Dimensional Chaos: Evil Rising

---Briefing room, 6 hours after hostile engagement---

Gunnar and his squad entered the debriefing room, all of them wearing uncertain looks on their faces.  Fireteam Majestic followed them in.

Lasky turned to them when they entered.  "Thank you for coming.... please take a seat."

The teams took their places in the briefing room.  Bridge officers and other leading figures aboard the Infinity were also in attendance.  Gunnar took that as a very bad sign.

Lasky scanned the room carefully before beginning.  "Now, as you all know, we have recently made first contact that has been decimating both Covenant and UNSC forces along all fronts.  Today was our first run-in with the bastards..... I don't intend to let it be the last."

Shadow chuckled halfheartedly and whispered to the rest of the team, "Well so much for a break...."

It earned a few smirks at least.

Lasky continued.  "Now, unfortunately, the data we've received is.... less than comforting.  Roland's decryption earned results just a few minutes ago and brought us some disturbing information.  The path these guys have apparently planned confirms our predictions to be accurate.  They are heading towards Equinia."

This resulted in murmurs of horror and disbelief throughout the room.  Gunnar among the fearful.  If that's where these guys were headed.... Twilight and his son Starshine were in danger.... not to mention all of their friends.  Yes, Discord included.

Lasky frowned at the reactions and continued on.  "We predict that they will arrive within maybe two months.  Their FTL travel capabilities are surprisingly slower than ours thankfully, and apparently don't agree too well with the Slipspace activity that has constantly shifted the natural balance of this galaxy.  This gives us time to warn our allies and prepare a defense.  Unfortunately, Equestria is still recovering from a recent attack.  Recon satellites and observation probes we had left behind transmitted disturbing data to us recently.  The country was attacked by a demonic entity known as "Lord Tirek."  We were unable to respond due to being stretched too thin and the data came in late.  We only just received confirmation that the situation was resolved by the power of, guess who."

Gunnar smirked.  "Lemme guess, the Elements of Harmony?"

Lasky grinned ear to ear.  "It seems they haven't lost their touch.  Even after having their abilities ABSORBED of all things by this Tirek, they were still able to harness another power to defeat and banish him, while restoring magic to those Tirek had stolen from.  It was quite a national success if you ask me and proof of their power.... oh and it would seem to be unwise to anger Princess Twilight.  She is apparently capable of wielding power substantial enough to down a CCS Battle Cruiser according to the power readings sent by the satellites."

Gunnar shook his head, grinning and chuckling.  "Oh Twilight, you never cease to amaze."

Magelight elbowed him, smirking.  "Playcolt."

"Shut it, she's my wife," Gunnar retorted, shooting a glare at Mage.

The squad still all snickered however.

Lasky cleared his throat and continued.  "Well, we already sent a message via the comm system we left for the Princesses and they are now aware of the threat.  We sent all the data we could.  Holographic images, measurements, power estimations, everything.  The UNSC Admiralty Board are already responding, calling this an 'Alpha level threat.'  They're sending substantial reinforcements.  Among them are at least twenty five Marathon Class Cruisers."

Paul let out a long, low whistle.  "You gotta be kidding me.  These things are that much of a threat?"

Lasky nodded in response.  "They decimated at least fifty seven different Covenant forward bases each within the span of either a few seconds or minutes.  Reports of entire UNSC colonies disappearing along their route also says it all.... not to mention the mess they leave behind.  Casualty reports are staggering.  We need to intercept and destroy these bastards before they reach Equinia or any of the major worlds like Reach.  Multiple fleets are massing to respond to any attacks.  House Vadam is also on full alert so expect reinforcements from them soon after encountering the bulk of the hostile force."

Thorne spoke up.  "Do we have an ID on the hostiles?"

Lasky nodded again.  "We do.  Roland?"

The yellow hologram of a man in pilot's jacket and attire appeared on the holotable.  "Thank you captain.  Now, decryption of the data you guys acquired allowed us to get an ID on previous victims of these things.  Surprisingly, these machines keep highly accurate records.  Their previous encounters were against an alliance of Humans and other unknown species.  These guys designated the hostile machines "Reapers."  As far as we can tell.... they aren't even from our dimension.  None of the other species, other than humans, is recognized from the decrypted records.  Further analysis of the data also indicated that these machines operated in a cycle, harvesting all advanced civilizations every 50,000 years."

Hoya jolted back in surprise, uncrossing his arms.  "Harvesting civilizations?  What the hell is wrong with these things?"

Roland raised a hand to silence him.  "It gets worse.  These machines are sentient dreadnaughts capable of affecting the minds of most organics, converting intelligent organic beings to their cause.  That little bit of information was acquired through a cross reference with one of the alien corpses you managed to recover.  They are obviously a heavily genetically modified version of one of the resisting species in the "source" dimension.  We can't get an ID on the species.  Defining characteristics are their four eyes and carnivorous appearance prior to genetic modification.  Yes we did find images among all the data.  We're sorting through Terrabytes of information trying to catalog it all.  They're keeping my access limited simply so I don't suffer early rampancy."

"Damn....." was all Paul could say breathlessly.

"It doesn't end there.  Data acquired allowed us to identify the process these "Reapers" use to convert sentient beings.  Their last victim cycle called it "Indoctrination."  Apparently that was relevant enough for the Reapers to maintain a memory of it, and a very lightly encrypted memory of it at that.  All we can get is an ID on them and their most defining abilities to wipe organic memories, convert organic minds, and rip starships in half.  All further data is too heavily encrypted for me to crack without going into an early rampancy.  We're leaving it to human and sangheili specialists and "dumb" AI's to get this one fully decrypted.  Even then..... It'll take years to get it all unscrambled and cataloged."

Gunnar's jaw dropped both at the scale and the implications.  Of course this had to hit them.  Will they ever get a break.  Still.... the question remained..... What exactly were these Reapers?  What are their origins?  How did they get here?  What do they want?  Those answers were obviously gonna be hard to get.  The silent soldiers in the room were obviously all thinking along the exact same lines.  This was gonna be a long fight......