the peaceful land of Equestria is caught in a war between the humans and the Covenent, and it's up to the Elements and a Spartan to fix things
The UNSC Hammerhead, a command ship that was based of the old "Pillar of Autumn" design, A.K.A, the Hacylon-Class Cruiser, leads a small fleet of ships in an attempt to keep the Covenent from obtaining a forerunner artifact of unknown power, and they get more than they bargained for in the process. Its up to a spartan and his growing team to bring peace back, and kick some Covenent ass in the process. (note: i hope you enjoy reading, but you don't have to like it, its your opinion)
UNSC Hammerhead, crew quarters, room A13, 1432(2:32 pm) ship time
The UNSC Hammerhead was a force to be reckoned with, seeing as how it was the second strongest ship, the strongest being UNSC Infinity. One of its most dangerous aspects being the fact that it housed a spartan super soldier. The spartan was one of the UNSC's greatest pshycos, often jumping to the surface of planets, from orbit, into an ocean, a forest, and even into buildings that got in his way.
He was also known to be a bit old-school, often using old, outdated weapons and armor power ups, like old invisibility and over-shields, along with trip mines, bubble shields, the old flare, and a few jammers. He wore Hayabusa class MJOLNIR armor, which was much better for stealth than he thought, but was much weaker than regular spartan armor, only capable of taking half the punishment. He carried around a katana that he had modified to be as hard to break as his armor, and coated with a thin weave of tungsten-diamond alloy, and the blade edge itself was like that of a Sangheili energy sword.
His most notable features were, one, he used small gravity lifts that were implanted into key spots on his armor to allow him to give himself a speed-boost, short range elevation and hovering, or what he would use them for mostly, to slow or speed up his decent to a planet. Two, he was a master of stealth.. And finally, he sounded a bit like Jango Fett from star wars, and he looked a bit like him to. He had cyan armor with some purple trim, and a pure black visor, which was really two small visors over his eyes.
He sat in the middle of his room, which had nothing but the bare essentials, and was in the middle of polishing his second and third favorite weapons, a M90 shotgun, modified to have two barrels, and have lass recoil, and his MA5C assult rifle, when his rooms AI display flickered to life, emerging from the wall like a small mechanical arm, and creating a life-sized figure of a man, about six-foot-one, ans in a suit," Hello Ghost, you'll be pleased to know that were going to arrive at the target destination shortly, so i recommend you stop cleaning your toys and begin to suit-up." The AI said.
The ship had one of the best AIs out there, who was called Alfred, and was in operation for a little over five years. He wore a small white navy captains suit and captains hat, both bearing the UNSC insignia, making him seem like a captain of a cruise ship. He looked to be about in his mid thirty's, and would often annoy the hell out of ghost like it was going out if style. The two had still forged a firm bond, and Ghost would often take Alfred as his AI, seeing as how he was one of the few spartans to not get an AI at his rank, willingly.
He put the rag he was using to clean his guns to the side," You know, you really need to give me a notice when your coming. I'm getting tired of always seeing you watching my every move while I clean my stuff." He said standing up, and attaching the guns to the magnetic clamps on his back, over his katana, and tossing the rag over onto his bead." I wouldn't need to if you didn't always turn off your rooms intercom." Alfred said with a grin on his face, and soon after faded away, with the projector pulling back into its spot in the wall.
Ghost sighed, he was not in the best of moods, seeing as how he caught an ODST trying to mess with his shotgun, and the poor shmuck wound up with a broken everything when he found out. He got up and began walking to the armory,with the door opening automatically, and having a small mental argument with himself on what gun to carry, and was narrowed down to either the SRS990 sniper, or the Covenent beam rifle, which he totally didn't steal from ONI. He walked for a good five minutes before he reached the nearest armory, and walked inside. Having finally made up his mind, he grabbed the nearest beam rifle, and a few charge-packs, the rifles ammo, and stuffed the five in separate pouches on his belt, which was coated in forcefully removed bits of metal that had strange marking on them, the same ones used to mark rank by the Jiralhanae and Sanheili, and he often was told that he was breaking the laws for taking trophies, but he only really wore them to scare the bulk of the Covenent he fought.
He had a knack for collecting these from the body's of deceased Zelots and cheiftens, and they were beginning to build up to the point they his torso was coated in the emblems, and so were his arms and other parts of his armor, though he had yet to find anymore Zelots he was allowed to kill, now that the humans had formed an alliance with the Sanheili. He had often tried to find dead Zelots after battles, but there emblems were often ruined.
He had decided to grab a few things while he was there. Walking over to the grenades, he casually grabbed four napalm and four spike grenades, and calmly put them on the parts of his belt that were clear just for the grenades. He then walked over to the shelf that held his personal stuff, like the overshield, active camo, flare, jammer, ect. and saw that it was missing his overshield unit, but decided he would kill whoever took it later, and began to apply the standards to his armor.
When he had put all of his stuff: a jammer, two compact flares, a regenerator, and a power drain."Spartan 364, report to the bridge, I repeat, spartan 364, report to the bridge." He heard over the station-wide inter-comm. Honestly, he hated being called by his designation, and was now in an even worse mood, did i forget to mention he go mad really easily?
Getting a spare few clips of soellkraft rounds for his shotgun, and proceeded to go to sprint to the bridge, dodging all the marines in his way. Getting there in a matter of minutes, he ground to a halt in front of the door, leaving behind skid-marks. Before opening he door, he took a good look at each marine and ODST, trying to find the shmuck who took his over-shield. Satisfied that they were all only wearing there standard armor, he opened the door to the bridge.
As the door was opening, he decided he would get some non filtered air, and removed his helmet. As the door hissed from the release of their pressure, so did his helmet, as the door quickly opened, he gave a small tug at his helmet, pulling it off easily, revealing his pale scared face.
Now, most spartan's faces were pale, and they often had to use injectors to stay healthy due to the lack of sun light, but Ghost was an exeption, and went around the ship with his helmet off more often than most. He had crisp, dark-brown hair, and blue eyes, both of which were clouded over, which is how he got his call-sign, because he cheated death often, and soon lost something to pay the price, his sight, which forced him to use implants to restore it.
He walked into the bridge, and saw that all of the squad captains of the marines and ODSTs, waiting around a holo-board, having a discussion over the plan of attack for this operation, and all just became silent and looked at Ghost, who was very clearly mad.
He walked to the board, setting his helmet down near his hand, and looked at the figure that was blocked by all the others, a Sangheili Zelot, who was inspecting Ghost's emblems," A formidable collection human, I look forward to seeing how you acquired such a variety." The zelot said with a chuckle, but clearly happy to be on the humans side instead of with the Covenant.
The Sangheili's armor was nothing to flashy, just the regular set all of his kind get at that rank. The only difference between him, and a normal Zelot, was that he had far more experience. His armor was coated in burns, dents, and cuts, one such cut leading from the left breast-plat to his right eye, which was removed via Jiralhanae chieftain hammer
" I'm glad to see you finally joined us 364, i can tell your a little upset, but-" the captain said, but was interrupted. The captain was captain Leon Swansen, he had been assigned to the ship the same time that Ghost was, and was in his mid fifty's. He and ghost had been through hell and back with this ship and crew, and had the scar on both body and ship to prove it." No, i'm more than upset, i'm fucking mad! DO you know how hard it is to clean slag and gum out of a shotgun? Fucking hard! And someone stole my over-shield to!" Ghost said in a half shout.
One of the ODST captains, there was a total of six, began to seem a little scared, but the one next to him seemed to be a little to calm,"Well ,yea, I took it, i mean, it was just lying there, so i took it. And the hell is with the emblems, are you starting a new trend? " Said the ODST captain, he had recently been transferred, and was about to need the morgue for some help.
When someone took his stuff, Ghost would steal there favorite thing, a weapon or a picture, and hang it on the hanger ceiling via lots of gum and super glue, and duct tape, and leave them to find a way to get it, but this captain had taken his over shield and insulted his emblems. Ghost put his helmet on, not wanting to get blood on his face, and slowly began to walk around the table to him." You know, you really need to look into the place you're moving to, because you just might fuck up something." He grabbed his katana from its sheath on his back, and grabbed a spike grenade on his belt like a mace.
" Ghost, stand down, you know he's new, leave him alone." Swansen said, but to no avail. The ODST captain was now a little scared now and began to edge towards the side of the rather large board." If you don't take that back, and give me back my shield," Ghost said, quickly putting the tip of his sword to the ODSTs neck," i'll gut you like a fish." He said, noticing a wet spot forming on the ODSTs pants.
"S-s-sorry, I-I-i'll take it off, I swear! P-p-please d-don't kill me!" the soldier stutter. Relieved to feel the tip leave the vicinity of his neck, he quickly removed the patches that were on his suit, and handed them over to Ghost, who put them on the same spots as his camo patches." You two done yet?" Swansen asked" Yes, and he gets to live," ghost said, returning to his spot in the other side of the board," for now."
The soldiers on the ship had learned to never mess with this spartan, which is why the most injuries happen to recent transfers." Alright, now, here's the plan i made for this mission." Swansen said, while the board lit up, creating the holographic image of a terran planet, though it was only colored blue from the board, and had a sizable covenant fleet above the light side of the planet.
"This fleet has only recently arrived here, and has taken extreme interest in this planet. We intercepted a transmission from them, which said something about a forerunner artifact, or artifacts. Our mission is simple," the board displayed there fleet, much smaller than the covenants, coming out of slip-space near the moon," The fleet will use the moon as cover, and will deploy the pods and pelicans before landing on this moon to set up a listening base to see what there up to.."
The board zoomed into a specific continent, and showed the terrain of it from orbit, revealing a few small cities, and a giant city on a mountain." This could possibly be a first contact situation, so each squad will have a diplomat, or a single soldier that knows the kind of stuff for first contact, and remember, no uplifting! Understand?" he said looking at them all."Alright then. Jenkins, you said to me you would take care of the planing, go ahead." He said, turning to the new captain.
He began to inspect the terrain of the area, tracing his finger from place to place, formulating his plan with each movement. After a few minutes of thinking, he was finally satisfied with his plan, and typed a few commands into the console, creating several blips and such, moving them into different positions around the area." Alright, here's he plan. Alpha squad is going to secure an area for a forward base of operations." he said, making some blips which represented drop pods fall into a clearing in the forest near a small village.
" Gamma squad is going to land near them to aid in fortifying the area for supplies, and scaring off any curious locals. The first squad of marines and supplies will land when the base has been setup, and the cloaking devices that the elites were nice enough to lend us. Beta and delta squads will land here to establish a lookout for when the covis decide they want to come and visit." The display showed two much smaller clusters of pods falling and the blips in them scattering throughout the landscape, but all within a one mile area." Ghost, you and a few ODSTs will drop down near the edge of the forest that the base will be in. Your number one priority is to establish contact with the locals, but if there hostile, don't kill them, they might just be scared." The board showed a smaller cluster of pods fall, and what was clearly Ghost falling faster than the pods, , and grouping with the other blips, and headed to the village.
Ghost wasn't entirely convinced," What if the covenant are already in the village? We need a larger group to help if they beat us to the punch." He said." Don't worry, i'm only sending my best men to help you, now let me continue. When we finish with the diplomacy, if we can make any sort of connection past the language barrier, we warn them of the covenant and to let us see anything that they might be interested in." Jenkins said, allowing the map to zoom out to the birds eye view.
" When the first base is set up, we'll set up more near each city and village, hidden on or in landmarks. When the covenant come, the'll be completely overwhelmed by us." Several more blips formed, indicating the location of every base." A very sound plan, but there is still some flaws, like the problem of deadly wildlife and hostile locals, and there is no telling when the covenant will find us, or the artifact." The Zelot said." That's a stone we'll cross when we reach it." Jenkins said, hoping that the plan would work.
"Attention crew, we are leaving slip-space in five minutes! All crew to there stations!" The intercoms blared, signaling for the crew to be prepared for there drop." Alright,you know the music, time to dance." Swansen said," The tango or the shuffle?" Ghost said, being the smart-ass he always was, and walked off to the drop pod bays.
Being a spartan, most of the ODST's either hated or respected him, seeing as how most owed there lives to him from how often he saved there lives, or teased them by threatening to kill them, throw them out the air-lock, beat them to death, or shove a grenade down there throat. He was going over the plan in his head on the way to the pods, trying to find a solution to any problems." Maybe the locals are hunters, but that then they wouldn't need wheat farms and apple orchards. If there herbivores, they might be scared of omnivores like us. Maybe the forest has hostile creatures in it, then we'll have to set-up a wall to keep them out. Maybe we'll squish a local on the landing, then diplomacy will be rather har-" His train of thought was interrupted by a sudden jolt, A.K.A, the exiting of slip-space.
The Hammerhead was rather wonkey when it came to exiting slip-space, often being shook and jolted, but that's what the crew got for not upgrading there slip-drives. Knowing he wasted to much time thinking, he bursted into a sprint, and got to the pod-bay just before the pods dropped, though he made a mental note to kill the janitor for spilling his bucket on purpose to try to slip Ghost.
He calmly walked through the door, shoved several boxes of ammo he had delivered to the bay into the only free pod, and jumped on-top of the pod. Unlike most spartans, stuff like this was not weird to the crew, seeing as how he hated going into battle with little to no ammo, or a pod to mash a Jiralhanae to death with. The ammo in the pod was mostly assault rifle and shotgun ammo, but with some sub-machine gun ammo for the ODSTs.
Soon enough, the pods began dropping, starting from the polar opposite side of the ship from him, and quickly beginning to reach his pod line. When his line dropped, he was greeted by the sight of the planet a small distance away, but still much farther than a normal drop height, there release location being the damn moon." Swansen, the hell are you doing, you do realize that pods aren't ment to drop from this dam height!" He said over the intercom," Sorry, but we need to add a delay for the arrivel so we can seem like meteors. Did i forget to mention that your going in with a meteor shower?" Swansen asked.
Several ODST's were now rather uneasy about this drop, seeing as how most never dropped during a meteor shower, especially with deployable bases coming in right behind them. Ghost looked over his pod, which he was still sitting on, and saw the terran planet below, and the continent they were landing on." You mind telling us why it took a little longer for you to launch the pods?" he said over the comm again," We had to come out of slip-space farther from the planet to keep the Covenent from detecting our ruptures." Swansen said. Ghost had never met anything other than Covies, so he wasn't to sure that things would go right, and he go a really bad feeling to reinforce that assumption ----------
Ponyville, edge of town, midnight
Most of Ponyville had gone to the outskirts of town to watch the meteor-shower, which was predicted to be the biggest yet. All of the elements had front-row seats to see the event, and had brought any siblings, Applejack even brought Big Macintosh.
" So Twi, how big was this here shower 'sposed to be anywase?" Applejack asked, eagerly watching the sky for any signs of the shower." The princess said it would begin about now, but couldn't tell when exactly." Twilight said to her, also watching the sky, but through her telescope." Hey look, i saw one go by!" Scootaloo said, pointing to a part of the sky, which soon began to fill with hundreds of meteors.
Several oo's and ahh's came from the crowd of ponies, some ponies had even started taking pictures of the spectacle. The sky was so crowded, that a few meteors collided, sending some of the debris down to Equis, most landing in the Everfree Forest. Twilight made a mental note to see if she could find some of the debris near the edge, but was more focused on something she just noticed.
In the middle of the shower, there seemed to be some meteors that were staying in place, and growing." Um, girls, i think that those meteors are coming right for us!" Twilight said. Some of the meteors had collided with the ones that were heading down, most getting destroyed, but one seemed to be trying to collide with them before the others did.
Most ponies had noticed by now, and were near panic, and when the first of the new debris landed very close to the group, it pushed them into panic-mode. It was when everypony noticed that the odd meteors were beginning to move at there own will, that everypony but the elements, and there siblings, ran back to town.
The elements had taken cover under the hillside overhang that they were once on, and were trying to keep there siblings, and themselves, from trying to run back while this was happening. When the now unknown objects were on an obvious collision course for the girls, they were about to take the chance of running through this shower of meteor debris, when they changed course for the Everfree Forest, and were followed by two or three slower objects, and seemed to slow down when they were close to the treetops.
Soon enough, the debris began to lighten-up, and stopped all together after a few more minutes. The elements just stayed still for about a minute, waiting to be sure that it was over, before climbing back up to the top of the over hang. The entire group was terrified, and the cutie mark crusaders were the most scared of them all." You know, when i hear the words "meteor shower", i think of the darn things staying in the sky, not comein' down like rain!" Applejack said, clearly very shaken.
The crusaders were grouped together in a huddle, and stuck together like they were wrapped in duck tape and encased in a super-glue shell, and part of that shell was a certain butter colored pegasus. The crowd that had run to the village was beginning to come back now and were all very clearly confused. " What were those things?" " Were they flying on there own?" " How was the smallest one able to smash right through those meteors?" " Were those aliens?" were among some of the things that could be heard from the crowd.
A few of the ponies had gone to the edge of the cliff, and could see all the destruction of the meteors, which had ruined the landscape, with some creating trails that were at least a mile long. At this point, everypony thought the chaos was over, but boy were they wrong. Soon, they saw more objects coming down, and were about to run for cover, but saw that they were actually dodging all the meteors in the still going shower.
Eventually, all of the objects got to the tree-tops of the Everfree, they all split up, some heading north, others east, a few west, and a few to the south, with some slowly landing in the Everfree forest, right were most of the smaller objects had landed." Spike, I think Celestia needs to be here, cause this could be very bad." Twilight said. It had been no more than a week since her cornation, and she was already dealing with surprise "meteors" ruining there meteor shower.
Spike took out a piece of parchment and a quill from Twilight's saddle bag, which she dropped during the panic, and wrote a quick letter, before rolling it up and burning it, a.k.a, sending it. Again, more objects came down from the sky, and were as reckless as the first ones, but everypony had started to run the moment they saw the first one slam into a meteor."Celestia better get here quick, who knows how long it will be before this ends!" Twilight thought, spreading her wings and heading to the library as fast as she can. ----------
Celestia was enjoying a nice cup of tea in her chambers, and was not really in the mood to sleep, having gotten a very facinating book about an earth pony who meets a vam-pony, and is torn between falling for them, or the lycan they also meet. She was about to turn the page, when a green dust came from here chimney, and formed a letter in front of her, and landed on the book.
Celestia was rather curious, seeing as how Twilight was just watching a meteor shower, and that isn't anything you could really learn from. She levitated the scroll up, unrolled it, and read it aloud to her self quietly." Dear Princess Celestia, we need you in Ponyville as soon as possible. Something bad has happened during the meteor shower that requires your attendance. hmm, that's odd, i thought the meteors were harmless." Celestia got up, setting the letter and her book aside, she walked over to a window, and looked out towards Ponyville.
Even from her chamber, Celestia could still faintly see the meteors, and noticed that some were breaking, while others were coming down. She let out a long sigh," Why does this always happen to Ponyville?" she thought to herself.
Location: half-way between main base site and Ponyville Time: 0015(1:15 AM) Threat-level: medium
Soon after the first wave of pods, the deployable bases had landed, and several machines that were in the belly of the beast began excavating the dirt and soil below it, and placing some sturdy supports to keep the make-shift caves up and able to transport people and such, and soon raised a supply pad, awaiting the arrival of the first supply ship. In the area surrounding the first of the several bases, pods containing some supplys and weapons, while others contained Warthogs and ODSTs. The Base that landed first began to produce a sonar ping, and sent out the message to all nearby units of its location.
Not far from the area of the base, several more pods filled with more ODSTs, and three with Zealots, all armed with camo patches, a better, longer lasting version of the active camo, that feeds off the energy normally used to project a personal shield, allowing it to last as long as it has power, and wont burn-out. When the pods hit the ground, the doors quickly bursted open, and allowing the ODSTs to get out. Most quickly turned and got the remaining gear from there pods, such as extra ammo and some small ration bars.
When they had all gotten there gear, they headed north, in the direction of another crash-site, the location of spartan 364, who was going to lead there recon mission of the area around the nearest town. When they had left the clearing they landed in, they were forced to swap to night-vision visors, seeing as how the trees blocked almost all light. It was not long after that, perhaps a minuet, before a few of the soldiers heard the sound of personal shields flaring, and quickly stepped back, and searched around.
" Sir, what caused that? There isn't anything but native flora here." One of the soldiers said. The captain of the squad looked down, and noticed a rather large patch of blue, glowing flowers."Sir, movement, three o'clock!" One of the other soldiers said in a loud whisper. The entire squad hit the deck, drawing there silenced sub-machine guns, and aiming at the direction that the movement was, holding there breath.
The entire squad, in the silence, had noticed that, in the center of the patch of flowers, was a near impossible to see shimmer, that was easy to see when trees moved, and the clouds moved enough to hit the patch of flowers in the way of the shimmer. The entire squad knew it was 364, and redirected there focus back to the movement, which the spartan had also detected.
Soon enough, some bushes began to shimmer, before being moved away from the beings that were moving through. Emerging from the bushes, was a pack of twenty wolves, made of solid mahogany wood, and were only a few feet away from the flowers, when the closest, and largest, stopped, and began to walk around the flowers. Several tense seconds went by, before the wolves went back into the brush on the polar opposite side of the patch, almost like they knew it wasn't safe, and there personal shields did to.
When the whole pack was gone, and a few moments passed, before the squad was sure that they were gone." what the flying fuck was that?!" one of the rookies said in a loud whisper," That, my friend, was a pack of wolves, made of fucking wood." The captain stated calmly and quietly.
The squad rose from there positions on the ground to a crouch, and all moved towards a small outcrop of rocks, which surrounded half of the pod Ghost was on, A.K.A, a really dam lucky landing site. Any time that there armor was in contact with the odd glowing flower, there shied would activate, blocking them from it, although, some soldiers grabbed some samples of the stuff, and put it in small bags that once held some ration bars, which they moved to other bags and such.
"took you guys long enough, I thought I was gunna have to do this recon on my own." They heard a familiar voice say, before they heard the deactivation of a camo unit, revealing a familiar figure," You know, for having such a bright color for your armor, you are still really dam hard to see." the captain said.
Ghost opened the still closed pod, and removed most of the ammo that was for his guns, and left the rest for the ODSTs," Stock up, we don't know when those wolves will pick up our scent." Ghost said, tossing a box of ammo to a ODST," ...Training rounds?" He said," Yup, same rounds i use to fight in the non sim battles, you know, the kind that create a weird purple material that locks up your muscles, and armor." Ghost said, moving so that the other ODSTs could get some," That way, we can shoot to avoid death, and actually put or weapons to use."" Hey ghost, why is some of your stuff in here?" the rookie said, looking at the old relics that Ghost called equipment in the pod," i cant carry them all, so help your selfs to some."
When the squad had full gotten stocked on practice rounds, and swapped out there lethal ones for them, along with taking some of the old equipment, they all got out of the patch before there shields "popped", which was actually rather loud, and headed to the the town, and the meteor shower was still going on, semi hiding there pods and bases during landing. ----------
For the time until Celestia's help arrived, everypony was on an edge sharper a swords blade. While the bulk of the elements were trying to keep everypony from going full panic mode, Twilight was rummaging through her entire library of books(literally) in an attempt to learn about why the shower had gone so sour, and the closest she had gotten was a sci-fi book called," Equestria's last hope".
"Come on, there has to be something here!" she muttered to herself, beginning to wonder if there was anything related at all to events of the past hour or so. She began taking some of the books from the higher shelves, levitating them down and passing them by her, reading the title of each, and passing it on, slowly getting more and more drained of hope, when she heard knocking at the door.
She used her magic, opened the door from were she stood, and never took her eyes off the books passing in front of her. " Um, princess?" one of the ponies who knocked on the door asked, who was clearly a stallion. Twilight turned around, and looked at the two who were at her door, both were royal guards, one a night guard, the other a day guard." Oh, right, almost forgot i asked for some help here, so, I guess i should fill you in on just what happened?" She said, walking to the pair.
" Actually, you should tell that to captain armor, he can get it to the others rather quickly." the day guard said." Wait, my brothers here?" she said." Yes, your highness, your brother is here, and is waiting for you to inform us about what happened." The night guard said keeping his standard guard poker face." Would you like us to lead you to him?" the day guard asked "Yes please, that would be much appreciated." She said, quickly levitating all the books back, but pulling down the ones she had you to look at.
When she stepped outside, she could tell that the shower was still going on, but was much weaker. As she scanned the sky for more odd activity, which there was still plenty of. After a few minuets of walking, the group arrived at the ledge that all of Ponyville had been when this all started happening,and was now covered in tents that were filled to the brim with weapons, rations, and soldiers. The tents all varied in size, with some only a few feet by a meter, while others were long enough to hold a sleeping hydra.
The guards escorted Twilight past all he tents, and took her right to a tent at the very edge of the cliff, which housed a large, round table, which held a map of all of Equestria, including the crystal empire, and the table was surrounded by stallions, and a few mares, who were clearly captains sue to there attire, which was similar to the armor her brother wore.
When the two guard escort came to a stop, all the captains looked at them, and the princess behind them." Thank's you two, you can go back to your stations now." Shining Armor said, who was on the other side of the table from them.
The two guards gave a sharp salute, and went to there positions to watch for any activity that needed to be reported. "Come on in sis, we need to know whats happening to be able to help." He said, waiting for her to join at the spot left for her at the meeting table.
Twilight quickly took her place, and looked at all the captains, around fifteen in all, and cleared her throat." Well, as you should all know, tonight's meteor shower was interrupted by several objects of unknown origin knocking several meteors down to Equis in pieces, which is why there are so many craters doting the landscape. Some of the objecs were destroyed from the meteors, although the majority of them initially landed in the Everfree Forest, and iv'e noticed that they are beginning to scatter, with some landing in Rambling Rock Ridge." She waited for any of them to ask something. soon, one of the mare captains spoke up," Do we know what it might be, or if these objects are just rouge meteors?" She asked.
" I saw these things slow down, and attempt to move out of the way of the meteors, and the larger ones slow down and even see to land near the center of the Everfree, so i'm sure that they did this on there own." Twilight said." Do you know were one of these larger ones might have landed?" one of the stallion captains asked." I can only go by a guess, and that guess being somewhere by Ghastly Gorge."
" Alright, so we have an idea of were to search, . The question now, is if these things are friendly, or hostile." Shining said, grabbing his helmet and putting it on," i guess its time to go searching then." " If your going, i'm going to!" Twi said," Twi, I cant let you do that, you c-" " no excuses Shining, if i go, they might know i'm an authority figure, which means that they might not attack us." She gave him a stern glare,which he knew was a sign that she wasn't taking no for an answer." ....Fine, you can come, but you need to be extreamly careful, i don't want to see you get hurt." Shining said, finally caving in." Great, i'll go get ready." ----------
Location: Edge of the Everfree, by Ponyville Time: 0148(2:48) Threat-level: medium
Ghost and his squad were sitting at the forest's edge, watching the town. They had been sitting there for the past hour and a half, watching what was going on, and had seen the two equines in armor take a civilian away from town, but that was all that they saw that was interesting." When are we going to move up? I'm dying to get closer." the ODST captain said.
Ghost took his sights off of the town, and turned to the captain." You of all people should know the importance of patience." he said, looking back to the town, and using the zoom ability on his visors to watch, while the others used there snipers. To be more specific as to there location, they were located near a road that led right into he belly of the forest, which is how they got out, and were waiting for something to go by.
They staid there for some time, about ten minuets, before they saw something in the town heading down the path. What they spotted, was at least fifteen squads, with a larger one in the lead, heading down the road. Upon seeing this, Ghost's entire squad made a small pull back into the forest, but only to stay out of sight." Hey cap, looks like that action you wanted is coming to us." One of the ODSTs said silently.
The entire squad stood still as statues when the large group of equines past by. The squad took notice to something that they all thought was odd, and that was that all the equines seemed exactly identical, down to the eye color. There was also many other things, like how there armor seemed to be made of gold, at least for the white colored equines, and the darker ponies had something like obsidian.
As the squads of equines get to a fork soon in the road, they split up, and all of Ghost's squad knew that they were looking for there bases." Alright, new plan," Ghost said, looking at his squad of sixteen." everybody split up, were following those equines. There obviously trying to find our bases, and we cant let that happen!" He said in a loud whisper.
The squad quickly and quietly began to follow the squads, splitting up as the squads split, and staying out of sight.
Ghost
Ghost looked at the sky, and spotted the moon, which was beggining its decent, " Looks like its about three." he thought to himself. He and half of his squad went down the same path, and was slowly beginning to get shorter, untill it was just him following the largest group. He had seen everything in the group of ten, three winged equines, four horned equines, one regular, and a single one that was a combination of all three in the middle.
He had noticed that two of the equines were clearly of high rank in the squad, the lead equine, a horned white one in purple armor with yellow trim, and a star burst emblem on the chest plate. The second one was a purple one, clearly a mare, which was a mix of all the types, in a light purple dress with gold shoes, and a gold tiara with a similar star burst emblem made of a gem mounted on the tiara, and was clearly important equine, seeing as how this group was on of the largest, and had formed a protective circle around her.
As he continued to follow them, Ghost was beginning to have to get closer and closer, due to how thick the trees were getting, and it's rather hard to see in the dark through the dense brush of a forest when you have to use implants to see anythi-*CRACK*"SHIT" was all he thought, seeing as how he just revealed his position.
The equines quickly turned and ejected spears from a hidden mechanism in there shoulders, with the spears reaching three feet, and the horned ones seemed to levitate them. As quick as he could, Ghost activated the camo on his suit, which drained his shield to the point were it would break with a good solid punch, from a monkey. The pads that he had put on his suit took this energy, and changed it, spreading it over him, and bending the little light there was around him, rendering him invisible.
A few of the equines began to slowly come to the bushes were Ghost was hiding. When they got close, they moved the bush, and began to look for the source of the sound, but only saw the stick that had been broken, and not the breaker of said stick. When they were sure that whatever it was was gone, they returned to there spot in the circle, but still glanced at the bushes every once-in-a-while while it was in eyesight. when they were out of eyesight, Ghost quietly dropped the camo, and got back to his spot near them, with his blue armor blending into the odd colors of the forest around him.
After a while, he had to move so close due to the density of the forest, that he needed to keep his camo on at all times, and had to slow down just a bit. After a few more minuets of being this close, he saw something odd on his hud, in the corner of his hud, on the motion detector, he could see several dots, about ten, beginning to move to surround the group of ponies, and that number was slowly increasing, until it was a full pack of twenty had surrounded the equines, and were most likely getting ready to pounce.
The group of equines came to a dead stop, when the lead one raised his hoof into the air , the universal signal for" stop". The moment they stopped, a series of howls began, and green, menacing, glowing eyes began to pop-up around the group against the backdrop of the forest, all twenty. When the howling switched to growling, the equines formed an outward-facing circle, and for once, Ghost heard them speak, and it was a language he had heard a lot on the battle field, it was the language of the unggoy, and it was clear that they were worried.
Ghost knew that this was the moment he would need to make an impression on the equines, and hopefully a good one. he pulled his machine gun, and the moment the first wolf pounced, Ghost made his move. He quickly deactivated his camo, and ran into the wolf before it got halfway to the equines, shoulder bashing it ten feet away, and shooting single shots at its feet when it landed, sticking it to the ground. The moment he bashed the wolf, all the others saw, and emerged to fight the new threat in there territory. ----------
Perspective swap: Shining armors squad
Everypony had a face that was the perfect definition of surprised. One second they were all surrounded by timber wolves, the next, a giant creature literally comes out of thin air, then proceeds to slam one ten feet and stick it to the floor with a loud device, and got all of the attention off of them.
Although there fight-or-flight responses were screaming flight, it felt like they were glued to the floor. They were all trained soldiers, yes, but they were in the Everfree Forest, with a completely unknown creature in front of them, which was battling timber wolves like nothing. When one last timber wolf was batted away and stuck, the creature quickly threw its device on its back, which somehow was able to hold it without any noticeable straps, and drew an amazing sword from his back, where the sheath was set.
The wolves were finally beginning to get the message that the tall creature was trying to show. The creatures blade wasn't really that big, no more than about four hoof-lengths tall, but the sheer fact that this creature had already gotten he upper hand so quickly, is what caused the battle to go into a bit of a lull. There was about ten wolves left free, and another three that had snuck around behind the creature, and in turn, everypony else, meaning that they were stuck until they managed to get themselves to move, and ran back to the other squads to report what they just saw.
The creature was just standing there, waiting, waiting for a wolf to make a move, and his wish was soon granted. The moment the largest wolf, most likely the alpha, barked, every timberwolf lunged at the creature, who quickly switched to holding its sword backhand, and showing how is was so dangerous. A spark of electricity came from the very sheath of the blade, traveled to the tip of the blade, and sparked it to life, causing the blade to spark into a brilliant blue beam of light.
When the wolves were about to slam into it, it leaped up out of the way, a good twenty feet, and let them hit each other. When it came back down, it sliced three in half with one swipe, with the parts hit catching fire, and forcing the others to step away to avoid getting lit.
The battle entered another lull, and the entire squad, still shocked to the point of silence, ran like the demons of tartarus were on there heels, and were hoping that one of the other squads would run into them, or the other way around. All they knew for sure, was that they would be dead if not for the creature that had came out of nowhere. ----------
Perspective swap:Ghost
As the battle entered a second lull, Ghost could here a large amount of hoof steps, and motion behind him, were the equines were, moving in the direction they had came from, now, he just had to finish these wolves off, and regroup with his squad.
When Ghost was about to start the battle up again, he heard a small humming noise, and the wolves seamed to be....... grinning? He turned towards the source of the humming, and was more shocked than the equines. The bodies of the wolves he had sliced were glowing, and shaking, slowly beginning to lift off the ground. The forest around him was glowing also, shaking, and even some of the trees were uprooting themselves, collecting and forming things, a large log about twenty feet tall, four giant paws, at least as tall as him, legs that made the mobile bases seem small, being a little over forty feet, a tail that was about the same length as a single leg, and a large head, with wooden fangs, and what seemed like a crown on its head, with sap running dawn teeth half as half of his body."Oh, that's new....." he said to himself.
The giant wolf took a deep breath, before leveling his head with the ground, and giving a mighty ROAR, and holding it for nearly a minuet. The force of the air displacement from the roar made even Ghost struggle to stay on the ground, having to dig his sword into the ground to stay in one place, and was still being pushed back a bit. When the giant wolf finished roaring, it hit Ghost into the air with its large paw, sending him flying. When he was at the apex of the rise, he put his mini grav-lifts to use, setting them to full power to try and hover mid air.
Although he managed to get his self pointed up, he was still a bit to heavy to hover with the lifts alone, and was very slowly beginning to come down"I really should have brought a jet pack!" he thought to himself, as he slowly got closer to the wolf.
He thought about what could possibly help him in a situation like this."Alright, sword, no; guns,no; frags, no; napalm, n- wait, that's it!. He quickly reached for his napalm grenade, a special grenade that was in the shape of a wide glass vial, with both ends made of metal, and a special napalm like liquid inside it.
Using the mini grav-lift on his palm, he launched the grenade right at the giant wolves left eye, which burst into flames. The wolf was put into severe pain, and covered its eye with its paw to try and stop it, but only spread the fire to its paw as well. While the the giant wolf was distracted, ghost de-activated the lifts, and ran behind the giant wolf. Drawing his sword, he leaped onto the wolves back, and cut it open at where the spine would be, and fell into it.
When he hit the bottom of its body, he heard it roar in pain from his weight crushing its chest. He then ran to the front of its hollow body, devoid of anything but air, and cleaved a hole through its neck to its head, and got his bearings when the wolf started thrashing its head in an attempt to get the pain of the spartan standing in its head to go away, while the fire on it had now reached its back from both its head and paws.
When the wolf had stopped thrashing its head for no more than a second, Ghost had enough time to notice a ball of light hovering in the center of the wolves "skull", but the wolf just started thrashing its head again, leaving him with the lack of the ability to use the sword, and his guns were only able to stick things, which left only a grenade to the dome as a solution. Grabbing a frag, he made sure it was put squarely on the center of his palm,where the mini grav-lift was, pulled the pin, and shot it at the shining orb, and leaped into the chest of the wolf once more.
After only a second of waiting, he heard the grenade go off, and the entire structure of the wolf go stiff, before collapsing into a thousand different pieces. Before he could leap out, at least a good one ton of wood from the wolves back crushed him where he stood, pinning him down." Alright, i'm getting better armor the next possible moment i could. He thought. It was not the weight of the wood that pinned him, it was how quickly it fell that knocked him on his chest.
When he was sure nothing else would fall on him, he began to get up, lifting the wood above him as he slowly rose. The hole reason he was so slow was that he had weaker, more light armor, fit for stealth, and not face to army combat, him being the face, the army being everything else. Eventually, he raised the wood enough to stand at him full height, and began to work his way out of the mountain of wood he was in, one sword swipe at a time. ----------
Perspective swap:shining armors squad
Shining had long since met up with two other squads, who had heard the roar of the timber wolf, and came to see if he and the princess were safe. After he told them what happened, at least, what little they saw, and they all decided to go back, simply to see what had happened, and were unknowingly being followed by two other creatures, the ones that Ghost had long since sent to follow them when they initially split up.
When they arrived at the spot, they were there just in time to watch as the giant timber wolf had began collapsing, with the head exploding into thousands of fragments, and all of the twigs, logs, branches, and even the charred parts of the wolf that were still on fire, falling into over a thousand pieces, and some of them were beginning to catch fire. All three squads just stood there, stunned about how not only was the wolf broken and on fire, but the creature, Ghost, was gone.
After a minuet of stunned silence, with the only noise being the crackling of the fire, they began to talk again," So, this was what the creature did?" silver wing, he leader of one of the squads asked. Shining just nodded his head, totally shocked that the creature had the ability to defeat something as large as the giant timber wolf, and how it set fire to it was beyond any of them.
Before anypony could take another step, the ruble began to shake, and before long, a blade cut right through the side of the wolves "corpse", cutting out a circle of wood, which was kicked out and knocked down a tree, bursting into splinters. From the hole, came the creature, who just strode out like nothing happened, and wiped some dust off his shoulder, sheathed his sword, turned to them, and seemed to be looking into all there eyes at once.
Everypony was visably shaking, all but Shining Armor, who was trying his best to keep his cool. After a few seconds of just having a stare down, a twig snapping behind them caught everyponys attention. When they turned to face what broke the twig, they were staring at the faces of two tall, terrifying creatures, with mouths that were composed of four separate parts, and lined with teeth that made there best swords look like butter knives.
The two tall creatures, who were only a little taller than the other, just walked past them, and headed to the creature who was waiting by the timber wolves corpse, and seemed to great each other by a language that they had never heard, which seemed like just a bunch of grunts and such.
When it seemed like their conversation was over, as short as it was, the tree of them vanished from sight, with only shimmers of light left, and even those vanished quickly." Sir, i think we just fond the disturbance." said a very terrified mare who was in the front of the group.
Shining looked over the area before him, before turning to the squads," alright, we need to round up the others and leave! We only came to find out what caused the abnormal shower," he looked over his shoulder to the spot the creatures were just at," and we just found them." ----------
As the morning sun rose, Ghost, along with the rest of his squad, emerged from the treeline, to the clearing that housed the base they would be living in for the next few weeks. it wasn't much, just a simple fortress with two turrets, a barracks, and a supply pad, which was currently empty, due to the short times they could get supplies planet side. When they got to the bottom of the ramp that led to the inside of the base, they were greeted by a garage full of warthogs, and a grizzly, one pf the best tanks any soldier could think of.
" Hey Ghost, over here!" Ghost heard, as he squad began to disperse and do there own thing.
When he turned to see who spoke to him, he saw a group of ODSTs standing by a zealot, and were leaning against a wall, next to the door that let to the mess hall. He walked over to the group, fully expecting them to attempt to jump him," What do you want Jhonsen?" He asked the ODST he asked him over." We want to know what you saw when you were at that village." Ghost just looked at him for a second." Well, for one, I saw the most amazing carnivorous plant you could ever think of." he said sarcasticly, getting the attention of the ODSTs.
" And just what was this plant?" one of them asked." A wolf, made of solid wood, and hard as hell to kill to." Ghost said in a monotone voice. when he said that, there was a moment of silence, before the ODSTs burst into laughter." Hahaha! You really think were stupid enough to believe that pile of shit?", "I can throw you outside and let you see for yourself." he said, full ready for him to throw a punch, and really wished he would.
" You know ghost, i think i just will, just to prove that your a lying pile of shit. Infact, i think i'll bring that things head back, if it exists, and show it to everybody, just to prove that i killed it." The ODST then proceeded to walk up the ramp to the outside, and everybody stood there waiting for him to come back. ---------
Ten minuets later
At this point, everybody was getting very impatient. Ghost had told them what they wanted to know, A.K.A, what he saw while scouting, and that the equines might try to find their base again, and they were even tempted to just play poker to pass the time, when they heard screaming outside.
The moment they heard the scream, they all grabbed there weapons, Ghost grabbing his sword, and sprinted out of the base, up the ramp, and face to face with a site to behold. When they reached the top of the ramp, all of the soldiers that were patrolling, were turned to stone, and those who weren't were being turned by an awful snake-chicken hybrid, and the hybrids had just noticed them.
