Chapter 2:

The Plan

---- 3 hours after drop ----

The general sat on a comfy chair in the corner of the guest room that the guard had taken him to. He had removed his armor's outer layers and set them on the bed as well as allowing his Forerunner combat skin over his head retract into his back plate.

"Tex." he muttered as he rubbed his temples trying to stop the pain.

"Sir." a disembodied voice replied in a British accent.

"Can you diagnose what is wrong with my implants, did my sniper jar them, or did someone hack in and modify their settings?" the soldier said as he opened his dark blue eyes and stared out the window on the far side of the room.

"The first idea seems logical, though I am not detecting any displacement..." the voice replied, "The second seems unlikely but I ran a scan anyways, I have nothing to report."

"Then what could it be Tex?" Harbinger asked as he stood up and walked over to a mirror, his black hair and stubble overgrown and itching his face.

"Perhaps it is related to the natives of this world with horns sir, we should study their physiology." Tex responded.

"My head already hurts Tex, you do it." Harbinger replied as he tossed a small disk from his belt and a Forerunner Monitor constructed itself from thousands of silver nanites.

"Very well, I am certain that I shall uncover something from this bookshelf." Tex charmed as the monitor projected an energy field and began sifting its way through books.

Harbinger didn't reply, he instead unsheathed his knife and began to shave with it when a loud knock hit the door to the room.

"General, the Princesses wish to see you as soon as you are available!" the same guard said through the door, his voice low so that it wouldn't further his guest's headache.

"Sir, you go once you are finished shaving, I shall remain here and learn more of the creatures on this world." Tex said as Nickolas finished shaving, not a scratch on his face.

"Find me when you get something." the soldier replied as he disengaged his Forerunner combat skin and deployed a black dress Uniform with red trimmings and silver tassels on the shoulders, before walking out of the door and greeting the guard with his officers cap under his left arm.

They walked for some time before the guard glanced at the general, "Where did you get the sword?" he questioned.

"It was the knife you saw me with earlier." Obsidian replied, giving a small smile at how the pony was so intrigued by his great grandfathers blade.

"So it can shrink down into a knife?" the guard asked.

"Among other things, yes." the soldier replied, "What is your name guard pony?"

"Crimson Wing sir, sergeant of the Canterlot Royal Guard." the pony replied.

"Crimson?" Obsidian noted.

"The armor I am wearing is enchanted so that we all appear the same, for both uniformity reasons and security reasons." Crimson replied.

"I can see why, its not a bad idea actually." Harbinger said as they both stopped in front of the royal court's doors, "I suppose that I shall see you later Crimson."

"I'll wait here general, they did assign me to help you with whatever you needed." he replied with a smile before stepping off to the side as the doors swung open and Harbinger walked inside.

"General Obsidian, we wished for you to join us to discuss events." Luna said, though she did keep her voice down some when she noticed Nickolas rub the side of his head with a silver glove.

"Princesses, ponies, dragon..." Harbinger addressed each of them with a single salute before dropping it, "What is it that you need answered?"

"Who is this Death guy, and why is he trying to kill us is a good start!" a cyan pegasus rushed forward into the generals face.

"Rainbow!" a lavender unicorn with wings scolded, though the flying pony ignored her.

"Death is, was, part of the Deltan Titan initiative." Harbinger sighed as he looked out a window at the setting sun.

"What was that sir." the purple pony who had scolded Rainbow asked more formally.

"Our last chance for survival, nothing was guaranteed and out of the thousand who applied only one hundred survived the genetic augments. Those who did managed, at best, ten or twenty years before their bodies began to fall apart due to degeneration of their DNA, the effects and mannerisms of each Titan was different, in the end only four lived." Harbinger looked straight at Rainbow, "X-01 Death was one of the lucky ones, at least that is what we thought."

"What happened?" Rainbow asked, dropping to the floor after receiving the hardened stare of a cold warrior.

"About two years after the four remaining Titans were 'stabilized' he was declared the first MIA Titan." he paused as a fresh pain invaded his head, "He returned three years afterwords as when seven colonies dropped contact, we thought it was Blight, but when first response got there the marines were barely able to send out the details to command before they were brutally slaughtered by someone they thought to be a friend."

"He killed his own?" Luna asked, Celestia stood next to her speechless.

"Man, woman, child, it didn't matter to him." Harbinger replied with a pained expression on his face, though nopony could tell if it was from the headache or memories.

"How did you stop him last time?" the lavender mare asked as Rainbow backed away.

"I didn't, I was nothing but infantry back then, but the other three Titans were sent to combat Death and kill him for his crimes. It took them a week of combat with him, and the death of X-76 Stalker, but the combined efforts of a badly wounded X-151 Shadow, and X-54 Oblivion subdued the traitor long enough for containment." Harbinger stopped as he looked towards Celestia.

"They didn't kill him as you said you were going to." she stated.

"No they contained him because through the course of the battle of four Titans, Stalker was killed when they had believed they had won, Death's head laying on the ground several feet away from his body didn't stop him from ramming his swords through him." Harbinger replied with a frown, "I have no choice but to kill him, or die trying."

"But if they couldn't what makes you think you can?" Rainbow inquired with a hint of attitude.

"Do I have a choice, he escaped a dwarf star that had three shields, a twenty thousand foot think technorganium case, and the entirety of the Second Fleet, which was the second largest Naval group we had until he wiped it out in a matter of days?" Harbinger shot back, "That is well over two million ships and I don't even want to try and look at the number of personnel."

Everyone in the room was now wearing a shocked expression with their mouths wide open, "Then what hope do we have?" a yellow pegasus in a barely audible whisper asked.

"I am your hope." Harbinger stated calmly as a silver and red ball flew into the room.

"General Obsidian, after analysis of possible reasons that Unicorns and Alicorns are overloading your neural net, I have deduced a way to negate the effects of their abilities to your implants." the monitor said.

"Okay, how do we go about this Tex?" Obsidian asked as several guard ponies charged into the room.

"I need to modify your lowest level armors shield, the only layer of armor you are currently wearing emits an extremely low grade shield that does absolutely nothing for you in combat, by reformatting it I can effectively shield your implants from the effects of the ponies." Tex responded as a small and rather long barrel deployed out of the bottom of the monitor.

"Do it please." Harbinger ordered.

"At once." Tex replied as he shot a small orange beam the hit the general straight on the chest, after a few minuets the beam ended and the super soldier gave a sigh of relief.

"Was it successful sir?" the monitor asked as it bobbed up and down.

"Yes, thank you Texaco." Harbinger replied before realizing where he was and that he was surrounded by ten guards, though one of them seemed more at ease.

"Guards stand down, it seems as though this little ball of light has helped our friend with a problem." Luna commanded, to which every guard stood down and when back to their posts, except for one.

"Crimson, that you?" Harbinger asked the lone guard.

"Yes sir, do you mind if I stay in here since I am you escort about the castle?" he asked.

"Not at all, keep and eye on Tex, make sure he doesn't get into any more trouble." Harbinger laughed at the thought of ponies chasing the poor AI.

"You got it!" he chirped and ran off after to flying orb who had since floated away.

"So what was that?" the lavender mare asked.

"That was my Artificial Intelligence Unit code-named Texaco, though I just call him Tex." Harbinger answered her with a small smile, again at the curiosity of these ponies.

"What did you mean by you are our hope?" Rainbow asked.

"If you take into account my weapons and training, I may be classed as a Centurion II, the project after the Titans, but I am the closest thing we have to the Titans anymore, lest they want to pull a terminally ill X-151 off of the home world and a X-54 who is trying to beat back the Blight which has returned to our home system and we can no longer track to where they are hiding and doom my race, I am what you've got." Harbinger remarked, "Besides we are both former Forerunners, I know his tactics, only he doesn't know mine."

"So I take it you have a plan?" the lavender mare asked taking a step forward to become the center of attention to him.

"Thin out the Blight, if we can take their focus away from their new ally, perhaps I can get close enough to fight him without interference." he replied.

"But you can't take him on alone, can you?" Rainbow asked, worry spreading through her eyes.

"I sure as Hell can try, besides, I've got a few toys he doesn't know about." Obsidian grinned.

"Like?" Luna inquired.

"Classified, I am not allowed to disclose that information for security reasons." he replied, a frown ending his grin.

"But?" an orange mare looked at him.

"It is a newer version of the devise used by Oblivion to over power Death last time, that's all I'm allowed to say, regs are regs." Harbinger added.

"Very well, would you like to join us for dinner girls, Spike, General Obsidian?"

"Sure" Rainbow chimed.

"Um... Okay" the yellow pegasus said.

"Absolutely" the lavender one smiled.

"Oh, you don't need to persuade me princess." a white unicorn replied with an upper class tone.

"Darn right" the orange mare flipped her hat.

"YAY FOOD!!!" the pink pony practically teleported to the front of the crowd.

"Uh huh" the dragon muttered.

"Certainly ma'am." Harbinger said as he began walking to catch up with the group when he almost stepped on a small pony.

"Hey!" the orange and pink pegasus yelled.

"Pardon me, I didn't see you down there." Harbinger said as the miniature pegasus was joined by a white mini unicorn, and a yellow and red mini pony.

"Eh, I see no harm done." the yellow one said before helping her friend up.

"Yeah, lets go get some food!" the white one shouted before the three of them charged off.

Harbinger sighed once they were in the hall and looked out the window, "I hope I'm right, cause if I'm not... I just condemned them all." he muttered before smiling at the fillies he had accidentally frightened, "I can't fail."

Author's Note

Glad for the good reception thus far. What are your (readers) opinions of the back story that was explained by Harbinger, and what do you all think could happen, don't worry I do have a plot for this , though I don't think the pony is too convincing, lol?