Crimson

Five charged through the open field that led to the Strident Frigate, and looked up once to see the name: UNSC Pale Horse.

'This was one of the escorts for Infinity' he thought to himself.

An opened airlock was within his sight, and the Spartan charged straight for it. He stopped short, however, when he noticed a three-legged Changeling sprawled out on the ground in front of it. She didn't bother so much as to turn its head at him when he approached.

"Hello?" Five questioned her.

The Changeling was larger, yet slimmer than Fang was, and groaned with a lighter tone in its voice.

"Stay with me," Five stated as he knelt down and opened the duffel bag.

Five pulled out a white box with a red cross on it, and pulled open the container. Without hesitation, he pulled out a disinfectant spray and held one hand on the side of the Changeling before speaking to it again.

"This is gonna sting, but it'll help, alright?"

Without waiting for a response, Five began to apply the disinfectant across the plasma burn, and instantly, the Changeling began screaming.

\\\//////

Psych paused fiddling with the alien technology as he sensed a Changeling's scream echoing through the lower levels, outside the Haven.

"Sensing something, Psych?" the General, Sickle, asked the Sensorling.

"Screams of pain, one floor down, outside," Psych stated in his usual monotone.

"Another one o' these?" Tumbler asked, kicking a dead alien.

"I do not know yet. We need to go. Now."

The other warriors nodded before bolting off towards the source of the scream.

\\\//////

The Changeling fidgeted underneath Five's grasp as he brought out a roll of gauze to apply to the burn. Behind him, Twilight, Fang, and Creak all landed and approached the injured Changeling, with Creak leading. The nymph ran beside the injured Changeling's head and began to sob.

"Sp-sputter," he cried, "d-don't go-o-o-o-o!"

"What happened?" Fang asked as he approached to examine the burnt chitin.

"Intense plasma burn, probably from a Plasma Pistol overcharge."

"Can you help her?" Fang asked, on the brink of tears.

"I've done as much as I can. She won't get an infection, and I've sealed the burn. We need to get her medical attention ASAP."

"Wha... w-what..." Twilight stammered at a loss for words.

Five ignored the pony's fear as he sealed the duffel bag with the Med-Kit inside. The Spartan reached behind himself and pulled the M45-D Shotgun off the magnetic locks on his back before replacing it with his Battle Rifle. He lifted the female Changeling and placed her on top of Fang, who shifted a bit to carry her. Five pumped the Shotgun before turning back to the entrance.

"Let's move."

With his weapon ready and Changelings following, Five walked aboard the only hope he had left on this planet.

\\\//////

"Something came inside the Haven," Psych stated as he paused.

The other two Specialists stopped in their tracks as the Sensorling closed his eyes and focused on the disturbance in the electric field of the metal building.

"It is a bipedal, like the ones we killed, but the anatomy is off. There are three young Changelings with it, one a nymph and another an adolescent. The third is wounded, but is being carried by the adolescent. Wait... a fifth..."

Psych snapped his eyes open as he bolted down the hallway, the General and the Phalanx not even a second behind.

"What's the fifth!?" Sickle asked as they turned another corner.

"Wings. Horn. Pony. Powerful. Deadly."

Those words were enough for the Specialists to intercept their targets with heightened vigor.

\\\//////

Five jogged down the corridor at a decent pace, peeking around another corner while he waited for the Changelings and Twilight to catch up. Every time he looked back, he saw Creak looking between him and Twilight, fear and confusion dominant in his expression, while Twilight couldn't stop staring at the spot where the female Changeling's leg should be.

The Spartan shook his head as he turned another corner. This time, however, he saw a new type of Changeling that looked like a baby Hunter. Its horns glowed for a moment before a wall of green energy erupted in the hallway, blocking the Spartan from his path.

"The Hell?" he spoke as he took a step back.

As he did, two more unique Changelings stepped before him, standing behind the transparent green wall. Five kept his weapon down, but still kept his finger on the trigger.

"What are you?" the Changeling with antennae spoke.

"Spartan V-461, Sergeant Five of the UNSC Infinity," Five answered automatically. "Drop the shield."

"And let you attack our family?" the one holding the shield asked sarcastically. "Not a chance!"

"I've got wounded here that need immediate medical attention," Five stated as he motioned for Fang to come up.

The Changeling stepped forward with the female on his back, and the sight of seeing one of theirs wounded caused the soldiers to reel back for a second.

"What happened?" the one holding the shield asked.

"Apparently, she ran into an Elite Zealot and was shot by an overcharged Plasma Pistol," Five answered.

"Where is the other one?" the antennae one asked.

"What other one? You mean Creak?"

Five turned to his left to watch as the nymph ran past his legs as Twilight was not far behind.

"It approaches," the same one spoke.

The other two got into a defensive stance as Twilight rounded the corner and froze. Her breathing went thin as she gazed towards the other Changelings, watching as they prepared to attack. Five punched the wall beside him twice to draw everyone's attention, causing the lot of non-humans to flinch as the sound of crunching metal.

"Enough!" he growled. "We don't have time to deal with this kind of shit right now! There are Covenant running around this ship and they're probably trying to either kill all of your kind, or destroy this ship! Now stop acting like brats and move out!"

The Changelings looked up at the Spartan with mixed gazes of anger, fear, and a hint of something else. Five stepped past them and spoke on an open comms channel.

"This is Spartan V-461 of the UNSC Infinity, codename, 'Five,' does anyone read me?"

"ZZZZHHHHZHZHZHZHZHZZZZHH SpartAAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEGGGGGGHHHHH," came the response.

"Repeat, this is Spartan V-461 of the UNSC Infinity, codename, 'Five,' how copy, over?"

"Spart-ttttttttt. R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-reading clear," an artificial voice spoke. "Jammer di-zzzzzzzz," was all Five heard before the comms shut down.

Just as the Spartan was about to mutter a curse, another objective marker appeared on his HUD. Without hesitation, Five broke into a sprint down the halls of the Frigate.

\\\//////

Twilight looked upon the Changelings uneasily as they led her down several hallways in a slow, deliberate pace. The injured one was on the armored one's back, while Fang and Creak stood close to the larger, almost mutated Changeling. The last one, with antennae, was behind her, keeping up some kind of field around both itself and her. Deciding it be best to relieve the tension of the situation, Twilight started to talk.

"So, um... what kind of Changelings are you? I don't remember seeing any of your kind during the invasion of Canterlot."

"We were held back on orders of Her Majesty," the antennae one responded in a flat tone.

"Why? You seem like you could have had an advantage with the variety I see here," Twilight suggested, more focused on learning about the species than what they had done recently.

"'Cause we're too good to lose in the invasion," the bulky one responded.

"Then what were you supposed to do?"

"Initially," the one behind Twilight continued, "we were supposed to wait until the entire city was secured, and then split up into teams that would work their way into more sparsely populated towns nearby, such as Ponyville or Dodge Junction. Unfortunately, when the invasion failed, we had to fall back to support what was left of our kind."

Twilight nearly stopped walking before the Changeling behind her bumped into her, causing her to keep moving.

"What do you mean, 'what's left of your kind'?" she asked hesitantly.

"Enough questions about the invasion," the armored one spoke, "talk about something else."

Twilight paused in thought for a moment before coming back to her original question.

"So, what kind of Changelings are you?"

"I am what is known as a 'Sensorling,' because of my antennae. We are specialists in intelligence, covert operations, and are apparently adept at interacting with electronic devices, as I discovered during my time undercover at a laboratory."

"I'm a prime example of a Phalanx," the heavy one responded. "We're the baddest, toughest part of Her Majesty's Army."

"General," the armored one responded casually. "We're the ones that give orders when the Queen is busy."

The alicorn nodded at each of them, examining the differences between each of the subspecies.

"Should we try to catch up with Five?" she suggested.

"The red one? No," the General answered, "we were told that if we see him, we are to inform the Queen and wait for her to speak with him."

"You refer to him as a 'him,'" Twilight pointed out. "How did you know he was actually a 'he'? Why would you identify him as a 'him'? I thought-"

"You thought wrong," the General interrupted. "From what the Queen tells us, he's a warrior like any of us, and should be respected as such. Did you think we wouldn't consider him an actual living creature because he's a different species from us?"

Twilight wanted to respond, but then realized the message that was between the lines. They were demonstrating how different they were to ponykind. They were willing to address an alien life form as an actual individual, instead of an it that she had thought of him. The same way she still thought of them. That thought made her cringe. Here she was in the middle of an alien ship being told off by Changelings about how poorly her kind had apparently reacted to them. Maybe it had something to do with ancient history, but she didn't want to try and defend what they thought of her. Instead, she opted to droop her ears and say nothing as they continued to walk towards the Medical Deck.

\\\//////

Five rounded another corner as he heard the chopped language of the Elites being screamed as plasma weapons discharged on the opposite side of the doorway. When he came around the corner, he looked down and saw a sealed hangar bay with a firefight already in progress. Two Elites, a Minor in blue and an Ultra in white, were firing at two spheres of green energy being held around two groups of Changelings. Behind the Elites was the entrance to a purple entrance embedded into the barrier of the hangar. It didn't take a degree in Slipspace Engineering to figure out what was going on here. The Spartan bounded off of the upper floor and braced himself to crush the Minor.

\\\//////

Behind a wall of green magic, Plate could only cry in fear as two monsters continued to pound at the shields being held up by already wounded warriors. Three others were all huddled together under the opposite shield as blue and green energies continued to ravage the shields. A voice was heard shouting before the two monsters turned away from the Changelings and fired at something else.

Plate watched in a mix of terror and awe as a third monster jumped down from the floor above the other two, and was stunned as it came down on top of the blue one. It reached one of its red arms around the blue one's head, grabbed something, and twisted it swiftly. A wet snap came from the blue creature as its head was turned in the opposite direction.

The white one roared at the red one as they both charged each other. As the white one got close, it drew out two small objects as they began to glow green. When it saw them, the red one raised its black stick and pointed it at one of the green lights. A loud bang reverberated through the massive room as the white monster flashed blue before one of its arms fell off in a shower of blue blood. It stumbled and roared as the red one slammed a fist into the side of its head and leveled the weapon at its neck. Another bang caused the helmet of the white one to explode off in another rain of blue liquid.