Crossroads

Chapter 4: Rescue

It had been several minutes since our little group had found an adequate enough building that provided stable cover, yet had easy access to the interior of the park. In that time, Razzcat had been ‘talking’ with Stalks-Prey. The one-sided questioning was nothing more than a semi-friendly interrogation.

“So, let me get this straight. You hunt sentient beings for sport?” Razzcat asked Stalks-Prey, the two sitting on ruined chairs while facing each other.“Yes,” Stalks-Prey replied. The more he spoke, the less errors occurred in his speech, “But only worthy game.”“Like armed civilians?” Joanna asked. Razzcat had removed her chip - by her request - from his helmet so she could speak freely. The chip itself resting on what used to be a decorative looking oak wood table, but now had to have one of its four legs supported by rubble.Lucky was standing near the frame of what once was a window. The window itself had been shattered inward from the concussive blast that could have come from either side’s weapon. There was a rather large pothole in the asphalt road close by.Meanwhile, I was sitting on a folding chair, staring at the ghost blue image of Joanna while listening to Stalks-Prey and Razzcat. I for one, actually was quite unfazed by the whole ‘hunting’ thing.“Yes. No honor with game that don’t fight,” Stalks-Prey responded in better, yet still slightly broken, Equish.Joanna let out a laugh, “Reminds me of what I learned of the Sangheili. Honor this and honor that,” She said, lacing every word with sarcasm, “Nearly every Elite we manage to capture kills himself before we can interrogate him.”Stalks-Prey began glaring daggers at the AI, even though the effect was lost due to the helmet covering his eyes. All the ghost blue hologram did was cross her arms and blow at a few strands of hair that covered her left eye.“Contact, Brute patrol, left. Kill chatter,” Lucky demanded in a hushed tone while hugging tight against the wall as everyone in the building got ready. Razzcat quickly placed Joanna’s chip back into the back of his helmet and drew one pistol, his left shoulder too injured to fire his other weapon.Stalks-Prey got low to the ground since he only had melee weapons, sans his spear being throwable. I followed suit, making my way to an open window, my modified spike rifle ready to fire.The patrol passed with the gunner not doing a very thorough job of searching the buildings. I let out some breath that I had been holding. With the threat gone, I walked closer to Stalks-Prey who was now standing back to his full height.I still had no idea why patrols still roamed the streets, nothing was left of value. Unless...“Have any buildings been constructed?” I asked in a whisper.Razzcat nodded as he kept his eyes glued to the window Lucky was near.“How big?” I asked.“Small, nothing more than a few methane stations and weapons crates in a glorified shed.” he replied.“That’s… good,” I said, unsure of really what to say. “How much time do we have left until pickup?”Razzcat turned to me, “See for yourself,” he said as he removed his helmet, revealing dark brown eyes and black hair cut into rows. A black curving bearlike claw was tattooed around his left eye, ending just under his nose.He quickly passed the helmet to me, which I slipped over my head, I found the helmet oddly comfortable, if not a little heavy. I noticed twin ammo counts for Razzcat’s pistols in the bottom left and right of the helmets vision, one-hundred-fifty-five and one-hundred-thirty-nine. The sheer number of shots surprising me. After that, I noticed a timer in the top right of the helmet’s vision. It said fifteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds.Taking it off I gave Razzcat back his helmet, and the group continued talking while Lucky kept guard. Eventually, Razzcat’s HUD countdown reached zero, and like it was a spell to summon a Pelican, the sound of massive jet engines were heard over the park.Lucky and I watched as the Pelican circled the park at lightning speed as the jet propelled, olive-green vehicle quickly descended as it lowered its ramp.Razzcat switched channel frequencies for his wrist communicator, using a UNSC com channel, “Pelican, we have the package, plus a few passengers.”I could only hear the buzz of a inbuilt helmet speaker.Razzcat nodded to Lucky, and he was first out the door, followed by him and I. Stalks-Prey brought up the rear.Blue plasma screamed towards us, Razzcat was the only one hit, the superheated rounds ripping through his armor and made him fall with a yell.The Brute’s Prowler wasn’t heard over the Pelican’s loud engine, and it somehow avoided the pilot seeing them.Stalks-Prey cloaked as I dodged the blue teardrop shaped rounds, tearing my way at max speed to the Pelican, dropping my rifle in the process.Looking behind me, I saw Lucky grab the wounded Razzcat and begin dragging him. They were halfway to the Pelican before the Prowler moved to get an angle on them, sending plasma screaming towards them and knocking them down, Lucky’s blaster rifle clattering away uselessly.I looked back to the pelican, entered, turned my head once again, and looked back. I felt a crushing wave of dread as I watched my friends now laying in a heap. I was helpless to do a thing about it. I didn’t see the Prowler, the wall of the park blocking my view.If I could of seen the gunner, I would have seen him smile as he saw that he had taken out two of the four in our group. But that smile quickly turned into a frown as the droid got up. He pulled something out the back of the soldier’s helmet, and threw it to the oblivious Pelican then drew his sword before picking up Razzcat again.I looked down as Joana’s chip clattered to my feet. I quickly picked it up, Joana springing out as the AI watched in horror as Lucky tried to drag Razzcat with him.The plasma had scorched Lucky’s metal body, melting the alloy that made up his back and left arm into oozing slag, but he still kept going.The Brute let out a yelp as a gold colored spear destroyed his gun, burning his hands. Turning to face the direction it was thrown, he didn’t have time to react as a blurry ghost jumped from a window. Two sick, jagged lines ripped into the Brute’s face like hot knives through butter, killing him near instantly.The driver saw his gunner die and the slight distortion in the air from Stalks-Prey’s camouflage, too late to save his head.Jumping off the Prowler, Stalks-Prey set off in a dead sprint, closing the distance between himself and the wounded soldier and droid in seconds.Grabbing Razzcat so Lucky could run without the extra weight, he hauled the Clone onto the Pelican and set him down near me. The copilot jumping in surprise as Stalks-Prey turned off his cloak when he strapped himself into the seat, Lucky making it on a few seconds later.Lucky had dropped his sword before he made it inside, along with most of his lower left arm… melted to the point of falling off.The pilot raised the ramp, and everyone felt a pit drop in their stomach, besides lucky, as the vehicle soared upwards to avoid a lone Banshee on an attack run.While the pilot dodged between buildings, eventually losing the Banshee, the copilot of the Pelican was busy using a medical kit to tend to Razzcat. Lucky and I had strapped ourselves into the seats, but I had to help Lucky since he was having trouble with only three large fingers on his remaining hand.After I had strapped myself into the seat, I tightly clutched onto Joanna’s chip within my hand as we watched the copilot tend to the injured clone.For the longest of times I just stared at him with a nearly calm expression as he writhed in pain, losing blood onto the metal floor of the Pelican, sending narrow crimson streams towards the aft ramp of the Pelican as it angled further upwards.I had seen ponies bleed out before, but fortunately for Razzcat, while we all were talking while waiting for the Pelican, he had explained to me that his armor was made to take high heat rounds.He had narrowly avoided extreme damage, although I could see he had several bleeding third degree burns from the shots melting the armor to his skin.I didn’t even cry anymore when people I knew were dead or dying… only my parents still got to me. Everypony else dying around me had become normal everyday thing.Silver Bells was an Earth Pony that I knew long before the invasion. The kind and always happy silver-grey mare ran a Hearths Warming Eve decoration shop, and I was a very close friend to her.I looked down at the floor, remembering how I had found Silver hiding in her shop, and two weeks later losing her to a Grunt.We had killed a red armored Elite Major, the leader of the group. Upon his demise, most the Grunts began to panic, but one of the little bastards pulled two baseball shaped plasma grenades from nowhere.The blast had left Silver in little smoldering pieces, I was completely unharmed and covered in my friend’s blood. I knew somewhere in my mind something died that day, seeing one of my closest friends ended in such a way only a short time after losing my own parents.I swallowed hard remembering that I had mercilessly killed every last Grunt that remained. I tried to not let death get to me and any other survivors I had found, I was never able to get close to them, and never developed any more friendships.Then one-by-one, the survivors I found started dying one after another. It was like death was attracted to me. Eventually, I soon stopped seeing survivors after patrols became a regular occurrence.Over some time, I felt the Pelican slow, heard the pilot say something illegible in untranslated human over the microphone, then felt the Pelican land with a thunk on metal plating.A few seconds after the Pelican landed, the ramp dropped revealing a massive hangar bay. A few men in white UNSC marine armor decorated with red crosses came in with a stretcher to get Razzcat to medical. Upon seeing Stalks-Prey, they called security before leaving with Razzcat. The copilot left to assist them since one medic was watching Stalks-Prey like a hawk. A hawk armed with an assault rifle, that is.When security arrived, Stalks-Prey gave no resistance when he was taken into custody and Joana was confiscated from me. They seemed to ignore me, and left like I didn’t exist. I was sitting in the Pelican with Lucky like we weren't even there.I was going to follow the medics with Razzcat, but when Lucky tried to move I had to stop myself from bursting into laughter.Lucky looked down at the deck as I stared, nearly losing it in a fit of giggles, “If I could be, I would be embarrassed right now,” Lucky stated in flat monotone. He was stuck to the metal wall of the Pelican after melted alloy from his body fused him to the hull.I shook my head, seeing his grey shoulder melding into the olive wall. “Should I get someone, a mechanic maybe?”“Yes. If you can, get one who has a roll of duct tape.” he said.I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not, but the pilot rushed from the cockpit, “This is my bird. If the Droid here is stuck to her wall, I’m going to be the one to peel him off so my pride and joy here doesn’t get all scratched up.”“Ooookay,” I drawled out, raising an eyebrow at why he would get defensive over a ship that looked exactly like every other Pelican that I had seen before.“Now I hate to be rude, but I’m going to be busy peeling him off the wall of my bird, so would you please give me some room to work?” The pilot snarked, going directly against his claim of not being rude.I nodded calmly, keeping my cool, “Sure, I was hoping to look around anyway.”The pilot didn’t give me a response, so I began walking towards the exit. Upon passing the rude pilot I flipped him the bird as he had his back turned to me.Stepping off the ramp, I found herself in a massive rectangular room. Grey metal plating dominated the area, as different colored crates and boxes were shoved seemingly everywhere. Looking around I noticed more Pelicans in neat rows and strange machines of unknown puropus lying around. Looking up, I spotted the yellow and black caution stripes of a massive cargo crane attached to the ceiling on rails.The whole scene was breathtaking to me after so long in the ruins of Manehattan, and upon looking forward, my jaw dropped.“I was wonderin’ when ya’d look down,” My normally silent cousin Big Macintosh said, giving a thunderous chuckle. He wore a gold helmet and gold armor that was patch-worked together with a few strips of various sized pieces of leather. A giant hammer was slung across his back by a white piece of rope.I immediately recognized it was Brute Chieftain armor. Shaking my head I ran forward, giving him a massive hug as he towered over me, “What are you doing here, cuz?”The red earth pony chuckled as he returned the hug, “I was wreslin’ some of the crew at a bar when they were called back to the ship. When they told me they were headin’ tah Manehattan, they asked their commanders on mah behalf if I could come aboard. I wanted tah pay mah respects… everypony back home thinks you’re dead.”“I’m not, cuz,” I said separating from the hug. With a slight hint of hesitation I asked, “How’s the family doing?”Big Macintosh let out a huge laugh, “Granny’s trainin’ the Equestrian Marines, AJ’s busy helpin’ Twilight, and Apple Bloom is havin’ a blast making her own contraptions with bits n’ pieces everyone gives her. She actually earned her cutie mark modifying mah hammer tah hit harder while lightenin’ the thing up.”My jaw hit the floor that time. My younger cousin had earned her mark?“What does it look like?” I asked quickly, both excited and curious.“Mah hammer hitting an oversized nail. Your friend, Sweetie, has ah microphone cutie mark. She got it singin’ to a few wounded soldiers. Scoots hasn’t gotten hers yet.”Glad that I wasn't the only crusader without a mark, and that my family was safe, I let out a sigh of relief. I then looked at Big Macintosh’s gold armor, “Why you wearing that thing?”Big Macintosh just rolled his eyes, “The UNSC won’t give me no mule-near armor.”“Huh?” I asked, never having heard of mule-near before.“Them Spartan folks wear it all the time. Has some crazy shield that keeps them safe from everything. Apple Bloom had tah fix this up for me as well, and it still won’t fit right.”I had only had seen what the UNSC called MJOLNIR armor once before, and that was on someone trapped in the cockpit of a Sparrowhawk. I decided to change the subject after visions of Big Macintosh sharing a similar fate darkened my mood, “I never knew you could say more than ‘eeyup’ and ‘nope’.”“Eeyup,” Big Macintosh stated flatly.“Seriously?” I deadpanned.“Nope,” Macintosh said with a smile, “I’m usually the listinin’ type, but I ain’t seen you in forever.”I saw Macintosh’s expression change, shutting his eyes in a grimace as he kneeled down to eye level, “Cousin Caramel and Braeburn, Uncle and Aunt Orange, half our family is gone. Getting one of us back is a victory in mah eyes.”From his eyes, I saw a few tears fall, darkening his light red face. Even the stoic giant had his emotional limits.Shaking his head to clear his emotions, he stood back up, “So, wanna meet some of mah friends?”Before I could respond a large flat winged aircraft flew over us before flying out of the giant hangar door. It soon disappeared into the clouds followed by more of the strange machines, all in formation. I seen one of those things before, I almost got killed by one as they bombed a part of Manehattan I was scavenging in.Turning back to my cousin I nodded, I soon was following his lead, passing by marines sitting on boxes who tensed up upon seeing him, a few even going for their sidearms.Being eight and a half feet tall, furry, and clad in Brute armor had them obviously on edge. I decided to point out that fact, “Aren’t you worried about being mistaken for Covenant?”I didn’t see it, but I could practically feel Big Macintosh roll his eyes, “Nope, already happened, and on both accounts the shield on this thing stopped ‘em dead.”That answered that. Afterwards I felt the ship we were on lurch forward, moving through the sky. We fell silent until reaching a room with several tables with round plastic seats and a few booths, a cafeteria with white walls, no windows, and a dull grey floor and ceiling.In one corner of the sparsely populated cafeteria was a group of three people at a booth, clad in black fatigues. I just followed Big Macintosh all the way over to them.Big Macintosh got their attention, “Listen up you dumb sons ah bitches, this is mah cousin. Ya’ll treat ‘er right.”I turned my head to look at him, a single eyebrow cocked up in surprise and confusion at my cousin’s sudden foul language.There was a blond girl with short cropped hair in the booth that had an empty seat. She patted on the cushion while motioning to me to come over.After sitting down, the marine gave me a smile “I’m Lance Corporal Rivenbark, the two corporals in front of me are Powers and Metz.”The two men nodded. All three of the humans were Caucasian, the men having brown hair. Rivenbark had grey eyes, Powers had blue eyes, and Metz had brown.Big Macintosh set his red hands on the table, towering over us since every seat was occupied, “These guys are ODSTs. The fools strap themselves intah’ metal coffins and drop ‘em from a perfectly good ship.”“Feet first into hell,” Powers said, his voice oozing with confidence. I hadn’t the faintest clue what they were talking about.Metz just shrugged at Powers’ comment, leaned back and set an arm across the back of the booth, saying nothing.“So the big guy is your cousin? I saw him last two rounds with a Spartan back in Ralneigh, quite a feat.” Rivenbark said to me.Big Macintosh chuckled, “He was out’a his armor and only had ta punch me once before I went down. Don’t lie ‘n make me somthin’ I’m not.”Metz laughed, quickly setting both elbows on the grey metal table, “You survived that fucking punch with only three cracked ribs. It was either dumb luck, or you’re tough as shit. Spartans can flip an overturned Warthog like it’s a toy.”I understood now why my cousin was used to using foul language.Powers shook his head, “Dumb luck. No offense, but if every Equestrian could survive a Spartan punch, then they wouldn’t need us.”Metz decided to begin arguing with him, “Actually, Princess Celestia did… she survived fifteen direct hits from ship mounted Covenant cannons, and Rainbow Dash survived a direct hit from a gravity hammer.”Powers shook his head in disagreement, “Princess Celestia, according to everyone, is immortal, and the Pegasi are built for impacts like that. Plus you saw how fucked up they both got. I was surprised Princess Celestia had any fur left. Also, who charges a Brute with only a combat knife?”I knew that Princess Celestia had singlehandedly used her magic to crash and disintegrate multiple Covenant ships from the invading fleet into each other before the surviving ships could fire on her as they attacked Manehattan, destroying the city within a single day. The Princess had bought the UNSC enough time to save most of the city… nearly at the cost of her life. She may be immortal, but not unkillable like they think she is.Rivenbark added her two-cents, “Apparently Rainbow does,” she looked down and sighed, “That girl would’ve made a fine ODST.”Metz laughed, “She didn’t even need a pod. All the crazy chick had to do was jump. Lucky as hell with those wings… anyone else see her break the sound barrier to slice a formation of Banshees into scrap?”Rivenbark laughed, “Someone’s got a hard-on for a local.”Metz blushed and looked angry as he held up his right hand with only the middle finger and thumb extended out.Rivenbark rolled her eyes as I watched the humans bicker with each other in a way only close friends could. It was a few seconds after that before Rivenbark seemingly noticed me again and facepalmed, “We forgot to ask your name.”“Don’t worry about it, I’m Babs Seed.” I said, shrugging.Shortly after, the door on the far end of the cafeteria opened with a loud hiss and the group turned to look at the newcomer.He wore what looked like a combination of a tan shirt and white clone armor. He had an air of authority that made me straighten up in my seat as his blue eyes scanned the cafeteria, while his brown hair was waving from a vent in the ceiling above.I soon noticed the silver cylinder attached to his belt.“Who’s that?” I asked turning her attention back to the ODSTs.Metz answered her, “Some big name general from that Galactic Republic. We have no idea why he’s on the ship, but ever since he came aboard, we’ve dodged so many Covenant patrols today it’s not even funny. That sixth sense he has is crazy, and floating everything with his mind… at least you can see magic.”Powers let out a small chuckle, “I still can’t get over the fact that a species here is called unicorns. When reports from ONI started pouring in about a whole new alien species that pissed off the Covies, I thought they were bullshitting us. Then we get here, not only to find a large variety of new species, but find out that most of those species share the same name and some looks of mythological creatures from our world. Who else gets creeped out by that?”Rivenbark crossed her arms and gave an eye roll, “Well, this is a different universe, you know that right?”“Huh?” The corporals and I asked in unison, confused.Rivenbark looked at me, and then at the two men, “You guys aren’t very observant, are you?” She asked the two men, “Not only do the names of a few cities here share similar names on our world, but we also made contact with people from another version of our world, Earth,” Rivenbark looked to my shoulder, “Babs, you’re actually wearing one of their uniforms.”Looking to my left shoulder; the gold W over the white Y was illegible to me, since it wasn’t Equestrian writing. I had found it a month prior, but forgot where exactly I had got it.“Weyland-Yutani is some big wig company from a different Earth. We checked and found out that our history books are nearly the same, give or take a few certain events and recent history,” Rivenbark laughed, “These two chuckleheads weren’t on the mission, but the company loaned us some of their Colonial Marines for a search and destroy mission after losing one of their ships to Covenant. We tracked its beacon, recovered a few of their nukes, and then set charges to blow the place to kingdom come. Pelican dropships got us out of there before the Elites could say ‘Wort, wort, wort,’ ” Rivenbark laughed, “The pussies left shortly afterward and we haven't seen them since.”Big Macintosh decided to break his silence and ask, “Can yah remind me what nukes are?”Metz gave a crazy smile before looking dead serious, saying, “To put it scientifically, little bomb, big fucking boom, deadly radiation gets left behind. But you Equestrians don’t have to worry much. You can take higher doses without ill effects, and the Changelings are like freakin’ cockroaches.”A new voice joined the conversation, making everyone but Big Macintosh jump, “I think relating them to common insects is… inappropriate.”We all turned to see the Galactic Republic general standing beside our table with his arms crossed.“Sorry, sir,” Metz apologized, backing away slightly while keeping his eyes on the metal cylinder on Kenobi’s hip.The general nodded, “It’s quite alright, just try and be more respectful,” He said in a calm and friendly voice.He then looked at me and nodded before calmly turning and leaving.I just stared as he exited the door, “Okay… that was just plain weird. Anyone else get a funny feeling around him?”The ODSTs exploded into laughter, turning the few heads that were in the room towards them. Big Macintosh just remained silent.Metz was the first to calm down enough to speak, “I’d rather deal with an ONI spook than that guy.”

<~-~>

Obi-Wan walked down the halls of the frigate, pondering on the disturbances in the Force that swam around the girl. He could feel her power, and it scared him to admit she was almost as strong as Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker when he found him.She would have had to be, to survive five months in an enemy occupied city.And that was another thing that bothered Kenobi… why did the Covenant occupy that specific city when others were wiped out? Sure it was the first one attacked, but why preserve this one instead of destroying it like the others?Getting answers to those questions was one of the reasons Kenobi temporarily joined on this ship.The other was to get away from Anakin Skywalker and the native party thrower Pinkie Pie… those two together were like tibanna gas and an open flame, extremely dangerous.Pinkie Pie confused Kenobi to no end as well, but he decided to quit attempting to find logic behind her after she threw General Grievous a, ‘you’re a super cool cyborg party’, right in the middle of a meeting. Surprisingly General Grievous played along, explaining it was to better relations with the Equestrian people… the whole experience was beyond unsettling, seeing the general partake in the party.Obi-Wan groaned, remembering his first day here when he and Commander Cody crashed down in Ponyville, injuring no one thankfully. The same mare had shot him with a cannon loaded with confetti.She explained shortly after when Princess Twilight Sparkle and Princess Luna provided spells to shove the entire Equestrian language into their heads, that she had shot him to prevent him from quote, ‘Sucking out my brains… WITH bendy straws,’He could hear her high pitch voice as he remembered the childlike explanation.Rounding a corner, Kenobi nearly ran into a Commando Droid missing his left arm and a majority of his back armor.The droid somehow managed to look pitiful as it shook his head and said, “Don’t ask,” before walking towards the cafeteria.Obi-Wan continued walking, thinking to himself, ‘The things you see.’He quickly switched his thoughts to how he would go about telling the girl that she had a gift that no other Equestrian had.