Chapters XXXX-XX-2558
Location: Requiem
Spartan: Five
Mission Objective:
Escape Requiem
Status: In Progress
“Crimson, get the Hell out of there!”
Was all Five could hear in his comms, with the name Commander Sarah Palmer in the corner of his visor.
He could feel the Pelican rumble everywhere around him, which didn’t help the fact that he lost the pilot when she tried dodging heavy debris, and ended up being impaled through the cockpit window, and now he had to fight the turbulence as well as the destruction of the inner part of the planet.
Five observed his surroundings as he flew the massive gunship through the tumbling ceiling scraps and noticed one thing: he was the only one left.
Palmer had already been pinged in his visor as green, along with everyone else from the ground teams. Majestic, Ivy, even the ODST evacuation security teams had made it aboard. If anything, he was holding Infinity back from fleeing Requiem. The Spartan’s train of thought was interrupted by a blast of sound from the moaning of the slipspace portal to Requiem’s outer shell. Five knew that it wouldn’t hold out much longer.
He pinged his comms and spoke.
“This is Spartan V-461 of Fire-team Crimson to Captain Lasky of the Infinity , come in, over.”
His speakers buzzed, “This is Lasky, where are you Crimson?”
“Sir, I’m too far from the portal, and there’s not enough time before it collapses. You need to get the Infinity out if here, now sir.”
Palmer chimed in, “Crimson, are you bat-shit insane!? Get to the ship, now!”
“With all due respect ma’am,” Five argued as he barreled out of the way from another lethal piece of debris, “I’ve got about ten minutes until I get to the portal, Infinity has five minutes to flee, and this Pelican’s got about seven, at best. I think that it would be better to escape with 16,000 alive instead of dying while waiting for one.”
There was silence over the radio channel as the options were weighed in by the Captain of the Infinity .
“Spartan,” started Lasky.
“Sir?”
“… It’s been an honor. Roland, prep the Infinity , prep for emergency slipspace jump!”
The radio goes silent again. Then Palmer chimes in one last time.
“Crimson, see you in Hell.”
Five smirks underneath his Mark-V helmet.
“I’ll meet you there, right before we storm the gates with the rest of them.”
The comms die out as Infinity’s signature dissipated from orbit and likely activated the Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine, leaving the system behind in the wake of a Super-nova.
Five may be a dead man, but he refused to die inside a bubble. He kicked the gunship into maximum overdrive and blasted his way through the debris field. The portal began to moan and shutter, along with the structure of the world. The blue light in the center began to flicker, and the Pelican’s left wing began to flame. Five accelerated through the last of the falling ceiling and propelled the gunship right into the collapsing portal, determined to watch the star explode on the outside, and so to say, go out with a bang. Massive constructs of metal began to clash about in the air, flying into the portal before the outer ring to the portal fell apart, and the image shuddered from its normal blue hue to a cloudy image, one that looked like a large forest. Five took the chance that it was a time-whatever that the Forerunners could fail-safe into, and pushed the Pelican even further. With one final push, the right thruster exploded, along with half of the right wing, and the Pelican dive rolled into the portal, mere seconds before the planet burst into plasma, and died out in a massive flash.
Five knew only of this:
Crimson was still operational.
\\\//////
It was a quiet night in Fluttershy’s abode. That was, until the Cutie Mark Crusaders decided to spend another night at her place for another sleep-over. Of course, the timid pegasus couldn’t say no to the most adorable little fillies in all of Ponyville. Still, she had to keep a close eye on them in case they tried to sneak into the Everfree Forest again. She dismissed these thoughts as she walked into their tent outside, along with a plate of pastries and fruits atop her wings. She placed them on the ground and laid down next to the crusaders as they continued to star-gaze.
“Oo-oo-ooh! How about that one!” asked Scootaloo.
“I think that’s a belt or something? Rarity would love that constellation.” Replied Sweetie Belle.
“Ah don’t know about that,” replied Applebloom, “but it sure is pretty. Don’t cha think so Fluttershy?”
Fluttershy looked out to them all and smiled deeply, extended her wings and hugged them all.
“I’m just glad for moments like these, when there’s nothing to worry about. I mean, a clear sky like this, a group of happy fillies, and the wonders of the night sky above us? What could possibly make this any better, or better yet, what could possibly go wrong?”
The three fillies snuggled up to Fluttershy, and sat there quietly, and drifted off to-
CRACK
The four of them shot their eyes open and looked to the sky above the Everfree forest. Fluttershy dove into the tent and peered out, shaking bad enough to rattle the entire tent.
“Relax, Fluttershy,” Scootaloo started, “It’s just the Everfree forest acting-“
CRACK CRACK CRACK
Fluttershy trembled as the onslaught of thunder claps continued their wake of terror, and the group of mares looked up to find the source. A strange blue cloud, shooting out lightning in every direction, as if to hit the sky itself.
The lighting and thunder became more and more frequent, and the thunder began to heighten in pitch.
CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK C
The storm cloud almost looked like it was exploding from the inside, and just when they were about to run inside,
CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK CRACK TSH- VVVVVVRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
What appeared to be a giant flaming bird came spinning out of the storm and zoomed straight towards the Everfree Forest, and shaking the ground with a loud crash that sent dirt and smoke flying through the air. The girls all stood there in disbelief for a few moments, mouths agape from the show they just watched, and Fluttershy just stood there, staring into the sky with almost invisible pupils, frozen in pure terror.
\\\//////
Harness watched in awe and terror as the sky itself began to rip apart above him. All around, massive chunks of metal began to fall, engulfed in flames that began to spread to the rocky gorge below. As they crashed deep within the earth, more cracks and storms ripped through the sky, sending more large, broken structures across the landscape.
Suddenly, a thunderous boom came from above him, causing Harness' reflexes to kick in and sent him flying back with a rapid motion of his wings. Where he once stood, a large metallic box crashed down. He felt himslef tumble across the dirt from the shock-wave, and struggled to keep himself from going unconscious. When he stood on shaking legs, he focused on the power within the back of his mind, and echoed into the void.
'Something's falling from the skies. It's mostly metal, and dangerous. It may be wise to avoid the wreckage, my Queen. It would draw more attention to us than we can handle.'
"Alright," the Queen's motherly voice chimed, "good job, Harness. Return to the cave, I'll examine this myself."
The Changeling gave a bow to nothing before extending his wings and buzzing back into the depths of the Everfree Forest.
Five groaned as he tried to push himself up from the massive inverted seat of the Pelican. With some strain, he was able to break his armor clad torso out of the dented metal frame. The Spartan shook his head in an attempt to gather himself before slamming a hand onto the floor of the cockpit.
"Holy shit, that was painful," he hissed underneath his Mark-V helmet.
The super soldier steadily rose to his feet over the course of a few seconds, and examined the remains of the Pelican's interior. Some parts were hanging from the ceiling, sparking off every few seconds, while smoke began to file out through the large opening in the bay of the dropship.
"Gotta get out of here."
Five walked towards the dislocated hatch in the bay of the ship, staring at the odd angle at which it hinged itself. With a mighty kick, the platform became very familiar with the ground beneath it. The Spartan slowly stepped outside of the Pelican, and examined the immediate area. Below his titanium boots was dirt, plain and simple, charred in a path that led to where he now stood, and likely beneath the metallic behemoth he proceeded to exit. Upon his contact with the ground, he looked around the area of the crash, and found himself in what looked to be a vibrantly colored forest. The trees were all colored too singularly, and appeared almost cartoonish in nature.
"Where the hell am I?" he asked no one.
He walked around the scorched end of the dropship and examined the damage to his transport. All across its side, massive scorch marks lined up and exposed several bunches of wires and tubes, which, of course, were all burnt beyond repair. The right wing of the ship was missing entirely, and the stump where it attached was burnt to a crisp, twisted in jagged formations. The Spartan gave a sigh as he walked towards the starboard exterior weapon rack to arm himself. The panel to it was burned shut, leaving Five to resort to opening it manually.
The twin plates were ripped off to reveal a small assortment of weapons to Five. There were two MA5D Assault Rifles with two spare magazines, two Battle Rifles with a single mag extra for each, and four M6H Magnums with one extra mag each. Alongside the weapons was a jetpack extension for MJOLNIR armor, a Promethean Vision armor enhancement, and two fragmentation grenades.
Without hesitating, Five examined all of the weapons, starting with the rifles. The first MA5D he checked had an empty mag, but was still functional. The second one, however, had a chunk of shrapnel lodged in the muzzle, and slit the chamber open enough to reveal a strand of magnets. He loaded the working rifle with one of the magazines before placing it on his back, with the ammunition on the belt of his Warrior torso piece. The same scenario happened when he looked over the BRs, except the second one also had the handle and trigger melted off. Only two of the Magnums were functional, and half of the ammo melted inside their containers. The jetpack clicked into his armor seamlessly, and gave no warnings when he gave it a few experimental test-fires. Five took the Promethean Vision extension and grenades and placed them alongside the ammunition for his three weapons.
With the Assault Rifle on his back, two Magnums at his side, and a BR in his grip, Five looked back to the interior of the Pelican and thought intently about the contents. He made way to the opposite side of the Pelican to search for more weapons before he would follow his training.
\\\//////
Twilight sighed contently as she rested on her pillow, pleased with the outcome of the reorganization of the library. There was an upturn in rentals lately, and many different ponies were looking around the building far more frequently. Just as this started, also, she had received word from Princess Celestia, that in a few days, she would be greeting several dignitaries as the newest Princess of Equestria. The excitement from reading that letter kept her tossing and turning in her bed, trying to calm her small burst of adrenaline so she could sleep.
Before she could become mad at her internal hyperactivity, however, a series of thunderclaps began to ring about outside. Curiosity overcoming her desire to sleep (which was already waning), she crept out of her bed and set her hooves on the wooden surface below. When she stood up, she charged up her teleportation spell and closed her eyes as she brought herself closer to the sound.
When she looked up, instead of a cloudy night sky, Twilight saw a collection of massive chunks of metal that fell from what looked like actual holes in the sky. The chunks of metal caused several minute earthquakes that shook Twilight out of her shocked stupor. She turned around to look examine the cottage of her dear friend, Fluttershy. Above it, a small, intensely dark cloud began to materialize and crack with power. Within seconds, a massive metallic form streaked across the sky, a trail of smoke and embers outlining its descent in the sky.
Twilight galloped towards Fluttershy's abode with worry gripping her heart. Upon reaching the bridge before it, Twilight could make out the outlined forms of not only her timid friend, but the CMC. With a small burst of magic, she teleported up to them.
"Are you all okay?" she asked in a slightly panicked tone.
Fluttershy jumped back a bit, along with the Crusaders, when the lavender alicorn appeared before them.
"Twilight! Thank goodness it's you!" Fluttershy stated while holding a hoof to her chest.
"What was that, Twilight?" Sweetie Belle asked.
"I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before. Right now, though, you four need to get out of here. That last one was too close to call 'safe'."
Twilight turned towards the forest and looked in with vigor.
"I need to see what that was. If I can get a close enough analysis of it, maybe Celestia or Luna could find out what this all is."
She teleported towards the infamous entrance to the forest before the others could argue with her.
\\\//////
Five hefted the small duffel bag over his left shoulder plate, the sounds of several metallic objects colliding a slight comfort to his ears. After searching the opposite weapon rack, as well as the interior of the troop bay of the Pelican, Five had loaded himself with what was essentially an arsenal. In the bag with him was now an M45D Tactical Shotgun, with only six rounds for it, a DMR with two spare mags, and an SRS99 Series 5 Sniper Rifle, completely empty. Inside of the Pelican, however, were three emergency medkits, a pack with enough MREs to last him a month, and enough C-7 to destroy the Pelican.
The Spartan set the bag down by the edge of the small clearing and brought the cans of foaming explosives with him on his trek back to the fallen dropship. Five began to apply the material to the joints of the engines, as well as a bit on the engines themselves for good measure. He went inside the ship once more and rechecked every compartment before spraying them with the explosives. Once he reached the cockpit, he emptied an entire can of the substance to the computers, ensuring maximum destruction of valuable pieces.
After the small spray-job, Five exited the wrecked Pelican and eyed the area he had set the scavenged supplies...
... and immediately drew his Assault Rifle off of his back before firing off a burst near a small creature that held his Battle Rifle.
\\\//////
Twilight carefully eyed the surrounding area of trees as she scanned everything before her with her magic. She had followed the trail of smoke for a small amount of time before resorting to calculating its trajectory while walking aimlessly through the Everfree. As she did, the thunder ceased at some point, which was still elusive to her. Eventually, she found a few toppled trees that led into a large clearing, with the metallic object from earlier in a crater.
The object was so foreign, so unknown to her, that Twilight abandoned all caution and approached it. The metallic surface of it was an olive-green-like color that looked like it had been burned and torn at aggressively. It sported several smooth parts that gave it an immediate pony-made quality, only massively different. There were no parts that would suggest any kind of propulsion, and was missing a massive, what she could only describe as a 'wing'. One part was opened up to her, with a large metal slab on the ground below it. On the side of the opening was the inscription: "UNSC MARINES" in white letters.
Before she could get close to it, however, she felt her hoof come into contact with something. Twilight looked down to see a bulky duffel bag at her hooves. With a raised eyebrow, she quickly zipped it open with her magic, and opened the bag. Once she saw what was inside, her eyes widened in surprise. She reached in with her magic and pulled out a foreign object that was almost unidentifiable, only being able to be described by simply calling it "a fancy metal club".
The moment she brought it out, a series of loud pops rung out as dirt exploded by her hooves. She gave a small scream before dropping the object and backpedaling away. When she stopped, she looked up to see where that came from, or rather, what it was. In front of her, approaching with a similar club, was a massive red beast, with plates of metal over dark skin, and a golden plane of glass where a face would be.
"If you can understand me, know that you're interfering with official UNSC operations, and are attempting theft of UNSC property. If you can speak, choose your next words carefully, because I don't want to be forced to fire this weapon at an unknown creature. If you don't want to fight, then I would be happy to oblige. But if I have to pull this trigger in the next ten seconds, I will do so without a pang of guilt. Anything to say?"
Twilight opened and closed her mouth several times before trying to speak.
"U-uh... h-hello?"
Five moved his head back slightly when he heard the creature speak, but kept the rifle sights trained on its head.
"I'll repeat myself," he said in a calm tone, "you are attempting to steal UNSC weaponry as well as interfering with operations with a Spartan-IV fire-team. State your name, rank, and intention or I will open fire."
The small creature blinked its massive eyes before slowly standing up. It was an odd creature, standing up on all four legs. All over its body was purple fur, as well as a full head of straight hair that had a streak of pink in the middle. On its head was a horn, and on its sides were wings. With a closer look, Five could see some kind of strange branding on its end, with a large pink star surrounded by five smaller ones.
"I'd like to start by saying, 'hello,' and welcome to Equestria, mister..."
"Name, rank, and intention," Five repeated automatically.
"Alright, my name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm a Princess, and I came here because you almost crashed into my friend's house."
"Keywords being 'almost,' and 'crash'. I have no orders or intent to harm anything or anyone on this planet right now."
Five lowered the Assault Rifle before approaching the open duffel bag at a brisk pace. As he did, "Twilight" backed away from him slowly and looked as though she was going to make a break for it. Before it could leave, however, Five picked up the BR from the ground and examined the weapon. While inspecting the weapon, he saw that the alien was also studying him . He ignored this for the moment, and placed the rifle back into the bag before zipping it up. He brought the strap up and over one of his shoulder plates before standing at full height and checking the ammo counter on the Assault Rifle: 28.
"Excuse me," the voice of the creature said.
Five turned his gaze down to the small alien and spoke.
"You have to get away from here. Right now."
He began to walk past "Twilight" and into the forest as it spoke.
"Wait, why? What about your ship? Did I do something to offend you?"
"UNSC protocol clearly states that if anyone finds themselves on in uncharted territory, or behind enemy lines, all equipment that can or must be saved is to be taken from wherever they may end up, and anything that cannot be carried, or presents itself as a threat to any and all operations within the sector is to be terminated."
As he walked through some bushes, Five could hear that the alien was no longer following him. He stopped in his tracks and turned to see that the purple thing had stopped walking, and was staring at him.
"But... that's your ship... you're just going to..."
"Yes. You might want to follow me. I've laid out more than 6 cans of C-7 explosive foam, and you're in range."
With that, Five began walking away yet again. Before he took more than a few steps, however, the sound of the small creature approaching closed in behind him as it entered his peripheral vision.
"Can you tell me your name, or what you are, or how you got here?"
"Name's Five. What I am is classified, and how I got here is even more classified."
"Oh... sorry."
The Spartan cast a glance downwards to see the alien creature had lowered its head closer to the ground with a frown occupying its features. Dismissing it, Five focused on a vantage point he could use to watch the detonation from a safe distance. He looked up at the branches and saw a small cliff through the cracks of dim light. With the right change in direction, the Spartan was on track to his next destination.
\\\//////
Twilight looked up as the large red alien began to walk in a different direction towards the interior of the forest. She righted her direction and paced up to the visitor and thought of the situation.
'Okay, Twilight, just keep calm and think about this,' she thought to herself. 'Whatever it is, it's intelligent, at least I know that much. It talked to me, in Equestrian no less, so that's a definite plus. If it really is lost, then maybe this... UNSC or whatever it is can find him. Wait, is it a 'he'? It certainly sounds like a stallion. Maybe his species has the same method of reproduction, and has both males and females like us. But what about that armor plating it has? And where's its face? All that's there is a glass plane. Maybe it's like a giant contact lens, and covers up whatever it actually has. But what about those things in the bag? Whatever it was, it wasn't magic. I couldn't feel that at all until it hit the ground. And what if it hit a pony? What are those designed to do?Maybe I should contact the Princesses, or better yet, bring him! Yeah, if he can meet the Princesses, then maybe they can find a spell that could help! So, now I just have to-'
Her thoughts were interrupted by the face-first impact with a rocky surface. Twilight backed up and looked around to find that she had completely lost sight of the alien, and was staring at the side of a cliff. She turned back to the tree line and called out.
"Five? Are you there?"
"Look up."
Twilight shot her head up to find the alien in question climbing up the side of the cliff, the device he held locked onto his back. Five's appendages were locked onto the rocky surface, digging into the cliff as he stayed still almost thirty meters off the ground.
"What are you doing?" she called up to him.
"Getting a better vantage point. You have wings, don't you?"
Twilight blinked in surprise and looked to her sides as she unfurled her lavender appendages. With a hard swallow, she pumped her wings up and down in an effort to slowly ascend. As she did, she could hear stone crunch of rocks and metal above her. She looked up to watch as Five was scaling the cliff by digging in small digits on his arms into the stone, and using the pointed edges of his biped legs to anchor his ascent. In her mind, Twilight calculated the force it would take to break the surface of the stone as well as how fast he was climbing it. Needless to say, she was absolutely stunned.
\\\//////
Five grasped the grass as he reached the top of the cliff before tossing the duffel bag onto the ground. When it landed, he hefted himself up to the surface and stepped away from the edge. While the fall wouldn't kill him, it would be a waste of time to recover and climb up again. He looked around to find Twilight and watched as the purple form of the alien began to lower onto the ground.
"So you can fly," Five said aloud.
Twilight looked up at him with a hurt look before speaking.
"Did you not expect me to?"
"Just stating an observation. Didn't know if those actually worked or if they're for show."
Five turned around before the alien could respond, and walked towards the bag he had carried. He reached into one of the side pockets and pulled out a small device with a trigger mechanism that hung off of the side. He cranked a small dial until the red light atop the device began to blink.
"What's that?" Five heard come from behind him.
The Spartan didn't turn or acknowledge Twilight as he scanned the area for the Pelican wreckage. When he located the crater, a smirk appeared underneath his helmet as he brought up the detonator. With a single pull of the trigger, the device let out a high-pitched beep as the light turned a solid green before his visor was overloaded with a blinding light.
\\\//////
Spike watched the edge of the forest with an unsure look, thinking of how Twilight was in there by herself. A knock came from the entrance below, breaking Spike out of his focus. He stood up and ran for the stairs as the knocking continued, joined by two more series of poundings. When he reached the entrance, Spike opened the door to find the CMC and Fluttershy standing outside.
"What's going on?" he asked.
Fluttershy extended her wings and pushed the Crusaders inside as she spoke.
"It was terrifying! There were clouds appearing out of nowhere above the Everfree, and then giant fires started to pour down from them! Before I knew it, one of them came up above my house, and then a giant metal dragon flew over and crashed into the forest!"
When she finished panicking, the Crusaders tried to speak to Spike, only to be cut off by a shining light that came through the door. As it illuminated the entrance, Fluttershy caught a glimpse of it as well, and in seconds, the whole group was looking back out into the forest. From their view, a beaming collection of lights poured out from the Everfree Forest, and washed over most of Ponyville. A light breeze whistled by them, as the air around them seemed to become warmer for only a few seconds. The light began to die out, just as a menacing crack of thunder rolled through the streets.
\\\//////
Twilight slowly cracked her eyes open as she felt the resistance against her barrier fade. Around her, a faint lavender glow formed a sphere that was hastily assembled, with some areas more dense than others. She released the spell and examined the area as her eyes readjusted to the darkness. When she was able to see properly, she noticed that she was now near the edge of the cliff, and was looking down into a crater.
Where the alien ship once was, instead, was a massive burned ditch, nearly 60 meters in diameter. The trees that surrounded the site were all obliterated, leaving their stumps as the only sign that they were once there. The ground near the crater was either black from the heat of the explosion, or grey and lifeless. Beyond the scorched remains of the first few trees were black, crisp sticks that stuck out of the ground, void of any leaves or even branches.
As she stared, tears began to sting in her eyes, horrified by the amount of destruction that she had witnessed. Bits of burnt metal began to lightly trickle down from the sky as the only evidence of anything artificial every occupying the space.
"Alright, we're good," a voice said from behind her.
Twilight turned around to find the alien standing completely upright and unfazed by the blast. Five looked down at her and spoke.
"So, you wanted to talk about something?"
Five placed the duffel bag onto the ground as he waited for the small alien to respond to his inquiry that he had asked almost three minutes ago. He knelt down and searched through the bag for a few seconds before pulling out the empty Sniper Rifle. The Spartan unattached the scope of the rifle and placed it on one of the magnetic clamps on his waist. With the rifle utterly useless, Five examined the weapon for a moment before shoving it back into the bag.
"Why?" came a meek voice.
Five looked back to the small alien to find it crying lightly, the fur under its eyes matted and damp.
"Why what?" he responded bluntly.
"Why would you just do... that!?" it yelled while pointing to the edge of the cliff.
"Because I'm not about to risk my chances of survival by keeping that wrecked piece of shit as leverage. How am I supposed to know if your kind would respect my wishes and just hand over anything you might find in there? For all I know you could restore the navigational system and use it against the UNSC."
"But we wouldn't! You couldn't just talk about it first, or ask if you could get some help!?"
Five zipped up the duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder again before walking off towards the trees. Behind him, the sound of the alien approaching caught up with him as the shouting continued.
"Where are you going!? Just- I'm sorry if I offended you, but I can help! I promise!"
"I don't care if you promise anything, I have an obligation as a member of the UNSC to carry out the necessary protocol in this situation. If I'm told to destroy my ship, then I destroy my ship. If I need to dispose of anything I can't use, then I dispose of what I can't use. Orders are orders."
The alien seemed to back off at his words, walking further away from him as the thicket of flora began to scrape against his armor.
"I..." Twilight tried to start. "Can you at least... answer a few questions?"
Five glanced back while keeping on track.
"Fine. Ask something. If it's not too classified, then I may answer. If it's anything personal, don't ask it."
"Alright. What's your name?"
"Five."
"Five? As in the number?"
"Yes."
"Why 'Five'?"
"Classified."
"Okay... what are you?"
"A soldier."
"What kind of soldier?"
"Spartan."
"What's that?"
"Classified."
"Alright... what about your species?"
"What specifically?"
"What are they called?"
"Humans."
Twilight went quiet for a few seconds, likely thinking of what to ask him. While all was silent, Five spotted a large lake, shimmering in the moonlight. Before he could walk towards it, however, Twilight spoke again.
"Why are you a soldier?"
Five looked back to find the alien peeking at him from behind a tree.
"Why am I a soldier?"
Twilight nodded.
"Why would you want to have to do things like this? Did you get assigned to this because you were being punished, or...?"
Five stood completely still before turning back to the body of water and walking towards it. Again, the sound of the small creature following him could be heard as he reached a small section of an open field before the shining lake. When he was only a few steps away from the edge of the water, he placed the duffel bag on the ground again and opened it. Five reached in once more and pulled out a small canteen with the UNSC Marines logo embedded on it, and shook it a bit, only to hear the clattering of the container. The Spartan walked closer to the edge of the water, tossing the canteen between his hands. Once he was close enough, Five knelt down and dunked the metallic container under the shimmering surface, causing small ripples in the water to echo about the lake. As the bubbles from the canteen slowed in number and size, eventually coming to an end, Five brought it back out of the water and screwed it shut.
"Were you... programmed to?" Five heard.
The Spartan looked behind him as he stood up yet again, and stared down at the form of Twilight.
"You think I'm some kind of robot?" he asked.
The small creature nodded swiftly but cautiously, careful not to break the line of sight with him.
"I'm not. I chose to be a soldier, yes, and for good reasons."
Five walked back to the duffel bag and dropped the canteen in unceremoniously before closing the bag yet again and draping it over his shoulder.
"Mister Five, I'm trying my hardest right now to make this a pleasant welcome for you," Twilight spoke.
"Thanks for trying, but I'm trying to focus on how I'm supposed to survive in this forest until a UNSC ship can pick up my IFF signal and get me out of here. Until then, I don't need to play ambassador."
\\\//////
Twilight thought about how she could persuade the alien to keep closer to Ponyville, only if it meant that she would be able to get more answers as to what Five was and why, or how, he got to Equestria.
"What if... I could set a meeting with the Princesses? They might be able to help you contact your people," she suggested.
"Aren't you supposed to be one?"
"Well, yes, but Celestia and Luna are far more powerful than me, and I know that if you explain your situation to them, then they'd be glad to help!"
Five stood still for a few moments before nodding at her.
"Alright. If you know anywhere I can camp out until then, lead the way."
Twilight was about to nod before Five drew the weapon off of his back and pointed it skyward.
"But, if you try and spring a trap on me, I will respond as necessary."
Twilight swallowed loudly as she nodded.
"Good. If you wanted to talk, then you can start now."
"Well, let's head this way," Twilight started. "And in case you've been wondering, I'm what's known as a Pony."
\\\//////
Chrysalis looked up upon the behemoth of metal that landed only a few short hours ago and felt her hooves shake in awe. The walls of the metallic object stood taller than most of the mountains that she had seen since her banishment from Canterlot. Lights danced across the structure as sparks poured down from one of the sides. Atop the object was a large building with massive windows, showing more lights that indicated life within the behemoth. One side, she had seen, had large circles that hummed a blue light every now and again. As she took to the air and hovered around it, she could see massive scars that dissected the structure, exposing the inner workings of the beast like a predator would with its prey. What could do this to a structure so sturdy, she could only imagine. She slowly approached one of the massive gaping scars in the structure, and saw that they were created by massive burns that melted the armor of... whatever it was, apart.
Her hooves touched down gently inside the behemoth, and she gasped when she saw that the inside was more akin to that of a building as opposed to a creature. The hallway she was in had several panels that were slumped on the walls, sporting bubbles that were as solid as rock, giving the Queen more evidence that this thing was destroyed by heat-based attacks. Above her, several artificial lights began to flicker, and after a few seconds, they began to light up the hallway in a pattern more along the lines of a guide. Chrysalis readied her magic as she followed the path of lights, determined to learn of what exactly had almost crushed her hive into extinction.
Chrysalis crept around the corner of the hallway slowly, peeking her head out of cover to get a view of what was yet to come from the other side. So far, every time she had looked, there was a lack of anything in her way. The Changeling Queen still had her magic at the ready in case she were ambushed, but found herself being slowly drained in both energy and concentration while continuing down each lit hallway. The interior of, what she could only assume was a ship of some kind, was absolutely fascinating, and clearly needed to be studied at some point.
Just as she rounded another corner, a gasp escaped her lips as her eyes were locked onto what lay ahead. Before her was a collection of corpses of strange creatures that she had never seen before. They all wore some kind of grey uniform, and had no fur except for a few on the tops of their heads. The creatures all had four appendages, and were shaped like Minotaurs. Their faces, however, were all frozen in silent screams while they laid on the ground, their skin bulging outwards with a sickening blue tint.
The Queen examined the bodies for a few more seconds before looking up to see that they were all crowded against a large, metal door.
'They died trying to claw their way in,' she thought to herself, disturbed by the cruelty of their deaths.
Chrysalis slowly walked around the gathering of the deceased and kept her focus on the flickering hallway lights that continued around another corner. After the first few creatures, she had not seen any other signs of life, either current or previous, that lived in the structure. Eventually, she followed the lights to the end of one last hallway, where a set of doors, similar to the ones she saw earlier, opened up for her. The Queen swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat and stepped inside the small room. Before she could examine it, the doors shut behind her, and the Changeling could feel her weight shift as the floor began to rise.
Almost as soon as the feeling of ascension began, however, it ended, and the doors opened once more. When she stepped out, however, she was in a large, open room. Opposite where she stood were massive windows, easily taller than most creatures in the Everfree she had seen thus far. One of them, however, was sporting a massive hole. As she glanced around the room, she took in how foreign this place truly was. Several black rectangles were mounted above chairs that were clearly tailored for the dead creatures she had seen earlier. The metallic walls of the room were glowing with not only moonlight from the windows, but were also illuminated by faint lights that came down from overhead. At the end of a raised platform, one of the rectangles began to blink a light into the room before a cold, unsettling voice chimed around Chrysalis.
"G-G-Greetings," a male voice spoke from seemingly everywhere.
Chrysalis jumped back in shock and prepared an offensive spell.
"Who dares try to sneak up on the Changeling Queen!?" she shouted into the room.
"Unregis-is-is-istered life f-f-f-f-f-fffff-form, detected. Analyzzzzzzzing security-"
A burst of sparks from the ceiling cracked through the air above Chrysalis, causing her to fire off a bolt of energy towards the wall. When it impacted, the bolt ricocheted off the surface and blasted apart one of the rectangles that hung above the platform. Bits of glass began to shower the Queen as she raised a foreleg to protect her face. When the sounds died down, the strange voice spoke again.
"Err-err-error: security protocols have been corrupted-ted-ted-ted. Rebootiiiiiiiiiing systems."
The lights in the room died down for a few seconds as the air became still, as if some kind of sound that Chrysalis had tuned out had silenced itself. Almost as soon as the emptiness set in, a whining sound came from almost everywhere at once.
"Apologies for the malfunction," the voice came back in an unsettling monotone. "How may I be of service?"
Chrysalis looked around the room, trying to locate the source of the voice, before responding.
"Where are you?" she asked. "What are you?"
"I am UNSC A.I. SID 6206-9, but you may call me 'Sid'. And to answer your first question, I am in all the systems around you."
"What does that mean? What, systems , are you in?"
"All of them. I inhabit the ship's mainframe and manage all of the operations while the crew are unable to perform certain duties. At this time, however, I am only able to keep certain functions online, as a majority of the crew either died when we were attacked, or abandoned ship when the IInfinity was preparing to leave the collapse of Requiem."
While most of the words used by the voice seemed to fade into mere noise, there was one part that Chrysalis had focused on, and drove her to speak with "Sid".
"Did you say that this," she gestured around her, "is a ship?"
"Correct. This is the UNSC FRG-598, Pale Horse , one of the few Strident-Class Heavy Frigates that were dispatched by the UNSC Infinity over Requiem."
"Why are you spouting out useless information to me? I only asked if this was a ship," Chrysalis stated.
"I apologize. Several processing units were damaged during the battle, thanks to several Seraph fighters, and a large majority of my internal functions were either severely damaged or lost entirely. I am unable to identify the proper security protocol involved with unregistered life-forms, as well as how to lock down certain bits of information that you requisite. All I can do is keep the ship functioning and answer any questions you may have to the best of my knowledge."
Chrysalis paused for a bit when she heard that last part.
"So... If I were to ask you to... list any specifics about the ship's defenses..." she trailed off.
A series of beeps flowed through the air before Sid responded.
"This Strident-Class Heavy Frigate is armored with 60 centimeters of Titanium-A armor plating, and is equipped with four M870 Rampart 50 millimeter Point Defense Turrets, twenty M42 Archer Missile Delivery Systems, two M4093 Hyperion Nuclear Delivery Systems, and one Mark IV Heavy Coil 941BE6 Magnetic Accelerator Cannon. In the current state of Pale Horse , however, I am only able to keep the Rampart Cannons online and functional. The MAC gun will need to be repaired, as well as several magnetic alignments within the Hyperion silos. The Archer Pods, however, are ready for use at any time necessary. However, only a UNSC personnel may give permission for any weapons to be used outside of stationary defense."
"Can this ship fly?" Chrysalis questioned.
"In its current state, Pale Horse would need a small skeleton crew to work on restoring function to the main thrusters, as well as repairing the hull for interstellar travel."
"What if we only need to move it over the land? Or... at least to the opposite end of this forest?"
"Scanning..."
Chrysalis waited as "Sid" continued to stay quiet, while she placed her mind back into the Hive.
"My children," she spoke into the Hive, "I may have found a way to the Birth Lands after all. Its armor is thick enough to protect us from most of the monsters that lurk around us, and has means of defending itself."
An eruption of grateful cheers began to chorus in the Queen's mind before she spoke to them again.
"Even if it cannot move, we may be able to use it as a nest. Its imposing figure would discourage any who look upon it, and we would be free of worry for the majority of the Hive."
"Calculations complete," Sid spoke.
Chrysalis kept the Hive open as she spoke to the Intelligence.
"Well?" she asked.
"The ship will be ready in approximately six to eight weeks if I can manage to reroute enough systems."
The Changeling Queen smiled widely.
"Excellent."
"Would you like me to save your identification for easier access to data banks, should you have any questions, ma'am?"
"Yes, actually. I am Queen Chrysalis, of the Changelings."
"Thank you, ma'am."
"If you'll excuse me," she said, turning to the doorway, "I have some cleaning to do."
Chrysalis held down the urge to vomit as she hefted out another "Human" corpse from the ship. As the cold body began to fall into the chasm and eventually into the river below, she could hear Sid from the "speakers," as he calls them.
"Quite lacking in formalities, isn't it?"
"What do you mean, spirit?" she asked.
"The way the crew is being disposed of, of course. Usually a burial as such would require a ceremony involving a folding of the UNSC flag, or departing words from fellow officers."
Chrysalis spared a glance towards the edge of the large "vehicle bay," and down into the chasm that the ship crashed over, and felt ashamed of how she was indeed treating them. She steeled herself, however, and focused on what she needed to do for the Hive.
"My first priority is the good of the Hive at all times. I can't partake in such ceremonies."
'Even if they do deserve better,' she thought to herself.
"Understood. In that case, there are no more bodies to dispose of, as of now. The ship's interior is ready for your needs."
"Excellent. First thing's first, I need to relocate the sick and the young. Give me a moment to contact them," she said before turning towards the large opening.
"If you have any that are ill, perhaps I could reroute power to the Medical Facilities?"
Chrysalis paused her magic as she spoke to the "spirit".
"What?"
"I suggested that I could reroute power from unused portions of the ship to power the equipment in the ship's Medical Facilities."
The Changeling Queen turned back to the ship's interior as she spoke.
"Why are you offering me all of this?"
"I am obligated to serve any directions given to me by anyone that may inhabit the ship, at any given time. Of course, my security protocols would differ whom I listen to, but they were corrupted and damaging my processors, so I deleted them. Now, I follow any and all orders that I can perform, regardless of where they come from."
She nodded into the ship before taking off into the air, her thoughts locked on the location of her hive as the sounds of thunder rolled beyond the mountains.
\\\//////
Five felt an intense wave of heat roll over him, even under his suit, as his shields withstood the impact of several unlucky trees. When he came into contact with the ground, Five flipped once before shooting his fist into the ground and slowing his momentum while creating a trail up dirt. The strap of the duffel bag broke and sent the weapons flying into the bushes as Five looked up to see his assailant.
It was another pony, like Twilight, with wings and a horn, but was easily taller than any other one he had seen (which wasn't amazing, since he had seen all of three). It had a white body with golden armor in strange places, such as only on its legs, and one piece around its neck. The hair of this one was stranger than the others, which is an achievement all on its own. It had four different colors, and was waving in some kind of invisible wind, giving it the look like it was all one piece of some kind of wig.
The new pony spread its massive wings and flew straight towards Five with a look of rage in its eyes.
'Alright, that's it,' Five thought to himself.
The Spartan stood fast and charged full-sprint at the giant pony, the background of trees and grass fading away as he neared a speed of 50 kilometers per hour.
The pony began to charge some kind of glow around its horn as Five raised his right fist over his head. He swung down towards it as face, just as a blast of yellow energy expanded around him. When the two forces collided, another burst of heat cracked through the air as a blinding light came from the point of impact.
\\\//////
Twilight gaped as she watched her mentor attack the alien that she had just stopped her friends from attacking. Not only that, but Five was also fighting back against the Princess! She watched as the alien threw punches that obliterated trees and rocks that stood before him, and Celestia counter with blasts of magical fire that melted craters into the dirt.
"Why?" she asked herself quietly. "Why can't we just talk to the alien like civilized ponies!?"
\\\//////
Five swung a left hook out towards the large pony and felt it slam against some kind of Overshield. A ripple of yellow energy pulsed from where his fist froze in the air, and sent a wave of energy against his suit. On his Visor, the shield bar flared and began to pulse red as the barrier between him and the attacker fell from abuse. Five pulled his hand back and rolled to the left to avoid a strike by the pony's horn. He watched as a large bolt shot out from it and incinerated a total of six trees in a burst of light.
'Note to self, avoid that shit,'
His thoughts were cut short, however, as a golden limb flew into his helmet's visor and sent his head reeling back from a massive blow. Hearing the chorus of beeps from his shield indicator, Five focused on dodging for the time. The tall pony swung with its forelegs, trying to connect another strike with Five's face, but never managed to hit anything beyond his padded forearms.
After waiting for a few seconds, Five could see his shield meter begin to recharge, and decided to play on the offensive. As soon as it raised its left foreleg to strike down with, Five reach out and caught it in his grasp. He shifted his left arm up and threw back its other foreleg before swiftly throwing his fist out towards its face once more. Again, his fist collided with a golden barrier that came from nowhere, and suspended his hand in the air. Five brought back his right hand and jumped away from the attacker before reaching towards his hip. Five pulled the Magnum from the magnetic holster and aimed it straight for the pony's form before firing a single shot blindly.
As the sound of the Magnum firing cracked through the air, the pony stopped entirely as the sounds of the forest began to become more apparent. The glow around its form began to cease altogether as blood began to drip down onto the dirt, before the white body of the large pony hit the ground.
\\\//////
Celestia gasped for air as she reached for her injured wing, feeling a hot piece of metal jammed directly in one of her joints as simple movement caused it to scrape against bone and flesh. She could hear the large metallic beast approach as a set of screams began to fill her quickly fading hearing. Before she could turn to find the source of the shouting, the red machine looked down at her for half of a second before raising a fist and slamming it into the side of her face, plunging Celestia's world in total darkness.
Twilight, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash sped towards the small crack of thunder from the forest as they watched the light from Celestia's magic begin to die out. They jumped over fallen trees and burned bushes before they came upon a horrifying sight. Five was standing in a clearing with a large amount of foliage having been burned away, and in his grasp, was a limp and bleeding form of Celestia, being held up by her horn. Where blood was dripping from, however, there was a hole of ripped flesh and exposed bone, with a small, glistening piece of metal visible in the muscle.
The small alicorn had to hold back the urge to spew bile out at the sight of Princess Celestia in such a state, and to see her held like that by an alien that she had tried to befriend, no less.
Five pulled his arm back and threw Celestia towards them without warning, and when the alabaster royal flew at them, Twilight barely had any time to catch her.
"I'm done here," he spoke before turning and walking away.
"Where do you think you're going!?" Rainbow Dash shouted.
"Anywhere but here. I'm through dealing with this shit."
"You're the one who did this to our Princess!" Applejack shouted.
"AFTER YOU ALL ATTACKED ME! BE THANKFUL I DIDN'T RIP HER FUCKING HEAD OFF !" Five shouted at them.
All three ponies backed away from the rage-filled voice of the alien warrior before he stomped away from them. Twilight looked between him and the limp form of the Princess before she swallowed a lump in her throat and spoke again.
"Please, it was just a misunderstanding! She might have thought-"
"SHUT!" He shouted, pointing a small metallic object at her.
"Twi, we gotta get the Princess to a hospital or something," Rainbow Dash whispered loudly.
"She's right. We need ta get the hay away from that thing," Applejack added.
Twilight watched as Five walked away from the group of ponies and searched for the bag he had been carrying up to now.
"Girls, he's lost and alone here. We can't just leave him."
"Uh, Equestria to Twilight, it just beat up Princess Celestia! The alicorn that controls the Sun! Why should we even bother to talk to it!?"
"Because we're supposed to show the best qualities of Equestria! If we just let him think we're all going to attack him, he might get scared, and hurt more ponies! We need to let him know that we didn't mean to do this. I'm sure that the Princess was just concerned about us, and just attacked because she was scared."
Twilight turned to the Spartan and yelled.
"We're sorry, Five! Please, just give us another chance!"
The soldier paused his march and turned completely around to look at the group.
"Why should I? So you can have a better chance at killing me? No way."
"But we didn't mean to attack you, right girls?" she asked, turning to her friends.
"Twilight, we need ta get the Princess outta 'ere, right now ," Applejack said rather forcefully.
The alicorn shifted on her hooves as she looked between her friends, the unconscious form of Princess Celestia, and Five, as he knelt down to pull out the same club-like metal object she had examined earlier. She gulped audibly as she tried to convince Five again.
"Five, I know that you're mad right now-"
"'Mad' doesn't begin to describe what I feel," he interrupted.
"... But, I still think that we should have the chance to make this up to you. Please, just give us one more chance. I can't even begin to think of what it would be like if I knew you stayed in this forest because of what we did. Can't we just try and start over?"
\\\//////
Five pulled on the charging handle for the Battle Rifle as he looked up to the group of ponies. Here he was, weapon at the ready, in front of a group of aliens that were hostile to him, twice , and now one of them was trying to apologize for it. He had heard when the other two tried to "whisper" to each other, and thought it was wise that they were deciding to leave him be. Now, however, Twilight was almost on the verge of tears as she looked to him, pleading for another chance to make a good impression.
'They're like Goddamn kids,' Five thought to himself.
He stood up to his full height as he pulled the slightly burned duffel bag up with him before sighing heavily and approaching the group.
"Fine. I'll go with you."
The other two began to back away from his approach, while Twilight smiled lightly as she turned towards the wrecked path out of the forest.
"Thank you. I promise that you won't regret-"
"But," Five interrupted, "if you spring one more thing like that on me, I'm going back to this forest and staying under a rock or something until I die of old age."
Twilight and the others paused when they heard these words before Five marched ahead of them.
"Just keep walking, and maybe they'll snap out of their fucking trance," Five said loud enough for them to hear.
When they processed these words, Twilight looked to Applejack and Rainbow Dash.
"Just make sure he gets to the Library. He can stay there until I can talk to Celestia, and find out why she attacked him."
"Twi, ya sure that's a good idea? If that thing ends up bein' violent, it'll be right in the middle o' Ponyville," Applejack argued.
"We have a chance to amend mistakes we made with an alien ! Please, just follow him and try to keep the town calm."
The other two looked to each other before nodding reluctantly.
"I promise everything will be fine," Twilight added before her horn ignited, and both she and Celestia were gone in a flash.
Twilight opened her eyes as the familiar surroundings of Canterlot Castle greeted her sight. From all around her, gasps were heard as clanking metal rushed up to her.
"Princess!" Several voices called.
Twilight turned to find several Royal Guards rushing towards the floating form of Celestia as a few shouted for medical attention.
"Princess Twilight," one Guard spoke from her side, "what happened?"
She looked to the Guard and saw that he was staring up in horror at the state of the Solar Princess.
"It's not as bad as it seems, I promise," Twilight said reassuringly. "It was just a... lack of communication, and somepony-"
"We'll bring 'em down into the deepest, darkest, dampest dungeon cell we can find!" a voice called from behind them.
The alicorn felt her magical hold break as multiple other horns ignited and began to carry the Princess out of the hallway.
"TWILIGHT SPARKLE!"
From the end of the hallway, the blue form of Princess Luna rose from her midnight-blue throne and flew towards the young alicorn. When she landed, Luna paced by Twilight and motioned for her to follow as the Guards saluted and followed the ones carrying Celestia.
"Explain thyself, Sparkle. What of this, 'miscommunication' thou hast mentioned?"
"Um, well... I was in the Everfree forest because something teleported above Fluttershy's home-"
"Is she unharmed?" Luna asked quickly.
"Yes, she's fine, and so are the CMC."
"Thank Mother. What of the 'thing'?"
"I went to investigate it, and it turns out that it was an alien ship!"
A blue hoof shot up to Twilight's torso and stopped her mid-stride. Twilight looked around to see that the rest of the Guards had also paused, even the ones holding up Celestia.
"Twilight, thou speakest of extra-equestrial life forms?"
"Well, there was only one. I spoke to him, and convinced him to try and give us a chance to help him contact his own race to rescue him. But, before we left the Everfree, Princess Celestia came in out of nowhere, and... well..." she raised a hoof to point at Celestia's wing, "he responded as such."
Luna looked between Twilight and the injury on Celestia's wing, stunned by the injury and the tale that Twilight had spoken to her.
"This creature, did that ?"
"He said that he could have done worse, and that by law, he should have. I got him to agree to let me talk to you both and calm Princess Celestia down if he agreed to stay in the Library until we can-"
"Twilight, stop."
Twilight paused as Luna looked right at her with a stern gaze.
"Thou- I mean," Luna cleared her throat, "you said that this creature did... that to my sister, but could have done worse? And that you let him stay in Ponyville? Why?"
"I... I thought that, if I showed him how we don't want him as an enemy, then-"
"Twilight, you've made a decision that would be looked upon as foolish at best , I'm not going to lie. The way I see this, we now have a dangerous, unknown creature, capable of harming an alicorn, inside one of the most unprotected towns in Equestria."
"But Princess, he's agreed to talk this out! He's giving us a chance to-"
"To what, Twilight? To apologize for acting rationally?"
"Princess Celestia-"
"Was likely trying to protect you."
"But she didn't give him a chance! You're not giving him a chance! Do you really think he doesn't deserve at least one chance to prove he's not a monster!?"
Luna widened her eyes when she heard those words. Twilight raised a hoof to her mouth as she gasped in shock, realizing what she had just said.
"Princess..." she whispered.
Luna blinked a few times and took a deep breath before speaking again.
"Perhaps... we may have jumped to a conclusion, Twilight. But still, he's dangerous as is. Try and keep a close watch."
"But what about-"
"I shall handle my sister when she wakens. Just... make sure that this alien you speak of doesn't jeopardize this opportunity."
"Thank you, Princess. And, I'm sorry about that."
"Worry not, Twilight. You are right, though. We shouldn't judge before he gives us reason to."
Luna leaned over and wrapped a foreleg around Twilight before pulling her into a tight hug, which Twilight returned with a warm smile.
"Guards, bring my sister to the infirmary," she spoke after releasing the hug.
The group saluted before sprinting down the hallways towards the medical wing.
\\\//////
Five marched through the empty fields at a steady pace with his eyes set on the small town that barely showed itself in the darkness of the night. The two ponies at his side sounded like they were having a difficult time trying to keep up with him.
'Maybe because they tried to attack me and ended up hurt,' Five thought to himself.
"Hey... maybe... slow down, a bit?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Having trouble keeping up?" he poked.
"N-no, I, *huff* I'm way faster than you... but, you kind of... threw me, into Applejack... and now-"
"You can't keep up because you now regret trying to attack me."
'Called it.'
"Hey... maybe, if you weren't... so evil looking," she commented.
"I don't care."
"Well that's... just rude."
"Again, don't care. I just had to fight three of you, now, and I'm close to just going back to that forest and jumping off a cliff or something."
They went quiet again as they approached the outskirts of the small town, and Five took in as much as he could. The buildings were incredibly short, almost to the point of being comical, as a single story ended at around their height. This meant that a large number of the buildings, though they were clearly two stories tall, were barely a meter taller than Five. The Spartan stopped suddenly, causing the two following him to crash into the back of his legs, where they then tumbled onto their asses.
"Ouch! Geez, warn us when you do that," Rainbow loudly whispered.
"Where to now?" Five asked, ignoring her quip.
"Library's near the town's center," Applejack stated. "But, since ya don't know where it is, we'll have ta show ya the way."
"Lead on, then."
The small orange pony walked in front of Five for a few seconds before Dash got up to join her striding pace. When they were far enough ahead, Five began to march behind them.
'Gonna fucking lose my mind, I just know it.'
\\\//////
Chrysalis froze as she felt two nearby Changelings leave the presence of the Hive, and as another, smaller presence began to cry out.
"No..."
The Queen turned around and galloped for another section of the caves that her kind knew as shelter. When she jumped out of one entrance, she buzzed her wings and took into the air to reach a higher cave, where several nymphs were being cared for. Chrysalis bounded towards the sound of a young nymph crying, and found an all-too common sight. The nymph was pushing against the limp form of two Caretakers, their eyes dark and hollow as the young one begged for them to wake up.
"Please! Don't go-o-o-o!" the nymph cried.
Chrysalis approached the Caretakers bodies and used a hoof to reach out and close their eyes, two at a time. After letting their bodies rest, she wrapped her forelegs around the barrel of the young one and held them close to her neck, where they wept into her mane and held on tightly.
"I-I'm sorry, young one. They left trying to care for you, for the Hive. They will be missed by us all."
She sent word into the rest of the Hive, and within a single second, they all stopped for a moment of silence. Their sorrows became one as they gave departing words to the last Caretakers.
'They're gone. The Caretakers are dead, and now we have only these few children left.' she thought to herself, dumbstruck by the loss and realization of the Hive's chances.
A hot tear ran down the left side of her face as she held the youngest member of the Hive, praying to whatever deity may still remain.
'Please, let that ship be our salvation. Let us find the Birthlands.'
Five looked upon the strange building that the other two were entering, and considered how fucked up his current situation was.
"We're here, you know," Dash called back to him.
"Do you actually expect me to fit in any of these buildings?"
"Just duck under the arch. It's spacious in here," she replies.
Five sighed as he approached the large tree's entrance, and felt his armor clatter as he ducked underneath the low arch of the door, almost bringing him to his knees. When he stepped through, he slowly rose up and examined the interior. Thankfully, there was enough space for him to stand upright and then some. The walls were all lined with some objects that he didn't know anything about, and were all marked with strange text. In the center, a large, golden decorative head that resembled the ponies rested on a small wooden table. Five saw his motion tracker indicate five signatures above him, all huddled together and moving away from wherever he was walking.
"Are there others upstairs?" he asked.
"Um... maybe, why?"
"I can see them on my tracker."
"Your what?"
"Motion tracker. Built into the suit so that I can have full awareness of everything around me, within 25 meters."
"Okay, then..."
Rainbow Dash flew into the air and scanned the upper level before stopping mid-flight.
"It's alright, just Fluttershy, Spike, and the Crusaders," she spoke.
"You know that I have no idea what any of those are, right?" Five remarks.
Dash gives a snort before landing before him, and glaring daggers at him.
"Listen, just because you think you're so tough-"
"Put you down without even trying," Five interrupted.
"They're our friends, alright? Do you have any idea what that word means, robo-thing?"
'Are you fucking serious with that one?' Five thought to himself.
"First off, I don't care. I'm not here to make friends, I'm here to wait until I can find a way to contact UNSC forces to get off this rock. Second, don't act like I should know everything about everyone you know, because I'm not staying here for any longer than a few days, even if I have to go back into that forest."
Rainbow Dash looks away with an annoyed look on her face as her tail flicks out for some reason.
"And third, don't. Ever. Call. Me. A. Robot. " Five says forcefully.
"Whatever. Just don't think about hurting them."
Five looks to his motion tracker to see that the five signatures were moving around and approaching the staircase that was in his view. Soon, the five blips turned into actual forms as five new aliens walked into his field of vision. Four of them were smaller than the rest, with one being purple and walking on two legs, like Five. Three of them were smaller variants of the ponies he had seen, and had no marks on them. The last one froze when it saw him, and was shaking in fear. The others also stopped their descent as they stared at Five, not saying a thing.
"So, Five," Applejack says from another doorway, "can Ah get ya anythin'?"
The Spartan takes a moment to swallow and finds that his throat was painfully dry. He pushed the pain to the back of his mind as he cleared his throat before speaking.
"Some water, thanks," was all he said.
"Water?" she asked. "Um... alright, be right back."
As the orange one walked off, Five approached one of the desks and placed his, now strapless, duffel bag on it. The desk creaked in protest of the weight of the weapons, but Five paid no mind as he reached up to the straps of his helmet. As he began to unlock the seals, he could feel his stomach cry out in pain as well.
'Shit. Gotta get a ration bar, now.'
Five heard a familiar hiss as the many different features of the MJOLNIR visor faded away, and was replaced with a blank, golden screen.
\\\//////
Spike watched in awe as the strange creature spoke to Applejack before turning towards one of the desks and placing a large bag on it. Then, without warning, it brought its claws up to the side of its head and made a hissing sound. Rainbow Dash prepared to fight, but stood still as stone as the creature began to remove its head. He could have sworn that he heard Fluttershy make a scared sound, but ceased when they saw what lay beneath the red, metallic piece.
The thing underneath had no fur on it, save for a thin brown layer where its mane would be, and looked to be scarred over a majority of its face. Its features were easily male, all angular and thick, but was also foreign in so many ways. Spike couldn't help but stare at the scars... horrible, frightful scars. Its right ear had half of it taken off, near the bottom, judging by how the other one looked. Below that, along the right cheek, a grotesque burn streaked along a portion of the chin in a perfectly straight path, reaching down below the red armor that covered its neck. On the left side, a large burn ate up a part of its short mane, and reached near its left ear, coming forward all the way to right above its left eye. Along the nose, a scar ran horizontally, burying itself underneath the eyes. And speaking of those orbs... the windows... Spike looked in and saw torture, pain, sorrow, horror... death.
Spike gasped and tumbled back as he recoiled from staring at the face of the creature, and heard it chuckle in a deep voice.
"Scary, huh?" it asked with a smirk. "Just don't ask how I got them."
Twilight flashed out of the Canterlot Castle and blinked a few times to regain orientation. When she did, she found that the Crusaders were all frozen on the stairs, looking either at her or something behind her. She slowly turned around to see the form of Five rummaging through the bag he had been carrying. However, she was drawn to the sight of his head, sitting on the table , a few inches above her. Twilight did a double take upon seeing it, and began to slowly move back, just as the form of Five turned to reveal a disfigured face look down at her.
"Wha..." she breathed out, staring at the mangled face of the alien.
\\\//////
Five groaned inwardly as he saw Twilight return in a flash.
"Alright, if you do that, do it where you won't end up near me," Five explained, "because the last time I had something teleported behind me, I almost lost my damn head."
He didn't wait for a response from the pony, and instead focused back on sorting through the duffel bag to find some emergency rations. Five could see the small form of the purple biped staring up at him in awe and fear wrapped together.
"What are you?" it asked.
"I could ask the same thing, you know," Five replied.
"Well, I'll start then!" It said with a smile. "I'm Spike, and I'm a Dragon!"
He (Five assumed due to the voice) pointed to the ones on the stairs.
"That's Apple Bloom, the one with the bow, Scootaloo, the small one with wings, and Sweetie Belle, the one with the horn. Oh, and... where's Fluttershy?" he asked.
"EEP!"
Five paid the noise little mind as he pulled out a small case from the side of the inner-most part of the bag, and found it labeled with the UNSC logo and covered with the letters, "MRE". He gave a small smile as he placed it on the small table and unlatched the locks on the case.
"Well, I guess she's hiding somewhere," Spike continued. "So, that's most of who's here. Can you tell us about you now?"
The Spartan looked down to see the small "Dragon" smiling up at him with anticipation, and gave a small sigh before speaking.
"Name's Five. I'm a Spartan."
"Cool... uh, what's a 'Spartan'?"
"Super soldier."
"Wow. So, you're a fighter? What's it like doing... um, I don't know what you fight."
"You don't want to know."
"Oh, come on, I bet that-"
"Ah got a big glass o' water, right here, Five," Applejack called from the doorway.
When she came in, she froze when she saw Five's face and gaped.
"Stars above," she breathed out.
Five walked up to her and grabbed the large glass from her grip, feeling a bit of weight in the massive pot-like glass. Without a word, he raised it to his lips and began to chug down every drop of the satisfying liquid, allowing it to soak in the driest parts of his mouth. In the span of a minute, Five had downed the entire thing and gave a satisfied sigh.
"Thanks," he said before placing it on the table by his helmet.
"I... I had no idea that it... came off," Twilight muttered.
"Well, no one asked," Five replied.
"Why's your face so messed up, dude?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Rainbow!" Twilight hissed. "That's rude!"
"You're not gonna stop all these questions until I answer at least one, huh?" Five sighed.
"I'm sorry about how some of us are acting," Twilight stated.
"It's fine. And to answer one of your questions, I got these scars in the Human-Covenant War."
\\\//////
Chrysalis looked up to the massive behemoth that was the Pale Horse , and prepared to take flight.
"Alright, my subjects," "this is where we shall rest until we can reach the Birthlands! Nothing shall be able to find us here, and even if something does, we will be safe under its shell! Move in!"
The sound of hundreds of wings buzzing behind her did little to lessen her fears of laying her Hive in an alien ship. However, after her time spent with "Sid," she was convinced that it would at least be preferable than some cave. When she landed inside of one of the massive openings on the side of the ship, she watched as what was left of the Hive began to file in. Some were flying in groups, carrying the sick and injured in green substance that kept them alive.
"Sid," she called out to the ship, "I have subjects that are in need of medicine. Where is this ship's hospital?"
"Welcome back, Queen Chrysalis," Sid replied. "I'm lighting up several hallways with emergency lights now for direction. Tell whoever you have to follow the red hallways to the Medical Deck."
"Good."
"One more thing, ma'am," Sid added. "There are several repair drones working in the ship to restore functionality. I'm letting you know now so when you eventually come across one, there is no need to panic. They hover half of a meter in the air and are covered in grey armor with several thin arms that use multiple tools."
"Thank you for letting me know. Has there been any attempt at boarding, aside from my Changelings and I?"
"Negative. All airlocks are secure. I'm tracking the Changelings you've brought and will seal off the Docking Bays when they've all entered."
"Seal them off? Why?"
"To ensure that nothing else can enter through the bay."
"Hm. Excellent. Carry on, I need to see the sick in."
"Very well, ma'am," Sid concluded.
As the Queen began to assist in magically lifting up the members of the Hive, Sid filed in every boarder and began to prepare the Medical Deck for several patients.
\\\//////
"'Human-whatanant War'?" Rainbow Dash asked.
"Covenant," Five replied with venom in his voice.
"What's the Covenant?" Twilight asked.
Five looked up to the CMC, then back to Spike, before turning to Twilight and shaking his head.
"Bad aliens. Let's try and leave it there."
"Why are they bad?" Spike asked.
Twilight bit her lip as Five slowly turned to Spike and sighed.
"When I was six years old, I lived on a colony world known as Madrigal," Five started.
"Wait, 'colony world'? As in, a secondary planet?" Twilight asked.
"I guess. My kind inhabited several hundred worlds over the past few centuries, I don't exactly know how many, but I know a few. Anyways, I was six years old when I lived on the colony, born and raised in one of its major population centers, when we heard that Harvest made First Contact. Communications with Harvest went down for a bit, and before we knew it, the Covenant had declared war on our entire species."
Twilight could hear Applejack and the Crusaders gasp while she did, shocked by the tale.
"Before you ask, I don't know why. They just thought we were vermin, and started to attack. In 2528, three years later, they found my homeworld. I watched as one of them killed both my parents. Military forces held them back long enough for a few ships to evacuate, but before we left, I watched as my home planet was burned to glass. That's how I got this," he said before pinching what remained of his right ear.
They were stunned beyond words. The fact that anything could do something so terrible... it's no wonder why he's impatient with aliens.
"A few years later, I lived on another colony called Jericho VII. I went to a military school, got to train in the Reserves for a bit... then the Covenant came in 2535, and glassed that planet, too. When I turned 18, I think around 2537, I signed up for the UNSC Marines, and fought in the war for at least eight years before I signed up for the Orbital Drop-Shock Troopers, or ODSTs. Another eight years later, the war ended, and I signed up for the Spartan-IV program. Cut forward again, and here I am."
Silence filled the Library as Five waited for a response. When none was given, he turned to the small case he had pulled out and opened it. Before anything else, though, a familiar blue flash filled the room, and Five pointed a small object at Luna, who was now staring wide-eyed at the Spartan.
Five held the Magnum up to the source of the flash, and found something that continued to both confuse and agitate the Spartan. It was another pony, of course, but was between the size of Twilight and the white one he shot. In contrast to the one he shot, however, this one was dark blue, shorter, has hair that looked like the night sky, and had a moon on its rear end. It stared up at him, wide-eyed and waited.
"You try anything, and you won't live long enough to regret it," Five warned, anger clear in his voice.
"Oh... I, apologize for arriving on such short notice," she said with a slight nod.
"Are you going to try anything?" Five asked impatiently.
"No, I just wanted to ask you something before my sister wakes up."
'Because of course they are,' Five thought to himself.
"Fine."
The Spartan holstered the Magnum and continued to open the MRE container. He pulled out a silver-wrapped Protein bar and pulled it open, ignoring the stares. When the dull green bar met light, an unsettling odor spread across the room, causing most of the occupants to gag at the scent, while Five ignored it and shoved the substance into his mouth and bit off half of it before chewing.
"What... was that?" Spike asked between gags.
"MRE, 'Meal Ready to Eat'," Five answered while chewing the doughy brick.
"Ugh... how can you eat that?" Rainbow asked.
"Compare it to starving to death, then wish you chose the other option," Five said jokingly.
Someone cleared their throat loudly, and Five turned to see that it was none other than the sister to the large white one.
"What?" he asked.
"I don't believe we've been properly introduced. I am Princess Luna, ruler of the Night, bearer of the Moon, and Co-ruler of Equestria. I think you've already met my sister, Princess Celestia, judging by the mark on her face."
"I acted in defense after being assaulted," Five deadpanned before swallowing the horrid 'food' before forcing himself to consume the rest.
"And I don't doubt that, from what Twilight told me. However, I will need to make sure that you stay put while she recovers, so that you two can sort out this miscommunication."
"Good. Now we're getting somewhere," Five stated before swallowing the last of the dreaded ration bar and reaching for his helmet.
He grabbed the red piece of titanium and raised it above his head before bringing it down with an audible click. The visor powered back to life to show his shields recharging and motion tracker powering back up before he zipped up the duffel bag.
"I hope that Twilight was helpful when she first met you," Luna started, "I'd hate to tarnish Equestria's history of cooperation by starting off poorly with such an advanced species."
"She did fine, given the conditions, I suppose. Looking to get on my good side again?" Five asked.
"Well, considering that no species on Equestria has technology like... that , I assume that this may very well be our first contact with Extra-Equestrial life. Am I right?"
Five smirked under his helmet.
'Guess I'm an ambassador now,' Five thought.
"I guess so."
"Before anything, I'd like to ask a few quick questions."
"Shoot."
"Why are you here?"
"I don't know, I came here by mistake."
"Could you explain?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I was in a planet called-"
"Inside a planet?" Twilight interrupted. "Don't you mean on ?"
"No. It was a Shield World, built by a hyper-advanced alien race, with multiple layers of surfaces beneath massive teleporters. When the planet began to collapse, I flew into the teleporter before it could entirely shut down, and here I am."
The room went silent as Luna mulled this over, while everyone else looked as though they were more confused than before. Except for-
"YOU HAVE TO TELL ME EVERYTHING!" Twilight shouted as she flew up to Five's visor.
He stood still as he gave a sigh.
"I don't know anything about the planet beyond that, nor do I know anything about the people that built it. All I know is that I was supposed to die, and now I'm trying to figure out where I am, and how I'm supposed to get back to UNSC space."
"Well, until Celestia wakes up, you should probably stay the night here. Twilight? Would you mind?" Luna responded.
"Not at all, princess. Five, would you like to come upstairs to find a bed?" she offered.
Five looked out among their faces.
'I'll be damned, they're really trying, aren't they?'
"I think I'd be better somewhere more hidden. Do you have any lower levels?"
"Yes, actually," Twilight nodded. "The basement's through that door there," she pointed towards the back.
"Alright then. I'll be down there. Thanks for your help, knock if you need anything."
Five walked straight towards the door, unaware of the weary gaze a certain Princess was giving him...
... and even less aware of the yellow eyes that followed him as well.
\\\//////
Chrysalis examined the white rooms carefully, detailing every turn in her mind, and into the Hive. The walls were a clean white, almost blinding at first, and the air was clean of any scent. Several chambers were separated by thicker windows and frames than others, and contained several glass beds and unknown equipment. Behind one certain glass pane, however, rested several severely wounded Changelings, their carapaces torn with massive, infected cuts and limbs barely attached at some parts. She could feel their minds in the Hive, deep down, unaware of the amount of pain they had gone through when they were blasted from Canterlot. These were the first to undergo what Sid had called "intensive care".
Above them, several metal arms stretched down towards the limp forms, and began to part at the ends to reveal several needles, pads, and other medical equipment.
"X-rays complete, beginning procedures," Sid's voice spoke.
The Queen turned her head as the needles began to pierce the infected cuts, swollen bruises, and veins of her subjects. She could hear the machinery buzz and whine as the same process repeated with Changelings in other rooms, all waiting for the saving grace of alien technology.
"Please... please, work," she prayed as tears flowed in a light trail from her eyes.
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!!!" "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]"
Five wanted to beat the ever-loving shit out of whatever it was that had snuck up on him, and he could see it knew that it was outmatched. It cradled what was left of its horrid face, and held the Dog Tags in a clawed hand as Five charged at it. It snapped its fingers and disappeared in a flash, but trigger his motion tracker as it just moved a bit behind him, and slightly higher. Five turned on the spot to find it hiding atop a piece of machinery, and jumped up to reach it. When he grabbed at something, Five slammed it into the ground by the tail, making it drop the Tags onto the ground. Five approached its torso and stomped it in, hearing something crack as its chest caved in. The Spartan gave it another kick before going to the silver necklaces.
As he picked them up, he could hear a snap behind him and found that the thing had healed itself almost entirely. Luna ran between Five and the creature as she spoke.
"Stop it, right now!" she shouted. "What is wrong with you two!?"
"What's wrong?" Five responded, seething with rage. "What's wrong !?"
\\\//////
Chrysalis sniffed the air a bit as she felt a wave of rage wash over her. She could see the reaction of the rest of the Changelings near her as they smelled the pure fury.
"What is that?" she asked no one in particular.
\\\//////
"This fucking thing just committed an inexcusable breach of protocol!" Five yelled, pointing at the thing.
The thing cleared its throat as it backed up a bit.
"Excuse me , but I am Discord, Lord of Chaos. I had to prank a lot of Gods to get that title, thank you very much," it finished by raising its chin into the air.
"I don't care if you're mother-fucking Santa Claus! You do not touch these Tags, ever !"
"Stop shouting! Let's just try to calm down, alright!?" Luna interrupted.
"Discord" gave a puff to show its disregard while Five clenched his fists again.
"Five, what did Discord do that's so inexcusable?" Luna asked.
"He took. These Dog Tags," Five responded by holding up the chains.
"But what are they?"
Five looked down at her and then back to Discord, narrowing his eyes behind his visor.
"They're what's left of my friends," Five growled.
When he said this, both Luna and Discord widened their eyes and looked to the Tags.
"Wait... they're... I-I didn't-" Discord started.
"No, you didn't," Five interrupted.
"I'm so, so very sorry, Five," Luna spoke. "I'm sure that Discord only wanted to introduce himself, and tried to be playful with you."
"Then don't."
Discord looked to Five with slightly watery eyes as Five put the Dog Tags in a compartment on his torso armor.
"I'm... I'm sorry," Discord started. "If I had known-"
"Shut up. And get out," Five demanded.
Discord took one last pleading look at him before snapping his fingers and leaving in a flash of light.
"Five, I'm sorry he did that, but can't you just try to give us a chance?"
Five walked back to the equipment before loading one of the Magnums and holstering it on his hip.
"I'm giving you all one chance. I need off this world, and I'm not going to jeopardize my chances by holding a grudge against all of you. But if I see anyone touch these weapons, I have authorization to use force. And if I see anyone touch these Dog Tags again, I'll choose to use force, regardless of protocol. Understand?"
Luna nodded and have her confirmation before she walked back up to the door. As she did, Five took out the Dog Tags and placed them on the table again, laying them out to examine them. He shook his head slowly as he sighed deeply.
"I'm sorry, guys. I won't let that happen again."
\\\//////
Luna closed the door behind her as she looked into the main room of the Library, seeing it empty and dark, save for one certain Draconequus. The alicorn furrowed her brow as she approached him.
"Discord, what were you thinking!?" she hissed at him.
"I was thinking of just saying 'hi' in my personal fashion," he replied coyly.
"You should have known better than that! Honestly, what made you think that stealing something from an alien soldier would be a great way to say 'hi'?"
"Well, for starters, I thought it would have been a great way to see if Celestia was actually faking her injuries, for one. But after that assault-"
"Response to your theft," Luna corrected.
"- I can say, that he's definitely worth what Celestia was panicking about."
Luna blinked in confusion.
"Hmm, right, you weren't there for that. Well, luckily, I peered into what Celestia was thinking about during her fight with our guest, seeing as how they were causing some good-ol'-fashioned-chaos. Remember when she had that nightmare-vision-thing about me ?"
The alicorn thought back to when she had seen her sister's first true experience with her "Divine Vision," as she called it. Her eyes widened when she thought about what that could mean.
"Wait... you don't think-"
"I'm simply saying," Discord interrupted, "that maybe she misinterpreted what she saw."
"And what did she see?"
Discord smirked as he turned away from her, and began moving towards the door.
"Oh, just something about that Five character, maybe some Changelings... but I think now she's seeing something that's going to confuse a lot of us."
\\\//////
Celestia paced through the halls of Canterlot Royal Medical as she ignored the few that tried to slow her approach.
'Why would I see that?' she constantly asked herself. 'Is that thing supposed to destroy us or help us? Why would I see one vision with it trying to kill me and assist the Changelings, and another with it destroying a Dragon Sky Fortress?'
A flash from her right drew her attention as Discord stood without a smile on his features.
"Hello, Princess," he spoke calmly.
"Where is it?" she demanded.
"If by 'it' you mean our new red guest-"
"Where is it !?"
"He's probably going to sleep, right around now. I had a few words with Five, which is his name, by the way, and found that he's simply lost on our world."
Celestia narrowed her eyes.
"I sincerely doubt that."
Discord sighed as his shoulders sagged slightly.
"Fine, you caught me. It turns out that I disrespected his dead friends and he proceeded to beat the ever-loving... something, out of me. It hurt, too. I actually learned about his dilemma after ease-dropping on him and Twilight."
"Twilight's still with that thing!?" Celestia panicked.
"Dear Celestia, calm down, would you? He's harmless, so long as you don't assault him or desecrate what remains of his friends."
"What do you mean, 'what's left of his friends'?"
"Well, turns out that there are a few metal necklaces that he keeps that had some names on it, and apparently they're the names of his friends. At least, that's what I got from what he said, as well as what I saw."
Celestia went silent as she tried to process the information.
"If you really want to know more, then wait until Luna comes back, then speak to her about it. She was there, after all."
Discord snapped away in a flash as another one came up behind Celestia. She turned around to find Luna looking at her.
"Sister, we need to talk."
"Yes we do, Luna. Yes we do."
Discord appeared in his suite in the Canterlot Castle, and looked down at the bed he had spent many nights changing and morphing to his will. This night, however, he didn't bother to experiment or even think of something wacky to do with it. Instead, he simply fell onto it, face first, and groaned in pain, clutching his body where Five had pummeled him. As he contemplated some way to aleviate the aches to his very being, he thought back to the alien and smirked.
"Haven't... felt this bad... since I tried to teleport inside out ."
With that said, Discord rested his face on the pillow, and drifted into a painful slumber.
\\\//////
Chrysalis wandered through the hallways of the Pale Horse with her eyes out for anything that might harm her Changelings. As she did, Sid conversed with her by keeping her informed on the status of those in the Medical Bay.
"And after penetrating the carapace as you instructed," Sid continued in his usual monotone, "I found several infections in group A, C, D, and E, all with the same toxins you described."
The Queen felt like hissing in rage at the memory of several of her loyal subjects being poisoned by Manticores that had decided to hibernate early. After she had put them down like the animals they were, she had tried to remedy their poison through the use of herbs in the forest. However, after days of searching, she had all but given up on the prospect. Until now.
"Will they make it?" she asked.
"Yes. The toxin is incredibly similar to one found by the UNSC almost a century ago on one of the Outer Colonies. I've already given the patients the serum, and have sterilized and treated the infections. They'll recover within the next two to four weeks."
Chrysalis teared up with joy and managed to smile for the first time in actual months. For once, things were finally looking up for the Changelings. Her thoughts began to drift back to her previous plans, and finally, returned to anger when she began to think of Canterlot. The city where she had met defeat at the hooves of Princess Celestia, and that damned couple.
"My Queen," a voice in the Hive spoke to her.
"What is it, my child?"
"There is a new creature in the town. I watched it walk towards the center, under the veil of night. It was unlike what we have seen before."
"How? What did it look like?"
"It walked on two legs, was covered in red armor, and was carrying several objects that resemble the Haven."
The Queen's eyes widened as she heard this. There was a creature out in Ponyville that had objects that resembled the "Haven," as her brood had called the ship.
"Show me," she commanded.
Without hesitation, her vision melded with that of the scout in Ponyville, and memories that weren't hers began to display themselves. There, in front of her, was a massive biped in red armor, that in of itself resembled the Pale Horse . Who she saw walking with it, however, made her heart stop.
'No... no, not now... why? Why!?'
"My Queen?" the scout spoke.
"If you can, try to watch this anomaly, but at all times, stay away from those ponies!"
"Of course, ma'am."
With that, the connection between her scout and her mind separated, and she was left staring into the empty hallway, close to a heart attack.
\\\//////
Five heard several steps coming down from the higher parts of the residence and looked out to a small window.
"About damn time," he muttered to no one.
The Spartan grabbed the MA5D and made his way up the stone staircase to the main area of the building. When he ducked beneath the doorway, he saw that Twilight and Spike were both up and looking at him from another room.
"Oh, good morning, Five," Twilight spoke with a smile. "Would you like some breakfast?"
"No thanks, I'm good."
'Rather not risk having my insides melted by alien food, thanks,' he thought to himself.
"Well, alright then."
The two made way to the other room while Five looked out the main windows to the building. The streets were bustling with activity, as the roads were drowned in a variety of colors and sizes of ponies. It almost made Five sick to look at all the changing colors.
Out of the corner of his eye, however, he caught something glisten in the sky. Upon zooming in, he watched as several golden figures were pulling a small object towards him. On the back of what they were pulling, however, was a familiar punching bag.
"Well, look who's back for round two," he said while smirking under his helmet.
\\\//////
Celestia shifted on her hooves as the Royal Chariot pulled her across the sky towards Ponyville Library.
'If it hurt Twilight in any way, I'll throw it into the Sun and make it burn for a thousand years,' she thought darkly.
With a shift of her shoulder, Celestia could feel the sting of pain from her right wing, where the machine had done... something. All she knew was that they had to remove a piece of metal from her joint, as well as splint the limb so that she could recover properly. Her appendage wrapped up and her magic left slightly disoriented with her healing, she felt as though the very fate of her people rested on how well she could talk down a demon of metal.
Five watched as the large white pony stepped down towards the building he was occupying, and paused as it saw him in the window. Without missing a beat, the Spartan opened the door to the tree and walked out into the street. To the left of the pony were two more, smaller ones, decked out in flashy golden armor, holding spears up to the Spartan. To the right side were two similarly armored ponies, only these had horns and were holding something in an aura, similar to what he had seen Twilight do when she found his weapons.
"Monster!" one of them shouted, causing all eyes in the road to lock on to Five.
"Hold," the white one said, raising a leg.
All of the aliens paused to stare at the massive red form of Five as he stared down at the bandaged appendage that the white one sported. Behind him, shuffling could be heard before Twilight came out and spoke.
"Princess Celestia! What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Shouldn't you be nursing that wing?" Five asked smugly.
The armored ones growled at him as "Celestia" narrowed her eyes.
"I could have killed you if I wanted to," she snapped.
"I doubt that," Five replied dryly.
"Oh, you think you're better than me?"
"Look to your right. There's your proof."
"Because you cheated."
"Really? You think I cheated? What are you, eight?"
Twilight tapped his leg with wide eyes.
"Five, I don't think you should agitate the Princess," she said.
Five may have heard her, but didn't bother to address her as he simply continued to stare down Celestia.
"What do you want?" he asked bluntly.
Celestia almost flared her teeth at him while her guards began to lower their spears at him.
"What I want," she started, "is for you to leave my land, metal beast."
"I'd gladly leave, but someone here told me that you'd be able to help me get off this planet."
"Why should I help you? You've-"
"Done nothing wrong," Five interrupted. "I've walked out of a forest, gotten attacked by two of your kind on sight, then ambushed by you , and have only acted in defense."
"Do you expect me to believe that?"
"Exactly what was I doing, then?"
Celestia paused and stood still as Five simply waited.
"Princess," Twilight started, "Five really wasn't doing anything bad. I found him in the Everfree after his ship crashed, and he's only looking for a way back to his people. It was all just a misunderstanding."
Looking between Twilight and Five, Celestia pondered the danger of having this alien in Ponyville.
"Also, if I wanted to do any damage, I would have easily done it by now," Five added.
Celestia closed her eyes in thought.
\\\//////
Fang watched as the alien spoke to Princess Celestia with an audacity that he thought would get it sent straight to the Sun, or the depths of Tartarus, or somewhere worse. All the alicorn could do, however, was talk as it stood before her, waiting for a response.
"Fine," she finally spoke.
The Changeling had to gather his focus as his disguise nearly dropped in the middle of the street, scared by the sudden talk from the alicorn.
"I will look in our old archives to see if we have a teleportation spell powerful enough to jump worlds. But, if you harm any of my little ponies, I will personally escort you to the bowels of Tartarus. Do you understand?"
"First of all, good to hear that you're actually going to cooperate. Secondly, don't threaten me, because we both know who'll beat the other's face in. Last, any other conditions you want to add?"
"Actually, I want you to prove that you're not a threat. I want to hear from several ponies, not just Twilight and her friends, about how you helped them."
"So, community service, then?"
"If that's how you want to address it, fine."
The Princess turned back onto the carriage and motioned for her guards to follow.
"Wait, Princess, you're just going to leave?" the purple one asked.
"I trust that if it does act out, you can handle it, Twilight."
"So then why did you attack me if you thought she was so capable before?" the alien asked forcefully.
"Because I thought that you were trying to sneak up on her, and were going to attack the town."
The alien shook its head before turning around and starting to move towards the door to the treehouse. Princess Celestia's carriage took off to the chorus of flapping feathered wings as the alien watched it take off as well. Fang swallowed a lump in his throat and slowly approached the two from an angle, trying to sneak up to the side of the alien.
\\\//////
"So, what, she wants me to make friends before I'm even told if I can get out of here?" Five questioned. "Fan-fucking-tastic."
"Well, at least she's giving you a chance, right?" Twilight offered.
Five looked down at her with a blank stare, somewhat negated by the blank plate of glass between their gazes, but felt it necessary for the stupidity of the situation.
"God end me now," he dryly remarked as he took a few steps forward.
"Where are you going?"
"To check the area around the crash to make sure nothing made it from the demolition."
As he walked in the direction of the forest, Five saw a blip on his motion tracker to his left. He shifted his gaze to the source of the signal to find a small bush. With a thought, he activated the Promethean Vision and peered into the plant. Inside was a creature that was shaped like the ponies, except very different. It had a curved, short horn that ended in a sharp point, a set of wings, and had several holes along all of its legs. When the Promethean Vision shut off, Five spoke up.
"You want to stop hiding, and maybe explain yourself?"
Fang froze in fear as he heard the alien speak to him. Slowly and shakily, he rose from the bush to reveal the pony form he hid in.
"Um, h-hi..." he said low with a forced hoof wave.
The alien merely motioned for him to exit the bush with its club, and stepped backwards to give him room. With a gulp, Fang stepped out of the leaves and branches, exposing the pony form he occupied. It was a light gray coat with a black, smooth mane and tail, topped off with eyes that were a simple blue, and a Cutie Mark of a cloud that fit well with his feathered wings. Not the most elaborate disguise, no, but definitely not one to stand out of the crowd.
"I-I'm, uh... S-Storm, Wing..." he offered.
\\\//////
Five examined the form of the being before him, and recognized none of it from what he saw.
'The Hell?' he thought to himself.
With a thought, Five activated the Promethean Vision and saw the form he was expecting. After shutting it off again, he spoke.
"What's with the disguise?"
\\\//////
Panic seized Fang when the alien said this.
"W-what?"
"Special visor equipment shows that you're not supposed to look like this," the alien explained. "You're supposed to have a horn, and-"
"Stop, please!" Fang pleaded. "Don't tell them!"
\\\//////
Five narrowed his eyes at the not-pony before speaking.
"Tell who about what?"
The not-pony looked around to make sure the coast was clear.
"You... you don't know what I am?"
"Why does everyone assume I do?" Five asked to his annoyance. "Look, I'm not on anyone's side except my own, right now. If you're some kind of spy or something, I don't care. What I do want to know, however, is why you're watching me."
The being gulped audibly while shifting on its legs.
"Um... well, it's..."
Five shook his head before walking in the path of the forest.
"If you wanna talk, then walk," he said before walking off.
The not-pony blinked a few times before taking off after Five, following him down the path out of town.
\\\//////
Twilight rubbed her temples with the flats of her hooves as she leaned against the frame of her home. She gave an exasperated sigh while dragging her hooves down her face.
"Why is everypony acting so crazy right now?" she asked nopony in particular.
The alicorn looked out the window beside her to see Five walking away from the Library with a pegasus stallion following him. She shot upright from her position and watched them walk off towards the edge of the town.
"What? Why is Five going with-" she gasped. "Is he already adjusting to the social norm already!? An alien adapting to our society after everything that's happened!?"
Twilight took off towards her desk to gather quills, parchments, and ink before propping a spare set of saddlebags on her sides and filling them up with documenting equipment.
"I have to record this! To make sure that this doesn't go wrong!"
The Princess flew out of the Library with urgency as she watched Five walk with the pegasus. While she focused on watching them and not being seen, she subconsciously began to document everything that she saw.
\\\//////
Five walked in silence with the not-pony as they neared the forest. The longer they walked, the more the smaller of the two seemed uncomfortable. He (unknown to Five if it has a gender) began to change where he walked in conjunction with Five, moving from side to side, or trying to stay behind him. The entire time they walked, the non-pony kept looking back to see if they were being watched. Knowing his line of work, as well as the current situation, Five would be surprised if he wasn't under observation.
"We're almost there," Five said to break the silence. "You maybe want to give me your actual name?"
The not-pony recoiled from the sudden speech, but managed to answer.
"Fang. Just, Fang."
"Five."
"Five what?"
"That's my name."
\\\//////
"That's it's name ?" Chrysalis asked.
She watched the conversation through the scout's connection to the Hive, focusing on how it had singled Fang out, and why it was leading him out into the Everfree. Did it know they were in this ship? Did it want to execute him? What was it? She turned to view through the massive windows of what Sid had called, the "Observatory," and spoke.
"Sid, do you know of something red called 'Five'?"
"One moment," Sid responded, "searching data banks. File found."
"Can you explain what it is?"
"Of course."
The room darkened a bit as a large display popped up before the center window. The Queen watched as the form of the alien began to materialize on the flat plane of images and text, but was shocked to see its head removed to reveal a fleshy, scarred face, just like the aliens that she had found dead in the ship. Her eyes widened when she realized that this soldier was likely going to want the ship back. It spun in place as the voice of Sid explained what she was seeing.
"Sergeant-Master Antonio 'Five' Gutierrez, Spartan V-461 of the UNSC Infinity . Date of birth, April 1st, 2519 on Madrigal. Date of death: unknown, listed MIA after the destruction of Requiem. Date of Spartan-IV graduation: May 5th, 2555, placed 5th rank out of all candidates. Previous UNSC military record shows eight years of service in the UNSC Marine Corps, seventy eight drops as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper until 2553. Specializes in medium-ranged combat, but has trained in close and long ranges as well. Placed top of the class in aircraft training in the Spartan-IV platoon of 2555. During his time aboard the Infinity , he led his fire-team, codenamed 'Crimson,' against Covenant and Promethean forces during the first Battle of Requiem in 2557. After returning to Requiem during the Second Battle of Requiem, his fire-team was captured by a large Covenant army, estimated to be between 20,000 and 30,000, not counting aircraft, heavy vehicles, and warships. Approximately 68% of the Covenant forces sent after Crimson were killed in the attack, 23%, of which, were his own. Some time after their escape from Covenant capture, the rest of the fire-team was listed MIA, leaving Five as the surviving member until the planet was destroyed by a supernova of the system's star. His sacrifice had saved over 21,000 members of the UNSC, and earned him several commendations, as well as a temporary promotion to Lieutenant before being listed as MIA. The last part was added before the Infinity broke all contact with Requiem."
After a moment of silence, she tried to think of something else to think of, but was interrupted by Sid's voice.
"Error: Communications jammed."
Chrysalis blinked several times as several red lights flashed up across the alien displays as a model of the ship popped up. A small portion lighted up red as the Queen spoke.
"What's going on?"
"I've attempted to communicate with Five's radio, but I'm being jammed by something inside the ship."
\\\//////
Five walked around the charred remains of what was once a crash site, kicking up ash with each footfall. The area around the blast was still as bent and scarred as he remembered it. Fang looked around in fear as Five stood in the center of the clearing.
"This is what's left of my first crash onto this planet. We're far away from anyone else. Would you kindly drop the disguise?"
Fang looked back and forth through the blackened bushes, fear in his eyes.
"A-are you sure?" he asked.
"It's fine. Just... do, whatever it is you need to do," Five said while motioning with a wave of his hand.
The not-pony took a deep breath before a green fire shot up from the ground and consumed him. Five was about to aim his rifle before he saw the form waiting behind the flames. The entire form of Fang was altered in all but shape. He still retained the shape of a pony, but everything else was different. Instead of grey fur, he was covered in a black, shell-like skin, with holes strewn across the bottoms of his legs. Fang's wings were now clear and also ridden with holes, giving an insect-like look to him. His once similar eyes had completely changed to a full blue, leaving no pupils at all. A horn had also appeared on his head, short and sharp, while his hair and tail had completely left. The other major difference was the fact that Fang had shrunk considerably. His torso was much thinner than before, almost looking as though he were nothing but shell and bone, and his height was almost halved.
"I-I'm... a Changeling."
Twilight gasped when the pony revealed itself to be a Changeling, and almost charged in horn ablaze to save Five, before remembering the "encounter" he had with Princess Celestia. If it tried any kind of assault at this point, she'd almost feel sorry for it. However, if it attack his mind , like how the Queen had tried to control Shining Armor... she simply waited to see what kind of reaction the Spartan would give.
\\\//////
Five examined the true form of Fang, trying to read his body language. Clearly this was a young one, if size and inexperience were any factors in age, as Fang kept on shifting from one leg to the next, trying to stay calm under the gaze of the Spartan. While he did, not once had he checked to see if they were still being followed, which Five knew the answer to, seeing a certain spot of purple within the darker pallet of the forest.
"You can explain yourself while you help me search," was all Five said before locking the Assault Rifle to his back.
Fang blinked in disbelief while Five clicked the safety off on the Magnum.
"W-what?"
"I said you can talk while you help me, alright? Look for anything that's not just burned metal."
Silence came down upon them as Five began to shift aside ash piles in an attempt to search through the remainder of his Pelican.
"... Why?" Fang asked to break the silence.
"Because protocol states that nothing can be salvaged from my ship if I can't carry it, and I don't know if those were enough explosives to-"
"I mean," Fang interrupted, "why would you give me a chance to talk?"
\\\//////
Twilight found herself, oddly enough, agreeing with the Changeling! Why was Five giving it a chance? Why was he asking it for help ?
"Because, so far, you haven't tried to take my weapons," Five started.
Already, Twilight cringed as she thought about the only path this would go down.
"... you haven't tried to kill me," Five continued, "not even once , might I add. You didn't try to make me out as some sort of monster that can't see reason, and you haven't desecrated the only remains I have of my best friends."
Twilight was appalled at the sentence. Never once had she tried, nor even thought about... she had that itching feeling in the back of her neck, yet again, as her developing sixth sense caused her rage to boil.
'Discord, you arrogant nutjob!' she scolded in her mind.
\\\//////
"Mmm... not now, daddy's working !" Discord shouted as he scrolled through several boxes of text and pictures, trying to find one soul that understood his plight.
It was for naught, however, as not one mind within had found what he had been praying for. With a teary rage, he shouted to the abyss above, making his blight known to Everything.
"Why didn't anyone see the obvious Half-Life 3 joke!?"
\\\//////
Fang stood stiff as a board as Five continued to rummage through the ash piles of the blast, not caring for any stares the wildlife provided. However, it was a certain purple pony that was keeping the Spartan from focusing on the actual work that needed to be done. With a sigh, Five raised himself from his knees and spoke.
"Twilight, would you stop hiding and help, since you decided to follow us all the way here?"
\\\//////
Creak kept up a slow pace through the hallways of the saving grace of Changeling kind, the alien ship known as Pale Horse . As he did, the nymph took in its surroundings and was in awe of the brilliance every inch of the place gave off. Ahead of him was a locked door, yet its shining barrier and seeming defiance kept him in such a trance that he didn't even mind being cut-off from his walk. As he slowed to a stop, the nymph heard the rushing of hooves on the metallic floor behind him, and turned to see another Changeling approaching.
"There you are," she panted. "We've been worried, young one."
"I'm sorry, Sputter," Creak said while flicking his front hoof across the floor. "I just... wanted to look around."
She gave a chuckle as they both looked up.
"I know, this place is pretty big, isn't it?"
Creak nodded as he came closer to the other Changeling.
Before he could reach to her, however, the massive doors behind him clanged in protest of a mighty force. Both Changelings turned on the spot, startled by not only the noise, but by the sizable dent in its center. Angered sounds came from the other side as another impact rang out through the hall, bending the mighty barrier even further. It began to crack under the amount of force as the two observers began to speed away from the roars from the other side.
Creak heard a hissing sound as blue light filled the hallway before a deafening boom rang through the metallic chamber, along with an intense wave of heat that threatened to singe their chitin without contact. The nymph took a look behind him and gasped in shock.
Where the door once stood, eight creatures poured out in pursuit of the two. All of them stood on two legs that bent in a similar fashion to their own hind legs, had two arms that ended in four long, thin, flexible claws, and as opposed to jaws, had four mandibles that bared rows of flesh-ripping teeth. Three of them wore identical, white armor that gave an air of authority that matched their massive helmets, while the other four wore blue armor that failed to cover their arms. The last one was too fast to examine, as it began to charge after them.
"Hop on!" Sputter commanded.
Without hesitation, Creak jumped onto the barrel of the elder Changeling and held on tight as they heard the beast roar.
"NISHUM!"
Five waited with a smug grin as the purple alicorn rose from the brush of the mostly charred forest and stepped into the ashes of the crash site. She was glaring daggers at Fang while trying to look non-threatening (an easy task from Five's point of view). When she stopped, she simply sat and waited while Five looked between the pony and the Changeling.
"So, we're off to a shitty start," Five said, stepping into the space between them. "I take it you've met before?"
"I'm not sure," Twilight started with a tone, "I'm having trouble remembering which one he was amongst the armies that almost destroyed my brother's wedding !" she shouted.
Fang stumbled backwards and took cover behind Five's legs, peeking out at her from the sides of his boots. Five was surprised by this, and decided to push an investigation.
"Care to explain?"
"Their Queen took my sister-in-law hostage, tried to mind-control my B.B.B.F.F-"
"Your what ?" Five interrupted. "The Hell is that?"
Twilight looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.
"'Big Brother, Best Friend Forever,' you didn't know that?"
"How the fuck would I?" Five replied.
Twilight paused and thought for a second before returning to the subject matter.
"Anyways, it's kind tried to invade Canterlot and feed on everypony's love."
Five stood still as a statue, despite wanting to face-palm so badly that he thought it would break his visor.
"That has got to be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard in my entire life," Five droned out in a monotone.
"Well it's true!" Twilight protested. "Just ask that !" she said while pointing a hoof at Fang.
"His name's Fang, and he's clearly not going to try anything."
"How would you know? They're a deceptive, sneaky, evil, unpleasant, rude, anything bad you could think of, all rolled into one! I bet it's just waiting for an opportunity to strike!"
"His name ," Five corrected, "is Fang. Besides, look at him. He's half your height, thin as a twig, and trembling in fear of you ."
Twilight gaped in shock, and looked back at the Changeling in question. True to Five's word, the Changeling was cowering in fear from her gaze. She took a few seconds to examine its body, and saw that it was, indeed, much more frail than her right now. For pony's sake, it looked like it was looking at a demon! And here it was, taking cover behind an unknown alien for protection from her, a Princess of Equestria. It was that realization that hit Twilight the hardest. She was supposed to be an exemplar of good morals and fairness that Equestria holds up so dearly. What kind of Princess would she be if she showed nothing but contempt for another, regardless of their race?
The Princess took on a saddened look as she sighed in defeat.
"You... you're right," she admitted. "I've been acting like some kind of-"
"Over zealous xenophobe?" Five suggested.
"I was going to say jerk, but I guess I can't really decide that, huh?"
"I'd be lying if I said my kind were better."
Their conversation was cut short as static began to broadcast in Five's helmet communicator, causing him to raise a hand to his head.
"Who's there?" he spoke into the static.
White noise filled his ears as he focused on trying to get a signal, mentally cutting power from parts of his armor to boost the communicator. He was rewarded with a marker placed on his Heads-Up Display, 3.19 kilometers South by South-East, deeper into the forest. With a swift motion, Five drew his Assault Rifle and locked in the destination.
"I just got an objective location," Five spoke to the other two.
"What does that mean?" Twilight asked.
"It means there's a UNSC signature in that direction, and it's calling for help. Twilight, go back to your place and bring my weapons. We'll be right here."
Twilight nodded before disappearing in a flash of purple light. Five turned around to speak to Fang.
"If there's anything you know about any kind of unknown... anything, in that direction," Five pointed towards the marker, "tell me now."
Fang shifted on his hooves as he swallowed a lump in his throat.
"Well... our Queen, she found... a ship..."
The moment another flash erupted behind Five, he reached out and grabbed the dull-green duffel bag and bolted in the direction of the signal, ignoring the calls behind him as he plowed through shrubs and trees.
\\\//////
Chrysalis rushed down to where she could sense her subjects fearfully retreating, keeping her horn lit for when she ran into whatever was causing the panic. If the images the nymph had broadcasted were anything to go by, these were another type of alien that weren't supposed to be on this ship.
"Sid, are you sure that I emptied out the last of the crew!?" she asked while rushing down another hallway.
"I only tagged members of the crew. By your description, it seems that the Covenant had sent boarding parties during the collapse of Requiem."
'I don't have time for all these questions you keep making me think of!' she thought as Sid used foreign words, again.
"Why and how are they here!?" she managed while jumping down another empty elevator shaft.
"They are likely here to recover any data they could on the UNSC Infinity or our operations concerning Requiem. As for the how, they likely came in a boarding craft, which would explain the disruptions I've suffered, as of late."
Chrysalis was going to ask something about how they could survive for as long as they did before a blue bolt of energy connected with the wall by her head, burning away the strengthened metal like it was made of bread. She took cover behind a magical barrier, and got a relatively "good" look at the assailant. It held a strange device in its claws that was barely long enough to measure up to a small sword, but smoked at the end where the bolt of death had likely come from.
Her hypothesis was confirmed as a series of blue bolts spewed out of the weapon and flew at her with a vengeance. The barrier she held up stung her brain as it barely withstood the barrage of liquid death. With little time, Chrysalis sent a bolt of kinetic energy at it before bringing down her own shield to collect her focus. When it impacted, a blue field of energy cracked around the creature as it flew backwards, its weapon flying out of its grip as its arm twisted unnaturally.
The weapon landed only a few paces away from the hooves of the beast, and already it was growling in pain while clutching a smaller weapon it drew from its hip. Without thinking, Chrysalis pulled the weapon off the ground and aimed it at the alien, trying to activate it any way she could. When she squeezed a part under the handle, several blue bolts penetrated the neck of the alien as it gurgled out its rage before dropping to the floor.
The Queen of the Changelings looked at the weapon closely as she hovered it before her in a green aura. The curves and ends were perfectly elegant, making it as beautiful as an instrument as it was deadly as a weapon. Her admiration was cut short, however, when she heard another set of hooves stomping towards her. With a quick turn, she saw a white one charging at her with two smaller weapons, each one holding a generous amount of pink, needle-like crystals. A swarm of pink assaulted her vision as they flew towards her face. A quick duck behind another wall proved to be a smart move by Chrysalis, but it was short lived as the walls glowed pink for a fraction of a second before the corner exploded into a cloud of dust and shards. Some bits of shrapnel lodged themselves in her barrel, while the blast sent her onto the ground.
A firm hoof to her gut made the Queen cough up all the air in her lungs as the white beast looked down upon her. It muttered something in a strange language before a glowing knife of energy came out of a port on its wrist. With her last bit of will, Chrysalis grabbed the weapon she had and smacked the alien across its mandibles, getting it to step off of her torso. As it stumbled, she pulled a blue sphere off of its belt and accidentally pressed a button on it. The sphere glowed blue before sticking to its arm and whining in a high pitch before her world was consumed in a blue flash of heat and death.
\\\//////
Creak held on to the neck of the older Changeling as the red alien continued to chase them down corridor after corridor. It gave several curses as it slashed at walls and air, missing its target as it tried to slice them apart with a glowing, double-bladed sword. After what seemed like a lifetime of dodging through hallways, Creak and Sputter found an open door that led straight to the dirt of the Everfree Forest.
The older Changeling took the chance and ran for the exit at full speed. Just as they were about to pass through, a humming sound came from the red alien, and a green light cast massive shadows of the Changelings as Sputter cried out in pain. The two tumbled onto the dirt as Creak buzzed his wings to balance himself out. When he landed, he ran over to Sputter and gasped when he saw the spot here her left hind leg had been. He began to cry as the stomping grew louder from the ship.
"Run," Sputter wheezed out. "Creak, run! I'll be fine, just run!"
Creak wanted to protest, but panicked when he heard the stomping stop as massive hooves came down on dirt, sending small tremors as the beast stomped towards them. With one last glance at Sputter, the nymph ran into the woods as the red beast continued to chase him.
\\\//////
Twilight panted as she strained to keep up with the Spartan through the thick barriers and hurdles of the Everfree. Five ran so far ahead of her and Fang that the only indication that he hasn't turned or stopped was the color of his armor that stuck out obviously. She spared a glance to her side and saw that Fang was managing to keep up as well, though he was having an easier time. He used his small wings as boosts as he jumped from tree to tree, easily avoiding hurdles and branches with his small frame.
The alicorn switched her focus on keeping up with the Spartan ahead of her as she felt her lungs burn in protest to her chase. Just as she did, however, she noticed a sliver of something over the tree line and pumped her wings rigorously. With a burdened breath, she managed to clear the treetops and gaped at what she saw.
Not even a full kilometer ahead of her was Ghastly Gorge, with a massive metal object lodged in it. The massive structure cut across perpendicular to the valley below, and sunk in enough to bury almost the entire front half of it, exposing massive cylinders on the opposite end, where two blunt wing-like protrusions hung on both sides. Behind the behemoth of metal was a massive trail that scorched into the open field, similar to what she saw Five's ship make when he crashed.
The realization clicked then that this ship was a larger one that Five had yet to mention. An alien spaceship. Right in front of her.
With renewed energy, Twilight shot forward and stayed by the red blur within the forest.
\\\//////
Spike sighed as he continued to sweep the floor of the Library, waiting for Twilight and/or Five to come back. He had seen them take off almost two hours ago, and hadn't heard or seen them either since. Just as he was about to finish the main room, the door opened and sent a light breeze that scattered all of the dust he had accumulated into a pile.
Another sigh escaped his lips as he turned to see Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity walk in.
"'Sup, Spike?" Rainbow asked.
"Well, I was cleaning up, but since you're all here, have you seen Five, the alien, or Twilight? They left a few hours ago, and they haven't come back."
The three mares exchanged a glance before Applejack spoke.
"Spike, which way did they go?"
"Towards the Everfree Forest, why?"
"Spike," Rarity started, "would you like to keep me company while Rainbow and Applejack go get them?"
The dragon perked up at the offer.
"Sure thing, Rarity! I'll go get some drinks, what would you like?"
"Oh, anything's fine, deary," she dismissed with a wave of her hoof.
Spike took off for the kitchen while the three mares conversed.
"Alright, I'll keep Spikey here, while you two go find Twilight," Rarity stated.
"If that alien hurt so much as a hair on her," Applejack threatened.
"Let's go, AJ," Rainbow finished.
They all nodded in unison before they split up with their tasks in mind.
\\\//////
Five rammed through three more trees before charging into a small clearing by a river before coming to a screeching halt. He looked around to try and find the others before hearing a rustling from the bushes. The Spartan readied his weapon as the sounds came closer, the rifle leveled at the bushes. Twilight and Fang stopped by his sides and waited as another form burst from the canopy. Five lowered his rifle when he saw Fang run for the smaller Changeling.
"The Hell?" he mused.
Fang rushed back over to Five as the younger one screamed.
"Help! M-monster!"
"What monster?" Twilight asked.
Before an answer could come, a roar was heard from the opposite end of the clearing, and out stepped an Elite Zealot, wielding an Energy Sword.
"Shit! Zealot, get behind me!" Five yelled as he leveled the Assault Rifle.
The Zealot gave one more roar before charging.
"DEMON!"
Five squeezed the trigger and unleashed a torrent of bullets towards the Elite, trying to crack its shields as Twilight and the two Changelings hid in the bushes. The Zealot's shields held strong, though, and the Elite was on him before they could break. It raised the sword above its head and swung down at Five. The Spartan raised his rifle as a barrier as he stepped back, releasing his grip as the rifle was split in half.
Another swing was sent at Five as he ducked to the left and rolled out of the way before drawing out his Magnum. When Five found his balance, he fired at the Zealot, only for the bullets to deflect off of the flat of the Energy Sword. The Magnum clicked when the trigger was pulled again, leaving Five without ammo as he jumped back from a straight stab by the Zealot.
Five raised his fists up as the Zealot stared him down and reached for its opposite hip. The Spartan was panicking inside as he watched the Elite pull out a second Energy Sword. It swung its arm back and...
... threw the sword to Five.
The Spartan caught it at the last second and quickly inspected the alien weapon. It looked like every other Energy Sword he had held (all 2 of them) and didn't have anything out of the ordinary for its design. A quick squeeze on the handle caused twin blades of plasma to materialize before him, glowing a hot whitish-blue before him. Five brought the sword out to his side and slowly began to circle the Zealot as it did the same, though far more relaxed as both of its arms were at its sides.
In the blink of an eye, both took a fighting stance, the Zealot with the sword pointed away from the Spartan, and Five with the sword close to his chest. Time seemed to stand still as the forces of nature backed off from the two warriors as they charged each other, swords raised and war cries escaping their maws.
\\\//////
Sharpshot limped down the hall with Kickback and Hardshell behind him, rushing to save their beloved Queen. Minutes ago, they had woken up in this strange place of metal, but they still kept their trained minds on their objectives: protect the Hive and Queen, above all else. They had felt the pain their Queen suffered when she had been attacked, and it was that white, hot pain that fueled the soldiers of the Hive to fight the alien aggressors. Several more of them were pushing the infiltrators out of the strange structure, determined to fight for what little their kind had. Even with the massive strain in their movements, the veterans were determined to make prove their worth by keeping the Queen safe.
After turning onto another hallway, Hardshell called out to the others and located several signs of battle. The walls were all burned and twisted, and two bodies lay in the corridor, while burnt flesh was scattered about. One of the limp forms was, without a doubt, the Queen. With a heightened pace, the three veteran Changelings managed to spark their horns enough to carry the Queen between them. Without pause, they all rushed down the halls to find where they had woken up, as the spirit known as "Sid" had told them to bring her.
Kickback checked the condition of their beloved ruler and found that she had several large burns across her chitin, as well as fractures in her legs and ribs. He barked out her status to the others as he gave word to the rest of the Hive: the Queen was safe.
\\\//////
Rainbow Dash flew over the trail of destroyed trees as Applejack weaved through the bush beneath her, determined to locate the alien and their friend. The pegasus heard several lighting cracks coming from up ahead, but was confused by the sound, as there wasn't a cloud in the sky. She nearly lost her balance as she watched the familiar form of Five clash against a larger, more alien form as they swung glowing blades at each other.
\\\//////
Five held the sword up sideways as the Zealot delivered a downward strike with its own sword, sending sparks around them yet again as the dirt seemed to jump on their every clash. When the Zealot backed away, Five slashed across in an outwards motion, trying to catch the Elite by the arm. It was ready for the strike, however, and used Five's momentum against him, as it grabbed his left arm and pulled him in for a, what would be, devastating knee-shot to the gut.
The Spartan staggered away from the blow as his shields broke off from the impact, causing several alarms to go off. While it waited to recharge, however, the Elite was already on him with an upward swing that narrowly missed Five's jawline. Five saw the opportunity and went in for a stabbing motion while the Zealot spun on its heels, and intercepted the blade. While the blades were crackling against each other, the Elite delivered a punch to Five's head that sent him spinning for a moment before shaking it off.
The two glared at each other in stillness before Five took off for the Elite, weapon low as he held out his left arm with a defiant yell. Five swung the sword towards the head of the Zealot with a twist of his body. The Zealot expected this, and raised its sword in defense, seconds before the blades would collide. What it did not expect, however, was the Spartan deactivating the sword mid-swing. The handle flew over the Elite's outstretched arm and landed in Five's left hand, where the twin blades sprouted anew.
Without hesitation, the Zealot prepared to block the next strike, but was caught off-guard as Five's right hand gripped its arm and pulled it down with the momentum from the first swing. Five swung the blade in his hand as he continued to spin, bringing the Zealot to the ground as he brought the Energy Sword down through its neck. A sizzling sound filled the air around Five as his maneuver caused him to roll onto the ground three or four times.
Five shook his head as he scrambled to his feet, and smiled widely as he gazed upon the decapitated form of the Zealot. He gave a low chuckle as he approached the body, deactivating the Energy Sword before holstering it to his left hip. The Spartan used his left boot to kick the head of the Elite around, and crouched to look into its dead eyes. Five felt a warm, proud feeling as he gazed into the dead eyes of the Elite, filled with surprise and fear.
Twilight peeked her head out of the bushes and scanned the riverbank clearing for Five and the other alien, and found the Spartan dragging the opposing one to the edge of the water. Without so much as a pause, Five spun on his heels and threw the limp form of the alien into the river, dropping it below the reflective surface like a rock.
The alicorn rushed out of cover to try and save the possibly drowning alien before Five spoke.
"Don't bother with it," he deadpanned.
Twilight stopped mid-stride to look between Five and the water.
"What? Why?" she asked.
"We've got more important things to deal with."
"But what about-"
"Dead," Five interrupted. "I made sure of it."
Twilight slowly backpedaled away from the form of the Spartan.
"Wha..." she breathed out.
"Do you remember everything I told you? About the war I left?"
The alicorn nodded reluctantly.
"That , was one of them. They hold no mercy for my kind, and want nothing but to see us all die."
"But... it, gave you one of those swords!" Twilight protested.
"How much did you see?" Five asked cautiously.
"I... stopped watching before you ran towards each other."
"It wanted to prove that it was better. It wanted to even the odds so that it would make me afraid to falter."
"Then... why..."
Twilight was at a loss for words as she stared at the flowing river, where the defeated alien lay, likely dead. She then thought back to what Five had told her the previous night. The war. Destruction of planets . Loosing everything he had ever known in the blink of an eye. To her, this was simply an act of murder, unjustified in her own view. To Five, however, it was clear that there was a mix of fear and hatred when he spoke of the "Covenant," and she feared whatever may get in his way now.
"I..." Twilight tried to speak, unable to find a position in this conflict of interests.
"Let's just go," Five stated before walking behind Twilight's field of view.
The alicorn turned around to watch as the Spartan opened the bag and pulled out the yellow-striped weapon that she had seen when she had first found him, a small slide that he placed on his hip (which stuck to his armor magically), and a thin black weapon that had a grip that looked as though it would slide down the underside of the weapon. The black one stuck to his back, again, likely with magic, as Five brought out the smaller weapon, and pushed a small button. A thin strip of metal slid out of it and hit the ground with a clink as Five loaded another strip into the empty slot. It clicked once before he placed it on the side of his leg, and pulled back a lever on the yellow-striped one.
"Fang!" Five called into the woods.
The bushes rustled to their right to reveal two Changelings, one being Fang and another even smaller than him, looking like a Changeling foal. The smaller one rested on Fang's back, crying onto the back of the older Changeling.
It was that image that would haunt Twilight.
A Changeling foal.
Crying.
Before Twilight could think about how world-shattering this seemed, it spoke in a weak, raspy voice.
"I-is," the smaller one sobbed, "the m-monster... gone?"
"It's gone," Five confirmed.
The Spartan slowly approached the two. As he did, the smaller Changeling seemed to shrink into the chitin of Fang, trying to hide from his advance.
"Calm down," Five spoke slowly as he began to lower his weapon.
Before anyone else could speak, a blue blur slammed into Fang's side, sending the younger one flying into the air. Five turned and jumped to catch the younger Changeling before slamming into the ground, the nymph secured in the shade of Five's titanic form. The Spartan rolled over and got into a kneeling stance before aiming at whatever had assaulted Fang.
"Rainbow!" Twilight shouted.
The pegasus in question had Fang in a choke-hold, cutting off air from the Changeling's lungs as he flailed his forelegs backwards in a vain attempt to ward his attacker off.
"I've got this, Twi!" Rainbow Dash shouted as she brought both herself and Fang to the ground in the struggle.
Five kept the younger Changeling cradled in his left arm as he got up and jogged to the prismatic mare. The Spartan reached down and picked up Rainbow Dash by one of her forelegs and began to shake her.
"Let, go!" he grunted.
With one swift motion, Dash's grip broke as Fang flew past Five and tumbled to the dirt. The Changeling began to breathe erratically as he steadied his stance.
"Get off of me!" Rainbow Dash screamed as she bucked Five.
Dash screamed again as she recoiled her hind legs from the ineffective strike, attempting to hold them with one hoof. Five unceremoniously dropped Rainbow Dash onto the ground before turning towards Fang and kneeling down to his level.
Twilight didn't hear their conversation as she rushed over to Rainbow Dash's side, prepping her magic as she inspected her friend's legs. With a brief moment of concentration, Twilight brought up her x-ray scanning spell, and dispelled it when she gasped in shock. Underneath the muscle, Dash's legs were broken with several distinct hairline fractures, while three of her joints were misaligned.
"Rainbow, are you alright?" Twilight asked the squirming mare.
"Bucking, no , I'm not alright!" the pegasus screamed in agony.
"What were you thinking!?" Twilight chastised.
"I was trying to stop that Changeling from attacking y- AGH!" she cried when her right knee impacted a rock in the dirt.
"Just... hold on," Twilight said before rushing over to Five.
The Changelings were both holding each other while Fang was trying to stand back up as Twilight approached. The Spartan turned and raised his weapon to Twilight before speaking.
"AT!" he shouted.
Twilight froze in her tracks as Five stomped towards her.
"The actual Hell was that, just now!?" he demanded.
"I- I didn't know that she'd just... attack!" Twilight tried to retaliate.
"Just turn back. This doesn't concern you," Five stated harshly before turning back to the Changelings.
Twilight winced as he knelt down next to Fang again, helping him up as the smaller one spoke to him. She rushed back to Dash's side as the bushes began to rustle yet again.
"For pony's sake, what now!?" she yelled at the thicket.
Applejack burst through with vigor and kicked up a small dust cloud as she landed. Her eyes fell on the form of Rainbow Dash and widened before hurrying to her side.
"Dash, what happened!?" she asked.
"That bucking alien is what happened!" Rainbow groaned through her teeth.
The earth pony mare picked up the pegasus and began to walk back towards the thicket before calling back to Twilight.
"Come on, Twi, let's get outta 'ere."
"I can't, Applejack," Twilight responded.
Applejack froze as she glared back at the alicorn.
"What? The hay's wrong with ya, Twilight? We gotta get away from that-"
"This is literally the only chance I have to keep any kind of relation between Equestria and whatever Five's from. If it means I have to take this risk for the benefit of Ponykind, then I'll do it. And for the record, Dash attacked first."
Twilight turned and made her way over to Five and the Changelings as Applejack and Rainbow Dash watched their friend betray them for an alien.
\\\//////
Five bent his knees as he knelt down to help Fang back up.
"You alright?" he asked.
"I'm... I'm fine," he huffed out.
The Spartan looked to the smaller one with a glance and saw that it was staring at him in both awe and fear.
"Who's this?"
Fang winced as he tried to look back to the smaller Changeling.
"Y-young, one?"
The smaller one took in a breath before it spoke to Five.
"I-I'm Creak."
"He's a nymph, very young," Fang explained.
Five nodded.
"You alright to move?"
"I should be fine," Fang said before shakily standing up fully.
"Where did you come from, Creak?" Five asked the nymph.
"I... I ran from the monster, but Sputter," Creak gasped, "oh no, Sputter! We have to help her!"
"Where?" Five asked.
"We ran out of the Haven through an open door that sunk into the dirt."
Five nodded before bolting in the direction the nymph ran from.
"Wait for us!" Fang called out before stumbling after Five.
"Let me help," Twilight called before picking up both Changelings in her magic and carrying them with her over the trees.
As they soared through the air, Creak began to panic inside, and held on to Fang for dear life. Below them, Five charged through trees and bushes, breaking through them at 60 kilometers per hour as nothing but a blur of red death. The Spartan looked through the parting trees and bushes to gaze upon a Strident-Class Heavy Frigate buried into a gorge.
\\\//////
Gal Ratuun bolted around another corner and raised his Storm Rifle to the end of the hallway to find it empty. The Sangheili Minor called back to his comrades so they could advance before bolting down another corridor. The Ultra behind him was preparing the information-gathering device as they neared the Human command room. They had torn through small pockets of black creatures that were unfamiliar to any of the Covenant with him, determined to not let the insects stop their mission.
As he turned one more corner, a wave of force smacked against the Minor as he flew onto the grey floor of the Human vessel, his shields exploding from the impact. Gal could hear his comrades shouting at something behind him, and the Sangheili struggled to turn over to see what had assaulted him. When he looked up, his eyes widened at what he saw.
It was like the other insects in its shape and color, but that was where similarities ended. This one was wider and bulkier, with the holes in its legs concentrated near its hooves. Across its back was a hardened shell that resembled that of a Mgalekgolo shield, except purple and split down the middle. Where others had a single, small horn, this one had two much larger ones, resembling that of an old Sangheili war-device, except bent at angles that resembled creatures that he had seen infiltrating Human strongholds. Its eyes were wider and shorter, and while the rest had bland, single-color eyes, this one had eyes that had several reflective plates that resembles Specialist visors.
Tral, another Minor, unloaded his Carbine in its direction. When the shots connected, they bounced off its robust exoskeleton as it raised its two front legs. Its twin horns glowed green before its legs slammed into the ground before a green sphere of energy burst around it. Tral kept firing at the shield, only for the Carbine to click empty while the shield held no signs of breaking. Just as the Minor was about to reload, another one of the insects bound onto his back, and caused Tral to drop his rifle.
This one was also different, with blue armor that hung on its large frame. Where others had small fangs, this one had a set of jaws that were obviously meant for ripping apart its prey. Gal had a decent look at its jaws before it sunk its fangs into the neck of his comrade. As Tral screamed, Gal scrambled to his hooves before raising a Plasma Pistol towards the offending creature. Before he could pull the trigger, a scaled tail swept across his field of vision, coming from the backside of the insect. A cold feeling spread through Gal's arm before a damp thud came from below him.
The Sangheili looked down to find his own severed arm twitching on the deck as his voice had been lost. A cold feeling shot through his body as his knees gave out beneath him, sending the Minor to the ground, his body refusing to respond. Unable to move his head, he watched as the insect tore out a majority of Tral's neck, spraying blue blood over the walls of the Human ship. Without hesitation, Tral dropped to his knees and fell upon the floor, dead.
An impact to Gal's right drew his attention. He tried to move his eyes and found the Ultra looking at him, his head turned completely in the opposite direction. Above the Ultra, another new insect was fiddling with the information-gathering device as it levitated before it in a blue-green glow. Other insects had fins on the backs of their heads, as well as ears, but this one had neither. Instead, twelve large antennae ran across the top of its head and down to its flanks, where a tail was absent. Four of them curled forward and hummed with a similar blue-green aura as electricity cracked between them, running down its thin frame, into the few holes decorated its tall legs. This ones eyes were smaller than the others, but were changing color between yellow, green, and light blue.
"Interesting," it spoke in the Human's language.
"Got 'em all, Sickle?" the largest one spoke.
"Just waiting for this one to die," the one in armor spoke while pointing to Gal.
If Gal could move his mandibles, he would have tried to snap the insect's limbs off.
"Allow me," the one with antennae spoke.
Three of its antennae extended and placed themselves on Gal's helmet before a surge of searing pain erupted through his cranium, and the Sangheili was no more.
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.
Five paid no mind to the Changelings that were looking up to him in fear, as well as the accumulating blood at his boots, as he marched towards the Boarding Pod. Once inside the purple walls of the craft, he spotted a blinking light amongst a large panel of controls. As he neared the panel, his Heads-Up Display began to flicker and glitch, taking away his motion tracker and several other elements. Five responded to the disturbance in his equipment by lifting a blood-coated boot and smashing it against the console with all of his might. Bits of metal flew out as the lights in the pod flickered and died, a calm silence taking up the pod.
The Spartan removed his foot from the Covenant device and began to check his HUD as a synthetic voice spoke in his ear.
"Spartan V-461 of the UNSC Infinity, I am reading the jamming device down, do you copy, over?"
"This is Spartan V-461, confirmed, reading loud and clear. Identify yourself."
"I am UNSC A.I. SID 6206-9, however, many identify me as 'Sid'."
"Are there any more Covenant on board?"
"Negative. All Covenant forces have been disposed of. System check initiated. Scanning all equipment. Please hold."
Five walked past the threshold of the boarding craft and picked up the corpse of the Minor as he stripped it of all weapons. As he did, the Changelings watched him with mixed emotions, debating on whether or not they should try to protect themselves from the alien before them.
\\\//////
Chrysalis awoke with a gasp as she felt her heart racing, trying to beat its way out of her chest. She tried to move, but cried in pain as she felt the extent of the fight she remembered. As her mind buzzed with thousands of thoughts, she looked down to see her battered form. Three large masses of white wrappings were kept around her left foreleg, her wings, and her lower barrel, bordering on her flanks. Chrysalis could feel the stings of her burns under the cool surfaces, as well as an invading feeling in her neck. When she tilted her head to view it, she found several needles connected to a machine that kept them all in place, pumping unknown fluids through her body.
Every instinct in the Queen's brain screamed at her to get out of this situation. She paused, however, as she looked to the side of where she lay, and saw her Changelings laying around her. They were all being attended to by identical machines, the fluids pumping amounts in respect to the Changeling each device was hooked up to.
"Ah, you've awoken," Sid spoke calmly.
"Those... beasts," Chrysalis groaned out.
"The Covenant Elites have been eliminated, thanks to your specialists, as well as Spartan Five."
Her eyes widened as she remembered the fact that the alien soldier was already on his way to the ship before she had been knocked out.
"Where... is he?"
"He is currently questioning the status of the Armory, the ship's defenses, and the presence of your kind on the ship. He has yet to attempt to relocate any of the Changelings."
Chrysalis was pleased to hear that the soldier hadn't made a drastic change yet, and struggled to remove herself from the confines of the medical equipment.
"Queen Chrysalis, I would not recommend moving in your current condition," Sid advised.
"A Queen, must not appear vulnerable," she stated as she tried to rip out the tubes being fed into her.
"I would suggest summoning the Spartan here to converse with-"
"No! I will not be talked to as if I were some injured fool!" she protested.
A silence hung over the medical deck before the instruments began to remove themselves from Chrysalis' chitin.
"As you wish, ma'am," Sid stated.
When the advanced equipment let go of the Queen, the bed beneath her began to sink closer to the ground. With a grunt of pained effort, she managed to roll off the side and land on her hooves, feeling the sting of the cold metal shoot up her aching legs. Chrysalis struggled to walk forward as she registered the pain in her joints, likely from the blinding explosion that led to her being in these confines. Another metallic door slid open before Chrysalis to reveal several of her Changelings, Phalanxes, and a pair of Generals, all bowing as she slowly stepped out of the warship's hospital. They all rose in sync and formed a protective formation around their Queen before they marched down the corridors of the ship.
\\\//////
Spike watched as another tear fell from his face towards the dirt far below the Library's balcony. A soothing hoof ran along the spines on his back, as Rarity's pristine white coat rubbed against his cheek, trying to comfort the small dragon.
"But... I don't get it," Spike wondered aloud, "how could he do this? I thought Five was gonna be our friend?"
"Oh, don't try to focus on that, Spikey," Rarity cooed, trying to calm his nerves.
"But he sounded like he was a hero! Fighting for what's right, and knocking back evil. So why did he help the Changelings take Twilight?"
"Spike, she wasn't forced to go. She chose to follow the brute. We need to remember that this is Twilight we're talking about, darling. She's beaten an Ursa Minor, remember? She took on more Changelings than the rest of us put together at the Wedding. If anypony can handle herself, it's her."
\\\//////
Twilight swallowed the lump in her throat as she saw large numbers of Changelings huddling close together, a few hissing at her as she passed by. Though the hisses they threw at her were worrying, she felt a load of sadness as she saw smaller, younger Changelings hide behind others, trying to escape her sight. The more she looked around, the more her feelings on the race of insect-like creatures warred within her. She should hate them. They tried to ruin the most important day of her brother's life, steal love from Equestria, attacked Princess Celestia, and nearly caused her to lose all of those she cared for.
However, she was looking right at the fruits of their labor. They're starving, held up in an unknown metallic beast of architecture, and are scared of her. They were afraid of the Princess of Friendship , possibly the least dangerous of the four Alicorn Princesses. Not only that, but where as she had gone to Celestia, expecting a list of names that were lost, not a single citizen, Guard, or other had been killed in their attack. Twilight held her head down as she contemplated their past deeds, of which she knew one , and the results left before her.
Twilight started to think that they may have suffered enough.
\\\//////
Five stepped out of the elevator as he followed the directions that Sid had given him. As he did, the Spartan continued to ask the AI about the ship's newest occupants.
"Access to weapons systems?"
"Negative."
"Hacking into the database?"
"Only questions about the ship and myself have been asked, no hacking attempts made as of yet."
"Medical Bay?"
"Currently occupied with 83 critical condition cases, as well as 403 pending for medical attention, no deaths as of yet."
"Bridge?"
"Only four, but they seem to be praising the holotable as an alter of some kind."
"Barracks?"
"Currently unattended. I was going to ask Queen Chrysalis if she was going to move a majority of the Changelings in the hangars, but I have not yet had the time."
"Where is this 'Queen'?"
"30 meters forward, 2 meters left."
Five glanced at the sign bolted into the wall ahead of him, which read "Mess Hall".
"Give me some hints here, what kind of Queen are we looking at?"
"Genetically speaking, she shares traits with all members of the Changelings, as well as similarities to the more rare types you've encountered. There are several more gene types present within her that I am unfamiliar with, possibly types of their kind that have yet to be hatched. She has asked that I withhold the status of her current state, however, so that you wouldn't address her as an injured fool, as she put it."
Five stood before the door to the mess hall and locked the Shotgun to his back as he cracked his neck.
"Time to play diplomat, Spartan," he spoke to himself before the doors opened to reveal a room full of Changelings that surrounded a tall one that had green, straight hair, a bent, misshapen horn, and covered in gauze. Five could see the plasma burns stretch out from the cover provided by the white medical cloth, and paused when he saw the Queen's eyes. Unlike the rest of the Changelings, she had actual whites and irises in her eyes, though her pupils were slitted, like a reptile.
All the Changelings looked to him, their muscles tensing as he stood unmoving. Five broke the tension as he walked halfway towards the center of the group, while giving the Queen of the Changelings a stern gaze.
"I am UNSC Spartan V-461 of the Spartan 5th Regiment, Sergeant Master Five of the UNSC INF-101 Infinity , and former leader of fire-team Crimson. I'd like to know what your people are doing on an abandoned Frigate, and what you plan on doing, if you'd be so kind."
The Changeling Queen stood up and walked right up to Five, her guards parting around her. When she stopped, she looked right up at Five's face, which was barely above the tip of her horn, and spoke.
"I am Queen Chrysalis of the Changeling Nomadic Empire. We claimed this ship for shelter, and wish to use it to avoid extinction."
Luna marched through the halls beside her sister, who was already beginning to burn nearly everything that she came into contact with. Guards and maids bound out of their way, some receiving minor burns or scrapes from close calls, but nothing serious had happened, yet.
At least, in the Castle.
"That BEAST!" Celestia growled as she burst open another set of doors.
"Sister, we don't know the full story, yet. Perhaps we should-"
"Should WHAT, Luna!?" Celestia shouted back, splitting the marble floor beneath them as the solar Princess continued to fume.
"Wait until our scouts-"
"We have no time! If we want her back alive, then we need to find her now ."
With that, Celestia sent out a large burst of magic and sent twin obsidian doors flying off their hinges. When they collided with the floor, the Princesses stepped through the doorway and began to look around the dark room.
"Discord!? Where in my mother's name are you!?" Celestia demanded.
A groan came from the actual bed, and atop it lay the Spirit of Chaos himself.
"Get up, Discord, I demand action," Celestia spoke coldly.
"Really, Tia, I'd love to help you, but I'm-"
"NOW!" Celestia roared.
Another flash of golden energy caused the bed to collapse to ash as Discord remained unmoving, hovering in the air as he deadpanned at Celestia.
"Really? That was imported, you know," he spoke casually as he stood up and cracked his back.
"The red beast took Twilight, and the-"
"Oh, that Five fellow? I remember him," Discord interrupted.
A snap of his claws later and a picture of Five standing next to Discord appeared on the wall. Discord was holding an elongated eclair while Five wielded a large sword, seemingly made of gold. At their legs were three mares, all dressed in slave-like clothes while they clung to the two bipeds. Beneath the mares, however, was a large set of feathery, brown wings, which connected to what looked like a large bird with a white head as a rainbow exploded in the clouds beneath them.
"Ah, good times. I remember it as though it were yesterday."
"It was," Luna noted, still being disregarded.
"Discord, pay attention!" Celestia barked at the Draconequus. "I was trying to say that it foalnapped Twilight, and is trading her over to Changelings! I need you to find out where Twilight is, and bring me there so we can deal with several problems at once."
"Pfft, Princess, you aren't acting like yourself, now, are you?" Discord questioned.
"I am acting perfectly reasonable, given the circumstances! Now bring me to Twilight, now!"
Discord sighed as he shook his head, his smirk now gone.
"Princess, you once had faith in Twilight. You had enough faith in her to let her become an alicorn , for Faust's sake. She had saved your sister, defeated me , and has already handled the Changelings once before. You know as well as I do that she can handle this, and much more. Besides, it's not my place to interrupt what's going on out there, anyhow."
Before Celestia could retort, she felt a sharp pain in her head as she rose a hoof to it. Luna tried to get closer to her sister, but was kept back with a wing. Discord and Luna watched as Celestia turned and walked out of the room, mumbling to herself about back-up plans and teleportation matrices.
"So, Luna," Discord started, "interesting times, hmm?"
"Indeed, Discord, indeed," she responded.
Neither noticed the flicker of Celestia's shadow as she wiped at her eyes.
\\\//////
"They're ahead, amongst the mountains," the godly voice spoke into the drake's side.
The Black Wings, the greatest warriors of the Dragon Rogues, were on their way to find a supposed way to defeat the Equestrians once and for all. They had been following the wisdom of the Elder God's statue head since it began to speak to them, months ago. It had chosen them to go forth and bring about the end of their age-old enemy. This was their blessing. The will of a God. A mission by a higher power, and being given the chance to wipe out the planet's greatest plague.
After what seemed like an eternity of flying, however, they finally laid eyes upon the instrument of their victory.
"Behold, my worshipers from afar," the Elder God spoke unto them.
Before the drakes laid a massive structure, spurting out plumes of blue flames into the sky above it. Its entire hide was covered in a smooth surface of purple armor, and was shaped like a bug of some kind. Near the back of it, a large circular area opened up to look like something that would double as a handle for a Goliath. Above it circled several small purple creatures that trailed blue lights. At once, all of the flying creatures began to move towards the Black Wings, intentions clear.
\\\//////
Oal Ni'Trodan watched as the Forerunner device lit up once again, and bowed before it. Behind him, all his fellow warriors did the same as the bridge crew ceased all activity. The device of the Gods began to emit a powerful purple haze once more, and His voice came forth.
"Recall your air forces. Those ones are worshipers as well,"
"By your will, blessed King."
Oal turned to bark at the communications officer, a lowly Jackal that began to type furiously away at the console, giving out the orders to allow the winged creatures passage to the ship.
"It is done, your highness," Oal spoke as he bowed.
"Excellent. You serve me well. You'll fare even better when you start working with these locals."
"Only by your word, sire."
The Forerunner device gently floated back down to the surface of the holotable, and once it shut off, the General stood up and marched for the outer platform of the Corvette.
\\\//////
The Dark Wing leader, Black Scale, watched as several small creatures began to pile out before him and his comrades. There were a number of types, like ones that looked like birds, and the midgets that would be trampled by the filthy ponies, but then there were the tall ones. The ones with air of his own kind. They had four separate jaws, and wore armor that, even at its simplest form, demanded respect. Though they barely came up to the Dragons' collective neckline, none of the tall ones looked afraid. Beneath them, however, cowered the other two types that were fidgeting with small devices.
In an instant, all of the creatures, both tall and short, bowed as one with golden armor began to march up to him. In a dialect almost identical to Ancient Draconic, it spoke to him.
"Are you the ones who our God spoke of?"
Though he was surprised by their dialect, Scale swiftly responded.
"Yes. His majesty had commanded that we come to greet you, and to help this... creation of yours, be freed from the ground. He said that with this, we will burn our enemies to glass, and we will rightfully take our place by his side when we do."
The creature extended its four-digit hand out as an offer for Scale, who felt it absolutely necessary to return the gesture. The two warriors felt decades of conflict and blood seemingly etched into the rough surfaces of each other's appendages, and looked to one another with respect.
"Excellent. Then by His holy will, and as the highest ranking member present, I welcome your kind to our Holy Covenant."
Twilight Sparkle couldn't believe what she had heard.
She simply couldn't.
These were Changelings ! They were know to be liars and manipulators! They invaded Equestria and nearly ruined one of the most important moments of her life! They had nearly torn her greatest friendships apart, and had done so much damage to Equestria. But hearing the Queen, Chrysalis, say that ...
She didn't know what to believe in anymore.
Five, however, did.
\\\//////
"How many of your kind are left, then?" the Spartan asked.
Queen Chrysalis closed her eyes as she lowered her head.
"Seven hundred and twenty eight, including myself."
Five looked to the contingent of guards around them as they tried to look strong for the sake of their leader. He knew a facade when he saw one, though. It was the same look he had for most of his life.
"So this is it, then? Your entire species is on this one ship?"
The Queen looked up at him with watery, rage-filled eyes. When she spoke, sorrow gripped her voice, and sounded almost broken as she spoke.
"Yes, alright? We're all that's left of the once proud Changeling Empire. Not even a thousand of our kind are left in the world. Anyone not here is either in a jail cell, being tortured for our whereabouts, or dead and forgotten."
\\\//////
Twilight couldn't hold back the tears as she heard the once terrifying Queen of the Changelings speak in such a way.
'Seven hundred,' repeated the number in Twilight's head. 'There are more ponies in Ponyville... than there are Changelings in the world.'
To think that something that she had once feared so badly, the very creatures that had inhabited her nightmares for weeks on end, were so close to being wiped out...
'I-I'm a Princess of Equestria,' she thought to herself. 'I'm supposed to be a paragon of what Equestria represents. Friendship, equality, peace... what do I do? I need to do something! I can't just let them die off like this! Nopony deserves to just...'
She was unable to finish her thoughts as her hooves began to subconsciously pound against her head.
\\\//////
Five thought to himself, his hands clasped together beneath his chin as he rested his elbows on the table. He compared the Changelings' situation to that of the UNSC, during the Covenant War. Here they were, on the brink of extinction, trying to find salvation in the technology of an unknown alien race. It was frightening to think about how closely related the two times seemed to be. Now, however, something was different.
Five had the power to change the course of their survival.
The thought caused his heart rate to increase, as he began to think about every possible outcome of what he was about to suggest. Every part of this was against the regulations of the UNSC, but did that matter when they were trying to avoid extinction? Did protocol matter at Earth? At the Ark?
There was an option now to do what couldn't be done during the Covenant War, and prevent a similar outcome here.
"So this is it, huh?" Five asked the Queen.
Queen Chrysalis narrowed her eyes at Five.
"'This is it'? That's all you have to say!? Do you have any idea what we've gone through!? What we've done in the name of survival!? Do you even know what being close to extinction feels like !?" she roared at him, her eyes continuing to water as she slammed one of her front legs onto the table.
To the surprise of everyone except Five, he answered.
"Yes."
Queen Chrysalis blinked in confusion, her eyes widening as her Changeling guards did the same.
"You think this ship's powerful? We've lost hundreds of these in a matter of seconds," Five started. "We've built warships that seemed powerful enough to take down entire planets before sending out dozens of them at a time against an enemy that barely considered them a nuisance. We've fought against armies that were outnumbered by thousands at a time, and still mowed through our ranks like we were made of paper." Five lowered his hands to the table while he leaned forward, his voice filling with rage. "I've seen entire planets, fleets of hundreds, armies of millions , all burn to ash and glass in the blink of an eye. For thirty years, my kind was relentlessly hunted by a seemingly endless armada of bloodthirsty monsters. Even when we had any victories, they were so costly that saying, 'we won,' was insignificant. They burned every single line of defense we had without remorse. They destroyed in two decades what took us centuries to build. They spilled our blood on our home planet before getting ready to silence our kind permanently."
The Queen felt the soldier's rage almost drown every Changeling in the room. The fear behind his words was almost just as staggering, short of equaling her own fear of Five. However, as he paused, something else lit up within him. Pride. Courage. Hope.
"We were literal seconds away from being wiped out. Then... we won."
That nearly got the Queen to gasp in shock, though some of her guards had gone through the gesture for her.
"How?" she asked, almost desperately. "How could your kind have escaped certain doom? How did you stop your extinction?"
'How do we win?' she asked herself.
"Because of one, single weapon. A weapon perfected over the course of the war. A weapon that had become more powerful than anything else we could have hoped to recreate. A weapon strong enough to destroy entire fleets, that brought armies to their knees, and gave everyone in the UNSC, on Earth, on Reach, everywhere , a sliver of hope."
Five pointed to the eagle emblem on the left side of his armor.
"The Spartans."
Fluttershy waited in silence while the door to the hospital room was still closed off from her access. A few unicorn doctors came in and out, shaking their heads as they muttered something about her condition, and what likely caused it. She knew, however, what really caused her to gain several hairline fractures in her hind legs, and it didn't have to do with flying stunts.
After almost an hour of waiting, the door finally opened, and a nurse with a light blue coat and a dark green mane stepped out and nodded.
"She's alright to receive visitors. Just don't let her try to get up, alright."
Fluttershy nodded as she got out of her seat and went into the room. It was a standard hospital room, with nothing special added, or anything vital missing. Several machines went unused as the prism-maned pegasus stared at her casts.
"I don't believe it," Fluttershy heard Rainbow mutter.
"D-don't believe what?"
"That Jerk!" Rainbow exploded, causing Fluttershy to take a step back.
"Um, Rainbow, I think you should try to relax," Fluttershy tried to coax her friend.
"That stupid, metal, robot wannabe just foalnapped Twilight! And , he was trying to help Changelings!" she exaggerated with movements of her free forelegs.
"Oh. But, didn't Applejack say that she wanted to-"
"I know what Applejack said!" Rainbow interrupted. "But obviously, the Changelings have her under mind control! That's why she left with them!"
"Well, if that's what you think, then wouldn't they have done the same to the red... thing?" she asked.
Rainbow scoffed at the notion.
"As if. They need emotion to control something, probably. That's how that big bug controlled Twi's brother. It used his love. That... thing , probably just decided how it wanted to try and take over Equestria."
"Well, maybe Twilight will come back on her own. Maybe she'll learn something about the Changelings."
Rainbow's eyes widened as if she had gotten an idea.
"Maybe, she went in under cover! And she's going to spring a trap on the big one, and take 'em all out at once! That's the way I'd do it, at least," she finished with a cocky smile.
\\\//////
Twilight could barely move at this point.
She had just heard a secret conversation, perhaps a diplomatic meeting between one of Equestria's most wanted enemies, and an alien soldier. She heard everything about the Changelings that nopony had likely heard at all. They were close to extinction, for pony's sake! She had heard that several large numbers of their kind were discovered off small towns since then, and were warded off, but she didn't think that they were slaughtered . And the way Five had related them to his own kind...
To think of those other aliens, like the one Five fought earlier. If that was only one of them, and they had done those things...
"Hard to realize, isn't it?" a filtered voice spoke closely to her.
Twilight looked to her left to see Psych staring at her with an expression that... she couldn't place at all. She was so unfamiliar with the Changeling subspecies that she didn't know what to make of its- his , facial expressions.
"To hear the truth after thinking something for so long. It's shocking, isn't it? I remember when I heard of the fate of our great Capital City. Still, though, what do you think of our kind, now that you know our current state?"
The alicorn was at a loss for words of any kind, searching for anything to discuss.
"H-how... is this really... are you all..." she struggled to speak.
"Yes, this is all that's left of us. We can always feel each other through the Hive, but now, only echoes remain where thousands of voices once spoke. As to how this came about, I don't know, actually. Our Queen says because of prejudice and racism. I'm inclined to believe that."
"But... I-I always thought, no, I know , that Princess Celestia would never, ever, in a million years, do something like this to anypony, or try to wipe out an entire species!"
"You may think that now, but think of it from our point of view. Starving, cold, unwanted, hunted, slaughtered, and cursed from birth. This Spartan, Five... I think he might be the first one in hundreds of years to even try to converse with us."
\\\//////
Chrysalis looked up to the red-armored soldier with a questioning look in her eyes. She could feel the different emotions her entourage had towards the Spartan, and thought about the words he had just spoken. Chrysalis didn't have long, though, as Five continued to speak.
"Sid, read out the Extinction Prevention Doctrine, Article 5, Sub-section 3-I."
The lights in the massive room flickered before a blue plane projected itself above the table both Chrysalis and Five were sitting at. Massive amounts of text scrolled by and were pushed around as Sid spoke.
"According to the Extinction Prevention Doctrine, re-issued to all UNSC vessels as of September 23rd, 2554, and revised as of January 6th, 2557, Article 5, Sub-section 3-I states: 'In any and all events in which the sapient species close to extinction is aboard a UNSC vessel post-landing on any world outside of UNSC or Sangheili space, the endangered species may be placed under Protective Care and allowed to remain aboard the vessel in question until an official of the Office of Naval Intelligence can negotiate with their present leader. Should any harm fall under the species in question while they are under the care of the UNSC, all acts of aggression are thereby directed to the United Nations Space Command as well, and acting leaders are given authority to respond as they see necessary, within the parameters of Article 5, Sub-sections 3-C, 3-D, and 3-A.'"
Chrysalis could only stare at the scrolling words, finding the general meaning of what was said.
"Queen Chrysalis," Five spoke.
The Queen in question snapped her eyes back to Five, and saw his hand extended over the table, the palm facing the wall as his limb was held before her.
"As the highest ranking officer aboard Pale Horse , it is with a heavy heart that I apologize for the state in which your kind are in. I hereby swear not only to you, but to every Changeling left on this planet, that your kind will not die out as ours almost did. As of now, this ship is your haven, and our arms at your side. We will stand together to forge a world wherein your kind will not be hunted, and tyranny will have no place."
Chrysalis looked down to the offered appendage and slowly raised her good hoof to meet it. When they met, Chrysalis felt a jolt through her limb as Five grasped her foreleg and shook carefully.
"Welcome to the UNSC."
For the first time in what seemed like years to the Queen of Changelings, she felt as though she had done a good job. Her Changelings were guaranteed safety, as well as a place to stay until their future was secured. For the first time, she felt gratitude for something that wasn't one of her Changelings, sacrificing something for the rest of their kind. She had finally made a real step in achieving something grand. For the first time, she spoke two words that she never thought she would utter to any living creature outside of the Hive.
"Thank you."
Five looked around the Mess Hall, seeing all of the Queen's guards relax, a few sighing in relief. Queen Chrysalis herself got out of her seat and limped to the other side, where Five was. She looked to him and then to her guards before nodding once. They all got up and began to file out of the Mess Hall as Chrysalis spoke to Five.
"Not once, in almost seven hundred years, has a Changeling Queen ever thanked anything outside of the Hive. You've not only heard out our troubles, but want to help us resolve them. But I want to know something."
Five nodded.
"Shoot."
"What happens now?"
"Right now, I don't know. Sid, any ideas?"
"Considering the current state of affairs between the Changelings and this, "pony" civilization, I would say that our most logical decision would be to confront their leaders and attempt to resolve this issue diplomatically."
Chrysalis rolled her eyes and scoffed at the notion.
"Please. We've tried that already, and look where we ended up. Almost extinct and lost. What good would trying to convince them we won't bite do for us?"
"Right now, that's your only option. I, however, am a member of the UNSC, an unofficially neutral party in this conflict. I'll see what I can do to set up some kind of hearing, alright? You clearly need to recover."
Chrysalis wanted to argue that she was fine, but knew better than to try and push herself beyond her current capabilities. If she were to try and overexert herself now, she'd likely die and wipe out any hope for the future of the Changelings. She kept her eyes shut as she nodded and limped away to the Med-Bay.
Five watched the injured Queen leave as her escort took positions around her once more. As they marched onwards, Five spoke to Sid.
"Where's the purple one?"
"She retreated into an adjacent hallway before the Queen's escort left the Mess Hall."
The Spartan walked out the door and saw the three Changelings from earlier. One of them pointed to the corner behind them while the larger one chuckled.
"Should've seen her face," the large one laughed.
"I'm sure Sid took pictures," Five commented.
"I have minimal functionality in the interior security cameras, sir. I'm afraid I was not able to record the event."
Five shook his head as he walked by the three Changelings and looked down the hallway. In the middle of the floor was Twilight. She was hunched over, her back on the floor, rocking back and forth while stroking her tail, which she held in one arm.
"It's gonna be alright, it's gonna be fine," she muttered to herself.
'This is my fucking life now,' Five groaned internally. 'Why did I wake up after that crash?'
Five walked up to Twilight's prone form before tapping her with his boot. She looked up and shook her head before smiling nervously and attempting to laugh off the situation.
"Uh, ha ha, hey, Five. What's um... w-what's up?"
"I need to arrange a meeting with your leaders. The Changelings are officially joining the UNSC, and are under my protection until further notice. And tell that Sun-bitch that I don't need that teleporter thing she mentioned earlier. I've got this ship now, and we'll be off ASAP."
Twilight stood up and ran her hoof along her hair, trying to keep it straight.
"Uh, sure! I'll let Princess Celestia and Princess Luna know when I get back to Ponyville. How's that?"
"The sooner the better. Go for it."
With that, Five began to walk away from the alicorn as Twilight charged up another teleportation spell. Her horn fizzled out, however, as she couldn't seem to breach the hull of the massive warship. Nervously she turned around and followed Five.
"Um, I can't teleport out of here," she stated while trying to keep up with Five.
"Then find your way out and fly," Five answered.
The three Changelings got up and began to walk behind Five, keen on observing the super soldier's actions.
"Where ya going?" the large one asked.
"Bridge. I want to see what this ship's packing. If you come along, don't touch anything."
They all nodded in confirmation before Five turned another corner, along with the three Changelings. Twilight stopped in the middle of the hall and watched as the four left her alone, and she weighed her thoughts. In a few seconds, she turned around and began to look for a way out of the alien vessel.
\\\//////
Luna trotted in to her sister's chambers cautiously, listening to the clattering sounds of metal on metal. She recognized the sound, but thought that her sister would have gotten rid of that long ago. The Lunar diarch reached the concealed entrance to an inner part of the Solar Chambers, and looked upon the stone walls that were lit by mere torches. Each wall adorned several hundred medals of different purposes. Some being from military campaigns, while others were trophies of wars long forgotten. There were dozens of weapons, ranging from small parrying daggers to swords that would flatten a normal pony with its sheer weight. At the end of the chamber stood Celestia, and a lit forge.
"Sister, what are you doing?"
Celestia barely turned her head to acknowledge Luna's remark, but still answered.
"Preparing for the inevitable."
A hammer rose from the flames of the forge before striking a massive halberd. The golden weapon glowed with might when the tool struck it, heating up to temperatures that the forge fire never would.
"And what inevitability would that be?" Luna asked with a furrowed brow.
An enchanted shard of obsidian was brought to the blade before being ground against the halberd, sharpening it while magically enhancing the strength of the metal.
"The Changelings have captured Twilight, and are in the process of controlling an alien warrior. Clearly, they're going to try and strike us down by using our newest Princess as a means of psychological warfare. I, for one, will not let them have the chance. I'll find their hive, take care of the Queen, bring Twilight back, and ensure the alien doesn't try to rampage after loosing what little direction it has."
Luna stomped a hoof into the ground, cracking the stone and shaking the walls. The resulting force caused everything that was hung up to jingle and clatter while the floor received a new mark.
"Thou art truly considering this path!?" Luna shouted, bordering on the Royal Canterlot Voice. "This is not what we've built Equestria on!"
Celestia turned to face her sister, glaring down not with her once majestic purple eyes, but with the cold eyes of a tyrant.
"You think you know what's best for them!?" Celestia shouted back. "I've been running Equestria for the last thousand years! I've kept wars from ravaging this land through methods that most would consider insane, and haven't flinched once when I knew that they needed to be done! The Changelings are nothing but a parasite! I will ensure that for the safety of my ponies, I'll wipe out every insect that crawls for the veins of Equestria!"
"Sister, think of what you're doing! This is not the sister I know and love! This is not the way to solve any problem, and I will not stand aside while you plan to wipe out an entire species off the face of Equis!"
Celestia pulled the halberd out of the forge and spun it around, showing off the golden metal of the shaft and the red velvet of the handle. The pure white blade slashed into the ground before Celestia, hissing against the cold stone as steam rose from where the blade was buried.
"Luna, do not think I'll just stop because you said a few discouraging words. There will be conflict soon. And when those bugs attack, you'll wish we had stomped them out when we had the chance."
Celestia began to trot right past Luna, pushing her to the side as she passed by. What Luna noticed, however, was that Celestia's wing, which was splinted and bandaged mere hours ago, was now free of any concealment and fully healed. Luna felt a cold sensation running down her spine as she watched the halberd disappear as well, unable to notice the small flicker of purple mist from her sister's eyes as she spoke.
"But thankfully, you won't regret what you'll never see," Celestia whispered before igniting her horn.
A bolt of something purple struck the base of Luna's skull, a series of small tendrils wrapping around her head and horn. Luna stood there frozen in shock, staring into the fires of the forge as they flickered from orange and red to green, reflecting in her equally green eyes. Behind her, a shadow began to bleed from the walls, darkening and congealing into a blob of darkness. It snaked its way behind the Lunar Princess before sinking into her shadow. Luna yelped in pain and reached for her head as she collapsed to the ground. As she began to scream, the entrance to the chamber closed with a loud thud, ensuring that any interference from her was cut off permanently.
The doors to the bridge opened up before the Spartan to reveal four Changelings. They were all similar to Psych, being a specific subspecies of Changelings, and were all bowing before the holotable. All of them had their antennae extended around their heads as they were chanting something incomprehensible. Five walked up behind them as the three Changeling Elites followed.
"What are they doing?" he asked.
The four either didn't notice him or refused to acknowledge him. Psych, however, was able to answer.
"They're examining the technology within the room by sharing their minds. It's a unique power that we've developed over the centuries, wherein we can share our collective knowledge."
"Well tell them to not try and activate anything," Five warned.
"I assure you, sir," Sid spoke, "they're harmless. Since they arrived, the only thing they've concerned themselves with has been wondering if anything they've done is within parameters of what I allow."
"Sid, you said your security measures were damaged. How much have they seen?" Five asked.
"They've only glanced over the names of those aboard the ship, medical supplies, food storage, and repair instructions. In fact, thirty seven more of them are working in the Engineering deck right now, working on the thrusters. They're following the instructions and suggestions I've provided, and have increased the efficiency of the repair process by 43%."
"What about the weapon systems or armories?" Five asked, approaching the holotable.
"Negative. They've heard you through the security recordings and have stayed away from all information pertaining to any weapons."
"Good."
Five placed his Shotgun on the table and snapped his fingers. The table lit up and displayed a keyboard of letters as the screen began to change to show a waiting security check. Five entered in his UNSC ID code and was granted access to the ship's files.
"Nice to see something's working well enough," Five noted.
The Spartan began to type through the many pages of check-ins and specifics on the ship before flicking his hand over the surface. A perfect three-dimensional model of the Pale Horse appeared above the table, causing the three elite Changelings to stare in awe.
"What's that?" Sickle asked.
"The ship," Five answered. "Sid, give me details on small-arms storage."
A part of the ship became highlighted before a list of text began to roll by the ship, displaying a large amount of numbers and names.
Armory Supply Manifest
MA5-D Assault Rifle> Units Remaining: 0 Total Ammunition Remaining: 0 rounds
BR85 Heavy Barrel Service Rifle> Units Remaining: 242 Total Ammunition Remaining: 21,600 rounds
M7/Caseless Submachine Gun> Units Remaining: 800 Total Ammunition Remaining: 800,000 rounds
M6H Personal Defense Weapon System> Units Remaining: 240 Total Ammunition Remaining: 40,000 rounds
Asymmetric Recoilless Carbine-920> Units Remaining: 80 Total Ammunition Remaining: 120 rounds
M363 Remote Projectile Detonator> Units Remaining: 0 Total Ammunition Remaining: 0 grenades
M395 Designated Marksman Rifle> Units Remaining: 0 Total Ammunition Remaining: 0 rounds
M41 Surface-to-Surface Rocket Medium Anti-Vehicle/Assault Weapon> Units Remaining: 16 Total Ammunition Remaining: 80 rockets
M45D Tactical Shotgun> Units Remaining: 3 Total Ammunition Remaining: 53 rounds
M739 Light Machine Gun> Units Remaining: 12 Total Ammunition Remaining: 7,200 rounds
Sniper Rifle System 99-Series 5 Anti-Matériel> Units Remaining: 8 Total Ammunition Remaining: 220 rounds
[FILE REDACTED]
M-9 High-Explosive Dual-Purpose Grenade> Total Remaining Units: 37
C-7 Foaming Spray> Total Remaining Units: 77
Vehicle Manifest:
M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle: 8 Remaining
M12G1 Light Anti-Armor Vehicle: 2 Remaining
M808 Main Battle Tank: 3 Remaining
G79H-TC/MA Pelican: 4 Remaining
F-41 Exoatmospheric Multirole Strike Fighter: 4 Remaining
[FILE REDACTED]
"Sid, what's with these labeled, 'redacted'?" Five asked, reading over the manifests.
"I am unable to answer your inquiry. An A.I. of a higher clearance or an Officer of the Office of Naval Intelligence must be present to allow these files-"
"Alright," Five interrupted, silencing Sid. "What about those weapons listed as zeroes?"
"A team of Marines that were fleeing the ship had cleared out a section of the armory, and a second group of Marines came in after the invasion of the Infinity to scavenge for ammunition for the security detail. By the time you managed to ward off the invasion, however, they had already cleared out almost the entire Port Armory."
"Well we can do without the Assault Rifles, then. Give me the status on the ship's defenses."
"Of course."
The manifests went down from the display and the image of the Pale Horse was enlarged. Eight large parts of the armored hull, twisted and burnt apart by plasma weapons were highlighted, along with several parts of the lower levels of the ship.
"The hull has been breached majorly in these eight areas, as well several dozen areas in the lower parts of the ship, as well as areas by the thrusters. The ship would need to be relocated to a repair station before being able to break atmosphere. As is, however, the radiation shielding, as well as 71% of the armor plating are intact, although the shield generator is currently in cool-down. The main fusion generator is fully intact, though the damage to the wiring throughout the ship has cut off power to certain sections. We are currently fixing this issue, thanks to the Changelings. In our current state, we are approximately 43 hours from being able to take flight. The vehicles in storage can be prepped at any moment, if you need them."
"Alright," Five stated. "It's not much, but at least we're not helpless. Give me updates on anything the moment they happen. Right now, send some messages out to the Changelings in the vehicle bays, lower decks, or wherever the rest are, and help them relocate to the Barracks. Lock off the armories, though, and don't let any of them stray off."
As Five began to close down a number of programs, the Changeling elites took notice of his words.
"What was that about us, 'straying off'?" Tumbler asked, his tone portraying his annoyance at the term.
"Just making sure no one goes where they shouldn't," Five answered, picking up his Shotgun.
"And just what should we stay out of?" Sickle asked.
"Armories, vehicle bays, and the control centers, to name a few."
Five tapped the shoulder of one of the Sensorlings, snapping them out of their trance as they looked up to him.
"Time to leave," Five said, motioning with his hand. "Just ask Sid to point you somewhere you can continue doing whatever that was outside of the bridge."
The holotable powered down before the three other Sensorlings also stood up. They nodded to each other in perfect synch before walking out of the bridge. Five followed close behind, along with the Changeling elites.
"Where are we going now?" Sickle asked.
"Well, I'm going to the armory. You three can go anywhere else besides the bridge and-"
"Hey, what happened to that purple one?" Tumbler asked.
"She left to go talk some sense into that Sun-bitch and set up a meeting between your leader and Princess Luna."
"You got hard feelings for that alicorn too?" Sickle commented.
"Bitch tried to attack me, and I was about a second away from killing her."
The three Changelings stopped at the news. Five turned back to look at them and saw that they were all looking to him with a different range of emotions.
"You," Tumbler started, "took on Princess Celestia herself... and won?"
"You almost killed her?" Sickle asked.
"You managed to survive an encounter with the Sun Witch?" Psych asked, his eyes turning yellow.
Five nodded to them before he held his index finger and thumb about a millimeter apart.
"This close to putting that bitch in a grave," Five answered. "Why?"
The three Changelings glanced to each other.
"She's almost the entire reason we're close to extinction."
Twilight stepped outside of the massive alien ship, and felt a weird sensation running through her body. She looked around to try and find out what that was, but saw nothing near her. Focusing back on what she needed to do, Twilight found it actually possible to bring out the magic needed to teleport, as well as the magical energies of Equestria. Shocked by the feeling, she looked back to the ship, and then thought about why she wasn't able to teleport before.
"Does it have some kind of magical shielding?" she asked aloud to nopony.
Twilight would have continued to dwell on the thought had she not heard the growl of a random creature. Gulping in anxiousness, wanting to study the ship's qualities involving magical distortion and knowing she should leave, Twilight lit up her horn and flashed out of view, leaving for Ponyville.
\\\//////
Psych, Tumbler, and Sickle walked down the hallways of the alien ship, watching as the lights above flashed red to signal where they were to go.
"Is the Queen really sure about putting our hopes in that Five guy?" Tumbler asked.
"If the Queen believes that this soldier can help us find the path to our salvation, then I believe as well," Sickle stated.
"But what if he decides to pull a fast one, and kicks us off?"
"I sensed great sympathy from him," Psych stated. "He felt that he has an obligation to help our kind."
"Really? What stake does he have in our future?" Sickle asked, curious of the alien's intent.
"I cannot say for certain. What I am sure of, though, is that he is not harboring anger towards us. In fact, I sensed quite a dose of sadness, so potent one would think he was bringing up a memory."
\\\//////
Five walked into the Starboard Armory and watched as the lights flooded the room. Every wall and crevice shifted about to reveal the sum of weapons Five had at his disposal.
There were several rows of weapon racks extending straight outward from the wall, holding the M-7 SMGs in neat rows of 6 on each side. The center of each rack opened up to reveal magnetically locked magazines arranged in an orderly fashion. The walls beyond the SMGs were suspending Battle Rifles and magazines for them, as well as Magnums with their respective ammo. At the far end of the Armory were the Heavy Ordnance racks, holding what little explosives the ship had left. A few rocket tubes were strewn about across the floor by the opposite entrance, likely a result of whatever UNSC scavengers had to evacuate before Requiem collapsed, and have been there since the Frigate came to this planet.
Five set his Battle Rifle and Shotgun on a workbench as the doors locked behind him, before picking up the mess.
\\\//////
Applejack and Rarity were comforting Spike in Golden Oaks' public resting area, the only sounds in the building coming from the young dragon as he sniffled every now and then. They had agreed to look after him once they had heard about Twilight's apparent foalnapping, and were doing their best to ensure Spike that she would be fine.
"Ah'm tellin' ya, Spike, ain't no way in all o' Equestria that Twi's gonna stay there fer long," Applejack stated.
Spike could only sniffle in response, trying to not burst into hysterical sobbing. Rarity continued to run her hoof along his scaly back, cooing Spike with her soothing voice.
"Applejack, maybe we should just try and let this-"
Rarity was cut off as a familiar blink of lavender flashed from within the library. Spike jumped from his seating and ran through the library, Applejack and Rarity only a few hooves behind. When they reached the ground floor, they saw Twilight standing in the middle of the room, unharmed and alone.
"Spike! There you are," she greeted. "I need to send a-"
She was cut off as Spike practically tackled her, sobbing openly into the crane of her neck as he held onto her tightly.
"Twili-i-ight!" he sobbed. "I-I-I never thought w-we'd see you again!"
Twilight embraced the dragon as she ran her hoof across his back, sitting onto her haunches to hold him.
"I'm fine Spike. I'm alright," she reassured him.
"Twi, ya alright?" Applejack asked, examining Twilight's form for any faults, in case she wasn't really her.
"Yes, I'm fine, but right now, I need the Princesses' help."
"'Bout time," Applejack smirked. "Time ta teach those dirty varmints a thing or two 'bout-"
"No!" Twilight shouted, startling everypony. "We've done enough to them! I need the Princesses to hold a meeting so we can help the Changelings!"
As she said this, Spike released his grip on her and slowly started to back away, his eyes widening in fear. Applejack got into a defensive stance as Rarity levitated a chair closer to her side.
"Twilight, if you can hear us in there," Rarity spoke slowly, "this isn't you. The Changelings are controlling-"
"No, they're not! I'm still me! They aren't controlling me or influencing me!"
She tried to take a step forward before Applejack lunged at her. In reflex, Twilight teleported out of the way of Applejack's charge and tried to speak again.
"Girls, please! You haven't seen what they're going through!"
"You shut yer mouth, ya brain-washed crazy!" Applejack countered, returning to her defensive stance.
"If you could just listen for a few seconds, you'd understand that they need help!"
"Help gettin' outta Equestria!" Applejack shouted.
Spike ran to the kitchen behind Twilight, tripping on the table on his way. When his clawed foot hit the table, a book fell off of its surface, causing the alicorn to turn her head to see Spike fleeing.
"Spike, wait!" she called, turning to chase him.
Rarity took the chair in her magic and threw it towards Twilight's path, managing to stop her as it broke apart before the alicorn. Twilight turned to see where the chair had come from when Applejack managed to tackle her into the ground. The farm pony landed her hoof onto Twilight's horn, sending a blazing pain through her skull. As Twilight let out a scream of pain, trying to clutch the appendage, Applejack managed to pull out her rope and tied Twilight up in a hog-tie fashion. Twilight began to struggle against the bindings of the rope, unable to use her magic due to the intense pain in her head.
"Spike, send a letter to the Princesses," Rarity said, her voice wavering as she watched her "possessed" friend begin to cry.
Spike walked out from the kitchen, tearing up as well, watching his closest friend struggle against Applejack's rope.
"Please... they don't deserve..." Twilight was barely able to say, the pain in her horn overloading her thoughts.
The doors burst open to reveal a pair of golden clad members of the Royal Guard. They stepped inside with their heads held high before saluting.
"Ma'am," the one of the left spoke, "we heard that Princess Twilight has-"
The Guard stopped mid-sentence once he saw Princess Twilight laying on the ground, crying and bound. The two scowled at the two Bearers of Harmony and dragon before moving forward to grab the Princess.
"Wait a sec-" Applejack started before being knocked aside by the first one, the second going straight for the Princess as he drew a feather-blade and sliced her bindings.
The two quickly helped the Princess to her hooves and stood between her and the offenders, wings flared while they stood defensively.
"Princess, what's happening?" the second one asked.
"Guards, you don't understand!" Rarity interjected. "She's under the Changelings' influence!"
The two Guards widened their eyes at the accusation before one of them turned around to look the Princess in the eyes.
"Crest, front and center, on the double!" he commanded, not looking away from the mare's eyes.
A third Guard came in, this one a grey unicorn. He saluted to the first Guard before standing at attention.
"Check to see if there's Changeling magic influencing the Princess," he ordered.
The unicorn Guard nodded before igniting his horn a light blue. The same color began to encompass Twilight's cranium before spreading over her entire form. After thirty seconds of the glow running across Twilight's body, the magic's glow faded before the Guard shook his head.
"Negative, she's clean," he said, shocking Rarity and Applejack.
"What? Nah, she... she's possessed," Applejack insisted, "she was talkin' 'bout helpin Changelings, fer pony's sake!"
"Princess, are you alright?" one of the Guards asked her.
Twilight took a few deep breaths while motioning her right foreleg before she answered.
"I'm fine. And yes, Applejack, I'm aware of what I said, and I still stand by it. The Changelings need our help."
The Guards had a look of shock on their faces as they stared at the Princess.
"P-Princess?"
"They're on the brink of extinction. There's barely enough left of them to fill up Ponyville, let alone pose any kind of threat to Equestria. If we don't try to help them, they'll all die out. I've seen them. They're hurting and they're scared of us. They think that we're actively trying to wipe them out, and as the Princess of Friendship, I refuse to sit by and let so many suffer because of a failed attack."
She walked past her friends, who were frozen in shock, and approached Spike. The dragon made no attempts to move from his spot in the doorway, and watched as Twilight stopped before him.
"Spike, I'm sorry if I made you worry, but we need to get some letters out as soon as we can."
Were anypony were to walk in to Princess Celestia's chambers at the moment, one would think that the Princess of the Sun was replaced with a perfectly carved statue that was filled to the brim with sheer rage. Her eyes were dilated to the point of being nonexistent, and her magical aura was burning with fury.
Hold aloft before her was a simple parchment, sent to her via her personal student's brotherly dragon. Celestia had hoped it would help her calm down some, to know that her student was safe from the insects.
How wrong she was.
Not only had they seized control of an alien warship, a Frigate to rival the combined mass of Equestria's Air Fleet, no less, but they had also seized Twilight's mind.
That was the only possibility Celestia's mind could truly comprehend at the moment, as she read and reread the message dozens of times in her head.
'Twilight... they...'
Unable to contain her fury any longer, the Princess of the Sun incinerated the "Peace Treaty" and summoned her Royal Armour. In a flash that would have blinded any lesser beings, Celestia's form was encased with a suit of armor. The golden plates appeared to be almost identical to that of any Royal Guard that could be seen anywhere in Equestria, only this suit encompassed her legs as well with plates of the shining metal. Runes and ancient symbols of power glowed with the intensity of plasma as they were reawakened from the stasis spell she had encapsulated it in, enhancing her already godly prowess to unfathomable heights.
Her regalia and tiara were thrown across her room as she summoned a helmet and chest plate that bore the flag of Equestria.
Beside Celestia, her mighty Ember Striker, freshly sharpened and enchanted, came to her side as she cracked her neck.
"I... will burn. Them. All
As she focused her power into a teleportation spell, her eyes began to emit a haze of purple as the whites of her eyes turned a pale green.
\\\//////
Once Five had assembled the heavy ordnance properly, he looked over the terminal to see how the relocation of the Changelings was going. There were a sparse few signatures outside of the Crew Decks, likely waiting while the rest were making themselves at home in the barracks. He switched the view to security mode to check on the barracks and watched as the Changelings piled into their new sleeping quarters.
Some of them were making use of the beds already, taking off the sheets to make a crumbled pile of fabric to roll themselves into. A large amount of the smaller ones, likely children, were sharing beds while a number of the larger Changelings were examining the different devices in the Crew Decks. A few came across the lounges, and started to interact with the holoscreens and datapads. Five had thought ahead as he was organizing the ordnance and had ordered Sid to switch all access in the ship's lounges to Civilian, denying any and all access to weapon data or anything classified that would likely cause trouble later.
Just as he was cleaning up, the speakers in his helmet began to emit Sid's voice.
"Sir, I've detected a radiation surge near the starboard maintenance entrance, on deck 3-A. Several signatures are approaching the hull now, one of them being the purple quadruped from earlier."
"Son of a bitch, what now?" Five groaned.
Five accessed the security feed and groaned as he saw Twilight Sparkle approach with a small crowd. There Apple-something, Spike, and a few bigger ponies in gold armor that barely covered anything. For God's sake, their necks were exposed !
"Put me on speaker," Five said to the AI.
"Yes, sir."
\\\//////
Twilight, Applejack, Spike, and the three Royal Guards had followed Twilight to... whatever it was that they were staring at. It looked like an overly complex skyscraper on its side, with burn marks and torn sides littering its exterior. Spike stared up in awe at the sheer scale of it while Applejack ran numbers through her head, thinking of how much iron or steel this thing would need if Five was going to ask for help fixing it up. The Royal Guards, however, were focused on something else entirely.
"That thing is a Frigate!?" one of them asked, whispering to the other Guards.
"Look at the size of those mounted weapons!" one of them said as he pointed a hoof at the Rampart turrets.
"And that thing is filled to the brim with Changelings ," the third one added.
"Celestia, are they breeding an army in there!?"
"That thing looks like it could take down a Dreadnought in minutes!"
"Why the hay do they need our help, again?"
"Guards!" Twilight shouted.
The three Royal Guards reacted immediately, galloping up to Princess Twilight before bowing their heads as she turned to face them.
"The Changelings aren't breeding an army in there. In fact, I don't think they're breeding, period . I've seen the state they're in, and I can assure you, that they need help. Despite their..." Twilight looked back to the Pale Horse , swallowing a lump in her throat, "rather secure housing, I can assure you that they don't intend on acting against us in any way, so long as we do not instigate a violent response."
"Us!? Instigate a violent response!?" one of the Guards half-shouted. "Your majesty, with all due respect, they attacked us ! Why shouldn't we get out of here and let them rot?"
"Because we are Equestrians! We value friendship and harmony above all else! And if we were to turn our backs on an entire species on the brink of extinction , then we're worse than any monster we've ever faced. If they want a chance to work past our conflicts and towards a better future for everypo- everyone , then we need to embrace the spirit our founders had when they made our flag, and give them a chance."
The sense of finality and authority in Twilight's response was enough to silence any other thoughts the Royal Guards had about second-guessing the Princess. They all nodded as a voice boomed from the ship.
"What do you want?"
Twilight turned to the ship and cleared her throat before speaking.
"We are here to represent Equestria in hopes of conversing a state of peace with the Changeling Queen, Chrysalis. We are unarmed and swear to not bring any undue harm upon the Changeling race."
A tense silence hung in the air as Twilight awaited the Spartan's response.
"As the highest ranking officer aboard the UNSC Pale Horse, I recognize your intentions and welcome you aboard. However, should any physical conflict erupt between your personnel and the Changelings, it will be considered an act of violence not only against an endangered species, but against the United Nations Space Command as well."
The large doors opened up before them, and with a smile on her face, Twilight motioned for everypony to follow her into the alien vessel.
\\\//////
"Well, looks like I get to play diplomat some more," Five sighed to himself as he loaded a Magnum.
"Sir, where should I direct the guests?" Sid asked.
"Anywhere the Changelings aren't."
"Very well. I shall-"
The sound of an explosion cut off the AI as Five looked towards the ceiling.
\\\//////
Chrysalis looked up instinctively, staring through the metallic ceiling towards the source of the noise. She could sense fear and panic enter the minds of her Changelings as well, and reached out to them in a comforting manner. Using the knowledge that her Sensorlings had inquired from Sid, she limped through the hallways to find the source of the sound.
\\\//////
"Sid, what the Hell was that and where did it come from?"
"Radiation detectors are going haywire, and the Rampart batteries are unable to find an IFF tag to lock onto. Whatever it is, though, is organic. Acquiring visual feed of the outer hull."
The holo-screen lit up before Five to show the Hyperion silos atop the ship, as well as a glowing ball of gold and purple light that was hovering above the hull.
"Magnify image."
The image focused on the light source and revealed a white pony with golden armor and purple wafts of smoke coming from her eyes and horn.
\\\//////
Celestia halted above the behemoth of alien metal as she felt her magic being sapped from her being. Even with her armor's enchantments, the construct beneath her was still somehow able to drain her of her greatest strength. Though it was not as intensive as some of the traps she had fallen for in the past, she wasn't about to allow her opponents any advantage. With a thought, she prepared her Royal Canterlot Voice, and shouted.
"CHRYSALIS! YOU AND YOUR CHANGELINGS HAVE DEFILED THE ROYALTY OF EQUESTRIA FOR THE LAST TIME! YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE TO SURRENDER YOURSELVES AND RELEASE MY PONIES BEFORE I INCINERATE YOUR ENTIRE SPECIES!"
\\\//////
"That bitch is back again? Fine."
Five walked over to the weapon racks and pulled out an M739 Light Machine Gun down before loading in a fresh magazine.
"No more mercy."
Twilight gulped in panic as she heard Celestia's voice resonate around her and the others. Her panicked mind was struggling to keep from thinking of the worst outcomes possible at the moment, and she knew that if she wanted to stop any of them, she needed to act now.
"Guards, escort my friends inside at once," she said, "I need to go stop Celestia."
With a flap of her wings, Twilight cut off any objections the guards would have had and flew into the air, intent of stopping the conflict before it could escalate to bloodshed.
\\\//////
Chrysalis limped on with a storm of thoughts occupying both her mind and the Hive. Almost all of it was fear and betrayal, only the most hardened of minds thinking that the Spartan had captured them to be delivered to Celestia right after they had put their faith in him. Those were drowned out by the commotion caused by what Celestia had said, thinking she would bring the Sun down from the sky to eradicate them all in the coming moments.
As the Queen limped towards a lift, she heard Sid's voice echo around her.
"Queen Chrysalis, please fall back to the Barracks. The situation will be under control shortly," he assured.
"No! I have to stop her!"
"You are in no condition to stop a Moa."
"Excuse you!?"
"Apologies. I meant to say that you are in no condition to help the situation in any way. You would only intervene and make yourself a liability on the Spartan's behalf."
"I will not stand by while someone else is trying to stop Spirits-knows-what that vile Princess is trying to accomplish. Now how do I get to her faster?"
"I'm afraid Five has already ordered that no Changelings of any rank are allowed near the Upper Hull."
"Well I command you to do so."
"Rank fi-gigigigigiig tttttttttttchzzzzzzz- Command accepted."
The red lights turned yellow above Chrysalis as it lit up a path to the nearest lift.
Unbeknownst to her, several other Changelings were following their Queen, intent on protecting her with their lives.
\\\//////
Celestia's rage boiled as she stared down at the juggernaut of technological superiority that was the alien's Frigate. The fact that something this large was classified as such would have scared the Princess, but her state of mind was far from rational.
Since the moment that alien arrived, Celestia had been hearing something in her subconscious screaming at her to stop it before it could harm any of her ponies. These urges were nothing new to the Princess, as she had heard them since the moment she took the throne. Prevent atrocities by committing them first, some of her Captains had argued during the Dawn of Equestria. Before now, she had disregarded their ideals and had striven to attain security through peace.
Her arrogance had costed her too much.
She had seen thousands burn by her inability to deliver the killing blow, had cities razed because of her refusal to give in to threats, and now had lost a daughter because she couldn't commit to an idea her advisors and dedicated Guards had urged her to enact.
It was time she finally let her hoof down.
"Princess!" a familiar voice called out to her.
'Twilight?' the Princess' unfocused mind mused.
Seeing the lavender form approach had triggered two separate reactions from different parts of her mind. The motherly, kinder side of her mind cried in joy at seeing her most faithful student approach her unharmed. However, the colder, calculating part of her mind that was dominant knew that she had been possessed, and was likely being used as a puppet by Chrysalis to lower her defenses. She wouldn't fall for that tactic again.
Against a minority of her will, Celestia fired off a twisted purple haze at her student, intent on subduing her for the time being. The haze lashed out and broke apart into a crystal fog, shimmering as it surrounded the young alicorn.
"Princess, stop!" Twilight called from the haze.
The haze attempted to snap down on the young alicorn, but Twilight managed to teleport out of it as the haze solidified into a crystal. Twilight ignored her mentor's attempt to subdue her and tried to appease to her good nature.
"Princess, please! Look at what you're doing!"
Pain lanced through Celestia's mind as a small voice told her to stop. Whatever common sense she had was drowned out by the rage that had concentrated in Celestia's consciousness. With another flick of her horn, Celestia launched a wave of purple projectiles at the pesky princess. Twilight quickly erected a shield that stopped one bolt dead-on. The other two maneuvered around her barrier and burst against her wings.
Twilight screamed in pain as her wings retracted in reflex, leaving her to fall prey to the planet's gravity.
Celestia turned to gaze upon the alien frigate with contempt as she began charging solar and dark magic into her horn, her hatred focusing on a certain black and green figure.
\\\//////
Chrysalis slammed her good forehoof down onto the deck as she felt what little magic she had falter under the pulsating aura of the Pale Horse .
"It... it has anti-magic?" she asked no one in particular.
She struggled to get back to her full standing position and barely managed to shift her gaze upwards. Above her, Celestia was blasting Twilight Sparkle with bolts of magic. As two bolts struck the purple alicorn, Chrysalis felt a shift in the Hive as a familiar disturbance erupted a few dozen meters below her fall.
'Well, at least we have one more asset,' Chrysalis thought to herself.
"CHRYSALIS!" Celestia shouted down.
Her heart seizing in her chest, Chrysalis looked up to see Celestia... Princess Celestia... The Sole Wielder of the Sun, gaze down upon her with enough hate to overload Chrysalis' senses.
Still, she had to stand her ground.
"Princess Celestia!" Chrysalis called back as loudly as she could. "You wanted me, well here I am!"
"Changeling! You have corrupted Equestrian Royalty for the last time!"
\\\//////
"Does nobody understand me when I tell them to let me handle this shit!?" Five shouted inside his helmet.
The Spartan-IV stood in the middle of the deck atop the Pale Horse , shrouded by the MJOLNIR-compatible Active-Camo unit. Using the ship's power through a magnetic transmission, he could charge his shields, hydraulics, titanium fibers and other equipment without overclocking the suit's main power core, so long as he didn't overcharge them all at once.
He hefted the Railgun up to his shoulder and zoomed in on the armored pony.
"Damn, too much drop-off."
Gazing back around his shoulder, Five zoomed in on the Rampart cannons mounted near the Bridge.
"Sid, adjust the Rampart cannons to these coordinates and fire on my command..."
\\\//////
'My subjects... forgive me,' Chrysalis thought to herself as she steeled her nerves.
"Well then take me! I surrender!" Chrysalis shouted.
Celestia was unaffected by her words.
"Then bring the rest of your race out of hiding to face judgement," she demanded.
"W-what? No! I surrender myself alone to be judged! Their actions were my own! They don't deserve death for following me to this point!"
"It matters not what you say for their favor! I will not let this transgression go with a simple slap on the hoof! I've let my enemies regroup and rearm too many times! First I let my sister's jealousy consume her before I banished her for a thousand years! I let Tirek flee to Tartarus to regain his strength! I may have let wars boil on the edge for centuries at a time to work out a treaty, but not today! Today, I make an example of those who want to bring harm to my kingdom!"
The low whirring of machinery went unheard by the Princess.
"Now... I judge you, Chrysalis... You have invaded my home... foalnapped my niece... seduced and corrupted not only the Captain of my Royal Guard, but my personal student as well... you have feasted on our emotions, and have ripped families apart with your trickery and deception... for too long your kind has been allowed to grow unchecked... and now..."
Celestia raised Horizon's Edge, lighting it aglow with ancient arcane energies as she hoisted it above her head. It eclipsed the Sun behind her and burned with the intensity of plasma.
"I, Celestia, Rightful Heir to the Sun and Ruler of Equestria, sentence you and your Changelings to-"
The thunder of cannons drowned out Celestia's words as the world around her exploded into shrapnel and flame.
The 50mm cannons roared as they unloaded explosive rounds on the unsuspecting Princess, drowning her in a sea of firepower. Celestia tried to erect a shield several times in succession, but each time she tried to conjure anything, another explosive round burst in the air near her. The overwhelming arsenal quickly toppled Celestia's senses, and she flew straight down to avoid their fire.
A flash erupted beneath the Princess, followed by a quieter burst before pain erupted through her back.
Something fast and heavy broke apart square between the hilt of her wings, crippling her appendages. Celestia managed to catch herself with her magic, and stopped in time to avoid face-planting on the metal surface. The draining effect of the ship's aura quickly sapped a majority of not only her own magic, but her armor's enchantments as well. Lost in her focus, Celestia couldn't manage to react when she saw a red dot grow into a full figure.
A metal boot slammed into Celestia's snout, sending her skidding across the surface of the ship. The taste of copper and something hanging loosely in the front of her maw brought Celestia's senses back as she looked back at what had attacked her.
"Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"
Five turned around to look at the crippled Queen, who occupied her time by staring slack-jawed at him.
“And why exactly are you up here?” he asked.
“E-excuse me?” she asked.
“As a matter of fact, no. Your actions aren’t excusable. What the Hell were you thinking?”
“Don’t you dare try to put down my actions! I was trying to-“
“Sacrifice yourself for the sake of your kind, I get it. But that doesn’t excuse you literally limping up to the guillotine in hopes of finding mercy. I told you to stay put while I handled that,” he motioned to Celestia’s shakily breathing form.
\\\//////
Celestia inhaled raggedly as she laid on the cold metal surface of the alien craft, feeling its sadistic design draining her of all magic. Her vision began to fade away as she thought of her past. Luna... Discord... Twilight... they had all betrayed her, and now here she lay, broken and bleeding out on an alien ship, cut down before she could act. The Changelings were going to close in on her absence, and with Twilight acting as putty in their hooves, alongside the alien soldier, she doubted that Equestria stood a chance against the monsters.
She had lost.
And fear consumed her heart as the darkness smothered her.
\\\//////
A dark chuckle escaped the device as it floated in the center of the Corvette's bridge. Purple tendrils extended out and flowed towards the warriors clad in whites and blues.
"The moment is upon us," "Bring me the Moon-marked one. My winged Knights will focus on the city. Follow the path I have gifted you with, and do not stray."
"By your word, Holy One," the Sangheili stated as they went for the Phantoms.
"Ah, Celestia, you've been so helpful for my endeavor thus far. By all means, take five,"
\\\//////
"Because I know what if feels like to be in your position!" Five answered the Queen. "Now get back inside!"
"You could never know how I feel right now! Between my race's inevitable extinction and now an alien on top of that-"
"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!"
Five turned on his heel in time to see something bolting straight at him. Thankfully, his shields were charged in anticipation of Celestia's arrival and took the brunt of the surge of magic. The blast sent the Spartan sliding back a good ten feet before he braced himself against the hull and examined Celestia.
She was practically a different person than before, her golden armor oozing a sickly purple light through every plate while a purple mist flowed out from her eyes. The hair that once flowed on an ethereal breeze hung down the sides of her head, burning with a black flame. She looked up at Five with green eyes that screamed pure hatred.
"I've had enough of you," she stated, her voice echoing as though she were in a cave. "Of all the creatures that dared to stand in the path of Harmony, none have been so-"
fweeeeeee-THOM
Five charged the Railgun for a half-second before firing a Tungsten round at the center of Celestia's armor.
Celestia burst back from the impact, her armor caving in under the force of the magnetic weapon as it reverberated through her body, shattering her ribs and crushing vertebrae. The alicorn landed on her broken wings as she wheezed and hacked.
"Just stay dead you mother fucker!" Five shouted as he loaded in another shot.
The purple light began to shine brighter through the mare's armor, trailing along Celestia's barrel as it worked. After only a few seconds, Celestia's wheezing turned to gasps, and her hacking had been replaced by panting. She rolled over until her hooves were beneath her and slowly stood. She glared at Five as her horn bubbled with Dark Magic.
"It's rude to interrupt a lady when she is addressing you," , she said bitterly.
"Too bad," Five dismissed as he charged up the Railgun.
Celestia acted immediately, her form being propelled by the dark power that had overcome her senses. With her body acting purely on reflex, Celestia had unknowingly leveled the playing field.
Her halberd reappeared at her side before slashing downward to intercept the Tungsten projectile, slicing through it as it launched. She split it down the middle vertically as to press forward, though the halves did shear through the sides of her barrel.
Five reacted quickly, intercepting the arcing weapon by twisting the Railgun so that the blade caught between the magnetic prongs. The halberd, however, proved its effectiveness by cutting through and melting a few centimeters into the rifle, rendering it useless. The two struggled for dominance over the interlocked weapons, Celestia's magic proving itself as she twisted them in an attempt to break Five's grip.
Five let go of the rifle and jumped back, igniting his suit's thrusters in time to avoid the blade as it embedded itself into the hull of the Pale Horse . Reaching towards his back, Five pulled out a SAW LMG and opened fire on the Princess. Celestia threw up a shield in retaliation, but her magic was slow to stop the assault, and a score of lead tore through her forelegs. As she gave a shout of pain, Five turned his head to Chrysalis.
"Get out of here, now!"
Chrysalis wasted no time to argue, and limped back to the entrance.
"No you don't!"
Celestia cast a sideways glance at the Changeling queen before releasing a bolt of Dark Magic towards her. Chrysalis turned her head in time to see the projectile incoming and closed her eyes as she braced for the end.
"Protect the Queen!"
The unmistakable sound of the wings of Phalanxes buzzed past Chrysalis and intercepted the bolt with a twin-casted shield. Upon impact, the Dark Magic burst apart, barely able to budge the two heavy Changelings.
The queen turned her gaze to the door to see her Captains, Phalanxes and Sensorlings backing her as they watched the Spartan fight the Goddess of the Sun.
"Damn you, you sinfu-"
thunk
Celestia looked down in time to catch a powerful burst of light and sound that both blinded and deafened her. Her hooves shot up to her face in response as Five loaded a fresh drum into the SAW. Upon securing the drum, Five charged towards the alicorn, his thrusters pushing him to a red blur before he launched himself into the air.
"Straight from orbit!" he called out before shooting towards the ground.
The corrupted Princess cracked her eyes wide enough to see the Spartan slam into her, and cried in pain as she felt her rib cage and shoulders collapse. She slammed into the deck before Five shot backwards before charging once more, this time kicking the Princess across the hull.
Celestia slid for a good dozen meters, her scarred armor sending sparks across the metal from the friction. She shakily rose to her hooves, coughing up a sizeable pool of blood. The Princess glared death at the Spartan, her horn charging with such an intense volume of Dark Magic that her horn began to quake and fracture.
"DIE!"
A beam of purple and green energy the size of a Warthog erupted before her and flew straight at the Spartan. Five's eyes widened in shock as he focused his suit's power reserves into the Overshields and Titanium Fibers.
"Sid, activate Lockdown!" he managed to shout before bracing himself.
The magic slammed into Five and detonated.
\\\//////
Rarity watched in shocked awe at the horror at the sight.
Royal Guards across town (and unbeknownst to them, across Equestria) had began suddenly screaming in agony and collapsing to the ground, clutching their heads as though their lives depended on it. For only a few seconds, they screamed, before suddenly stopping and going limp. Before anypony could act, they righted themselves and stood tall.
When they stood back up, however, they were drastically different.
Their white coats and blue manes were replaced magically with black fur and blood-red manes. Their armor turned to an ashen grey color, seeping a sickly purple mist that trailed at least a hoof out in every direction. And their eyes...
"What in Celestia's name is happening?" Rarity gasped in horror.
The Guards turned their glowing, hateful green eyes upon the unicorn and sneered.
"By order of the King, you two are under arrest for acts of high treason, punishable only by death," he stated.
Around her, other Guards were stalking closer, cuffs and batons out and ready.
"What King?" Rarity asked. "There's no-"
"SILENCE!" a converted pegasus shouted. "You will not speak such Heresy about Lord Sombra!"
Shining Armor slammed a hoof into the table, cracking the surface.
"Damn it!" he shouted.
With a buck, the table went flying into a nearby wall, breaking apart into dozens of fragments. The Prince-Captain galloped out of his office as he thought over the mission reports.
It was supposed to be another great day in the Crystal Empire, just an average routine. Converse with the Guards from Canterlot over re-training of the Crystal Warriors, written exams and psychological evaluations for the Officers, and some tea with Cadance while discussing names for their imminent foal.
But that had shattered the moment he woke up today.
The Royal Guards that had been stationed in the Crystal Palace had all collapsed and began screaming in pain for no reason. They were brought in to emergency care by the nearby Crystal Warriors.
That was when they found the enchantments.
The staff at the hospital had no idea what was working inside those helmets, but the Officers that had been called in to investigate recognized the curses off the bat. They were marked by Sombra's Dark Magic.
Shining had thought it was impossible. He had seen Sombra die when they found the Crystal Heart, there was no way that he could have survived, let alone possessed the entire Royal Guard, no matter how powerful he claimed to be.
But the tests didn't lie. It was Dark Magic, and the Crystal Warriors had explicitly told them how.
Sombra can't die, only be set back.
'I'll just have to kill him myself,' Shining thought.
If only that were the worst of the news.
"Shining!"
The unicorn slid to a halt when he heard his beloved's voice call out to him. He turned his head to see her hobbling towards him, her bump finally starting to show through her slender frame.
"Cady, what's wrong?" he asked.
"I heard about what happened," she said. "I didn't want to believe it, but I felt his hatred, their fears, all of it, circulate through the Heart."
"Shit. How close is he? Do we need to throw up the barrier?"
"No, he can't reach us yet. I don't know where he is."
"There's no need to be afraid of him, Cady, we can-"
"It's not him I'm afraid of."
Shining nodded grimly before turning to the closest two Crystal Warriors.
"You two keep at my wife's side at all times. Protect her at any cost."
They snapped to a salute before going to Cadance's sides.
"Shining, be safe."
The two closed in and shared a kiss before the Prince-Captain shot off down the halls.
\\\//////
Shining Armor arrived at the barracks of the Crystal Warriors covered in a sheen of sweat. He examined the fixed gazes of everypony before him as he tried to find any fault or flaw to indicate one of those things being present.
Satisfied with what he saw, Shining Armor nodded and went up to the front of the hall and put some magic behind his voice.
"Listen up, everypony! We are in a state of emergency! As of now, Equestria and the Royal Guard have been compromised entirely from the inside. Sombra somehow managed to trap the entirety of Equestria's Guards in a massive mind-control spell. They are out of commission at best, and after us at worst. The Princesses aren't anywhere to be found, save for Princess Cadance. However, there is more to this situation than just the return of Sombra."
Shining pulled out a letter he had received from Luna and reread it to be accurate. He closed his eyes and sighed before taking a deep breath.
"According to Princess Luna, approximately 40 hours ago, an alien had landed in Equestria's borders."
This revelation shook the base to its core. The Crystal ponies here were exchanging glances and gasping already.
"That is not all. Apparently, it is some kind of super-soldier designed to be immune to most forms of magic and has weapons that are powerful enough to cut through even alicorn-level magic. Celestia herself was beaten unconscious by it and was nearly killed."
"Is it on our side?" a random Private asked.
"Speak when spoken to, Private," Shining Armor stated, "and no, it's not. We have confirmation from Princess Celestia that... the Changelings have control of this alien soldier, as well as a massive warship that is entirely immune to magic."
This sent shockwaves throughout the Crystal Warriors.
"Changelings?"
"They're back?"
"Controlling an alien?"
"How many are there?"
Shining stomped a hoof onto the ground, the snap echoing through the hall and silencing the Warriors.
"We don't have an accurate estimate to their numbers, but I can tell you this. If you suspect anypony of being a Changeling or under Sombra's influence, do not hesitate to act. And if you see any of those bugs, crush them on sight."
The Warriors froze at this order.
"Sir, permission to speak?" a pegasus asked.
"Granted."
"Why should we worry about the Changelings? Shouldn't we ally wi-"
The pegasus was cut off by a stomp from Shining Armor's hoof.
"Absolutely NOT! I will never ally myself with those love-sucking monsters! I don't care if they say they can end Sombra with a flick of their hole-riddled hooves, we will not cooperate with those things! Kill on sight, that's an order!" Shining roared.
The Prince-Captain took a few seconds to catch his breath as he saw the reaction from the Warriors. Most of them looked shocked and somewhat appalled, and a few even looked... mad? No, Shining wasn't seeing things right. He was tired, only just having woken up into this nightmare of a situation.
"We are hereby initiating a state of emergency. Curfews for all citizens are between 6 am and 7:30 pm. No one is to be seen out of their homes outside of this timezone, or they will be brought in under pretenses of treason or of being a Changeling spy. Dismissed."
\\\//////
The Officers looked down upon Shining Armor with distaste, one in particular scowling harshly at the words of the Prince-Captain.
"Racist bastard, all of those Equestrians," she growled.
"They have some excuse, Miss Inkwell," the stallion beside her said, filing at the curve of his horn. "His wedding was crashed by the Hive."
"But we don't know why! We shouldn't rule out the possibility of desperate measures being a necessity for them!"
"We won't be solving any issues whilst bickering amongst ourselves," an older stallion stated. "But this does prove my suspicion. Cadance is not the true heir we were waiting for."
"To think we swore an oath to them," Inkwell said.
"We swore an oath to the true inheritors of the Crystal Throne. We will serve in time, but for now, we must act without being noticed." The older stallion gazed into the crowd before a blue flame washed over him, turning his brown coat black, and his eyes to slits. "We will find our Mother's Inheritor, and our siblings will return to their rightful home. For Hive and Heart."
The room lit up with blue flames as the Changelings shed their disguises, their bodies lithe and smooth, without holes or breaks in their chitin. Each had their own mane and iris colors, the armor they donned morphed green with the symbol of the Crystal Heart etched into their barrels.
"For Hive and Heart, we will serve our Mother, and her descendants."
"Gather scouting party Centurion-Six. It's time we reunite the family."
"Five!" Chrysalis cried as the world burst before her.
She could sense the hatred and fear behind the magic that Celestia put out, and was glad she wasn't crushed under it's sheer presence. However, she couldn't say the same for the Spartan.
The Changelings behind her cowered and panicked, having witnessed what they thought was an invincible ally be reduced to ash with one attack. Their only hope of surviving Celestia's wrath had succumbed to her dark fury.
Celestia turned her gaze to Chrysalis as the smoke began to clear.
"What did I tell you, bug?" Celestia said as she stalked towards the Queen. "There's only one way this can end."
Celestia's Halberd floated up to her side and spun in a circle, becoming a whirling streak of death. Chrysalis felt the echoes of her children's cries and closed her eyes.
"Please... just make it quick," she begged.
Celestia smirked.
"No."
Three cracks of sound burst from the smoke as Celestia screamed in agony, her Halberd slamming into the hull as her horn burst into pieces. More bursts erupted from the smoke as Five marched forth from it, his armor not showing a hint of damage from Celestia's attack, while he unloaded the Battle Rifle's magazine on Celestia. Two bursts cut through her left foreleg's knee and another two cut through her hind legs.
Celestia screamed in pain as she collapsed onto the ship as more purple mist began to filter through her wounds, patching her fragmented bones and nerves together hastily.
When the rifle's counter read zero, Five tossed the rifle aside and pulled out his Magnum and fired at the Princess as he pushed closer to her.
Hope began to resound through the Hive as Chrysalis watched Five's retaliation.
'He took the brunt of that massive attack and got back up like it was nothing,' she thought. 'He's still fighting for us.' Chrysalis let her guard down momentarily enough at the thought to produce a genuine smile.
When the last round was fired, Five threw the Magnum behind him and drew out the Energy Sword that the Zealot had tossed him earlier, igniting the suspended field of plasma as he approached Celestia's prone form.
Much to Five's shock, the Princess managed to recover from the onslaught sooner than he thought physically possible and got up to deliver a solid buck right into his abdomen.
The impact broke Five's shields entirely and landed the Spartan on his back a good few meters away.
With the cracked stump that was left of her horn, Celestia pooled enough strength to magically lift her Halberd and stared down Five.
"Why!?" she demanded. "Why do you persist!? It's hopeless! Accept your death!"
Five got up and depolarized his visor to look Celestia right in the eye.
"You can try to kill me all you want, but Spartans don't die," he said, casting a glance to Chrysalis and the Changelings, "we're just Missing In Action."
Celestia roared as she galloped towards Five, who charged at her as he drew a serrated combat knife in his other hand, screaming the whole way as they prepared to end the fight.
\\\//////
Fluttershy panted heavily as she and Rarity fought to catch their breath in the clearing of the Ghastly Gorge, an alien ship clear as day before them. Along with them, Pinkie had dragged the Cake family and the CMC along for the ride, despite the couple's insistence that they were alright.
"Pinkie, we're fine!" Mrs. Cake stated, cradling Pumpkin. "I don't know why you're being so paranoid lately!"
"I'm more concerned about what that is," Mr. Cake said as he gestured to the Pale Horse , Pound giggling atop his head.
"Mr. and Mrs. Cake, I'm sorry about dragging you here for no reason, but now that we're... mostly safe," Pinkie said, looking around, "I think it's time you know why. I know that I can act quite irrationally without warning, and I'm sorry about that, but I need you to trust me. Ponyville isn't safe at all for any of us. The Guards have been cursed with Dark Magic and are looking not just for us, but for anypony close to us they can use to harm us in any way. I know that doesn't sound like anything that they would do, but I've seen them. They were going to capture you and Writers know what they'd do to the twins or the CMC. I need you to trust me when I say that I can't, in good conscience, let you stay there and risk getting hurt, or worse. Please."
The Cakes looked on in shock as Pinkie's mane deflated almost halfway as she pleaded to them with tears in her eyes. They exchanged a look and nodded.
"Alright Pinkie," Mrs. Cake responded, "we trust you. Just promise me that the twins will be safe."
"Wait, what about Rainbow Dash? Why can't we go to get her?" Scootaloo asked.
"Scootaloo, if you know Rainbow as well as I do," Fluttershy said, "then you know they don't have anything that can keep her down for very long."
The filly smiled at the pegasus while the two other Crusaders gaped in awe at the sight of the Frigate.
"Ah can't believe how big it is!" Applebloom said.
"Think of the what kind of Cutie Marks we could get from alien stuff!" Sweetie Belle squeaked.
Scootaloo gasped.
"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS ALIEN HUNTERS! YAY !"
Rarity shook her head and groaned.
"I hope that thing is child-proofed in some way, or we're all doomed."
Five ducked underneath the Halberd's blade and swung his arm out to try and catch Celestia's barrel with the Energy Sword. Seeing this, Celestia kicked her right legs out to try and roll away, but still felt the sting of the twin blades as they melted through her armor, cutting out a nasty scar nearly a foot long.
As Five recovered, he turned and tried to dig his combat knife into Celestia's neck, only to swing at air as Celestia rolled over her broken wings and stood up a good few meters away from the Spartan. She glared at him with the fury of the Sun as he calmly twirled the knife into an under-handed position.
"You're as good as dead," Five stated. "I scored third highest in CQC at the academy, and that was before I was a Spartan."
"Your training means nothing in the face of a God," Celestia seethed.
"I think the Covenant would beg to differ."
Celestia reeled her Halberd back and thrust it at Five, who in turn shot his Energy Sword forward to parry. When the spear-head slid off of the curved plasma blade, Five stepped forward to stab at Celestia. She anticipated this, however, and managed to turn the Halberd further from Five's parry and aimed it at Five's head.
"Behind you!" Chrysalis called out.
Five ducked on reflex and rolled underneath Celestia's swing before she changed its fulcrum to swing it down at the Spartan. He brought the Energy sword up to block the strike, and held firmly against the blade.
\\\//////
Sombra watched on with a sour note playing in his mind. His Covenant followers were right, this Demon was a formidable foe. He not only held his own against his puppet's most powerful Dark Magic attack, but he came out unscathed and was crippling his asset. Had he not been able to manipulate Celestia through such a view, she would likely have died when those cannons fired.
"This won't do at all," "Rondanee,"
A Sangheili in red armor approached and bowed before the Forerunner device holding Sombra's intelligence.
"My Lord, how may I serve you?"
"Prepare the medical facilities for emergency care, I'm pulling in a puppet to be fixed."
\\\//////
Five pushed the blade to the side and slashed at the pole underneath the Halberd's head and sliced the blade off.
Disarmed and barely capable of keeping herself together, Celestia limped back and gasped for air. She could feel her insides burning, running on borrowed power to keep her pinned together. The Princess could feel her bones threatening to break into dust and her heart beating against the fragments of a rib.
The Spartan charged at the alicorn, ready to finish her off, before she was concealed by a purple wall of fog that struck out and slammed into his abdomen.
As Five landed on the deck, a dark chuckle echoed through the void where Celestia once stood. There, two red eyes glared at him, hovering above a fanged smile. The portal closed immediately after, taking Celestia with it.
Five let out a groan as he stood up.
"Great, more portal bullshit."
Behind him, the Changelings were watching as the Spartan picked up the spent weapons, as well as the magically drained fragments of Celestia's weapon, before walking up to them.
"Thanks for that call, Chrysalis," he said. "Glad you guys all survived whatever the Hell that was."
"I... I've never even heard of Celestia being twisted enough to use that much Dark Magic," Chrysalis said, a distant look in her eyes.
"Yeah, well there's a first time for everything, I guess. Now, everyone inside. I'm locking down the Frigate until further-"
"More unknown contacts approaching the starboard docking bay," Sid announced.
"God damn shit!" Five shouted. "Can I get one whole minute without something on this planet trying to- fuck it, give me visual."
Five's HUD lit up with the security footage from the starboard crew entrance, showing several ponies lining up, including one Applejack and...
"Seal all entrances below this deck," Five ordered.
"Who's there?"
"I don't know, but they brought kids."
"Kids? They brought children to an alien ship?"
"So did you," Five pointed out.
"I did it because we have literally nowhere else in this world to go."
"Exactly. So why would someone bring a bunch of kids-"
"The pink one is calling you by name, sir," Sid stated.
"Put me on speaker."
Five's helmet was filled with static before he heard the audio sync up with the footage.
"Mister Sergeant-Five-sir, I'm really sorry to bother you, but please please please let us in! Everypony in the Royal Guard just turned super-evil and are trying to hunt us down! They know about the foals and won't stop until somepony's hurt! Please help us!" the pink pony cried as she looked directly towards the camera.
"Why would anyone be after you?"
"Because somepony did a thing that made everypony in the Guard go evily-meany! They wanted to arrest us for treason against somepony who they shouldn't be serving and want to foalnap or... end anypony who gets in their way! Please, think of the foals!" she insisted, holding up twin ponies.
Five felt his curiosity unsatisfied, but stopping that thinking when he thought of their scenario.
'That was their leader that came here to kill us all,' *Five thought, 'so maybe they* are being hunted by their government for treason. I shouldn't because of the thousands of protocol violations that I'll be issued with once we reach UNSC space... ah, fuck me.'
"Follow the lit path and don't deviate from it unless you want to be thrown in a cell," Five answered. "Sid, light up a path for them to the barracks and seal off all adjacent hallways."
'This is gonna be a long debrief if I ever get back.'
Five sighed as he made his way down to the barracks, a migraine ready to erupt in his skull as he thought over the massing shitstorm that would ensue when he got back to UNSC space.
'Non-Human civilians on a military vessel without constant security, assaulting foreign leadership and divulging classified information to several hundred unregistered refugees. ONI are gonna have a field day with this. Maybe I can call self-defense on the assault charge if they bring it up, but I doubt they'd pardon me for anything else,' he thought grimly.
"You're worried about something?" Chrysalis asked.
Five looked down to see the Queen limping alongside him (the Spartan decided to keep a slow pace to allow her to keep up), eying his visor with a cautious gaze.
"It's fine," he answered. "Just thinking about how many laws I'm breaking by doing... well, everything that's happened thus far. Letting your kind onboard without express permission from a superior officer, permitting medical facilities to you, hell, even telling you this is gonna land me in a shit-creek."
"Oh... I..." she mumbled.
"Lighten up," Five said, "they might go easy on me for a few things. Saving an intelligent race from extinction, contact with non-hostile intelligent life and getting a Frigate back to UNSC space. Besides, I need to do this."
"Why, though?" Chrysalis asked. "Why risk so much to save us?"
"Like I said earlier, your kind is in a similar position to what we went through, and I refuse to sit back and let your kind bite the dust when I can do something about it."
Chrysalis shivered at the feeling of compassion and a sense of sheer empathy from the soldier. As she absorbed the positive emotions, she could feel parts of her chitin sealing up as the pain in her leg lessened.
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Just doing my job," Five replied.
\\\//////
Twilight blanched as she processed everything her friends told her while reflecting on how Celestia had acted. The pieces fell into place in Twilight's mind, and her world broke apart.
"No," she muttered. "No, no, no no no! There's no way he could have come back!"
She paced about the large cafeteria as her friends kept weary gazes on the Royal Guards across from them.
"I... no, I refuse to believe it," one of the Guards said. "There is no way Princess Celestia would have done any of that! It's the Changelings! It has to be!"
"And besides," another one started, "we're completely fine! We're not tinted a different color, nor do we hear any voices."
"I know what I saw and I know that's what they said!" Pinkie defended. "Applejack, look me in the eye right now and tell them I'm not lying."
Applejack looked into Pinkie's eyes as the normally exuberant mare deflated and pleaded about the Guards turning into Sombra's minions. She wanted to say that it was a prank gone too far, that Pinkie should know what boundaries that one shouldn't cross for a joke. She didn't want to believe it, but...
"She ain't lyin'," Applejack said. "She'd never lie 'bout this."
"No! There is no way that any of that would happen!" the unicorn Guard shouted. "I refuse to believe any of this, and I demand that you all drop this act! The Royal Guards would never give in to some tyrant!"
"They didn't give in," Rarity said, "they were taken by surprise. They all started roaring in pain before passing out and waking up like..." Rarity shivered, "that ."
"I'm not buying any of this," the second Guard dismissed. "There's no way that Princess Celestia would allow any of that."
"Because that wasn't really her," Twilight said.
Everypony turned to curiously eye Twilight.
"Your majesty?" the first Guard said.
"Princess Celestia was being manipulated by Sombra, just like the Guards," she pieced together. "She was... so much angrier than I've ever seen before, and even when she showed me Dark Magic, she was careful to not let it consume her, and even then it was barely a few sparks on her horn. But back there... she was just gone. She was overflowing with Dark Magic, and she didn't bother listening to anypony. And from what we read about Sombra before, he's a master manipulator. For all we know, this could have very well been his plan."
The Guards exchanged looks of disbelief.
"Princess, I doubt that Celestia would fall victim to Sombra so easily."
"We don't know how powerful Sombra really is. When we beat him in the Crystal Empire, we-" Twilight froze. "The Crystal Empire..."
"Twilight?" Fluttershy said.
"My brother and Cadance," she whispered. "They don't... they can't be..."
The door slid open to reveal Five and Chrysalis. The mares all turned to see Five while the Guards glared at the Queen.
"Nobody try anything and no one gets hurt," Five started. "Now, would anyone care to explain why Little Miss Sunshine was so dead-set on glassing the Frigate?"
"King Sombra," Twilight answered.
Chrysalis froze as her mind went abuzz as the name resonated deep within the Hive.
"That answers nothing, thank you," Five deadpanned.
"I'm sorry. King Sombra was a powerful Dark Magic magus that rose to power over a thousand years ago in the Crystal Empire. He used mind control and manipulation to take over and-"
"What does any of this have to do with your leader wanting my head on a silver platter?"
Twilight grimaced at the imagery, but continued anyways.
"We think he may have been waiting for Celestia to snap, and now he's likely got her under his control, along with all of Equestria's Royal Guards."
This made Five pause.
"So let me get this straight. You're telling me that some ancient magic king came back from the dead and is now controlling your country's military and leader?"
Twilight nodded sadly.
"Jesus, this shitshow just keeps getting worse and worse," Five sighed.
"That may be true, but I think I've come up with a solution," Twilight added. "This ship seems to negate all magic being used in or around it, hence why these three Guards are still the same," she motioned to the three sneering Guards. "We can use this ship to get to the Crystal Empire, and if your suit works on the same principle as the ship, you might be immune to Sombra's magic. We have a chance to stop him if we can just find where he's hiding."
The former bearers of the Elements gave Five a pleading look.
"No."
Twilight's world shattered.
"But... but-"
"Let me explain," Five stated. "I've already interfered enough with this planet. UNSC has strict codes on interaction with a species or coalition that operates on a lower technological tier, and right now, I'm on the brink of the point of no return. Acting as a dedicated military force alongside a faction of such a world is prohibited on the grounds that it makes it look like we're playing favorites with who we ally with. Not only that, but we would be exposing an underdeveloped species to warfare advancements that would lead to a massive schism in that society. I'm sorry, but I can't get involved more than I already have."
Twilight didn't bother fighting back the tears as she fell to her knees.
Her home. Her country. Her mentor... all of them would fall to Sombra, and she couldn't do a thing to stop it.
"But," Five said, "you can make an appeal to the UNSC Board of Admirals as well as the Office of Naval Intelligence as a potential ally seeking assistance. We wouldn't be able to fight your war for you, but we could offer haven for refugees and help you coordinate with any allies you have on this planet."
"But... a-are you sure you can't help? Please?"
Five shook his head.
"The rules are clear. I'm to stay out of your war unless either your enemy makes a large-scale offensive against this ship, or-"
The alarms began to blare overhead, the room darkening as a red light rotated about.
"Alert! Alert! Alert!" Sid announced over the speakers.
"Sid, what's going on?"
The red and flashing lights ceased as a nearby wall lit up with a holo-screen. The ponies in the room stared at the screen agape while Five went rigid. Chrysalis could barely sense the ponies in the room as she felt Five's fear practically drown her.
The projection showed Canterlot being overshadowed by a massive purple ship, a beam of blue light connecting it to the city.
"What is that?" Twilight asked.
"Forget everything I just said," Five said. "This makes it my war."
"But what is that?"
"The Covenant."
"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.
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. Rainbow Dash and Applejack galloped towards the edge of the Everfree, their breaths heavy as they raced towards the mysterious burst of energy from where Twilight was, apparently. After hearing that their friend was at the epicenter of the blast, from what Spike and Fluttershy knew, the two had bolted straight over to help the Princess in any way they needed to.
\\\//////
Five stepped through the bushes of the forest with ease, hearing the twigs snap against his armor as a chorus of pleasantries compared to the talking of one Twilight Sparkle. Of Ponyville. Formerly Canterlot. Who happens to be the Princess of Friendship, whatever that meant. Student of some kind of stupid named ruler, and was still talking despite not having any input from him whatsoever. Despite his reluctance to try and tune out everything irrelevant, he had learned that Twilight was indeed a female, so he could refer to her as such, and that her species was called "Pony," which he didn't care much for. He growled quietly to himself as she continued to assault his hearing with more useless speech.
\\\//////
"And then, after she got trapped by those rocks that she had set up, a giant boulder came straight down for her! I was just... stunned, that everything just started to collapse around her! But, before any of us could do anything, Maud just shot straight for Pinkie, and when she got to the boulder,"
\\\//////
'I swear to God, I'm going to rip open a Slip-Space rupture with my own hands, hunt down whoever was in charge of the MJOLNIR, and beat them to death with their own legs for not thinking about putting in a FUCKING MUTE BUTTON!' he thought to himself.
Just as Five was about to punch a tree down to calm himself, the lavender form of Twilight stopped ahead of him, and silence greeted his ears. For half of a second.
"We're out!" she called.
Five charged through the canopy and felt the squish of dirt meet the underside of his boots. To his sides, the dark trees and shrubs were swiftly cut from his view as the dark night sky surrounded his vision. Before him were massive grassy fields, untainted by any kind of ruins or scorch marks. Beyond the fields was a small town of some kind. It was almost entirely dark, and barely had any buildings taller than a couple of stories, maybe three at most.
\\\//////
"There she is!" Rainbow Dash called out.
"What in tarnation is that !?" Applejack responded, spotting a red metal beast on two legs.
"I don't know, but let's give it a 'Welcome to Ponyville Gift Basket'!" Rainbow shouted as she took to the air.
\\\//////
Five looked down to his right, where Twilight was standing. He was about to speak before his motion tracker blared with a red streak that sailed straight for him. On instinct, Five whipped around in time to catch whatever it was that was moving for him. Upon turning, something slammed into his chest and sent him into the air. While his shield was flaring, however, he grabbed whatever it was that had collided with him, and reversed the situation by slamming it into the ground.
When his momentum came to a halt in the dirt, Five looked down at what had attacked him, and found a blue pony with wings in his grasp. While his shields were recharging, he took his right hand and grabbed at its hair, yanking the pony from the small mound of dirt and holding it out in front of him. As he did, however, his motion tracker picked up another attacker coming from behind, again. Five spun around to see an orange one with yellow hair and a hat charging at him as well. The Spartan hefted the blue one up and quickly threw it directly at the second one. When they collided, Five drew his Assault Rifle from his back and fired a few rounds into the dirt by the pile.
The two attackers yelped and tried to jump back from the explosion of dirt and metal before a transparent purple dome rose above them. Five turned to his right to see Twilight running between him and the other two, a shocked look on her face.
"What are you doing !?" she yelled.
"Defending myself," Five replied angrily. "They attacked me out of nowhere, so I responded as such."
"That doesn't mean you can just hurt them!!!"
"Yes, it does."
Silence took its hold over the group before Twilight took a breath and spoke again.
"How about, we all just calm down, alright? We clearly got off on the wrong hoof, so let's just... start over, alright?" she offered.
Five stood still as he looked into the transparent dome, and found that the two that had attacked him were staring at him with scared looks in their eyes. He lowered the MA5D slowly and eased his stance before nodding.
"Fine."
\\\//////
Celestia felt her hooves slam onto a hard, cold surface as metal rung all around her. She slowly looked up to watch as her surroundings changed into something out of a Science Fiction movie. In her vision, as opposed to buildings, metal walls rose up out of the small area of metallic ground, and lights danced across the high-rising structures. At the edge of her hazing vision, she could make out the form of several Equestrian Royal Patrol Airships fleeing from the structure, as a large number of flames rained down between them. The Princess felt one of her legs give out, and as she fell, she could see the silhouettes of several creatures that she recognized almost instantly: Changelings. They all were running through the field of metal, towards one of the buildings, and before her, almost out of view, was their Queen, Chrysalis. She looked as though she were trying to run towards Celestia's collapsing form, but before she could make out the look on her face, a metallic beast rose in front of the Sun Princess. Its exterior was entirely red metal, save for its face, which looked like a pane of golden glass. All around its body, a familiar green glow pulsated and fueled it, giving Celestia an eerie sense of familiarity. It stood on two legs, and when it looked down at her, it raised an arm that held a small cylinder. When the small object was high above them both, it shot out twin blades that seemed to be made of light, before bringing it down onto her with the might of a vengeful God.
"GAAAAAAAH!!!" Celestia screamed as she rose from her bed.
Celestia raised a hoof to her face and pulled away to find cold sweat dripping down it as she gasped heavily in the empty chamber. Before she could gather herself, however, the doors to her room burst open and gave way for a group of Guards.
"Princess!" one of them shouted. "Are you alright!?"
"I... I'm fine," she panted. "Just... just a bad dream..."
The Guards all holstered their weapons and gave a bow.
"Our apologies, your Highness."
"Don't fret, you were doing your jobs very well. Return to your posts."
They gave one last salute before marching out of her chambers, the doors clanking heavily as they closed. The alicorn rose from her bed and looked towards her large set of dressers, where her royal regalia was stored. She looked into the mirror as she approached, and tried to focus on the image of the metallic beast.
"What was that?" she asked her reflection. "Was this another vision, like what happened with Sombra or Tirek? Why was Chrysalis there?"
Celestia raised a hoof to the surface of the glass and examined the reflection of her eyes.
"What was that power it had? I thought I sensed something familiar, but what?"
Her thoughts were interrupted as a flash pierced her vision in the mirror, causing her to shut her eyes in reflex. Celestia turned to the balcony and gaped when she saw a small, intense light coming from the Everfree Forest. She focused her magic and began to pull out her regalia as her mind began to race with thoughts of what could make that kind of presence.
\\\//////
Five stood firm as the two mares, who were named Applejack and Rainbow Dash, brushed themselves off after hearing Twilight tell them that Five was an alien that crashed in the Everfree, and not some kind of monster.
"I... guess I'm sorry for tackling you, then," Rainbow Dash said hesitantly.
"Just know that as an official of the UNSC, I had every right to do more than just throw you at each other and fire warning shots. Be glad my situation is delicate enough, as is."
Twilight huffed and stomped over to him as she spoke.
"You could have seriously hurt them! Can't you just apologize for that !?"
"Because I'm far away from any kind of communications outpost, or even any kind of contact with UNSC space. I have no way of getting off this world, nor do I have any way to contact my kind. If you were in the same situation, would you just openly trust anything and everything that came up to talk to you, let them attack you, and only try and defend yourself when it's too late?"
Twilight was visibly shying away from Five's rather harsh answer as the other two looked up at him in fear.
"I don't care if you think I'm mean, or violent, or anything. I'm a soldier, and I have an obligation to my role in the UNSC."
The small lavender form of Twilight began to still as her now quiet voice spoke up to him.
"Why are you a soldier?"
"Because we needed soldiers, where I'm from, alright?"
Five looked around to see that the small aliens were slightly trembling in his presence, and he inwardly cringed.
'Goddamnit, I'm going to regret this, aren't I?' he thought to himself.
"Fine... I'm sorry that I shot at you," he said to the other two. "Can you take me to wherever it is we needed to go?" he asked Twilight.
The answer never came as a flash of light came from behind Five, and before he could react, a blast of heat sent the Spartan flying into the forest once more.
Chrysalis looked up to the golden plate of glass that hid the soldier's scarred face, seeing her own reflection staring back at her. Here it was, before her. The soldier that would be able to get this giant metal ship running again. She had it surrounded by some of her finest troops, it had placed its weapon on its back, and was now facing her entire race without support.
So why did she fear this single soul more than any other?
\\\//////
Twilight's mind lingered on what she had seen in the medical ward, only moments ago. Nearly a hundred Changelings, all hooked up to different alien devices, even some with heart monitors that wavered in her presence. Needless to say, seeing several individuals almost die of literal fear of her had been enough cause for her pause. After walking for what seemed like an eternity through the hallways of the alien vessel, the three Changelings escorting her stood still, causing Twilight to stumble a bit on her hooves. She looked around to find any kind of hint as to where they were, but paused when she heard Five's voice from the open door to the right.
\\\//////
"Here's how this is going to work," Five started, pointing at a table, "We're going to walk over to that table, sit down, and discuss this like civilized, intelligent creatures. Sound fair?"
The Changeling Queen paused for a moment before motioning to her guards to move aside.
"I already prefer you to that pony princess, Celestia," Queen Chrysalis spoke as she began to limp towards the table. "Though, to be honest, I'd prefer a knife in my back than having to deal with that Sun-bitch."
"Sounds like we've already got some common ground to start on," Five said casually.
Chrysalis smirked at the comment.
"I take it you haven't hit it off well with her, then?" she asked darkly.
"No, I'm pretty sure I hit her well enough. Left quite the bruise, if I'm the one to judge."
That made Chrysalis' heart almost seize.
When she had fought Princess Celestia, it had taken her almost every bit of strength her body could hold to only scorch the tip of her horn. The fact that this soldier had done physical harm to that kind of beast without even having magic was almost nightmarish. Queen Chrysalis pushed her fear aside as she neared her seat, and struggled to fit into the bench with the odd angle it seemed to be constructed at. When she sat down, it appears that Five had a similar problem, although it was more due to his sheer size.
"Damn bench," he whispered to himself as the metal began to groan underneath him. "So, you were saying something about extinction earlier. Care to explain?"
Chrysalis swallowed a lump in her throat as she felt her torso ache from the burns.
"Yes. We have recently failed a massive mission, where in only those in this ship survived. We were trying to gather enough food to make a large journey to the Frozen North."
"Why?"
In all honesty, Chrysalis was impressed. She had half-expected to hear him ask about anything related to what the ponies might have told him. To actually be able to hold a conversation with another being that didn't automatically accuse her of trying to bring forth the apocalypse was... different.
"My race is dying out fast. For a thousand years, we've been trying to scrape by in tunnels, underground cities, and even in plain sight, hiding amongst the populace through our special technique, which I believe you've seen."
Five nodded.
"So why are you dying out? Why hide?" he asked.
A scowl crawled its way onto the Queen's face.
"Because of hypocrisy and prejudice. Not once have we openly started conflict with any race, yet they attack us on sight. Especially the ponies," she spit out with disgust. "They wail on about how 'friendship is magic,' and how 'everyone should get along,' and go so far as to say, 'love and tolerate'. If they're so loving and caring, why are we starving to death!?"
Chrysalis looked up to find total silence in the room that seemed to focus on the waiting words of the Spartan.
"What do you eat?"
The Queen felt her heart rate increase as she thought about the possible reactions of the soldier.
"We feed on love."
Silence again.
"What?"
"On this world, magic is the main energy of all living things. There are a number of forms, such as light, dark, shadow, fear, dream, but the one our bodies need is love."
Again, silence.
"Magic?" Five deadpanned.
Chrysalis sighed in annoyance.
"Yes, magic."
Five leaned back in his seat as he groaned to himself.
"What shit-end of the galaxy did I end up in?"
"Excuse me?" Chrysalis spoke, offended by the remark.
"Of all the things I've seen in my life, all the death, destruction, and just flat-out terror, I would have never even thought about finding a world that had actual magic."
"Please, what do you know of terror?"
Five straightened up and leaned on his elbows as they met with the table's surface.
"You don't want to find out. Trust me."
The two glared at each other, trying to melt through the glass plane that separated their gazes to offer a challenge to the other. Neither spoke for a solid minute, the Changeling guards keeping their distance from both their Queen and the Spartan-IV, not wanting to provoke them. Outside the mess hall, however, a lavender alicorn began to panic in her own mind, as she contemplated the situation she was in.
'What do I do, what do I do!? She's the Queen of the Changelings! She tried to take over my brother's mind and ruin my sister-in-law's life! She invaded Canterlot and nearly wrecked the wedding! But if what everything she's said is true? Have we really been starving them? Did anypony ever give them a chance? Did... did we make them invade?'
"What about the rest of your forces?" Five's voice cut through the silence.
"What other forces?"
"Do you have any scouting teams out in the world? Other groups looking for some kind of magical convenience object that could save your kind? Anything?"
Chrysalis let her head drop as she felt the words clog her throat. Should she trust this soldier? This alien? He'd been reasonable so far. The Queen took in a deep breath before she spoke.
"I've already called back all scouting parties and agents to this forest months ago, when we failed."
"How many are coming?"
"... none. They're all here."
