Crimson

"Initiate Lock-down Sequence 3-Delta-9, override Victor-Sierra-Four-Six-One!" Five ordered to the ship's A.I.

"Override accepted, initiating lock-down," Sid replied.

As the A.I. locked down sections of the Frigate, Five removed his helmet and sighed as he placed it onto a table. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he spoke.

"If any of you aren't capable of handling gore or violence, please leave the room before I begin to explain our situation," he said.

The ponies looked between one another before Twilight said something.

"Why?"

"Because that ship out there," Five said pointing to the projection of the Covenant Corvette, "means that the Covenant are here, on this planet. The same Covenant that I told you about, Twilight."

Twilight paled as she remembered the Spartan's words about the alien religion. She gulped and nodded.

"P-pinkie, Fluttershy, please take Spike and the Crusaders out of the room," she suggested.

"Wait, what's going on, Twilight?" Fluttershy asked.

"War," Five answered.

Pinkie corralled the Crusaders and ushered them into the hallway, followed by Fluttershy and Spike before Rarity got up as well. Once they left the room, Chrysalis looked up to the Spartan's face to see his expression. Fear. A similar brand to that she faced since her birth, but so much more pronounced on the warrior's face.

"Sid, close the door."

The door behind Five and Chrysalis slid closed as Five moved away from the table he was at.

"I can imagine that some of you have questions."

"Yeah, I've got a few," a unicorn Guard said. "Namely, what in Celestia's mane is a 'Covenant'?"

"The Covenant are religious fanatics who almost slaughtered my entire species," Five answered bluntly. "They are a militant compilation of different species that follow a single strict religion. When my kind first encountered them, we invited them to a nice dinner, offered them some food and unarmed ourselves to show that we didn't mean harm."

Five walked over to the holoscreen and input his ID, scrolling through a list of code names.

"They responded by slaughtering everyone there and burned the surface of the planet until it was glass."

The holoscreen view changed to show Harvest.

The ponies gasped at the sight of the scarred planet. The Guards gulped as they examined the damage to an entire planet that they did.

"And they declared us an affront to their religion," Five continued. "They said that our very existence is an insult to their gods, and that we needed to be exterminated. And they almost made good on their word."

Five shifted the image to show more planets being glassed, a video of Madrigal being glassed, and images of Elites mowing down civilians on Eridanus II. The Spartan looked back to see the ponies' reactions. Applejack was pale in the face, holding her hat to her torso while Twilight covered her muzzle with her hooves, her face tinting green. The Guards were wearing horrified expressions as they watched the horrors of a real war unfold before them. One of them removed his helmet to rub his hooves over his head, shaking in his place.

"They glassed at a minimum, minimum," Five emphasized, "of 76 planets, exterminating an estimate of 23 billion Human beings, wiping out approximately one half of our species. And we're still tallying up the total number to. This. Day."

"Dear Celestia," one of the Guards said as he watched the carnage on the screen.

"They are as ruthless as they are technologically advanced. They are all armed with plasma-based weaponry as well as other forms of ballistics that we are not entirely familiar with. Their fleets were just as powerful in our encounters with them. During the initial battle over Harvest, the world where we had made First Contact with the Covenant, they had a single ship in orbit above the planet. The Colonial Military Administration responded by sending in the Destroyer, CMA Heracles, and the Frigates Vostok and Arabia, to combat the vessel. In a battle that lasted all of 14 seconds."

Five let that fact sink in and heard a gulp from one of the Guards.

"In the next battle over Harvest, the UNSC assembled the largest, at that time, battle group, known as Battle group X-ray, consisting of 40 ships in total, and engaged the Covenant. Austerlitz. Camp Grande. Constantinople. Excellence. Lance Held High. Lowrentz. Maelstrom. Midway. Sacramento. Tharsis. Troy. Virginia Capes. Waterloo. Those thirteen vessels were lost in the battle, against one Covenant ship."

The got the Guards to drop their jaws.

"We fought against them for 28 years before we managed to pull a literal miracle out of God-knows-where. They ended up undergoing a civil war of their own and did us a favor by annihilating most of their own fleets. Even then, we barely managed to scrape by on the skin of our teeth."

Five turned his full attention to the Guards.

"Any other questions?"

\\\//////

Chrysalis recoiled as she took in the information, trying her damnedest to keep it from the Hive. The destruction, the death, the sheer overwhelming odds that were now being stacked against this very planet... she couldn't believe it.

And from what she could feel, neither could they. Twilight Sparkle and Applejack were filled with horror and disgust that such beings could exist at all. They couldn't begin to fathom that level of death and suffering.

The Royal Guards couldn't properly think either, as they were filled with far more fear than anger at her. In fact, she couldn't sense any of that hatred of her from any of them. They were too afraid of what was going to come after them.

"What do we do?" one of them asked.

Five sighed.

"At this moment, we have absolutely no idea what they're boasting in terms of troop numbers, nor do we know how many ships they have. It could only be that Corvette, but I'm not about to risk all of our lives on a gamble. The best we can to right now is cut all communications and shut down all non-critical systems to keep them from noticing the Pale Horse. If they send some kind of scouts this way... I think I could hijack their ride and upload a link to Sid so he can analyze what they've got. But until then, we bunker down here, repair this ship, and try to find a way off this world."

"Off this world!?" Twilight shrieked. "You're just going to leave Equestria and this entire planet to them!?" she cried with tears pouring from her eyes.

"What the hell else am I supposed to do!?" Five countered. "I have no reinforcements, no accurate measurements of how many I'll be going up against, and just so you know, this ship can't move! So if I do anything at all to draw attention, we're FUCKED! You think I want to be unable to fight them right now!? If I could, I'd go out there right now and kick their collective asses into the fucking Sun! But I can't because I'll put everyone here at risk!" Five took a moment to calm down as Twilight recoiled from the outburst. "Besides, if they haven't started bombarding this planet from orbit, that means they need you all alive for something. Maybe they want new recruits, maybe they found some kind of artifact to worship on this planet, I don't know, but if they haven't burned down anything at this point, they may very well not for a long time."

\\\//////

Zear Vadamee shifted a bit as the Phantom flew over the primitive's city, the white and gold structures an abhorrent mess to the Sangheili's eyes.

Eventually, the Phantom descended near the large castle as the doors opened.

"Make haste, brothers!" he called to the Minors behind him. "Our Lord has given us this chance to prove ourselves worthy of ascension! Let us show him that there are no others more worthy than the sons of Sangheilios!"

The other Sangheili shouted as they readied themselves.

The Ultra turned to the opened doors and jumped out.