, probably to get help.

She whipped out her pistol and shot twice, hitting both ponies in the forehead before they could even react. She once again turned a corner and watched the pegasus smack a big red button. Nothing happened. The pegasus looked around and saw her. It started pushing the button over and over, but nothing happened. The second time the pegasus turned around, the Spartan was right behind him.

The pegasus yelped as the Spartan kicked it down, and then brought the knife down onto it. Suddenly, it stopped, an inch away from its head. Alice looked at her hand. It was covered in a rose aura. She turned and looked at the doorway. There stood the same unicorn she had fought back at her crash-site, it’s eyes burning with anger. She forced her hand out of the spell and ran towards it. The unicorn’s horn lit up a bit, and a purple see-through wall appeared in front of her. Using her free hand, she took out her pistol and shot the shield three times. It cracked, and Alice burst through it without breaking stride.

She tackled the unicorn against the wall and stabbed at its neck. Her hand was pushed to the side again by its magic. Its horn lit up and blasted her with some kind of bolt. It pushed her back a bit, and her shields went down to half, but she still kept her hold on the unicorn. The ponies eyes looked at something behind her and Alice saw a blip on her radar. She quickly turned around; still keeping her body pushed against the unicorn, and pulled out her pistol. The pegasus was running towards her. She quickly shot twice, each in its chest. The pegasus stumbled, tripped, and fell to the floor.

The unicorn was stared at the guard lying limp on the ground. Alice took this moment and brought the knife up into its chest. She wrenched it back and forth, and took it out. She let the pony fall to the floor. Looking back out of the doorway, she could hear more guards coming. She didn’t have time for this.

She examined the room she was in, and spied a big wooden door. She burst through it, revealing a place different than the pure white hallways. A nice big room with color and statues of various things stood before her. She ran through it, startling a few random civilians. She turned a corner, and was rewarded with a bigger door, wide open, revealing the outside world.

She also found another bigger-than-apparently-normal pony. This time a navy blue coat and a dark blue mane that seemed to hold the stars within. It turned around as it heard her.

What she said was surprising. “Why hello there mysterious alien that fell from the sky! We must say, we have been meaning to meet you! Wait, did our guards let you out?”

She stopped for a moment to think. “Uh, yeah. They did. Nice to meet you, but I have to get going.”

Alice ran past the blue alicorn and out the door.

“OK then, please visit us sometime! We have many questions!” The alicorn called back.

Alice ignored her and kept running. She burst through the opening and was surprised to find a huge set of stairs. She tripped and fell down 10 of them before regaining balance. The two guards sitting at the opening were startled, and stared awkwardly at her. Alice just kept running. She reached the bottom of the stairs when she heard the guards yelling at her. She turned a corner at the bottom of the stairs, behind some house. She clicked the cloaking unit back on, and watched the guard ponies turn the corner and keep going. She sighed. Now what was this place, some kind of city? If that was the case, she would have to wait until nightfall to go anywhere. She was sure some civilians had already seen her, not only in the castle, but as she ran down the stairs and around the corner too.

‘Great.’ She sat down, still cloaked. ‘Guess it’s time to wait.’

Author's Notes:

Basic editing, word choice, etc. Easily one of my favorite chapters. I think I said that a chapter or two ago. Oh well, I'm to lazy to check. This set the fact of ponies being an enemy instead of an ally, something i have yet to meet. I might have said that already to. Oh well, to lazy to check. There are some people who don't like the violence shown to the ponies. I'm kinda confused at this when they are perfectly fine with it happening to the covenant. Maybe because they are enemy they've gotten used to? I don't know, but sorry to say, expect more of it. This is a war.

Bad First Impression

Douglas was slowly nudged awake. He looked up and found Jerome lightly kicking him up.

“Cmon, time to go.” Jerome told him.

Douglas and Jerome had alternated in the night, switching watch hours. “Anything interesting happen?” Douglas asked as he picked himself up and got his equipment together.

“Nothing. Not even a bird or something.” Jerome replied, walking over to the still sleeping Anders. The pony was curled up next to her.

Douglas decided to again look about his surroundings. A long ways away, he could see the mountain Alice crashed into. The forest was also a ways away. They could cut through the forest or go around it.

“Hey Jerome, which way are we going to go?” Douglas asked.

Jerome shook Anders a bit until her eyes fluttered open. “I was thinking about that earlier. I don’t really think we should go through the forest. Not enough open space, to many unknowns. Go around, we got time to see if anything is coming. On the other hand, the forest is much quicker, but going around will obviously take a lot longer. Maybe another day. What do you think?” Jerome listed the facts.

“I think we should go around. We get stuck with something big in the forest, can’t blow it up without killing ourselves.” Douglas suggested.

He hadn’t felt the shockwave of an explosion in a while… oh how it satisfied him to leave behind nothing but a crater were his enemy used to be.

“Anders? How about you?” Jerome turned over to the Professor, who was waking up the pony. What was his name? Wind Trench or something?

“Huh? Oh, I agree with you. Rather not get dirty anyway.” Anders said.

The pony stood up and stretched. He flinched, remembering he was still wrapped up. “How long do I have to stay in this thing again?” He asked, poking at the bandaging around his chest.

“At least four more days. You did break some ribs.” Anders told him.

Wind Storm sighed.

“Around the forest it is. Cmon, I want to get an early start.” Jerome hefted up his sniper and stuck it to his back.

Wind Storms ears perked up. “Around the forest? Where do you plan on going, I have to get home, remember?!”

“See that mountain?” Jerome pointed to the mountain Alice crashed into.

“Canterlot? What are you going to do there?” Wind Storm asked.

“Canterlot?” Douglas said.

“Yeah, that’s where Canterlot is. Home of the Princess’s.” Wind Storm stated

Jerome and Douglas looked at each other. “Princess?” Jerome asked.

“Yeah, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They raise the sun and moon.”

Anders suddenly looked interested. “Raise the sun and moon?” Anders questioned.

“Well, yeah. They use their magic. How else would they?”

Jerome decided to leave them to their conversation and get moving.

“You think Alice met the ‘Princess’?” Douglas suddenly piped up.

“Well, if she hit close enough, probably. Depends on how far, and probably which side of the mountain.” Jerome answered.

Douglas looked down for a moment, thinking. “If she did, do you think it went well?”

“I don’t know. Hopefully.” Jerome said.

It got awkwardly quiet. So, they just continued walking, watching for anything out of place. Behind the two, the Professor and the pony were still talking on and on. The ground started to slowly lose its soft grass, and the dirt started to fade away into rock. The occasional tree started to become rarer. Everything changed from colorful to a dull orange-brown. Instead of the grassy meadow, they started to walk across a rocky badlands area.

Behind Jerome and Douglas, Anders noticed Wind Storm warily looking side to side.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“No… Not yet…” the pony answered.

“Well, is there something we should expect?” Ander asked with a frown on her face.

“I don’t know. It’s just this is where the Diamond Dogs like to be…” Wind Storm said, still looking about.

“Diamond Dogs?”

“Diamond Dogs are a kind of, well, dog that likes to hunt and eat gems… They tend to be rather hostile with other beings.” Wind Storm stopped just before he hit Jerome. He, again, had his sniper up.

“What do Diamond Dogs look like?” Jerome asked.

“Well, they can be grey, black, brown, that sort of thing.” Wind Storm asked, a bit confused.

“Big front arms, smaller back legs?” he continues questioning him.

“Yeah… Why?”

“And you said they weren’t friendly?”

“Yes.”

“What do you see Jerome?” Douglas asked.

“Well, looks like we got three of them. Plus a white pony and a small… I think that’s a dragon. Looks like there harassing them.” Jerome said.

“Dragon? I say blow its head of now.” Douglas suggested.

“No, this one looks small and harmless. After all, it would’ve burnt them to a crisp if it was dangerous. I’ll watch them. The moment they do something stupid though, the weasel’s gonna go pop.” Jerome said.

***

“Let go of him you brute!” Rarity yelled at the diamond dog, which was carrying Spike by the tail. “Didn’t you learn your learn your lesson the first time?”

“Yes, we did!” the smallest of the three diamond dogs, Spot, said. He held up a pair of ear-muffs and placed them on his head. They fit nice and cozy. He sat and watched as the white pony in front of him continued to whine, but nothing came out.

He laughed at her, and the other two put their ear-muffs on. The one in the middle of the two, Rover, still held Spike up. He poked his belly.

“How does this gem finding thing work now?” he asked.

The other two diamond dogs moved their mouths, but nothing came out. “What?” He asked.

Again, they moved their mouths, but nothing came out. “WHAT?!” he repeated.

Spike reached up to Rover’s hand and bit on it, hard.

The diamond dog recoiled and yelped in pain. He dropped Spike to the ground and looked down angrily. He reeled back and kicked Spike a few feet. He ripped off his ear-muffs in rage. “WHY YOU LITTLE SON OF A-“ Rover was cut off by a very loud bang in the distance. Both Rarity’s and Rovers ears perked to the noise.

Rover looked in the direction of which it came from. A second later, a white line pierced the dogs head, and he fell to the ground. The remaining two dogs walked over to him. “Uh… Rover? You OK?” The largest, Fido, asked. He poked at his head, which had a large hole in it.

There was another bang, and a moment later, Spot flopped to the ground. He looked down at Spot. He also had a hole, but in his chest. “Guys?” he asked. There was another loud bang, and a moment later, Fido joined his friends on their hugging competition with the ground.

***

Jerome watched as the pony and dragon ran off. He then continued to put down the other two dogs.

“WHAT IN THE HAY WAS THAT?!” Wind Storm yelled behind him.

“It’s a gun; the Spartans use it to defeat their enemies at long distances.” Anders answered for the two Spartans.

“And… what do you mean by defeat?” Wind Storm asked cautiously.

Anders thought for a moment on how to nicely explain it to him.

“It means I kill them.” Jerome solidly stated.

“You KILLED them?” Wind Storm asked.

“Well, yeah.” Jerome said, as if the answer was plain as day.

“That’s horrible! You just go around killing anypony you don’t like?!” Wind Storm asked with a face of bewilderment.

“That pretty much sums it up.” Douglas answered.

“I can’t believe you! That’s horrible! How can you live with yourself?!” Wind Storm asked them.

The Spartans just ignored him. “OK then, that problem is solved. Cmon, let’s go.” Jerome commanded.

***

“Wait wait wait, explain it again, but slower.” Twilight asked, a hint of frustration in her voice.

“I and Spikey were out looking for gems, and those Diamond Dogs showed up again!” Rarity explained.

“Again?! Didn’t they learn their lesson the last time?” Twilight asked.

“That’s what I said! And then they said ‘Yes we did!’ and he held up some ear-muffs and they put them on so they couldn’t hear me and then they were laughing and then Spike bit one of them and it kicked poor Spike and then there was a bang and then his head just EXPLODED! It was horrible, Twilight!” Rarity sniffed, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“What do you mean it exploded?” Twilight asked, confused.

“It just, BOOM!” she waved her hooves around for effect. “And half of his head was just… gone!”

“Oh dear… I don’t know what could do that…” Twilight said, trying not to imagine the thought.

“Me either, but I’m NEVER going back there!” Rarity yelled.

“Hmmm… I think I should send a letter to the princess. Spike!” She turned around and found Spike already waiting there, quill and paper in hand.

“OK,

Dear Princess Celestia,

Something strange has come up, I think you-“

Spike stopped for a moment. “Is there something wrong?” Twilight asked curiously.

Spike punched his chest. “Hold on.” He looked like he trying to cough, but then, he gave a loud burp. Green flame filled the air and a rolled piece of parchment floated to the ground.

“Oh, alright then.” Twilight picked up the paper with her magic.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle,

Something has happened. I am sending a chariot to you, gather the elements and meet me at the castle.

Princess Celestia.”

“Huh. She didn’t write ‘My faithful student’ or anything like that. It must be important!” Twilight read through it again, wondering what could be wrong. “You wait here Rarity, I’ll go find the others!” Twilight said as she trotted away.

She used her magic to open the door, and was met by Pinkie Pie, who was bouncing in place. “I’m ready to go!” she said cheerily.

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked. She was pretty sure she knew.

“For our trip to Canterlot! It’s gonna be great! Or it’ll be bad, because something bad is happening! But hopefully, it’ll be great!”

Twilight stared awkwardly at her for a moment, and then stepped aside. “Go over to Rarity, I’m gonna get the others…”

Pinkie Pie bounced by, and Twilight left, closing the door behind her. She decided to get Applejack first.

She trotted along, keeping an eye out for her on her way to Sweet Apple Acres. On her way, she noticed a particularly… different… cloud.

She inspected it a bit more. There was a bit of rainbow hanging from it. She moved over a bit to get a better look.

“Rainbow Dash, what on earth are you doing?” she stared quizzically at the cyan pegasus. She was hanging by her tail from a cloud, limbs lazily dangling about.

“Just hanging.” She said, a small smile on her face.

“But why like that?”

“Saw a picture of a sloth doing it on a tree. Looked pretty comfortable. Turns out, sloth’s have it made.” Rainbow Dash said. She did look very content.

Twilight shook her head. “OK then, I need you to go to my library. Pinkie Pie and Rarity are already there. We're heading to Canterlot, apparently something came up, and Celestia would like to see us.”

Rainbow let out and over-dramatic moan. “Fine.”

She unhooked herself and flew upside-down for a second before righting herself. She then shot away in the direction of Twilight's library.

She continued her trek to Sweet Apple Acres.

She finally came up to the wooden gate that led to the farmstead. She pushed it open and walked in, closing the gate behind her. Almost immediately, as if by nature, Applebloom ran up.

“Hi there, Twilight!” she said as she skidded to a stop. “Whatchya doin’ here?”

“I’m here to find Applejack, you wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, she’s out with Fluttershy helpin’ one of the cows! It’s sick or somethin’. Probably didn’t help when me, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle tried to make it better by feeding it a bunch of butter…” she said, an embarrassed smile on her face.

“OK, thanks Applebloom!” Twilight said cheerily as she started to walk towards the area Applejack keeps her cows.

As she trotted around the barn, she found the herd of cows, all mowing away at the grass. Twilight weaved between them, searching for Fluttershy and Applejack. She found them next to a cow with a ice bag on its head. The cow was leisurely eating some grass. It didn’t look very sick to Twilight.

“OK then, just give her the medicine twice a day for about a week.” Fluttershy said to Applejack.

“Alrighty then, thanks a lot Fluttershy!” Applejack thanked her.

“Applejack, Fluttershy! I’ve been looking for you two!”

Fluttershy yelped at the noise behind her, but settled down when she noticed it was Twilight. “Oh, please don’t do that… I mean, it would be nice…”

“Lookin' for us? Watchya need?” Applejack asked.

“We need to get to the library! Princess Celestia has requested an audience; the chariot will be here soon.” Twilight explained.

“Oh, OK, uhh… hold on, you two go to the library, I gotta give Mac this medicine.” Applejack trotted off in the direction of her house.

“Cmon Fluttershy!” Twilight started to walk off.

“OK…”

*

Twilight opened the door to her house, Fluttershy right behind her. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie were rambling on about something, and Rarity sat quietly, looking through a fabric book. They all looked up as the door was shut behind Twilight.

“Alright, Applejack will be here in a bit. Are we all ready?” Twilight looked around.

They all gave their various yes’s and nods.

“Great! Now we just gotta wait for Applejack.” She said.

As she finished, there was a knock on the door. She turned around and opened in. A pony, plad in gold armor, looked inside. “Twilight Sparkle?”

“The one and only! You must be here to get us?”

“Yes. I suppose you are all ready?”

“Just finished up! But we are still waiting for our friend Applejack. I’m sure she will be here in a moment. Do you have any idea what this is for anyway?”

The guard looked nervously side to side. “Uh, I think it would be best if the princess told you.” He hated being the bearer of bad news.

“Nonsense, I’m sure it’s OK. I’m curious!”

The guard sighed. “You know Shining Armor?”

“Of course I do, he’s my brother, remember?” Twilight said in an annoyed voice.

“Well, he kinda got stabbed by an alien who fell from the sky. He’s in the hospital right now, and, well, he might not get out…” the guard said.

For a moment, Twilight stood there. Then, she laughed. “Haha, you’ve gotta be kidding. Princess Celestia must know it’s not April Fouls day, right?”

“Uh… no… the alien also killed six of the royal guard, and sent another six to the hospital, not counting Shining Armor…”

Twilight just kinda stood there. Rainbow Dash came up behind her. “Uh, Twilight, you OK?”

Twilight’s smile slowly faded into a frown. She stared at seemingly nothing for a bit, until Applejack walked up.

“Alright, the deed’s done. Did I miss anything?” She said.

She saw Twilight, and immediately, she knew something was wrong.

“Uh, sugarcube? You OK?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Cmon, let’s get going.” Her voice cracked a bit.

Everybody stared awkwardly at Twilight, but followed her to the chariot. The ride to Canterlot was very quiet.

Abduction

“You did WHAT?” Celestia raised her voice at her sister.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know!”

“How could you not know that was the thing that killed six of our guard and beat the shit out of another seven, RIGHT IN FRONT OF US?!” Celestia yelled. She was, to say the least, pissed.

“Well, it didn’t try to kill me! So I thought maybe it was a different one.” Luna said, much calmer than her older sister.

“What do you mean? There is only one here! We only locked up one! You think we had a civilization of killer aliens in our basement?” Celestia questioned.

“Well, this is your fault anyway!” Luna accused.

“WHAT? MY FAULT?”

“Yes, if you hadn’t threatened it the moment it touched down with your guard, you wouldn’t of angered it!”

Celestia though that over. It was true, and it probably wouldn’t of done much if her guards hadn’t sat there pointing swords and what not at it. “Well, you didn’t order them to stand down either!”

“They weren’t my guards. I’ll bet you my Lunar Guards would’ve waited for orders before doing something so stupid!”

“Ugghh, you piss me off so much sometimes!”

Luna sighed. She remembered the last time she saw Celestia angry. “Calm down sister, I’ll have my Lunar Guards find it. Don’t worry.”

“Are you saying my guards can’t?” Celestia said challengingly.

“Yes. Yes I am. My Lunar Guards are much better trained and can see better in the night than your Guards can during the day. Not only that, but they will be sneakier while they are at it.”

It was now Celestia’s turn to sigh. “Fine, I will trust you. If you need me, I’ll will be in my room. There are a few things I must do.”

Luna watched Celestia walk away. She hoped her guards could find this monster.

***

Alice continued to sit there for a moment, catching her breathe. There was a sharp pain in her chest as she was reminded that her fall came with consequences. She opened a small bag with a red plus on it and pulled out a can of bio-foam. Inserting it into a cavity specifically for this purpose on her chest, she squeezed the trigger. She could feel an icy liquid spill through her chest, and then quickly harden. That should keep it for a nice long while.

She slid down into a slumped position, her back scraping against the wall. How long had it been anyways? She couldn’t of been sleeping for too long. She looked up into the sky. The sun was making its journey down-wards. She checked her mission clock. Oh, wow. One day had gone past. She evaluated the situation.

First off, it would appear that she was now at war with a bunch of ponies. How comical. Second, she had to get to her pod. She couldn’t wait to hold her beloved machine gun. It was probably the only reason she survived the Shield World. Third, she was as far as she could get from human-controlled space. That definitely wasn’t good. Fourth, she had no idea where Jerome or Douglas were.

She sighed. She was in one giant piece of shit. Standing up, she stretched for a moment, and then slowly moved to the edge of the building. She spied a few guards walking amongst the civilians, secretly looking for her. Looks like they were trying to cover her up. She wasn’t surprised. Random alien walking through town killing everybody? Chances are, some people would freak out.

Alice was fine with that, it made it much easier to sneak her way out of here without a bunch of pony’s running around looking for the even the slightest suspicious thing.

As she sat there, a back door opened a few feet from her. Alice froze, keeping her eye on the door. A pony walked out and threw something away, then walked back inside.

Well that was random. But, it told her she shouldn’t stay to long, or risk being caught. She slowly lifted herself from her crouched position, cracking her back a few times on her way up. She walked towards the corner the guards flew around, away from the castle. Looking around the wall, she spied a darker alley across the street. She waited for a small break in the crowd and ran across the street in four strides. She nearly bumped into a pegasus.

As she stopped in her new alley, she turned around. The pegasus sat there for a moment, as if trying to figure out what just happened. It simply shrugged and kept going on with its daily chores.

She turned her attention back to her new temporary home. No back doors or windows. She would be entirely shrouded in shadows. She again rested on the ground and looked up into the sky. There was a little chariot flying across the blue ocean of air. Huh. Wonder where they’re going.

She brought her attention back to… well, nothing really. Guess she can ponder about anything as of right now. She would be the first Spartan to say they took time to think about something other than strategy behind enemy lines. Oh boy, what an honor. She sat there for a moment, trying to think about what to think about. She could think about thinking. How do people think? Does thinking really even exist? I mean, really, no matter how much she knew about the human body, it always seemed a mystery.

Just then, she had the most cliché thought she had ever had. It made her facepalm just thinking about it.

What is life? How does life truly exist? Really, it just does not make sense. It never will in her mind. It’s one of those things you can’t explain… you just think about it.

She sat there for quite some time just thinking. She eventually dozed off thinking about cake.

***

When she woke up, it was night-time. She checked her mission clock. 9:43. Time to move. She slowly got up and walked to the end of her alley. She peered around the corner, checking for any movement. She saw nothing. No guards? Nobody trying to find her? Man, they were making it to easy. She silently slipped around the corner and stalked her way up the sidewalk. As she moved away from the castle, there was a bare flicker on her radar.

She looked around, but saw nobody. Yet, her radar flickered once more.

If she had learned anything from the flood, it’s that you should look up. She applied this skill and, well, looked up. On the roof across the street from her, a dark figure stood, looking away from her. As it turned, scanning the area, two golden eyes came into view. They passed right over her.

It looked like a bat-pony-thing. It also had some kind of armor. Some kind of night guard? Probably. She would have to keep her eye out for them after all. Either way, she had her cloak up, she would have to be right next to them or bump into them for them to actually notice her. Too bad she wasn’t going to let that-

She turned around, and met another pair of golden eyes, but extremely close to her faceplate. She really hated herself sometimes.

*

Night Stalker had just gotten done checking an alley. The Princess never told them exactly what to look for, just some weird-looking thing standing on two legs. So far, they had found a bird, some mint green pony, and a squirrel that was eating a nut. He doubted they would find much else. He stopped for a moment to ask his friend up on the roof if he had seen anything, but didn’t. His eyes were focused on a strange shimmering object in front of him.

The shimmer was moving a bit, then moved a lot, then froze completely. He could still see the wall distorted behind the thing, so it still must be there. He picked up his hoof and was about to poke it, but pulled back, remembering what happened to the last guard to poke something they had never seen before.

“Hey, Night Stalker! Watchya doing?” His friend, Night Walker, asked.

“Oh, uh, nothing. Heard anything from Night Talker?” Night Stalker asked.

The three, Night Stalker, Night Walker, and Night Talker, were Luna’s attempt at naming all of her guards. She couldn’t decide anything past Night Talker that started with Night and ended with alker, so she stopped there. Night Stalker was a pretty cool name, and Night Walker was kinda weird, but Night Talker obviously got the worse of the three.

“Nope, just been standing here. I wonder where he is anyway.” Night Walker asked.

“I’m right here!” Night Talker said as he walked around the corner.

“Oh, hey Night Talker!” Night Stalker said.

“Sup Night Stalker! You see anything?” Night Talker asked.

“Nope. How about you?” Night Stalker answered.

“Me either. How about you Night Walker?” Night Talker asked Night Walker.

“Nope, just been standing here.” Night Walker repeated himself.

“Nice night isn’t it?” Night Stalker asked.

“Yep, sure is.” Night Talker replied.

“Luna did a good job!” Night Walker said.

"Of course, she always does!" Night Stalker exclaimed.

*

Alice was getting annoyed. They were just standing there, talking. They brang stupidity to a whole new level. The one, apparently called Night Stalker, forgot entirely about her. She couldn’t move, or else she would undoubtedly be seen by one of them. She didn’t want to shoot them, to loud and a waste of ammo.

And what was up with the names? Night Stalker? Night Walker? Night TALKER? She didn’t have time for these ponies. She looked further down the road. There, her ticket out of this place. Now it’s just a matter of getting to it. Shouldn’t be too hard. She jerked forward and punted the pony, Night Stalker, out of her way. The shimmer ran down the road towards her target. She heard the others yelling behind her. That would undoubtedly get the attention of more guards. Oh well, that wouldn’t matter for what she was about to do.

*

Octavia made her way down the street, cello in its case around her neck. She had just finished up with a rather late practice session. She had to admit, Lyra was beautiful with her lyre. As fun as it was, she was tired. She couldn’t wait to get home and flop into bed next to a certain white unicorn. She smiled at the thought of her special some-pony.

She passed a small intersection and heard some other ponies talking. She ignored them and kept walking, too tired to bother listening. For a moment though, the talking changed to yelling. Huh, something must be happening. She continued to ignore it, she would probably read it somewhere in the newspaper in the morning.

Suddenly, she felt something wrap around her neck and cover her muzzle. It pulled her into the air, and she felt something push into her head. She tried to yelp, but nothing came through whatever was covering her muzzle. She looked around and notice six Lunar Guards bolt around from different sides. She looked down at her nose. There was a shimmering. It slowly changed, revealing a green, gauntleted hand pushing her jaws shut.

*

Alice watched the guards make a half circle around her and her chosen pony. Counting her hostage, there were seven ponies. She took her pistol away from the grey ponies head for a moment and showed the guards it.

“You remember this don’t you?”

The guards stared at it, knowing looks in their eyes.

“Damn straight you do.” Alice pushed it back into the grey ones head. “And you come any closer, there’s gonna be a hole in this one’s head.”

To be honest, Alice would never hurt a civilian. Even though she could count these ponies as an enemy, it was only the guards that really posed any threat. But they didn’t know that.

“Now, I’m going to get out of here. And this pony is coming with me. You try anything stupid, and you’ll regret it. Am I clear?”

The guards looked at each other, unsure of what to do. Four of them nodded, the others just kinda sat there.

“You bet I am. Now back off.”

The guards all moved backwards slowly, but still kept their eyes on her.

“You all have a nice evening now.”

With that, Alice picked up her hostage and started to run. The pony bounced back and forth in between her arms. She didn’t really know where she was going, but she just kept running. She did, however, have an objective. Get to her pod. And as far as she knew, that was at the top of the mountain. She remembered a series of train-tracks running through the area. Maybe one led to the top?

Her question was answered as she found the train station, one track leading directly up and into the mountain. Well, she knew where she was going.

***

Three Days Ago

Seke Kar’ Chavree sat in his captains’ chair, barking out orders to his crew. “Full power to reverse thrusters! Get out of that collision path!” He yelled.

“100% to reverse thrusters complete.” One of the Elites before announced.

The Spirit of Fire raced towards them, content on smashing them to bits. Meanwhile, tiny pods ejected from its hull. “Scramble the Seraphs! Take out those pods!”

Another Elite immediately tapped an icon and started typing in Seraph intercept commands.

“Sir! The humans are changing route; they are setting for another collision! It appears they have shut down nearly everything and are blasting their engines, we cannot outrun them!” An Elite yelled, a hologram of the Spirit of Fire in front of him.

Seke growled to himself. This one ship was proving to be tricky. One ship for another? Its worth was lost in Seke’s eyes. Why would they prefer such a dishonorable suicide than stand and fight, allowing the true victor to fight another day? He would never understand these humans. The least he could do was take out the pods.

“Update on the destruction of the pods?”

“They have set up defensive AA guns; they are destroying our Seraph’s. Three are getting away!”

“Track them! If we cannot take them, then may our brothers find what we have lost.”

Outside of the hull, the shield let down for less than a second to allow the three tiny missiles out. They streaked, basically invisible, to their targets. Behind them, the two ships collided. The shock wave did nothing but speed the trackers towards their target. They latched onto the side and back. Inside the tiny structure, small signals were set off.

The tiny waves set out their own journey through space. The Arbiter of the Holy World would be avenged, no matter what the cost.

What They Dont Know Wont Hurt Them

The ride to Canterlot was quiet and solemn as Twilight’s friends tried their best to comfort her. As much as she appreciated it, she just wanted to be with her brother.

Twilight Sparkle immediately jumped out of the carriage once it landed, dead set on finding Celestia and her brother. Celestia however, was already waiting.

“Princess Celestia! Please tell me your guard is lying!” Twilight said, a tear rolling down her face.

Princess Celestia scolded her guard for a moment. She told him not to tell her. The guard shied away, and Celestia knelt down next to her student. “He tells the truth. But do not worry; I’m sure it will be OK. I can bring you to the medical area if you would like.”

Twilight looked up at her mentor, tears now streaming from her face at the confirmation of her brother nearly being killed. She nodded her head, and they both stood up and started walking down the hall, the rest of the ponies following.

“Oh dear, I do hope Shining Armor is OK… not only because he’s the captain of the Royal Guard, but Twilight would be devastated if he dies…” Rarity whispered to the others.

“I swear I’ll beat the cow out of the pony that did this!” Rainbow Dash vowed.

“Well hold on now, it could’ve had its intentions. Let’s not jump the gun here.” Applejack suggested.

“I agree with Applejack. She knows a lot about jumping the gun. She’s a pro!” Pinkie nudged Applejack, who had an unamused look on her face.

“Fluttershy dear, what are your thoughts?” Rarity looked over at the shy pegasus.

“Oh, uh… yes.” Fluttershy replied.

Rainbow Dash looked at Pinkie. Pinkie just shrugged. “Yes? That’s all? That doesn’t even explain your thoughts! It wasn’t a yes or no question.” Rainbow said, slightly annoyed.

“Don’t worry about it Dashie!” Pinkie said. “I’ll bet Flutters has some really smart and physically mind-bending explanation for all of this!”

“Yeah, I’m so sure…” Rainbow said, still annoyed.

They started to come up to the medical area.

“So wait, are we all supposed to go in with her? Or just stay out her till she’s done?” Applejack asked. That could lead to some awkward situations.

“Huh… That’s a good question…” Rainbow said.

“Oh, I think we should wait out here for a bit. It only makes sense to let Twilight have her alone time with him.” Rarity proposed.

“Eww. That sounds weird when you word it out like that.” Rainbow said, floating over to her.

Rarity looked at her with a look of disgust. “Really? Is that really appropriate at this time?”

“Well, cmon! It did!” she silently yelled.

“She’s right Rarity! It did!” Pinkie said, suddenly next to Rarity as well.

“See, even Pinkie agrees. You can’t fight that.” Rainbow Dash said, a smirk on her face.

“Guys, pay attention! We’re here!” Applejack told them.

The three arguing ponies looked ahead. Sure enough, Celestia and Twilight were stopped in front of a door. They could barely make out what the Princess was saying.

“I’m sorry Twilight, but you cannot see him just yet. You must remember that this happened earlier today, and surgery is still taking place.” Celestia told her.

Twilight nodded and sat down in a chair across the hall.

Celestia then turned and walked over to the waiting mares. The five bowed down respectively, and then picked themselves up.

“Is Shining Armor going to be OK?” Fluttershy was the first to ask.

“To be truthful, I do not know. The knife nearly hit his heart.” Celestia said.

“Well, even if he dies” the other elements cringed at the word. “you can just bring him back to life or something, right? You’re a god!” Rainbow Dash suggested.

“I’m sorry, but it does not work like that. To bring back the dead or grant immortality would be against life and death itself, and it would not have good consequences.
”

“Where is Princess Cadence? Surely she would know about this!” Rarity asked.

“Believe me, she would, but she is currently away. I planned on telling her later, so she could come back and meet him in case he… passes away…” Celestia said, lowering her voice at the last part.

Around the corner, somebody called for Celestia. “Tia, we think there is something we should show you!” Luna’s head popped around the wall.

Celestia looked annoyed for a moment, then looked back down to the five mares in front of her. “I’m afraid I must go now; please try your best to comfort Twilight when she comes out.” With that, the Alicorn walked away, following her younger sister.

Applejack sighed as the princess rounded the corner. “I don’t like how the Princess was talking about the possibility of Shining passing away. Do you really think it’s that bad?”

“Well, she did say it almost hit his heart…” Rarity said.

“What thing has a knife long enough to go up into someponies chest and next to their heart? Wouldn’t that be a sword?” Rainbow said.

“C-can we please change the subject? I don’t think I’m feeling well…” Fluttershy spoke up.

“Oh, I’m sorry dear… What would you like to talk about?” Rarity asked.

“Hhhmmm… I don’t know. Maybe we should go sit by Twilight?” Fluttershy shrugged.

“Oh, dear! That’s right! She needs us right now, we can’t let her down!” Rarity said confidently.

*

Luna trotted up a flight of stairs towards her room, her sister in tow.

“What is this about?” Celestia asked, curious.

“Well, you see, around the end of our banishment, some rather strange things landed on the moon.” She magically swung open the door to her room, two guards saluting as she walked in. Luna ignored them and walked past. Celestia, however, smiled warmly at the guards.

Celestia followed her into the room, looking around at all the little constellation models and such. “Oh? Like what?”

“Well, various things… Metal, metal, and, well, metal. But there were a few things in specific that intrigued us.” Luna swung open her closet. Along with some articles of clothing, some strange artifacts sat on the floor.

“There was this.” Luna held up a slab of metal. There was a single letter on it, A.

“Then there was this.” She held up a long rod, the end fattened with holes filled. A black powdery substance covered the dotted end. Both the objects had scraggly edges, like they had been broken.

“And then there is this. It’s my personal favorite, for its more unique than the others.” She set down the other two metal objects and held up a cone-shaped thing. On the side, it had six capital letters pasted to it: F-E-N-R-I-S. Next to it, there was a small yellow circle containing three black triangles pointing towards the center.

“And why didn’t you tell me about these?” Celestia asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It didn’t deem itself important at the time. It was quite obvious that there were other beings that existed in the universe. It is so huge, there is just no way we could be alone. The recent discovery of our green-plated friend and the fact that he or she is obviously a soldier of some kind matches these objects, for it would seem the majority of these have been in a battle themselves.” Luna explained.

“I do suppose your right. But next time, please tell me when something like this comes up.” Celestia said.

Celestia picked up the tube with her magic and inspected it herself. She poked the end of it with her hoof, some of the powder smudging her golden boot. She set it back down.

“Well, these items are certainly interesting. But, I have another meeting to attend. I will see you later.” Celestia told her sister as she walked out the door.

Again, the guards saluted her, and she waved them off. She would have to ask her guards how the search was going and go to a few meetings about taxes and why Canterlot apparently needs more benches. The only good thing that could come out of this day is to catch this monster and try to smack some sense into it. She didn’t want to kill it, but if she needed to, she would do so to protect her subjects. After all, like Luna had stated earlier, she did kind of aggravate it…

***

Jerome stopped and crouched at the body of one of the dogs. By now, little flies had gathered over them. He patted himself on the back for the clean kills.

“Now, what did you say these were?” Douglas asked the pony behind him.

“Diamond Dogs… really weird bunch, and not so bright. They can get real feisty to. Can we please move along though? They have tunnels all around these parts, and it won’t take long for them to notice that some of their buddies are gone…” the pegasus answered.

“We need to keep moving anyway. I want to get out of this place before nightfall.” Jerome picked himself back up and started walking ahead.

Ander and Douglas walked past the three bodies, completely unfazed. Wind Storm however had to keep himself from puking as he kept his distance from the dead dogs.

As he walked, Jerome slid out his sniper’s magazine. He stole the last bullet and snapped it onto his shoulder pad, then tossed the spent magazine to the ground.

Curious, Wind Storm picked up the box and inspected it. He pushed the little platform up and down. Something shiny on the ground caught his eye.

“Oh hey, look at that!” He said excitedly.

The three humans turned to see his discovery. The pegasus set down the magazine and pulled something out of the ground with his mouth. A light blue, perfectly cut diamond sat in his jaws.

“A diamond? Just… sitting on the surface? In the middle of a desert area like this?” Anders stared dumbly at the crystal.

Wind Storm spit it out. “Yeah! You find these kinds of things all the time around here. The Diamond Dogs like to eat them.” He explained.

He looked at the diamond, then at the magazine. He picked up the box and pushed the diamond down into it. It shot back up and held in place, two curved metal flaps keeping it from shooting back out.

“Ha! Now, if I can just find a few more of these, maybe I can get a couple hundred bits…” Wind Storm said to himself. Apparently though, Anders heard him.

“Only a couple hundred? If your money is anything like ours, you should be able to get a lot more than that! Look at it, that’s a big diamond!” Anders said. Usually you only find small nuggets of diamond. This on the other hand was just as big as a sniper bullet.

“Hey, that’s cool and all, but again, we need to move.” Jerome called back. “You may not see the importance in it, but finding Alice is top priority. We can’t keep stopping like this.”

“Oh, of course! But that raises a question, what happens after that?” Anders asked.

Jerome continued walking while he thought that over. That was a great question. Try and contact the UNSC? No, they had no way of signaling them… He definitely didn’t want to stay on this planet. He still had a war to fight.

“I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Jerome replied.

Anders nodded, then conversed with her little pony friend.

Douglas suddenly came through his helmet.

“Should we really wait? Or should we think up something to do?” He heard him whisper over team comm.

“Like I said, we’ll have to wait. Nothing necessarily sparks itself as useful right now. Hopefully something will come up.” Jerome answered back.

Douglas hung his head for a moment. “I sure hope so. I don’t wanna be stuck on a planet filled with a bunch of ponies. Especially with some kind of monarchy. Do you think they will try and say ‘Our planet, our rules’? Last thing we need is another war.”

“We will do what is necessary. If they give us orders, we think them through. If they make sense, and help us in some way, we will try and follow. If they speak nonsense and don’t help us in any way, we politely disagree. That doesn’t work, worst thing that happens is push go’s to ‘filled with lead’. Doesn’t matter what planets were on, we will do what benefits the UNSC as a whole. It might not seem like killing these guys will help, but we play our cards right, and maybe we gain an ally.” Jerome explained.

Douglas nodded in agreement. “Well, guess we should just hope that nothing bad happens. Only problem is, were Spartans. And, well, that naturally makes us ‘accident prone’.”

Close to Insanity

The group of four continued walking through the rocky wasteland as night descended upon them. They had gotten closer to the edge next to the continuing forest.

“Think we should set up camp?” Douglas asked Jerome.

Jerome continued walking, thinking. “I guess so. I want to wait and see if we can find an oasis though.”

“Yeah, that’s understandable. You see any?” Douglas asked, searching around.

Jerome looked around, trying to find a bit of blue. A mile away, he saw a few green trees clumped together. “How about there?” Jerome nodded towards his find.

“Yeah, that looks reasonable.” Douglas agreed. “Guess we should tell Anders and that pony?”

“Nah, we’ll wait till we’re there.” Jerome said.

Douglas continued walking silently. He couldn’t keep his mind off Alice. She had to of been OK, she was a bloody Spartan. It was just curiosity that poked at him. What had she been up to? Mass genocide or fish and chips with the princess? He hoped fish and chips. Not only because it was peaceful, but because he could go for some fish and chips about now.

He continued to think in this manner until the crunch under his boot changed to a soft ‘ploosh’ noise. A small pond sat in front of him. Not near as big as the lake they were at before, but big enough to support the plant life around them. Anders and the pony walked up to them.

“I suppose we’re stopping here for the night?” Anders asked.

“Yep. I’m gonna get a fire going. Douglas, can you get some fresh water?” Jerome ordered.

Douglas walked over to the lake, a small canteen in hand. A few small fish swam away from the Spartan as he dipped it in. He filled up two more canteens before standing up. He screwed on the cap to the last.

“Hey Jerome, got the canteens. You need anything else?” he asked as he walked away from the water’s edge.

“Yeah, take out a few packs of food. Hey, Wind Storm, what are you gonna eat?” Jerome turned to the green pegasus.

“Grass.” He simply said and started walking to a nice green area.

“Oh. Nothing unusual, like some kind of hay-cake? Or a sandwich made of clouds?” Douglas asked.

“Nope. Just grass.” He answered and continued grazing. Douglas was OK with that, no need to waste a nice pack of vegetable soup.

Anders joined the two Spartans around a small fire. She looked over to the dark forest and furrowed her brow.

“Sure nothings gonna jump out in the middle of the night and drag us horribly into the forest as we scream and kick, but to no avail?” Anders asked.

Douglas and Jerome stared at her.

“That’s an interesting thought. A bit gruesome, but interesting. Either way, I’m sure we’ll be fine. Douglas and I will keep a watch.” Jerome answered as he filled a heat-pack with water. The water would cause a chemical reaction and make the pack hot enough to stick soup or something inside and heat it up.

Douglas pushed his helmet to one side, causing a hissing noise to come out of his neck area. The helmet popped off, revealing a white, shaved head. He held up a cracker and took a bite.

Jerome did the same, taking a mouthful of some kind of noodles from the pack.

The pegasus looked over to them. “Huh. I always thought you were robots.”

“Robots? What made you think that?” Douglas asked, a bit sarcastically.

The pegasus just ignored them and continued eating. Douglas could tell it didn’t like him or Jerome too much, but he couldn’t care less. He just continued eating in silence. He looked up into the sky. Slowly, the stars became more visible as the sun sunk into the horizon.

He looked over at the moon. For a moment, he just stared at the image on it. “Well I’ll be damned.” He said to himself. “They’ve even got a ‘man on the moon’ thing goin.”

He inspected it a little longer. It was pretty well detailed.

Behind him, Jerome broke through his thoughts. “You go ahead and sleep first, I’ll keep watch.” He told him as he slid his helmet back on.

Douglas nodded and did the same. He was OK with that. He layed down on a tree by the fire, his back against the bark. Although he was wary of sleeping so close to the forest, the entire day of walking pulled him into sleep.

***

Alice ran down the tracks towards the tunnel ahead, her hostage in tow. She took another look behind her to make sure they hadn’t followed. Nothing moved, no glowing golden eyes, no flicker of the moon shining off of armor. Good. The sooner she could get away from these animals the better. She just hoped what she was looking for was still at the top.

As she ran into the darkness of the tunnel, she slowed her pace. Her eyes quickly readjusted, but she still couldn’t see too well with the only light source being the low green tint of her armor. The surprisingly, the grey pony under her arm hadn’t even squeaked since she had stolen her. Alice had expected her to be yelling in fear.

The grey mares head slowly looked back at Alice’s faceplate. Suddenly, she started yelling in fear. She had the worst luck. Quickly, Alice’s gauntleted hand clamped over the ponies snout. She continued screaming, but it came out much more muffled.

She shook it a bit, but that just made it louder. Its eyes were abnormally large, and Alice half-expected them to blow up. She set it down on the ground, were it just stood and continued screaming. What the hell, why wouldn’t it shut up? She could just shoot it and be over with it, but she was sure she was still being watched. And that would mean she had no more hostage and no way to dodge an army of ponies coming after her. She could easily take them on, but for now she just wanted to find Jerome and Douglas.

So, she just punched it on the side of the head. It twirled on it back legs and fell to the ground. The punch wasn’t hard enough to kill it, just enough to knock it out. She hefted up the limp pony and threw it over her shoulder, continuing onwards. She enjoyed the peace and quiet for the time she had it. The tunnel swirled around in uncanny ways, like it was trying to make the trip as long as possible for her. She walked on for a bit, wondering when the hell she would get out. She thought back a bit. It was about what, 10:00 when she started? That sounded about right. Her little walk around the city and encounter with the bat-pony-things had wasted about thirty minutes, and she had been walking for quite some time now, not to mention the pace she was going at to save energy. This was taking her a long time.

She checked the mission clock. Sudden tiredness hit her as she realized it was 3:27. Damn, she had been walking for a good 4-5 hours. She looked back ahead and kept going. It mystified her- she probably could’ve scaled this mountain by now. Maybe she was going slower than she thought? She thought on and on, not really paying attention

She walked farther, until she finally saw a light. Sighing in relief, she started to jog forward. The morning sun was peaking over the horizon. She looked around. It was like some kind of picnic area. There was a little bench so people could enjoy the view of the land from atop the mountain. There was no place for the train to stop, she just guessed they just kinda hit the brakes and ponies would get off.

It really was beautiful.

She expected it to be cold this far up the mountain, but it was strangely warm. She swore she saw snow during her fall from space. Before her search though, she had something to take care of.

In front of the cave, she layed down the grey pony. She then walked a few feet off and activated her camo.

Now, she waits.

***

Night Stalker walked with Night Talker.

“Sweet Celestia, this is taking FOREVER!” Night Talker complained.

“Don’t worry, it can’t be long now. We can’t go back empty handed!” Night Stalker reassured his friend.

“But it said it would KILL us! I don’t know about you, but life is very important to me!” Night Talker went on.

“Cmon man! Were LUNA’S guard! We got nothing to fear! We are the best of the best!” Night Stalker said, waving a hoof around for effect.

“No, the captain of the Royal Guard is the best, and he’s basically dead! Along with, what, like seven other guards! And they ganged up on it! Either way, what are we supposed to do about the civilian? Celestia would send us to the moon if a civi got hurt!” Night Talker added. He lived up to his name.

For a moment, Night Stalker thought. “Say, do you think that if Celestia sends ponies to the opposite of the sun, i.e. the moon, if Luna finds out, would she send us to the Sun?”

Night Talker sat there, letting that sink in. “Oh, we are so bucked…”

“Wait! Look! We’re at the end!” Night Stalker pointed to the end of the tunnel.

Night Stalker started trotting faster, but Night Talker grabbed him by his armor’s collar. “WAIT! We can’t just walk out there!”

“Sure we can. Cmon!” Now, Night Stalker had Night Talker by his collar, and was dragging him along.

The light blinded them for a moment, but slowly, everything came back. Night Stalker looked around. On the ground next to him lay the stolen pony from last night. Huh, guess they got lucky.

*

Alice watched the night pony put a hoof up to block the light. He looked down and spotted her hostage, AKA, the bait. He turned around and called to another pony she hadn’t originally noticed.

“Hey Night Talker! Found the civi! Guess we can go home, eh?”

“Yeah, cmon and take her, I just wanna leave…” The other said.

Oh god. These ass-hats. They were the ones who followed her? She could hardly believe that. Oh well, either way, they had to go. She had important stuff to tend to. She slowly moved closer to the bat-pony that was trying to pick up her hostage. Just as he had gotten her on his back, Alice reached out and grabbed him by his neck. The active camo melted away, and the pony stared in shock back into her faceplate.

“She’s still mine.” She said.

The pony fumbled for words. “Uh… What if… I said that I can’t let you take her?”

“You remember your guard friends I killed?”

The pony nodded slowly.

“I’ll just say one thing: I’ll make sure you have a closed-casket funeral.”

The pony started shaking horribly and sweating. Behind him, his friend reacted.

“YARR!” he yelled out and leaped through the air.

Alice let go of the pony and caught his friend mid-air, twirling him about, and then throwing him over the mountain. She watched the pony awkwardly scrabble at the air with its wings, trying to regain balance.

The first pony charged at her back and rammed into her back. Alice barely faltered and she turned kicked the pony away. The pony slid across the ground and hit a rock.

Alice walked up and held up the bat-pony to the rock, her knife in hand.

“This was just too easy. You guys almost make me laugh. Your gold guys at the castle were a hundred times better than you.” She twirled the knife, about to make her kill. Something behind her moved. Alice turned and the bat-pony looked past her.

The grey pony slowly brought herself to her hooves, holding her head. She shook it, like trying to get rid of some kind of pain. She looked up at Spartan and the guard. She froze, as if remembering what happened the night before.

The Spartan and the guard both looked at her, not really sure what to do. Alice moved her knife closer to the guards face. The grey pony immediately let out a scream. Alice moved it back. The pony died down. She put it closer, and got the same result as before. Well, better not kill it, lest she end up with an overly annoying grey pony that she would have to punch every time she woke up.

So, she looked back at the guard, who had a pleading look in his eyes.

“I will find you. I know where you live.” She whispered at it. Then, grabbing it by the waist, she hefted it up and threw it after his friend over the mountain.

She walked over to the stunned grey pony that was looking over the edge of the mountain, watching the pony flap through the air helplessly.

She grabbed it, which caused a yelp. “Cmon. We're going treasure hunting.”

Mind Games

Douglas awoke, something shaking him. He looked up and found Jerome, SMG up, safety off.

“We got a problem…” Jerome whispered.

Douglas looked around. It was very early, and a heavy mist surrounded them. He looked over to the pony and Anders. They were both asleep, unaware of anything. “Whats going on?” Douglas asked as he got into a crouching position.

“Something is here. There’s more than one, and they’re watching us.” Jerome said, staying quiet.

Douglas looked around into the mist. He didn’t see anything. Either way, he got his MA37 ready. He wondered if he should use his knife. He doubted whatever this was, if something was really there, had any range. It would save him some ammo…

He was cut from his thoughts as something moved on his motion tracker, to his right. He snapped and looked over. It was where Anders was sleeping. He didn’t see anything…

“Have you seen them? Any idea of what they are?” Douglas asked, keeping a close eye on his surroundings.

“Not really, but bigger than a wolf. Four legs, kinda looked like a cat.” Jerome answered.

Douglas tried to think of what it could be. Not anything practical like a lion, that would be, well, to practical. For this land, anyway. “Should we wake up Anders?” Douglas asked.

“I don’t want to if I don’t have to. She will complicate things, make too much noise. Just keep an eye on her.” Jerome said.

Something moved on his radar, behind him. Nothing was there.

“Cover me for a moment.” Douglas asked as he made his way over to were the blip on his radar was.

He passed Anders and continued on, MA37 raised. Nothing but a tree. Whatever these things were, they were taking their sweet-ass time. Beyond the tree, he could barely make out the forest line. He wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with it.

He turned to check on Jerome, who was still keeping an eye on him. He turned back around.

Something moved again, just ahead of him. Before he could take a step towards it, the tree line exploded, and something jumped out. Whatever it was landed on top of him. Douglas fell to the ground, surprised. On top of him was some kind of large cat. Normally, this would unaffect him. But the cat’s face peeled away from itself, revealing muscle and bone underneath.

Now, Douglas was no stranger to scary shit, but that was by far one of the creepiest things he had ever seen.

It immediately tried to bite at his head, but Douglas placed his arm between him and the cats head. It bit onto his arm and its mouth slid up and down, trying to get a grasp on the shielding. Using his free hand, Douglas whipped out his pistol and placed it next to the creatures head. A shot rang out, and blood spattered across his faceplate. He pushed off the beast and turned around, re-holstering his pistol.

Jerome also had his hands full. Three cats stood around him. He kicked one of the felines in the head. It recoiled back, and Jerome forced his knife through the top of its skull.

He heard a small yelp beside him. He turned towards were Anders and the pony were. One of the cats stood over the pony, and Anders stood there, wondering what to do. “Anders!” Douglas called out.

Anders turned towards him. He tossed his pistol towards her, which she caught. He didn’t see what happened, he turned back towards Jerome to help out. He knew Anders could handle herself.

He turned back towards Jerome to help him, and found more of the beasts had joined the attack. Two more stood in front of him, one remaining where it was as the other circled around him. Douglas snapped up with his MA37 and was about to gun it down, when its face curled back and it let out a screech.

Suddenly, his mind was full of something he had rarely truly experienced: fear. He dropped his gun and held onto his helmet, trying to block out the loud screech. His mind was filled with images of the only thing that truly scared him: The Flood. He couldn’t stop the memories of the screaming marines as the parasites burrowed into their backs, taking control of them, letting out blood-curdling inhuman roars. He had been able to survive through the real thing of course, but this was different. He just couldn’t stand it. It had to be the cat.

“GET OUT OF MY DAMN HEAD!” He yelled out.

If anything, the screech got louder, as it burrowed deeper into his mind, searching for the things he hoped would never happen. He was forced to watch his friends- no, his family-, fellow Spartans killed before him. Spartan-016, Keith, screaming in his medical bed as the augmentation that was supposed to help him bent his bones and destroyed him from the inside out. Spartan-049, Jenna, mowed down by rebels in her outdated SPI suit and bleeding to death.

He fought back, burying his thoughts back into the deep area that could drive a normal being to insanity. He reached out to his gun and snapped it to full auto. He shakily aimed up and sprayed in the general area of the noise. For a moment, the screech was replaced with a yelp. His fears retreated back into the vault that he never intended to open again. He looked back up at his opponent. It had a gash in its side were a bullet went through.

On his motion tracker, he saw the red blip that had made its way around him suddenly rush forward. Turning around, he tackled into the rushing feline as it pounced on him.

He heard a few gunshots somewhere around him, probably Anders.

He hit the ground on top of the cat and ripped out his knife. He reared back and jammed his knife into the things skull. After ripping it back out, and picked himself up and grabbed the dead cat by its legs. He twisted around and threw it at the first. It collided into the already wounded beast and tumbled to the ground. He walked over and dragged it off the ground. He held it up and smashed it down onto his knee.

There was a sickening crack as its back broke and it finally went limp. He tossed it down and looked over to Jerome. He was looking at him, three corpses around him. Douglas he then turned towards Anders, who was crouching next to the pony. It just kinda stood there, shaking uncontrollably.

“What the fuck just happened?” Douglas asked.

“We were hunted, that’s what. The better question, or questions, would be what those things were and what the hell they did to you.” Jerome finished, looking at Douglas.

Next to them, the pony spoke up. “Those were Krenshars. Big cats, they can pull back the skin on their faces to strike fear into their prey. If that doesn’t work, they let out this screech which can be directed at one being. It has the magical ability to dig out ones greatest fears and use it against them. Learned it in a book.” He explained, still shaking.

Douglas shuddered. He definitely didn’t want to meat one of those again.

The two Spartans stood in place for a moment.

“Well then, what now?” Douglas asked.

“Well, this is basically our average wake-up, isn’t it? Get up, shoot some things, and continue on with the day. So were going to do just that. Anders, is he OK to keep going?” Jerome asked and nodded towards Wind Storm.

“Well, no. This is obviously his first brush with death; he’s going to want to rest for a while. He’s experiencing something similar to the ‘thousand yard stare’, put not quite there. Obviously, violence isn’t something taken lightly around here.”

Jerome sighed. “Alright then. Douglas, get some food ready. Guess were camping for a bit longer.”

Douglas nodded and got out some supplies. The sun started to peak over the horizon and the fog started to clear. Between the dragons, diamond dogs, and the krenshars, he doubted what Anders said. To him, it looked like violence was an everyday occurrence.

***

“We will not take this lightly, last thing we need is for this to become an everyday thing. I want it gone. The hostage was the last straw!” Celestia said. It was rather early in the morning, and she had just discovered about the alien stealing one of her subjects and then throwing her guard of the very top of her mountain.

The current Royal Guard in command was standing in front of her. Luna of course sat next to her. They were in the throne room that the monster had crashed through.

“Yes princess, we understand. We will send out our most elite and then some. But you must understand that this thing is much more technically advanced! It is not as simple as containing it, especially with the hostage.” The royal guard in front of her said.

“I have thought through that, and I have devised a plan. But you and your men will have to be willing.” Celestia said.

“Oh, well of course! We would do anything needed from you.” The guard in front of him said, a bit annoyed that she would question his guard's loyalty to the Princess.

“Good. I am sending with you Luna to help were needed. Any commands by her are of course to be followed.” Celestia proposed from her throne.

Next to her Luna perked up. “What? Tia, we weren’t informed of this…”

“I will explain in a moment. Commander, get your best guards ready. And do please try to not let this leak throughout the castle?” Celestia asked.

The guard simply nodded and walked out. As the door closed, Celestia looked over to Luna.

“Now Luna, I understand that you might be confused here. I do have reasoning. This is not like back during Discord, were the Princesses sit back as there army goes forth and dies for them. We are expected to take action.” Celestia explained.

“So you send us? Tia, how are we supposed to do this? What happens if we’re killed? You saw what that thing can do!” Luna complained.

“I understand. A leader needs to take these risks. If anything, this is an opportunity. You need these skills, the ability to gain trust not through power, but by what you do. Showing ponies that you can do more than sit around all day and have a bunch of others do what you want is not how to rule a land.” Celestia told her.

Luna thought about it. She was, of course, right.

“And if I don’t recall, you did want to meet it yourself, am I not right?” Celestia asked, a smirk playing on her face.

Luna couldn’t help but smile back. “Yes, I suppose so. We will agree. I do suppose it’s for the best. But what will you do while I’m gone?”

“The same things I do every day, sit here and listen to people complain about taxes and stuff.” Celestia stated.

Luna thought that through. “Well, all you had to say was that and I would’ve gone. I should probably go check on the guards now, shouldn’t I?”

She quickly trotted out of the room, as if at any moment she could be trapped by some hour long lecture about taxes. Celestia only shook her head, the smile still on her face. She also got up and walked to the huge doors. Pushing it open slightly, she addressed one of the guards.

“Do we have anypony waiting? If so, please allow them in.” Celestia ordered.

The guard nodded and Celestia returned to her seat. She sat for what seemed like half an hour, but when she looked up at the clock, only five minutes had passed. The huge doors nudged open, and a white unicorn walked in flanked by two guards. Celestia smiled warmly down on her.

The unicorn bowed down respectively then started to speak. “Uh, hey Princess, I would like to report a missing pony.”

Celestia’s smile bent down for but a second. “Who would that be?” She asked, a bead of sweat rolling down her face.

“Well, her name is Octavia; she didn’t come home last night. I’m not really sure what happened to her. You remember her from last year’s gala, right? She played the giant guitar thing.” The unicorn that she recognized as the well known DJ-PON3 explained. Honestly, she didn’t understand what kind of stage name that was.

“Err, yes I do, we were aware of her disappearance. We have already sent some people to search for her. I’m sure she will be alright!” The princess said, a suspicious smile on her face.

“Oh, uh, OK. That’s cool. See ya around then!” With that, the unicorn trotted away.

She sighed. That was close, last thing she needed was for this whole thing to get out to the public. It was a miracle the few ponies that did see the green beast forgot about it throughout their busy day. Last thing she needed was all of Canterlot in panic. She couldn’t wait until this thing was gone and everything would be put back to normal, she really didn’t like hiding things from her subjects, but she felt this was needed.

Stupid Ideas

“I really think we should do something…” Applejack thought out loud. “We can’t let her sit there all day!”

“Well you have to remember, her poor brother is hurt! She would be devastated if she missed her chance to meet him when the doctors allow it!” Rarity countered.

“Well, yeah, but Applejack has a point, we should try and take her mind off it for a bit.” Rainbow Dash suggested, floating around as if swimming on her back.

“Why would we try to take her mind off it? She has every right to be worried; it would be heartless to not be thinking about it!” Rarity fought against them.

Pinkie and Fluttershy stood away from the three, endorsed in their own adventure.

“Cmon! It’ll be fun!” Pinkie pulled on Fluttershy.

“But shouldn’t we let them make a decision?” Fluttershy asked, wincing as she was dragged around the corner.

“Probably, but they're taking too long! We must take things into our own hooves!” Pinkie exclaimed, pulling Fluttershy up next to Twilight.

Twilight was lying down on a bench, sleeping. Down the hall a bit was room number seven, the room that held Shining Armor.

“Oh, we really shouldn’t wake her up… She needs her sleep.” Fluttershy said happily; glad to not be pulled into Pinkie’s shenanigans.

Pinkie frowned for a moment, wondering what to do. Suddenly, her ears perked up as Twilight started to talk.

“I’m not sleeping.” She murmured.

“Oh! That’s great! Cmon, Twilight! Let’s go!” Pinkie said, bouncing around.

“I don’t want to go anywhere.” Twilight replied gloomily.

“Nonsense! Cmon, let’s go get some lunch! I’m starving.” Pinkie hefted up Twilight, who gave a loud yelp. Around the corner, the other three continued to argue.

“Pinkie! PUT ME DOWN!” Twilight yelled as she attempted to squirm out of her grasp.

“Oh, cmon Twilight. You need this! Not to mention you haven’t eaten since we got here yesterday! Where should we go? I saw a nice little coffee shop on our way here!”

Twilight’s stomach grumbled out loud, unintentionally agreeing with Pinkie Pie. She let out a sigh. “OK… I guess I do need to do something to get my mind of my brother.”

“But what about the others? Shouldn’t they come along?” Fluttershy asked.

The three turned towards the voices around the corner.

“Nah! There OK, we’ll just leave ‘em.” Pinkie shrugged as Twilight got away from her.

Fluttershy and Twilight walked quietly along as Pinkie Pie pointed out everything, such as the fact the castles wine glasses were tinted green, a mouse hole near the kitchen, and, as they got close to the main exit, the fresh repairs made to the wall were something had burst through.

Fluttershy and Twilight continued to walk quietly through town as Pinkie Pie said hi to every living being (and then some), stopped for a minute to buy an ice-cream, and, as they got close to the coffee shop, pointed out a white unicorn passing out missing pony papers.

Fluttershy and Twilight stopped and waited quietly as Pinkie Pie continued to ramble on about how the sidewalks were particularly scratchy today, the fact that the coffee shop (fortunately)was out of caffeinated coffee, and, before they got into the shop, pointed out that there were more guards than usual walking about.

“Pinkie, you can stop talking now. We’re here.” Twilight said, slightly annoyed.

Pinkie looked up at the name of the shop. “Ooohh, the ‘Coffee Crave’, catchy.” Pinkie admired the name for a moment before jumping up. “Let’s go!”

She bounced into the small shop, Twilight and Fluttershy close behind. Only a few ponies sat about, one doing a bit of college homework, another talking with a friend, and a fourth just sitting about, watching ponies walk by.

“How may I help you?” A pony at the desk asked the three.

The pony was a rather small, chocolate colored earth stallion with an orange mane and tail.

“I’ll have a Caramel Delight! With cream and a cherry on top!” Pinkie said, bouncing up and down.

“I’ll just take a cup of black coffee, maybe a bit of sugar in it.” Twilight said. She was no stranger to coffee, relying on it many a night to keep her awake.

“I’ll have some apple juice.” Fluttershy asked.

The Desk Pony looked at her.

“Just apple juice?” he asked.

“Oh, well if you want me to get something else…” Fluttershy suggested, looking towards the ground.

“No, no, it’s OK, it’s just that that’s not much.” The Desk Pony explained.

“Alright then, that’ll be…” the Desk Pony tapped in a few things into the register. “Six bits.”

They each chipped in a few bits and waited as there different drinks were made.

The Desk Pony walked around the corner, mumbling something about apple juice.

“I don’t think he liked my decision.” Fluttershy said, looking towards where he disappeared.

“Don’t worry about it; I’m sure he didn’t mind. So, did anything ‘interesting’ happen while I was sleeping?” Twilight asked.

“Uh, nothing that I can-“ Fluttershy started, but was cut off by Pinkie.

“OOOHH! I was listening in on the princesses even though I probably shouldn’t have, and Princess Luna is going to go hunt down the big jerky alien with a bunch of guards! She’ll be leaving in a bit.” Pinkie exclaimed, bouncing up and down.

Twilight processed this for a moment. The Princess was going to go out and find the thing that nearly killed her brother? And she didn’t tell her?! She had to do something!

“Sorry, I’ve got to go!” Twilight said, before zipping out the door and disappearing in a flash of magic.

Pinkie and Fluttershy stared blankly at the door, before turning back around to the Desk Pony that had returned.

“All right, one Caramel Delight with a cherry on top, a black coffee, and some apple juice.” He said, balancing a tray on top of his head. “Wait, where did your purple friend go?”

“No idea!” Pinkie exclaimed before grabbing the tray. “Thanks!”

She walked over to a table, Fluttershy following behind. “We’re not gonna follow her? I think she’s going to do something bad...”

“Nah, she’ll be OK. She’s just gonna go do what she feels is right, we were only here so she realized that instead of sitting about, moping around all day!”

Fluttershy stared for a moment. “You mean, you actually intended on accomplishing something from this?” she asked.

“Yep!” Pinkie replied simply before taking a sip from her Caramel Delight. “Man, this stuff is good!”

***

“Ma’am, we are almost prepared. What would you like us to do when we are ready?” A pony in guilded gold armor asked Luna as he walked up.

Luna thought on that. What should they do? Celestia said that she had a plan, unless her plan was for her to go? Was she supposed to make the plan? If so, she wouldn’t let her down!

With a determined grin, she looked back down towards the waiting guard and replied. “We will make a friendly trade.”

The guard looked at her questioningly. “A… a trade? What do we have to trade that it would want?”

“Several possible things. There are two outcomes to this trade. Rather, A, it likes what it sees and will happily take it and hopefully never come back. Or, B, it gets aggravated at the useless pile of junk and attempt to tear us limb from limb. And, unfortunately, from what we’ve seen, the latter seems a bit more likely. But fear not, for we will use our god-like powers and maybe, possibly, with a tad bit of luck, prevent the worst from happening.”

The guard looked un-nerved. “Alright Princess, whatever you say.” With that, he saluted, and turned back to his guards.

Luna turned around and started for her room. Oh, this would be so fun! She would get to speak with the creature, find out about the things she found on the moon, and get the hostage back! That is, if everything went by plan. She could just get to talk to it, and never see it again. Or anything again, for that matter.

She continued trotting up the spiraled flight of stairs, thinking it through more thoroughly. Her guards could hide and pop out if needed. And as long as everything went OK, it wouldn’t feel as threatened if it didn’t know she had protection!

The guards in front of her door stood at attention, but, as usual, Luna ignored them. She walked right in and immediately went for her closet. Opening it up with her magic, she looked down at her three artifacts. The skinny barrel, the slab of metal, and, of course, the cone.

She gazed at the cone. Maybe this cone was some kind of robot pet, and the owner named it Fenris? Maybe it was just a cone? Or maybe it had the power of blowing away miles of land? She inwardly laughed at the thought of so much power in such a tiny, cute, cone. She noticed somebody had sloppily written on the side with some kind of marker: ET go home.

ET? Who is ET? And why did they want ET to go home? ET sounded like a friendly name! Surely Mr. ET was nice and deserved to stay?

She pulled her thoughts away from the cone. She had business to do! The three objects were surrounded by a dark blue aura and flew into a small pack sitting nearby. Luna walked over to the designated carrier of her precious items and put it on.

She then walked back out of her room, the guards not even bothering to salute this time. Yet again, she trotted down the stairs and made her way through the building, back towards her guards. The captain she had spoken to earlier, she never bothered with names, walked in front of each of them, inspecting them. Six other ponies stood perfectly still, shoulder to shoulder.

As the captain turned around, he noticed her waiting. He stood at attention and saluted. “Ma’am, we’re all ready to go.”

Luna smiled. “Good! We shall leave at once!”

She turned around and took one step before stopping.

The captain stared for a moment before asking, “Is there a problem?”

“I just realized, I have no idea where the thing is.” She replied.

Down the corridor, the doors bust open. Two Lunar Guards stumbled through, each looking rather ruffed up.

“Oh sweet Luna, thank Celestia you’re here!” One of them called.

“It was HORRIBLE!” the other exclaimed.

“It… it… IT THREW ME OFF THE MOUNTAIN!”

“And more importantly, then it threw ME off the mountain!”

“And then, we were FALLING!”

“But there was this tree, and we HIT IT, and it BROKE OUR FALL! AND IT HURT LIKE ALL HELL!”

“And then, there were these TIMBERWOLVES!”

“And they were gonna attack us, but a MANTICORE CAME and KILLED THEM!”

“And then it tried to KILL US!”

Luna and the guards stared at them as they ranted on about their misfortune. It took her a moment to figure out who they were, but then a delighted smile sprouted on her face when she remembered.

“Do you remember where it was?” Luna asked them.

“AND THE SHARK TRIED TO- what?” the guard stopped yelling for a moment.

“The alien, where was it and where did it go?” Luna asked again.

Immediately, the guards sat down and disregarded all that happened. “No, but we got a really good idea. During our fall down the mountain, I couldn’t help but notice a black thing with smoke coming off of it in the distance. If I could give a guess, I’d say that’s where it is going.” The one on the left answered.

“Glorious! We shall leave for the black thing at once!” Luna exclaimed, taking a few steps forward.

The guards behind her looked at each other, until one of them shrugged and started after her. The rest followed closely behind.

“Wait, your HUNTING that thing?! It’ll slit your throat and feed you to the 6 foot tall Venus Fly Traps of the Everfree!” The one on the right complained.

“No worries, I’m a god!” Luna said, completely (with a slight bit of worry) sure of herself.

The two guards watched the guards follow through the door after their leader. After a moment of silence, Night Stalker looked over to Night Talker on his right, and asked, “Wanna get a pizza?”

“Sure!”

***

Alice walked over to the edge of the mountain. Still in the distance sat the black pod, a small blue triangle serving as direction to her waypoint. She surveyed the area, thinking of a path. She kicked a small rock off the edge, watching it roll down the rather smooth mountain. Then, she walked over to a bigger rock, and gave it a good kick, sending it flying off the edge. It, of course, flew a long ways before finally crashing down the side.

“Well, it would certainly be faster…” The Spartan said out loud.

“What? What is faster?” The pony in her arms asked.

The Spartan looked down at her. “What do you think? Should we jump?”

The grey mare stared at her, dumbfounded. “Jump off the mountain? That’s a horrible idea! What made you even think about that?”

Alice shrugged. “I’d do it if you weren’t here. Unless you don’t mind jumping, of course. Because we can definitely do it.”

“NOOOoooononono, I don’t think so. That’s a bit of a drop. How about you put me down and go yourself? I’ll wait here for you to come back.”

Alice didn’t bother to respond, the answer obvious. Well, apparently she was gonna have to walk. She guessed it would be for the best. After all, no such thing as a dead hostage. In that case, all you have is a dead guy, and dead things tend to be useless in political situations such as this. That said, she walked over to the edge and started the rather steep climb down. The pony seemed relieved that they weren’t going to jump, and relaxed a little. But just a little.

“What the hay are you doing anyway? What was so important that you had to go up there just to come back down?”

“I thought something was up here. It ended up down there.” She pointed toward the faint smoke in the distance, slipping a little while trying to gain some traction on the slope.

“And what exactly is that thing?” Her companion asked, squinting into the distance.

“Escape pod.” Alice stated.

“What were you escaping from?” She asked yet another question.

“A bunch of sharks.” The Spartan answered back. That was technically true, as ‘Shark-Face’ was the nickname given to the Elites by various marines.

The pony scrunched up her eyebrows in confusion. Of course, she didn’t know this. She simply shook her head and relaxed completely, allowing her legs and head to sway back and forth as the Spartan carefully placed her steps.

It was generally peaceful for a small bit, something that, as usual, Alice was OK with. She started on what she would do after she got her equipment from the pod. That is, if anything was still in it. Her HMG would definitely be in there, it was strapped down tight in its metal case. But other luxuries like extra ammo and food might have escape through the gaping hole she made during entry into the atmosphere.

No need to worry about that yet, though. She had a plan to create. She figured she could get an idea of where Douglas and Jerome were. As a matter of fact, they were probably headed for the mountain. That would be most obvious, figuring it had a giant castle melded onto the side, meaning civilization and a source of hierarchy. That was good, and bad. Good, because they would undoubtedly get an idea of where she went. Bad, because the local beings wouldn't be on good terms with two more of the aliens that had wrecked their castle. Double bad, because she can’t exactly go back and wait for them. As a matter of fact, the pony-goddess’ would probably get into a fight with them. That was kind of her fault. But, there is still the chance that they will get the information and find their way to her. She stopped for a moment, realizing she had overlooked one problem.

How were they supposed to leave this planet?

The pony looked up for a moment, probably wondering why they stopped.“Hey. Keep moving. The faster you get to whatever you need, the faster you can let me go, right?” It asked while tapping her thigh.

It was hardly in any position to tell her to keep going, but she complied and kept climbing down. She was sure they would deal with that problem when the time came. She felt content that her team would find her, and became lost in the sound of the rocks crunching under her boots.

***

It took her a couple of hours, but getting down was surprisingly easier than going up. The grey pony had long since gone to sleep, leaving her alone with her thoughts, but she had finally reached the forest-covered bottom. The pod was rather close to the base of the mountain, even though it had bounced back up after hitting the mountain. The smoke was probably about a mile away, an easy walk that would take her maybe 20 minutes. She breathed in the fresh forest air, relieved to be away from the mountain. It was nice and idyllic down here. Way to open up there, in her opinion. But that’s just because she is used to hiding behind cover as boiling globs of plasma sizzled over her head.

She shook her head. For once, there was peace, and she could find a way back to warfare. She looked about her surroundings as she silently made her way through the forest. A couple birds here and there, but for the most part, the smaller animals kept their distance.

Her stomach growled. She hadn’t eaten since a couple hours before coming to this planet in her pod. She could go a few days without eating, but she liked to if she had the chance. Of course, there were a couple of vacuum sealed food packs in a small pack on her back, but she could wait until she got to the pod.

She ran a small diagnostics as she walked. Her ribcage was still bruised, but healing nicely. She blinked that away and looked through her armor. Her prototyped shielding had overheated immensely after that armor lock, and was surprisingly still cooling down. It was running ‘safely’ at a maximum of 77% of her usual battle-ready shielding. Other than that and a small break in the gelatin layer over her ribcage, and it was doing nicely. It had definitely seen worst days. After closing that up, she could smell the familiar sent of smoke. She looked ahead and found her smoking pod 50 feet away. The grass around it was burned up and charred, a couple tiny fires still spreading along the ground.

She jogged the last bit towards it and stopped as she got close. The front pointed away from her, showing the inside. Sure enough, she spied the metal case that surrounded her trusty HMG. She gently placed the pony on the ground, away from the scorched earth, where it continued to snore rather loudly. She then walked into the small space, making a list of what she saw.

Her HMG, an ammo crate, a dozen or so destroyed food packs and a couple usable ones, a med-kit… and a nice fuzzy thermal blanket. Not bad considering what is had been through. She walked over and popped open the ammo crate. She policed a couple of extra mags before walking over to the second metal case inside the pod. It was a good thing she had strapped it down, or it would’ve been a couple miles from here where she wouldn’t find it, and if she did, undoubtedly broken.

As she popped it open, there was the crack of a stick behind her. Immediately, she crouched around the corner of the blasted door to the pod and activated the policed camouflage unit, just as a grey dot blipped on her radar.

***

Luna woke up. She felt dazed. She groggily looked around. She was inside of… something. She tried to remember what happened. They had found the pod… was this it? How did she get in here? She concentrated on the events. Yes, they found the pod. The little grey pony that was held hostage was sleeping in front of it. The alien was nowhere in sight…

She remembered walking up to it. She stared down at the pony for a moment before peeking into the pod. Then, something stabbed her neck. She pulled out a needle… and then nothing.

Her vision slowly started to regain, and she more carefully looked around. She was in the pod. And… she was also tied up. She tried to use her magic to undo the rope around her. It was blocked by something clamped securely around her horn. She tried again, to no avail. Where were her guards? What happened? How long was she out? Multiple questions pounded the inside of her head.

She suddenly felt like she wasn’t alone.

Her head darted around, but nothing was there. She tried using strength to break the ropes this time. They got tighter. Great. She tried to stay calm… but seeming as how she knew something was here and her guards had vanished, and she was tied up, and she couldn’t use magic, this was hard to do.

In front of her, something moved. Definitely. Her vision was blurred. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she reopened them, a green figure materialized in front of her. It stood at its full height, an arm pointed down at her. Her pupils dilated as she stared down the barrel of the aliens pistol.

“I gave your two friends a warning. You came anyway.” It said.

Luna thought for a moment. She had to act carefully. One bad move, and she would undoubtedly be part of the wall behind her.

“Yes. I did. Where are my guards?” Luna asked silently.

The Spartan didn’t move. “They’re dead.” She replied dryly.

This made Luna’s heart thumped. Dead? She told them to stay back… Did they attack when the alien stabbed her?

“We came on peaceful terms!” Luna complained.

“It would’ve stayed peaceful if you stayed away. Congratulations on sending more guards to their deaths.” The Spartan blamed her for their wasted lives. “I could just give you this pistol right now so you can off yourself, because what you attempted was down-right stupid, peaceful or not.”

She suddenly felt guilty. Back in the old days, she had sent plenty of soldiers to die during the war with Discord, the Griffons, and the Changelings. But now, now was different. It was almost like she could hear the pained yells of every soldier that had died in her name. Was it because she was brushing close to her own death, or had Celestia finally broken her away from the days when death was more common?

The alien continued. “Unfortunately, you don’t get that option. You get your own executioner.” There was a click as the Spartan flicked the pistol off of safety. “And by the way, thanks for the present.” In her other hand held the cone meant for ET. “Have a nice time with whatever god controls the hell your headed to.”

*

Inside her helmet, Alice smirked as she was about to pull the trigger. She was gonna enjoy this.

The smile was washed away as something behind her gave a war cry. She turned towards the new attacker. A purple unicorn teleported behind her. Her eyes were white, a purple aura covered her body. She looked pissed.

Author's Notes:

I'm so sorry for the huge delay. The blog was a lie, and I ended up on hiatus. The gamer side of me took control, and i procrastinated this for a long time. It was probably for the better, the writing would've been sloppy if I didn't want to write at the time. Anyway, please notify of any mistakes as usual.

Unwelcome Guests

The morning had finally ended, and the green pony started to calm down. Anders was relieved, to say the least. She wanted to get a move on just as much as Jerome and Douglas. She looked into the distance. The mountain was close. Today, maybe even during the afternoon, they would come up to it. She hoped during the afternoon. Behind her, the two Spartans looked off into the distance, probably talking to each other. The pony sat up farther behind, yawning and stretching over-dramatically. Finally, the Spartans moved forward.

“Are you ready?” Jerome asked he stopped next to her.

“As ever.” Anders replied with a sigh.

As much as she wanted to go, it was gonna be a long walk. And they were rushing to get to the mountain, too. Anxiety and worry was starting to build up. They had to find Alice, and then find a way off this rock. The longer they spent enjoying the sights, the more they had on their plates. Not to mention the pony, who was becoming more and more resentful of being around them. She didn’t blame him. They attracted danger like a moth to a bright light. Between the Krensamijiggles… Kensur? Krenshar, that was it. Between the Krenshars, the Diamond Dog incident, the fact that Douglas took down 4 dragons single handedly, not to mention they had smashed him with a giant metal door, and finally, let’s face it, the Spartans looked like humongous green behemoths, they were rather intimidating for a pony race who hasn’t known war for hundreds of years.

Yep, she sure as hell couldn’t wait to meet the princess…

*

Legs. They were required for walking, driving, standing, and plenty of other tasks. But they were birthed by the devil and cast down onto all living beings, just so they could feel the pain when using a necessary tool for too long. Legs were hell in a neat little hand basket with the words ‘Have fun’ written on a little bow on the top.

And Anders was feeling the burn.

They had been walking forever. She could see why pegasi evolved with wings, so they could fly. Or why fish grew fins, so they could glide instead of walk. And the way penguins waddle? Oh man, the energy they save with that.

But humans, nnnoooo, they had to fight in the war against gravity to get where they needed to go. Anders always hated Physics. But, as a necessary tool promised, it came with great rewards. The endless walking had finally brought them to their destination: the bottom of a mountain.

And now, she had a lovely poem made up for gravity: I hate you.

Now, she had to climb the mountain. And then walk across the mountain. And maybe fight on the mountain. A new line for the poem: I hate you, and I hate mountains.

Next to her, the pony lit up.

“Oh no! How will you ever get me up there? Guess you have to bring me home now…” He said; a sarcastic frown on his face.

“Nonsense. We got a backpack.” Douglas replied as he half-heartedly tossed down the brown bag. “Just squish in between the explosives. Be careful though, you don’t want to blow a crater into the side of the mountain!”

Wind Storm looked on in horror at the bag of death.

“Or would you prefer to go home by yourself?” Douglas added bluntly. It was kind of necessary; they had no other way to bring him up unless he sat on their heads.

Carefully, the green pony wriggled into the bag, careful not disturb the plastic explosives.

Obviously, they wouldn’t go off without the detonator, but Anders noticed a very different thing going on between the Spartans and the pony. It was weird; she had always viewed the Spartans as dead-set on objectives, no messing around, straight to the point. But even during the battle on the Shield World, as they battled their way through hordes of covenant and flood, they would spark up little conversations about the strangest things and competitions on who could get somewhere faster or who could shoot down the most enemies. Nothing like the ODST’s, who would often played with their alien counterparts and were clumsier and less worried about getting the job done right.

But it did seem as though the Spartans had never left behind the smaller bits of mischief from their childhoods.

Anders shook her thoughts away and scrutinized the rather steep mountain. “How am I supposed to get up? I can’t necessarily fall a couple hundred feet and brush it off, and I’m not a great climber.”

Jerome thought for a moment, scanning the area. “Stormy here knows more about this place than me. Any suggestions?” He said as he turned to the pegasus in the Blast Pack.

“Well, there is a train station in a town a ways away. Take ya right up the mountain in no time at all. But of course, that would include walking right into the train as everybody stares at you, blowing your cover.” Wind Storm replied.

“Cover? What cover? My plan was literally to walk up to the Princess and say hello. Better now than ever, right? Lead the way.” Jerome said as motioned him to step ahead.

Anders looked confused. “That’s your plan? Just let us be known to an underdeveloped civilization? In case you forgot, 500 years ago Earth made the pact of not interfering with underdeveloped sentient beings! In case you haven’t noticed, these guys don’t look exactly space-age!”

Douglas pointed to Wind Storm. “What about him? What about our pod debris? What about Alice landing on the castle? What about getting home? We honestly don’t have much of a choice here Anders.”

Anders grumbled to herself but otherwise stayed quiet.

With that, Wind Storm happily hopped out of the Blast Pack backpack and started to march towards the town.

“So, tell us more about the town?” Douglas said as they followed.

“Well, it’s called Ponyville. Don’t know much about it. But I do know it has a train station!” Wind Storm replied. "I stopped their once on a trip to Canterlot. Let me tell ya, best cider I've ever had, and I've had some of the best Istallion cider."

“And it’ll take us to the top of the mountain?” Jerome followed up.

“If ya want, but it also stops at the castle.” Wind Storm added matter-of-factly.

Jerome ignored the comment. Finally, they were going to meet these Princesses. Just a little more walking and a small train ride. And the sun was barely at its apex.

“So, uh, when we get there, I can leave, right? Just drop me off, and I’ll be on my way!” Wind Storm cautiously asked.

Jerome thought about that. He was sure they could find the castle easily; it was the largest part of the city.

“I don’t see reason as to not.” Jerome said with a shrug.

The pegasus visibly became happier. “Man, nobody is gonna believe me when I tell my story!”

Wind Storm continued to skip along, the three humans in tow. “So, how far away are we?” Douglas asked as he looked up at the sun.

“Only about an hour!” Wind Storm replied.

Anders gave a dramatic sigh, and the Spartans walked in silence.

*

“Well, here it is!” Wind Storm said, ecstatic that he could finally leave the group.

The Spartans looked over the town from the top of the hill as Anders gasped at the sight of so many pastel ponies. “How do they even create such works of architecture with hoofs? I mean, the unicorns you mentioned, surely they can’t do everything?” She asked in wonder.

“Very carefully.” Jerome replied sarcastically.

“There’s the train station.” Douglas said, pointing towards the terminal.

“How do we get on without a ticket?” Anders asked. “Certainly not by force, that wouldn’t help for a global appearance, so to speak.”

“We won’t need one. We’re an alien species, I’m sure they will let us go to the princess to talk politics.” Douglas guessed.

“Politics? I’d hardly call it that. If anything, they’ll think we’re here for world domination.” Anders shot back.

“And in the end, isn’t that what politics truly is?” Douglas countered.

Anders thought that over. “Well said 042, well said.”

Wind Storm waited impatiently. “Hey, I want to go home. Can we continue?”

“He’s right. I don’t want to waste any more time.” Jerome mused.

They continued walking down the hill. A couple heads poked out from the clouds. Jerome and Douglas talked silently in their helmets as Anders gazed back at the colorful faces.

“How do you suppose they stand on those clouds? Obviously they are not solid, or we would’ve crashed during our flight in-atmosphere.” Anders wondered out-loud.

Douglas looked up at the white balls of fluff. “Magic. Feels good to be able to explain something with one word."

“Well, how does magic itself work? It’s like asking ‘what is life’!” Anders continued.

“And now, we can answer that question. Magic.” Douglas repeated.

Anders sighed inwardly. “There is science to be done, and yet, I’m stuck on my way to a train.”

A couple of the pegasi flew toward the town. When they arrived, the streets were empty. Little white balls peered through windows.

I thought this town was covered with ponies just a minute ago..." Jerome said as he peered around the empty town.

“What would be the term for this? Down-scalated? Did that down-scalate quickly?” Wind Storm asked, talking to anybody who would listen.

“How did they get inside so fast? This place was just filled…” Anders said while walking ahead.

In the background, Douglas shook his hands spookily in the air. “Magic!”

Jerome elbowed him. “Stop with the magic thing.”

Anders walked up to one of the doors. “Helllloooo?” she called out, knocking on the door. “I can see you in the window!” She exclaimed, leaning towards the glass pane to her left.

Immediately, curtains closed, leaving nothing but white and pink flowers for Anders to look at.

“OK, close the curtains. You can’t see me, I can’t see you.” Anders grumbled.

“You’re scaring the villagers, ma’am.” Douglas called out.

“Don’t restart that ma’am crap. It’s annoying.” Anders said as she continued walking through the road.

Douglas and Jerome quickly caught up. “I think we should just find the train and get going.” Jerome suggested, searching for the station.

“Hey, where did Wind Storm go?” Douglas asked.

“Eh, he probably ran off. We don’t need him anymore, we were just gonna let him go.” Jerome answered. “Say, where was that station?”

Anders thought back from the hill. Next to her was a little deli that she saw when they were scanning the area. “Should be right around this corner.” She said as she continued walking down the sidewalk.

Sure enough, as she rounded the building, they were met by a wooden sidewalk running alongside a pink train. A small wooden building sat in the middle.

“What kind of train is that?” Jerome asked.

“The kind of train that will take us to the castle. Cmon.” Anders stated bluntly.

She walked up the wooden building. Peering inside, she found a brown pony hiding under a blanket. It only covered his back and head. “Uhh, hey. Can we get on the train? We kinda want to talk to the princess.” Anders called down.

From under the blanket, a hoof shot out and placed three tickets onto the table.

“Oh, thanks. Have a nice day…” Anders said wearily as she grabbed the tickets.

She walked back to the Spartans, handing each a ticket. “I’m pretty sure we don’t need a ticket, but we’ll play along.”

The three filed into the train. The moment all three had walked into a cabin, the doors slammed shut and the train started up. Outside, ponies popped out of their houses and started to celebrate.

“Didn’t expect them to be so glad to see us off. Denial can be an ugly thing.” Douglas commented as they chugged off.

Douglas turned back from the door and looked around. Anders found a seat while Jerome preferred to stand. On the far side of the cabin, a group of three ponies stared blankly at them. He noticed Anders slowly scoot in their general direction. This was going to be a long lecture filled ride.

*

An hour had passed before the train slowly stopped at the city on the mountain. The sun still lay high in the sky. The three ponies were surprisingly cooperative when Anders started asking questions, one of the ponies, a unicorn, was a scientist himself. The two had gone on and on about molecules, sharing information about this and that.

“Anders.”

She continued on about the tearing of space the shaw-fujikawa drive made just before a jump.

“Anders.”

Particles were superheated to a point that they moved at the speed of light.

“Anders.”

Even at such speeds, it could take weeks to get to the nearest solar system.

“Anders.”

“What?” Anders asked, slightly irritated.

“We’re here.” Jerome pointed out the door that Douglas had already gone through.

“Oh! Good, we can finish this whole mess.” Anders waved goodbye to her friends and followed Jerome off, gasping at the architecture.

“How do they do it? Hoofs just can’t make this kind of stuff!” Anders exclaimed.

Douglas looked expectantly at Jerome, an answer in mind. Jerome simply shook his head. "Don't even think about it."

The direction to the castle was pretty straight forward, just walk ahead. Ponies stared, some hid, a mint-blue one foamed at the mouth and fell over, but mainly, they stared. They passed a coffee shop when Douglas stopped, gazing at the castle.

“Jerome.” Douglas said over his helmet, a waypoint suddenly appearing.

Jerome followed it and froze as he stared at an all too familiar transporter. “Anders, stay here.”

The two broke into a run, leaving Anders behind. She looked over at the coffee shop. “Huh. The Coffee Crave. Catchy.” She admired the name as she walked towards it.

*

“Douglas, get a charge set. Make it small, this is medieval stage, they’re still on wood doorways, maybe weak metals.” Jerome ordered.

Douglas complied, reaching behind him as they ran. There was a noticeable lack in guards or cops or any of the such.

They reached the stairs in no time, bounding up seven steps at a time. Jerome got to the left of the door. Just as he suspected, the door was bolted shut. Douglas set the charge and got to the right.

“Ready?” Jerome asked, a chill in his voice.

“Ready.”

“Blow it.”

***

Celestia sat in her room, massaging her temples. She worried heavily for Luna. Somepony knocked on her door. “Come in.”

A unicorn guard walked in. “Celestia, we have a problem.”

“Oh boy. Where?” Celestia asked bitterly.

“Front of the castle, right near the entrance” the guard replied.

“Don’t tell me what it is; I’m in the mood for surprises. Maybe it’ll give me a bit of cheer.” The goddess said as she stretched before standing and walking out the door. The guard nervously followed close behind.

Down the stairs, through a door, down some hallways, nod to him, nod to her. Nobody seemed to be in a panic. “How fast did you alert me?” Celestia asked, curious.

“I teleported the moment I saw.” He answered.

They came to a door. “Well, it can’t be too important judging by everpony’s lack of screaming.” She said with a small laugh.

With a bout of magic, the door opened.

Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were all in the room. Something held Rainbow Dash by her neck as she fought back. Applejack stood back yelling curses at the creature while Rarity hid behind one of the guards. Two large blue creatures roared in response to several guards bolting the doors. Three shark-headed aliens stood in the room. The shark holding Rainbow turned towards Celestia and dropped the cyan pegasus.

“You! Where is the demon?” It growled.

The entrance door exploded, sending wood splinters flying through the air.

***

Jerome burst through the smoke and splinters, Douglas close behind. Two hunters faced them. One swung a shielded arm at Jerome. He quickly fell onto his back and slid under, a knife in his left hand, SMG in the right. The knife sunk into the shin of the hunter as his SMG exploded into fire at the closest Elite, which had a blue pegasus at its feet. The bullets pinged off its armor, forcing it to find cover.

As he completed his slide, Jerome pulled up with his left hand. The Hunter tripped over and slammed into the ground.

To his right, Douglas tackled his Hunter dead on, shoving the beast down onto its back. As it hit the ground, he pulled the pin of a grenade and shoved it up underneath its chest plate. Worms flopped to the ground as he pulled his empty hand back out. Douglas quickly jumped to the side. The Hunter bellowed as it grabbed at its chest before it exploded, sending chunks of worm and blue armor through the air.

Jerome leaped for the Elite he had previously attacked. An Energy sword burst to life as the Elite gave a battle yell.

The solid plasma swung downward towards him. Jerome sidestepped and smacked the hand away. A small dagger burst to life from the Elites second wrist as the Hunter behind him rose up. The Elite swung wildly at him as Jerome dodged and retaliated with his own knife. He could hear the Hunter raise its arm as the cannon gained energy.

At the last possible second, Jerome grabbed the Elite by its waist, twisted it around and kicked it into the Hunter. A giant glob of green plasma flew through the air and exploded into the Elite, sending a heat wave that rippled over Jeromes' shield. The Elite disappeared. The Hunter charged in a mindless rage towards Jerome.

Just before it hit, Jerome rolled out of the way as he whipped out his sniper. With two loud bangs, half of the Hunters midsection blew away; splattering worms all of the ground. As quickly as they left, more worms filled in the space.

“Douglas, hit the Hunter.” Jerome ordered through his mic.

He turned to watch what else happened around him. Douglas finished tearing a hole in an Elites stomach before he turned, a Rocket Launcher already flying into a ready position. The last Elite dueled with two ponies as more arrived to help. The Elite was winning.

He glanced to an open doorway to match a tall, regal, pure white pony, its head adorned with a crown. Its horn glowed with the light of the sun. He could hear two explosions across the hall, but he wasn’t focused with that. The only thing he was worried about was that the glowing horn was pointed towards him.

***

Anders walked into the coffee shop. A pony sat at the front desk, staring at her, mouth half open as a ding sounded from the cash register. The pony in front of him looked confused and turned to see. His jaw dropped at an unnatural level. She would have to check that out. She walked through, admiring the architecture and different colors of the ponies. None of them seemed interested in her sitting with them, until she came upon a pink earth pony and a butter-yellow pegasus.

The pink one gasped at the sight of her. “OOOHH! What are you? Come here, sit with us! Please! Are you an alien? I don’t know what kind of animal you are, and I know ALL the animals in Equestria, even the parasprites, and not even Princess Celestia knew what those were!”

Anders smiled warmly down at the excited party pony. It disappeared for but a second when she noticed the seven empty cups of coffee.

The pegasus didn’t say anything, just hid itself in its mane. “Of course, seeming as how I’ve been rejected by all the others, why not?” Anders replied, taking a seat across from the two ponies.

The butter-pony looked up for half a second, squeaked, then leaned in close next to the pink ponies head. “Uh… Pinkie, we’ve been here for at least five hours now… I think we should go…”

“Go? Why would we? I’m not even buzzed!” The pink pony said, her voice one of disbelief at the thought of leaving.

Anders thought over that last sentence. She had to say otherwise.

“Besides, our friend just got here, don’t you think we should chit-chat?” She suggested as the pegasus bit her lip.

“Well, that’s exactly why we should leave. Don’t you remember what attacked the castle?” She whispered urgently.

Anders frowned when she heard that. “Attacked? What do you mean?”

She heard an explosion in the distance. Pinkies left ear started to twitch uncontrollably.

“What are they doing?” Anders said out loud as she slowly rose from her chair.

“Woah boy, this one hasn’t come by for a while!” The earth pony exclaimed as her ear started to twitch faster.

“Uh, what does it mean?” The pegasus asked, a small amount of alarm in her voice.

“If I’m not mistaken, it means somebody is about to fall a really long distance!”

Two more explosions.

“What do you mean?” Anders said suspiciously, her eyes on the rising smoke at the castle.

A blinding flash came from the castle, a loud explosion that drowned out the previous two. A huge beam of light for a split second. A green figure tumbled head over heels next to the shop, going… going… and right off the edge.

Her tac-pad buzzed. One of the Spartans had received heavy damage and was going into an automatic armor lock. She looked at the statistics. He just flat-lined... She looked at the name.

She looked back at the broken rail at the edge of the mountain town. “Jerome?”

Author's Notes:

Man oh man, was this one a dousy. Doosy? Dosey? I don't know. Anyway, what an introduction for our beloved alien overlords. Loved writing this one. I think the fight scene wasn't long enough, but then again, it's supposed to be in the next chapter as well. (Of course, after we check up on our special female death machine and her pony counter-part). On a side note, about the whole Earth-pact-no-touchy-underdeveloped-sentient-beings thing, that was obviously made up. But apparently there is something like that in Star Trek?

Just Getting Started

Author's Notes:

I'm not gonna thoroughly check for grammar.

The delays are making it obvious. I'm falling away. I've had great times. I feel like this story is going downhill, and with it goes my love for the fandom. I don't know what to do from here. I might cancel it. I might see if somebody wants to take over. Not sure how to go about doing that, probably gonna have to ask the mods. This chapter feels like the worst I've posted. The only thing that makes me get on here every other week and sit for 20 minutes thinking about what to write is my need to not quit and leave everybody waiting around like Half Life 3. I had events planned, sure. But I had no idea how to get to them. I had an ending planned, but no idea which road would take me there. Whether or not I continue is nothing but a blur. Like Alice, we can only wait. Like Douglas, I may retreat and leave the scene. Like Jerome, I may just go out like a light and nobody may ever hear of me again.

With this said, I hope it is good enough. Enjoy.

2/3/15 Edit - God, I regret not checking for grammar. That was bloody terrible. Alot of it has been fixed.

Jerome knew he was soaring through the sky, but everything seemed to go slowly. A crack in his visor made it hard for him to see details and he bounced down the road. He was able to make out the coffee shop as he flew past. He bounced once more, and then there was no more ground under him. He was just falling. Finally, his armor reacted and locked up, as if that could save him.
.

He smashed into the ground, and the blue sky turned black.

*

Douglas hesitated for a second. This had certainly never happened. He had always had a specific enemy, not one that could change sides. Maybe this one had never changed. They had assumed. No, they were ready for this. They hadn’t assumed. They had reacted. An enemy that hadn’t been known to take allies was fighting an unknown, and the enemy of his enemy was his friend. No again. He was walking into another 3 pronged war. He still had an old enemy, but the new turned from parasitic flesh worms to colorful ponies.

His old enemy, the Elite, finished off the last of his ponies and turned towards the real prize, him. Which an angry howl, he lunged towards Douglas. The Elite had armor pointing towards that of a recruit, and his skills showed. He easily snatched the Elites wrist and wrenched it backwards, forcing the sword away. He tossed it, and, pulling the Elite closer for momentum, head butted the squid-faced alien. He heard a crack, and purple blood splattered across his visor. He was done.

He still didn’t have a plan for the giant unicorn. He needed more time, and a chance to speak with Anders. Dodging the new guards that had entered, he fled the castle. Tactical withdraw, as Serina would have called it.

***

Princess Celestia had done it! She was nearly knocked off her hoofs from using too much magic, but she had driven off the aliens. Well, two of them. She blasted one, and the other ran. The other aliens… well, the first aliens were trying to kill the second and third aliens, and the second and third aliens tried to kill the first, and the second wanted… A demon? This was confusing. The first were the two legged ones. But the second and third were two legged. The third was gigantic and blue, the second smaller but sharing the same hue, while the firsts were green. Then there were the fourths, aka, her little ponies. It was nothing short of a massacre. What few were alive were in serious need of attention.

She couldn’t do anything, not in her condition. It had been to long since she had to use a combat spell, let alone one of the most sophisticated and powerful in the book. For now, she would be OK, but later it would catch up. A guard walked up to her.

“Princess, we need to get you out of here!” He was a first Lieutenant. Her mind was still dazed, she couldn’t match a name with the face. She simply nodded and followed as he led her towards the medical wing of the castle. What just happened started to catch up. She hadn’t seen so much blood in a very long time, a time she had hoped to forget. She couldn’t let that time happen again. She started to put the pieces together. What she had thought was an attack by one side turned into an intervention by another. Was she caught in the middle of a war? It looked to be so… But which side was her enemy? Maybe both? Celestia, well, herself forbid that was the case, because if so she had already lost. She needed an ally.

She went through a doorway where a couple doctors where waiting. They asked her first if she was hurt. They both sighed when she responded with a no. She went through a couple boring tests that she had gone through a couple times before. They came up with the obvious, magic overload. She simply needed a couple pills during dinner tonight and a bit of sleep. She left and immediately searched for the Lieutenant. He was waiting for her outside the door.

“I need you to come with me.” Celestia asked as she continued walking. He followed suit at her right side. “You and I are going to become good friends. How long have you been a Lieutenant?”

“Seven years now Princess.” He responded with a note of suspicion.

“It’s about time you move up then. You are here by promoted to Captain. I have a feeling Shining Armor is going to be gone for a while, and I see a dark storm in the future. I need somebody to help me take control. We have a new enemy, and I’m going to be honest to you, I’m scared we might not make it out very nicely this time.”

***

Rainbow Dash honestly had no idea what just happened. It all happened too quickly. She was used to fast, but that… she just didn’t know. The three of them were looking for Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Twilight after arguing about something, she couldn’t even remember what about, when an alien had come through the door. It matched exactly what had been explained to her earlier, tall, strange armor, bipedal, it seemed to fit, so she did the first thing that came as obvious to her- attack it. She had charged into it, and it had stumbled back a few feet before grabbing her by the neck. A few guards ran in from her amazing battle cry, and drew their weapons. One of the guards ran off, and more aliens poured through the door, weapons aimed, yelling about some demon. She tried to kick, but it did nothing. The guard came back with Princess Celestia. The alien holding her asked for the demon again, when the door to the castle exploded, some…THING had come in with its friend and beat the tar out of the aliens before one of them got massacred by Celestia. She didn’t know why Celestia did that when it just got done rescuing her (Not that she needed it).

The guards on the other hand got ruined. She almost puked at the sight. Rarity did, and then left. Applejack just covered her eyes with her hat and shook her head. Princess Celestia had left the room with a guard.

Rainbow was getting utterly confused. Why did Celestia do that to the thing that had helped her? What was the Demon that the aliens had asked for? Why didn’t Rarity have a stronger stomach? And where the heck was Pinkie and Fluttershy! Thank Celestia Fluttershy didn’t have to see that, she wasn’t sure what Pinkie would’ve done, and she didn’t want to know, and, last but not least, where was Twilight? Twilight would know what to do, she always did. She probably had a book on these kinds of situations.

A guard walked up and asked her and AJ to leave. She could see why. A couple guards were starting to solemnly bring in body bags. Applejack just turned and left in Rarity’s direction, so Rainbow Dash followed.

Rainbow and Applejack walked silently down the hall, leaving each other to think about what had happened. They found Rarity deeper in the castle sitting on a bench, some of her mascara was dipping down her face. When she saw them, she instantly hugged them both. Rainbow and Applejack returned it.

“That was horrible! Why did that happen?! There was so much blood and things were dying and just happened so randomly…” Rarity cried out as she buried her face into Applejacks mane.

Applejack patted her back. “I don’t have the answer to that question. But I have a feelin’ we need to find out.” She responded with a frown. Applejack looked at Rainbow, frowning a bit more.

“What did I do?!” Rainbow said defensively, returning the not so happy face.

“Why did you have to go and attack that guy? What told you that was a great idea? You nearly up and got yourself killed!” Applejack said as if it was obvious.

Rainbow looked hurt. “Couldn't you see that those things were the aliens that attacked the castle? What did you expect me to do, sit around and wait for take 2 as it rampaged through the guards?”

“Those were not the same! They were different colors, there was more than one kind, and if you remembered, there was only one of the aliens the last time!” Applejack stated.

“So maybe it had some friends, how was I supposed to know?” Rainbow retaliated.

“Stop fighting! Honestly, It’s not helping!” Rarity yelled, with a sad sniff.

Applejack turned towards rarity, who had settled down a bit. Then she looked at Rainbow. “She’s right. Sorry I went off on you. We need to figure out what’s goin’ on here. But to do that, we’ve gotta think this through without arguing with each other. First things first, where in tarnation is Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Twilight?”

“We’ve asked ourselves that, and if they are in the castle, they would definitely be at the front of the castle where that skirmish happened to figure out what the commotion was. As much as I would rather not, we should go back there, and if they’re not there, then we leave and try outside.” Rainbow Dash suggested.

Rarity fainted.

“Wow. Rarity has no guts, does she?” Rainbow commented as Applejack hoisted her onto her back.

“Give her a break. She’s a city pony, she ain’t used to this. Nobody is, I know, but me and you have at least been through a couple tussles. I can hardly cope myself, and don’t lie and say you aint nauseous yourself.” Applejack grunted. “Now if we can, I’d like to check the front and get out before she wakes. Let’s get going.”

The guards worked fast. It was still messy, but the bodies were gone, and they had the entire site blocked off. As they neared, a guard trotted up. “If you’re looking for the medical wing, you’re going in the wrong direction. Do you need help?”

Rainbow looked at Rarity on Applejacks back. “She’s just fainted, but she’s OK. Have you seen a pink earth pony, yellow pegasus or purple unicorn?”

The guard looked at Rarity for a moment longer, a bit concerned. “If you insist. No though, I haven’t. I’m sorry I can’t help.” The guard turned and walked back to the post.

Applejack and Rainbow followed. When he turned to stand guard, he came face to face with a blue pegasus. “Oh, uh… yes?” he asked, taking back a step.

“We’re just passing through.” Rainbow said as she continued walking.

The guard jumped in her way. “I’m sorry, but the castle is on lockdown. Nobody is allowed in or out.”

“What?! Come on, why not?” Rainbow ordered with a baffled expression.

“Uh… Why? Look around, the most important place in Equestria just got attacked. Do you expect us to just let the day go on like it never happened and wait for a second strike?” The guard said with an annoyed expression. “A lot of strange things have been happening, and I’m not the only one to feel like there will be more.” He somberly stepped back to his post.

“Looks like we’re gonna be stuck in here for a bit.” Applejack said as Rainbow Dash stormed by, grumbling angry thoughts and thinking angrier thoughts.

“What do we do now? We can’t just sit here forever! The longer we wait, the more that will go wrong without our ability to at least help, if not stop it.” Rainbow frustratingly scuffed at the floor.

“We have to for now. I can’t hold Rarity forever, and we need time to calm down, maybe get some rest.” Applejack suggested as she set Rarity down on a bench.

Rainbow Dash was silent for a moment. “I… I just don’t know. This is so confusing, things are happening and for the first time, I can’t keep up.” She gave a tired sigh. “Maybe you’re right.”

***

Alice simply grabbed the purple pony by the neck and tossed her outside. She shot the airlock valve and an emergency door slammed shut, steam hissing out of the pipe. A small red light started flashing.

How heroic. She turned back to her planned target. She faltered a second when the pony was no longer there. She looked back at the door, and, with a scowl, kicked it right back open. Sure enough, somehow it ended up outside. The purple pony used her magic and busted the crippling ring around the alicorns horn before tearing off the rope. She turned towards Alice, studied her, and with the blink of an eye, they were both gone, nothing but a purple cloud in their place.

That… was extremely fucking dumb. She expected something. Anything. They didn’t even try to fight! They just left! Seriously?! She turned and punched a hole in the pod. She looked around. Great! Now her hostage was gone! She turned and punched 7 more holes into the pod. This day was just getting worse and worse. She sat down for a couple minutes. After thinking about what should happen next, she look up to the sky for answers. She was shocked when it actually gave her a goal. A purple speck floated towards the mountain before disappearing around the other side.

She knew immediately what it was. How did they find her? The Covenant don’t let up… did they really want to continue dancing after a single ship defended and then attacked an entire armada in a 4 way battle? She had to do something. But she wasn’t going to go up there. Judging by the way they acted with the humans during first contact, those ponies would never see what’s coming. She was getting damn tired of it, but she knew what she had to do. She had to wait.