Headhunters

Chapters

HEADHUNTERS
"I don't think that's the northern star."
"You're probably just a figment of my hyperactive imagination."
"So, you're here to save us from something?"
"Oly-oly-oxen-free."
"Oh my God, you've created a monster."
"Oh, God help my big mouth."

HEADHUNTERS

By PseudoFiction

It was simple… at least, the concept was simple. Execution had been a little more tricky. If they pulled it off this combat insertion would be their Mona Lisa. Their Hadron Collider. Their Shaw-Fujikawa slip-space engine.

It just couldn’t get any better.

But that’s what they did after all. Tricky was their forte. If it wasn’t tricky, it was boring. If it wasn’t dangerous, it was pointless.

They were Spartans. Insanity was what they did.

And nobody could disagree launching yourselves across a few billion kilometres of stellar space at terminal velocity without any kind of control system at a comparatively tiny target was insane. But as mentioned before, Marko and Ishmir lived for it.

At least, Marko did. Ishmir was the more composed one. He liked to think things through. He was the planner; always cool as a cucumber and ready to use logic and reason over emotion.

Marko was the hothead of the duo. He was all for racing in guns blazing, jumping out of drop-ships and fucking up someone’s day. Thought he would never admit it out loud so he could pretend to fit in with civilised society, he didn’t fear losing the war. What he was afraid of was that one day the war would end.

In short, Spartan-IIIs Marko-G301 and Ishmir-G314 were polar opposites. And strangely that made them all the more compatible as headhunters.

The headhunters from Gamma Company, the third generation of humanity’s Spartan-III supersoldier shock-troop programme, were usually selected based on compatible personalities. A personality test had become mandatory so command could secretly peel off headhunter pairs for high risk operations in enemy space. Headhunters were essentially armies of two.

Marko and Ishmir would be famous for being the most incompatible headhunter pair – if only the Spartan-III program wasn’t the UNSC’s dirtiest little secret, and the headhunter pairs were kept secret from even the other Spartans in Gamma Company. With an astounding compatibility score of two out of three hundred points, their team up should never have happened!

If only for the combat simulations. In the field, Marko and Ishmir were inseparable. They always knew what the other was thinking. They had each other’s backs through thick and thin. To the point one could sense when the other was about to run out of ammo and reload, and so shifted fire automatically to cover.

All command had to worry about was the two of them having at each other whenever they were out of combat. In truth, they would bicker… often. They were like and old married couple… as a matter of fact, it went on record that they were worse.

But putting them in a headhunter pair was a no-brainer. That way they got to work with each other in the field doing what they did best. Getting the job done. And at the same time they didn’t bother the regular Spartan teams from Gamma Company.

Everyone was a winner… everyone except the Covenant, against whom Marko and Ishmir were pitted.

Hence the reason they were flying through space at a speed reserved for insanity, pointed at a pinprick glowing in the distance without any way of correcting their trajectory and connected by a hard-line and an equipment crate strung between them.

Though even then, they couldn’t help bicker among themselves.

“... and there is the part I don’t get,” Marko complained.

His voice was carried through the hard-line connecting them and projected into Ishmir’s helmet-comm. Wireless communications, even short burst transmissions ran risk of being picked up by Covenant sensors. If they were detected, their risky stealth approach would be for naught. A hard line strung between them though? It acted as a tether keeping them within arm’s reach, a tow for their gear, and best of all it made their communications undetectable. Unless of course a Covenant elite walked right up to them and plugged in directly.

If that actually happened though they’d have to question all aspects of reality and logic.

Marko continued, “this dude creates everything, right? The whole universe? What about the Covenant? He make those fugly assholes who love to kill our asses too?”

Ishmir shrugged his armour’s bulky pauldrons lightly. “Maybe He created the Covenant to test our faith,” the Spartan answered. “To test us. To guide us back into His grace in an age where we have turned our backs on Him.”

“Your bible tell you that?”

“No. I simply interpret it to be so.”

Marko paused chewing his tongue for a moment, thinking about that statement. “What if you’ve interpreted wrong?” he argued.

Ishmir’s chuckle echoed in Marko’s helmet as the more spiritual Spartan smiled under his helmet. “I have faith that He would not let that happen.”

Shifting his gaze sideways to Ishmir, Marko gave his partner a good look at his customised faceplate. Scratched into the domed visor was a freaky looking smiley-face with empty eyes and a stitched up smile.

“Dude, there is just no point arguing with you.”

Like their personalities, their armour configurations were completely different. Whereas Ishmir – being the most responsible of the two – was given some fancy looking gear, Marko was clad in the basic army-green SPI MARK-II armour other Spartan-IIIs would be outfitted with. Though in spite of that, Ishmir opted for very little personal customisations, whereas Marko was dressed up like an old-school tribal warrior.

The green panels of Marko’s armour were chipped in places revealing brushed titanium under the paint. His visor was dressed up with a spooky looking smiley that had taken hours of painstaking care to carve with the large dagger strapped to his shoulder. There were even several strings of steel cable wrapped around his wrist and pauldrons, strung with several hooked alien teeth he’d bashed from the faces of his enemies. Trophies he’d collected after and even during the heat of battle.

He’d collected an alien scalp once, but he admitted it was super gross and decided not to keep it.

Ishmir on the other hand was clad in dark crimson armour much resembling what average ODST shock-troopers would wear. The differences were mainly in the internals. Long range motion trackers, improved VISR sensors and the piste-de-resistance; an interactive camouflage module. A unit that worked with the stealth plating on his armour to render Ishmir completely invisible to the casual eye.

Besides the cool gadgets, he had one personal souvenir. Beside the serial number stamped into his chest-plate, there was a small silver crucifix, the symbol of an ancient religion called Christianity.

Religion wasn’t really a big thing in the twenty-sixth century. But Ishmir was into it. And not just Christianity. He was into everything. His bunk back home on Onyx was dressed up with Stars of David, Catholic rosary beads – he had a bible, an Islam quran and all sorts of other freaky old stuff Marko was pretty sure served no practical use.

Everyone needed a hobby. Marko’s was killing stuff. Ishmir was into spirituality.

Looking up, Marko squinted through is visor’s maximum zoom at the dot they were racing towards. It had grown into more than a dot as they came into range. Sleek purple hull plates took shape. Twinkling running lights were visible in the darkness of space. The long structure hung perfectly still in their path, a tangle of sleek arms wrapped around each other at the heart to create a monstrous mechanical nest around which a swarm of sparkling ships drifted lazily. Behind it, a large Earth-like planet, mostly blue broken up by green landmass with stark white poles perched on the ‘top’ and ‘bottom.’ The moon hung several thousand kilometres from the planet’s only moon, a satellite orbiting a satellite with the sun blocked from view on the other side of the planet.

That artificial satellite was a Covenant space dock. A station that served as a refuel, re-arm and repair station right on the edge of UNSC space.

“That is the objective, right?” Marko asked.

“How many Covenant docking stations do you think are out here?”

Marko shrugged. “I’m just saying. It looks nothing like an uneven elephant to me. More like...” – he squinted – “two squids kissing.”

“Intel states it’s called the Unyielding Hierophant,” Ishmir corrected.

Since the station’s discovery, the UNSC had been scrambling together a task force to take it out. It was within a single slip-space jump range to Earth. And if the Covenant ever did uncover the location of the human homeworld… that would be incredibly bad for humanity.

The operation was deemed suicidal. So headhunters Marko and Ishmir were selected for the task. They relished the opportunity to go toe-to-toe with the Covenant, despite the odds.

“Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe. I’m more concerned about how many squid-heads are aboard that thing.” Marko snickered almost eagerly, clearly not as concerned as Ishmir with the repercussions if their mission to destroy the Unyielding Hierophant failed. “You remember the Amarillo System? Man, I must have killed like fifty elites on that op.”

Ishmir rolled his eyes. “You had a tank. It was only natural.”

“I’m hoping to break that record.”

“Why don’t we just focus on getting there first? No use getting excited if their sensors pick us up and blast us out of the sky.”

Marko’s expression sank hidden behind his visor. “Oh. Yeah... that’d fucking suck.”

As they continued hurtling towards their objective, an hour of silence passed. Though Marko was clearly not thinking about the usual concerns a soldier would have approaching a massive enemy strong hold holding enough hostile troops to put their odds at about a thousand to one against.

As the alien space station was looming close enough for them to make out the colossal capital ships docking with the structure, Marko sighed.

“Are you as bored as I am right now?”

Ishmir gave a chuckle. Typical, he thought to himself.

“We could play a game,” Ishmir suggested. “Describe in as much detail as possible your partner in as few words as you can. Player using the least words wins.”

“Sounds good. I’ll go first. Ishmir, you’re a; creationist, superstitious, smug, peace-loving, hippy-motherfucker.” Marko paused a second, quietly counting to himself before adding, “five words.”

“I would complain that your assessment is inaccurate, but I don’t mind. You’re going to lose anyway.”

“Alright, God-fucker. Put your mouth where your mouth is,” Marko laughed confidently. There was no way he could be beaten.

“Psychopath, one word.”

That was one of the ways apparently. “… okay, you get that one,” Marko muttered looking away from his partner.

“How about a round of I-Spy?”

“Nah.”

“Sore loser?”

“So sore I think my vitals just twitched,” Marko chuckled as he slowly extended a hand in front of him and pointed ahead at the growing Covenant space station. “Check it out. I think we’re getting pretty close. Gear up?”

“Agreed, we’re only a few hours out.” Reaching down he grabbed the hard line tethering them together and pulled the equipment crate strung between them within reach. Soundlessly flicking open the clasps, he swung it open to reveal the weapons and stacks of ammunition and explosives inside. “Shotgun or battle rifle?”

Even though he was asking, Ishmir was already holding out the shotgun for Marko. The other Spartan took it without even thinking.

“Gimme the shotgun. I wanna get in nice and close, so I can see the life drip out of ‘em when I drop ‘em.”

“I know you so well,” Ishmir said with a slow shake of his helmeted head.

As he was preparing his own weapon, a long barrelled rifle mounted with a mid-range battle scope, Marko piped up with some actual concerns. It was a shocking enough development, Ishmir nearly dropped his battle rifle into deep space.

“You think we were launched on the right course?” Marko asked. “We might just miss the target altogether.”

Chuckling with a smile, Ishmir slid his rifle over his shoulder and let it lock diagonally across his back with an unheard metallic ‘click.’

“I have faith,” he said. “As should you.”

Sensing he’d just stumbled headlong into a religious faith themed lecture that would likely consume the next few hours until they hit their objective, Marko rolled his eyes. “Oh, brother. Me ‘n my big mouth.”

"I don't think that's the northern star."

The weather report stated the night would be all clear. Pegasi weather teams had been working all evening to clean up the remnants of their morning’s scheduled rain-storm.

Ponyville and the rest of Equestria were left with a perfectly clear Friday night. And with nothing to do the next morning but sleep in, it was time for everypony to enjoy Princess Luna’s night sky. Six mares in particular sat on a lonely hill on Ponyville’s outskirts, silhouettes against the night sky with their bright eyes angled upward to the sparkling inky canvas Luna had drawn for them.

All six friends had their own reasons to be sitting out late at night watching the glittering sky. Some just wanted to see the beautiful stars and aurora borealis streaking past the full moon. Others wanted to just spend time with their friends.

Princess Twilight Sparkle was sat with her friends to get a little astronomy studies in. She had been itching to check the accuracy of her star chart all autumn week, but bad weather scheduled by the weather teams had thwarted her plans. Until tonight.

Tonight she could examine the stars and see all the constellations she’d read in books for real. At least, she might be able to if Pinkie Pie slowed down to take a breath.

The curly maned pony was pointing from constellation to constellation, star to star asking energetically, “and that one? What’s that one called? And what’s that one called? What about that one? Are these real names? Whoever named all those stars?”

Twilight chuckled, only barely keeping up with each of Pinkie Pie’s questions as she pointed out the stars and constellations. “That’s Osiris, and that one there is her twin, Solaris. That constellation is called the ‘dipper,’ not to be confused with the ‘big dipper.’ And no, Pinkie. They aren’t real names. As in, they aren’t named after anypony in particular. The pegasi from the times before Equestria was founded gave the stars and constellations names.”

Brushing a lock of her mane out of her face, Twilight Sparkle smiled down at the book she had open in front of her while her friends watched the stars, listening curiously to the young alicorn’s story.

“When the pegasus scouts were looking for a new land to settle, they flew long and far, often beyond the known world. And while they would get lost in the mountains and the deserts and at open sea, they discovered the one true constant were the stars. They discovered that the stars were like faithful friends, the same constellations and winking lights returning to keep them company every night while they were away from their friends and family. They gave the stars and constellations names, to better identify and share them, even using the night sky to map their path and heading, so they could always find their way back home.”

“And what’s that really big one right next to the moon? Does that one have a name?” Pinkie Pie asked excitedly. “Wooo! It looks like a doozey!”

Twilight smiled not even looking up from her book. “That’s the northern star, Pinkie. That’s the one that always points you to north.” She didn’t have to look up to know that one. There was only one extremely bright star next to the moon.

It was Rainbow Dash who seeded some doubt with a cringe. “Uh, I don’t think that’s the northern star.”

“Hmmm?” Frowning, the princess looked up from her books to take a look at her friends.

All of them looked concerned at the sky. All except Pinkie Pie, whose eyes were widening enough for Twilight to catch the glistening of something very bright in the sky. Whipping her head around she felt her own eyes grow to the size of saucers, the new star in the sky she’d never seen before reflecting in her own massive pupils.

It was far from where the northern star was supposed to be, and burning with such an intensity that it washed out the light of the surrounding stars. A few flickering flashes at first, the glistening star almost half the size of the full moon spread horizontally with a ring of fire and light rippling outward and bleeding into the night sky before the whole star began to die.

Then as quickly as it had flared, the star was gone, vanishing in the darkness and letting the surrounding stars poke through.

“Wow!” Twilight Sparkle exclaimed flabbergasted. “What was that!?”

“Hey, you’re the smart-pony,” Rainbow Dash scoffed.

“That weren’t no normal star,” Applejack mused.

Rarity nodded. “I agree with Applejack. That was definitely not normal.”

Twilight Sparkle opened her mouth in an attempt to explain. Only she was stopped before she could even utter a word by Pinkie Pie. Darting in close, she hugged the princess tightly with one pink hoof clamping over Twilight’s mouth, the other pointing at her tail.

“Ooh, twitchy-twitch tail! Something’s gonna fall!”

Much to everypony’s shock the mop of curly pink tail was twitching violently beyond her control.

Twilight Sparkle and her friends winced, almost ducking for cover as they all looked up at the open, clear sky above them.

“Eep!” Fluttershy squeaked, ducking under Applejack’s powerful legs for cover. Pulling her long mane over her face, she smiled apologetically up at the earth-pony mare, who merely smiled back at her friend.

“Ah’ don’ think anythin’ is fallin’ on our heads,” she said thankfully.

“No,” Pinkie gasped with a hoof pointed up at the sky. “But whoever those land on is going to be a very unhappy pony!”

Looking back up, the ponies were witness to a second lightshow. Though unlike the other where it was just light, this time there were a dozen lights, streaking through the sky high above them.

The asteroids – meteorites now they’d entered the planet’s atmosphere – burned their way through the sky, lancing by on clouds of fire and smoke before arching over the next hill and hitting the earth with enough intensity to cause the ground to quake. The subsequent boom of each landing was like machine gun fire reverberating in their chest cavities, nearly driving the wind out of the six mares.

Finally the last one hit, closer than the others clustered tightly together. The final meteor slammed into a nearer patch of Everfree Forest, the impact throwing up showers of glassed earth.

Then there was silence. Not a cry of a night bird, not a flutter of a bat.

“Awesome!” Twilight Sparkle of all ponies exclaimed, causing her friends to jolt with fright. “That one landed really close! There could be all kinds of alien minerals and such to be discovered in that meteorite. We should check it out!”

Rainbow Dash chuckled before pointing out, “that does sound really cool, but, uh… that’s the Everfree Forest. And it’s the dead of night!”

“It didn’t land that far in,” Twilight Sparkle argued.

“And if that rock is still hot it could cause a forest fire,” Dash added. “We don’t wanna just go walking into a potential inferno.”

Fluttershy nearly fainted at the prospect of a fire breaking out, and Applejack admitted that sounded like a dangerous possibility.

“Ah’ d’nno, Twilight. Rainbow Dash could be right. ‘N ya’ll have no idea what dangerous space critters could be hidin’ in that ol’ meteor thingy.”

“Oh, c’mon, girls,” Twilight sighed reassuringly leading them to the edge of the forest. “The rainstorm made the earth and foliage way to wet for a forest fire to start. And it’s just a hunk of space-rock! What danger could there be?”

"You're probably just a figment of my hyperactive imagination."

Marko’s disposition was dangerous. So dangerous he might snap and disembowel the next thing he saw, friend or foe be damned.

The mission had been a success, but the dirty Covenant fuck-tards had ambushed them during extraction. Bogged down in a thick firefight, there had been no time to commandeer a ship and evacuate before the Unyielding Hierophant’s core went into meltdown and exploded thanks to the headhunters’ sabotage.

Marko and Ishmir had taken their chances; spaced out and hoped for the best. Luck had been on their side it seemed. Instead of being flung out into space or cratered into the face of an uninhabitable moon, the destruction of the Covenant space dock had pushed them into the gravitational field of the nearest Earth-like habitable planet. Entry had been rough. The landing had been rougher. But they were alive.

At least, Marko knew he was alive. He had no idea what Ishmir’s status was. But that wasn’t the only reason he wasn’t comforted.

A one thousand kilometre fall and being cratered into the soil of a previously unexplored alien planet was bound to make any guy a little snippy.

Crazy asshole, Marko thought, scolding himself as he just lay peacefully in his Spartan-shaped crater. One of these days you’re gonna land on something as stubborn as you are.

Eyes still screwed shut, he flexed his fingers and toes. Everything hurt. His bones felt like shattered glass, his skin felt raw, his organs felt out of place. He was pretty sure the landing had forced his anus up into his throat. At least, that’s what it felt like. But the fact he could move without hearing any gnashing of splintered bones was a good sign.

Cracking an eyelid open the first thing he saw was his HUD. Miraculously his visor hadn’t shattered. Thankfully is precious visor art hadn’t been scratched or damaged. The electronic systems were intact too, a full status report for his vitals and his semi-powered infiltrator armour scrolled through is field of view.

All systems seemed to be green except his personal shields. That was one feature other Spartan-IIIs couldn’t boast in their armour systems. Personal shields were pretty much exclusive to headhunter teams since it was cheaper to outfit twelve commandoes with them rather than a whole battalion of three hundred. And he had those very shields to thank for his safe passage into the atmosphere and surviving the landing.

A low alarm tone blared in his helmet as the shield status flashed red and refused to recharge. Muttering a command to kill the alarms, Marko watched the distorted colours beyond his visor slowly come into focus and bleed together like a crazy colourful water-painting. It was night, that much was for sure. He could tell by the muted navy and black shades of everything around him. But even in the dead of night under a humungous full moon the colour palette of his surroundings looked like the time he’d overdosed on contraband candy in the back of the billets and regurgitated a sickly rainbow of colour.

And sliding right into the centre of his widening vision was a face.

A cute face, admittedly, it had lavender coloured skin – though the right shade was hard to determine in the moon’s pale light. The general shape of the face was pretty horsey, with a button-nose equivalent snout to go with a pair of rigid horse-ears standing on end. The eyes were humungous, with giant glistening pupils surrounded by bands of purple iris.

The hair – Marko decided considering the petite horse-anatomy to call that bit the ‘mane’ – was the only part that had any noticeable texture to it. A darker shade of purple to the rest of the creature, it had a streak of punk running from the bookish-looking straight cut fringe over the top of the head and out of sight.

The mouth was curled into a crescent grin before the thin lips parted and the mouth moved to articulate sounds.

“What are you?” a decidedly female voice asked from the freak-horse’s mouth.

Marko blinked a few times before taking in the rest of the figure. She had four legs and a general horse-like build to her. The tail was the same colour as her mane with the same pink streak running through it. What completely threw Marko – and he liked to think he knew the basics of horse anatomy – were the feathered wings folded neatly at her sides, and the horn sticking out of her forehead like nature’s bayonet.

To add to that she seemed to have some ink. Not a brand, the motif of a pointed star seemed to have been dyed immaculately into her ass.

A brightly coloured pony-sized horse with tats, wings and a unicorn’s horn. There was only one thing Marko could be besides having a dream.

“Tripping, that’s what I am,” the Spartan answered, his voice carrying through his helmet’s faceplate.

Star-horse – as Marko decided to refer to her for the time being in light of her tramp-stamps – seemed confused by the headhunter’s answer. Her head cocked to one side like a dog trying to make sense of a confusing command. It was sickeningly adorable.

“You tripped and fell out of the sky?” she asked – dim-wittedly in Marko’s honest opinion.

Marko scoffed. “What? Are you fucking high?” he paused, then nodded as he managed to sit up. “Oh, scratch that. I’m talking to a little horse. I must be high!”

Star-horse took a few staggered steps back, her hoof-falls muffled on the damp moss as Marko sat up straight. Bits of ferns and vines and branches fell over the smooth edges of his armour while the Spartan managed to stand up. It took more effort that he would admit, the mud in his little crater making a wet sucking noise as Marko pulled himself from the hole.

Standing at full height, Star-horse only stood up to the utility belt on his waist, that was including the extra height gained by her head-shiv. And unbeknownst to the armoured giant, another pony approached. Dragging herself low across the ground while Marko was wandering off and looking around clearing he’d carved into the Everfree Forest, a cyan pegasus poked her head out from under a thick bush.

“Twilight,” Rainbow Dash hissed stealthily. “What is that?”

“I’m not sure!” Twilight Sparkle hissed back out the corner of her mouth so not to give away her friend’s position. “It claims to have been high, then tripped before falling out of the sky...!” Her eyes bugged as she processed that statement. “That actually sort of makes sense!”

Marko in the meantime wasn’t paying Star-horse any attention. Were she at least threatening looking, he might have kept his shotgun trained on her. But she was less than half his size, possibly a quarter his mass, completely unarmoured and unarmed besides the pointy thing on her head. And besides that her speech patterns reminded him of a child. Satisfied he was safe, Marko checked his gear.

Lucky enough none of his gear had been torn free. He still had his shotgun and his submachine gun was still safely holstered on his thigh. Although his ammo had dropped to dangerous levels, and he didn’t have any explosives left. He’d used the last of those in the firefight aboard the Uneven Elephant.

But he had his bayonet. It didn’t need ammo or detonators or any fancy electronic parts. No matter the conditions or the situation, his trusty knife was always ready to get some killing done.

Hefting his shotgun over one shoulder, Marko looked up to the starry sky with two armoured fingers pressed against the side of his helmet. He didn’t need to actually press anything to engage his radio, it was just force of habit drawn from the training headsets he’d practiced with.

“Titan, Titan, this is flintlock,” Marko called into the air on the broadest frequency his radio could muster. “Come in, Titan. How copy, over?”

He wasn’t sure who was listening, so referred to callsigns whenever he could. Titan being the UNSC destroyer class ship Marko and Ishmir had been assigned to serve on. ‘Flintlock’ was their callsign.

Whereas other Spartan teams in Gamma Company were named after swords – katana, gladius, broadsword, etcetera – the headhunter pairs usually adopted callsigns named after firearms. There was a ‘battle rifle’ team. There was a ‘carbine’ team.

Marko and Ishmir had adopted the callsign ‘flintlock.’ Ironic, as they were dangerous for the enemy as well as the wielder.

Marko repeated his message. There was no reply.

“Titan, Titan, this is flintlock. Message, over?” he shortened wondering if the length of his messages would affect his radio’s range. Technical junk never was Marko’s forte, he was just there to fight.

Still no response though, so he assumed message length didn’t affect radio range.

“Flintlock to Titan in the blind; mission complete. Flintlock is awaiting pickup on planet designated pee-ex-two-three-zero, break.” Marko paused to double check the mission clock in the corner of his heads-up-display. “Message end, oh-nine-forty-eight hours mission time. Over and out.”

He set the radio to receive messages only so he wouldn’t accidentally talk and wash out any incoming transmissions, and lowered his hand. In the meantime, Twilight Sparkle was waving off her friend with a subtle nod in the direction of Ponyville.

“Go wake Spike and tell Princess Celestia what is going on,” the alicorn whispered. “I’ll keep an eye on this thing.”

“Are you sure you’ll be okay alone?”

Twilight grinned with a nod. Rainbow Dash was the ever loyal and concerned friend, but she wouldn’t be over-protective. The young princess had after all proved herself capable of taking care of herself on numerous occasions. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

Seeing her grin, Rainbow Dash smiled, then zipped off through the undergrowth to bring the other ponies up to speed. As she disappeared, the princess turned her head back to the metal giant… only to see him wandering off deeper into the Everfree Forest.

Gasping with a panicked stumble to catch up, Twilight galloped after him.

“Wait! Where are you going!?” she cried, running just to keep up with his long strides.

“Away from you, obviously,” Marko told Star-horse off-handedly without looking. “You’re probably just a figment of my hyperactive imagination.”

Star-horse managed to catch up, her frown visible in Marko’s peripheral vision. “I’m quite real. See?”

Leaping forward, she managed to get a few paces on the Spartan and balanced on her front legs. Coiling her spine along with her rear legs, she paused for a moment to calculate, then with a practiced motion kicked her rear legs out.

The bucking motion made contact with Marko’s shin. He didn’t feel it, but he stopped anyway as he heard the metal CLANG ring through the forest.

He silently watched a triumphant looking Star-horse turn and smile up at him.

“So you are,” Marko admitted, but his voice was devoid of warmth. He saw it drained the glee right out of Star-horse and she retreated a little as he leaned down close to her. The Spartan added in a harsh whisper, “but you should know I’ve cut things open from crotch to chin for less than kicking me in the shins.”

Straightening up silently, Marko turned away from the pony and continued walking.

Cutting a swathe through the thick forest with ease, Marko moved in silence. The only sound was the odd crack of a branch under an armoured boot, or the scrape of foliage over the smooth angles of his armour. What distressed Marko really was the lack of ambient noise. He’d trained in forests plenty of times. There were supposed to be birds, predators and other animals wandering around making noise.

But in those woods… there was nothing.

Eventually though his keen hearing picked up the sound of rushing water. Angling his path, he moved to intercept it, and within moments came to a small stream. It wasn’t deep, only up to his ankles with the clear water running over a bed of gravel, flowing between a few large boulders. Wide enough it created a break in the woods’ canopy, a slit of starry night sky peeking into the forest.

Over the rustle of the water, Marko heard the soft thud of small hooves in the wet dirt. Instinct told him to whip around and let loose one of his last shotgun blasts. Common sense told him not to waste the ammo.

With a sigh, Marko turned to see Star-horse was stopped just a metre away, looking up at him with persistent curiosity.

“Geeze, you are persistent, aren’t you?”

She gave a ‘duh’-like expression. “Well I just want to know who and what you are! Threatening me was just uncalled for!”

Leaping with surprising speed, she darted around Marko with a flap of her wings and stomped to a halt between the Spartan and the river. “So stop walking, mister!” Her ‘ground-holding’ stance faltered a little as he considered what she said. “That is, uh... if you are a mister.”

“I am.” Marko commented plainly.

Looking between Star-horse and the surrounding woods, Marko had a sudden thought. Maybe this irritating little puddle of up-chucked Skittles could make herself useful. Looking up to the starry sky, Marko pointed to direct Star-horse’s gaze upward.

“Did you happen to see anything weird before I fell out of the sky?” he asked.

Following his gaze, Twilight nodded. “There was a giant star that flashed into existence then vanished almost as quickly. Then some meteorites started falling. Why?”

“Meteorites?” That was interesting. One of those might have been Marko. One of those could have been Ishmir. “How many?” he demanded quickly.

Star-pony sat back and managed a shrug, which confirmed Marko’s suspicion this alien horse-thingy didn’t follow normal horse anatomy. “I don’t’ know. At least a dozen. They landed just before you did, not too far away.”

“Could you take me to where the others landed?”

Star-horse looked over her shoulder deeper into the forest with a concerned expression. Marko figured by the biting of her lip she didn’t like being in the woods at night. Whether they were dangerous in the dark or just spooky, the Spartan would have to find out the hard way.

“I could,” Star-horse said eventually, looking back to Marko. Her expression turned firm as she stood her ground between him and the river again. “But I’m going to have to get your name at the very least. You are running around without the appropriate documentation and visas after all.”

Marko chewed the inside of his cheek as he thought. His options were pretty simple. Either he could wander around the forest aimlessly, ditching the pony. But then he’d be no closer to finding Ishmir or a way off the planet. And Star-horse might return with the local military to arrest him for wandering around illegally in their country.

On the other hand he could just kill her… no, probably not. The though seemed wrong. He scratched that off the options list, and came to the realisation he had only one logical choice.

“Okay.” The Spartan nodded. “Let’s be friends. I’m Marko.”

Star-horse’s whole face lit up. And not even at the mentioning that he’d agree to co-operate and give her his name. She was so consumed with joy at the concept of them being friends Marko was pretty sure she missed his name altogether. Which would be a pity, because the Spartan didn’t like to repeat himself.

Thankfully there was no need as it seemed the pony had caught the headhunter’s name and immediately wrote it down. Marko had to do a double take on that one as it happened so suddenly the event nearly gave him whiplash.

Star-horse’s horn began to glow a faint purple aura. Dim at first, then grew rapidly in intensity. Then with a burst of light – BLAM! A quill and a roll of parchment hovered in the air in front of her face. Floating on the same glow of light engulfing her forehead-phallus, the scroll remained motionless while the quill scribbled wildly across the paper to take down the Spartan’s name.

If Marko was more of an intellectual than a fighter, he would have been amazed. He should have been extremely interested in exactly how that worked – how that was possible even! He should have been able to discern that this pony and her people could make valuable UNSC allies. The military applications for this ‘magic’ were literally boundless.

Unfortunately Marko was not an intellectual. He was a thug, so he made note of the magic in his mental list of ‘crazy shit to happen to me today’ and moved on with his life.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” the pony introduced as she was still scribbling away.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Marko repeated as if testing the name… it tasted sickly sweet and made him light-headed as his body mistook uttering the name for a sudden and lethal intake of sugar. “And what exactly are you, miss Twilight Sparkle?”

“I’m a pony – and a princess – of this nation, Equestria,” Twilight Sparkle explained looking over her paper and quill. “So if there is anypony who can waive your need for a visitor’s visa, it would be me. And considering this is a bit of an emergency I’ll do it gladly. But I would like to have a couple of basic details on file.”

There was so much to take in right there.

Firstly, she was a ‘princess’! Marko was pretty sure that meant absolutely nothing, but it was pretty good luck, landing on an alien planet and the first creature he met was royalty… or she could just be a village idiot with delusions of grandeur. There was no way to be sure.

Secondly, did she say ‘anypony’? That coupled with the fact the county was apparently called ‘Equestria’ prepared Marko’s body – much to his dismay – for horse-puns galore on the horizon.

Marko was pretty sure there was more stuff to take in, but feared he might hurt himself if he thought about it too hard.

“That’s...” Marko paused to swallow hard. He wanted to say ‘dumb’ but for some reason when he opened his mouth it came out like, “nice?” A bit of Ishmir must have been rubbing off on him.

“So what are you?” Twilight asked lifting her writing materials again.

“A Spartan.” He paused watching her scribble before adding, “a Spartan headhunter if you’re feeling specific.”

“What’s a Spartan headhunter?”

“That’s classified.”

Twilight didn’t miss a beat. “What does ‘classified’ mean?”

“Do you always ask so many questions?” the headhunter scoffed. “Because that could get you in trouble if you’re gonna hang with me.”

“Why?”

Behind the bugged eyes etched into his visor, Marko’s own eyes bugged as he came to a realisation. “Oh, brother. Me ‘n my big mouth.” This was actually worse than hanging out with Ishmir.

"So, you're here to save us from something?"

“So are you a meteorite of some sort?” Twilight asked breaking the Spartan’s thirty second reprieve of conversation.

Marko liked talk, but this was getting a little ridiculous.

With his shotgun secured diagonally across his back, he opted for shouldering his submachine gun in case they came across something hostile. He was effectively in a first-contact situation, and if he had to defend Twilight Sparkle from anything he’d prefer the roar of his shotgun didn’t frighten her into a heart-attack.

“No. I already told you, I’m a Spartan,” Marko responded tartly without looking at the pony. His gold-tinted gaze was fixated on his surroundings and the path ahead of them.

They had pulled out of the thick of the forest and were following a path at the very least. Though ‘path’ was probably a strong word. It was littered with potholes and sometimes so overgrown even Twilight had to pause to figure out which way it led. Mud trailed up both their legs, and Twilight Sparkle being closer to the ground was covered up to her belly.

“But you won’t tell me what that is!” Twilight whined as Marko avoided the particulars of her question.

“It is what it is, okay? Stop being such a little bitch!”

“I am a mare, not a dog!” Twilight Sparkle informed in a matter-of-factly tone. “Are you a warrior?” she suddenly added.

That drew Marko’s attention away from the surroundings and to the little horse. “Warrior? Yeah, I suppose that’s a pretty good description. How’d you figure?”

“You walk kind of like my brother.” – on the inside Marko cringed, hoping she wasn’t going to be projecting any brotherly affection – “Upright and proper,” Twilight continued to say. “He’s a captain in the royal guard.”

“Oh, a big shot, eh?” Marko commented wondering if her brother was at all as retarded as some of the officers he was so lovingly familiar with.

“Yeah. He’s also a prince since he married my old babysitter. She’s a princess too.”

Yeah, he was royalty too. Definitely retarded.

But that wasn’t all that was silly about Twilight’s statement. “Your babysitter is a... is there anyone on this planet who isn’t a fucking princess?” Marko laughed.

“Plenty of ponies aren’t princesses.”

Marko scoffed. “That remains to be seen.” Looking Twilight over he noticed she was breathing harder than normally. Her face was flushed too, and a quick sensor sweep indicated her heart-beat was higher than it was earlier.

“You need a break?” Marko asked, his voice taking a sudden break to oddly kind instead of his tactlessly crude tone.

Trotting to a halt, Twilight Sparkle nodded. “I could use a breather, yes. Thank you.”

She didn’t even seem to care about the mud covering her body anymore. She just dropped into a muddy puddle and lay there panting like a dog trying to catch her breath. “You walk really fast,” she explained sheepishly.

Marko just grunted noncommittally as he took a knee and visually checked his weapon. His orbital drop was bound to have done some damage somewhere, and he wanted to be sure he was ready to fire and kill. He just didn’t know when he’d be able to re-supply, so he didn’t want to waste any ammunition with a test fire. Not to mention that might give his… their position away to whatever nastiness roamed this dark forest.

Another reprieve of thirty seconds later, Twilight shifted the conversation to an even sillier statement, and Marko’s subsequent groan was hard enough to give away their position anyway.

“So you’re here to save us from something?”

Marko scoffed again, tearing his eyes from the weapon to fix his frigid gaze on the pony princess. “What? No! What makes you say that?”

“Well, there’s this old pony-tale that says that there is a warrior who falls from the night sky like a meteorite shot from an exploding star. That he comes to Equestria to save ponies from the wrath of darkness,” Twilight Sparkle told with a smile. She was clearly a fan of stories. Probably a heavy reader too.

It explained how she was a fucking horse and Marko could still walk for longer than she could. She had bookworm written all over her.

“That is... quite possibly... the...” Marko paused to think if he could put it into words that did the statement full justice. “Dumbest fucking thing I have ever heard! Grow up, would you? There’s no such thing as magical warriors that save the day... mind you, yesterday I didn’t think there were such things as talking horses. But there you go.”

Twilight didn’t seem to think much of Marko making fun of her story – or her innocence – and instead seemed confused by a particular word Marko had used. It caused her to cock her head and squint through the darkness at the armoured giant.

“You said that word again. What does it mean?” she asked.

“What does what word mean?”

“Fucking.”

Eyes widening, Marko whipped his gaze around and looked at the pony who’d just straight up cursed in possibly the weirdest way he’d ever heard. “Come again?”

“Fucking,” Twilight repeated emotionlessly, head still cocked inquisitively.

Marko snorted at the sight of it. “Heheheh. It sounds so cute when it comes out of your mouth. And strangely arousing too. I’m thinking that ought to be worrying.”

Brushing a bit of her fringe clinging to the sweat on her forehead (however that was possible for a furry animal), Twilight pressed the question. “What does it mean, Marko?” she almost pleaded. “I want to know what fucking means!”

Marko snorted again, shaking his head. “Okay, stop talking and I’ll tell you. First though; how old are you?”

“I’m eighteen.”

“Oh.” Marko couldn’t have guessed that one. He would have put her at about fifteen, seventeen at the most. “And, uh... did your parents ever have the talk with you?”

Twilight rolled her eyes up to think, then shook her head with a frown. “The talk?”

“Yeah, you know! The talk! That little sit down session where they tell you about... y’know... stuff,” Marko said slowly, trying to sheepishly avoid coming out with it blatantly.

“Stuff?”

“Yeah... how little ponies are made,” the Spartan eventually buckled realising there was no easy way out of it.

“Little ponies are-...” Twilight stopped dead at the sudden realisation of what Marko was getting at and at what ‘fucking’ exactly meant. “Sweet Celestia! That’s what fucking means?”

“Got it in one,” Marko chuckled, mainly at the amusement of Twilight’s constant use of her newly discovered word.

“But... but why do you keep saying it then?” She blinked confoundedly before her eyes darted back up to Marko’s visor. Suddenly repulsed she recoiled from the Spartan, sitting up. “Y-you... you want to... with... w-with me...?”

“What? Ew! No, you stupid fucker!”

“Well don’t call me it! I mean... I’ve never actually... um...” rubbing her neck sheepishly she rolled her eyes to avoid the headhunter’s gaze. “Y-you know...”

Marko gaped silently as the princess straight up admitted to him that her hymen was still intact. Hanging his head the Spartan was groaning like he had when he’d fallen out of orbit.

“No! It can mean multiple things. But that’s the most common definition. You can even use the word as a derogatory statement. Like me just calling you a fucker,” Marko smiled. “You’d do it to be mean.”

“But why would you be mean to me?” Twilight suddenly whined, tears forming in the corners of her eyes and her ears drooping down the sides of her head. Her pupils had grown double in size, the purple irises barely visible as she gave him sad puppy-dog eyes. “I thought we were friends.”

“We are!” Marko lied at the prospect of having to deal with the waterworks. “I didn’t intend it to be mean! I was just fucking with you, like friends normally do.”

Twilight’s tears suddenly vanished and her sad expression was replaced with the one of pale, repulsed shock again.

Realising what he’d just said, Marko sighed, palming the side of his helmet. “Oh, brother. Me ‘n my big mouth.”

"Oly-oly-oxen-free."

In the silent forest there was only their footsteps. The sound of their progress through the mud and foliage. They’d stopped once more to rest, and only a few minutes into the next stretch of their hike Marko came to a sudden halt.

His right hand tightened on the grip of his submachine gun as his left was held up in a fist to indicate Twilight had to freeze.

Though in fairness, Twilight Sparkle had no military training besides a little bit of fencing practice from when she was under Princess Celestia’s tutelage. And even if she were a trained soldier, how was she supposed to know what ‘hand’-signals meant?

As a result she crashed headlong into the back of Marko’s legs. Though in the end, she did end up holding position. Only this time it was with a headache.

Rubbing her head she looked up at the headhunter inquisitively.

“What is it?”

“Shhh,” Marko immediately shushed her.

Moving deliberately he shifted his left hand to the foregrip of his SMG and took a knee. Dots were showing up on his motion tracker. Twenty metres out… fifteen… ten… he could hear their footfalls, the undergrowth scraping over armoured plates. They’d be in visual range in mere seconds. Marko held his ground between the incoming contact and Twilight Sparkle.

And then…

“Oly-oly-oxen-free.”

Marko let out the breath he had been holding. The familiar phrase coupled with the very familiar voice thawed his stance. Instinctively lowering his weapon, Marko watched as a crimson hulk of armour stepped out of the dark foliage ahead. His battle rifle was missing, but his pistol was held in a firm two-handed grip. There were some dents and scratches in his SPI-armour, but he looked about as intact as one could expect of a Spartan who’d fallen out of orbit.

“Ishmir! There you are,” Marko called as the fellow Spartan strode over slotting his pistol into his thigh holster. Marko did the same with his submachine gun, hand resting lazily on the stock as he stood up.

“You green?” Ishmir asked.

“And very-very mean.” Stepping aside, he gave Princess Twilight Sparkle an introductory wave. “Meet one of the locals. This is Twilight Sparkle. She’s a princess and a virgin!”

Ishmir paused a moment, looking the shorter alicorn over before tipping his brow in greeting. “Evening, ma’am.”

“Hello...” Twilight stopped suddenly, her eyes bugging as she realised what Marko had said. “Wait, what!? Why would you introduce me like that?”

Marko sniggered at her expense. “Because it’s funny how you confided your sexy secrets with me without even realising it.”

“Fucker!” Twilight Sparkle blurted out.

“Oh, shit! The little bitch is catching on!” Marko exclaimed happily, his visor lighting up like his face did. Ishmir merely shook his head very slowly in a disappointed fashion.

“You are a walking interstellar scandal.”

“You know ya’ love it!” Marko glanced between the pony and Ishmir, adding, “you seem pretty accepting of the talking horse.”

Ishmir smiled, folding his arms across his chest. “I got my own pony friend… well, not exactly a pony.”

The foliage behind Ishmir rustled, drawing Marko and Twilight’s joint attention. The bushes parted and trotting up to Ishmir’s side was a creature that would have blended into the forest’s uneven shadows unless she’d moved.

Zecora smiled brightly at the sight of Twilight, giving her friend a small bow. “Allow me to extend my greetings,” she said in a distinct tone reminding the humans of an Earthling African accent. “Especially at these friendly meetings.”

“Oh, look!” Marko exclaimed happily picking up on the ethnic similarities from back home. “They come in racist varieties too!”

Ishmir sighed deeply, palming his visor. “So what do we do now?”

“Your quest in Equestria is not yet done. Your destiny lies to the west of here, giant armoured one.”

Marko cocked his head as the zebra spoke in rhyme. “Does she always do that?”

“She does,” Ishmir said with a nod.

“Travel to the standing-stones, older than time. It is there a way home you may be able to find.” Zecora continued to explain in rhyme. “But the princess and the heroes should tread lightly tonight. Or you may not get home without picking a fight.”

“Aww, but I like picking fights.”

“Remember, travel west until you see the first stone. Now it is time for this old zebra to find her way home.” The zebra gave a courteous bow to the two humans and the princess before turning and walking back the way she had come.

Smiling as she waved to her old stripy Everfree friend, Twilight Sparkle called out, “thanks, Zecora!”

Marko chortled disbelievingly at the pony’s bright attitude in the wake of the zebra’s utterly worthless little nursery rhymes. “Why are you thanking her for contributing nothing to our day?”

“She just pointed us to the ancient standing-stones. Remember the story of the warrior who fell from the sky I told you?” Twilight asked, and Marko groaned with a roll of his eyes.

“How could I forget?”

Ishmir on the other hand listened with silent intrigue.

“Well, that warrior discovered his destiny at those very stones Zecora pointed us to! We should go have a look and see what happens if you approach them.”

Before either Ishmir or Marko could stop her, Twilight Sparkle was trotting off deeper into the Everfree Forest with a westerly heading. Looking at one another, the headhunters shrugged before unholstering their weapons and silently following.

It wasn’t as if they had plans that night.

"Oh my God, you've created a monster."

So excited about seeing the alien warriors to the standing-stones, Twilight Sparkle didn’t even want to slow down or rest. She just fought through her fatigue, tearing in the forest more aggressively even as the woodland thickened in an attempt to hold them back.

It was in those instances that Twilight Sparkle charged her horn up and sliced through with a blade of purple light.

Following silently, Ishmir pondered exactly what it was he was witnessing. It was Marko’s simplistic outlook on everything in life that clarified it for him.

“Oh, yeah! Check it out, Ish, she does magic! Hey, you’re not gonna burn her at the stake are you, God-lover?” the Spartan added not with concern, just genuine inquisition.

“Where do you think I’m from? The dark-ages?” Ishmir snapped sounding a little offended.

As they talked, Twilight Sparkle cast a glance over her shoulder. “Burn who at the what now?”

Ignoring her, Marko added, “where I’m from we strap a few pounds of C-4 to witches.”

“What’s C-4, and why are we talking about witches?” Twilight asked.

“Oh, nothing, dick-face. Keep walking.” Looking back at his fellow headhunter, Marko continued to say, “hey, Ishy? Think your God made these ponies too?”

“Without a doubt.”

“… your God has issues, man,” the foul-mouthed Spartan said after a pause.

Ishmir smiled at that one, finding it hard to disagree. “At least I have a God though.”

Hefting his shotgun in one hand, Marko’s shoulders heaved with his chuckle. “I got my God right here, dude.”

Their conversation paused as they slid into a single file to squeeze through a cluster of tightly packed trees. Twilight’s slim frame managed to hop and squeeze through no problem. The bulkier Spartans took a bit more twisting, shifting and forcing.

“What do you think Zecora meant by our destiny awaiting us by the elder stones?” Ishmir asked as he shuffled over a fallen log.

Ahead, Marko un-wedged himself from between two trees, stumbling as he found his balance. “I don’t fucking know, and I’m not going to worry about it. This is all a dream anyway, and you’re just a manifestation of my mind.”

“No, we’re awake.”

“How do you figure?”

Ishmir’s actions came out of nowhere. Walking up beside Marko, he swung his left fist around until it made contact with the back of the Spartan’s head. The resulting clang was deafening, and the force of the blow nearly planted Marko’s face in the mud.

“Ow! The fuck!?”

Ishmir chortled. “The satisfaction I feel when I do that in real life; no dream can emulate that.”

The other Spartan huffed. “Alright, smart-guy. How do you explain the fact we look like cartoon-characters?” he asked drawing attention to the fact they both had flat colour schemes and distinct outlines.

Ishmir paused to think before shrugging with a glance at the sky.

“I got weird ozone readings during entry. Could be the way the light’s filtering through the atmosphere messes with our ocular rift,” he suggested drawing a blank stare from Marko.

“That even possible?”

“You try and explain it.”

“Alright, dumbass. I-…” Marko paused dead, opened his mouth a few times when he thought he had the answer, but after a while just sighed. “I can’t.”

“See? If you were dreaming you wouldn’t be such a dummy,” ishmir stated triumphantly.

Throwing up his arms, Marko sighed explosively. “Fucking ass-muncher,” he cursed loudly enough for his voice to break.

Ahead of them Princess Twilight Sparkle missed a step. On two feet it may have resulted in a stumble or a visibly uneven pace. But on her four hooves it led to a full on trip from which she only narrowly saved herself from kissing the dirt.

Pausing and turning to face the Spartans following her with a bit of a pressing question. “Wait a second, did your voice just break like a thirteen year old colt? How old are you?”

Looking down at her as he stopped, Marko shrugged holding out his arms. “Fuck, I dunno. Ishy! How old am I?” he asked his fellow.

“Mentally? Five.” Ishmir answered smartly.

Twilight giggled, obviously liking Ishmir’s comment. “Hee-hee. I could have guessed that.”

“Suck my dick,” Marko growled in response almost as if making a demand.

It sounded demanding enough so Twilight took it as a literal command, her eyes bugging as the colour seemed to drain from her face like before when she discovered what ‘fucking’ meant.

“W-what? N-n-no! No!” she stammered shaking her head. “Never! Why would you even tell me to do that!?”

Marko didn’t even have to say any more, sniggering to himself while Ishmir sighed.

“Marko, leave her alone. She doesn’t understand that kind of talk,” the crimson clad Spartan said.

“But it’s like picking on a retarded kid. It never stops being fun,” Marko admitted.

Ishmir was about to reprimand his partner when he stopped. Marko froze in the exact same instance before they both snapped their gazes down the path. Not understanding what was happening, Twilight Sparkle looked between them. Her mouth opened to ask what was going on, but before she could get a sound out she blinked.

When her eyes opened in a split-second, Ishmir had his sidearm drawn, aiming down the path in a covering pattern. Marko was falling on top of Twilight. Scooping the pony up with one hand, he kept his other clamped over her mouth to keep her quiet. And with a single leap they both disappeared into the undergrowth beside the path, vanishing like ghosts.

Ishmir followed silently, dropping prone in the mud beside where Marko and a very confused princess lay.

Holding up one armoured finger, Marko gently placed it on Twilight’s lips to indicate she had to be quiet. At the same time he whispered, barely audible, “Movement ahead. Stay low. Stay quiet. Follow me.”

Giving Ishmir a nod, he let his buddy lead on. The pistol still in his hand, the crimson headhunter slowly crawled forward. One arm and one leg forward, he pushed and pulled, sliding his stomach through the muck before taking over with the opposite limbs to drag himself forward.

Marko moved the same way, slower so to give his point-man some room to work with. Twilight Sparkle followed closely behind.

Their crawl stopped as they joined Ishmir behind a large boulder at the edge of a clearing. Sneaking a peek through the foliage, Twilight realised they had reached the ancient standing-stones Zecora had directed them to.

The stones still standing varied in size. Some tall, some short, others narrow, a few quite wide. One near the centre of the clearing had fallen over completely, and at least two had been reduced to small piles of rubble by centuries of erosion. Besides that, the clearing was unremarkable. The stones were plain, widely spaced to form three concentric circles, the largest of the standing-stones forming the outer ring.

Even more interesting than the standing-stones themselves were the figures moving among them.

“Hostiles,” Ishmir whispered. “Standard kill-squad. Little bastards en-mass, big ones sporadic.”

Placing a hand on the surface of the rock, Marko very slowly shimmied his way up beside Ishmir to get a look for himself.

The creatures moving among the standing-stones were impossible to mistake. They were Covenant. And not just any Covenant. Covenant warriors. A couple of elites, a healthy hand-full of jackals and a cannon-fodder contingent of grunts. A full kill-squad. And more worryingly still was that phantom drop ship hovering over their heads. The sleek craft was airborne, but there was no telling if that nasty looking chin-mounted plasma cannon was manned or operational.

The grunts – squat little bipeds with clumsy methane tanks on their backs and the IQ of a retarded lemming – and jackals – scaly bird-like saurian guys with wrist mounted shields, but besides that fought like wussies – on their own weren’t very threatening. As mentioned, the grunts were dumb and the jackals were pussies, irritating at the most.

It was the elites who worried the headhunters. Even just one of those eight foot squid-heads was enough to drive terror into the most hardened veteran. Tough, disciplined fighters with personal shields doubling their toughness, elites were like Marko. They lived for the heat of war and didn’t balk at the threat of death.

In the midst of it all there was one inactive figure. It was hard to imagine that singular lazy fucker wasn’t the leader running the freak show. An elite towering a little over the others, he was clad in bright crimson armour with a blood-red mantle draped over his shoulders. Everything about him reeked ‘officer,’ from his stance to the fact he was supervising the labour instead of taking part.

Safely in cover behind their rock, the Spartans and their alicorn hermana watched the aliens moving what looked like weapons crates across the clearing to where the glowing gravity lift connected the drop ship with the ground.

“When they get back to mommy they’ll come back with an army to either conquer or glass this world,” Marko whispered softly, Ishmir nodding in agreement.

“You might be right.”

Marko scoffed. “Fuckin-A, I’m right.”

Twilight Sparkle hadn’t caught any of their cryptic speech as she was still coming to terms with what she was looking at. “What are they?”

“They are called the Covenant,” Ishmir explained hoping to get Twilight up to speed with the basics as quickly as possible. “They’ve been conquering their way across the galaxy, killing our people every step of the way for no reason we can figure.”

“That’s horrible!”

“Yeah-yeah-yeah, they’re very anti-social. Are we going to get some killing done or what?” Marko hissed impatiently.

Hearing that, Twilight’s eyes widened as her voice raise hysterically with shock. “Killing!?”

Her cry carried, over the rock, out into the clearing, past the standing-stones and to the ears fo the working aliens. All of them stopped what they were doing with a start, dropping crates and equipment before turning towards the source of the sound.

The elite in charge turned on the spot, eyes narrowing as he scanned the dark treeline. Hearing nothing else, he in haled sharply twice, gently tasting the air with his mandibles hanging slack. All he could catch was the sickly sweet scent of this perfect unpolluted woodland. It was soft, kind and welcoming. Not at all like the harsh blistering wind and jagged landscape like on his home planet of Sanghelios.

He hated it.

Gritting the quad jaws, the captain turned away from where he thought the sound had come from, unconcerned with its source.

“Lamina na tsuj ylbaborp,” the cloaked alien reasoned gruffly before waving his warriors back to work. “krow ot kcab teg!”

With the aliens returning to their unintelligible chatter and hard labour, none of them noticed the two humans and the pony down wind. Back behind the rock, both Spartans were keeping their heads low in cover. Marko had an arm locked around Twilight’s neck with a hand clamped over her mouth and nose.

“Keep it down, boner-head,” he scolded before letting her go.

Gasping for air, the alicorn managed to slip from under the Spartan’s arm. “Did you say you were going to kill them!?” she hissed almost angrily.

“Well how else would we deal with them?” Marko demanded with a frown.

“Talk to them!” Twilight stated plainly as if it were obvious. “Clearly there’s some misunderstanding between your people and it needs to be rectified. There isn’t any problem friendship can’t solve.”

Marko and Ishmir looked at each other for a moment. Neither had really thought about it that way. Could it be so easy? Simply talk their problems out? Maybe all the Covenant wanted from them was to be friends?

Then realism kicked in and the headhunters burst out laughing at the sheer stupidity of Twilight Sparkle’s statement. Even Ishmir thought it was silly enough to snort at.

When they were about done laughing at poor Twilight Sparkle and her innocent tactics, Marko and Ishmir went back to planning their engagement of the Covenant forces.

“We’ll take out the bad-guys and commandeer that ship for a ride home.” Ishmir suggested. But that wouldn’t do them any good f they didn’t have the means to combat the Covenant effectively. “Gear check. What have you got?” Marko immediately groaned with dismay at the realisation of their limited resources.

“Jack and shit. And Jack’s not in town. I got four shells, and two SMG mags. Also, my shields are dead. You got grenades?”

“Nope. I’m down to my sidearm and bayonet. My shields died too. Still got my wits though.”

“Oooooh, brilliant. The day is saved,” Marko whooped sarcastically. “What I wouldn’t give for a rocket launcher right now.”

Ishmir wasn’t out of ideas though. “What about Twilight Sparkle? Could she use her magic to create a distraction?”

“Yeah. What about it, Princess Bitchpants? Think you can… uh… hello?” Marko turned his head to look at where Princess Twilight Sparkle had been sitting in cover with them a moment ago.

One of three things could have happened. Either she’d spontaneously combusted. Unlikely, as there were no ashes to be seen. Or she could have gotten her friend’s name mixed up and accidentally said Candleja-…

“Aw, fuck.” Or she could have done the one thing that would cause a Spartan as composed and civilised as Ishmir to let out an honest-to-God curse word.

Looking up to Ishmir, Marko quickly followed his gaze and looked across the clearing to see Twilight Sparkle trotting calmly out in the open to meet the Covenant head on. They heard her approach and like before when she had cried out stopped what they were doing. But so confused by the creature boldly approaching them, the Covenant warriors simply stood and stared as she trotted to a halt in front of the cloaked captain.

“Hello mister alien, sir. My name is Twilight Sparkle,” she introduced brightly to the towering alien. “Allow me to be the first to welcome you to Equestria.”

Watching from the shadows as their element of surprise slowly fell apart, Ishmir and Marko cringed heavily. Marko was angrily raking his armoured fingers down his visor, seething to himself through gritted teeth; “Stupid, fucking, horse!”

“However there are, uh,” – tapping her lip with a muddy hoof, Twilight thought of how she could put her concerns delicately – “issues that need to be seen to. You are after all wandering around without...”

Pausing and blinking, Twilight found herself looking at something fairly odd. The alien had calmly reached down with his dexterous hand and pulled something loose from a magnetic hold on the sleek plate of armour protecting his right thigh. Holding the electronic sounding device in one hand, he pointed it directly at the princess’ face.

Continuing softly, Twilight Sparkle managed to force out, “a... visa,” before the tip of the device began to glow a venomous green colour. Cocking her head curiously at the electronic whine and the intense heat emanating from the object, Twilight Sparkle glanced between the entrancing green glow and the alien’s frightful facial features.

“What is that?”

Twilight found out exactly what it was a moment later.

A green blur slammed into the towering alien, knocking the hand holding the device to one side. At the same time the orb of sickly green energy was unleashed, shooting from the muzzle of the device and flashing through the night. The ball of energy hit the dirt beside Twilight, crackling with enough static energy to make her fur stand on end. The sheer heat of it blistered her side and turned the patch of exposed mud to a small crater of cloudy glass, smouldering the surrounding grass that was supposedly too wet to catch fire.

Realising she had been standing nose-to-nose with a deadly weapon the alien had intended to use on her face, Twilight Sparkle’s eyes grew to twice their normal size. Screaming with surprise she looked up at the alien again. Only her view was blocked.

Standing in her way was Marko, the glint of his dome shaped visor and the wicked smile carved into the glass were impossible to mistake.

The elite captain was stunned by the sight of the army green demon standing before him. And those precious seconds of hesitation were not squandered. With his submachine gun gripped in one hand, Marko cocked his arm back and lashed out with a sharp jab, forcing the silencer of his weapon into the back of the alien’s throat. His personal shields flared as he gagged, mandibles wide as his eyes with surprise. The shields would protect from high velocity impacts, not from a punch, allowing the barrel to bypass the force field altogether.

Toppling backwards off the barrel of the firearm, the alien was fumbling for an object on his belt. A weapon, a grenade, anything! But all thought turned blank as Marko pulled the trigger of his SMG and unleashed a short burst into the elite’s face.

Blood and bone clouded the air as the elite twisted with the impact of at least six rounds, blasting free both right side mandibles and several shattered teeth.

Turning his back on the falling alien, Marko swiftly holstered his weapon and scooped Twilight Sparkle up in both arms. There was no time to tell her what to do and no time to put up with the possibility of her hesitating. They needed to move fast.

The servos in the Spartan’s armour whined as he kicked off the SPI-armour’s safeties, feeding the battery power of his dead personal shield systems into the mobility assist systems. The armour’s neural interface linking with his motor nerves picked up on the electrical impulses from his brain commanding his legs to ‘fucking-run’ and launched the Spartan into sprint, turning him into a green and purple blur. The sudden acceleration almost gave both Twilight and Marko whiplash as the alicorn was pressed tight against the Spartan’s chest.

Were it not for the headhunter’s bio-augmentations doubling muscle mass and hardening his bones, both legs would have been broken by the force exerted by his armour’s powered systems. Already it felt like his skin turned to broken glass when pressed up against the gel layer lining the inside of his armour. He wouldn’t be able to do this again anytime soon without seriously hurting himself.

As they were moving, Twilight Sparkle couldn’t see a thing. The speed they were travelling in those split seconds was too much. Everything was a blur. But for Marko, everything moved in ‘Spartan Time.’ He picked up on much more detail as his brain processed everything his senses picked up on much faster than the pony’s could.

Three grunts were scrambling for their weapons, only for their heads to explode suddenly and violently. All three victim to Ishmir’s pinpoint accuracy with that pistol. There were no gunshots, the suppressor only letting out whisper quiet puffs of air and fire with each shot. The gun’s internal mechanisms made more noise.

A jackal joined the body count, flung sideways as he tried to bring his plasma pistol to bear on the running Spartan. The headless jackal’s wingman was faster than his fellow. Ignoring Marko altogether, he let out a screech and shifted the circular aspis of energy mounted to his wrist in the direction from which Ishmir’s fire came from. Several splashes of energy rippled across the barrier as the jackal slipped his plasma pistol through a nook on the side of the shield. It flashed, unleashing a number of low-yield, but at the same time deadly, plasma bolts.

They hit the boulder Ishmir used as a sniper’s perch, blasting up clouds of dust and grit. The jackal’s fire was joined by several more shots from the other jackals being directed by the elites to return fire as they sought out cover for themselves and the grunts under their command.

Halting his fire as Marko reached cover, Ishmir decided he needed to move before he was winged. Sliding back over the top of the boulder, he fell into cover behind the rock, his armour scraping noisily over the rough surface and trailing a giant silver mark across his chest as the paint was ripped away. ignoring the aesthetic flaws of his fancy armour – fancy compared to Marko’s – Ishmir crouched low and glanced from side to side, seeking out new cover to run to when there was a break in the enemy fire.

In the meantime, across the clearing, Marko slid to a halt on one knee, carving a deep groove in the ground before dropping Twilight sparkle in the cover of one of the larger standing-stones. It stood on the outer ring near the clearing’s edge, far enough away from enemy fire and other danger. And if shit slid very far to one side, she’d at least have a chance to make a break for it into the woods.

“T-that... that was a weapon,” Twilight stammered hysterically as Marko put her down. “H-he... he w-was going t-to use that w-weapon on my f-f-face! H-he was g-g-going to k-kill me!”

“Stay down!” Marko simply ordered the shaken pony looking up at him with tear brimmed eyes. It was like she was giving him the puppy-dog eyes again, only this time it wasn’t cute. It was frightening to imagine something so innocent had been on the wrong end of a plasma pistol only seconds ago. Even Marko hadn’t pointed his weapon at the pony. He’d threatened her, but there was a difference between talk and charging a plasma pistol in one’s face.

Angrily, the headhunter drew his SMG, levelling it on the nearest alien. It was Marko’s opinion that someone had to die.

His weapon coughed, extended stock gently kissing his pauldron as he unleashed a sustained burst into the back of the nearest jackal. Thick purple paste splattered the inside of the glowing aspis as the hateful looking alien toppled forward riddled with holes and fell face down in the gore strewn mud. Pausing in his fire, Marko’s torso swivelled right as he locked on to the next target and fired systematically sweeping across another jackal and a grunt.

As the alien’s turned and shifted their aim to Marko, the Spartan leapt to his feet and ran along the outer standing-stones, drawing fire away from Twilight and Ishmir as best he could. His submachine gun held out in one hand, he didn’t even look as he fired into the mess of aliens. Safety and trigger-discipline that should have been drilled into his muscle memory were thrown to the wind. He didn’t much care for it with plasma whizzing around his helmet. Besides, he was firing into a crowd of Covenant. What was the harm of a little negligence?

His SMG let out a click and stopped firing, clear indication there were no more bullets in the mag. Diving forward with plasma scorching the armour at his heels, Marko tucked his weapon against his stomach and reached out as if lunging for a golden Snitch (yeah, Marko did read from time to time, what of it).

Hitting the deck hand-first, the headhunter curled into a ball and rolled, halting crouched on one knee, sliding with his momentum across the slick mud.

Sliding into cover, Marko dumped the empty SMG magazine with a flick of his wrist and pulled another from the dump-pouch on his hip at the same time. While reloading, he leaned around the standing-stone to get eyes on the situation.

The Covenant were putting cover between him and them, complicating thing a little. Marko was on his last mag, so he couldn’t afford to waste any more rounds on covering fire. If he moved from his fairly isolated cover he’d walk into enemy fire. And he wouldn’t be able to actually get an angle of fire on the enemy unless he moved and flanked them.

His saving grace however came in the form of a twitch, reminding him he was a headhunter. That he wasn’t alone.

One of the elites twitched, breaking all the discipline and skill they were famed for by stumbling drunkenly out of cover. It was as if something heavy had landed on his back, forcing the wind out of his lungs.

The alien shook and bucked, swinging his arms strangely to claw at the air behind him, before with a sudden sharp motion his head was twisted all the way around to the left. The thick saurian neck popped and cracked, warping out of its natural shape as the elite’s head was tugged around at an unnatural angle.

Standing high atop the broken alien, a shimmer of light intensified and solidified. Inch by inch, Ishmir’s crimson armour began to shine through his active camouflage. By the time he was fully visible, he was already surfing the alien’s corpse to the ground, rolling as he made impact. His pistol was drawn mid-roll, and when he was on his feet again the silencer was flashing as several shots were unleashed.

Almost immediately, the exposed backs of the remaining jackals blossomed open like gory flowers in time with the heads of a few grunts, their cover counting for nothing.

As some of the aliens turned to fire at Ishmir, the barrage assaulting Marko thinned out significantly. As Ishmir started taking fire, he curled his arms withdrawing his pistol in to his side. Held level, the weapon fired twice more, putting a double tap in an elite’s shields before the Spartan side-stepped behind a standing-stone.

“Taking fire!” Ishmir reported as he switched hands and stepped out the other side of the standing-stone, continuing to engage the Covenant from a new angle.

“Engaging!”

Straight up, moving in a similarly fluid fashion to Ishmir, Marko stepped out of cover and fired short bursts while moving. The holo-sights of his M7S submachine gun weaved from head to head, splitting open a grunt skull before sliding onto the next target.

With the cannon fodder laying dead in the bloody muck, two elites stood their ground, shields flaring violently as they took fire from two angles. The flashes of light glistening up and down their bodies blinded them like a flashbang grenade might, causing their return fire to end up cratering the ground or slicing harmlessly up into the air.

Both aliens’ shields popped at the same time.

Marko ran in a little closer, his index-finger never leaving the SMG trigger. Ishmir leaned sideways as a lucky plasma rifle shot came close to hitting him in the face. Firing one handed, he put two pistol rounds in the alien’s gut where the sleek blue armour didn’t protect, Ishmir’s free hand grabbing a handful of the alien’s mandibles. Pulling the alien off-balance, he kicked it in the legs at the same time as he put a final double-tap in the elite’s face at point-blank range.

“Asshole down!” Marko reported as his targeted elite fell to his last barrage of SMG rounds.

Ishmir pushed aside the dead alien collapsed in his arms as his fellow drew loose his shotgun. “Tango down. Clear!”

“Clear!” Marko repeated loudly as confirmation as the Spartans stood back to back, eyes and weapons still sweeping for contacts just in case.

They didn’t pause to celebrate or relax at the lack of hostile contact. Through it all they had tried to avoid one last thing.

The swivel gun under the phantom holding position above their heads. With a single button press that monstrous cannon would reign an unholy storm of armour and flesh melting fire down upon the headhunters.

Both Spartans snapped their weapons up at the phantom, expecting it to begin engaging them.

... nothing happened.

Marko slowly lowered his shotgun. “Something tells me nobody’s home.”

“Hmmm,” Ishmir grunted, figuring their luck was holding out.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

The prologue to Flintlock team’s luck faltering then failing altogether was sounded by a rumbling noise. Like a fanfare of roars, a colony of small-voiced warriors all crying out at once to generate a harmonic war-cry with enough bass it make the humans’ teeth rattle in their skulls. The ground shook in time with the cries, and turning to the relative position where the noise was coming from, the headhunters felt their blood run cold.

Blue and grey was all that could be seen at first. Hulking blue armoured plates covering everything from the head down to the bulky feet. Fused into the right arm was a weapon giving of a radioactive glow, with the left covered by a two part shield. One part battered metal fixed to the pauldron, and the rest of the long blade-edged barrier covering the whole forearm and in turn most of the body. Running down the back were long razor sharp quills, covering the rear where the featureless heads could not look. Between the armoured plates were tiny little slivers of orange flesh, the only visible weak spots on the massive walking tanks.

They were classed by UNSC troops as ‘hunters,’ unofficially referred to as ‘the big ones,’ ‘blue meanies’ and in extreme cases ‘holy shit; would ya’ look at that!’

Where they slid to a halt on the edge of the clearing, the hunter pair slammed their shields into the dirt threateningly before roaring the Spartans a challenge.

“Hunters,” Marko laughed. “Hey, Ishy! See that? They have hunters! And we have no explosives!”

Ishmir gritted his teeth almost painfully. “I see it, Marko.”

“So where’s your God now?”

“I’ll have to get back to you on that one.”

The hunters didn’t waste any more time and charged with surprising speed for hulks their size.

Marko and Ishmir immediately divided and conquered. They had to split the hunters up and get dangerously close so they wouldn’t use those nuclear fuel-rod cannons fused in their arms. Though, when the headhunters did get close the Covenant hunters would use those massive metal shields as melee weapons.

No matter the range they were engaged at, hunters were a fucking pain.

While Ishmir was engaging one, Marko weaved from side to side in a ducking fashion as he closed on the other. The hunter’s head bobbed like a bird of prey tracking a target, trying to keep up with the Spartan.

Slipping to his left, Marko shouldered his shotgun and fired. Flaming buckshot roared out of the barrel like the brimstone breath of a hellhound. The projectiles slammed into the hunter’s mid-section, glancing off the armoured plates and leaving scorchmarks on the blue paint-job. The hunter swung its shield around to behead the Spartan, but he’d moved already.

Pumping the weapon as he rolled under the slicing motion the alien made, Marko landed on his feet and unleashed two more shells into the hunter, working the action smoothly between shots. The mid-section armour buckled and cracked, breaking and slitting in places. The hunter stalled the attack again with another swing. This time Marko jumped back diving clear and sliding to a halt on his back.

Rolling into his neck, he coiled into a ball then sprang up to his feet, working the action of his shotgun. The flickering corner of his HUD displaying his weapon status revealed he was on his last shell. He had to make it count.

Angling forward, Marko sprinted. Not at his maximum capacity like he did when carrying Twilight Sparkle to cover. This time he needed to be a bit slower. He needed time to calculate. This had to be timed exactly.

The hunter met his charge with a wide swing of the shield, high to low. But as before, it met only air, Marko dropped to the ground and slid smoothly between the hunter’s widely parted feet like a soccer player tackling the player holding the ball. Beside his head the sharp edge of the hunter’s shield thudded into the dirt, tossing up a clump of grass.

Smoothly rolling to his feet behind the hunter, Marko snapped up his shotgun, aimed and fired.

Armour plating buckled and burst apart with a splash of static energy arching through the air between them. The hunter was thrown forward a few paces before falling to one knee, the wiry orange mid-section completely exposed.

Marko dropped the empty shotgun in favour of his knife. The firearm had served its purpose. He was through the hunter’s hardened shell and breached the gooey centre. He’d exposed the alien’s sweet spot.

Or maybe he should have referred to the single hunter as aliens – plural – instead of alien – single.

A single hunter was not a single creature. One hunter was made up of many more creatures all writhing around inside that big blue shell, all working together to form the limbs and guts of the walking tank. Hunters were comprised of large eel-colonies.

The alien eels referred to in Covenant communique as lekgolo were about a meter and a half long. No eyes, no mouth, no brain, no genitalia. Just microscopic muscular cilia lining the slick orange bodies of the lekgolo; cilia used to connect to other eels allowing them to communicate chemically. It was how they became a collective in the form of hunters.

Destroy those and you destroyed the pain-in-the-ass hunters. Simple, in theory. And unlike their insertion onto the Unyielding Hierophant earlier that day; if you had the means of breaching the armour, simple in execution too.

Knife in hand, Marko darted at the hunter’s back, leaning to one side so he wouldn’t be impaled on the long spines whipping back and forth. With a single lunge he plunged his knife into the hunter’s exposed midsection, punching through and letting his whole arm become consumed by the squirming eels within. Orange mucus smeared all the way up his shoulder as his fluid stained fist bust out of the hunter’s ‘belly’ with the knife still held tightly.

As the hunter twitched with pain, Marko flipped his knife into a reverse-grip and pulled back sharply. As he did, he cleaved further through the eel colony, severing the largest of the lekgolo serving as the main aorta at the heart of the armoured beast.

When his arm came free with a wet pop and a cloud of luminescent orange viscera, the Spartan rolled backwards, standing clear of the giant as it keeled over to one side. And with a rattle of armour the hunter fell dead, laying still on the battlefield.

Relief was short lived however as Ishmir let out a cry.

Straightening up he saw the crimson armoured Spartan fly past and hit the deck, sliding to a halt against one of the standing-stones. Marko didn’t have time to react, looking over to where Ishmir had flown from and spotting a blue blur.

The remaining hunter slammed the flat end of its shield into Marko’s chest as it barrelled through him. The Spartan was picked up and thrown through the air before slamming to a halt against something hard.

Hearing the crumbling of stone and tasting pennies, Marko fell forward and slammed face down into the dirt. Everything between his chest to the back of his head hurt. The whole world was spinning. Lifting his head out of the mud, Marko peered queasily through his visor – thankfully still intact – trying to make heads or tails of the swimming shapes sliding between the standing-stones.

Blinking hard he made out the red from the blue watching Ishmir roll and jump out of the angered hunter’s path. Like the headhunters, hunters were bonded in pairs. They watched each other’s backs. No exception. When one fell, the other fought harder. The only difference was that headhunters fought their hardest all the time, so their brother didn’t fall in the first place.

Running up one of the standing stones, Ishmir jumped off in a powerful leap, sailing over the charging hunter’s head and driving his charge right through the rock. Somersaulting around, the Spartan landed neatly while the hunter fell forward and kissed the deck.

Running over to him, Ishmir grabbed Marko by the arm and pulled the dazed headhunter to his feet.

“C’mon, buddy. Let’s finish this,” Ishmir encouraged.

Marko chuckled. “How did I end up with you as a friend anyway?”

“I punched you in the face for pushing me out of a pelican during selection.”

“Right!” Marko gave a nostalgic nod. “Spartan selection. Good times.”

As the hunter across the clearing climbed to its feet again, the Spartans stood ready for another assault. One final effort was all that stood between them and clearing the Covenant from this planet. Facing them, the hunter roared its final challenge to them. And the human duo shouted back a plethora of names and curses.

Holding out his knife, Marko gave it a flick. The blade whirled twice around his index finger, tracing a lethal arch through the air before Marko caught the weapon in an ice-pick grip by his side again.

At the same time, pulling a fresh magazine from his belt, Ishmir pressed the release button on the pistol. The moment the mag cleared the receiver, he slotted the next one in place. It clicked home before the mostly spent magazine even hit the ground.

“You go low, I’ll go high,” Ishmir suggested soberly.

Having the exact same plan running through his own head as if the duo were psychically linked, Marko nodded. “Hoo-ah!”

Flintlock team headhunters ran at the waiting hunter.

Marko was there first, only he wasn’t ready to deliver aggression on an epic scale. As the hunter lashed out at him, the Spartan ducked and evaded without returning the attack. Instead he sidestepped and faced Ishmir who ran in close. Interlocking his fingers, Marko formed a platform for Ishmir to plant his foot, then threw his buddy straight up into the air.

As he lifted off, Ishmir snapped out a knee, catching the hunter in the armoured face and snapped the flat head all the way back. Grabbing hold, the headhunter then planted his armoured boots on the alien’s shoulders, watching as Marko dodged clear of the hunter’s flailing arms.

Pitching his pistol downward, Ishmir put the whole clip down the hunter’s exposed neck. Round after round passed out of the barrel and down into the hunter’s collar, slamming into the inside of the armour and causing a deadly ricochet that sent the bullets bouncing around the chest cavity.

When the last shell passed out of the breech, the slide locked back to indicate an empty magazine. Ishmir jumped backwards, somersaulting as he dumped the empty mag into the air. Landing with a backwards roll, the Spartan pulled out his last magazine and slotted in place as he straightened up. Pistol held by his side, he calmly watched as the hunter stumbled for a moment, then heavily turned to face the headhunter.

The two stared at each other for a moment, and then as if realising it shouldn’t be alive, the hunter keeled over backwards, hitting the ground hard enough it made a sizeable dent in the dirt.

Letting out a breath as if he’d been holding it the whole time, Ishmir let his head hang for a moment before slotting his sidearm into its holster.

“Clear?” he asked just in case.

Walking to the body, Marko gave the dead hulk a solid kick in the mid-section, causing several of the dying eels to pop like orange-coloured water balloons. “Clear,” he confirmed.

“Are… are they dead?”

Turning to look where the timid voice came from, they spotted Princess Twilight Sparkle emerge from where she had been taking cover. She stepped gingerly between the bodies, hopping and sidestepping to avoid the corpses and pools of what was supposed to have been inside them.

“Yes,” Ishmir sighed. “I’m sorry we brought this on you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Swallowing a lump in her throat as she pulled her eyes from the grizzly sight of the hole-riddled bodies, the alicorn nodded. “It’s not your fault… they would have killed us without thinking about it, wouldn’t they?”

“And then had their lusty way with our skulls.” Marko added, earning a slap across the back of the head from Ishmir. “I mean, uh… yeah. Yeah, they would’ve. Sorry.”

Twilight nodded, giving a glimmer of a smirk. “Yeah, well, they were going to burn my face off,” she said loudly with a brave expression. “Good riddance to the bastards!”

Marko chuckled as Ishmir sighed, “Oh my God, you’ve created a monster.”

“You know what? You’re okay, princess,” Marko admitted with a smile.

The pony looked like she was going to let loose a full-on smile when something caught her eye.

“Ah!” Twilight Sparkle squealed as she recoiled from a moving body. “This one is still alive!”

Bringing their remaining weapons to bear again, the Spartans practically leapt onto the movement, a mud and gore plashed lump squirming in the dirt.

The last elite still breathing was the captain who’d tried to fry Twilight’s face off with a plasma pistol. The right side of his face, from the cheek up to the eye-socket had been turned into a ragged mess. So on the whole, an improvement on the alien’s good looks.

“So it is. Good eye.” Marko reached down and roughly picked up the elite by the arm, sitting him up on his knees as best the human could. “C’mon, motherfucker. Up ya’ get! Where do you get off pointing a weapon at an innocent little pony, eh?” the headhunter snarled giving the elite a good open handed smack across the face.

It wasn’t enough to make the alien flop over like a dead fish, but he definitely swayed where he sat awkwardly on his knees.

“I walk the divine path. I walk the great journey! It leads me to the eradication of you filthy heretics, and the servitude of these Godless animals to a higher cause. Our cause. The Covenant. The great journey.”

Ishmir growled. “Great journey, eh? So that’s what your heathen Gods call genocide and slavery.” Normally speaking Ishmir was open to the concept of religion. But a religion that condoned the extinction and or slavery of a whole race was not considered cool.

“Here, pal. Lemme send you on your way.”

He stepped forward – the elite was helpless as Marko wrapped one arm around his neck. Twilight didn’t get to see what they were doing as Ishmir stepped in the way to block her view. There was no need for her to see what was about to happen.

The squelch of a blade meeting flesh was heard along with a gargle. The elite’s legs kicked feebly as his whole body twitched. Marko’s torso twisted from side to side as his knife arm made a few brutal sawing motions and his other arm holding the elite’s head started twisting like trying to pull the head off an action-figure.

Then with a distinct crack, the elite’s body fell free of Marko’s efforts, hitting the ground with a thud.

Standing in the pool of gore left in the wake of his handiwork; Marko held a blood-stained blade in one hand, and an alien head in the other. And Twilight finally figured out what a Spartan headhunter was.

"Oh, God help my big mouth."

The gravity lift came to life again, bits to debris and grass lifting from the wet ground and hovering in the pillar of soft light as Ishmir slowly descended from the Covenant drop ship. As he fell on an invisible rappelling line, he spotted Twilight Sparkle and Marko sitting in the shadow of the phantom.

Marko was sat against one of the lower standing-stones. Princess Twilight sat on the ground beside him, proudly finishing the story she was telling while Ishmir was checking the drop ship was flyable.

“… and that was the day we learned that not only should we keep our hooves on the ground, we have to stand by our friends.” The princess finished telling her joke with a giggle at a joke Marko obviously didn’t get. “Kind of like how you stood by me and protected me.”

“That’s dumb.”

Eyes widening at Marko’s comment, Twilight Sparkle quickly glared at the headhunter. “You’re dumb!”

“Your face is dumb,” Marko smugly retorted putting his visor down low to meet Twilight’s glare. The pony met his challenge, angrily grinding her face against the gold-tinted glass.

“Your mother is dumb!” she seethed.

Marko laughed triumphantly thinking he’d cornered the princess. “I fucked your mother!”

Twilight took the insult well considering how innocent she was compared to the Spartan. With a huff, all she said was, “yeah, you wish.”

Marko blinked confounded surprised by that little escalation. All he could think was, did that pony just out-diss me?

“She did,” Ishmir informed as he approached. It wasn’t uncommon for headhunters to know what their buddies were thinking, being so close all the time.

“So, will it fly?” Marko asked with a nod at the phantom drop ship.

“Yup. Looks like our destiny was in this old clearing after all. This puppy ‘ll get us to the edge of the system and in UNSC radio range in no time.” Ishmir grinned, averting his golden gaze to Princess Twilight Sparkle. “Thanks for putting up with us, princess. It’s been a pleasure,” he told her.

“The pleasure was all mine. And I’m sorry. You were right about these Covenant things.” She cast a dirty look at the alien gore Marko had managed to rake into a neat pile for the cleanup crew if it ever did arrive. “Thank you for taking care of them.”

“No worries. They shouldn’t bother you.” Holding up a handheld radio, Ishmir hesitated, then threw the piece of human equipment to the pony. It glowed in magical light as Twilight caught it in her telekenisis. “But if more show up, use your magic on this radio to send us a message or something.”

The intensity of the light engulfing the radio doubled before the device vanished altogether, no longer blocking Twilight Sparkle’s smile from the Spartan’s view. “Don’t worry. I’ll find a way of contacting you.”

Ishmir nodded. “Goodbye, princess.”

“Goodbye, Ishmir.”

Taking his leave, Ismir gave Marko a pat on the pauldron, armour letting out a dull thud as his hand made contact. As he stayed in place, the green armoured Spartan said something about hating goodbyes, and Ishmir murmured something back about keeping things short.

Marko watched for a moment as Ishmir was lifted up into the phantom again by the gravity lift, and then sighed.

“Later, bitch.”

Though she should have been offended, Twilight Sparkle took the comment in stride with a giggle. “Later, fucker,” came her happy retort.

His proud smile matching the intensity of his visor motif, Marko reached out and tousled the girl’s mane with an armoured hand. Then turning, Marko walked away, fearing his voice might break if he said anything else. Without missing a stride, he hopped into the gravity lift and was plucked up into the belly of the phantom by an invisible manipulator.

As he rose up, he twisted through the air looking down at Twilight Sparkle. She was waving a hoof as the foliage behind her broke down the middle. Running up behind the princess were five other brightly coloured ponies as well as a squat little lizard of some sort.

Marko figured those girls must’ve felt like they were walking in on the end of that twentieth century movie, E.T. Just in time to see the brave hero – or in this case heroine – say goodbye to her extra-terrestrial friend.

Friend?

Okay, fuck it! Yes, she’s my friend, Marko thought with a smile. He might never admit it out loud, but Twilight Sparkle was pretty cool and tough to boot. She’d seen firefights turn hardened marines into pathetic blubbering balls of wet-themselves. But not Twilight Sparkle. She powered on.

He felt a little bad leaving her to explain the massive pile of dead Covenant to her friends. But she was smart. She’d figure it all out.

Rising up through the belly of the phantom, Marko settled onto the troop bay floor. Like the drop ship itself, the inside was populated by an eye-burning purple glow. Those Charlie Foxtrots really loved their purple lights.

After a shift in gravity in his stomach told the Spartan they were tearing up through the atmosphere, Marko turned to the cockpit and joined Ishmir in the front. He was seated in the uncomfortable looking pilot’s seat, hands on the holographic controls. The front view screen revealed an infinite expanse of stars indicating they were already breaking out of the atmosphere.

Standing by Ishmir’s shoulder the Spartan was quiet for a while.

“Sniff.”

The wet snivel caught his buddy’s attention and Ishmir turned to look up at the headhunter.

“Marko, are you crying?”

Marko shook his head with an offended scoff. “No...! Yes. I’m just gonna miss that little fucker is all.”

Smiling as he placed his hands on his helmet, Ishmir gave his helmet a slight twist. With a click the seals at the neck let go and he lifted the headgear off his head. “Don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll be back,” the boy assured tousling his short black hair.

Imitating the motions; lifting his own helmet off his head Marko asked, “you think?”

“I have faith.”

There he went, bringing it up again. All Marko could do was groan as he face-palmed tiredly. “Oh, God help my big mouth.”

The End