Crimson

Celestia watched as yet another battle took place before her, yet again. As she looked out, she could see a dreaded sight: a Dragon Sky Fortress. The massive stone fortress looked much like regular towns made of stone, only floating a few thousand hooves in the air. Stretching out at least three kilometers in diameter, the circular fortress fired off beams of magical fire into a fleet of Royal Airships, turning them to ash as it continued to float over the landscape. What she thought was a memory, however, was soon confirmed as something else, as it began to move towards Ponyville. She could hear the screams of Canterlot Nobles as they panicked through the streets beneath her, screaming as the stone castle of death approached through the sky. While that went on, however, a massive, silver metallic shape rose out from the deeper parts of the Everfree Forest. One green shape in particular, however, rose higher than the Sky Fortress, and soon dropped off two shapes. Celestia focused on one of the shapes, and found herself unable to gasp as she recognized the red metallic beast she had seen in the forest, and in her last nightmare. It descended upon the Sky Fortress with a massive stone object, covered in green, glowing runes as it stuck small objects to the side of it. Two flaming shapes flew past it and exploded upon the fortress from above. The creature kicked off of the stone and tumbled into the green shape, which looked like a metallic dragon. When the stone sunk beneath the surface of the Sky Fortress' top layer, it exploded in green fire, consuming the entire structure in a sickening light as it fell to ashes before it could rain fire onto Ponyville.

\\\//////

The Solar Princess tried to breath quickly as she woke up, but found herself stunned by the amount of pain she felt in the side of her face. Before she could raise a hoof to it, however, several voices called out to her before her vision began to swim, and she closed her eyes, crying from the intensity of the pain.

\\\//////

Dagger Scale watched as the young ones began to all examine the armor that lay before them. It was simple, traditional Dragon Kin armor, stone plates held together by special strings weaved from Spider-Lambs that herd in the southern parts of the Edge of the World. He looked out towards the highest point of the mountain, and watched as several hundreds of his brothers began to cheer as one of the Eldest stood at the top of the highest peak.

"THE EQUESTRIANS HAVE EVADED OUR WRATH FOR TOO LONG!!!" he spoke with unrivaled might. "WE HAVE SEEN IT, MY BROTHERS! NOT ONLY DO THEY TAUNT US WITH THEIR CITY MADE OF GOLD, BUT NOW THEY MOCK US BY BUILDING AN EMPIRE! MADE OF CRYSTALS!!!"

The rest of the Dragons screamed and breathed fires of hatred as they made their rage heard.

"THIS TIME, WE WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS! WE WILL TAKE THIS TO THEIR PRECIOUS TOWNS, THEN TO THEIR HEART, AND WHEN THEY BEG FOR MERCY, AMONGST THEIR ASHES, WE SHALL CONSUME THEIR CITIES AND THEIR FLESH! WE WILL BURN THEM UNTIL GLASS IS ALL THAT REMAINS! WE WILL NOT BE MADE FOOLS OF! WE WILL TAKE OUR PLACE AS THE APEX, AND WE WILL WIPE THEIR UNGRATEFUL HIDES OFF THE FACE OF THIS WORLD, ALONG WITH ANY WHO DARE STAND IN THE WAY OF OUR RIGHTEOUS PATH!"

Dagger made himself heard as well, as they all shot their flames into the sky, calling out for blood and war.

Soon, these ponies would know their place.

\\\//////

Five examined the contents of the bag he had been carrying for hours, as several objects were spread across the table before him. He started with the weapons, counting off one MA5D, one Battle Rifle, one M45D Shotgun, one DMR, two Fragmentation grenades, two M6-H Magnums, and one Sniper Rifle, with its scope set to its side. The Spartan sighed as he looked over the remaining equipment, the Jet-Pack extension to the side while he attached the Promethean Vision to his helmet. After a few test scans, showing a number of the others he had seen leaving, he wrote it off as "functional" for the most part. When he scanned, however, the larger form of the blue one stayed by the door to the room he was in, as if she were contemplating whether or not to go in and speak to him.

After having dismissed the larger pony, he went to checking the functionality of each weapon, checking the magazines, unloading the chambers, checking the barrels for any debris, and loading them back up. The Sniper, however, seemed to be a problem, as he had no ammo for it currently, and it's just using up space at this point. Five sighed as he had no idea what to do with the useless weapon, thinking he should have left it in the Pelican before detonating the C-7.

Just as he finished checking everything, Five heard the door above him open as Luna sounded her way down.

"Are you still awake?"

"Still debating on that," Five replied.

The blue pony stopped before him and stared at his weapons with interest and suspicion.

"Are those-"

"Mine, yes. Weapons, yes. Armed, yes. Dangerous? Only if you make me use them," Five spoke before she could make a sentence.

"Alright then... so, after speaking with Twilight and the others, I noticed several things and wished to confirm them. Are you actually a soldier?"

"Yes. I used to be a Marine, then an Orbital Drop-Shock Trooper, or ODST, then I became a Spartan, what you see now."

"Hmm. And... what about this war you were in? Don't try and censor anything, I've seen centuries of conflict," she added with a hint of power in her voice.

Five sighed as he shook his head.

'She asked,' he thought darkly.

"In 2525, on a colony called 'Harvest', my kind made contact with an alien alliance known as the Covenant. After they attacked, they burned a majority of the planet to glass. Years later, they found my homeworld, and burned that too."

"I heard. But exactly how bad was it, truly?"

Five took in a deep breath.

"I saw hundreds of worlds burn before them. We threw everything, and I mean everything we had at them, trying to find something to slow them down. They were beyond ruthless."

The words burned Five's throat as he saw Luna widen her eyes.

"They were merciless. Beyond any kind of civil approach. I had seen some use our dead as shields, stacked them up as cover, knowing we wouldn't desecrate our fallen. They feigned civilian transmissions to lure in recovery and civilian groups to slaughter them. God, I saw them throw children, children, at us, strapped with explosives, daring us to either leave them or try and save them. I would not hesitate to sign up again, however, because to me, the UNSC didn't just stand against the annihilation of our species, I saw it as us standing against tyranny. We suffered those losses, lost hundreds of worlds and gave billions of lives, so that the Covenant wouldn't be able to unleash their wrath on anyone else. We stopped them, in the end, and that's all that matters. I'd like to say that we managed to make a truce between what was left, but we're still feeling the backlash from remnants of the old Covenant."

Silence overcame the room as the pony stood still as a statue. Five turned back to check the equipment he still had, such as the Med-Kit and the MREs, but found some... thing, sitting before him. It looked as though some ONI bastards had gotten shit-faced beyond Human capabilities and sewed together whatever animal they were fucking in a cage at the time to every spare bit of anything that used to breath together and then asked a child to draw it out after watching a HAVOK go off at point-blank range. In its grip were three familiar silver necklaces, which it jingled in its grip like toys.

"Well, hello there," it spoke in a cocky tone. "I bet you're wondering just what I am, hmm?"

Before it could move, however, a red fist collided with its face, and screams began to wail through the room.

\\\//////

Several pieces of metal, held together by humming pieces of technology that the surface had yet to see, began to swarm around the air of a large chunk of scarred metal, familiar only to them. One large metallic structure in particular, however, scanned for any sign of intelligent presence among the wreckage, trying to find what was causing it so much distress. After a few hours of search, the large floating piece of metal found several metallic forms, curled up on the ground. Parts that should be glowing brightly were dim, and so the intelligence began to pour itself into the most intricate one. When it moved in, it found several resistant programs fighting it, but they were quickly swayed off as it uploaded the Installation's security program into them. The forms all began to glow blue and rise together, some flew with parts that were circular on their sides, others crawled around, while the majority of them stood on two thin, metallic legs that gleamed flawlessly as their bodies were scanned. The beetle-like shape began to vibrate as blue steam began to rise off of its back. Several dozen more of similar constructs began to teleport towards the Intelligence, and all bowed before it. The Intelligence spoke as it began to think into a part of the planet.

"[UPLOADING SECURITY ID... PROMETHEANS]"

The Prometheans began to teleport into the depths of the planet, phasing through layers of metal as the Intelligence finished its scan of what had landed on the planet.

"[SCANNING... SECURITY ANCILLA DOWNLOADED. NEW OBJECTIVE: LOCATE RECLAIMER]"