Chapters “Hay meta can you settle a bet would ya? Does that look like a big cat to you?” the red Sargent said as he hooked the tow hook of the puma to the meta and Griff and Simmons pushed the jeep over the edge of the cliff sending freelancer agent Maine into the frozen abyss below freezing him in the ice below but not before grabbing his Brute shot off of the orange one almost pulling him down with him. And 15 years later do to faulty military technology his recovery beacon finally turned on for 10 minutes.
Simulation Outpost 19-b
“Beep!”
“Beep!”
“Beep!”
“Onyx! Fucking shut that thing off!” said a soldier in blue mark six armor with an ODST helmet on to another blue soldier in full ODST armor caring a SMG with a grenade launcher on his back.
“Sure thing boss.” Onyx said as he turned off the beeping for a minute before finding his partner Reach next to the comm tower Reach had on full mark six armor but had thermal functions red shoulder pieces he was armed with a MA5D Assault rifle and had a needle riffle on his back, He then beacon turning it back on so he could hear it.
“This is UNSC Command calling recovery ten. Come in recovery ten.”
“Go ahead command.”
“We have just got a recovery beacon.”
“Ya we got it here to.”
“This is a level zero directive. Agent Reach you and Agent Onyx are to recover... And your sure?...ok . Agents you are to recover agent Maine at all costs. Your AI and armor abilities have been reactivated. You are to take your teams Pelican if they resist you are authorized to neutralize. Is that under stood?”
“Crystal.” Reach said loading his assault Rifle.
“Good luck recovery ten. As of right now your infiltration exercise is over. Command out.” The lady on the radio said before hanging up.
“Alright Zeta.” Reach said and a small hologram of a Spartan appeared next to the right of his head appeared with blue and golden glow and had on mark five armor with a battle Riffle in its hands.
“What are we talking about? Is it important? Is it somebody’s birth day?” Reaches AI said
“Oh be quiet you blue cupcake.” A female AI said appearing next to Onyx this AI was Female and wore Pink armor and had a golden glow.
“Alright Onyx lets go.” Reach said as the two of them walked to their Sargent.
“Hay Sargent we are taking the Plane.” Onyx said.
“Um have you two finally gone crazy? No you aren’t.” he responded as the other five blue soldiers laughed at the two along with the sergeant. That is until they saw the armor on the two change from blue to crimson and white on Onyx and Dark Grey and teal on Reach.
“Well then I guess we have a problem.” Reach said as he pointed his assault rifle at the blue Sargent who started backing up.
“You two are Freelancers aren’t you?” he said scared
“What do you think?” onyx responded before shooting him in the face.
Five minutes later.
“That was really easy.” Onyx said as they walked over and took a seat in the copilot’s seat of the pelican.
“What did you think it was going to be hard?” Reach asked dropping into the pilot’s seat and starting up the engines.
“Well I thought they would put up a better fight?”
“Whatever. Do you have the coordinates?”
“Ya right here says here he is on... Sidewinder.” Onyx said as they lifted off.
“Sidewinder? The place has been deserted since like forever, something about a never ending blizzard. Or some shit.” Reach said
“Hay you think. Maine is going to be pissed?” Onyx asked as he adjusted the thrusters for space and activating the slip space drive.
“Dude are you fucking retarded? Its Maine we are talking about.” Reach said as he deactivated the recovery beacon and locking onto The Meta’s armor.
After about three hours of playing eye spy with Zeta the two Freelancer agents arrived at Sidewinder and the rumors were true the planet was in an ice age. With one continent completely covered in a giant snow storm that just hovered over it. And unfortunately that was where they needed to go.
“Alright locking on. We need to go to the northern section of the continent. Pandora any suggestions?” Reach asked the AI who recommended they slow down a bit to avoid crashing do to pore visibility as they descended into the clouds they were relieved when they reached a small area where there was less snow. But unknown to them the new inhabitants of sidewinder would interpreted them as a shooting star or a spark or some shit.
And after thirty minutes of flying they were almost there but unfortunately they were in the worst of the storm. But then it happened.
Boom
“Shit what was that!?” Onyx yelled
“Lightning strike to the aft starboard engine!” Reach yelled adjusting trying to adjust the other engines to compensate.
“Fuck! Pandora! Zeta!” he yelled causing them to appear asking him what he wanted.
“Disable our recovery beacons and prepare to lock our armor!”
“That does not seem like a very wise decision agent Reach.” They both said in unison
“Might I recommend…”
“Command override, acknowledge last directive.” Reach Yelled
“Acknowledged.” The two said in unison as they diapered again
“Almost. 3,000 feat!” Onyx said as they appeared to be approaching what looked like a spire in the middle of a city shaped like a snow flake.
“2,000! Feat!”
“Almost!” Reach yelled as he tried to get as close to the recovery position as possible before they crashed. They then
“1,000 Feat!”
They then flew over the strange city with a large smoke trail trailed behind them. Catching the attention of the inhabitants who had a good view of the crashing pelican who would archive it in their history as an Oman.
“500 feat!” Onyx yelled as they neared a cave on the outskirts of the city.
“Almost!”
“100 Feat!”
“Now!” Reach yelled as he level the plane out. As there recovery beacons were deactivated and they went into armor lock and smashed into the ground.
“Uggh... Zeta unlock our armor.” Reach said as his armor and Onyx as armor unlocked.
“Uug Reach? You alright?” Onyx asked as he stood up and looked out of the window to see that there ship was being frozen in some black crystal shit.
“Dude What the Fuck is that shit!” He yelled pointing at the wind shield at what appeared to be black crystals creeping up the ship
“What the Hell!? Let’s get the fuck out of here! And what the fuck…” Reach yelled but as they tried to run they were frozen as in the black crystal the second they reached the door to the cockpit. The last thing they heard was some creepy laughing.
3000 Years and three months later
“…I s that thing!” Reach yelled as he and Onyx were unfrozen
“Is what thing?” Onyx asked holding his head and looking out the wind shield seeing that the black crystal is gone and they appeared to be in a grassy field where the colors where way to vibrant for his tastes.
“Whatever lets go find Maine.” Reach said as he and Onyx walked to the armory to pick up ammo for their weapons.
“Hay Pandora?” Onyx asked as they reached the rear door which they saw was damaged like someone tried to smash through or pull it off but the damage looked old due to the door being frozen. But whatever tried to get the door open obviously failed.
“Oh by the way Onyx and Reach it is so good to hear your voices again?” Pandora said being the emotion love from the Alpha it was natural for her to care. But sometimes it creped him out.
“What are you talking about?” Reach asked as he walked over to the blue team Jet packs they ‘borrowed’ and had in the cargo bay.
“You don’t know?” Pandora asked
“Know what?”
“Um mister reach your clock what does it say?” Zeta asked
“Um 5559 duh?” Reach said as he fixed the hydrogen engines.
“Wait. What the FUCK!” Reach Yelled getting attention of Onyx.
“Dude check your clock what does it say?”
“Duh December 11 5559 why?... Wait What the Fuck! this is the Future!”
“Ok ok let’s try to look on the bright side. Maybe the UNSC is still around?” Onyx asked
“Ya maybe.” Reach said sarcasticly as he saw that there was only one jetpack in the ship.
“Hay Onyx you want the jetpack?” Reach asked
“No you take it.” He said as he loaded his weapon. And Reach put the black jetpack on. The nozzle covers were actually the same teal color as his shoulders.
“Command this is Recovery ten do read?”
“Static..”
“Come in command?”
"Static."
Reach asked as Onyx hit the button and opened the door breaking the ice on the door.
“No response.”
“Whatever the UNSC probably isn’t even around anymore and on top of that sidewinder sucks. No one’s coming to get a couple of dead Freelancers” Onyx said.
“Good point. Let’s move” Reach said as he walked out of the pelican before activating its cloaking device.
“What are we doing? Where are we going? Are we going on an adventure?” Zeta asked
“Something like that. We still have to find the Meta. After that I guess we have to find a way to live here now.” Reach said.
“Dude what the fuck! I wasn’t trained for this.” Onyx complained as he and reach walked down into a cave near the same city they saw before.
“Actually we were.” Reach said as they activated there night vision and continued walking to the recovery beacon.
“Really when? When were we trained for crash landing on a shit hole planet, Freezing?! and waking up three thousand years later? And now having to live on an unknown planet with unknown threats?” Onyx yelled
“This waaas scenario four.” Reach said
"you know what. I fucking hate you." Onyx said flattly as they walked around another corner and found there prize frozen in the ice the white and brown armor wearing, EVA helmet wearing, brute shot wielding Ex-Freelancer.
“There he is. Agent Maine.” Reach said as he walked up to the ice.
“Yes this is agent Maine.” Zeta said as he appeared next to Reach.
“Man I hate seeing a freelancer like this? But at least without those AI he is more reasonable and not crazy.” Reach said
“What the fuck? This guy was an asshole. I say we leave him here.” Onyx said. Bad move though because as soon as he did that the ice began to crack and crack some more until it broke.
“Fuck Get Back!” Reach yelled as he and Onyx jumped back to avoid the angry agent.
“Fall back!” Reach yelled as he and Onyx ran out of the cave and ran into the city that they assumed to be abandoned with the Meta right behind them. And upon entering the town they saw a sign saying welcome to the crystal kingdom or some shit.
Crystal Kingdom Five minutes later.
“What the Fuck!” Onyx yelled as he avoided another brute shot grenade. And returned fire with his smg.
“This isn’t doing shit!” he yelled as he jumped behind a big pink crystal next to Onyx. As the Meta fired more grenades at him.
“Well Reach? Any ideas?” Onyx asked as he fired a grenade at the Meta unfortunately his grenades didn’t have the EMP function.
“I’ve got nothing!” Reach said
“Nothing.” Which shocked them because Pandora usually had some kind of idea.
“Waite I have an idea!” Zeta said.
“Fuck ill even take your advice right now what is it?” Reach said
“Why don’t we just ambush him in that big stadium looking thing?” the Ai responded for some reason and somehow Zeta was the Ignorance and tactical knowledge of the alpha which made no sense.
“Why not you up for it?” Reach asked as he reloaded his Needle Riffle.
“ON my mark you lay down a suppressing fire and I will fly to the stadium and find a sniper position and you lead him through those doors in 20 seconds. Synk.” He said pointing to the big doors of the stadium.
“Synk.” Onyx responded
“Mark!” Reach yelled as Onyx switched to his SMG and laid down a suppressing fire and He took flight.
The Meta saw the Wash wannabe fly up towards that stadium looking thing but before he could fire at him he was hit by SMG fire. But he was able to hit his jetpack with his pistol slightly damaging it.
With Agent Reach.
“Fuck Fuck! Shit shit! No! No! Nonononononononononoooo!” he yelled as he reached the peak of his ascension until he got hit and he dropped like a sack of shit. Until Zeta fixed the damage. But the damage was done and he was falling.
“Shiiit!”
But the good thing was that he saw the position he was looking for it was above the rest and had a good view of the center Like a Box seat. Unfortunately the Abandoned stadium looked to be full of a bunch of aliens which he had to ignore for now so he activated his first armor ability and teleported behind a black one with holes, a pink one, a white one, and a dark blue one. Unfortunately his momentum didn’t stop when he teleported and smashed against the wall.
“This is quite entertaining sister.” Luna commented as they watched the contestants of the jousting competition.
“Yes it is but is still don’t know why you had to invite the changelings to participate.” Cadence said pouting causing the others to sweat drop. But before the Changeling queen could respond they headed something behind them.
“FUUUUCK” CRASH
But when they turned around instead of seeing whatever they expected they say something at first they thought it was a weird earth pony but they saw that is had feet instead of hooves. But when they saw it stand up and come into the light they had never seen anything like it wore some kind of armor over some kind of Black under skin. They then saw that some parts of the armor were glowing white these were little slite bands of light on its arms chest and legs and they assumed they were on its back two But when it meandered into the light fully they saw that its armor matched the colors of the changeling nation with the majority of its armor being a dark grey almost black and the shoulders and what they assumed to be wing tips being the same shade of teal as chrysalises mane. But the most striking feature was the big yellowish orange piece in front of what they assumed where its muzzle would be. And they were just about to say something until it started speaking.
“What the FUCK! I thought I turned the inertia dampers on!” it screamed in perfect equestrian and verifying that is in fact male if the obvious build of a stallion wasn’t enough.
“You did not.” A random voice said with an odd echo effect almost like when chrysalis spoke.
“What the fuck ever. Move! How long!” he continued to speak to himself as he stormed passed them completely ignoring the fact that he was in the royal booth. And surprising them with how tall he was he stood over Celestia and Chrysalis who stood at almost six feet tall this thing was at least six foot six.
“And I am telling you this Needle riffle is broken it doesn’t do shit!” he said as he shook his that assumed it to be weapon. Whatever it was it looked advanced it looked blue and had pink crystals coming out of the sides. They didn’t know whose side it was on but they knew it wasn’t with the changeling because the changelings didn’t have this kind of technology nopony did.
“You have ten seconds. And why don’t you try changing the settings.” Making them wonder what this voice was talking about.
“It has settings!” He screamed
“What has settings Agent Reach?” The same voice asked Reach confusing the royals.
“The gun. Zeta the gun has settings apparently.” The now identified male known as Agent Reach said and they had to admit he was bold for not even caring who he was in the presence of.
“Yes did you try setting it to freelancer?”
“Cough cough” it had be five seconds and this was getting old.
“You should probably get that checked out.” He said to Celestia offhandedly glancing over for a second.
“Anyway what the FUCK! It has a freelancer setting!? You know what. Fuck you. I hate you.” He said before his gun over and seeing that it did indeed have a settings function so he set it to freelancer.
“*cough* over here *cough* .”
“Ok what the fuck. What do you want? And Zeta how long.” Reach said turning to them finally and still not caring who they are or he doesn’t know.
“We want to know what you are!” Chrysalis yelled in his face poking him in the chest with her finger.
“Who the fuck are you? Why should I care.” he asked the four multicolored things who looked like the fucked up combination between a human, horse, and a box of crayons. I mean really this white one was like six'six and had a fucking horn on its head and wings. The other two horse things were pink witch was about five'ten and dark blue which was about six'four and had the same fucking thing. And the last one had what looked like bug wings with holes in them and same with her lower legs down and forearms even her hair had holes in it.
They all watched as this agent Reach seemed to look and stay focused on Chrysalis. His diagnostics must have be off? But just as they were about to say something it spoke.
“How are you structurally sound?” he asked the changeling queen making them face fault.
“What! “She yelled in his face again.
“Ya I mean you have like holes in you and shit. More specifically in your legs? How do you stand? That doesn’t seem physically possible.” He asked perplexed
“Why you little. I am Chrysalis queen of the changelings! A… ” she started
“Five seconds.” A little blue thing said appearing next to him it seemed to have the same kind of armor on but it was blue and glowed Gold like Celestia’s magic.
“Four”
“Ya whatever lady I have a job to do.” He said dismissively before turning around and aiming the weapon in his hands at the stadium floor.
“Three”
“Hay What Do you think you are doing!” Cadence yelled at the Grey freelancer gaining the attention of the others in the stands
“Two”
“Hay look who is that in the Royal booth!?” they all activity in the place stopped and everything in the stadium looked up seeing him there and the place went deadly quiet.
“One.”
“Alright here we go.” He said as he turned his loud speaker function on in his helmet. And aiming at the door.
Boom!
“God Damniiiiiit!”
Everyone in the stadium looked to see the entrance door being blown open and a Red and white one of the same one standing in the royal booth with a silver visor came crashing through the door and smashed into the wall on the other side. Narrowly avoiding the mares and stallions participating in the games. The force of it being blasted through the door actually blew the doors off of their hinges. And they saw a white thing with a golden dome helmet on its head walk through it had big white and brown armor with mismatching shoulder pads. It fired its bladed weapon at the red one who dodged the explosions.
“HAY META!” the one in the booth said getting a growl in response from the domed one.
“Looks like he’s. Out of your Reach!” before they saw him fire a pink crystal that left a pink trail after it which the Meta dodged.
“Reach that was fucking terrible!” Onyx said and the two continued to argue forgetting that they still had there loud speakers on.
“Shut the fuck up onyx!” Reach yelled back as the meta and the occupants of the stadium just stood there watching the two argue with one-another.
“Hay why am I down here any way!” the red thing said
“How come I have to fight the Meta!” it continued.
“Because this is a ranged weapon! I need range to use it effectively.” The grey one said and they watched as the white one was getting even madder
“Range? What the fuck. If you were any farther away you would have to mail him the bullets!”
“Hay Shut the fuck up I’m talking here! And any way Bite me Onyx Don’t make me pull rank on you!” Reach yelled at the royals who he royals who were trying to talk to him.
“Rank what the fuck! You don’t out rank ME! We are both freelancers!” Onyx said and they all heard an angry growl and the Maine had started charging the red one. Who started running around with the Meta firing his weapon at him as he unknowingly ran around the track and field track.
“FUCK. FUCK! Shoot him! Shoot him You Fucking idiot!” Onyx yelled as he avoided another explosion from the Meta.
“I’m trying! Try not moving so fast! Try standing still!” reach yelled as he continued firing his Needle riffle.
“You know what Fuck this!” the queen and princess yelled as they saw Reach put his weapon on his back next to the big grey angular thing which he grabbed. Before he jumped off of the balcony earning screams from the royals who saw ran over and looked over and they saw his wing tips come pop out with some kind of nozzle attached to them on both sides of his shoulders and saw blue fire shoot out of the nozzles and propel him forward. And unknowingly over a very knowledge addicted mare and her friends. And when he got to Maine he smashed him with butt of his assault rifle. Sending him smashing into the equestrian locker room. Earning female screams signifying that he landed in the female locker roomand when he walked out he looked rather pissed.
“Oh we are so Fucked.” onyx commented before he saw one of the wired horse things this one white with a blue Maine with a horn on his head try to stab the meta with a sword.
“NO dude! Don’t do it!” They all saw Onyx yell to Prince Shining armor who they saw try to subdue the beast.
“No its ok let him do what he wants. If he dies it’s not our problem.” Reach said and with that the foolish stallion made a slash at The Meta only to have his flimsy sword break against the Meta’s shields.
“What the…” was all shining armor got to say before the Meta smacked him like nothing through the wall.
”Hu, Looks like dumbass got beat.” Onyx said as he and everypony else watched Shining Armor be impaled through the through t with a piece of re-bar. Reach then ran over to him and tried to stop the bleeding as his body went into shock violently shaking as Reach stuffed his fingers down the hole stuffing his jugular but it was to late he had lost to much blood. And his white coat had been stained red with it. Then there was a flash of light and next to him was the pink royal from the booth appeared next to him looking frantic as she ran over to the freelancer and the downed prince.
“Shining Pleas Talk to me!”
“Ma’am Pleas. Zeta, status? My diagnostics aren't getting any thing?” Reach asked as he held the wound and held the Frantic mare back at the same time as Zeta brought up a few readings on his vitals which were doping fast. So he let the pink one go to her husband.
“Shining its gonna be ok…”
“Emerald is that you?” The stallion said with his eyes glassed over.
“Emerald? Its me Cadence.”
“No your not. Cadence is a dumb slut. Who I used to get to power, and to buck a princess.” Shining armor said earning shocked and disgusted gasps from everyone.
“ooh shit!” Pandora commented from her Users side.
“Emerald i…” he started before he was almost punched by cadence only for her arm to be grabbed by reach.
“here let me do this.” Reach said pulling the enraged crying mare from the dieing stallion.
“You fucked up dude.” Was all shining armor hered before his eyes cleared again and he was met with the buisness end of a needle riffle.
“Oh celestia! Cadence I didn’t mean it I promise!”
“Whos Emerald?” Cadence asked taking off her wedding ring.
“Nopony Just a friend.”
“He’s lying.” Reach said
“you don’t say mister.” Cadence responded
“Pleas I promise.”
“Well then. Cross your heart and hope to die?” Reach asked
“Stick the needle in your eye.” He finished Firing his Needle riffle into The Princes right eye socket
“Any way. Um I guess your name is cadence We have a job to do. But if you need any thing let me know.” he said getting a nod from the mare as he walked over and stood next to Onyx
“Let’s do this. You might want to back up people.” Reach said earning nods from the mares and stallions in the field.
“Ok let’s do this together and…” was all Onyx got out before Reach started firing at him with his assault rifle and throwing grenades at him.
“Or we could do it this way.” Onyx said as he fired grenades at the rouge agent.
Unfortunately they didn’t take into account that Meta still had his armor abilities and brought up his domed energy shield. And taking the shots and grenades. Earning another gasp from the crowd because it made no since how could this thing use magic with out being a unicorn or changeling? And to the on lookers to the looks of it appeared to be stronger than shining armors fabled shield. That is until he jumped out of the shield and fired his weapon at the two freelancers. But some mares and changelings had to dodge to avoid the explosives. Unfortunately the last thought hit onyx blew him into some unfortunate mare knocking them both backwards into a heap and leaving them in a very compromising position. Horn on her head and a magenta coat, a blue mane that came to her shoulders, C+ breasts if Pandora would stop that would be fantastic, she had on a track and field outfit on. and for some reason she had a javelin tatoo. And to him she had the most beautiful golden eyes he had ever seen.
“Names onyx.” He said absent mindlessly
“Traicen field.” She responded helping her up.
“Ya uum sorry.” He said both of them blushing up a storm. But you could only see it on the mare thanks to her lack of a helmet.
“I think she likes you.” Pandora said in side of his helmet
But when he looked back he saw Reach had put his assault riffle on his back next to his needle riffle as he dove over another explosion and take out a knife from seemingly nowhere and parried a slash form the meta and punched him in the face, bend down and slashed him in the sternum as he dodged another slash form his brute shot. Be then kicked him back only to have to dive into towards him to dodge the explosive unfortunately during his dive the meta had turned invisible so it was by sheer luck that he parried a slash and slashed the meta in the chest and shoulder as it dodged another slash to the neck by going under his arm and turning invisible.
He activated the thermal function on his helmet and saw the Meta clear as day. So flipping the knife around he threw it into the Meta’s chest who recoiled back growled and aimed his brute shot at Reach who had just taken out his Needle riffle and fired it just as Maine fired his weapon unfortunately the needle went wide and hit his shoulder armor while the Meta’s shot hit his feat sending him flying into the stands, and into a certain white mare. And fireing the other four rounds at the second batch Freelancer.
“Uugh that hurt. Who are you!?” Reach asked as he helped her up
“I am Rarity.” She said quickly oh she had so many questions mainly about the way the armor looked and his choice of armor color. That is until Spike tried to punch him to defend Rarity which the freelancer garbed with no effort at all.
“You need to calm down. Now if you don’t mind im on the clock.” Reach said before letting go and pushing him back. Before he heard a whistling sound coming his way.
“Grenades! Get down!” he yelled at Rarity before grabbing her and pushed the mare behind himself as a bruteshot grenade hit him in the chest and exploded. Then another and another before his shields broke and he pushed the mare away before he took two more grenades with no shields.
And when the smoke cleared they saw that he was still alive and trying to get back up, his armor was damaged he was missing his right shoulder piece from when he got hit after pushing the white mare away, and his visor was cracked and he was great full that they weren't fragmentation grenades. And lets not even start with the fact that he was missing most of the paint of his armor leaving behind a dull silver of fresh metal and but for some reason there wasn’t much blood coming from under some of the pieces of armor. And you could see his chest piece was cracked where Rarity would have been hit. But surprisingly the devices on his back were just fine even if they were very dirty now.
They then saw a small glowing thing appear floating next to him.
“Agent Reach you are hurt. activating recovery beacon.” It said
“Zeta don’t!” he yelled
“Reach No!” Onyx yelled after seeing hib get hit by the brute shot.
“Come on Pandora.” Onyx said activating his armor ability being an upgraded version of C.T’s hologram. His were solid and were able to fight with his AI controlling it. He made one hologram and the two of them charged The Meta. Who just punched the real one I the face. In the act of doing this he was kicked in the chest by Pandora.
As he got back on his feet he blocked a another punch from Pandora and after he did that he grabbed her wrist and her helmat and benter her hologram over his knee and snaped her back. Signifying that these guys actually planed to kill one another or more spacificly the meta planed on killing them.
“Beep!”
“Beep!”
“Beep!”
The Meta Grunted before he turned around and sprinted towards the down freelancer. When he was close enough to the wall he jumped high into the air to clear it then ripped the knife out of his chest.
“No Get back!” Reach yelled as he pushed the White Mare away after she tried to help him. And just in time to because as soon as he did this he was stabbed through the chest with his own knife.
“Girls we have to do something!” Rarity pleaded to her friends who nodded in agreement. But before they could do anything they saw the one Known as reach role himself back onto his feat back up and punch the beast only to be stopped half way by an uppercut from the Meta. What happened next shocked them all because its helmet fly towards them being caught by rarity. Who released it from her magical grip and was surprised by how much it actually weighed.
But when they all looked back they saw that under the helmet it wore some kind of face mask with a skull on it. Reach was mad that his baklava was a little burnt. They all saw them look towards them with and they could see he had brown skin and he had piercing brown eyes the eyes of a survivor but they could see that there was something else there. But they only got the briefest look before he turned around taking the knife from his chest and blocking a downward slash from the meta. But unfortunately he received a fierce knee to the side breaking a few ribs and receiving a vicious punch to his chest sending him skidding backwards in front of the Maine six.
“Oh this is bad.” He commented before spring flipping back to his feat. Just as Onyx jumped to the stands and engaged the Meta.
And as the mares watched the severely wounded freelancer charge back into the fight. They saw the same little blue thing appear in front of them. But instead of appearing blue and glowing gold it appeared gold and glowed blue.
“Hello.” It said with a cheery voice that reminded them of Pinkie Pie who ran up to it.
“HiTheremynamesPinkiePiewhatareyouwhoaretheywhatareyoudoingwheredidyoucomeformwhatsyourname!” she asked and the Ai just stood there for a second starring at her before flashing and turning to rarity who was holding the helmet.
“Hello my name is Zeta. I am the Artificial intelligence unit assigned to UNSC commissioned Freelancer: Hotel Nine, also known as Agent Reach.” He said confusing them but twilight was having a nerdgasom just thinking about all that she could learn.
“How ever Agent Reach is in need of immediate medical attention or he will die and if he falls to the meta Agent Onyx’s odds of survival are Ninety five percent.” It said
“Well how do yall recommend we stopem?” AppleJack asked. Then they saw it changing its color pallet form gold and blue to blue and gold.
“Try asking nicely.” It suggested.
“Damit Maine! Calm… Down! We are just… responding to your…. Recovery… beacon!” they heard When they looked up they saw the Meta and Reach standing right across from one another but they could tell there wounds were taking there toll. Reach had several broken bones and should have been beading heavily But strangely for some reason he wasn't and and Maine had several knife wounds, bullet wounds and had several pink needles sticking form his body.
“HAY you listen here Mist…” was all fluttershy got out as she stood in front of The Meta who let out a disobedient growl before he collapsed into her chest and she struggled to even hold him up before they both fell down.
“Ya the Meta is relay heavy.” Reach said before he threw his hands into the air.
“Wooo! We did it… my chest hurts.” He said before his arms fell and he fell backwards into something soft.
“This is… the Worst Possible Paine!” he passed out. Not seeing the looks Raritys friends were giving her and how red she was.
Author's Note
the next chapter later today. 2/12/2014 1:19AM
character hights.
Mane 6: A.J:5' 8"
Princesses:
Freelancers: Reach: 6' 10"
Anthros used. ss2sonic here
First contact, Star bound
“This is a General order From the United nations Space Command. The covenants relentless assault continues to rage on. And so all decommissioned synthetics Android, or otherwise From the year 2048 onward are now to be brought back online to bolster our troops and hopefully turn the tide of the war agenized the covenant.
“Uugh... what the hell was that? I feel like I just went five rounds with Harvest and Arcadia at the same time.” Reach grunted in pain. As he and notices that Maine was also managing to sit up as well. The wired thing is that he seemed to be a lot calmer now.
“I can barely move, I have no I idea where I’m even at, and I don’t even have my Fucking riffle. This cannot get any worse.” The bedridden soldier thought to himself as he closed his eyes to rest them for a few seconds.
“Growl”
“Hay Maine.” Reach said before looking to his left and seeing that Onyx was still out cold.
“So hay why so calm and collected? Aren’t you supposed to be pissed all the time?”
“Growl hiss grooowl”
“Well I guess you are right we were here for your armor. But your Recovery beacon activated. Mind you it was like 15 years later but it still went off.”
“Growl?”
“Ya. It was fifteen years before your recovery beacon turned on. And yes there were still freelancers.”
“Growl, Hissss”
“Ya truce.” Reach said with a smile
“Wait listen there is someone outside the door.” Reach said holding up a finger.
“I have never seen anything like them, this is an entire new species just waiting to be documented and studied! Just think we will be the first to make contact with this new intelligent species that has just appeared in Equestria for the first time in Equestrian history. Just think of what they could teach us.” One voice squealed.
“What makes you think they’re intelligent, Twi?” another laughed
“From the little that he spoke I could tell that they are able to speak and form full sentences. And those weapons, and that armor.”
“That red one, He’s mighty strong and fast for somepony so scrawny, if ya ask me.” A Sothern voice said
“Pff, not as fast as me, I’m not impressed.” A tomboyish voice scoffed
“Say’s the mare that got a wing boner jus’ from watchin’ them fight.” The same southern accented voice from before said with a sarcastic smile if the tone of voice could be believed.
“….”
“That’s what I thought.” It continued.
“Have you ever seen that kind of armor before?”
“No it I haven’t. And it’s Light-years ahead of anything I’ve ever seen! And then there was that one with the Grey armor. The one that saved Rarity, whats up with him?” Another said
“He certainly is dashing, but his fashion sense is simply HORRID! Did you see the rags he was wearing!?” a dramatic voice said.
“I still don’t know why you did it?”
“Because it is the proper thing to do after he saved me.”
“A New Species I can’t wait to study them I have so many questions for them!”
“Darling you should take it easy on the poor stallions, they haven’t even woken up yet and the doctors said that they were lucky to be alive. Especially the brave stallion who saved me.” The proper voice said as their voices faded away.
“Ok but any…” was all Reach got out before the door opened.
Now they had never even gotten a good look at the new inhabitants of Sidewinder. And this one appeared to be a strange looking pink woman with beautiful light blue eyes with wild and pink poofy hair that looked like it has never seen a come in her entire life. What caught him off guard the most was the girls feature, her ears were pointy and on the top of her head and they would flick every now and then. Her pink skin turned out to be a pink coat of fur that covered her entire body, and her face appeared to resemble that of a horse’s muzzle, along with that, instead of feet she had hoofs. Overall she resembled some type of horse like woman. She was nose to nose, or in this case muzzle to nose with him, and she had a grin that went from ear to ear. Before she disappeared out of the door and down the hall and after another two seconds she was back.
“HiI’mPinkiePiewhat’syournamedoyouwannabefriendswhat’syourfavoritetypeofcupcakeoohdoyoulikecupcakes.” To Reach and Maine’s horror and amazement she said all of this in one single breath without pause or stopping for air, and she said it so fast that he could not understand half of what she even said. As Reach was awe struck at what he just witnessed.
“Oh oh oh do you like parties!?” she said as she pressed her face closer to his pinning him against the backrest of the bed.
“I am going to have an aneurysm!” he yelled.
All of a sudden the door to the room burst open as more of the strange horse girls he saw from the forest came running into the room at full speed.
”WHAT IN THE NAME OF CELESTIA IS GOING ON!?” Screamed a purple horse girl that he saw with the white one at the stadium
At this point everyone was now staring in awkward silence at Reach with Pinkie on top of him, nose to muzzle.
“Maine! Help me! Freelancer down!” he yelled causing the others to look over and see that the monster was awake.
“Growl”
“You’re an asshole!” He responded making the others question how he was even able to understand him.
“Pinkie get off him, you done scared him half to death!” Applejack said while pulling Pinkie off of the injured recovery agent.
“Don’t worry sugar cube she does this all the time to everyone.” She said trying to calming Reach down.
“I can’t believe this is one of the ponies that took down that thing! He can handle monsters, but he can’t handle talking to a mare!” Rainbow Dash said while trying to stifle her laughter.
“Rainbow Dash, show some respect for the poor stallion, he did save our lives after all!” Twilight said while shooting a glare at the cyan Pegasus, causing her to quickly cease her laughter.
“I’m so sorry for Pinkie and Dash’s behavior.” Twilight said with worry.
“Fuck off!” He yelled while tacking deep breaths with a hand on his chest dramatically.
“What is your problem anyway?” Rainbow dash asked.
Reach and Maine were speechless at what he was seeing in front of him. What he saw in front of him both shocked and amazed him, these girls had coats of fur covering their bodies with bright colors that no normal horse that he has ever seen have before. Along with that he noticed that they all had muzzles and tails that would swish around every now and then and instead of feet they had what could only be described as hoofs and they were all wearing twentieth century style clothing. What caught his attention the most was the fact that some of them had wings while some of the others had horns sticking out of their heads while some of them had neither one. And one had both a purple one. He rubbed his eyes to make sure that they weren’t playing tricks on him but sure enough they were real.
Snapping out of his state of shock, and realized that everypony was now staring at him with worried looks.
“It’s fine it wasn’t her fault, I shouldn’t have screamed her.” Reach said with a serious but somehow kind look on his face causing everypony in the room to sigh in relief.
“Ya sure I don’t care. But I have some questions to.” Reach said getting a squeal from twilight.
“Yes, of course! Do you wanna go first!?” Twilight said with a high pitched squeal while clapping her hands together in excitement causing Reach to role his eyes at her childlike innocence. Most freelancers hated that shit.
“Ladies first.” Reach said politely.
“Such a gentlecolt! He truly is my knight in shining armor!” Rarity said with excitement, causing everypony in the room to roll their eyes at her dramatics.
“Well I must say it is quite a relief to meet someone of intellectual standing.” Reach responded dramatically putting his hand on his chest for dramatic effect.
“Oh great it is like having another Rarity.” Applejack said.
“First question, what is your name?” said Twilight with a quill and parchment in hand ready to record his answers.
“ONI Freelancer Agent Reach. The fucker over here is Agent Onyx. And that Agent Maine. What are your names?” He says gesturing towards everypony in the room.
“Growl”
“Yes ok. He also goes by The Meta.” Reach added
“Oh! I’m sorry,” Twilight said with a slight blush, causing her to cease her writing.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle, personal student to Princess Celestia and these are my friends here” The lavender unicorn said with pride as she turned and gestured for her friends to introduce themselves.
“The name’s Rainbow Dash, the fastest flyer in all of Equestria! So don’t think you can beat me with those fancy moves of yours!” the cyan Pegasus with the tiny black shorts and blue tank top said while flying up to his face with a little edge to her voice.
“Ya. Bull shit not any more my pelican can out run you.” The buzz cut agent said to the rainbow mane Pegasus causing her to flash a cocky grin.
“You know what, you’re on, but that still doesn’t mean I trust you.” She said still maintaining her cocky grin right before going back to her friends.
“Good. I don’t trust you either.” Reach said getting a growl in agreement from Maine.
“Neither does he.” He added.
“How can you understand him?” the young alicorn asked
“You know I actually don’t know.” he responded rubbing his head in apparent discomfort.
Then he saw the orange mare with the cowboy hat, flannel shirt, and jeans approach him it in.
“I’m Applejack nice to meat ya.” She said with a Sothern ascent.
“Nice to meet you. Now if you don’t mind. I need get my stuff.” Reach said as he tried to get up this caused the mare who he helped immediately rush to him in worry, trying to check on him and make him lye back down. She had on an elegant form fitting dress
“Is my armor alright!? Did it make it out!? What about my weapons!? What about you ok ma’am?!” Reach asked said through the pain in a worried tone. Grabbing her by the shoulders at the end.
“Don’t worry darling their alright.” Rarity said as she too began to tear up as she looked at the wounded Recovery agent and remembered how he almost died in order to save her and her friends despite being a total stranger. Despite the fact that it landed him in a hospital bed he was still worried about them.
“And In fact here.” She said before walked out and dragged in a trunk of some kind it looked heavy. She then reached in and pulled something out.
“I don’t know how you where this it is so heavy.” She said before she handed him his helmet and to their shock he just took it like it was nothing.
“You fixed it?” he asked as he stared at the pieces of his visor that were cracked seemed to be repaired somehow. He was relieved to have his armor again he felt naked without it. Like Spartan twos and threes, Freelancers rarely got out of there armor if ever it was like a second skin to them.
“Well I did the best I could.” Rarity said with a blush.
“I don’t know what to say. Thank you” He said he said as he looked it turned it over.
“You even replaced the paint?” he added seeing that instead of being its usual dark grey it was replaced with a much lighter shade almost white. And instead of having the Freelancer and his ONI symbols it had three blue gems.
“I thought it could use a personal touch.” She said while looking at the Floor digging her foot,hoof thing into the ground.
He then pulled her into a hug something neither of them expected to happen but they both embraced each other and stared at each other her blue met his dark brown.
“Growl.” The Meta grunted before they both split apart.
“S-so what’s your name?” he asked
“M-my name is Rarity, I wanted to say thank you for saving me as well darling. I don’t know what I would have done if anything happen if you hadn’t showed up.” She said as she wiped away a tear from her eye.
“I must say this is quite strange?” they all heard making them jump. And when they all turned they saw the Gold and blue form of Zeta which they hadn’t seen since the stadium.
“What’s strange?” Twilight asked.
“This.” Zeta said gesturing to Reach and Rarity who weren’t even paying attention.
“Agent Reach suffers from acute paranoia. He has never shown this much trust for anyone. Especially people he works with, only other Freelancer Agents.” He said.
“What do you mean hadn’t trusted anypony?” this got everyone’s attention.
“You see every time he..”
“Zeta.”
“I am simply trying to..”
“Zeta! Command override. Shutdown.” Reach said sternly
“Complying” he said before disappearing
“Growl?”
“What was that about?” Twilight said.
“You wouldn’t understand.” He said
“Darling I’m sure we will understand.” Rarity said to him. Getting agreement from the other mares.
“Growl.”
“Alright. Every time I would get paired with a team of non-freelancers I would get paranoid and think they were plotting against me. And I thought they were going to turn on me.” He said looking at his helmet.
“So what did you do?” Twilight asked causing him to put his forehead on his visor.
“Come on you can tell us dear.” Rarity said putting her hands on his
“I didn’t let them turn on me.” He said
“Why would you do that?” Rainbow dash yelled at him. Before his helmet turned on and activated its projector. And they saw another Freelancer in dark Grey and Yellow armor get shot in the back by a freelancer in purple and green armor who then ran away leaving them.
“Growl.”
“What did he say?” Pinkie pie asked
“That was what happened to my mentor Agent Washington. He was just as paranoid as me after this.” He said
“He said Washington and him were friends that is why he let him live.” Reach said
“Oh my, but how did it happen to you?” Rarity asked
“Well I guess since you asked.” He said before the picture changed to reach with a Spartan four following him.
(Flash Back)
“Look stay low and follow my orders.” Heard the freelancer say as he aimed his DMR.
“I don’t follow orders from some ONI Spartan Replacement.” Spartan said.
“Look I don’t like it either. I fucking hate Spartans fours any way. Always act like they are so high and mighty, always thing they can get away with anything, well let me give you a reality check every time a Spartan team fucks up its us freelancers who have to come and fix your mess.” Reach said as they passed an insurgent outpost.
“Hay what’s that you see it’s the leader?” the female Spartan said to him and while he looked threw the scope of his Designated Marksmen Riffle or DMR for short and indeed saw that it was the target they were searching for.
“Alright how are we gonna do this?” Reach asked
“I’m not. But you are.”
“What! You Fucking Bi…” was all he said before he was kicked down a cliff, Smaching his head on a rock, crushing his DMR and crashing into the middle of the insurgent camp with nothing but his MA5D, three mags and a knife. The camera then fast-forwarded and when it stopped it showed the Spartan getting in some kind of vehicle.
“Hay Palmer!”
“What Reach? How are you alive?” She asked
“Where are you going?” He asked aiming his newly acquired needle riffle at her.
“Back to earth. What are you gonna do? Sho…” she was then shot threw the visor with said needle riffle. The needle went through with ease they were meant for use on Spartan twos and threes after all.
“Yes.” He said emotionlessly. Before he turned her around and tore out her shield unit and set her armors self-destruct.
“Pilot! Let’s go.” He yelled before the video cut off.
(End flash back)
“Well now you know.” he said while looking up at rarity.
“It’s alright dear, if you need anything just let me know darling.” Rarity said as she walked back to her friends when Pinkie Pie began to bounce around the room and said “Come on everypony cheer up, enough with all the tears and mopey faces. We still haven’t finished introducing ourselves.” The pink mare with the bright pink t-shirt and blue jeans said as she bounced up to Reach.
“Hi I’m Pinkie Pie, sorry for scaring you earlier. Oh and do you like parties!” She said as her mane deflated at the thought of making somepony feel bad.
“It’s alright Pinkie Pie, you just surprised me is all and to answer your earlier question, yes guess I could be your friend” Reach said with a smile which caused the pink mare’s mane to inflate immediately to his surprise.
“And I have never been to a party. Hay Maine have you?”
“Growl.”
“He says no. and I know he hasn’t” he said gesturing to the still unconscious form of onyx.
“You’ve never been to a party, THAT’S TERRIBLE! HE NEEDS A PARTY STAT! I’LL THROW YOU THE BEST ‘WELCOME TO PONYVILLE AND THANK YOU FOR SAVING US’ PARTY EVER! When we get back.” Pinkie said with a shout. At Maine pulled him into bone crushing hug making him struggle to get her off.
“Hehe…sorry.” Pinkie said with a sheepish grin after she dropped Meta into a sitting position on the edge of the hospital bed.
“It’s..*huff*…Ok.” Reach translated said while trying to catch his breath.
After catching his breath for a few minutes he turned to Pinkie and said politely.
“Growl,hiss”
“Ma’am, have to bother with-” Reach translated but was cutoff.
“She’s already gone sugarcube.” Applejack said to reach causing him to look around the room in shock at the fact that she vanished in thin air and right in front of his eyes no less.
“She’s like caboose?” Reach muttered to himself slightly disturbed how she could just appear out of nowhere and disappear as if she was never there to begin with.
“Don’t worry, Pinkie just loves throwing parties for everypony that she meets. Don’t worry, I’ll tell her to hold off on the party until you’re in better health.” Twilight said with a small laugh.
The room grew silent as everypony in the room turned to look at Fluttershy who was trying to stay out of sight by hiding behind Applejack.
“And what’s your name?” Reach asked the cream colored mare.
“Fluttershy”
“I’m sorry couldn’t hear that.” Reach said
“Growl”
“Fluttershy? How could you here that?” Reach asked everyone looked in the direction of the Meta who let out a low moaning sound.
“I think he likes you.” Reach said making the yellow mare turn away from Maine with a blush.
“Well now that we have introductions out of the way I’d like us to get back to the questions if you don’t mind.” Twilight said impatiently.
“Whatever Twilight, Ma’am.” The ex-ONI Merc said
“Ok then, oh and just Twilight is fine.” She said as Reach and Maine nodded.
“What are you three exactly?” Twilight asked.
“What do you mean?”
“C’mon Twilight, can’t you see that there human!” Pinkie said as she popped out of nowhere surprising Reach and the others with her comment.
“Pinkie don’t be ridicules, humans are just a myth.” Twilight said with an annoyed tone.
“Some myth, myth Busted.” Reach said to the lavender unicorn causing her eyes to go wide and her mouth to drop and her left eye to twitch.
“Y-y-you’re a h-human?” Twilight asked in surprise, realizing that these three matched all of the descriptions of humans from her books on mythical creatures in her library. She just stared at Reach for what felt like hours in awe but was just ten seconds.
“If I hear the word Shizno come out of your mouth, so help me god. I will shoot you.” Reach said annoyed his answer caused Twilight to snap out of her trance.
“Growl.”
“And the Meta aggress.”
“Oh my Celestia! This is a HUGE turning point in the history of Equestria! We have just made contact with a creature that has been thought to be only a myth, I have to record this!” Twilight said as she quickly scribbled down everything that was happening with her quill.
“From how you handled yourselves out in the stadium, and that video, I believe it is safe to say that you’re a warrior of some sort?”
“Yes, you are correct. Onyx and I are Mark 2 or Second Batch, But Maine over there is an original, but we are all freelancers.” Reach said with an innocent look on his face.
Hearing this caused Twilights eyes to go even wider with excitement as she continued to record everything that was being said.
“Oh yes yes yes, I was right! I can’t wait to study you!” Twilight said while clapping her hands together in excitement causing Reach to feel a small sense of fear, but he just shrugged it off thinking that he was worrying for nothing.
“That word is used a lot what. What does it mean?” rainbow Dash asked
“What word?”
“Freelancer.”
“Well you see the freelancer project was originally made to help designed to aid humanity in the Great War. But the agents never saw combat outside of the insurgency. So we became a special Operations program created to study soldiers with A.I. implants in order to win the war with the Covenant. They were sent to simulation bases to test their skills. In various situations in fact there was one group of simulation soldiers who took down most of the original freelancer by themselves. However after the Meta’s actions during the Reconstruction event the original program was shut down.” He answered.
“Ok what happened then?” Twilight asked as she scribbled on her parchment.
“Well you see when the covenant found Reach.” He said before sitting up and putting his legs over the side of the bed. Despite Rarity’s pleas for him to not get up.
“Humanity got desperate we and to come up with something. Some kind of trump card we had already re-commissioned our synthetics early on in the war. The Spartan program was good but it took too long and was lost with reach.” He said getting up as he gestured for them to turn around which they did.
“What do you mean? You lost your self you keep mentioning that you are a place how come.” Twilight asked.
“Oh right yes well Reach was the fortress world for humanity. It was our main military planet. Hay can someone zip me up?” Reach asked having most of his black Nano fiber under suit on.
“Growl/ I’ll do it.” Both Maine and Rarity answered.
“Well you are closer. And you can turn around now.” He said before turning his back to Rarity and the others turned around and they all gasped when they saw two large scares on his back along with a lot of others.
“Oh ya that big one? Covenant energy sword to the chest, Big gnarly elite but I took him down.” He said as Rarity zipped his suit.
“Wait, you mean that Humans are an interstellar race?” She asked
“Ya. Even set up a simulation base here. Named the planet Sidewinder.” He answered nonchalantly as shimmied his way into the waist armor.
“But any way we are getting side stacked. Any way after Reach, ONI decided that making freelancers was more cost-effective agenized the covenant, and if you ask me we fight better.” Reach said.
“one of the first of the UNSC Freelancers was an ODST which stands for Orbital, Drop, Shock, Trooper.” He said as Twilight scribbled down notes.
“Any way his first mission was on earth during the battle of New Mombasa. He was to go and find out what happened to his squad. After a drop pod collision, He was an experiment to see what would happen if one were to get to many new AI. He functioned efficiently. You see each piece he collected easy actually an AI fragment. And when he finally got them all he was pretty tough. But there was one side effect that we didn’t account for.”
“Wait what happens if you get to many AI of these?” twilight asked
“You turn into that.” Reach said gesturing to The Meta
“What do you mean?”
“The Meta lost control and was in being controlled by the Sigma AI. Then he hunted down other freelancers to get there AI and armor enhancements.” Reach said
“So he is like Princess Luna.”
“Who?”
“Princes…”
“HAY! How were you able to do those things you did during the fight?” Rainbow Dash demanded cutting twilight off.
“What do you mean?” Reach asked still confused with the whole situation, causing Rainbow Dash to pull out her cell phone to show him his fight with Maine that she recorded. As the video of the fight played out on the hand held device Reach could not help but marvel at the prehistoric technology that was in front of him.
“What is?... this dreadful device?” Reach asked discussed reaching over and holding it up with his armored hand.
“It’s a cell phone.”
“Hay Maine! Check this out!” he yelled as he ran over and showed the phone to his fellow freelancer.
“growl, hiss, hisss”
“I know right! They still use cellphones.” Reach laughed
“What! Don’t you have cellphones?” Rainbow dash somewhat offended
“Fuck no! Humans haven’t used cellphones since 2125. They are a dead technology like mp3’s.” Reach explained
“What’s an MP3?” Twilight asked
“Digital music. But we use Mp48’s.” Reach said
“What’s the difference?”
“Nothing really. Just bad marketing.”
“What are you exactly? You appear to be some type of horse people.” Reach asked with curiosity
“Actually we prefer to be called ponies.” Twilight said
“I have never met a talking pony before, I meant no disrespect.” Reach said before looking over his chest armor.
“Oh it’s quite alright darling, you didn’t know.” Rarity said with a reassuring smile.
“Where is my riffle, can’t miss it has pink needles on the top?” Reach asked.
“Oh and there armor?” he asked as he gestured to Maine and Onyx who had woken up about ten minutes ago.
“It is in the other room. We couldn’t figure out how to use it. And it is too far ahead of our level of technology to even try to reverse engineer.” Twilight explained and by the look on her face the three freelancers could tell that annoyed her to no end.
“Wait what is this?” Reach asked gesturing to the areas where the cracks in his armor were filled in with some kind of metal that was yellow in color.
“Well I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. And your armor was the only one actually damaged of the three of you. So I pulled some strings and patched it up with the same metal the Royal guards use for their armor.” Rarity said
“Zeta? What is this?” reach asked
“Well it is yellow and shiny. So it is gold.” The AI said
“You fixed my armor with gold?” reach asked
“Yes darling why do you ask?” Rarity somewhat concerned that he wouldn’t like it
“Well aside from the fact that Gold is one of the weakest and most expensive metals in existence. I am going to need to get new chest armor.” He responded
“But thank you.” Reach said
“Now my riffle?” Reach asked as he put his helmet on.
“Oh oh, here it is!” Pinkie said as she pulled Reaches Needle Riffle out of nowhere. As she moves towards Reach to give him his rifle she trips and when the riffle hit the ground it fired causing a pink shard to go soaring through the air, causing the shard to come out of the barrel and stab right the wall right between reaches legs, and wiz just inches away from his codpiece. This caused everypony in the room to gasp and gather around Reach with worry.
“OH MY CELESTIA, REACHY I’M SO SORRY ARE YOU ALRIGHT!?” Pinkie asked with worry holding his riffle
“Give me that!” Reach yelled snatching the alien weapon from the pink mare and attaching it to the magnetic strip on his back. Not wanting to shoot her for risk of ruining first contact with this race.
“And drop every one of our weapons.” Reach yelled and almost immediately the three freelancers weapons were taken from now where even the bruteshot.
“Growl.”
“Hay where did you say that there armor was?” Reach asked reaching down and picking up his MA5D assault rifle and holding it agenized his chest the barrel pointed at the ground.
“Um down the hall to the right.” Apple jack said.
“Ok you guys go get your armor on and come back I’ll wait here.” Reach ordered
“Sure/ Growl” the two freelancers said as they both got up and walked out.
“So Reach, what humans eat for a regular diet.” Twilight asked trying to break the silence.
“Oh, humans are omnivores.” Reach said causing all of the ponies in the in the room to grow pale and silent.
“Y-you m-mean that you don’t just eat plants b-but m-m-meat as w-well?” Twilight asked fear in her voice.
“Yes Miss Twilight, why do you ask?” Reach asked with no concern in his voice
“D-do you eat p-ponies?” Twilight asked her fear and worry now clearly showing.
“No, I would never eat a pony that I wouldn’t. Honestly I never heard of anyone ever eating a pony before. Why do you ask Miss Twilight?” The grey and Teal armored Mercenary replied while in his head he was wondering why they would ask such a question, but considering that they were talking ponies that probably only ate vegetation, he could see why they would ask such a question. His answer causing all the ponies in the room to let out sighs of relief.
“Well you see as ponies we don’t eat meat, we’re herbivores and we were just a little worried is all. Don’t get us wrong, we ponies know and interact peacefully with a few species that eat meat. It’s just that…instincts you know heh heh.” Twilight said with a nervous laugh.
“There is nothing wrong with being cautious. That’s what my mentor always said.” Reach replied.
“Can you tell me about him!?” Twilight said as she had her quill at the ready again.
“Well he was a Synthetic in charge of the blood Gulch Blue team. I don’t have any child hood memories or anything. In fact the farthest back I remember was hitting my head in that fall. Then nothing before that any more. He then took this one on as his personal student and taught me almost everything I know. He was even the one who recommended me to the UNSC’s Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI. And after that he was assigned as my mentor and I was shipped to outpost 17b. And from then he taught me almost everything I know, and that’s… pretty much it.” Reach said remembering how his mentor was the closest thing he had to a father.
“Wait…that’s it, there’s nothing else that you can tell me about him, the soldier that raised you and trained you for years and that’s all you know? and what’s a synthetic?” Twilight asked surprised.
“Pretty much. And to answer your other question pretty much a synthetic is a robot designed to do jobs deemed to hard or dangerous for humans. By the way where are we anyway?” Reach answered trying to change the subject, due to the fact that Twilight’s eye was starting to twitch which annoyed him he guessed that it was because of the lack of information on his mentor. Reach guessed that she was the very studios type that loved to learn for the sake of learning. But the main reason that he changed the subject was that Reach was happy to do anything to get a break from the questions.
“You’re in the hospital silly, you’ve been here a little over a week so they could fix your boo boos.” Pinkie said.
“You. Don’t ever say that again.” Reach said seriously
“Ya pleas. That was painful.” A voice said and when they turned around they saw Onyx and Maine walk in
“Growl”
“So how did you all get here? Why are you here?” Twilight asked
“Well…”
One explanation of the first chapter later.
“Thank you girls for saving my life, but we must be going.” Reach said as began to walk off with Onyx and Maine following him.
“What are you talking about, you’re a being from another world, and we can’t just let you roam around all by yourself. You don’t even have a place to stay, what Kind of pony would I be if I didn’t offer the human who save my friends a place to stay. Besides since you’re from another world, you’re basically like an ambassador for your people, we can’t let anything happen to you. Besides I still have many, many, many more questions for you about your world this is the biggest discovery ever! But most of all Princess Celestia, cadence, Luna and Queen Chrysalis will want to meet you… Also The Crystal Empire is the only thing around for miles. You’ll stay at the library with me and I won’t take no for an answer, and form what you said you have been here since King Sombra was the ruler here!” She said as she grabbed Reach and the others with her magic surrounding him in a lavender aura bringing him back in front of her causing Reach’s eyes to go wide at what just happened.
“Besides darling, it would be a crime against fashion if I just let go without some proper attire while you roam around in those rags, I will make you an outfit fit for a warrior of your caliber.” Rarity said before running up and grabbing Reaches arm.
“Twilight… What was that purple glowing thing you just did?” Reach asked while still in shock at what he just saw.
“Huh oh, you mean my magic.” Twilight said in a casual tone as if it were nothing at all.
“Magic? Ookay Bullshit” Reach said
“Yes, how do you think you healed so fast, as unicorn’s Rarity and I are able to perform magic at will by using our horns, while Pinkie and Applejack are earth ponies they have increased strength and stamina, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy are both Pegasus which means they both have wings and are capable of flight. Why do you ask anyway, doesn’t your kind have magic?” Twilight explained.
“No, magic is just a myth in my world that it is.” Reach said trying to get over his shock.
“What! Really I couldn’t imagine a world without magic, we use it for everything, how does your world even function!?” Twilight said with surprise.
“Sais the bipedal talking pony with cellphones and twenty first century medical practice, yet no form of modern weapons or vehicles! We use electricity and shit like that.” Reach said
“Hay we have modern things!” Rainbow dash yelled
“Yes because the fact that you use carts and shit. And that someone tried to stab The Meta with a metal sword is so advanced.” He responded shutting her up
“Oh I almost forgot, I still haven’t sent a letter to the Princesses about this!” Twilight said as she quickly wrote up a letter and made it disappeared with her magic. Making Reach only that much more confused.
“Hey Twi I thought ya needed Spike to send those letters for ya whenever ya wanted to talk to the Princess.” Applejack said.
“Well usually yes, but I just created a spell few weeks ago that would allow me to send the Princess a letter in case of emergencies. The only problem is that it takes up a lot of energy.” Twilight explained.
“Who is Spike?” Reach asked as he finally overcame his shock at the existence of magic.
“He’s my number one assistant at the library and he’s basically like a little brother to me.” Twilight said with a smile.
“The Purple Reptile from the Stadium that tried to punch you.” Rarity said.
“Oh.”
“I’m sure you two will get along just fine.” She said as Reach and her friends all made their way out of the hospital before she noticed the way that Rarity was still hanging on Reach.
“Actually…”
There was then a flash of golden light and before them were four women and the others all dropped to their hands and knees and bowed to them
“Princess!” the main six yelled before bowing.
“What the Fuck!? I just want to get back to our pelican!” Onyx yelled
“Growl.”
“Meta’s right let’s just keep walking.” Reach said and to the mares horror the three stallions they just met just talked on past the princesses and Queen Chrysalis.
“What are you doing? Do you know who they are!?” Twilight asked as the three continued to walk
“Nope.” Reach and Onyx said at the same time making them sweat drop at their attitude.
“What the? Don’t you even care?” Chrysalis asked
“I’m not paid to care.” Reach said
“What?” the ten of them asked at once
“Easy we are not being paid to care. Now if we were to be paid that might change.” Onyx said.
“So they are like mercenaries?” Celestia said
“Sort of. We are Government mercenaries.”
“I have an idea. Auntie” Cadence said
“Wait? So if I were to say pay you to kill Chrysalis you’d do it?” Cadence asked
“Is this a hypothetical question or should we start talking numbers?” Reach asked
“I am going to walk over here now.”
“Any way we have to get to the ship any way if you all want to come we don’t care. And don’t get in our way.” Onyx said.
“Or what?” Rainbow dash asked
“Easy I’ll shoot you.” Onyx said aiming his SMG at her
“He will do it to. He has more team kills than me.” Reach said before turning around and walking in the direction of his and Onyx’s ship.
“Are you coming or not? We can get introduced on the way.” Reach said before walking off with the ten females following them.
Thirty minutes later.
“So you tried to invade a capital of a country’s capital. During a wedding while most of the guards were in said capital?” Reach asked as walked over a hill
“Yes. She did. She ruined my wedding.” Cadence said
“That seems like a completely reasonable strategy.” Reach said
“WHAT!”
“I am just saying. Given it was poorly executed.” Reach said
“Is that it?” Twilight asked as they walked over a bigger hill and they saw a large grey thing they saw that it appeared to be damaged in the back.
“Well here we are.” Reach said as they walked over to the rear door.
“What is this drab and may I say ugly thing?” Rarity asked.
“It is our pelican.” Onyx said before hitting the code to unlock the rear hatch.
“Hay I have be meaning to ask. Is there any difference in your armor?” Celestia asked
“There is. Age mostly.” Reach explained as the door opened. And they were marveling at the technological marvel in front of them. The small ship appeared to be much bigger inside than it was outside
“Don’t touch anything and follow me. Onyx see if you can get our long range comms working. Maine see if you can repair that engine.” Reach ordered
“Got it.” Onyx said before walking off towards the cockpit.
“Grunt.”
“Hay I have be wondering? You seem to be in charge but at the stadium you said you were the same rank. Why is that?” Cadence asked. As they walked around a corner and they reached a room labeled armory.
“Well since we are all freelancers we go by who is higher on the freelancer leaderboard.” Reach said unlocking the armory and walking in with the girls walking following him.
“Any way to answer your question Celestia. The difference in our armor is actually quite substantial.” He continued as they watched him takeoff his helmet and put it on a bench.
“You see ill start with Maine since his armor is the oldest. He where’s a modified Mark six EVA armor set up, it is much heavier than other variants and he is the strongest one in freelancer mark one so it was a good set up. The EVA armor was originally used for work in a vacuum.” Reach explained. While taking off his chest piece and throwing it in a big bin labeled damaged armor.
“What about Onyx?” Luna asked
“Well he where’s a Mark seven ODST armor variant meant to be tough but maneuverable since it was based on the armor used by the ODST’s during the war who used to use drop pods to fall from orbit into the battle field or behind enemy lines.” He continued reaching into a closet with his name over the door.
“And what about you dear?” Rarity asked as they saw him looking for something.
“Let’s see here. Gn, Gn Here we are! Scout!” Reach cheered as he pulled out a chest piece that had some kind of wings looking devices on the back. And just as they were about to ask again he went back in and pulled out a helmet.
“Here we go.” Reach said as he sat down on the bench in front of them.
“Well you see I have the newest armor of the three of us. I use mark eight. It is used mainly for an armor ability platform which is why I am able to use more than one armor enhancement and still have an armor ability which in a case is a jetpack.” Reach said they then watched him put on the strange chest piece.
“What are those for? They look like wings.” Chrysalis asked gesturing to his new Scout Chest piece
“That is exactly what they are. They are sensors that act as stabilizing wings that. They take readings and change their position depending on different things. But they are mainly used to get more maneuverability when I use my jet pack.” Reach explained
“Reach darling I was wandering why you are getting a new helmet. After I took the time to fix it?” Rarity asked
“Well dear. As much as I enjoy the sentiment and it sure does mean a lot. There was a fatal flaw in the repairs.” Reach said
“What was that? Was it the material? The color? The style? What?” Rarity asked franticly
“Well…” he started.
“You see…” the others were waiting to hear what it was.
“The thing is…” Reach said trying to find a way to say it without sounding like a douche.
“The visor is still broken.” He said and the room fell quiet before the ten mares fell over.
“What! But I took every precaution! Every measurement I even replaces the glass.”
“That’s the thing the “Glass” was the important part. It has my HUD.” Reach said
“Oh.”
“But thank you it means a lot.” Reach said before picking up the new helmet.
“I don’t get it? How can you see out of that thing anyway?” Twilight asked as they eyed the helmet it appeared to have no visor at all.
“Well It us a heavily modified and experimental version of the Spartan three Gungnir helmet variant which uses exterior cameras to put on a screen inside the helmet. Almost like the screen on a cellphone. But this.” Reach started before pointing to a black streak that went from the left side of the helmet across the front where his eyes would be and to the right side in the center they could see some kind of lens.
“The helmet uses a Mono-Eye camera system, which was used in conjunction with several cameras mounted around the helmet giving me excellent visibility from the enclosed helmet.” He explained before he put on the helmet and they saw an eerie red light circle formed in the center of the black thing. They saw it swivel around the slot before coming to rest on them before Reach spoke.
“I can see you Rainbow Dash Put down the chair before I kill you with it.” he said his voice sounded strange now that they thought of it all of their voices sounded strange they were muffled by the helmets they wore but not enough to where they couldn’t hear them but enough to notice.
“Oh ya I’ll be right back.” Reach said before walking into a nearby cylinder. And when he came out he was colored he same colors Rarity had painted his armor it even had her cutie mark where it was before. But what they saw was that he had what looked like a Black wasp with Gold stripes holding a blue circle in its legs on his shoulder. Which was now standard mark six like his other shoulder.
“Now that we are done here let’s move on.” Reach said before standing up and picking up his weapons and putting his jetpack on his back and leading them back to the back of the cockpit. Actually this Ship was not as big as it seemed it was just compact. And it was now that they also noticed a little quirk with him and the other two freelancers that they hadn’t before as they watched Reach, Onyx and Maine who had shown up walking with each other. And the question needed to be asked.
“OK why do y’all do that when you talk?” Applejack asked.
“What do you mean?” Reach asked
“THAT! That right there!” Chrysalis said
“What right where.” Onyx asked
“Growl?”
“This why do you do this when you talk.” Luna asked bobbing her head.
“OH you mean this!” Reach said doing an exaggerated head bob.
“It is obviously because they have helmets on Duh!” Pinkie pie stated
“Pinkie…”
“Actually she is right. Everyone does it where we are from if they have helmets on. That way you know who is talking.” Zeta said
“That makes no since?”
“Actually it makes perfect since. Zety is right.” A new voice said. And when they turned they saw a pink and gold AI next to Onyx’s head.
“Who are you?”
“I am the Freelancer AI fragment Lambda. But they call me Pandora.” She explained
“There is so much love coming off that thing it could feed the changelings forever.” Chrysalis said
“Well I would surely hope she is the Emotion of Love from the Beta AI.”
“Beta AI? Fragment?”
“You see the Beta AI is the personality of a Spartan that ONI captured and took its consciousness and everything that made the Spartan a person and made it into an AI.” Onyx explained
“What happened to the person?” Fluttershy asked
“Well with usual smart AI the person survives. But because Beta is more than experience and memories. The process left the Spartan a vegetable. So we shot him.” Onyx said flatly.
“Well any way we have to be going.” Reach said
“What do you mean going?” twilight asked
“Well we have to see if any humans are left so we plan on going back to UNSC space for a bit. And if not we will return here after gathering what we can.” Reach said.
“Oooh can I come please!?” Twilight asked
“WHAT!” they all asked.
“Think about it we could see how a new Species lives. And on top of that we could use that we would be acting as an ambassador from Equis to the human race.” Twilight explained
“You just want to ask us more questions don’t you?” Onyx asked
“Ya I guess.” She said
“Well I suppose I could allow it but only if you stay out of there way. And give Luna a Full report on what you have learned from them.” Celestia said
“Wait Sister why do you want her to give us a report and not you?” Luna asked
“Because I am going with them.”
Five minutes later
“Ok now since we know who is coming?” Reach said before doing a head count. There was Himself, Onyx, Maine, Twilight and her friends and Celestia. And Cadence for some reason”
“Wait don’t you have an empire to rule over?” Onyx asked Cadence
"They can dule them selves for now." she responded
“OK than it is settled we leave in two days.” Reach said
“Roger!” they all said.
“Now there is the terms of security.” Reach said
“Yes will pay you when we get back. We will give you a sum of money and lodgings in Ponyville.” Celestia said
“Deal.”
“And why are you coming?” Reach asked Chrysalis
“Well you are the only one to talk to me for more than five minutes I guess I have gotten attached.” She answered.
“Whatever.”
Two days later.
“Ok people lets go. Everyone strap in.” onyx said from the cockpit as every on but Maine who was copiloting did so.
“Alright Five seconds brace yourselves.” They all heard as the bracers came down over them like a roller-coaster.
“Ok people hang on to something!” Reach said to the cabin with the eight mares and one dragon in it.
“Why is that? The countdown hasn’t even started you…” Celestia started
“Five!” Was all they heard before they blasted into the air and were his with some serious G forces.
“AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!” all eight mares screamed at the same time
“Well here we go. This is going to be fun.” Reach said sarcastically
“A message to the director of project freelancer mark two. From the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence.
Dear Director
Do to the covenant’s relentless assault. We have be forced to instate the Reliance protocol. Do to the immense cost to produce Spartans, and there limited survival rate, and field service do to their few numbers. We are reinstating the Freelancer Program. We will be authorizing the use and fragmentation of the AI Made from the consciousness of the captured Spartan III Emile A-239 Noble Four who was registered MIA during the battle of Reach. However The Spartan III who has been Presumed MIA at the battle of Reach and Current Beta-5 operative Daniel B-312 Noble Six will be assigned to Train, Operate with, and select the new Freelancer Agents.
One such Recruit is a Beta-5 mercenary training with Mark one Freelancer agent Washington. Unfortunately something happened the details of which will be included in this report As well as his BIO. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him will it director?
Good luck Dear Director.
And Remember Honor Noble. And Remember.”
August 5, 2552
==============================================
December 13, 5559
Reach sat there in the cargo bay of the Ship with the nine mares and one dragon. Pinkie pie had fallen asleep. The Mono-eye on his helmet was currently pointed at cadence who was currently trying to ‘stealthily’ check him out by sneaking peaks at him like she had been doing for the past two days.
“So what can you tell me about the planet we are going to? Is it your home world?” Twilight asked causing his eye to go to her
“Yes agent Reach I would like very much to see this new place.” Celestia said impatiently as the trip had been mostly uneventful do to the humans’ unwillingness to reveal much to the peace loving equines
“Well it was a farming planet. Named Jericho seven” Reach explained
“Well I recon they must be real friendly. A bunch of Hardworking Farm ponies.” Apple Jack said
“Where are we currently?” twilight asked
“We are in slipstream space. A method of Faster than light travel.” Reach explained as he cleaned his MA5D.
“WHAT! That’s imposable!” The bookworm yelled in complete astonishment.
“No it isn’t. Both Humans and Covenant ships can both do it.”
“Reach we are entering the planets gravity well, exiting slip space. But I’m getting some wired readings.”
“What kind of wired readings.” Reach asked making the Ponies, Changeling and dragon a little nervous had there been a problem.
“Hang on…. (Growl) and you’re sure? (Hiss) Ok… Reach it’s an ONI transponder signal coming from the surface.” Onyx said
“But there was never an ONI base on Jericho 7, anything else?” they saw reach ask.
“Ya I’m not getting any Human lifelines on the planet just local wild life? But the something isn’t right?” Onyx said
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m not getting any of the larger species. Almost like there was a mass extinction, like everything died all at once?”
“Roger that. Take us in and get us as close to that transponder as possible. But be careful! I don’t want any surprises”
“Reach?”
“’sigh’ yes Pandora?”
“The signal is 2,729 years old.” The female AI said.
“What? You are telling me that this transponder had been going off since 2830?”
“You can do math congratulations.”
“Ok we will be careful.”
“Alright girls listen up.” Reach said
“What is it Mister R-r-reach?” Fluttershy asked
“Two things. First if you want to see the planet we are going to look out the window. An…” Before he could finish nine of them sprinted to the window and if the many oos and ahs were any sign they were amazed.
“It has Green Oceans!?” Twilight asked amazed
“Four moons?!” Chrysalis asked
“They look like silver.” Fluttershy said
Other comments like that were said by the nine of them resulting in him sighing and looking to his side and noticing that Rarity had not decided to go over to the window. And when asked why she replied “I can see it later when we arrive darling.” She said as she grabbed his arm and stared into where his eyes would be and the Mono-eye looked into her eyes. The two were completely unaware that the others were watching them from the corner of their eyes. Over the past two days the two have gotten to know each other a little more and have started to form what could be called a relationship. And it was somewhat humorous to her friends that the fashionista mare had finally had a special somepony even tho it was an alien Mercenary.
“ANYWAY!” Reach yelled getting their attention
“We should be entering the atmosphere now so back away from the window.” He said and as they did they saw a metal cover slide over the window. They then turned back to him as he loaded his weapon.
“Ok people listen up. While we are here you follow my orders. You do whatever Maine, Onyx, or I say. Is that under stood?” he asked getting various methods of agreement.
Five minutes later
“Foxtrot-actual on final approach.” Onyx said to no one.
“Hay open the rear doors.” Reach said over the Radio
“You got it. Hay Maine I’ve got this you can go back with them.” He said
“Growl.” Maine replied before stepping down from the copilot’s seat and walked back into the Blood Tray or cargo hold as it was officially known.
“Ok people. Stay low, Stay out of our way, let us know if you see anything! Let us know, Grab your gear, Stow your fear and get set! For a Recon op.” Reach said earning nods from the mares and dragon as they saw down and strapped themselves in. He stood up and grabbed the hand hold over Rarity’s seat who was sitting at the rear of the ship as the door opened and revealing the rolling beautiful land scape.
There were vast rolling plains of palm grass. They flew over a small abandoned neighborhood. As they flew the mares and dragon in the back saw a strange vehicle when they heard Reach tell Pandora to put a way point on his H.U.D where they were headed.
“Hay Zeta? Think it still works? It could come in handy.” He asked the AI
“I have done author scan and it still seems fully functional. But it will take two to get it running.” The Blue and Gold AI said.
“Never mind then.”
“Five Mikes out.” They heard Onyx say over the
“Solid copy.”
“Maine! Weapons check.” Reach ordered to the mute freelancer getting a growl in response as they both got there weapons ready.
Five minutes later
The Pelican sores around a mountain pass and they rounded a perimeter wall and a gun emplacement and starts to hover an ONI symbol in the middle of the base.
“What are we waiting for why aren’t we landing?” Rainbow dash demanded getting a gloved hand covering her muzzle.
“Shhhhh… You talk to loud. Look I don’t know about you. But I don’t want to be turned to dust by those things.” Reach whispered pointing to three AA cannons pointed at them.
“This is Freelancer Reach, Access code alpha- bravo-six-six-actual-niner. Serial number 71828-39917-AR.” He said and half of a minute later a loud Bass heavy synthetic male voice came over the loud speaker in the pelican.
“Access Code accepted, serial number accepted, welcome beta- Five Freelancer Agent Reach.” The voice said before the Guns that were trailing them turned around and deactivated.
The ship lowered to the ground and Reach hopped out. Followed by the mares and dragon, Maine and onyx who powered down the engines, however as they all got out the aft starboard engine burst into flames.
“Fuck! Maine bubble shield NOW!” reach yelled prompting the Mark one freelancer to raise the domed energy shield around the thirteen of them as the pelican exploded as the fire reached a fuel tank.
“NOoo! My things were still in there!” someone screamed but the three freelancers weren’t paying attention
“Damn it! We are stuck here now.” Reach yelled earning a series of growl's and hisses from Maine.
“You know what maybe your right? But what are the chances of one being here?”
“What are you talking about?” Celestia asked concerned
“How can you be so calm Auntie!? WE are stranded on an alien Planet!” Cadence yelled
“For once I have to agree with Cadence. Why are you taking this so lightly!?” Chrysalis yelled
“Any way, There might be a ship here we can use.” Reach said calmly ignoring them shutting them up.
“Hang on I’ll try a scan?” Reach said and held up his right wrist but only got a disrupted staticy hologram.
“Hm too much interference out here, we have to try again inside.”
“Alright let’s split up into groups so we can search this place faster.” Onyx ordered. Getting nods from them all.
“Ok But who goes with who?” Rainbow dash asked
“Okay well since I don’t want to start an incident with you killing our client, again. I will take Cadence, Chrysalis, Twilight, Rarity and Celestia.” Getting ok’s from the mares in question as they walked up to him.
“Strange?” Pandora commented to Onyx inside his head.
“What?”
“I am getting elevated pheromone levels from the onees known as cadence and chrysalis.” She said to him.
“Well that’s wearied what does that mean?”
“Well I would assume that they are attracted to someone. Rather they knows it or not is unknown.”
“Ok who then?”
“Reach.”
“That’s retarded, your retarded.” He commented on his AI’s expert hypothesis
“Okay people let’s move it out. Maine go with whoever.” Onyx ordered getting a nod from the Mark one Freelancer who turned and followed Reach like he used to follow Wash.
The two groups split up and neared the underground complex.
“Ok get ready. Here we go.”
“Reach darling?” Rarity asked gaining his groups attention and when they turned they saw her gesturing to a pile of something.
"What is it?"
“I don’t know?” Reach commented kneeling down and picking some of it up and letting it fall through his fingers.
“It’s… Ash?” he said confused looking up but not at them, but out at the rest of the landing aria they had landed in there were a few more ash piles strewn about. And when he trod back up he brushed the remainder of the ash that was on his hands off on his gauntlets, but something a glint maybe caught the Cadences eye and she immediately grabbed his armored hand and chipped some of the grime and it reviled DRN4.
“What is DRN4?” the pink alicorn asked still holding his hand in hers for some reason.
“I don’t know?” he said putting a hand on his head in obvious discomfort.
“And this?” the freelancer continued slowly, carefully, almost solemnly even. He took his hand back from cadence and picking more ash up and letting it fall from his fist.
“Just… Dust and echoes?” And with that he turned around and led them through the door to the underground complex.
A message to the UNSC Office of Naval intelligence.
Thank you very much for your recommendation and the new position. I will take your advice and recruit this “Reach”, I already have the perfect partner of him. A young recruit codenamed Onyx. He shows much promise in his field. He comes from a military family, his mother and brother being in the UNSC during the first encounter with the covenant. He showed great skill in his basic training and during his tour in the ODST’s and was offered a position in the Spartan-4 program. However we quickly swooped him up before he made that terrible decision. I think they would work quite well together. And will provide many positive results.
Thank you very much,
The Director of project freelancer mark two
==============================================================
“Uuuuug!”
“Hhuuuuuuuurrg!”
“Almost got it!” Rainbow Dash and Spike grunted as they tried to open a door. However this ended when Onyx walking up shouldered his SMG and kicked the door in. when he entered he saw that they had reached the some kind of armory. Lining the walls were SMG’s, Plasma Pistols, Needlers, some old 2552 MA5C assault rifles, and the older model Battle Riffle the BR55. Then he saw IT a weapon from his days in the ODST’s in a rack he walked over and put his SMG on the magnetic strip on his left thigh.
“Aaaaaaaa!” came an angelic voice from nowhere, as he held up the SMG And light seemed shined down from the sky thought he ten foot thick sealing and shined on the fire arm making it sparkle in the light somehow despite its mat black finish but the lights and the night sights did shine.
He then looked to his right and saw that there were four M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifle’s or Spartan Lasers. “Hello Beautiful.”
“Hay what’s behind that door?” Pinkie asked as Onyx and the others turned and looked at the door that she was pointing at, it was marked Forerunner Research lab.
“I don’t know. But stay tight and stay low. Pandora?”
“Yes?”
“Take the other SMG and lets go.” he ordered making a Hologram appear.
They then continued into the underground facility after Pandora had hacked the door open. However unfortunately they failed to notice that the Facilities AI was watching.
“Warning. Un cataloged Non-human Life forms Detected, Activating Defense Protocol Alpha.” The A.I said as it activated a silent alarm.
With Reach.
“Right. Clear.”
“Growl.”
“Excuse me Reach?”
“Ya Cadence?” He asked turning towards his group of mares and lowering his weapon.
“Well Twilight and I were wondering. If you are trying to find a new vehicle, why don’t you go where they are all stored?” the pink alicorn asked.
“Well that would make more sense than just wandering around. Zeta bring up a 3-D image of the complex, mark our group and Onyx’s group.” He ordered making a large three-dimensional map appear in front of them.
The group of five mares and two freelancers then gathered around the holographic display. “Alright we’re here.” Reach said pointing to a large purple triangle. “And Onyx and the others are here. Looks like they have found a Forerunner Research lab.” He continued pointing at a large grey triangle on the opposite side of the complex.
“And here is the ONI ship yard. We are the closest to the ship yard and it looks like there’s still one here.” Reach commented before continuing through the hallways with his finger until he reached his group.
“Ok it looks like we have to head through the motor pool. And through something called the… DRN Lab?” Reach said questioningly as they saw him looking at his hand where cadence had cleared some of the ash.
“DRN?” they heard him whisper to himself before they saw the red eye of his helmet shoot to the corridor they had just walked through followed by him quickly raising his assault rifle, and him going full soldier mode.
“Growl?”
“What is it Sir Reach?” Cadence asked consigned
Reach raised his hand in a fist silencing the mares that were trying to ask him questions. He swiped his hand in a panning motion from Maine to the corner and received a nod in return, prompting him to move to the right of the hallway. And Reach teleported to the left and ordered the mares to get agenized the wall behind Maine.
“What do you think is going on Princess?” Twilight whispered
“I don’t know Twilight?” The princess of the sun answered as they watched Reach rise three fingers and count down slowly and silently.
“3…2…1.”
Reach reached to his belt and took out a cylinder pulled a pin and tossed it around the corner without looking, and after a very bright flash of light and sparks both he and Maine rounded the corner but found nothing?
“What the hell?” reach commented as his mono-eye scanned the area not finding any thing he turned around and walked back the way they came signaling them to follow.
(With Onyx)
Onyx and his ensemble walked the empty halls of the forerunner facility. The dim lights making him activate his flashlight.
“So what are we lookin’ for again?” Applejack asked.
“We’re looking for a control terminal.” Onyx replied.
“A control what?”
“A giant slab of metal with a shit-ton of buttons on it.” Onyx said, rolling his eyes.
“It’s kinda spooky in here.” Spike said, walking alongside Onyx.
“Don’t worry Spike, this place hasn’t been active for a LONG time.” The freelancer reassured the young dragon. Onyx took a turn into a room, finding his objective. He walked over to the massive control panel and called upon Pandora.
“You know what to do.” Onyx said to his trust AI. She gave him a nod and got to work. Within a few seconds the lights flipped on.
“I didn’t do that.” Pandora said to Onyx. He shrugged it off, leaning back against a wall.
About a half an hour passed. Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Onyx where playing Go Fish, Fluttershy was Chasing Pinkie through the corridors of the building, and Spike was standing in the middle of the room, jumping at ever sound. He shuffled over to Onyx.
“Are you sure this place isn’t active?”
“Yes Spike, just rela…” Onyx was cut off by the sound of metal on metal out in the corridor. He pulled out his SMG and inched his way towards the door. The metal clanking grew louder until the source of the noise was just outside the door. He turned the corner only to meet face to face with Pinkie. He lowered the gun and let out a sigh of relief. Pinkie let out a giggle with a cute little snort,
“What are you doing silly?”
“I thought I heard some big machine.” Onyx face palmed.
“Oh that wasn’t me, that was him.” Pinkie said, stepping aside.
Behind her was a promethean dog. Onyx grabbed Pinkie and swung her around, encapsulating her in a protective ball just as the machine opened its faceplates and fired a scatter bolt shot into Onyx’s back. Most of the shots were absorbed by his energy shield although a few slipped through, causing minimal damage. Onyx spun and unloaded a clip from is SMG into the dog, Pinkie still in his arms. Smoke still rose from the barrel as he slipped another mag in. He and Pinkie walked back into the control room, finding the rest of the group huddled in to corner. The guns of two promethean knights trained on the scared little ponies (and dragon).
To loud thumps came from behind Onyx as two more knights drop from an unknown vantage point. The knights pushed Pinkie and Onyx to the corner with the rest of the group. Three brandished their arm sword and raised them over their heads, while the three one just stood there. Then the fourth turned on its brethren, vaporizing two with a collateral shot from a Binary Rifle and finishing the third with a thrush of its sword. The faceplate opened, reveling a brilliant pink glow instead of the standard red. The light down out and the machine toppled, and behind it stood Pandora. Onyx gave her a congratulatory nod and she stepped back over to the control panel.
Before they group could recover from the traumatic experience the sound of more promethean knights approaching sent Onyx into defense mode. He used his grenade launcher to fire a shot into the hallway. Just enough so that he could still see the shell. Holding down the trigger, he waited for a knight to step into view. He released the trigger, causing the shell to explode and sending the Promethean’s corpse into the adjacent wall.
“Find a way to stop these things!” Onyx shouted, firing another grenade down the hall.
“I’m working on it!” Pandora replied. A knight stepped around the corner and fired its light rifle, narrowly missing the freelancer and striking the wall next to Rainbow Dash.
“Everyone behind the control panel!” He commanded, one-handing the Silenced SMG firing at it and gesturing to the panel for them to get behind.
Everyone quickly complied without complaint. Onyx continued to hold of the promethean onslaught for a few moments, nearly wasting all of his ammo. Finally, without warning, the assault stopped and all the machines casually slumped over into nothing more than a pile of scrap electronics. Onyx ran over and air hugged his AI. The celebration was once again cut short by the sound of hydraulics. The control panel lowered into the flood, as did the wall behind it, revealing a large rotunda. Fluttershy sat in the middle of the room, clutching her head in her arms. Two knights were on either side of her. She looked up at the group and then at her would-be assaulters.
As the pushed herself to her feet the floor began to rumble and split apart. Frozen by fear once again, Fluttershy locked up and fell into the ever growing chasm. The split formed a perfect circle, and from that circle rose a thirty foot tall promethean mech, with Fluttershy clutching desperately onto the beast head. The thing let out a furious metallic roar that shock the entire facility. Onyx aimed his grenade launcher at the mech, but had his aim botched by Rainbow Dash, sending the shell off to the right to connect with nothing but the wall.
“You idiot, you could have hit Fluttershy!” She said, slugging him in the exposed part of his arm.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Onyx shouted. The ponies recoiled at the anger and foul language, they watched as he made a hologram and Pandora pulled up one of the Spartan lasers they had found in the armory, they saw her charge the weapon as the targeting laser painted the target’s leg and after the charge a giant red beam fired from the end of the weapon. The shot hit and made the forerunner Mech stumble back a little not all tough but enough for Fluttershy to be knocked off and bought enough time for her to make it to the others.
“Alright, everyone fall back. I’m going to call Reach and try to stall this thing until he gets here.” The ODST freelancer said as he led them to the surface with Pandora in the back providing suppressing fire.
With Reach and his team
14 minutes prior
“What is that?” they heard and when they turned they saw twilight drooling in front of a giant 29 foot mech it was indeed a technical marvel and it was just sitting now.
“That? That’s HRUNTING Mark II [D] Exoskeleton or a Silver Back. The baddest ass of all bad ass of all covenant ass kicking technology. It’s a shame they preferred the mantis over this...” He said proudly
“Growl?”
“Yes I know it’s not silver.”
“Growl.”
“I don’t know why they call it a silver back, at least it’s not called a Puma!”
“What like the horseshoe company?” Twilight asked.
“What!!? You seriously have a shoe company called puma.”
“Well they went out of business a while ago but ya we did.” Twilight answered
“Why would your kind make something this dreadful?” Rarity asked
“Um hello thirty year war agenized genocidal aliens.” He responded
“Hiss, Growl?”
“Fully automatic arm mounted .21 caliber heavy chain rail gun, the thing works through using a series of electromagnetic coils other rather than chemical propellants, as a source of kinetic energy, and is very similar to the M68 Gauss Cannon. Due to the high force imparted on the rounds the rounds create shockwaves as they passes through the target. In the case of material targets, this is a minor explosion, allowing them to tare through polycrete pylons like tissue paper. And in the case of um… ‘soft targets’, it rips apart and pulverizes the body around the impact area.” He said giddy as a schoolgirl. And despite the destructive nature of the machine in front of her twilight looked like she would orgasm right there just at the thought of studying the thing.
“Why would…” Was all Celestia got out before he continued.
“And it fires them at a rate of 6000 rounds per a minute with a muzzle velocity of 15,000 meters per second or 33,554 miles per hour. And a SAM battery installed on the other arm.” Reach finished
“Growl?”
“I wish we could. But only a synthetic or two trained people can use it.” Reach said solemnly
“The things a mean machine it’s a damn shame to watcher her sit here and rust.” He continued patting it on the leg
“You act like you have seen it before?” chrysalis said
“I have, once.” Reach said as they walked away from the machine towards the DRN lab.
“When?” the princess of the sun asked.
“During the battle for earth. When the covenant invaded.”
“Whatever could have happened?” rarity asked
“We won.” He said flatly shocking them all, as they walked on the mares spared one last look at the machine behind them.
14 minutes later
We find Reach punching in a code into a wall terminal and the door to the DRN Lab opened up the room glowed blue light inside. “Reach! Come in Reach!” they heard onyx yell over the radio over explosions and silenced SMG fire.
“Onyx what’s your status!?” Reach asked as they gathered around.
“We’ve been engaged! Requesting assistance on the surface!” onyx yelled as they heard a Spartan laser go off.
“What has engaged you?” Reach asked.
“Promethean mech! And a few knights but there numbers keep growing!”
“Fuck! Everybody get down! Requesting assistance.” then they heard a huge explosion. Turning to Maine both nodded.
“Reach we have to go, our friends need us.” Twilight pleaded.
“I know, Maine go with them take them topside and help Onyx.” Reach ordered but just then there was a flash of blue light revealing promethean knight that stabbed Reach through the back with its arm sword narrowly missing his jetpack, and lifted him in the air.
“Reach!”
The Knight was about to finish him off when it was hit with a cobalt energy bubble knocking it to the ground. And dislodging the sword from Reaches chest making him collapse on the floor. Cadence then ran to his side as he got to his feet despite the hole in his chest. He didn’t respond just nodded then tackled her to the ground to avoid a light riffle shot.
“Reach your hurt!” she said as the red eye of his helmet shifted to her.
“No shit what was your first clue.” Reach said
“Cadence go with Maine. Everyone get out of here ill handle this.” He ordered more than said. As he and the knight stared each other down
“But what about you? You can’t fight that thing by alone, your injured. I won’t let my first friend throw his light away!” Chrysalis said as they watched him take out his assault rifle.
He then ran towards the knight, light riffle shots flaring his armor’s energy shields and melting the parts of the wall they hit. They watched as he jumped and smashed the butt of his riffle into its head making it whirl around and try to cut him In half with its arm sword, but reach spun around behind it and grabbed its arm and stabbed it through the wall he looked up to them as they were still watching.
“This could be the only chance I get to learn who I am! GO!” he yelled
“Growl, grunt.” They heard from Maine and followed Maine as he turned and left with them close behind. When they ran they looked back and saw that the knight had dislodged its arm and kicked Reach making his assault Rifle and Needle Rifle go skidding across the floor, and making him crash back first into the mettle wall denting it. They saw Reach defiantly get back up and unsheathed his knife.
“Let’s go tin man.”
With Onyx 15 minutes later
Onyx fired another grenade at the Promethean mech doing nothing to the advanced machine. He then had to jump back and duel weald his two SMG’s to take down a knight that had gotten two close.
“What are we gonna do Onyx?” Pinkie and Apple jack asked in unison.
“Stay down! So far that thing is having trouble sighting us through the pelican’s armor. But I don’t know for how long. Let’s hope they get here fast.” He responded as he popped back up and fired his silenced at three crawlers, he supposed the only good thing was that these knights didn’t seem to have watchers thank god.
“Heat out!” He yelled as he took out a thermite grenade at two knights armed with incineration canons turning them to molten slag and electronic scrap. He was low on ammo and grenades and the Prometheans knew it and to add insult to injury nothing seemed to scratch that thing’s armor! If there was ever a time that he regretted his choice of weapon it was now, we needed more explosives.
Boom
Boom
Boom
Boom.
Onyx and his group looked up to see four glowing streaks hit the mech in the head gaining its attention. They all turned to see Maine leading the charge of Reaches team, he gestured for them to get to the crashed pelican as he fired his bruteshot into a Knights face bowing it up. He then went over and ripped a Crawler in half. He looked over to a small building and found what he was looking for, ran over to it and made his way over to the others.
“Is everypony ok?” Twilight asked as she and the rest of the ponies embraced each other in a hug.
“Fluttershy look out!” Onyx yelled when they turned they saw two knight paladins about to blast her with scattershot, so she closed her eyes and looked away and wanted for the pain but it never came.
Crash!
They looked up and saw Maine crash a warthog into one of them and jump out and land on the other crushing it under his weight. He then looked down at her and let out a low guttural moan. Hearing this Fluttershy opened her eyes and saw the large Freelancer standing over her the light from the sunrise reflecting from his visor. He extended a hand and helped her up.
“Thank you.” She said as she hugged him making him look down at her in surprise before nudging her off and pointed to the other ponies who were either shooting magical bolts of magic at the Prometheans or handing Onyx ammo. Maine nodded to her and patted her on the head and took a position on the line knelt and returned fire with his brute shot.
“Twilight?” spike asked as he handed onyx a new magazine.
“What is it spike?” the young princess responded as she narrowly avoided a binary riffle shot.
“Fuck sniper get down! Reach get on that warthogs turret and take it out!” Onyx yelled. He was actually surprised that these ponies could fight or help in any way even though it was still him and Maine doing most of the work.
“Reach! Where is reach!?” he yelled as he saw Apple jack jump on the turret and scrap the sniper.
“We got attacked inside when we got your transmission so he stayed to buy us some time.” Celestia said solemnly.
“How could he!?” Rarity asked distraught
“If that’s true then where are cadence and Chrysalis!?” Onyx yelled as he thrust his un-silenced SMG into Spikes hands and gestured for him to get on the line.
“What!?” they yelled
With Reach
The Beta-5 Merc had finally found his opening and cut the arm off of the knight and stabbed it with its own sword. But just as he was about to turn to the door crawlers came up and were about to attack him before a storm of green and blue magic destroying them. When he turned around he was expecting another human or something, not Cadence and Chrysalis holding his weapons that he had dropped.
“What are you doing here? It told you to go.” he asked
“We don’t take orders form you Reach.” Chrysalis said handing his assault rifle to him with Cadence doing the same with his Needle Riffle. He took it and attached it to his back and walked up to the open door of the DRN lab.
“Well I guess I should say thank you.” He said as he took off his helmet.
“So thank you both.” This made them blush for some reason.
“Alright let’s find out what’s in here.” He said as he walked into the room followed by the two royal mares.
As he walked in there was a huge contrast with the rest of the complex it was spotless clean. As he walked threw two poles they flashed blue and a robotic voice came on.
“Welcome Freelancer agent Reach. Agent Reach you are damaged?” A voice said.
“Who’s there!?” Cadence demanded.
“Relax.” Reach said as he walked to a computer motioning for them to follow him.
“What are you doing?” chrysalis asked
“Getting accessing this bases data files. What’s this?” Reach found. As he found a file titled the fall of the UNSC so he saved it and moved on.
“Agent Reach you are damaged.” The voice said again.
“Why do you keep saying that?” the freelancer asked.
“Because you are in need of repairs. DRN4.” It responded
“Wait what did you say?” reach asked standing up.
“Agent Reach you appear to have taking damage to have taken head damage, thus deactivating your functions. Pleas step into the repair chamber.” The voice said before a cylinder on the wall opened up.
“Wait? What are you saying?” Chrysalis said confused
“I am saying Agent Reach is a Series 4 DRN Android. The original DRN android model was developed for the Police Department to assist the Human officers in performing their duties in the year 2048. Your series however utilized the endoskeleton of the T-888 series terminator. However we were unable to successfully program out there base programing from skynet. And as a result some would go on genocidele killing sprees. Resulting in the DRN4 recall and deactivation, But as it turned out they were actually quite effective againzed the Covanent.” It responded
“No I’m human! I have emotions. Memories.”
“Correct. Your memories are a result of collected data and given perspective to ad relevance and as for your emotions your series’ The DRN’s operating system was designed to emulate human emotion. This system is commonly referred to as Synthetic Soul. The models are highly intuitive and resourceful, with the ability to learn from observation and operate from a course of 'free will'. Also externally, the DRN model is an anatomically correct human male, complete with genitalia. And in your models case a synthetic DNA reverse engineered from Forerunner technology.” it said nullifying his argument.
“As it stands the DRN four series is the closest thing to a true cyborg in existence do to there existing Hyper-alloy endoskeletons. They were decommissioned in 2459 for production cost, and their ability to delete and rewrite there programing. However since the reverence protocol was instated all synthetics have been brought back online, Models like yourself for example. However like before five DRN4 models rewrote there programing and went on their own. You Agent reach DRN4- 71828-39917 are one of those that did so.” The voice concluded.
“Zeta is what it is saying true?”
“Yes. Agent Reach I have not told you this because of the directors orders after the operation with Spartan Palmer.” The now Gold and blue AI said appearing next to him.
“And what do you girls think?”
“You’re still the same guy we care about this doesn’t change anything just makes you more interesting.” Chrysalis said with a seductive smirk.
“REACH! We need those two up here NOW! Promethean reinforcements have arrived and that Mech has us pinned down.” a voice said over Reaches radio. He looked to his AI and nodded.
The two Royals looked at him angrily.
“Reach don’t you…!” was all they got out before they were teleported to Onyx’s location.
“Reach they are here but they are pissed. Holy shit! Chrysalis just vaporized a Knight!” Onyx yelled.
“Onyx hold them off as long as you can.” Reach said over his radio
“Got it. Everyone we need to buy reach more time. Everything you’ve got!”
“Ok. Let’s do this.” Reach said as he walked into the chamber, it removed his armor and magnetic arms came down and began their work.
“Computer what is the status and class of the ship in the hanger bay?” reach asked as an arm took off his chest.
“It is an ONI experimental Marathon 2 class super-heavy cruiser."
(Marathon 1 class heavy cruiser.)
"At nine thousand-nine, hundred-fifty feet long, and Nine hundred feet in width, and a height of eight hundred fifty feet, it is the second largest ship in the UNSC Fleet. It is fitted with chip that allows it to fly itself better than any Smart AI. It is fitted with a full complement of both Android and non-android synthetics. 15 feet of titanium A3 armor, three thousand ARGUS drones, seventy Long sword interceptors, fourty five short sword stealth fighter bombers, twenty broadsword fighters, one hundred and one hundred A.G.R 2 support and attack drones, Three Mammoth ground vehicles, and two heavy magnetic accelerator cannons, with the Main gun being a Super-Heavy MAC.” The voice paused as it took part of his head off and began repairing his cranial damage.
"What am i gonna do with this? How does this not win a war? Its just uncalled for!" Reach pleaded only to find out it wasnt done yet
“Over one thousand HEV pods, one hundred scorpions, 200 hornets, 100 falcon attack craft, 200 pelicans of mixed types, one hundred AC-220 Vulture gunships, Advanced shielding, 100 YSS-1000 Saber star fighters, five hundred F99 Osprey Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle or wombats, seventy five 70mm Point Defense Turrets, ninety over sized M42 Archer Missile pods, six Grendel anti-ship turrets they are essentially turrets with two giant Spartan lasers attached to a swivel mount, and twenty Shiva-class Nuclear Missile’s, thirty Fenris Nuclear Warheads, and the most powerful weapon in the UNSC arsenal nine NOVA class bombs. As well as a full stock of UNSC vehicles and a small complement of covenant vehicles, a fully stocked armory with weapons up to 2815.” the computer finished
"Uncalled for. just uncalled for. My tax payer dollars at work." Reach said
“Why is this ship such a power house it seems like it could have really made a difference?” Reach asked as his coolant was replaced unfortunately the noise didn’t allow him to hear that is recovery beacon had been activated when his chest was removed.
“It was designed to buy time for earth in the war, with hopes that they would find a way to win but with the death of the master chief early in the war we didn’t stand a chance. But it happened too late.” The voice said as it finished its work and he was re-booted before the door opened and his internal HUD came online. If you were to look you would see blue, red, yellow, and white lines go traverse the right side of his face as his databanks were updated.
“Wait how long was the war when did it start?” reach asked as he walked towards the closed door of the DRN lab with his helmet strapped to his belt.
“The war started in 2567 and ended in 2830.” The voice said
“Send ten MX’s to help them out topside uploading IFF’s, and activate take off procedures for the ship.” Reach said as he walked off but not before seeing a small glass looking it was about one foot in height and two feet in length box with small cylinders in it about an inch and half each in height. He reached over and picked up the box by the handle and walked over.
With onyx
“Dash get down!” Onyx yelled as he dove on top of her as a crate exploded absorbing the blast with his shields so she wouldn’t get hurt.
“Onyx…” the cyan mare began before he turned around and returned to firing his weapon.
“Beep! Beep! Beep!”
“Fuck that’s Reaches recovery beacon!” Onyx yelled as he reloaded his second to last magazine.
“Reach is hurt?” Rarity asked
“Onyx I am getting nothing from Reaches vital signs.” Pandora said appearing next to him.
“Are you saying…?” Cadence choked out tearing up for some reason.
“Fuck! I’m jammed!” Onyx yelled as he tried to unjam the spent cartridge.
“Growl!” they looked over to Maine who appeared to be out of ammunition for both of his weapons
“I can’t… too… tired.” They heard and they then looked over to see Celestia, chrysalis and Twilight were too tired to fight any more.
“aah horse apples!” they could only guess at what had happened and looking up there assumption was correct the turret of the Hog had ran out of ammunition so the farm mare jumped down and took cover with them.
“Princess I’m scared.” Twilight said hugging her mentor.
“I’m scared to twilight. What will Equestria do without us? And to think it is Hearts and hooves day.” she said just then a Promethean knight teleported on top of the wreckage they were hiding behind.
“This is it. COME ON!” Onyx taunted as he pounded his chest with his palm and even the Meta let out a defiant roar as it aimed it incineration canon at the group.
“Reach.”
However just as there end was near a shot cracked through the air splitting the knight’s head in two making it disintegrate like all Prometheans when they die. Looking to the direction of the shots they saw ten figures approaching firing in short bursts with their weapons killing Prometheans left and right as they ran up to the wreckage they were hiding behind they noticed that most of them looked the same. They saw red lines appear on the side of their faces before they disappeared and they spoke.
“Freelancer agent Onyx you are in need of assistance. We are here to assist.” One of them said.
“Who are you?” twilight asked.
“They’re old MX-43 combat androids. But why are they here?” Onyx asked.
“We are here as per agent Reaches orders.” A dark skinned one said in the same voice as its lighter skinned counterparts.
“Well fuck! Let’s do this!” Onyx said as he finished un-jamming his weapon and firing at the Prometheans.
“Yes sir.” The MX’s said emotionlessly as they got on the line and began firing there weapons, one gave more rounds to Maine which he gladly accepted. To the peaceful equestrians the sheer tenacity of the humans to not give up like they had done was nothing short of inspirational, and with the arrival of these new soldiers they were beginning to see why.
For a race with no magic or special powers at all they had achieved so much, come so far on their own with no outside help and faced imposable odds and had come out on top trough nothing but sheer willpower and ingenuity, they were truly a powerful race, there courage and audacity in the face of certain death. Their inability to use anything as a crutch just a tool to make things a little easier for them to do. Their unwillingness to go quietly into the knight. They watched as Onyx and Maine fought bravely to protect them even as there new troops were starting to be picked off they still fought picking up the slack from the fallen Synthetic.
“I wish Reach…” Rarity started as a tear ran down her cheek before the ground began to shake casing the fighting for a second.
Everybody looked up and saw a massive section of the mounting start opening up everyone even the Prometheans watched in amazement as the massive hole appeared and were shocked when a massive ship emerged from it. It was gun mettle grey and was armed to the teeth, it also had the letters UNSC. HARBINGER on the side along with the UNSC’s symbol. It just continued to fly into the air until it hovered above the mountains and stopped.
Then it happened they get more shakings turning around and looking behind them Onyx and the others saw the ONI symbol on the base floor open up slowly the same way the Forerunner mech appeared opened up. The MX’s began returning fire on the Prometheans but the equestrians and the two freelancers aimed there weapons at the door and waited as it stopped.
“What do you think is going to happen?” Twilight asked.
“I don’t know twilight?” Onyx said bewildered. But then the Forerunner mech started firing on their position vaporizing two MXs.
“Reach would know what to do.” Cadence said solemnly
“Fuck everybody down! Return fire!” just as they were about to fire they heard what sounded like someone blowing a raspberry they immediately looked to Pinkie who just shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. Then they then saw about fifty knights be blown to shreds. They then saw two missiles streak over their heads and impact the Forerunner Mech.
“Hay ugly!” they heard a voice say gaining the attention of the Forerunner Mech. To Onyx and Maine’s surprise and the amazement of everypony present they saw what appeared to a giant olive green machine behind them.
“I’m gonna blow out your optics!” They all heard the voice say again.
“Reach!” they then saw his machine step over them shaking the ground as it walked.
“Come On you big silver bastard. You’re not the only bot with a mech.” Reach said. His onboard scans found a weakness in the enemy mech.
“What? What is he talking about?” they asked onyx who only shrugged his shoulders as Reach stepped over them accidentally crushing an MX as he and the forerunner mech squared off.
“You all get back. Ill handle this.” They heard Reach say.
“Reach NO! It’s two dangerous! Not even auntie celestial and chrysalis combined could damage it!” Cadence shouted
“Well I’m not them. I was made for this.” he stared before they saw the cylinder on its right arm in between two massive green blocks start spinning.
The forerunner snapped its arm up to fire but wasn’t expecting Reach to fire first the storm of Gauss like bullets tore through its armor like nothing. When Reach brought up his SAM missiles and locked them on the target it dodged to the left making the missile miss and explode behind it destroying 50 knights. It then returned fire with a massive energy blast from its left arm. They thought that that would end it for sure but Reaches mech made a partially domed energy shield appear absorbing the blast.
“What Power!” Twilight commented as they watched the fight. Everyone was watching the fight between the two giant war machines. The battle field was littered with parts of forerunner technology.
“There is one thing I don’t understand though?” Celestia asked
“What ever could it be princess?” Rarity asked
“Do you remember what Agent Reach said to the Meta before we left the vehicle room? He said only a synthetic or two highly strained people could pilot it. And since the only other humans here are Onyx and Maine that must mean…”
“That he is a synthetic!” Twilight finished however her sudden realization was drowned out by chain gun fire...
“Hay I don’t much appreciate that term.” They heard Reach say as they saw him sever the forerunners arm with his machine heavy rail gun and fired two more SAM missiles at the enemy Mech.
“We didn’t get the whole story so he will have to explain it.” Cadence said as an explosion rocked the area and when they popped up to see they were hit with a wave of heat from a large fire with smoke billowing up for miles.
They were worried because they couldn’t see anything. When a gust of wind blew through and they saw in the center of the fire not looking at them was the Silver Back, the large war machine barely visible through the smoke and fire its lower torso illuminated as orange flames licked it Titanium A-3 armor plating. Its intimidating silhouette sending shivers of fear down all of their spines.
“What the…?” Spike got out before there was a washing over their heads and they saw a new pelican drop ship fly down with a large Robot on its rear suspended somehow when it got close enough it dropped it next to their current position and land engines still activated as its rear door opened up. The Robot had no head no arms just two forward pointing gun placements where its arms would be, it had legs like a chicken except they were large and thick with what looked like large square blocks jutting out of the back of its legs possibly to counter balance. Its feat ended in three tows with two facing the left and right and one facing the front. On the sides of its flat core it had one glowing red eye slit it had the numbers ED 209-C, it then lumbered over to them and scanned them with a red beam.
“No injuries detected. Please proceed to the Evacuation vehicle.” It said with an uncaring synthesized voice before turning around and lumbering over to the back of the pelican.
“What was that about?” Rainbow dash asked obviously not caring for the large robot that was now secured to the back of the pelican.
“Let’s move I’d rather not stick around here.” Onyx said flatly as he and lead the others to into the pelican followed by himself and the MXs. And they all appeared a look in the direction of the silver Back as and they saw a large Pelican like ship with no cargo bay fly down and pick up it up the same time they lifted off the ground.
15 minutes later
“Where are we going mister?” Pinkie asked a nearby MX who just stood there motionless.
“What’s with them?” a particular rainbow hared Pegasus asked as she snapped her fingers in front of a MX’s face that was standing stock still with its hands at its sides.
“There in sleep mode.” Onyx said as he and Maine raised to their feet as they felt the small transport shift meaning that the pelican had just entered the artificial gravity well of a capital ship. They however didn’t get a chance to see out of the rear of the aircraft do to the closed rear hatch and the only slit of a window being a view of the back of the robot dangling from the magnetic clamps.
“Pandora? Here are we going?” twilight asked.
They felt the pelican touch down and the metallic clang of metal legs and landing gear gained the metal floor of a hanger bay they then watched as the rear door opened letting them out and when they emerged they were in shock at the sheer scale of the hanger even Celestia and chrysalis who were the largest there were nothing in comparison to the size of this place. They looked to a hanger entrance to see the Silver Back being brought in by the large armored construction pelican.
“Please step aside.” An MX said as they moved allowing the Silver back to lower to the deck. And when the magnetic clamps released they watched as the flying as it flew over they saw it was called an albatross.
They watched as the giant machine walked itself over to a station and magnetic clamps locked it down. They then were fascinated as it lowered as its arms dropped low and its back opened up revealing the freelancer they were all wandering about. He had his helmet off and had a clipped to his waist, his needle riffle was on his back but unfortunately his assault rifle had be bent and damaged by a stray bolt shot and was half melted so he unjust threw it out the bay door and to the ground below. But they saw he had a pistol of some kind on under his left arm in a holster of some kind. It was a modified M6 pistol with its laser right on the bottom of the barrel to allow for better aim. And the hand guard removed. It looked like a silver rectangle for a pistol.
“Reach!” Rarity yelled as she practically sprinted up to him quickly followed by the others who thought he was dead. Rarity hugged him attempting to crush his nonexistent ribs. When she finally let go he saw she was crying however before he could say anything she slapped across the face.
“Oow!” she yelled out grasping her now slightly bruised hand before looking back up at him.
“That was uncalled for rarity.” Reach said they then watched a series of blue lines go from the corners and around his right eye to the back of his cheek they watched fascinated as it pulsed for a second before disappearing.
“Rarity. Your heart rate is elevated, and body temperature has dropped to 99.2 degrease indicating a nervous break…” he was cut off when she reached up and pulled him to herself as making him almost drop the case he was carrying, as his mouth met her muzzle.
“DRN the Harbinger is ready to be under weigh.” An MX said walking up and ruining the moment.
“Any way!?” Onyx asked pushing Reach
“What the Fuck man!” The synthetic freelancer said
“You never told me you were a synthetic! Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you right now for keeping secrets!” Onyx yelled pointing his Silenced SMG at his partners head earning screams of protest form the others.
“No please!”
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow your head off right now!”
“Because he is your friend!” Twilight yelled.
“Friends don’t keep secrets.”
“Because I love him!” a certain white mare pleaded not seeing that Chrysalis and Cadence both also did so.
“We do to!”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Reach this isn’t you! It isn’t nice!” Pinkie pleaded her Maine having deflated
“You obviously don’t know us.” That well.
“Ill kick your butt.” Dash answered
“You can try.”
“I’ve got a reason.” Reach said earning their attention.
“What.” Onyx said.
“Well actually I have forty three reasons.” Reach said getting questioning looks from them all before they heard a like a chorus.
“Surrender your Weapon.”
“Surrender, your, Weapon.”
They all looked around to see that the nearby MX’s were pointing there riffles at the crimson armored freelancer, his armor covered in green laser sights. All of them still saying surrender your weapon.
“You think that…”
“Surrender your weapon you have 30 seconds to comply” they heard and when they turned around they saw that the ED-209-C that was on their pelican had lumbered over and was now pointing its weapons at Onyx.
“NOPE! I surrender! Naa, no, no sir, no I’m done.” he yelled franticly before dropping his smg to the ground and throwing his hands into the air.
“Are you going to listen?” Reach asked
“Yes.” Onyx answered.
“Good now let’s go pick up your weapon and follow me to the bridge we are about to take off. Ill explained on the way.” They looked at each other and eagerly followed listening intently to Reaches explanation.
(Thirty minutes Later)
They walked around a corner as Reach finished his explanation and the ponies marveled at the complexity of the Bridge. Not that they weren’t already dumbfounded by the rest of the ship. Absolutely no magic used by the ship it went agenized everything they knew about technology.
“Alright ladies and spike pleas take your seats and get ready to exit the atmosphere. And you’re in for a treat this bridge is also the one of the observation decks.” Reach said as he pressed a button on his wrist. They marveled at the sight as the ship angled itself skyward and began to fly off into the sky. They marveled at the sight the concept that something this large could even move let alone move.
They watched as the sky became darker and darker until it was nothing but Black and stares. They marveled at the beautiful sight they could barely see in the pelican but this was marvelous they all could see everything.
“It’s beautiful.” Chrysalis said looking out into the stars.
“Hay chrysalis look.” Cadence whispered to the changeling queen not knowing that the others from Sidewinder had heard her. As the ship reached a geosynchronous orbit.
“What?” She asked before looking out where Cadence was pointing and they saw Reach standing on a glass looking floor. They saw that the Android was being illuminated with a beautiful blue light form the planet’s atmosphere. The three mares that were attracted to him watched with slight blushes all imagining different things. But then they saw him pick up a clear box with small cylinders in them. They saw him hold it in both hands and bring it to his forehead as he closed it reminded them all that even though he wasn’t organic he was still a person with feelings.
“Um Reach what’s that?” Cadence asked carefully trying to not make him more upset him further gesturing to the object in reaches hand.
“These?” Reach said holding up the case.
“Here hold this would you please?” he asked Celestia who took it as he walked up and handed it to her.
“Thank you.” Reach said doing a scan of the sun alicorn his HUD sensing a 0.14 rise in pheromone output usually given off when attraction is present.
“Now then gather around. This…” He said opening the box and tacking one of the cylinders in his index finger and thumb. He then held it up for them all to see even Onyx and Maine wanted to know. He leaned on a holo display on the threshold between the observation section and the bridge section.
“This is the crucial part, the most precious thing to us androids with free-will.” Reach said pausing to acknowledge an audio log that had been uploaded from the bases computer to the ship.
“What is it? Something that small can’t be that important?” Twilight.
“Something that all DRN units are built with. These are what makes me, me. They are synthetic souls.” Reach said he said this is what separates us form other synthetics like MX’s or ED-209’s. Reach then
“I’m all that’s left, every DRN has been destroyed. These are there souls. Darious, Franklen, Wash, Cooper, Johnson, Davis, Dorian. They’re all here” Reach said solemnly
“Dorian he was the only DRN activate in 2048 after the recall in 2044. He was a Series 1 a legend.”
“You talk about him the same way twilight talks about the princess.” Rainbow Dash said
“Because he was the one who woke me up he gave me a purpose, a reason to live. Without him I would be nothing just another nameless android and another casualty.” Reach said before holding up the synthetic soul in his hand. Its glowing core had long since died been deactivated.
“Is that who’s that is?” chrysalis asked putting a hand on his shoulder as he leaned there steering at it.
“It… was its dead … it’s been active for two long with no power source. Now it’s just a shell.” He said about to drop it before a pink hand stopped him. Looking up he saw that Cadence had come over.
“It’s not just a shell. It’s a peace of the stallion who changed your life.” She said with a kind smile.
He then saw the small glasslike cylinder section of it flash blue for 1.23 seconds before going dead again.
“I just wish I could talk to him again.” Reach said before it was taking in a flash of blue light and there it was again in a small glass cylinder the same color’s as the synthetic soul. With a pink string coming from the top. The clear hard plastic portion of the Synthetic soul where it should have been glowing a dull peaceful blue thanks to the fibers in side was now a clear blue crystal allowing you to see inside of it and inside was the original synthetic soul. The rest of it was a greyish metal or maybe crystal he couldn’t tell it wasn’t in his databanks. He looked at it and held it up.
“Cadence how?”
“I’m not the princess of the crystal empire for nothing.” She said.
"I dont know what to say?"
“I believe the word you are looking for is thank you.” They all heard a voice say and when they looked over they saw a hologram appear the image was of a milk chocolate skinned man with black hair. He had on a dark blue coat with its color pulled up, with black pants and a grey shirt, with black boots on.
“Dorian?"
"What are you doing here? Your dead?”
“You’re right but I was put into this ship as its operating system. Unlike AI units I have no operational time man.”
“Alright talk to you later Dorian.” Reach said putting the pendant on and followed by his helmet as the hologram diapered he then hit a button on a console and a man appeared on a glass Paine in the middle of the room they all gathered around.
“The year is 2830 UNSC calendar.
This is colonel Jack Fillmore UNSC High command. Earth has come under attack from multiple fronts, the Arachnids a race of insectoid gigantic alien bugs, our ancient enemy the flood, and a new race called the protheans. Our synthetics are all but gone, our fleets have been destroyed, and the Elites have fallen back to our home world. Humanity and our allies will survive but they will have to rebuild… together. I activate this Distress beacon in hopes that there are still at least some UNSC remnants left. Please understand that Earth… Earth is all we have left, and so I am going to activate a controlled burst of our greatest weapon agenized our enemies… HALO”
Author's Note
Dorian. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8prikD_9SV0
Chapters from here out will be shorter do to my friends request so he can do a Reading of this story.
“Alright ladies and spike.” Onyx said as the group walked through the ship.
“Officers’ quarters are here.” Reach said pointing to a row of doors with an MX standing outside of each.
“Now how’n tarnation are we supposed to figure out who’s is whose?” Apple jack asked gesturing to the unmarked generic doors.
“They’ll tell you.” Onyx said gesturing to a nearby MX.
“Ok pay attention. Pinkie!, Rainbow dash!, and Apple jack. Here, here and here” Reach said pointing to three doors with the named mares running to their doors.
“Twilight!, Rarity!,Spike!, and fluttershy!” Onyx continued pointing to four more doors.
“And last but not least Celestia!, Cadence! Chrysalis!” Reach said skipping a door and finishing up as the lights in the ship dimmed to simulate night.
“What about you?” Rarity asked.
“I stay here.” Reach answered observing as Onyx and Maine walked passed him and into two empty rooms and he walked into a room across from them all. And so it went for about two hours they all got ready for sleep in their own respective ways. And just as they were about to go to sleep they all heard a door open and close again and when they went to their doors to check they saw Reach exit his room and start pacing. Before a mare sized a strange grey thing standing at about five feet five inches walked up to him it had crab-like upper body, twin machine guns as its arms and four arthropod legs and a glowing red eye.
They then watched as he took what looked like a damaged synthetic soul and a screwdriver and order is to sit which it did. They watched as Reach unscrewed the a panel, they couldn’t see very well but they saw him take out a red chip and touch it to the synthetic soul turning making it change from glowing a blue to a red color before plugging it into the strange machine. They then were confused but they were two tired so they went back to sleep.
THE NEXT MORNING
“That was awesome! I don’t think ive ever slept that well in my life!”
“I must agree Rainbow dash. Not even the best beds in all of equestria are this comfortable.” Rarity said to her friend as the rest of their friends started to file out of their rooms to greet the new day. They all greeted each other before they heard a wired sound and as they turned to Reaches door and they saw the same machine from last night standing there next to his door, they saw his door open and Reach walk out with his helmet attached to his waist.
“what’s up?” Reach
“WHAT is that thing! I knew it you were just waiting until we were all together to deal with us!” Rainbow dash yelled in his face
“With what? What the Guck are you talking about!” Reach asked confused
“Fuck.” Onyx corrected
“What?” reach asked
“Fuck, the word is fuck you said guck.”
“Oh I’m sorry.”
“The Fuck are you talking about! With what!?”
“With That!” she continued pointing to the strange machine
“With the T-7T? Do you even know what it is?” the confined and agitated recovery agent asked.
“Well its metal!” the rainbow maned mare yelled poking him in the chest with her index finger.
“hay im not a big fan of that term.” Reach said kindly.
“What term? Metal!” she said again saying the word with such venom the others could feel it.
“There’s that word again.” Reach said
“Rainbow dash. I think you should calm down.”
“No I want to know what he was doing!”
“Oh I get it! If a synthetic makes friends with an organic its ok. But the second I make friends with another synthetic Ooh no im suddenly evil!” Reach said out raged
“you’re a synthacist.”
“What?”
“A synthacist. They are like racists except with robots.” Onyx somewhat explained.
“Im not racist!”
“Sais the one running around throwing out racial slurs at poor defenseless Terminator Hunter-killers.”
“What!?”
“That makes no since. Think about what you’ve just said.” Onyx stated.
“What?”
“The hunter-killer, is defenseless. It has fucking Phased Plasma Pulse Guns for arms!” Onyx yelled
“It’s the sentiment that counts.”
“No it isn’t!”
“Cadence! Someone back me up here.”
“I mean I guess he does have a point. It hasn’t tried to hurt us.”
“But it could you crazy mare!” Chrysalis yelled.
“Oh you just want to complain about everything I say don’t you!”
“Why are you even here anyway?” they both yelled at each other simultaneously
“Well im here because thought it would be good to get to get to know our extraqeuestrial guests. And to hopefully improve changeling public relations with equestrian.” The changeling queen answered
“Well im here to see if any of this technology can help us.” The princess of the crystal kingdom answered.
“Now that we are done.” Reach started before grabbing rainbow dash by the through with his right hand and lifting her up effortlessly much to their amazement.
“Don’t call me that again.” He said sternly getting a very obedient series of nods.
“Any way. You all know where everything is we are taking the day to regroup and gather ourselves before we move on.” Reach said as he dropped the mare making her fall on her rump. And walked off before even one walking up to Rainbow dash disappointed.
“I’ll meet you guys in the mess hall. Come.” Reach said before walking in the direction of the mess hall with the now identified T-7T following him they saw him punch the wall on his way. And to there shock it dented around the area he had punched.
“Relax he’s a lot better once you get to know him.” The rainbow hared mare heard and when she looked up she saw that Onyx was standing next to her and helped her up.
“Growl?”
“What is the mater with Mister Reach? Onyxy? Why is he being so mean to Rainbow dash.” Pinkie asked her mane flattened.
“What is better to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?" Onyx asked
“I don’t understand what does that have to do with my darling…”
“Reach… isn’t like other synthetics.”
“What do you mean?” Twilight asked holding a notepad.
“No matter how much you like him, no mater how much he likes you, how much you love him or he loves you. On the inside under what you see. He is a machine made to kill humans. A terminator is programed to kill humans even with what he told us about the DRN 4 series. The main reason they were taken offline was because they would go on killing sprees. It took 50 XRN’s to take down one with a normal T-800 endoskeleton. Reach is a reprogrammed T-888 stronger, faster, smarter, more resilient and it doesn’t help that his model had hyper alloy endoskeleton but with the covenants attack they were upgraded with a titanium-A3 coating to key spots of their endoskeletons. They can take temperatures hot enough to melt steal, hell I’ve seen them T-888 be submerged in molten titanium it doesn’t even phase them.”
“This isn’t helping my opinion of him.” Rainbow dash said.
“Well even with all of that he is still our friend, he is in a constant struggle agenized his original programming he needed a base and you all gave that to him. I couldn’t act as a base I have just as much blood on my hands as he does. But you, you all are relatively innocent despite your respective backgrounds and ages. Any way lets move it out.” He said before walking off
“If you want to go some ware just ask an MX and it will take you.”
“Growl?”
“To plan the next leg of our trip.” He said
(Two hours later)
“Alright so we’re here.” Reach said bent over a hollow display.
“Right and with a ship this size it will take us about four days to get to reach, And from there one day to get home.” Onyx commented from the other side
“But are we sure we want to get back to earth? I mean it has changed so much.” Reach said.
“I know but its home.”
“Ya Home is home.” Reach said before an alarm sounded through out the entire ship.”
‘Bwaaaa'
‘bwaaaa'
“Dorian!”
“On it.” The ships synthetic soul said before appearing in a miniature sized form on the hollow table before the alarms stopped blaring.
“Dorian what was that about?”
“I am receiving a distress signal.”
“From who?”
“Scanning? Human vocal patters. Earth. Odd?” Dorian said
“What is it?”
“I am receiving various IFF transponders. As well as an abundance of data on other un-cataloged species.” the synthetic soul said
“Alright Load them into our databanks assemble the others.” Reach orderd
“Where are our guests?” Onyx requested.
“Twilight is in the engine room with an MX detail.”
“Apple Jack and spike are in the Cargo hold, Rarity is in her room, Maines girlfriend Fluttershy, and Pinkie pie are in the mess hall.” Dorian said calmly.
“And the royals?”
“’Ch’ you mean most of your harem metal head?” Onyx asked as the three left the room and speed walked up a series of ramps.
“The bridge observation deck.”
“Dude you know im a terminator I don’t know why you insist on pissing me off.”
“Because it’s funny.”
“Whatever. Zeta.” Reach ordered making the little blue and gold A.I appear.
“Yes mister Reach.”
“Teleport twilight and her friends to the bridge.”
“Right away.” Reaches assigned A.I said as the three freelancers and T-7t walked up to the bridge door. And upon entrance they were met with quite a few interesting sights that we will not get into now but lets just say if the situation was any different the the three freelancers would be a little hot under the collar if you will.
“Reach you scoundrel! I was in the middle of a…!” Rarity who was only wrapped in a towel started before she was interrupted and they all saw that the three freelancers had there helmets on and they knew better than to get in there way when they were on.
“Dorian. Raise the shields, full power to engines set course for earth. Bring this tug up to Combat alert alpha. They wouldn't have sent that distress call if they weren’t in trouble.”
“See that’s the thing it was more of a rallying call.”
“Whatever you want to call it this new earth is under attack and needs help. Alright I want every synthetic online and combat ready. Update the data base and upload the IFF’s.” Onyx said taking a seat .
“And give me everything on this codex. Whatever the fuck they call it.” Reach ordered
“Alright people battle stations.” Reach said before he had Rarity and the others to their rooms where they would find old Earthgov security suits that they were ordered to where when a combat situation arose. He then teleported them back when he got the ok from them all.
Each of their UNSC Earthgov security suits were form fitting to make for a good vacuum seal to protect from loss of atmosphere all of their cutiemarks were on their right pectoral if they had them that is. Cadences was a dark shade of pink, Celestias was white, pinkies was her coats’ shade of pink, Apple jacks was orange, Twilights was purple, Fluttershys washer yellow but unlike the others she had an EVA helmet like Maines, Rainbow dashes was cyan, Chrysalis’s was black possibly the only one with any form of stealth if need be, and Raritys was a brilliant pearl white with Reaches old mark 6 helmet.
“Wait Reach where are we going?” Chrysalis asked taking a seat.
“We are going home. I want you all to read these and provide logistical support any information we need give it to us.” Reach said
“What do you mean back to equestria?” Celestia asked they all saw a Gigantic white and blue sphere opened up in front of their ship which started to move towards it.
“No… we’re going to earth.”
“Exiting slipspace in twenty mikes!” Onyx yelled
“shields full power, MAC guns online and ready to fire.” Dorian said helping twilight and the others learn to work the monitors.
“Onyx are our old UNSC satellites still online?” Reach asked as he the heads up displays of 300 ARGUS wombat space drones. He then set the other space attach craft on stand by and prepared to launch twelve terminator HK Arial-S star fighters
“ive got signals form two satellites they’re heavily damaged, on screen now.” Onyx responded and they all looked to see what was attacking the human home world and they were greeted with a very confusing sight.
“What are those?” Reach asked.
“I don’t know?” Onyx said confused everyone ignoring Pinkie Pies explanation.
“D-dorian? What are your scans getting? Because my scans are saying that they are giant space squids. What the fuck?”
“Well they are also Giant, robot, purple space squids.” Zeta said appearing.
“Well from my scans there shields are sub-par early jackal shield at least and there main armament which is in there tentacles by the way are lasers, really? Point defense class slightly superior to Spartan laser class.” Dorian said very confused.
“I don’t get it? I am getting an unknown energy source. Coming from them all. According to the codex we received with the distress signal it is something called element zero.” Pandora said.
“How are we losing? What the fuck happened to the UNSC? Its like our tech went backboards. I mean I know we activated halo but still that’s no excuse for this.” Reach said laughing a bit.
“Well from what I was able to get the technology the galaxy relies on is based on the gient space squid technology.” The Ships synthetic soul said
“Realy that’s shit? And where the fuck are the elites?” the ex-ODST commented
“You know that is an amassing question?”
“Dorian? raise whoever sent the distress signal, tell them we are here to win their war.” added said a little ashamed at being human at the moment. They waited about thirty seconds before the data was able to be reconfigured to the correct format. After all when your ships AI is a synthetic soul it was really easy and thousands of years better than the smartest of their AI it wasn’t hard.
“This is counselor Anderson of the systems alliance Identify yourself.” An aged light skinned black in a wagered uniform man said as a primitive hologram appeared.
“What the fuck is the systems alliance?” Reach said as he stood up as he appeared in the alliance base in hologram form. They all marveled and questioned why there was a mech on the hologram.
“Where is your ma…” Anderson started before he was interrupted by the mech.
“I swear to fucking skynet! Its armor im not a fucking Robot!” they were a little taken aback when he took off his helmet and yelled at them. They then heard another male voice say “Yess you are! You’re a synthetic! More specifically you’re a terminator but still. You’re a robot.” The other voice said
“I’m on the Fucking phone Onyx! And I’m a fucking DRN 4 just because I use a terminator T-888 endoskeleton doesn’t make me a terminator, ‘Yes it does!’ Fuck you! Im an artificial person I’ve got feelings and shit to!” they watched the synthetic argue with someone off screen. They were amazed that he was a synthetic if he hadn’t seen it they would have never known until they saw a series of blue lines go through the right side of his face and disappear.
“What the fuck are you all doing in London?” the obviously illegal AI asked.
“we are trying to survive the reaper invasion, and hold out until Shepard gets here with reinforcements.” Anderson said solemnly.
“You cant beat the giant space squids? But there really shitty?” he responded.
“Look whoever you are can I talk to your superior?” Anderson asked before they heard other feminine voices and some growling before he spoke again.
“Um I’m Agent Reach and I’m the CO on this ship. Unless you want to talk to him?” the now identified reach said and another unarmored person walked into view.
“Onyx get down to hanger bay two. I want you out there.” Reach said as they heard a yes sir.
“Who is this?” Anderson asked.
“this is dorian. he is my ships AI. Well actualy he is a synthetic soul which is better.” Reach answered nonchalantly.
“You have an AI!?” Anderson demanded.
“Are you a retard? You've ben talking to me for like ten minouts. There standard issue on every UNSC ship. Speaking of which this is Super heavy cruiser, USNC Harbinger exiting slip-space now.” Reach said he and his clew then heard another soldier say something about looking at the screen and Anderson ran over to look followed by the others in his area.
“What is that! I have never seen that kind of dreadnought before? The size the shape it looks ancient! And how did you get here without the mass relay!” Anderson said all of these questions and more went through their minds as everyone present marveled at the unknown ship. They then saw a nearby reaper dreadnought and a frigate turn to engage as the ship turned in there direction. They heard another technician say that shepherd’s fleet had arrived through the mass relay they all watched in anticipation to amazed with the arrival of the new ship that no one even said anything about the arrival of the fleet.
“We dont use dreadnought's this is a cruiser. Mind you its a super-heavy cruiser but its still a cruiser. now if you don’t mind we have to entertain our guests. Dorian bring us about and stand by to fire.” Reach said before cutting the transmission and putting his helmet on.
(citadel fleet)
[youtube=http://youtu.be/eQjC-WZ-CEo?t=38s]
Upon arrival to earth they were all expected the worst they had all fought the reapers on there planets the fighting there sill raged on as they left to aid the humans at earth, every race was here from Quarian and Geth, Turian, Volus, every one that had a fleet was here and at its head was the Normandy the ship of the legendary commander Avery shepherd.
They all expected a lot of things but no one expected to see what they did upon arrival there before them was the largest dreadnought they had ever seen. It was big it easily doubled the size of the largest dreadnought the Reapers had to offer which was bigger than any there fleet had. But what confused them was that even with the extensive scans they all did they could not get a single element zero reading from the ship and on top of that they were only getting ten life signs in the whole ship, they then saw a series of lights activate on the sides of the ship ignited illuminating the writing and symbol they had never seen before. The letters UNSC under the strange symbol and the name of the ship which sent shivers down all of there spines Harbinger. They were worried had the reapers made a new class of ship and transferred him into this new behemoth? They then heard the ships radio chatter start up.
“Redline one-one stand by for longsword launch. Two hostile space squids inbound. Standby for Heavy-MAC, Big stick out” A voice said like with the humans on the ground they all had their own questions about the ship and it origins. Before they watched as the a part of the front of the ship exploded and they watched as the 600-ton depleted uranium slug tore through space and through the Reaper dreadnought like tissue paper completely bypassing its shields and ripping a whole clean through the reaper they watched as the once mighty reaper went limb before exploding unfortunately the carnage didn’t stop there they watched as the round continued forward and impacted another reaper getting the same result before finally impacting the moon and blowing a new crater in it.
“Oh fucking shit! My bad!” they all heard they all heard a human yell only humans used those swears after all. They then expected the large ship to fire at the advancing reaper cruiser as its raised its tentacles and prepared to fire as it approached the Harbinger but what neither the Reaper or shepherd and his fleet expected was for the massive ship to simply bulldoze the cruiser and tare it in half without even slowing or changing course.
Un-Frontally a quarian cruiser had over shot the launch point and appeared next to a reaper alone and with no fighter escort.
“they need air support and they need it now. Roll in strike package Delta, authentication Reach two-three-zero-200 zulu. At time seven-600 foxtrot. Attention all aircraft this will be a danger close fire mission, Redline squadron to killbox one-alpha” A voice said quickly before what looked like an earth stingray launched from one if its hanger bays followed by twelve large grey ships that resembled gunships and after them was a cloud of other fighters.
“arival Time thirty seconds.”
“roger that Harbinger actual, Redline confirming. killbox one-alpha. Danger-close.” Onyx said as his longsword and his hk-s escort turned in the direction of the strange hamster ball ship.
“Roger that. Redline proceed to killbox one-alpha, engage hostile. Friendly’s in the area.” They heard the voice say from the harbinger.
“Roger that Redline engaging hostile, killbox one-alpha 800 feet danger-close.” They watched as onyx’s squadron made it to the quarian ship and begin firing on the reapers with a variety of weapons the silver unmanned ships that looked like gunships began firing on the reapers with what looked like plasma based weaponry while the manned stingray looking ship began strafing the reaper with two110mm rotary machine guns and missile fire effectively disabling the biggest threat.
“This is quarian vessel Tonbay. We thank you human pilot.” The captain said as an image of Onyx in his armor appeared on the main screen.
“Roger that Tonbay, Redline will stay with you as long as we can.” Onyx said calmly as he flipped two switches.
“Thank you human, we have enemy fighters inbound, Launching support fighters now. keelah selai.” The quarian responded.
“Solid copy. Longsword Redline one-one moveing to engage hostile fighters. Redlines Two and three form on my wing, four through twelve provide support for the Tonbay.” They watched as Onyx’s Longsword turned and engaged the Reaper fighters despite his crafts size it moved very quickly.
The other ships in were shocked when they watched the Harbinger fire open fire with its vast assortment of weapons everything from rail guns to laser turrets to missiles and machine guns all of which short of the machine guns which were for destroying fighters destroyed the reapers they hit. They were amazed when they saw one hundred of the three hundred unmanned drones brake off from the Maine group and come there way and when they were close enough they turned around and began engaging again. Getting the signal they all flew into the fight. They all spared another look and they saw that the Harbinger was actually gaining the majority of the Reaper fleets attention as it continued to battle alone giving them the element of surprise somewhat. They all saw one thing that amazed them again one reaper had gotten close enough to fire its weapon at the ship and when they expected it to take damage they were amazed when a strange yellow and white shield appeared and took the hit, before the offending reaper was destroyed by a GRENDEL laser.
As the citadel fleet moved in unfortunately the Reapers began to notice when some of there ships were destroyed be ships what weren't the Habinger. But they watched as another cloud of 500 Wombats flew out of its hanger bays, and 900 ARGUS drones flew out and supported there landing craft as they made their way to earth. And out of every one present the the residence of Sidewinder who were just remaining silent, commander Sheppard and his crew, the citadel fleet, the alliance, and the Reapers one thing was clear to them all only to the Freelancers was it apparent.
The third battle for Earth had begun.
Author's Note
Hay i need help i need squad and squadron names for the future battle. so i am asking you loyal readers to leave names and the species of the squad suggestions in the comments.
and thanks for reading.
earth part two. Get ready to drop
“Tonbay Two-three, bogies on your six, Redline one-one moving to engage.” Onyx said as he followed the Quarian fighter into a debris field.
“I’ve got tone. Redline one-one, Fox two.” The longsword fired a Medusa missile at the Reaper fighter destroying it. He then formed on the Quarian fighter’s wing. However As Redline squadron fought the Tonbay was then hit by a stray Reaper laser.
“This is the Tonbay we have taken damage requesting assistance.” the Quarian ship pleaded as one of its engines exploded.
“Tonbay this is Harbinger actual. Move to boarding position on out right side, i repeat aft side. Redlines three through seven will guide you in.” the harbinger said and after a pause the captin of the Tonbay came back on.
“Roger that Harbinger actual. Moving now.” the quarian ship then banked to the right and began limping its way to the harbinger. They were wondering where Redline was.
“This is Romero one-one Requesting assistance.” Onyx heard a human’s voice come over the com. And when he looked he saw a human fighter being chased by three Reaper fighters.
“Roger that Romero moving to…!” Onyx started before he was hit by enemy fire blowing a hole in his right wing and causing it to spew smoke as he continued to fly.
“Negative! Negative! hostile engaged! Taking damage.” he quickly gave control of the fighter to Pandora and got on the 120mm Ventral gun he swiveled around and began firing at the offending fighter. His longsword started deploying flares and weaving through the ever increasing debris field.
“Romero one-one, Cyanide one-one is inbound.” They haired a female voice say from the ancient craft. And to the human’s relief there were a series of explosions behind him and a strange looking fighter pulled up next to him he looked into the cockpit and saw a slight red glow from a ball on the console and no pilot.
“Romero one-one form on my wing your ship has been destroyed.” The human pilot heard inside of his comm.
“Solid copy forming on your wing.” the human said as he formed on the wing of the new version of the old 21st century F/A-37 Talon, the new version being UNSC F-66 Gladius.
“This is the Turian cruiser Tyrannous Requesting assistance, there is a Reaper on our hull. Requesting assistance.”
“Roger that Tyrannous stand by MAC 1-0-1 heavy is inbound. Hold on its about to get loud.” The Turians in the Tyrannous were very relieved when the Reaper on their hull had a whole blown though it, unfortunately the explosion had damaged some of their systems.
“Tyrannous you have taken damage to your power core. Move to our port-side and prepaid for docking.” another voice said with a strange echoing effect to it. Comping from the Harbinger.
“Under stood chaining course.”
“This the Normandy, breaking engagement moving to planet’s surface.” A voice said over the radio. Immediately Reach switched the HUDs of the 900 Wombat Drones off setting them to AI mode. He also sent a rallying slipspace message before doing a size comparison of the Normandy.
“Normandy 100meters thats it?, Fucking small ass ship, Yacht class civilian Starship, Seriously they think its a frigate? Its like the size of two longsword put together, its a bomber.” reach said to himself as he scanned the Normandy
“This is UNSC Super heavy-cruiser Harbinger to SSV Normandy SR2. Do you read?” Reach said over his radio.
“This is Commander Shepard. Go ahead Harbinger.” a calm male voice said
“We will cover your descent Normandy. This is harbinger to allied fleet prepare ground teams, and wait for our mark.” Reach said getting a conformation from the fleet.
“Stand by.” They all heard as they waited they watched as all of the Harbingers hanger bays opened up followed by a series of flaps opening up on the bottom of the ship’s hull.
“This is UNSC Harbinger to allied London forces clear the kill-zone. Redline one-one use Shiva class maximum yield, clear a path for the landing teams.” Reach said.
“Solid copy, launching payload maximum yield.” Onyx said as his longsword fired its payload and made a sharp turn to return to the ship followed by the other HK units and the quarian fighters that had formed on his wing. They all watched as the missile flew into the middle of a large group of Reapers there was then a blinding flash of light.
“We have cleared the kill-zone I hope you know what you’re doing.” They heard Councilor Anderson comment and when they all regained their vision they saw that where there once was a rather large group of Reaper dreadnoughts and destroyers was now nothing but a few pieces of molten, scrap, and a lot of radiation.
“What was THAT!?” Shepard yelled summing up the questions of the entire fleet and the forces on earth,
“That was a nine stage fusion reaction, 20 megaton thermonuclear warhead. The smallest nuclear weapon in the harbinger’s arsenal, and one of the smallest in the UNSC.”
“Keelah why would someone make that!” one of the Quarian admirals pleaded.
“Because we could. Oh you should see the NOVA Bomb it’s ungodly. It is a 4,825,774 megaton thermonuclear fusion warhead, encased in lithium triteride. When detonated, it compresses its fissionable material to neutron-star density, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold. Oh it is so awesome I got so see it once. We call’em planet-killers.” Reach said with boyish glee
“This is UNSC harbinger to ground teams, hold on to your teeth. Main cannon is locked on and ready to fire.” Dorian said
“You heard the man this is harbinger.” They all heard Reach yell and just as there landing craft reached his ships side to pass it they saw it fire its main gun.
“Clearing landing zone. This is harbinger actual beginning decent firing Super-Heavy MAC. AKA Hot pocket” They watched as a massive explosion rocked the front of the ship and they watched it fire its 3000-ton ferric-tungsten round at one third the speed of light. and too bad for the unfortunate Reapers that were in atmosphere that tried to ascend to engage the incoming landing craft when the round blow past them and impact the kill zone and make a three mile crater.
“Did you just call it a hot pocket?”
“Hay it wasn’t named before, and im hungry so its hot pocket.” The beta 5 merc said to his ODST team mate.
“But you don’t need to eat?”
“Fuck you.”
“LZ is clear. Council fleet stand by for inbound support. You are clear to launch landing craft.” Reach said as Onyx docked his now damaged longsword with the Harbinger followed by the quarian fighters who easily fit in the expansive hanger bay. As he walked down the boarding ramp of the longsword to greet the quarians who were now beginning to exit there fighters. He he was glomped by Pinkie pie and Rainbow dash who had ran from the bridge to the hanger bay.
“Onyxie you’re alright!” the pink mare yelled as she hugged him. The quarirans who were now all out of there fighters just watched the strange armored human on the ground with a strange pink armored creature and another in cyan armor.
“Ya why would I not be?” he asked as he got up
“Because your airship…”
“Ah don’t worry about it those things are built like tanks.” Onyx said, the then others teleported to the hanger bay and ran up to the freelancer.
“This is the Tonbay we are in position. This is the tyrannous we are in docking position.” they heard over the loud speaker.
“Roger that, we will transport you to hanger bay twelve.” reach said over the loudspeaker
“How will you...” they heard before about two hundred yellow pillars, of light appeared in the hanger bay
“do that?” a strange scaly bird-looking thing asked before they all started freaking out.
“Whats going on! Is this some kind of human trick?” that liked like a glorified jackal.
“What are you going to do Turian? Make there race sterile to?” a large dinosaur looking thing said that looked like a cross between an elite, a brute, and a camel.
“What? Don t you people have teleporters?” Onyx asked getting angry glares from there new guests.
“Who is the captain of this amazing vessel?” the strange armored alien with a fishbowl looking helmet asked trying to calm the tension.
“That would be me I guess? I am the highest ranking one here.” They heard a familiar voice say.
“This guy looks like he could do some damage.” a Krogan commented when they turned around they saw Reach and Maine down with them loading weapons Reach with a new MA5D assault rifle, right behind them was a T-7T this thing really needs a name.
“What are you doing here reach?” Onyx asked his Synthetic partner
“Your mom.” he responded making the current occupants question the maturity of the captain of the most deadly ship in the galaxy. As they all watched as two fighters entered through the hanger bay door, One was a regular alliance human fighter, and the other was jet black with reverse facing wings it just hovered in the air before lowing it self to the deck.
“Hay! I-i-is that a Gladius!?” Onyx yelled tearing his helmet off and pointing at the fighter.
“Yes”
“Oh my god! Thats badass!” Onyx yelled as he watched as Reach walked up to a combat kestral.
“i dont get it what could possibly be appealing about such a garish contraption?” Rarity asked.
“Well my dear...” Reach started, but before he could finish something just wired happened.
“Reach! Onyx! Help me!” they heard spike yell.
“What is it spike?” Reach asked as he gestured for Maine to go to a D96-TCE Albatross heavy drop-ship. The Krogan and the Turians followed Maine to the dropship.
D96-TCE Albatross heavy drop-ship
When they turned they saw spike but next to him was another purple dragon she like spike wore no cloths for some reason. Actually there were very few differences between the two dragons. The first and most obvious was the feminine build, next came the fact that unlike Spike who’s green spine things were smooth hers were actuality jagged.
“Ok whats your name not-spike?” Reach asked the dragoness.
“Im Barbara Sparkle.” she answerd.
“Spike. Im going to give you five seconds to start explaining what happened here, before I shoot you in the head.” Reach said agitated taking his pistol off of its mag rail pointed it at spikes head.
“Reach! I simply wont allow you to harm Spiky wi...” Rarity
“Fine. Just dont finish the phrase It gives me a headache.” Reach said and let it hang by his side. She may have been his quote “girl friend” same with cadence and chrysalis sort of. But when they pulled shit like this they were relay lucky he was being payed to keep them alive.
“Thanks Rarity.” Spike said
“Alright. What were you doing before this happened?” Reach asked as he did a full scan with both his bio medical scanner from his DRN, Terminator hardware and did a full bio-scan with his helmets bio-com. Satisfied that she posed no threat he decided to walk over to the Combat kestrel and began the flight check as the others walked over to here the explanation.
“Well I was walking around the ship. When I walked into a room.” Spike started
“What was in the room?” Reach asked as he picked up a missile and loaded it into one of the pods. He had his helmet clipped to his waist as he worked.
“Well I walked passed a cage. And in it was a weird looking bug thing.”
“What did it look like” reach asked turning to them they saw a series of blue lines go across the right side of his face as he accessed the network.
“it was a four-legged thing, about two to three meters long, it was yellow and black.The rear pair of legs were much longer than the two front forelegs. It had a big pincer like mouth and had side mandibles on the side of its head.” spike said after a small pause
“ok here was it this? Its an Arachnid warrior they were one of the species we were fighting when the unsc activated halo. Any way continue” Reach said as a hologram of the worrier appeared in front of them.
“Ok well then it woke up and looked at me and it jumped at the cage and made me fallback and I hit my head on a computer. There were a lot of blue lightning bolts and it breathed fire in shock and then when I woke up she was here.” Spike explained.
“I know what happened.” Reach said as he put his helmet on
“What happened?” Barbara asked before anyone could ask.
“simple. He activated the ships time distortion unit. What happened was he scratched his arm in the fall and activated the unit, and went back in time. When he landed his fire must have his his baby egg in one of its key stages of development. And if what my fictional knowledge of dragons is true you raised the temperature and made it a female egg. And since the device was locked on you from the present it brought you back and brought her with you because you both share the same DNA.” Onyx head bobbed.
“You have Time travel!?” one of the quarians asked.
“Well the terminators made them.” Onyx said plainly
“Why?”
“I dont know?”
“This is fucking retarded! You quarians get in that ship!” Reach yelled pointing to two pelicans with an ED unit being loaded onto the back.
“Seriously! I thought I left this dumb shit in Valhalla! Get ready to go planet side.” Reach yelled at them as he turned to walk into the the kestral.
“Onyx I want you on the ground leading our troops.” he ordered getting a nod from his partner who ran over and got in a drop pod.
“Barb you stay here with them, they will take care of you.” Reach said gesturing to the other residents of sidewinder.
“But I want to come to spike got to see the other planet. And My names Barbara.” the Dragoness corrected.
“Ya to bad and that takes to long to say your name is Barb.” Reach said annoyed.
“Ok But im telling you it wont stick.” she said
Barb!
"Trust me it'll stick."
“Yay we made a new friend!” Zeta yelled as Reach turned to walk inside of his kestrel passed the small passenger section.
“Shut up Zeta. Alright People harbinger is going in on the second wave. Stand by for launch.” the resadents of equesrtia heard him say as the kestral started to lift off. They knew better then to question Reach when he was getting serious since last time, they turned and began walking away as the hanger door opened and the aircraft in the hanger began to lift off.
“So Barb what was it like where you were from?” Twilight asked but when she got no response she turned to see she wasn’t with them
“Hay where is Barb?” she asked.
“This is Freelancer Reach to all allied units. This is it second wave advance.” they all heard and saw the kestrel rocket out of the hanger door followed by Romero.
“Oh no.” Celestia commented.
“Come on you apes!, do want to live forever!” every one in the fleet heard as they watched as Reaches Combat kestral lead the attack.
Author's Note
Pleas exude the errors in the story. i am currently trying yo find a new editor/proofreader.
http://ss2sonic.deviantart.com/art/MLP-Female-Spike-303966956
