Chapter 3:
Ghosts of the Past

---- 4 hours after drop ----

Harbinger sat in his dark room, thinking about his plan, the part of it he didn't tell the ponies, the part that made him apprehensive. Really it was more of a contingency plan to the original, use the X-17 Minotaur and beat Death to a pulp, that while being what Oblivion did to him some thirty thousand years ago did work, this time he had no way to contact command for pick up. He fished out a small, pistol like object from his pack next to him, it glowed a soft red and lit his surroundings a little, a obvious frown across his face. The objects sleek Forerunner design coupled with the sheer unpredictability since not even his former race had ever perfected it set the old soldier on edge, but it was still better than contingency number three where they blew up the planet if he failed and generated a new star here to imprison Death.

"I can't fail, there is no room for it." he said as he put the unnerving devise away.

He then pulled out dog tags, with only four hour old blood on them, before a single tear dropped from his eye. Before he could recompose himself a blue alicorn walked through the door, though he knew not why.

"Are you alright?" Luna asked him.

"To be truthful with you, no I am not." he replied as she closed the door, the room becoming dark again.

"What happened before you saved our subjects in Ponyville from the Blight creatures?" she asked, sitting on the bed next to him.

"Command assigned me to give final field evaluations to a Centurion IV, C-1034 Wild Card, they wanted to know if she was ready for solo deployment." Harbinger replied, pain obvious in his voice.

"But she is not with you?" Luna acknowledged.

"We had fought together before, she, Shadow, and myself made up the only surviving portion of Centurion Black Team, I thought that she could perhaps help me by dealing with the Blight while I took care of Death, I was wrong." more tears fell from his dark blue eyes as he passed the dog tags to the alicorn.

"I'm sorry." Luna replied looking at the tags in her hooves before shedding a few tears herself.

"You should know, that there is a contingency plan if my primary fails, I didn't want to say anything about it, but I thought it over and I see no reason to keep secrets." Harbinger began as he stood up.

"Yes?" Luna asked, still looking at the tags that had a foreign language on them.

"Its a device meant to turn organics into data, against many of my peoples wishes and better judgement it was recreated in a smaller scale for this mission alone." Harbinger said, fear clawing its way back into his voice.

"You sound afraid?" Luna asked worried that something was wrong with the device.

"Two million or so years ago this devise was used to compose an entire race into machines, I don't want a mistake to happen like that again, and to be honest, it scares me to think that I have it in that bag." he replied, visibly shaking.

"Get some rest Harbinger, you deserve it." Luna ordered him as she stood and gave him the tags back before walking out of the room.

The old General put the tags back into a small pouch on his under armor right leg before laying down on the bed. The bed moaned slightly under his five hundred pound body but held firm. The faces of the ponies he talked to earlier flashed through his mind, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Scootaloo, Sweetie Bell, Applebloom, even the drake Spike. He told them of the technologies and cultures of his people, how they lived for fifty thousand years. How he had seen many aliens and visited other dimensions unintentionally, what the Blight were, and how we stopped them the first time. He thought of the meal, though the lack of meat annoyed him he couldn't blame a vegetarian race for not having it on hand, he smirked at how Fluttershy cringed when he mentioned his usual diet of chicken meat and different noodles when he wasn't deployed, before he drifted into a dream.

---- Inside of Harbinger's dream ----

A soldier stood with a massive rifle, far too large to be standard issue, his gold visor shining at the rising sun as he leaned against cover.

"Sergeant Obsidian, cover the right flank, don't let any of those Blight bastards though!" another soldier wearing the same brown and tan armor with a matching black face mask yelled as he ran over to a crumpled wall.

"Yes sir!" Obsidian replied as he peeked around the corner of the bunker he was hiding behind.

A massive spider's leg crushed the corner of the building where he was, as he jumped with his rifle over his head and landed a few feet away to witness the officer who had ordered him to watch the right flank get grabbed by the spider and eaten.

"Damnable shit bag, let me teach you a lesson!" Obsidian screamed as he carefully aimed the rifle while it was braced against a rock in the sea of sand.

The spider turned to be greeted by the snipers fury as the bullet ripped apart the arachnid's head, dropping it to the ground.

The scene shifted, Harbinger knew something was off, he didn't usually dream about the Titan Wars, Hell he didn't usually dream about anything. He thought perhaps that being in this world with these magical creatures may have something to do with it, or maybe this was just going to be one of those nights where he didn't get any good sleep.

His vision cleared, he could see himself when he had first become a Centurion standing with his fellow soldiers in his silver armor.

"Captain Obsidian!" A man in a dress uniform like what Harbinger had worn to dinner shouted as he entered the room.

"Sir!" the silver soldier responded, giving a salute and dropping it when it was promptly returned.

"We have come to learn of a race of humans, their military is refereed to as the UNSC, command wants to know how far advanced they are." the higher ranking officer paused before handing Obsidian a data pad, "We want you to find out, your cover is that you are a Spartan II working directly for ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence, this will get you around without too many questions. Study the pad and get ready for your deployment."

The scene once more shifted to what looked like a battlefield, the terrain was rocky with sparse vegetation among the plentiful amount of dirt.

"Spartan assist!" a marine yelled as she was blasted onto her face by a fuel rod cannon.

"On it." Harbinger calmly stated as he ran from out of his cover, his borrowed SMG's discharging in his hands as he dropped the Elite, "Are you alright?"

"Fine, didn't think there was anyone left but me on this planet anymore." she replied.

Before Harbinger could reply he threw her to his right when a beam rifle nearly took her life, but merely bounced off of his armor, "Stay down!"

"Yeah, don't need to tell me twice." she replied as she watched the Spartan walk towards the sniper.

A Covenant ship blasted the ground in the distance as another flew overhead, the planets situation was deteriorating quickly, but Harbinger paid no mind as he put away the SMG's and pulled a Energy Sword off his back. The Elite who had shot him dropped the Beam Rifle as it clicked empty and pulled out his own sword, his red and black armor symbolizing his high authority as a Zealot in the Covenant.

"Do you truly believe you can survive this demon?" the Elite spoke in a grumbled voice.

"Is that what you call us now that we no longer protect you?" Harbinger replied in a tongue that the marine didn't recognize, but made the Elite step back.

"By the gods!" he said before Harbinger charged.

They clashed blades three times before Harbinger cut off his foes hand and ran him through, the red energy sword he had been using flickering out of energy. He looked to the Marine before the sky flashed red and debris was thrown everywhere.

"Spartan!" she yelled before getting hit by a Forklift and landing at his feet.

Picking her up he ran off a nearby cliff and splashed down into a lake.

---- Inside a cave on a burning world ----

Harbinger stood at the edge of a cave watching as the planet he had been deployed to assist burned, his distress beacon sitting just outside as he awaited pickup from command. He looked back to the unconscious marine, her long brunet hair covering half of her face as she lay by the fire with her armor off to the side. He had removed much of her clothing, leaving her undershirt and pants out of respect, so that she could warm up after he dragged her through a river to this cave. Taking another short look out of the cave he walked back over to the fire and took off his helmet, tossing it to the ground as he sat on a boulder.

He sat there for a few minuets, stroking the stubble that had grown on his face, as he thought about what he was going to do with the marine. She wasn't exactly supposed to know that he wasn't UNSC, and by evacuating her she would definitely find out. He was so stuck in thought that he hadn't realized that she had sat up and was staring at him stare at here but not all the same.

"Spartan, you okay?" she asked, a look of confusion on her face.

Harbinger looked up and opened his mouth, but was silenced by the sounds of plasma engines at the entrance to the cave.

"Centurion sixty four, evac is here!" a young male voice yelled from the entrance.

"Grab your gear, we're leaving." Harbinger said as he grabbed his helmet and stood up.

"Who are you talking to?" an infantry man asked before stopping in his tracks when he spotted the UNSC marine.

"A stranded soldier with no place to go and no one else to turn to." Harbinger replied as he walked up to the corporal and leaned against the cavern wall.

The dream began to fade, but before everything went black Harbinger saw a dark blue alicorn who was familiar to him run through a small rift in the fabric of his dream.

---- Canterlot, 12 hours after drop ----

Harbinger opened his eyes slowly, allowing them to adjust to the light shining through his window. Texaco was nowhere to be seen in the room as the old soldier sat up in bed, his relived memories now fresh in his mind, the reasons he fought, and the reasons he grieved. He looked towards his door as it opened to reveal the blue alicorn he had seen exit his dream.

"General, good to see that you are awake, I wished to personally invite you to breakfast with myself and a few of other guest." Luna stated.

"I would have told you everything Luna, you didn't need to sneak into my head." he replied, his face like stone and unfeeling.

"I am sorry that I let my curiosity get the better of me." she replied, blushing through her midnight blue coat.

"It's alright, just do me a favor and don't snoop around in my head all night next time, its hard to sleep with painful memories haunting me at every turn." Harbinger said with a sincere tone.

"You are not upset?" Luna inquired, curious as to why he was relaxed about this.

"I'm old, I've seen a lot, the distant past doesn't bother me too much, and besides, if that is what you needed to do to trust me, then so be it." he replied, a small smile upon his lips when he saw her breath a sigh of relief.

"Let us not keep Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo waiting then." she said as she walked out of the room.

Harbinger took a moment to stand up and deploy his dress uniform through he nanites once more before walking out the door after Luna.

Author's Note

I know a bit of back story, but then again, I have to give him a soul don't I? Who wants to watch a 9 1/2 foot tall, 3.5 ton, 47,285 year old Super Soldier beat everything up without a story, huh?

Besides, this should clear up a little of Nick's past for you guys as you read on, and it probably won't be the last time Luna snoops about his head.

Feel free to tell me what you think so far, if there is anything I should improve. And don't you worry, I promise that the next chapter will have some action in it as I imagine you all are going to get bored without Harbinger squishing some spiders soon, the question is, will they be spiders?