HALO: The New World

I found it hard to believe that the ponies had accepted me so quickly. Sure, I still got angry glares and some ponies would run in the opposite direction screaming, but they took my presence surprisingly well. Well, if you don’t take into account my first contact with them. The pegasus named Rainbow Dash still kept glaring at me, but I got used to it very, very quickly. I’d gotten worse when I was just a Marine. When I was active in Operation TREBUCHET, the Innies (as us friendly Marines took to calling the Insurrectionists) would give us the most hate-filled gazes before blowing up a squadmate with an explosive tire. True story right there, it happened to Sergeant Avery Johnson. I was one of the few to catch wind of that botched mission.

Memories aside, I was still standing to attention, waiting for the goddess Celestia to come back with orders for my mission. Missions were good, they kept my mind off of… NO! I’m NOT going to think about that! Off of things. It was also exhilarating, having the adrenaline rush through my veins, seeing the world move slowly around me.

I had gotten my orders, finally. These ponies sure as hell weren’t the UNSC, but they had a stoic military. The guards didn’t even blink as my steps left dents in the polished marble of the castle floor. I was taken to a chariot, where I was supposed to stand as a pair of guards pulled me and the “Elements of Harmony” to the objective. I took one look, and stayed where I was. When the “Elements” noticed I wasn’t with them, I simply shook my head as I stated, “I step on there, everyone falls. And possibly through more than one floor.”

Blank stares, and a timid one from the butter pegasus. I shook my head again, and elaborated, “I weigh almost a ton. I’m surprised that I haven’t fallen through any floors.”

They shrugged, and took off. “Oh, COME ON! You could at least tell me which direction we’re going!”

Again with the running. This time I had a higher reserve of stamina, thanks to a good rest and the thought of a mission. I used my thruster pack sparingly, because it was good for dodging weapons fire, not blazing a marathon. I kept up with the sky chariot easily, not even breaking a sweat, unlike my earlier sprints in this hell-hole. I still hated this place, but I needed to get back to the Infinity as fast as I could, and if it meant helping these cartoons, then I’d do it.

Six hours later, we arrived at our destination. The guards who pulled the sky chariot were panting, and only the pink abomination of a pony was still awake. I couldn’t understand why, until I saw it produce a cupcake out of thin air and devour it. There was a large building up ahead, and it appeared to be the objective. I mean, what else could it be if it had dead griffons and ponies strewn over the walls? A pretty sight, but it didn’t have the homey touch of a Spartan. The Elements were visibly sick, after they woke up, and I couldn’t help but chuckle. This was a baby shower to a Spartan, but we don’t run around murdering at baby showers. THAT would be awful.

There was a large oak door as the entrance, and it was locked… From the inside. Before the ponies could start freaking out, I backed up and then kicked the door down, crushing a griffon who was drinking… Coffee?! THEY HAVE FUCKING COFFEE?! Shit, it spilled. Along with the griffon’s guts. Ugh, what a waste of mocha.

The Elements lost their lunches (again), and I simply walked along.

Only five minutes in, I encountered something weird. There was a group of dead pony guards, but there was no sign of a blade that the inhabitants of this planet used. Instead, there were… Oh dear, sweet God above… Plasma stab wounds. The ponies noticed my reaction as I stumbled backward, then became worried when I pulled out my Battle Rifle and started sweeping the area. If those were actual plasma injuries, then it would mean that there were more hostiles here. And the Covenant was gone, but I’d overheard about something called the Storm Covenant, led by an Elite named Jul ‘Mdama.

This was not good. Definitely not good. I found the room clear, and we continued forward. After busting down two more doors, there was a sudden shift in design. The walls went from stone to the shimmery gray metal from the Cauldron, and were much more angled. There was a terminal to my side, and I was overcome with curiosity. This place was clearly Forerunner, so maybe the terminal held valuable information.

-------------------- Terminal Log --------------------

“Chief, sorry about that. Wrong coordinates. Give me some time to get a portal to the right place.”

“Cortana, we don’t have time. There are Crawlers inbound!”

“Then MAKE time! I’m doing my job, you do yours!”

Video footage is added, showing the Master Chief backed up against the terminal, with Crawlers coming in for the kill. Firing an Assault Rifle, he kills Promothean after Promothean, but more keep coming.

“Almost done… Got it, Chief! I’ll meet you on the other side!”

The Master Chief sprints through a portal with violet edges, which swirled into a black center, and then the portal closes. The Crawlers scrambled, looking for their prey, before slinking back into the building.

-------------------- Crimson’s POV --------------------

I was stunned. The Master Chief and Cortana had been here, and had escaped. If they had an exit, then so did I. I did the Spartan equivalent of jumping for joy, and gave the customary Spartan “smile”, two fingers in a curve in front of my visor.

The ponies were just confused. They had no idea what had happened, and I didn’t want to explain. Luckily, I didn’t have to. I heard the distinct sound of armored Sangheili feet on the floor, and whirled around to face… An Elite Major. Red armor, Energy Sword, and a Storm Rifle at his side. He held his Energy Sword ready to kill, presumably so he could be promoted for killing a demon. It wasn’t to be, because I kicked him in the chest.

No one should go hand to hand combat with and Elite, but I had no choice. He doubled over, coughing, before straightening and tossing me a spare blade. Apparently he felt that a sword fight would give more honor. At least he didn’t just slice my head off.

We circled each other, looking for an opening. I was glad that I had CQC training, otherwise I would have been fucked by his blade. He charged me, only so I could sidestep and duck, bringing my Energy Sword at his chest. It smashed his shields, but he managed to avoid the fatal lunge and whacked the back of my head with the flat of his weapon. It knocked out half my shields, and his started regenerating. That would be a problem, because not only would he have lots of combat experience as a Major, but he’d have stronger shields.

I stampeded towards him, bringing my blade to the front of my head like a horn. Right before he could dodge, I thruster packed into him, impaling his abdomen upon my blade of plasma. As he howled in pain and rage, I swung him off and onto his back, with him facing up to me. I crouched over him and prepared to bring my blade down, but the damned ponies distracted us both.

“WAIT! Don’t kill it! I’m sure it’s just scared!” Cried out Twilight, drawing my eyes and those of the Elite to the lavender unicorn. He then spat at her, a large glob of saliva escaping his helmet and spattering into Twilight’s face. I couldn’t help but laugh, which nearly cost my life.

The Major used his large legs to fling my onto my back, and he prepared to behead me. I rolled out of the way, before jumping behind him and bringing my blade up the side of his face, slicing his right jaws cleanly off. I then spun him around, and stabbed my Energy Sword up and into him, much like I’ve seen Elites do on footage, causing the victim to come off the ground a few feet, carried by the blade, before being brutally slammed to the ground as a corpse.

I hadn’t performed an assassination in a while, and it felt satisfying to achieve it in CQC, with an Elite no less, and replicating their own technique perfectly. I got upset that I hadn’t had my helmet cam on, before I saw it was recording. I remembered it was from when I had come into the Forerunner section, and I was so glad that I captured that on video. THAT was going in the archives.

The ponies were shocked at the brutality of what just happened. I merely shrugged, before gathering the spare charges for my new Energy Sword off of the corpse, before the dead Elite’s Energy Sword could explode from the fail-safe.

I deactivated the blade and slung it onto my thigh, for ease of access. I couldn’t help but think that if THIS didn’t make me look badass, then I didn’t know what would. We continued on our way, past the remains of my opponent. We encountered more dead griffons and pony guards, some with primitive wounds and some with plasma. Soon we noticed that more and more had no cause of death that was plasma or metal, and were increasingly gory. One such case was a griffon, hanging from a pillar, with it’s intestines wrapped around like a bow, keeping the corpse a good two meters above the floor, allowing blood to drip from multiple lacerations, as it’s eyes dangled by the edge of it’s beak, which was opened in a scream of obvious agony. I sighed at the sound of the Elements of Harmony upchucking yet again.

I then saw a corpse nearby, of a pony guard. This one was extremely mutilated, but had yellowish blood, and it’s fur was… Missing. In it’s place was a fleshy tan skin, and the forehooves had become claws of some sort. The part that sold it all to me was the deflated Infection Form, which was exposed at the back of the skull like a mangled brain. The face was rather normal, if red sensory organs sticking out of the snout was normal, and obsidian teeth and bladed tentacles coming from the mouth was average. The back legs had split, looking like someone took a meat cleaver and tried turning a hoof into two toes while the horse was still alive. I was scared. The Flood was here. And it had a powerful form made out of these ponies.

Five cases of puking to each Element of Harmony later, all because of the Flood form, we turned around to leave. I had explained to them that there was something extremely dangerous here, more deadly than the Elite from earlier, and it wouldn’t hesitate to kill you and then you’d end up killing your friends and family. This shook them visibly, with the pink pony’s face turning a sickly green.

We managed to reach the entrance to the building without incident, until I saw the Elite General. A full-blown, Covenant gold armor Elite General. These guys were the cream of the cream of the cream, with tens of hundreds, if not thousands of kills in their favor. Insanely strong shields, it took up to three hits with an Energy Sword to remove the barrier, and then you still had to deal with the strong ceramic-Covenant alloy armor beneath. They were also extremely strong fighters. It was hard to take down that Major earlier, and it’s gear was skimpier than the Covenant Major armor. If I had to go toe to toe with this Elite, I would be dead.

------------------- Tohl 'Vadam’s POV --------------------

I had walked into the strange structure when I saw dead bodies in the premises. I had found a Slipspace portal for personnel after my Spirit was shot down by the traitors, and I had stumbled out of the wreckage. I had only my Storm Rifle, Beam Rifle, Energy Sword, and two Plasma Grenades with me, as well as plenty of spare clips and charges. If there was a portal away from the traitors of the Sangheili, then I would take it. No sooner did I step into the building did I see a demon-no, Spartan- enter the room from an entry at the opposite side. My time in both the Human-Covenant war and the Great Schism had taught me to fear and respect the Spartans, and I was still rather proud of having killed one on Reach. That Spartan had grey armor, and had actually taken it’s helmet off when it became too damaged, fighting on with only it’s sidearm, killing brother after brother. I was amazed at the endurance of the human, as it faced an onslaught of the Covenant. It finally fell when I knocked it over, and stabbed it with my Energy Sword. It had gotten me promoted to General, and I would treasure that moment.

This Spartan looked set to kill, it’s body language said it all. A slight tenseness in the joints, a hand reaching slowly for a blade of it’s own, and a helmet I recognized as a Venator was bent down menacingly. Then six strange quadrupeds came up behind it, looks varying from curiosity to fear to eagerness. I found my own hand straying to my Energy Sword, and I brought it back. Then I activated my translator, and spoke.

“Greetings, Spartan. What are you doing here?”

-------------------- Crimson’s POV --------------------

When the Elite general spoke, I was surprised. I hadn’t expected it to be a friendly, especially after the Major from earlier. Maybe it was all a trap. I couldn’t answer, before the pink abomination spoke, “WewerejustlookingaroundwhenwesawabunchofdeadbodiesandthenAlecherefoundacoolshortpillaranddidsomethingandthenitplayedsoundandavideoandthenwegotattackedbyamonsterlikeyouandAlecjustliketotallykilleditwithaswordthatthemonstergavehimandthenwekeptgoingandwesawsomethingnastyandthensometh-BLEEEAGH!” Her rant was interrupted as she puked just thinking about the dead Flood. The Elite raised an eyebrow, and glanced at me, where I simply shrugged. “Never ONCE have I heard that one take a breath in a sentence. It scares me. And that thing from earlier, well, I got some… Photos. Seeing how brutally honest the pink abomination was and went ahead and said my name, I’ll just give you the rundown. I’m Spartan S-250, Fireteam Crimson. The purple unicorn here is Twilight Sparkle, the Technicolor tomboy is Rainbow Dash, and I have no idea who everyone else is, and I just call the pink abomination the pink abomination. What’s your name, and what are you doing here?”

“I am Tohl 'Vadam, and I came here through a Slipspace personnel portal. My Spirit crashed after taking heavy damage from the traitors, and I escaped with my weapons. And you took down a traitor with his own spare sword? Not many can do that, depending on the rank.”

“A Major. Now that the introductions are done, I’ll display those photos I took.” I activated my holographic projector, and started playing through the photos I took of the Flood form we found. As an afterthought, I included the footage of my fight against the Major. If what I heard was correct, than this is one of the Elites who sided with the humans, and the Major is part of the Storm covenant. Well, was.

Seven hours later, my band of freaks arrived back at the castle, apparently called Canterlot. The Elite had run with me as the Elements rode back by sky chariot, and we were both pleasantly surprised at how strong we were. We ended up communicating along the way, and I learned that he is part of the Vadam keep, not a big surprise there as all the surnames of Elites is the name of their keep, and an “ee” at the end signifies that they are a Covenant Soldier. I also learned that his circumstances of arriving here were strikingly similar to mine, which lead me to think that something else was at play.

We ended up comparing our kills at the end of the run, much to the shock of Celestia and the Elements, because we walked in bragging about how many of this or that we’ve taken down. His number of assassinations was considerably higher than mine, while my total headshots blew his count away. I was shocked to hear that he’d been promoted because of killing a Spartan, and not just any, but my good friend Noble Six. He noticed my reaction, but never saw the punch in the face coming.

I socked him at the wrong time, right in from of both the princesses, and we ended up punching each other. At the shout to stop, we both guiltily stood to attention. Celestia asked, “Alec, why did you punch our guest? We show hospitality, not violence.”

“Ma’am, he was promoted to his current rank because he killed a Spartan. And not just any, but my friend Noble Six. Noble Six luckily went down after killing tens of hundreds of Covenant, but this asshole still killed him.”

At the word asshole, Tohl went back to punching me, and me punching him. The night goddess simply sighed and turned to Celestia, whispering, “You HAD to ask, sister. We should stop this before blood is shed.” Celestia simply turned to her sister and smiled.

After our fists hit each other for the last time, we both stood and shook hands. Tohl grinned at me and said, “I haven’t had a good hand to hand fight in many cycles. We should do that again. And sorry about killing your friend, but it was rather enjoyable at the moment, demon.”

I smirked and responded, “I understand what you mean. Felt good to assassinate that Major earlier, hinge-head.”