Spartans Never Die, They're Just Missing in Action

Some of you have been wondering how strong Celestia and Luna are compared to the SPARTANs. Well-in this story-the princesses will not be invincible warrior godesses. There are lots of definitions of immortality.(Plus, I don't take kindly to people messing with my SPARTANs. -Dr. Halsey)

"Were it so easy." -The Arbiter, concerning the "death" of the Master Chief

Princess Celestia had absolutely no clue what she was doing. She continued to try and look confident as the so-called Spartans were escorted to her. She wasn't scared of them, but rather-had very little experience in diplomatic situations with completely new species. Through her time, there had been lots of boring summits and treaties; but everyone knew each other and what they wanted. Nice and simple. This time she had told her faithful student Twilight Sparkle to write down all the events and to try and analyze them. Considering she knew next to nothing about this species or how advanced they were she realized that she should probably try to make a deal. By now, the Spartans were about twenty feet in front of her. She held out her hoof to stop them.

"Hello Spartans. Have you thought about what it is you want?" She asked, hoping to encourage them to be more open.

"We'd only wish to get back to where we belong." So they didn't mean to be here? Where were meant to be? So many questions that needed to be answered.

"Oh?" She said, openly showing her curiosity. "And where might that be." The lead spartan took a second before answering.

"Wherever humanity has need for us."

"What's humanity?"

"That is our species." She pondered this. How had she not heard of an entire species? They really must be from a different planet. She asked herself what types of technology they might have from which Equestria could benefit.

"And why have you strayed from 'humanity'...if you want to get back to them."

"A bit of an 'accidental teleportation might be the best way to describe it." That explained a lot. And meant they had no obvious bad intentions. But yet-how could they teleport without unicorn magic? And how were they able to teleport as far as another planet? She remembered a saying from her long past friend Star Swirl the Bearded:Every question answered opens up two more. She realized now just how true his words were.

"So your species can use magic?"

"Magic? I don't know about any magic-but we use cold hard technology." Celestia saw Twilight silently gasp as she jotted down the conversation-no doubt depressed that she could not learn any knew magic from these beings.

"Okay..."She knew she would have to revisit the issue."How about this 'Humanity? I thought you said you were Spartans?"

"We are. We are humans-but we are a type of military group known as Spartans." Military? She asked herself. This might not be as good as she hoped. But then again it explains why they wanted to go back to their species.

"And how does one of your 'humans' become a Spartan?" She asked, still quite curious about the whole military and spartan thing.

"I'm afraid that's classified." Fred saw Princess Luna do what he could best describe as a 'face-hoof'.

"Who is it classified by then? Or is that also classified?" Celestia retorted, stress starting to creep into her voice.

"Under order of the Office of Naval Intelligence and the United Nations Space Command."

"What are those?"

"Those would be the main intelligence, military, and defense structure of humanity."

"What else can you tell me?" Celestia pried, trying to get as much information from them as possible.

"I can tell you that we mean no harm towards your species unless you are working with the Covenant or make up a possible threat to the UNSC."

"What is this Covenant?" She asked. Saw them seem to communicate between each other again. Finally, the main one spoke up once more.

"What your about to see is not for the faint of heart. I'm sure your 'subjects' would appreciate leaving the room to make sure they do not have to see any gruesome sights. We have been in a defensive war for 25 years."

"What type of gruesome sights? And a defensive war?" She asked back, a bit unnerved.

"We'll show you, are you sure none of you want to leave?" The Spartan asked this question towards the guards and Twilight now. All of them shook their heads no. Finally, he pressed a button on the side of his helmet, or to the ponies-his metallic head. A light came out of the side and projected onto one of the walls. It seemed to project a dazzling image of the night sky. He pointed towards a small smudge against the blackness of the sky.

"This object was seen from satellites orbiting the planet Harvest. A few ours later-February 3, 2525-contact with Harvest is lost. April 20 the ship Argo arrives in-system and sends confirmation of it's arrival. Contact with it ceased thereafter. A battle group was sent in and destroyed, but intercepted communications quote the aliens saying in UNSC language:Your destruction is the will of the gods...and we are their instrument."

"Now I could go on for hours about the thousands of battles and how the covenant is hundreds of years more advanced than us. How they can turn the surface of planets into glass from their ships in orbit. But I'd prefer to get on with these 'talks' so I will show you some of the footage from a declassified operation." He quickly nodded his head and again seemed to be talking to the other Spartans, until they nodded and he continued. "You will see things that may shock you to your very core. Last chance to leave?" Nobody replied. "Okay then.  Closing your eyes might help too. This was recorded using my helmet, if you ever wondered." Celestia made a mental note to see what they looked like now knowing that it WAS in fact not their bodies, but armor.

The projection on the screen changed, and was completely black. "Start..."