Guardians

Chapters

GUARDIANS
“So I guess that sorts who you’re bringing to prom.”
“Oh, dear.”
"Fuck-me-sideways!"
"They must love the smell of hero!"
“Oh, shit. This princess is pissed.”

GUARDIANS

By PseudoFiction

Nerbyus was no traditionalist. Mostly a chieftain of his jiralhanae pack would be found in the feasting hall where no electronic communication was permitted. Most chieftains would not have precious feasting time interrupted for anything.

It was uncommon for a pack to skip a meal, but Nerbyus had commanded it so they be ready for arrival at the Unyielding Hierophant. He wanted his jiralhanae alert and ready. And his prudence had paid off.

Chieftain Nerbyus was by no means a traditionalist, but his appearance was traditional for the jiralhanae. The pack had elected him as their leader for his physical prowess. Standing on two trunk-like legs, the chieftain was at least a head taller than any sangheili, and much more massive. Thick muscles rippled under his elephantine skin. Tufts of silver hair sprang from the arm and head-holes of his shimmering gold armor. He was bald, but his wide jaw bristled with a terrific set of mutton chops.

And for all his fierce brawn the chieftain showed uncanny poise. He stood stoically with feet parted and claws clasped behind his back, a pose reserved for master of the cruiser. A title he held proudly.

In a fleet dominated by sangheili it was rare for a jiralhanae to have his own ship in the Covenant. For that reason Nerbyus had his pack’s unwavering respect. But they honored him for a different reason – his unshakeable faith in the Forerunners and their Great Journey. The chieftain was a man of strong, unwavering faith. He believed absolutely in the cause and did everything in his power to keep the Covenant on the true path. The path to salvation.

And often this required a flex of muscle. But more often it required intellect. A dangerous mixture of power that Nerbyus was in complete command of. But as usual, Nerbyus was not in complete command of the situation. And that was not his fault.

“Report,” Nerbyus demanded in an oddly light and high tone for a creature of his brawn. One would expect the gruff voice of a beast, not the tone of a calm intellectual.

“Dust and echoes, chieftain,” growled the jiralhanae officer at the sensor suite with the voice that had been expected of Nerbyus. “The Unyielding Hierophant. It is… it is gone, chieftain.”

Any other chieftain would have unloaded uncontrolled rage. But Nerbyus barely twitched as the glistening alloys span past the view screen. Like a calm and contented predator passing through a school of unbothered fish, the CVN Purveyor of Truth did not alter course as the battle cruiser passed through the debris field that was once a mighty Covenant shipping yard.

They swept the debris for nearly a cycle looking for signs of life and ideally a cause for the Unyielding Hierophant’s demise. But thus far nothing. All of Chieftain Nerbyus’ stations were on high alert and as such he subdued all non-essential personnel.

The bridge doors swished open when they really shouldn’t have considering the state of alert. But Nerbyus barely questioned why and merely calmly thought what had taken so long.

“Chieftain, explain the meaning of this!” a voice cried in a rage more befitting of jiralhanae than sangheili.

Nerbyus’ eyes fell shut as he sighed. There it was. The element in his life, the element on his ship which he had no control over. But he vowed that would soon change.

“High Councilor Yasz,” Nerbyus greeted as cheerfully as he could manage. “What brings you to the command center when you should be confined to quarters?”

The sangheili shrugged off his jiralhanae escorts and stepped forward. The aging alien was no less fierce than he had been in the prime of his life. His stature was befitting of a leader, and his attire was regal, a long purple cloak of silk draped over the pauldrons of his mirror-like silver armor.

“That is why I am here!” Yasz spat fiercely, his quad hinged mandibles clicking sharply with every syllable. “What are you playing at, confining sangheili crew to quarters and brig!? Your terms of command ended when we entered red alert. The High Council commanded you would only be in command of this vessel as long as the parameters of the mission remained transport of the high priests.” He jabbed an accusing finger at the view screen at the front of the bridge revealing the decimated space station. “The mission parameters have clearly turned dire! You will relinquish command to me, immediately!”

Nerbyus refrained from referring to Yasz as a child having a tantrum and merely lifted his eyes from the high councilor. Framed in the doorway behind him were the silhouettes of several other sangheili. But with the warriors in the brig the silhouetted figures could only be the priests he had been transporting from High Charity. And while Nerbyus had a great amount of respect for the religions leaders, he currently didn’t have enough patience to deal with them calmly.

“Leave us,” he commanded the silhouettes.

But before the sangheili could retreat, High Councilor Yasz half turned and screamed, “Stay where you are! I am in control here!”

Words that died in Yasz throat the instant his expression turned to one of fear. Nerbyus, his patience stretched to its absolute limit, gently reached out and ever so softly touched the back of his hand to Yasz’s shoulder. The sudden change in the high councilor was startling, going from hyper annoyed to terrified in a split second.

“Do you feel in control, high councilor?” Nerbyus asked delicately, drawing half of Yasz gaze.

“The prophets gave you orders,” the high councilor whispered harshly.

“These orders give you no power over me.” Nerbyus sighed deeply. “I’m so very sorry, high councilor. But thousands of our brothers and sisters, followers of the Covenant, lay frozen and dead in space around us. And I’ll stomach your insolence no longer.”

There was no warning. It just happened. Nerbyus wrapped his powerful arms around Yasz’s head, and the sangheili screamed like an animal that had been shot in the head – the injuries not killing it outright and leaving it with the realization it had been mortally wounded. Screams unbefitting of a once proud, fearless warrior. Screams so unbefitting they unnerved the watching priests.

The screams muffled in Nerbyus’ fur, and then faded entirely. Before long the sangheili lay in a heap at his feet, and the chieftain delicately plucked the cloak from the dead councilor. Nerbyus gave it a satisfied nod and draped it over his own shoulders. It was a little tight and hung from him more like a cape than a cloak, but he liked the feel and the look none the less.

“I’ll hazard a guess no others have issue with my command?” the chieftain asked as he looked down at himself to check how the cape flowed.

There was no answer from the sangheili silhouettes in the doorway, and they merely shrank away to confine themselves to quarters.

“Good.” The chieftain returned his attention to the issue at hand and clasped his hands behind his back once more. “Helm, take us out of the debris field and into orbit.”

The jiralhanae standing at the helm nodded and pushed the Purveyor of Truth into motion. Just then a swarm of scout drones flew in from low orbit around the nearest habitable planet and docked. Their telemetry beamed directly to the bridge and various recordings dominated the view screen.

“Chieftain, the scout drones have returned,” the ops officer reported. “The planet is home to an intelligent species that could have destroyed the Unyielding Hierophant. Should I prepare weapons to bombard the infidels from orbit?”

A traditionalist jiralhanae would have answered affirmative. But Nerbyus was no traditionalist. “Negative. That wouldn’t be a fair fight! Besides, we know nothing of their retaliatory measures.” Nerbyus said with some curiosity as he watched the recordings play out across the view screen. “Enable the luminary. We will scan them. Learn about them. And then we shall test them.”

Stepping closer to the screen, he waved a claw and blew up one of the images. Walking before his eyes were countless animal-like creatures. But they moved, conversed and behaved with intelligence uncommon for creatures of their bestial form. Their colors hurt his eyes; a defense mechanism perhaps. But on the whole they seemed pleasant. Docile.

Perhaps camouflage considering they must have been the ones to destroy he space station. Nerbyus did not know for sure. But if he was to engage with them in fair combat to avenge the Covenant followers lost upon the Unyielding Hierophant than he was willing to find out. To learn.

The chieftain smiled broadly, relishing this opportunity the gods had granted him to flex his physical and intellectual muscles.

“I want to know what these creatures are made of.”

Flintlock-one woke with a headache and Ishmir-G314 had to wonder if that was because of the magic buzzing about the Equestria air or because of Zecora’s potion that had knocked him out cold.

It reminded Ishmir of the day after he’d gone through his Spartan augmentations. He’d come out the other side with increased muscle mass, higher bone density and sharpened senses. But it had come with a bit of suffering.

His blood was like napalm in his muscles. Broken glass had been crammed into his bone-marrow. Everything was too loud, too bright. The scant sunlight leaking through the winter canopy of clouds was blinding and the slightest little howl of wind was agony on his ear drums.

Ishmir gritted his teeth and focused on something else. He pushed the pain into the back of his brain and opened his eyes. When the complete washout of light faded he was staring at a hoof laying in the snow beside his face.

He felt wet and cold. Unusual considering he was supposed to be in full armor. Had Twilight Sparkle pulled off his helmet to make sure he was okay? No, that couldn’t be. There were security locks on his SPI MJOLNIR to prevent the enemy doing exactly that. But Twilight was a unicorn… alicorn. She could have used magic?

It seemed stupid to keep guessing, since her hoof sat right next to his face she was probably standing over him. He might as well ask.

Wait… no that couldn’t be Twilight Sparkle’s hoof. The princess had a lavender coat. The hoof was a tan color. With a groan Ishmir tried to move his arms and sit himself up.

But his heart stopped when the hoof moved to his command.

“Oh, holy shit!”

While Ishmir scrambled up onto all four hooves in the blink of an eye, Zecora and Twilight Sparkle stood staring. They weren’t moving, their customarily humungous pony eyes glistening in the light as they watched Ishmir closely. And for Princess Twilight Sparkle in particular, the very fabric of time seemed to slow to a crawl. Ishmir’s pony form was the very center of her attention. Nothing else seemed to matter.

Her eyes were almost literally glued to the earth-pony colt with a lean figure and tan fur. His navy colored mane was clipped to low-reg length and back-swept wildly. He had large hazel eyes and a bewildered look on his face as he looked down at his new pony body, noting the pictogram of a silver cross on his butt.

“I’m… I’m… I’m…” it seemed that was all Ishmir could actually say.

Clearly Twilight and Zecora were the same way, staring at the ponified Spartan for the longest time before the zebra broke her usual rhyme-heavy character and uttered very plainly, “You’re handsome!”

“I… wait, what?”

“Very…” Twilight agreed with her striped friend, a blush burning on her cheeks.

Princess Twilight Sparkle had removed the marine helmet Marko had given her and dropped the heavy saddle-bags filled with ammo and gear. She still looked a little bedraggled though with her fur matted in places, sprouts of her mane sticking up and out of place and her tail had gone frizzy. The heat of a plasma bolt had singed her fringe and a few of her otherwise sleek feathers were arranged into un-aerodynamic lines, but she was still the Twilight Sparkle everybody knew and recognized.

Their environment had changed a little since Ishmir lost consciousness too. It was slightly darker, and looking up he saw Zecora and Twilight had erected some camouflage while the headhunters were out cold. They’d strung nets decorated with branches and leaves from the standing stones circling the clearing and pulled the whole blanket over the top of the SCALPEL spaceplane settled in the snow.

He could have commented on Zecora and Twilight Sparkle’s good work camouflaging the vehicle, but at that moment all Ishmir wanted to know was what that “handsome” comment was supposed to mean.

They were however thankfully interrupted by a groan. Turning on the spot, just about managing to balance on four legs instead of two, Ishmir spotted Marko.

The other headhunter seemed to be taking to his new hooves a little better than Ishmir. Marko was on all fours, looking himself up and down curiously. He was a regular enough looking unicorn pony with an olive coat and fair hair in his mane and tail. His mane in particular was shorn down into buzz-cut stubble and his tail was a short bristle of stiff hairs. Painted on his flanks was a pictogram of a knife, although on closer inspection Ishmir was pretty sure it was the pointed blade of his custom bayonet he’d drawn across the throats of countless Covenant warriors.

Shrugging it off, Marko managed to take his first few steps and was soon trotting through the snow to join the group.

“So this is fucking weird,” he commented altogether too casually. “And reversible, right book-fucker?”

Twilight quickly nodded. “Oh, of course, cock-muncher. I can cast a spell that will have you back in armor-clad human form before you can say; fuck-me-sideways.”

“I fucking love the way she was giving you sexy-eyes while she said that,” Marko chortled, playfully bucking a forehoof into Ishmir’s ribs.

The princess blushed even harder while Ishmir muttered, “Shut up.”

When Marko had enough enjoyment for the time being, Ishmir got things back on track again. “Okay, Warlock. Run us through what we’ve missed. Where’s our armor and gear?”

“Your armor is actually still on you,” Twilight explained. “Stored away in a pocket dimension attached to you. When I revert you with a spell your armor will fit into place automatically.”

“Sounds complicated. And our gear?”

“I stored your weapons and bags as well as my own pack in a similar pocket dimension.”

Twilight Sparkle’s horn lit up and a tear in the fabric of space and time opened up between them. It wasn’t unlike a slip-space tear that fired UNSC and Covenant ships across the galaxy, only instead of staring into the white light of the slipstream Ishmir found himself looking into a pit, in the bottom of which sat a pile of saddle bags, a helmet and two duffels packed with weaponry, explosives and ammunition.

“If you say so,” Marko scoffed.

“That’s kind of neat actually,” Ishmir complemented, earning another little blush from Twilight. “So what’s next? We go see Princess Celestia?”

Twilight nodded, recapping the plan. “We’ll head to Ponyville first and take the train up to Canterlot. It’s the fastest way.”

“I got one faster. Why don’t we just teleport up there with your fancy-shmancy magic?” Marko asked.

“Teleporting myself is one thing, but all three of us?” Twilight Sparkle shook her head adding, “Besides, I might need my magic later. I don’t want to accidentally burn it out again on a long range teleport in case I need to transform you two back in a hurry.”

“Sounds reasonable.” Ishmir paused, reading Marko’s expression for a moment. “Problem?”

Marko sighed. “I don’t like it. The Covenant are out there. They could strike at any moment. We have no eyes on, no recon, no intel on enemy strength and we’re pretty fucking helpless in this form to boot. On top of that, we’re moving slow toward a princess who probably might not even listen to us until it’s too late. This plan is paper thin.”

Ishmir had to agree with him on that one. Unfortunately; “It’s the only on we got, Marko. We’ve worked with less before. Let’s make it work.”

“Yeah, alright,” Marko breathed with a huff and collected himself. “I’ll take point.”

“You know the way to Ponyville?”

“That way, right?” Marko pointed into the woods, and with an impressed nod Twilight confirmed his heading. “I imagine I didn’t land too far off the town outskirts last time we visited. I remember the path we took last time.”

Marko bid Zecora a small wave and set out towards the tree line. As he was trotting, Ishmir called after him.

“Look cool and don’t get lost.”

“Don’t worry! If I get lost I’ll make sure I still look cool.”

While Marko got stuck into the tree line, clearing a path through the undergrowth and vines, Ishmir and Twilight Sparkle took the time to say goodbye to Zecora and watched the zebra trot away in the opposite direction. Alone in the clearing, Ishmir gave Marko the standard thirty second head-start and then beckoned Twilight to join him with a small bow.

“After you, your majesty.”

But for all his heightened Spartan senses, he didn’t even notice Princess Twilight Sparkle looking away to hide the fact her face was turning almost completely red.

“So I guess that sorts who you’re bringing to prom.”

The Everfree Forest was oddly familiar to him. Of course it had been a while since Ishmir’s last visit, but it wasn’t the fact he’d been here before that made it feel familiar. The woods were thick with ropey branches and vines, with twisted tree trunks and bushels of clawed undergrowth. There were sheets of canopy hiding the sky from view and curtains of moss draped over lower branches.

It reminded him of the forests he’d trained in on Onyx. And Twilight Sparkle’s pace reminded him of his first time blundering into an ambush set up by his drill instructors.

“Warlock, slow down,” Ishmir called, catching up to the princess.

Twilight Sparkle stopped in her tracks, half-way clambering over a knot of roots bursting out of the earth at the base of a tree. Half stepped over the top she looked from where Marko was just ahead batting aside branches and ferns to clear a path and watched Ishmir canter over.

“The whole point of a point-man is to give him a head start.” Ishmir looked past Twilight and waited until Marko was just beyond line of sight again before beckoning the princess to walk with him. “Is there a reason you’re in such a hurry?”

“You know why I’m in a hurry, Ishmir,” Twilight said with an evident hint of frustration. “We’ve gone past my estimated time of arrival. I re-checked the numbers in my head earlier. I’m not wrong.”

She looked up to the thick canopy, imagining the sky above filled with bulbous Covenant ships spilling waterfalls of plasma onto the land like she’d seen on the alien planet that morning. “They’re up there. Right now the Covenant are in orbit.”

“And they have chosen not to do anything,” Ishmir said reminding her of the lack of explosions and plasma raining from the sky.

“Yet.”

“I know. And normally I’d be in a rush to arm all weapons too. But this is different. The Covenant have paused. And that makes me pause to consider what is going on.” Ishmir continued in a calm tone, “It is very possible they’re scanning the planet. They’ll realize there’s no humans down here and they might just move on.”

Twilight Sparkle furrowed her brow. “You think?”

“Not for a second. But it’s a comforting thought, right?”

She chuckled.

“Made you smile.”

Twilight was indeed smiling as she looked away shyly, hiding the two rosy pink ovals appearing on her cheeks more than anything else. Having gotten the hang of his new pony legs and hooves, Ishmir managed to walk relatively smoothly on just three while he reached out with one forehoof to pat the lavender alicorn reassuringly on the shoulder.

“Twilight, it’s going to be okay,” he assured a sympathetic smile. “This is a marathon, not a sprint. Don’t wear yourself out on this leg of the run. We’ve still got a long day ahead of us.”

The princess let out a breath and smiled back. “I know. Thanks.”

To keep her mind off the Covenant for now, Ishmir struck up, “Tell me about Equestria.” He didn’t want Twilight to burn out, and he might as well gather some intel on his new surrounds. “I’m here to save it, but I know very little about your home. How did you become princess? Is it a title appointed by election around here, or did you come from a royal family?”

“Neither, actually. I used to be a simple unicorn. Then I invented new magic and was given my wings. I was made a princess shortly after.”

“Invented new magic, eh? That sounds cool.”

Twilight Sparkle smiled, glad he thought so. “It was the magic of friendship that made me an alicorn”

“Aaaaand you ruined it.”

“Really? Why?”

“Friendship is not magical,” Ishmir said taking up a light hearted argumentative tone. “Well, maybe metaphorically speaking. But not actual magic.”

“It is magic! The power that kept me and my friends together was what has saved Equestria time and time again.” She looked sorrowfully at the ground. “So far, at least. We had to give up the Elements of Harmony, and now… now we’re defenseless…”

Ishmir kept her on track. “Alright, I believe you. So you obviously didn’t figure out the magic of friendship on your own – you must have friends.”

Twilight perked up, suddenly in her element again. “Oh, yes. You should meet them. They’re amazing. There’s Pinkie Pie, she’s always such a riot. And she throws the best parties in all of Equestria. Putting a smile on everypony’s face is all she lives for. Then there’s Rarity. Oh, she’s so beautiful and fashionable, and so generous too.

“My friend Fluttershy is very soft spoken and shy around strangers, but she’s the kindest pony you could ever meet. Then there’s Rainbow Dash. She can be a little brash and quick off the mark, but she has a good heart and is forever loyal to those she loves. And finally there’s Applejack. Never before have I met a pony so honest and reliable without fault.”

Twilight smiled fondly at the memory of her friends and wondered if they knew she’d been missing for nearly a day. Had anypony noticed her absence?

“Without them all… well… I don’t know where I would be without them.”

“They sound great,” Ishmir admitted wondering what it would be like to have so many friends. He wasn’t really close to the other Spartans of Gamma Company. Not since being pulled from the other Spartan-3s for headhunter tasking. Marko was his best – his only friend. After Twilight Sparkle of course. “You live in Ponyville together?”

“Yes. The library is nearby everypony.”

Ishmir chuckled, then realized she wasn’t joking. “You live in a library?”

“Oh. Yeah. It was meant to be temporary, but I ended up kind of liking it.” Twilight Sparkle grinned widely, adding enthusiastically, “I fucking love books.”

“Almost as much as you love swearing it would seem.”

Right. Sorry, I barely even notice it anymore.” She rubbed her neck sheepishly.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Marko has me fucking doing it from time to time too.”

They shared a bit of a laugh as the forestry started to thin out. The path became more distinct and Marko trotting up ahead became less obscured by trees, undergrowth and low hanging branches. The grim sunlight peeking through the wintery clouds brightened with the lack of canopy over their heads and the untouched snow under their hooves thickened.

Eventually Ishmir spoke again. “So, princess. You don’t have your own castle?”

Twilight Sparkle shook her head. “No.”

“Well we should fix that when this is all over. Believe it or not, Marko is fair handy with a hammer.”

She did find that hard to believe. But she was more surprised by the offer than Marko’s skills other than doing the Grim Reaper’s work. “You’re going to build me a castle?”

“Only if you promise not to call it something silly like the Friendship Rainbow Kingdom Castle, or anything like that.”

She giggled into her hoof before crossing her heart and poking herself in the eye. “I promise.”

Marko had dropped out of view, and the duo cantered to catch up, cresting the next hill to overlook a village at their fetlocks.

Twilight welcomed Ishmir to Ponyville. It was postcard pleasant with the path down into town crossing a frozen with a small bowed pink bridge beside a windmill. It was hard to make out much of the detail, but on first glance much of the design was very simple and pleasant. The snow dusted rooves were all yellow straw thatch. But the shapes of the houses didn’t make much sense, with doors and windows oddly spaced and some walls oddly angled, like the architect had been a mad-man with a fist-full of vibrant crayons.

They trotted into town after Marko, the steep valley walls closing in around them as they approached. High on the mountainside to one side Twilight pointed out the glistening city of marble pirouettes, gold rooftops and pink waving flags. Canterlot was less like a city and more like a palace of towers and walkways.

Once in ponyville, Ishmir realized the town was very girlishly quaint, so much so he swore he heard Marko making retching sounds. There was a great amount of detail to the support beams, gardens and window panes in all the dwellings. Stars, swirling engravings, flowers, but mostly hearts decorated most every surface and support. It was a little sugary of course, but Ishmir quite liked it. He had never been to Earth himself, but he’d seen photographs some of the other Spartan-3 cadets had managed to hold on to. And most of those were images of extremes going from grungy streets lined with eye-catching neon signs or sparkling isometric avenues.

Ponyville had the best of all worlds, hovering somewhere between interesting design and first-class pleasantness.

Marko arced them around a building Twilight Sparkle introduced as town hall as their Spartan on point spotted what could only be the train station up ahead. It was hard to tell from their angle, but Ishmir was pretty sure he spotted the winding tracks leading up the mountainsides over ridges and through tunnels leading to Canterlot high on the horizon.

As they trotted, greeting the colorful, smiling ponies as they passed, Twilight told Ishmir more about the lay of the land and an entirely new school of physics that ruled Equestria. He learned about pegasi able to manipulate clouds and earth-ponies who cared for the land. Twilight even pointed out the faint outline of a city in the sky, Cloudsdale, just beyond the valley walls.

More of Ishmir’s knowledge of physics was shattered when she told him more about Princess Celestia and her younger sister, Luna. One raised the sun and the other the moon, making for an environment that would have an astronomer’s head explode with non-comprehension. Ishmir just nodded and accepted it, figuring he’d best cling to his sanity by trying not to think about it too hard.

“I know what you’re doing, you know,” Twilight Sparkle suddenly said as if she’d caught the colt with his hoof in a cookie jar.

“As the Good Lord is my witness, I have no idea what you’re talking about. And He’s a pretty kickass witness.”

Twilight didn’t expect Ishmir to know what she was talking about. After all, he’d been acting on Spartan instinct the whole time. But to Twilight Sparkle it was a kindness she had to thank him for.

Marko had been there like a big brother to fight the monsters. But Ishmir had been there to check on her sanity. Three times that morning alone Ishmir had stepped in to put himself between Twilight and danger, even if there wasn’t any danger. He’d been there to say a kind word and to pat her reassuringly on the back; just little things but they made her feel safe and comfortable none the less.

And now he was doing it again.

“You’re keeping my mind off the future,” Twilight said with a smile. “You’re looking out for my mental state again. Just like in the SCALPEL launch facility. You’re making me feel safe. I appreciate it.”

“Don’t worry about it, princess. After all; I need you.”

Her heart fluttered at the sound of that. She hadn’t expected to ever hear that from a handsome colt. She hadn’t expected anypony to say that to her ever. But admittedly she liked the sound of it.

He needed her. Now there were several ways she could interpret that. But Twilight only cared to interpret it the one way that satisfied the butterflies in her stomach the most.

Twilight smiled sheepishly. “You do?”

“Uh-huh,” Ishmir said with an innocent nod.

Trying to make sense of all sorts of feelings raging through her heated brain, all she could scrape together was a single metaphorical, un-princess-like thought.

Fuck it.

Moving closer, Twilight Sparkle held her breath and peered at her target under her eyelids. Ishmir was normally quite good at reading a tactical situation. He knew how to observe and react to the ever changing tides of a battle and he should have known whether to assault or to retreat.

He didn’t withdraw, hesitating as he saw Twilight Sparkle cock her head ever so slightly and her lips gently part. By the time he actually did anything it was too late; their lips were touching, and even then all he did was gasp through his nose.

Twilight let her eyes fall shut at the same time, giving a pleased sigh as she did. In the cold winter air his lips were warm to hers and his powerful aroma of burnt cordite was oddly pleasing to the senses. The princess was pretty sure her heart stopped beating, but she didn’t seem to care. Even her wings seemed out of control, no longer folded neatly to her sides and sagged to the ground as if it required effort to keep them up.

Her knees were weak and it took every ounce of remaining willpower not to drag him to the ground and just lay there forever. The fleeting selfish thought of not caring about the fate of Equestria or saving the day, just wanting to stay there like that with Ishmir – trapped in a perfect moment in time – took her by surprise.

Little did she know Ishmir’s mind was racing through all the same sensations, that perfect moment bogging his fancy Spartan sense of time. The world didn’t crawl any more. It blurred by. It felt like hours were passing in those few fleeting seconds. And it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered. Not the war, not the looming danger of Covenant in orbit, not even the ponies trotting by to sneak a guess at who this unknown colt kissing their princess was.

His own eyes fell shut, but that single moment of perfect bliss came to a coarse halt in the same instance.

A single sound caught their ears. The sound of a throat being cleared very obviously, and quite obnoxiously. Opening their eyes, both ponies suddenly broke the kiss and snapped their gazes to the source of the sound, seeing Marko standing nearby with his head cocked slightly.

Ishmir and Twilight were stunned and they just stared at each other for a moment. Marko almost didn’t have anything to say. Almost.

“So I guess that sorts who you’re bringing to prom,” the headhunter chortled with a wide grin that would have matched the smile carved into his helmet’s visor.

“Shut up,” Ishmir retorted, his cheeks going red.

“If you two lovebirds don’t mind focusing for a second, we kind of have an invasion to stop,” Marko added a little more seriously, focusing his icy stare on Ishmir. “Really you oughta know better.”

“She was stressing out. I was taking her mind off the Covenant.”

“Hah! Yeah, I can tell.”

Ishmir did his best to avoid Twilight’s gaze. He looked a little distraught, and with good reason. There was no way Marko was going to let this one slide very easily. Ishmir was doomed to be ripped on for the next twelve hours, at the very least.

At least Marko was interrupted at his first attempt to say something clever. When he opened his mouth the headhunter was interrupted by a long, loud, dramatic gasp. The kind of sound a little girl made just before throwing a tantrum or an officer made just before pointing out an infraction against grooming standards.

“Good heavens, darling!”

It was the gasp of the latter it would seem.

Turning, Marko, Ishmir and Twilight Sparkle saw two figures make a bee-line for them. One of the newcomers was a pretty mint example of a unicorn, covered in clean white fur and she had a pretty dark blue mane and tail both coifed into a fashionable looking mane. The second was a pegasus, hovering along her side, with a full rainbow of colours streaked through the hair in her mane and tail.

The unicorn in particular had been the one gasping, running right up to Princess Twilight Sparkle and taking a good look at her. “Now, darkly; you know I say this with love, but… you’re looking quite… ehrmmm…” she hummed, sticking out her lip as she thought hard for the right words.

“Frazzled?” the hovering pegasus offered.

Twilight ran a hoof over her mane, failing to flatten it down. “Oh, it’s been a rough day.”

Ishmir looked confused for a moment, glancing to Twilight and mouthing, “friends of yours?” to which the princess nodded and greeted her Ponyville friends.

“But Twilight, who is your handsome new friend?” Rarity suddenly asked as if she’d simply been waiting for an excuse to bat her eyelids at Ishmir.

Clearing her throat, Twilight Sparkle quickly introduced the ponified headhunters. “Girls, these are some friends I met in Canterlot. They’re in the Royal Guard. This is, uh…”

Sensing Twilight Sparkle’s hesitation, Ishmir thought fast and blurted out; “I’m Double Tap.” As far as pony names went it wasn’t too bad. “And this is…” Ishmir tried to come up with something for Marko but suddenly drew blank.

“Hack ‘n Slash,” Marko deadpanned. “Petty Officer Second Class.”

“Uh… yeah. That’ll work,” Ishmir mumbled.

Rarity immediately showed interest, though she skootched closer to Ishmir than she did his wingman. “The Royal Guard! My-my, that sounds exciting!”

“It has its moments,” Ishmir replied cautiously, wondering if he was going to have to make up stories.

“And would he be the reason you’ve been having a rough day?” Rainbow Dash chortled suggestively through her hooves.

Twilight Sparkle suddenly broke out in a polite but very fake laugh as she quickly turned Ishmir around and pushed the ponified Spartans along. “Well, I really think we should be getting back to Canterlot, eh-hehe. Lots to do.”

“Oh, I bet,” Rainbow Dash teased earning a light cuff from Rarity.

“Don’t ever be a stranger, Mister Double Tap,” the unicorn quickly called after them, before she suddenly let out a surprised gasp identical to the first that originally drew their attention to her.

At first Ishmir didn’t think anything of it; she’d probably just spotted another mare she knew having a bad mane day.

Turning, Ishmir froze on the spot. The others were about to ask what had prompted him to look, but soon they were looking too, following Rarity’s gaze up the valley wall.

There, boiling and bubbling above where Canterlot sat was a mass of cloud. White and fluffy around the edges, but black as night within. The mass of cloud dwarfed the sun it began sliding in front of, though it seem the sun was moving as if actively trying to get around it somehow.

Ishmir heard Rainbow Dash saying something about rain not being in today’s weather schedule, but soon he realized that shadow in the clouds was actually hull. It was all hull. Covenant hull.

The ship broke out of the cloudcover and descended over Canterlot, casting a long, cold shadow over the valley. The shadow crept out, soon engulfing all of Ponyville and garnering the attention of other ponies.

It was impossible to miss and at the same time impossible not to fear. It was a sleek flying city with all the same horrible insectoid features that made your skin crawl. A sleek exoskeleton wrapped over the top, revealing the wriggly – or in this case glowing and blinking – inner workings exposed across the undercarriage. Working lights beamed and propulsion systems glowed a luminous blue light.

The mid-section was bloated as compared to the long thin nose, stretched out to either side and blowing up the ship’s proportions enough to dwarf the whole of Canterlot and most of the valley in which Ponyville cowered.

Pegasi swirled and dashed. A few ground based ponies screamed and ran inside to pull shutters and lock doors. Most just stared up in awe as the vessel so enormous, yet so soundless, hovered over their capital.

But among the innocent citezens of Equestria only three ponies knew of the true danger. Team Flintlock looked at each other, sharing a single, terrible, horrible thought.

The Covenant had arrived.

“Oh, dear.”

The anti-grav engines of the phantom drop ship made the sleek craft’s outline ripple as they glode out of the Purveyor of Truth’s hangar. Nice and slow. Not at all threatening.

Nerbyus would make sure to give the drop ship pilot more praise than his battle cruiser’s helmsman. Their descent over what was clearly the planet’s capitol city was anything but non-threatening.

The chieftain still had no clue of the defensive capabilities of these “ponies.” What he did know was that they were a curious species. What he gathered their language was like that of the humans, a language he luckily strived to learn himself in the pursuit of knowing his enemy better.

He also knew these ponies came in three distinct forms. The thought and hardy ground based form, the flying form and the mysterious magic form whose understanding of the fabric of space, time and reality far surpassed even his own. They could conjure objects out of thin air, generate glowing lights and manipulate objects with localized gravity fields. He assumed this “magic” they used was similar to much of the Covenant technology, only more organic.

An orbital plasma bombardment was the most tactically prudent course of action of course. But it would be ultimately unfair on these creatures, and on Nerbyus’ crew. He had a large contingent of younglings under his command, many who had yet to see the sweet embrace of battle. He could not deny them the opportunity.

Aside from that, the luminary scans indicated many indications of Forerunner ruins across the planet. Many buried, the chieftain did not doubt. However he could not risk damaging the structures of the Gods with rash orbital bombing.

His mission was twofold. And he would complete it, propelling all of the Covenant down the divine path with the jiralhanae, not the sangheili, as the prophets’ escorts.

The sides of the phantom hung open giving Nerbyus a bird’s eye view of the city below. He had no name for it, nor did he have a name for this land. But reminded him of home. A lush, green planet rife with hunting grounds and cities made of grand spires. His own home town was similar to the city below him, only the jiralhanae cities were mostly molded out of clay, brick or hollowed into the enormous trees that only grew on Doisac.

The pilot banked slightly around the outskirts of the city, setting the largest of the city’s structures in his sights. To one flank was a sprawl of gondolas, clearly a skydock of some sort judging by the ships moored there.

The ships were nothing intimidating. They seemed more adept at crossing seas than skies, the only thing holding them airborne were the enormous overhead sacks of gas. A slow, inefficient design the jiralhanae had admittedly used once; but that had been ages ago, before contact with the Covenant and the jiralhanae’s steering onto the divine path of enlightenment.

Looking up, Nerbyus saw it was no choice of the pilots to set down there. A trio of the flying ponies to one side, and another trio to the other side had formed up beside them. Their wings did not beat frantically despite their small size compared to the bulk of the gold-armored equines. They hung calmly in the air, gliding as gracefully as the phantom.

One pony turned his head then jabbed a hoof in a downward motion, indicating them to land at the skydocks.

Looking down again, the chieftain noted the obvious gathering of ponies waiting for them, two ranks of the magical ones clad in similar armor to their flying comrades, and two taller figures that stood out from the rest.

Nerbyus turned into the phantom and noted the delegation he was bringing down for first contact. Seven young jiralhanae warriors, the pilot included, their spike rifles clipped to belts and rifles hung diagonally, non-threateningly across their backs. Their cool blue armor was powered up and shields had been prepped. They were heading into more unknowns than the chieftain was comfortable with and he wanted his warriors well prepared. They had feasted during the descent upon the capitol, so with bellies full and souls eager they now made their final descent upon these unenlightened beasts.

The pilot pulled low enough along the gondola for the open side of the phantom to line up perfectly, and seven jiralhanae, the chieftain in front, stepped calmly off. Over the heavy tchock of his warhammer’s hilt striking the floor like a walking stick with each of his long strides he heard the soprano whine of the phantom’s engines dim to a calming hum. Nerbyus threw his weight as he walked with surprising grace and considered the ranks of soldier ponies, then the two regal figures before him.

The two, clearly females if their eyes were anything to go by, stood tall and formal. The taller of the two was pure white, with a pair of wings as well as one of the magic producing horns on her forehead. The smaller one was a dark blue color, the two of them physically contrasting like day and night. Even their manes and tails, magical clouds of color and stars contrasted each other.

“I am Chieftain Nerbyus, divine instrument of the Gods and humble voice of the Covenant,” Nerbyus announced, holding a respectable distance from the regal figures and bowing his head respectfully. “I thank you for inviting us for this parlay.”

“The pleasure is ours, Chieftain Nerbyus,” the taller white creature returned with a kind smile. She had a warm, motherly voice that suited her appearance, every aspect of her soothing to every imaginable sense. “I am Princess Celestia, and this is my sister, Princess Luna. We would like to humbly welcome you to our home, Equestria.”

The younger princess, Luna spoke next. “May we ask what brings you to our world, chieftain?”

“We are explorers. We seek to learn about other races and cultures,” Nerbyus lied without fail. Most primitive species set in their ways found it hard to accept new lines of thinking, even if the truth of the Covenant’s word was undeniable. Especially the peaceful societies who have managed to hold on to peace as long as Nerbyus assumed these ponies had. There was no need to bring them undue alarm at this moment.

And bringing them alarm would not serve the chieftain’s tactics.

Nerbyus continued to say, “Your interesting title for example. I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with it. What duties does the rank of princess entail?”

“As princess I am the leader of Equestria and guardian of all my little ponies. I watch over the land and protect all that you see during the day.” Celestia looked to her sister as if handing her the invisible announcement-stick.

“And I during the night,” Luna added proudly stepping forward.

“You are the guardian of all…” Nerbyus rubbed his chops for a moment, then gestured out over the expanse of snow dusted land stretched out before them. “All this?”

Celestia nodded with a smile. “We are.”

“Hmmm.” Nerbyus looked thoughtful. Though it was an expression that didn’t last long before a spark of darkness took his eye.

It would seem everything he wanted to learn of these creatures had just been taught to him. So without further ado, before anyone or anything could stop him or even realize what he was thinking, Nerbyus snatched his mauler pistol from his belt. It came loose with a sharp click before he levelled it squarely on Princess Celestia and pulled the trigger to unleash a terrible roar of deadly energy.

The ponies were stunned, in a frozen state of shock as they watched Princess Celestia, their guardian, fall into a pile of bloodied feathers and fur. The first part of Nerbyus’ mission was well on the way to completion. With the guardian down, he and his pack could begin avenging the crew of the Unyielding Hierophant.

As Celestia slid to a halt in a slick pool of crimson, Nerbyus seemed to give a mocking huff of realization at the grim fate that awaited Equestria. “Oh, dear.”

Luna screamed with a mixture of wicked rage and terror at the sight of her sister on the ground. Her horn lit up the same time as several reacting Royal Guard, bathing the platform in a ghostly glow of magic. But turning upon the alien beasts, Luna saw the jiralhanae had already drawn weapons; and it was a flash of memories about Princess Twilight Sparkle’s tales of hostile monsters from the stars and deep regret she had not listened that Luna saw Nerbyus’ weapon levelled on her face and his finger curling around the trigger.

The second part of the Purveyor of Truth’s mission had begun – the mission to cleanse this world and liberate the artefacts of the Gods. One more princess-ending gunshot raged into the air from the skydocks before the gates of Tartarus were flung open…

Author's Note

So... that happened.
Please try to remember that this story is not done yet. Don't jump to conclusions. You'll fall and die, and I don't wanna clean it up.

"Fuck-me-sideways!"

It was quite surprising what a surge of adrenaline could do for your speed. Take Twilight Sparkle for example. She was a bookish sort of girl, not exactly the most fit pony in the world, and certainly not the fastest runner. But flapping her wings to give her an extra boost of speed while she ran she was able to keep up with the Spartan headhunters’ full gallop at least.

Even on a rush of adrenaline her friends Rarity and Rainbow Dash could barely keep up, and one of those was an airborne streak.

Moments ago they watched a single ship descend from the Covenant battle cruiser. And then, after was a short pause came a swarm of purple dots. Like a plague of flies the swarm of drop ships and banshee interceptors rained down the valley. The largest of the formations descended over Canterlot, flash bombing streets and raining alien troops to the ground.

The rest came screaming down the valley wall and buzzed Ponyville’s airspace. So far there were only banshees milling about the pegasi zipping about to shield the town with dense carpets of cloud and the beams of unicorns taking pot shots at the alien aircraft. But the dozen or so banshees were enough to rain an ungodly tirade of plasma upon them.

The street to Marko’s left exploded, showering him bit bits of rock and dirt, and the smoldering remains of what used to be a lawn. Blinking away the grit he glanced up to see a banshee strafe a pegasus. The bubblegum colored mare screamed and bolted just in time, swinging tight around one of the carpets of cloud cover she’d put up. Somehow the plasma impacted with the jet black cloud like it was a solid object, only instead of penetrating and hitting the mare and the buildings underneath, the cloud broke up and began to evaporate like a single-use shield.

It seemed the ponies had some defenses at least, and were making the most of them for now. The counter offensive wasn’t going so well.

Reaching the train station, Ishmir disappeared onto the platform to check the train while Marko paused to watch Twilight Sparkle skid to a halt. Her wings flared she charged her magic and lit up the sky with a beam of deadly looking pink energy.

The beam crackled with lightning bolt before impacting the side of the banshee. The craft’s shields fizzled, but held and their glow faded by the time it circled around.

“Oh, fuck!” the princess cursed realizing the plasma guns were flashing again as bolts traced up the street towards her.

Rainbow Dash and Rarity caught up just in time, the three fillies darting into the cover of the train station. Plasma pocked the exterior walls, but the structure held until the banshee was forced to end the attack run by pulling up sharply.

The banshee zipped overhead, Marko poking his head out to give it a look. Thankfully it didn’t come back for seconds, rejoining the formation of other fliers to harass the townstead.

Looking back down across the platform he saw there was a train decorated with all the same girly aesthetics of the town that made Marko sick parked along the station. The locomotive seemed pointed in the right direction, leading up the rails sloping up the mountain and towards Canterlot. But there were no passengers, and no crew as far as Marko could see.

He saw a stallion gallop out one of the carriages, wearing a uniform reminiscent of the tram conductors he’d seen before on his homeworld. Chasing the pony out was Ishmir.

“But it’s an emergency!” Ishmir cried, but the conductor was gone already. “Damn. The crew abandoned ship!”

“Fuck. Can you drive a train?”

“Can’t be much harder than a space plane.” Ishmir shrugged, glancing across at where Twilight Sparkle stood by her panting friends.

Rarity in particular looked distressed. She was hopping from hoof to hoof like she’d found a spider in her dress. Rainbow Dash on the other hand looked slightly more collected, like she was ready to pounce. Her eyes were darting between the princess and the sky, like she wanted to zip up there and help the other pegasi lay down cloud barricades, but at the same time wanted to stick by her friends.

“What is going on!?” Rarity squealed.

“It’s war of the worlds, that’s what. Those things are aliens right!?” Rainbow Dash blurted out. “Like the once you told us about in the Everfree Forest? What you call them? Headhunters?”

“No!” Twilight almost screamed. “These things are Covenant. Covenant bad, humans good!” she glanced to Ishmir and Marko and swallowed.

“Warlock, we gotta go!” Marko called, indicating the train.

The comment seemed to confuse Rarity even further. “Warlock? What did he call you? What in Equestria are you going to do?” she stopped Twilight Sparkle in her tracks, staring at her friend pleadingly.

Twilight quickly wrapped her friends in a hug. “I have to go to Canterlot, I need to help the princesses deal with that ship. You should find our friends and gather as many ponies as you can and run into the Everfree Forest.”

“The Everfree Forest?” Rainbow Dash asked, and Twilight nodded.

“Evacuate to the Castle of the Two Sisters. It’s well enough hidden and quite fortified, especially in the basement. It’ll be a good place to hide and the thick forest canopy should give good cover.” Sensing her friends didn’t want to let her go to Canterlot alone, Twilight gave her friends one last hug. “You can do this. I know you can. Now go… go!”

Rarity was still hesitant, but with Rainbow Dash reassuring her they were off, back into the mess that was Ponyville to do as they were asked to.

They have the easy job, Twilight thought to herself as she boarded the train with Marko and Ishmir.

Towards the front of the train they broke into the locomotive to find the fire was well stoked and the dials were all in green zones. Twilight had a whole library of knowledge in her brain, among which were several books on engineering, mainly the workings of trains. Her magic glowed as she turned several dials, threw levers and disengaged the parking brake.

In moments they were chugging up the tracks, sloping up hill and winding along the mountainside. They hissed in and out of tunnels, blurring up the mountain towards the burning city above them.

“So. Your friends seem nice.”

Blinking, Twilight pulled her gaze from the countryside now bathed in acrid smoke to Ishmir. Despite everything, she managed the tiniest of smiles. She was opening her mouth, about to accuse Ishmir of charming her with his concern for her mindset again but she was interrupted by a wail of Covenant anti-gravity engines.

A shadow slid by the windows, and running to look the trio saw a ship hover alongside the Friendship Express. The Covenant phantom’s undercarriage glowed with lines of pale blue light indicating the gravity defying engines that held the vehicle aloft. The sides of the sleek beetle-like vehicle folded downwards, then collapsed in to leave a set of ramps from which the alien passengers leapt to the speeding train.

Hanging out an open window, Marko ignored the whipping of the wind at his fur, spotting several shadowy silhouettes clear the space between them and land on the roof of the rearmost carriage. Company was coming.

Stepping back, Marko immediately whipped his head round to look at Twilight. “Warlock!”

“Yeah?”

“Fuck-me-sideways!”

“What?” The princess gave him a strange look with a cocked head before an expression of realization came over her. “Oh, right! Transformation spell. Got it!”

Twilight quickly gathered her magic, a glow enveloping her horn then spreading down to her eyes. Invisible strings tugged at her mane and tail, lifting the strands of hair high on a non-existent breeze as the magic spread, gently glowing over her whole body before long.

But nothing else seemed to happen.

“Well?” Marko snapped impatiently.

“I’m charging the spell,” Twilight Sparkle explained.

“And how long is that going to take?”

“About… uh… five minutes?”

Marko looked like he was about to scream. “What!? And you couldn’t let us know there’s a five minute charge time before, sparkle-butt!?”

“Well I’ve been a bit distracted, fuck-face!” She poked Ishmir in the ribs a little harder than she intended. “Would you look at him!? He’s fucking dreamy!”

Marko gave an aggravated cry. “Now we gotta fight Covenant in pony form because you’re fucking dreamy!?”

“You are not pinning this on me!” the other headhunter snapped back as he led the way into the next carriage.

Sprinting through the dividing corridors, the Spartans made it two carriages down before Ishmir stopped at the far door. Rearing up he planted his hooves on the door and looked through the circular window into the next carriage.

Almost immediately he ducked back down and waved Marko back.

“Brutes.”

Marko sighed heavily. “Ugh, I hate those guys.”

Leaping up onto a backrest of one of the benches, Ishmir propelled himself into one of the overhead luggage compartments and slid some of the leftover luggage in front of himself. Marko quickly ducked into one of the booths to hide, peeking under the benches in search of targets.

No sooner had they hidden from sight the connecting doors opened and two figures moved into the carriage.

Marko didn’t twitch as a wide, flat alien foot stomped into view quite close to his face. All that stood between him and the improbable offspring of a gorilla and a grizzly bear was a padded bench. An obstacle the hirsute giants could likely tear right through if only they knew the ponified Spartan was hiding there.

Thankfully for them – the brutes that is – they did not know that demons lurked nearby. And when they realized, it was already too late. Ishmir leapt from his high hiding place like a heavy jack-in-the-box, spraying the brutes with luggage.

The blue armored minors recoiled with surprise and tried to bring their weapons to bear, but Ishmir was on them already. He grabbed the one closest to Marko around the head, pulling him down low while he unleashed a powerful kick into the other’s face. The brute span away spraying one of the windows with black blood.

Marko sprang up as the other brute doubled over under Ishmir’s weight. Normally the headhunter would have used his bayonet if only he had fingers to hold it – or a bayonet for that matter. All he had were his pony assets, a powerful kick and a magical horn on his head. Had he the time to practice to the level of skill Twilight Sparkle commanded over the magic Marko likely would have either vaporized the brutes or twisted their heads off their bodies with a telekinetic pull. Unfortunately he couldn’t get a splutter out of the thing.

So he improvised and shivved the brute in the neck. But to be fair, Ishmir did half the work, forcing the brute down onto the sharp body appendage.

Blinking away the brute’s blood, Marko pulled back with a wet ‘shlikk’ and charged the second brute as it recoiled from Ishmir’s kick.

While Ishmir was wrestling the wounded brute to the ground and beating his hooves into the floor through the alien’s face, Marko rushed the other and drove his horn square into the brute’s face. The long tusks in the alien’s mouth scissor dangerously close to his face, but Marko didn’t yield. His horn twisted and rooted around in the howling brute’s eye socket before finding something vital and putting the alien down.

Breathing hard, the blood soaked ponies shared a hoof-bump and a single thought.

Room clear.

Armored boots clattering on the roof drew the Spartans to the front of the train again. It was the thundering of brutes in full run. The ponies jetted after the sound, rushing to link up with Twilight Sparkle again before the worst happened.

They only just made it, breaching back into the lead carriage where they had left Warlock to charge her spell. She stood stunned halfway down at gunpoint of two brutes. One on the left, one on the right. The following course of action was a no-brainer for the headhunters.

Ishmir rushed the brute on the left while Marko fell on the one to the right. The earth-pony fell with his forelegs outstretched and smacked the spike rifle the brute had trained on Twilight out of his hand. The surprised alien turned to catch a hoof in the back of the knee before taking a double-kick to the chest-plate.

The alien was launched off his feet and busted through the nearest window. But even though he shattered the glass and went sprawling into the whipping wind, he didn’t fall all the way, catching his legs on the window frame.

A tree growing close to the rails finished him off, tearing the brute – mostly – from view.

At almost the exact same time he heard Twilight Sparkle cry out over Marko’s grunts of struggling with the other brute. The carriage door slammed as well and Ishmir’s eyes darted, his brain slipping into Spartan-time.

The whole world turned to a blueish haze as time seemed to screech to an agonizing crawl. The blurry mountainous landscape rushing by outside seemed to sharpen. Marko was caught mid-uppercut, catching his brute in the chin and knocking out a few bloody teeth that seemed to hang motionless in the air.

Twilight Sparkle stood with her hooves widely spaced, her expression contorted with focus as the light around her horn intensified and spluttered. One eye was opened to a squint as she directed a beam of light towards Marko. He’d be transformed back into a fully armored human form in a split second.

Unfortunately a split second might not be quick enough, Ishmir realized as he glanced to the carriage door. Framed there where he’d entered a brute major stood levelling a heavy looking grenade rifle on Twilight Sparkle. The barrel let out a burst of flame and a spherical grenade round sailed through the air.

Ishmir planted his hoof on the fallen spike rifle and flung it across to Marko who turned just in time to see it before the magic from Twilight’s horn connected with his face. In a flash of light Marko vanished into a blinding cloud.

Twilight Sparkle opened her eyes and saw the grenade coming. At the same time she felt Ishmir connect with her and tackle her to the ground.

Time screamed back into a pace that Twilight Sparkle could barely comprehend. The grenade round made contact with the door on the opposite side of the carriage and exploded, blowing it off the hinges. An olive green armored hand reached out of the cloud of light and caught the spike rifle before Marko whipped around and emptied the weapon into the brute’s face.

As the major fell, a quick slashing moment drew the curved bayonets on the spike rifle through the final brute’s throat, dropping the alien gagging and gurgling at his feet.

Laughing hysterically, Marko dropped the spent alien weapon and looked down at his hands. “Ten fingers, ten toes and…” his hand planted on his crotch plate. “Well, I wasn’t using that anyway so a full systems check can wait ‘till later.”

As Ishmir and Twilight were finding their hooves, Marko wiggled his fingers at them. “Ishy, check it out! I’m human again.”

“I’m so happy for your,” Ishmir deadpanned a little jealously. “Warlock, can you do me next?”

Twilight smirked and arched her eyebrows suggestively.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Down girl,” Marko chuckled.

Twilight chuckled too and started charging her horn. “Give me five minutes. It might…”

She interrupted herself, ducking to the ground as a volley of white hot energy splashed the side of the carriage. The force of the impact rocked the entire train causing it to snake on the tracks with a screech of metal on metal. Ishmir covered her again in case a plasma shot got through and hit Marko’s shields.

When the volley passed and the mist of noxious gasses parted the phantom drop ship slid into view on their flank. The troop bays hung open, advertising the mixture of aliens on board along with a grunt behind the plasma gun mounted to the side of the ship.

The gun let out another long burst that raked up the side of the carriage and sprayed the locomotive.

“Could use some guns, Princess Second Base!” Marko cried.

“Way ahead of you, Fuckface!” Twilight retorted as a purple cloud of energy materialized beside Marko and dropped a heavy bag of munitions at his feet.

With Twilight Sparkle resuming the transformation spell, Marko tore open the bag and started loading up what he needed. A pair of M7 submachine guns attached to the magnetic holsters on his thighs and he handled a third for good measure. He didn’t pack any spare ammo, though made sure all guns were loaded and chambered with safeties off. He was about to perform some unsafe maneuvers anyway, safety was the least of his concern.

Finally he grabbed a prepared C12 demo-charge. Essentially, it was a balloon filled with explosive foam, fitted with a remote detonator and magnetic locks for mounting. Locking that on the back of his waist, Marko crawled to the opposite wall of the carriage, then scrambled to his feet before taking a running jump.

Diving forward he smashed through the window and gave one last hard push when one foot caught on the window frame. The wood splintered and the metal frame of the carriage bent out of the shape. Like a human bullet he cleared the space between the train and the Covenant drop ship and smashed headlong into one of the jackals on board.

The beaked lizard fell under Marko’s crushing weight and he put a sustained burst into the alien’s head, spraying jackal brains across the deck. Leaping to his feet Marko had about a second to assess the situation before he was sweeping his SMG and raking rounds through aliens.

There were several jackals and grunts on board, no brutes as far as he could see. They had probably all been deployed in the first wave. Knowing those apes they had probably been eager to claim the first kills, but going by the distressed screams of the surprised grunts, clearly none of the Covenant had expected to face Spartans.

“Demon!” one grunt screeched through its mask before Marko delivered a silencing 5x23mm facial.

His limbs lashed out in every direction delivering punches and kicks that broke faces and snapped limbs in half. All the time his submachine gun roared, peppering the interior of the phantom and tearing through light alien armor.

One of the jackals lit up its shield, a glowing blue film appearing in a circular shape between it and the offending weapon. Rounds splashed into the shield causing ripples of energy dispersed across the surface like ripples in a pond.

The submachine gun clicked and Marko dropped it. He didn’t have time to reload, but he had a hundred-and-twenty more rounds where the first sixty came from, locked, loaded and ready to go on an instant.

His boot made contact with the shield and kicked the barrier aside before Marko grabbed the jackal’s face and slammed it into the ground. His other fist swung around and made contact with the spinal column right between the shoulder blades, and didn’t stop until his knuckle plate met the deck.

Whipping the SMG off his left hip, Marko levelled the weapon on a jackal that charged with a glowing energy dagger in hand and tore the bandit in half.

Sweeping around as he stood, Marko suppressed the aliens still standing and slipping over the deck now slick with gore, and pulled the demolition charge from the back of his belt. It clicked home on the ceiling of the troop bay and the detonator beeped as the headhunter primed it.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” Marko traced back and put another sustained burst into a grunt that didn’t quite go down after the first. “Fuck you again!”

Dropping the SMG when the bullets ran out and drawing his last one, Marko stomped a grunt’s head into the deck then leapt out the side of the drop ship. As he soared back to the speeding train the final machine gun roared as he laid rounds into the remaining aliens in case they got any bright ideas and tried to follow or pull off the demo-charge.

On the train, Ishmir watched his buddy framed in the window for a moment before with a howling whoosh the Spartan fell short and vanished from sight.

“Marko!” Ishmir screamed, galloping over and hanging out the shattered window that had been Marko’s exit route.

As he leaned out he looked down and expected to see a crimson smear across the side of the train. Instead there hung an olive green figure, dangling by his bayonet slammed into the side of the carriage, his boots skimming mere millimeters off the gravel speeding by below him.

The smiley expression carved into his visor angled upward and Ishmir heard a single report from Marko.

“Explosives set!”

Spartans in general, not just the threes or the headhunters really, all the Spartans who had ever been trained and deployed by the UNSC were trained to be self-sufficient. That meant no Spartan needed to be carried. They could each do their job with maximum efficacy. They could rely on each other to do what needed to be done to ensure mission success. To ensure that they could win.

Ishmir felt a little silly all of a sudden, doubting Marko’s efficacy for that moment he dropped out of view. Of course Marko’s demise wouldn’t come that easy. The only way he’d pass on to hell was kicking and screaming with his boot down a Covenant elite’s throat. So Ishmir didn’t waste any more time lending the Spartan a hand when he clearly didn’t need it.

As Marko saw to his own safety by beginning to climb up the side of the carriage, Ishmir dashed to their gear and rummaged around among the equipment until he found something. Straightening up with a clacker trapped between his hooves he flipped the safety key then punched the detonator switch twice.

“Fire in the hole!”

One second the Covenant drop ship was there, the troop bay gunners drawing a bead on the train again. A second later it was a ball of flame and a memory – an adrenaline surging memory but a memory all the same.

The burning phantom dropped back and then fell out of sight entirely, its final demise punctuated by a loud boom that rang over the chug of the train’s wheels over the track and the howl of the air rushing past the shattered windows.

Marko took the time to clamber through the broken window and slumped to the deck where he replaced his bayonet in the sheath on his shoulder.

“Hah! Did you see that explosion!?” Marko cheered happily. “I did that you know.”

Ishmir struggled to help him up, and Marko finally found his feet with Twilight Sparkle’s telekinetic glow secured around one arm.

“You boys saving my butt is becoming a habit.” Twilight skootched over to a bewildered looking Spartan pony. “Especially for you, Ishmir,” she added nodding to the grenade damage that could have been her face.

“Can I be changed back to human now?” One might have considered Ishmir’s desperate tone and expression were because of the alien ships flying up and down the mountainside; were it not for the alicorn princess getting very cozy and nuzzling his cheek.

Marko chuckled. “I dunno, Ish. You’re a cute couple like this.”

“… shut up!”

"They must love the smell of hero!"

They shot from the train the moment the carriages squealed to a halt. The doors were still opening when Ishmir shouldered through, twisting them out of shape as he made his exit across the station like a bat out of hell. He was human and fully armored again, locked to his thigh was his customary sidearm and cradled across his chest was a BR55HB service rifle; a long barreled cross between a weapon system suited to the roles of an infantryman and a designated marksman.

As he took up position and peered through the battle scope, Marko and Twilight Sparkle followed. Marko had a shotgun hung diagonally across his back and the short barreled near imitation of Ishmir’s rifle, an MA5C assault rifle, held in both hands.

Following in the rear Twilight wore her helmet again, as well as the saddle bags she wore back on Reach. Clipped to her sides were several magazines and spare shells for the Headhunter weapons as well as an emergency pistol just in case.

As Flintlock team were weaving through the abandoned streets, Twilight Sparkle looked up at the situation in the air. The Covenant ship still hung over Canterlot, hanging in the sky among the sporadic clouds like a shark among a school of fish.

The flames consuming Canterlot glowed across its belly.

Lances of plasma rained down on the city, flashing from the ship’s gunports and the turrets of drop ships and support fighters dominating the sky. Pegasi in gold armor zipped one way and another. One or two banshees were caught in crossing magical beams arching through the sky before exploding. But for every Covenant craft that disappeared in balls of fire, three pegasi would drop from the sky like rocks.

“Incoming!” Marko yelled, dropping to his knees and sliding through the slush glazing the street.

Ishmir dropped beside him and Twilight behind an upturned cart as an energy burst clipped a banshee. The rapid attack craft rolled, spinning out of control before clipping the buildings down the street. It bounced like a pinball, back and forth for a moment, before slamming into a storefront just a few meters away and bursting into flames.

The Spartans huddled over Twilight flashed golden light, their shields flickering with the impact of flaming debris.

“This is insane,” Marko commented as he rolled over and shouldered his assault rifle. “What kind of defenses do you ponies have for shit like this?”

“We used to have the Elements of Harmony, but since we had to give those up to save Equestria last time…” Twilight shrugged. “None that I’m aware of.”

“None!?”

“Well… Princess Celestia is extremely powerful,” Twilight admitted after some contemplation. “She’s probably our last hope now.”

“Then why isn’t she out here fucking up the Covenant’s day?”

Twilight’s lips parted before a brief swell of panic flared in her eyes. “Something must have happened. We need to get to Canterlot palace. We have to make sure the princesses are okay!”

Marko scoffed, letting loose a sustained burst from his weapon. His rounds found the torso of a jackal sniper hopping about on a rooftop, sending it toppling out of view. Ishmir followed up with a single shot and the jackal’s spotter followed suit.

“We don’t have time to rescue a princess,” Marko snarled. “We have to focus on breaking this assault…”

“No Marko, she’s right.” Ishmir pointed up at the palace looming over them. “If we can secure the princess and she’s as powerful as Warlock says she might be able to help. Worst case scenario we use the palace as elevation to commandeer transport into that Covenant ship.”

“And then what?” Marko argued. When he was met with silence the Spartan turned his head to notice Ishmir was juggling a grenade. Marko’s tone changed in an instant. “I love this plan. Let’s do it.”

The three blocks that followed were cleared swiftly. Most of the Covenant ground forces seemed to be gathered at the palace. Aside from a few snipers taking pot shots at them, the headhunters had very little opposition. There weren’t even too many civilians to watch for. Everypony had turtled up, leaving the streets in an instant to retreat inside and bar the windows and doors.

Marko’s trigger finger wavered for a brief moment as he snapped to one side and aimed into a window. Inside he sighted the trembling forms of a pony family, three of them, two adults huddling over a small foal that was crying.

They stared at his visor in terror the Spartan wondered what they were thinking. What was going through their heads? Probably the same things that went through his head when the Covenant descended on his world and took everything he knew and loved from him.

Gritting his teeth, Marko quickly shut the window’s wooden shutters to hide the family before turning to secure the team’s back and jogged to catch up with Ishmir and Twilight.

The palace at the heart of the chaos loomed in menacingly. The thud of energy weapons and whine of magic grew louder with every clunking step the headhunters closed in. Until finally the screams of battle were cranked up to full volume.

Kneeling by the corner of an alley, Marko peeked around. Up ahead were the main gates leading into the palace gardens, and around the pillars of the tall decorative gates a desperate battle for the front porch was being fought. He caught the tail end of some ponies, a mix of unicorns and earth-ponies belting everything they had, from magic and spears to battle-cries and harsh words at the Covenant soldiers dominating the grand palace doors.

“Let’s move fast,” Ishmir said as he peeked around the corner above Marko.

Nodding the headhunter reached back, patted Twilight Sparkle on the helmet as if checking she was still there, then the Spartan-3 led the sprint. All three of them sprinted it full tilt, the humans’ long strides drawing them far ahead of the princess before they dropped into the muddy slush.

Ishmir dove for the deck behind the gate pillar as Marko dropped to his knees and slid to a halt beside him. Twilight rolled into a ball and tumbled into cover between them hoping the Covenant aggressors ahead hadn’t spotted them.

Marko just had to ask though; “You think they spotted us?”

The answer was an unrelenting volley of rapid fire energy lances and plasma bolts smashing into the pillar. The intricate stonework shattered and chipped, the hinges of the gate melted and twisted to the point the decorative fence popped loose and curled into a partially scrunched up ball of foil with the heat.

The trio immediately curled into a tight ball, the Spartans’ shields flaring as they were winged and skimmed by stray lances of Covenant fire.

When the volley of harassment ended, Twilight groaned as her head slowly lifted from between her front hooves. “You and your big mouth!”

Another volley, more focused this time, slammed into their cover as Ishmir slid a small wire from one of his pouches. He attached the fiber optic camera to his helmet, then snaked it around the corner to get a look at the battlefield.

Marko shared the imagery and was treated to the sight of the ponies in Royal Guard armor pinned at the bottom of the sweeping steps leading up to the palace entrance. They had erected barricades and the earth-ponies donned massive shields that blocked the volleys of fire coming from a trio of fixed plasma gun emplacements on the balcony at the top of the stairs.

Withdrawing the cable, Ishmir righted his rifle and batted Marko on the shoulder. They shared a nod like they knew exactly what they were about to do. But as if just for Twilight Sparkle’s benefit, Ishmir suggested, “You up for a run?”

“Always.” Marko found his feet as Ishmir shimmied to the edge of the pillar.

“COVERING!”

Ishmir stepped around cover and laid into the Covenant position with three-round bursts from his battle rifle. Every trigger pull was another belt of projectiles that threw the alien harassers off-balance. One grunt behind one of the plasma guns toppled backwards under a mist of fluorescent blood. A jackal tried to take his place but took a burst to the neck and fell gurgling out of view.

While the Covenant scrambled, Marko threw himself sideways. “BOUNDING!”

He sprinted swiftly with the stock of his rifle tucked under one arm, his other arm swinging back and forth for balance. The human cannonball sprayed up a curtain of gravel in his wake, the force of each bound pulverizing the patio tiles under him.

By the time Ishmir started taking return fire, Marko rolled in behind a large planter further up.

“Marko! You good!?” Ishmir bellowed.

“Fuck yeah! Good times!” Marko righted himself and popped around the planter to lace the Covenant position with rounds. “COVERING!”

Accepting his buddy’s covering fire, Ishmir patted Twilight on the side. “C’mon, Warlock! We’re moving!”

As they slipped around cover, Ishmir yelled “BOUNDING!” and led the charge past Marko’s captured position and right up the tails of the Royal Guard. Though as Twilight Sparkle threw herself into the shadow of a barricade where the other ponies were cowering, Ishmir kept his head up and took his turn at the aliens, giving Marko a chance to catch up.

As he reached the front line and did his part, switching magazines and keeping shorter, accurate bursts of fire on the Covenant, the cycloptic Royal Guard earth-pony in charge gaped disbelievingly at the two aliens fighting on his side. Sergeant Buck Shot even had to lift up his eye-patch and blink hard with both eyes just to make sure what he was seeing really was real.

“What from the depths of Tartarus!?” the sergeant cried with surprise before looking at Princess Twilight Sparkle.

“Take a breath, sergeant. This is Ishmir and Marko. They’re allies of Equestria. They’re here to help!” Twilight quickly explained.

The guardspony shook his head then rubbed his eyes before lowering his eye-patch again. “Aw, heck! This day’s been so crazy; what’s two more aliens? Ya’ heard that, Sure Shot? What you think of getting a little help with our alien problem!?”

An amber unicorn up the line missing some of his armor kept his head up and belted magic missiles up at the Covenant. “I can dig it, sarge!”

The headhunters shared a knowing glance, recognizing some of the Royal Guard bravado. They weren’t unlike the marines back home. Maybe a little less potty-mouthed, but that was to be expected of ponies. They just hoped they had some skills to back up that swagger.

“Keep up the good work, sergeant,” Ishmir told the pony in charge. “We’ll flank and clear the enemy foxhole.”

“Be my guest,” the sergeant invited before looking to the stallions and mares under him. “Guardsponies! Watch your fire! The scary walking tanks wanna have a crack at these alien degenerates! WHAT DO Y’ALL THINK!?”

“OOH-RAH!”

They were definitely like marines.

Gesturing for Twilight to stay put, Ishmir dropped onto his stomach and leopard-crawled towards the right flank of the staircase. Marko quickly followed, and within a second they were outside the Covenant emplacements’ arcs of fire. They were like fixed machine guns, their swivels only had a certain angle to work with. But the constant streams of suppressing fire ensured everything in those narrow arcs either died or wouldn’t dare poke its head up.

Looking back Ishmir saw a few of the earth-ponies fall as the plasma streams burned through their shields and a unicorn caught a bolt to the face. They had to hurry, those ponies wouldn’t last much longer.

“Let’s kick it into high gear,” Ishmir said rising to a knee on the staircase flank.

“Let’s do it.”

Marko put his foot into the cradle Ishmir formed with his hands and was boosted up the steep side to the staircase’s flanking balustrade above. He caught it with ease, then reached down allowing Ishmir to follow upwards along his body.

Hanging just under the Covenant’s flank, the duo nodded three times in silent count, then pulled themselves up into a clean vault onto the staircase.

They were almost three quarters way up, closer than any of the ponies had gotten to the top of the stairs, and they were just outside the angle of suppressing fire rained down by the Covenant. The grunt on the plasma cannon directly in front of them could have had more discipline and when it spotted the headhunters, could have simply pointed it out to a superior. But instead he tried to swivel his gun, sending a stream of fire away from the ponies below.

The cannon’s swivel locked and the bolts of plasma skimmed by at the Spartans’ heels. They were already leaping up treads four at a time, drawing their weapons and taking aim. The grunt who spotted them screamed and abandoned post to scramble for his sidearm, but it was too little too late.

Ishmir fired while running, landing a perfect shot right on the grunt’s head and sending it tumbling away. Marko followed up at the same time, nailing a jackal in the temple.

That was when a brute commanding the alien fireteam spotted them, but his barking orders didn’t do anything to slow the headhunters down. They had their sights set on an objective. And no force in the galaxy could stop them from taking it.

Marko lowered the muzzle of his assault rifle to the deck, stepped around Ishmir’s back and snapped the MA5C level again to put a long burst into a brute. The apish alien howled, swatting at a swarm of invisible bees before his sleek blue armor overloaded and popped, belching steam and smoke. A few rounds later the brute was on the ground and the Spartans laid into the rest of them.

All aliens turned to face the rushing demons, opening a salvo of blistering plasma that washed over the headhunters. But their shields glowed blocking them from the entire stream of energy. There was no cover to be had on the plateau outside the palace doors, so no chance to duck and weave. But that worked both ways.

The Spartans ran while shooting, overwhelming the covenant with speed and aggression. Marko interrupted a reload to bash one jackal in the face. As the alien did a bloody pirouette he stomped his boot down on a grunt head then racked a round in the chamber and unleashed his MA5C on a brute.

Ishmir popped off heads, even nailing a brute so hard it flew head over heels and tumbled like a ridiculous rag-doll. And when his magazine ran dry he didn’t bother reloading, slinging the BR55 and yanking loose his pistol. He maintained his bladed stance to the enemy, keeping his elbows at right angles with his off-hand folded comfortably around the front of his pistol’s hand-guard and the sights angled in front of his good eye. The slide worked furiously back and forth with each shot, ventilating two jackals in quick succession as they tried to turn and run.

Marko slipped around behind Ishmir again, this time dropping his assault rifle and gripping the handle of his combat knife. He put himself between his brother and a brute staggering armor-less on Ishmir’s flank. The alien had Flintlock-one dead to rights with a spike rifle for a moment, but Marko intervened faster than the brute could even realize he was going to be dead in the next few moments.

Pushing the alien weapon out of his face, Marko freed his knife from the sheath then slammed the blade home several times in the brute’s torso in quick succession with all the tenderness of a jailhouse shivving. The ceramic plates of the alien armor yielded to over a dozen blade-strikes.

Catching the scene in the corner of his eye, Ishmir moved on from where the Spartan-3 pinned the brutalized enemy and popped two more grunts in the head while moving.

A battle to capture the palace entrance that had lasted about an hour had been ended abruptly in a thirty second scrap.

“Clear,” Ishmir snarled as he kicked a brute still squirming and stomped it out of its misery.

“Clear,” Marko agreed until a shot of energy winged his charging shields, halting the process and making the bar at the top of his HUD flash again.

“Dipshit!” he yelled down the stairs.

“Sorry!” came Sure Shot’s sheepish reply.

The ponies at the bottom of the steps uprooted their position and climbed frantically to where the headhunters stood. When they reached the top plateau they were taken a little back by the alien graveyard at their hooves.

“Whoa,” one guardspony muttered looking across the field of death, then regarding the Spartans. “And these guys are on our side?”

“That’s a relief,” another pony admitted.

The brief moment of celebratory rest was interrupted by the whine of anti-gravity engines. Looking up, the headhunters spotted an incoming phantom dropship. Though thankfully instead of strafing their position it minimized the risk of taking possible anti-air fire and skirted the Canterlot Palace gardens before setting down in the square beyond the gates. The flanking hatches opened and a fresh fireteam of Covenant warriors

“The brutes ‘ll come running. They’ve probably got our scent,” Ishmir said pointing the aliens out.

Sergeant Buck Shot laughed at the possibility. “Then they must love the smell of hero!” Looking at Twilight Sparkle, Buck Shot nodded towards the palace suggestively. “Get in there and do your thing, princess. We’ll keep them off your back.”

Marko chuckled as he turned to the doors with Twilight and Ishmir. “Oh, I like these guys!”

With his rifle reloaded and held ready, Ishmir put his shoulder to the palace doors and pushed them open just enough to allow the trio to slip through. But as they did hell unleashed.

Plasma slammed into the walls beside them and they scattered. Ishmir grabbed Twilight and threw her behind a pillar to the right before joining her in cover. Marko dove in the opposite direction and landed on the first few treads of a flanking stairway that led upwards.

The corridor before them was perfectly straight with a high vaulted ceiling and wide enough to roll a Scorpion tank through. There were no windows, with the corridor being at the heart of the palace and the natural looking light beamed in from the glowing chandeliers of gold and glass high above. There were large marble pillars every couple of meters plastered along the sides of the corridors to form the only cover in the cavernous space.

And down range sat a large Covenant contingent of mostly grunts, jackals with a few brutes commanding the clustered fireteams. To remedy the sparse cover they had erected portable shields, oval shaped films of light behind which a single Covenant trooper could take cover. But the things were just like their personal shields, they could only take so much abuse.

“This main corridor leads to the main stairwell at the end, as well as the throne room,” Twilight explained over the thud of plasma weapons harassing them. “If Princess Celestia is anywhere, that’s where she’ll be.”

“Any way around these Charlie Foxtrots?” Marko asked pointing a thumb in the direction of the Covenant.

“There’s another corridor like this one right above us that attaches to the balcony usually used to address the citizens of Equestria at formal functions,” Twilight said prodding the air with her hoof.

“That could be swarming with hostiles too,” Ishmir said. “Marko, head upstairs and sweep it. I’ll deal with the trash down here.”

Marko nodded then followed his gun muzzle up the stairs before disappearing from sight. Ishmir in the meantime turned to Twilight and gestured her to stay put.

“Stay hidden, Warlock. I’ll deal with this.”

“But,” Twilight Sparkle began to say, but Ishmir was already gone.

One moment he seemed to be turning transparent, then Twilight blinked, and then Ishmir had vanished into a shimmer in the air.

The Covenant assault on the headhunters – or so they thought – continued. The brute in charge ensured his troops were alternating fire, keeping the maximum amount of guns unloading while some of the small arms paused to cool. The brute seemed satisfied.

Then something strange happened.

A shimmer of light appeared closer to their position, on the opposite end of where the red demon had dived for cover with the little pony. The shimmer of light was accompanied with a flash of red armor and a flicker of a ballistic weapon’s muzzle.

Rounds chewed into the brute’s helmet without pause until the armor burst with a cloud of steam. The following rounds punctured the alien’s skull and it did a backflip, thudding into the ground with a wet smack.

The rest of the aliens shifted their fire towards the shimmer of light the shots had come from, but it was already gone. Another flicker of a muzzle and a pair of grunts dropped with neat headshots delivered to each. The line of plasma fire shifted again, but sizzled only air again.

Ishmir kept leaping and bounding around. He had to make sure not to move too fast, as it was he was draining his suit’s power significantly by taking shots at the Covenant. Every shot he’d overload the cloaking capacitors and he’d have to lie still or quickly roll into cover before the enemy spotted him. Then after a cooldown he could cloak up and move out again to get a new position and drop a few more Covenant.

Hell and fury erupted somewhere above his head. As Ishmir continued his own systematic sweep of the lower corridor he allowed himself to briefly imagine Marko prancing about upstairs on a slippery deck of Covenant corpses, happily bounding about in his own private nirvana. But just as quickly as Ishmir’s focus waned, he snapped back into the fight when he sighted exposed targets. They fell, and once again the Covenant failed to get a bead on him.

But Ishmir’s suit wasn’t getting any time to charge. Every engagement ended a handful of Covenant, but killed a segment of his power readout until finally…

The capacitors in the SPI armor vented, shooting hot air from the shielded heat-synchs near the shoulder blades. Ishmir was exposed in a second as the reactive surface turned back to a dull red color. The aliens were still surprised and it took them a millisecond to react. More than enough time for the Spartan.

Ishmir rolled sideways behind a portable shield and put his fist through an exposed grunt. The alien’s skull crushed in one sweeping movement before he sprinted around the side of his sparse cover. It popped under a volley of plasma, but Ishmir had displaced already.

He swept up a plasma pistol the grunt had dropped and kept his thumb on the trigger. The device started to shake violently as a ball of plasma gathered on the muzzle. He was aiming unsteadily with his off-hand, but he was close enough that he couldn’t miss.

The bolt was let off the leash and Ishmir dropped the overcharged pistol to return a steady grip to his battle rifle. Nearly instantly the plasma bolt streaked over the shorter aliens in the front then hit a power armored brute in the chest. The armor immediately failed and Ishmir snapped the alien in the head, dropping it in one go.

The enemy fire faltered giving Ishmir enough space to side step from an incoming volley, but still one lance of energy winged his shoulder. The Spartan-3 quickly rolled with the blow as a segment of his shield readout dropped. Swinging his aim around he fired one handed at the alien that winged him before diving for cover.

The burst caught a jackal in the ribs and flung it sideways into one of the portable shields. The impact made the shield flicker, but it held and the jackal cartwheeled to the deck.

Sliding on his front behind a pillar, Ishmir switched magazines before rolling on his back and aiming his rifle across his chest. His sights caught a grunt waddling from a flanking position and he put a burst through its stubby little legs. The alien fell and Ishmir sat up to aim more carefully now, ending it with a round to the head.

Getting to his feet, the headhunter broke cover the moment his shields were at full capacity again. Now he was at a hack-and-slash range, turning his battle rifle into a club. The stock connected with a grunt, smashing it into the deck before he took the rifle by the barrel and swung wide to catch a brute in the chin. The weapon was pretty much ruined at that point, but he had no doubt Twilight Sparkle was still holding a few spares.

Dropping the rifle he grabbed the brute by the chest plate and drew his pistol, putting the full magazine into the brute’s gut at point-blank range.

The alien fell groaning as Ishmir quickly dumped the empty magazine from his weapon. As he did so he flicked the weapon to one side, throwing the empty magazine sideways into the face of a nearby jackal. The force wasn’t enough to break its beak, but enough to keep it off balance while he pulled another magazine from his belt.

With the mag closed in his fist, Ishmir swung around and georged the jackal in the face, managing to buckle its beak with this final blow. Before the jackal had even hit the ground, Ishmir slid the magazine into his pistol, released the slide and fired twice, dropping the last two jackals still standing.

Giving the area one more sweep, Ishmir made sure none of the aliens were moving before he tuned into the battle raging upstairs. Like Twilight had explained the corridor ended in a stairwell with sweeping staircases of marble circling the grand doors up ahead. It was like a cylindrical shaft skirted with stairs going straight up.

Marko came straight down from above, surfing on the chest of a gold-armored brute before they both smashed into the ground in front of the throne room doors. The brute wasn’t moving under the Spartan-3, but that didn’t stop Marko from shoving the barrel of his shotgun in its mouth and pulling the trigger.

When the mist of gore settled he stepped off the alien and looked over his shoulder at Ishmir. “Sweep, clear.”

Ishmir flashed him a thumbs up and repeated “clear!” for Twilight.

She wasted no time stepping from cover and trotting casually through the alien graveyard towards the headhunters. Something in her had clearly changed. She wasn’t so jittery and unsure among the aliens and alien corpses anymore. The sight of blood was something she suddenly had gotten used to. And frankly Ishmir couldn’t figure out if that was a good thing or not.

As she approached, Marko took the time to kick a lifeless grunt out of her path.

“You’re such a gentlecolt,” Twilight Sparkle said with a smile.

Marko shrugged. “I have my moments.”

The trio approached the throne room doors, nearly as tall and grand as the main entrance to the palace. Marko slid a few shells into his M90 shotgun while Ishmir took the neglected MA5C from his buddy’s back.

Pressing the side of his helmet to the door, Marko boosted his audio and listened. There was a distinct whine of plasma rifles and splash of energy on shields. Someone or somepony in there was being harassed.

“Sounds like a fight.” Despite just getting out of a fight, Marko’s voice betrayed his eagerness to get stuck into some aliens again.

“What’s cover going to be like inside?” Ishmir asked looking at the princess by his side.

Twilight shrugged. “Like the main hall really. It’s pretty open. But I can erect a couple of shields for us.”

Ishmir was of two minds. First he didn’t want to put Twilight Sparkle in any unnecessary danger, but a couple of additional shields to dip and weave between would make things much easier. So he nodded.

Marko agreed. “Do it.”

With Warlock’s horn aglow with purple light, the headhunters stacked up and Flintlock team breached into the throne room.

“Oh, shit. This princess is pissed.”

There was no subtlety to their breach whatsoever. Even as they shouldered open the doors, Twilight Sparkle’s magic gave the entry a little more oomph.

The doors exploded off their hinges, sending them flying across either end of the throne room. One unsuspecting grunt was even wiped out, reduced to a fluorescent smear on the polished floor. The sight had Marko whooping excitedly.

Twilight hadn’t been kidding, the throne room was very open and very exposed. But as on the palace’s porch, the disadvantage worked both ways. The Covenant wouldn’t have cover either. And thankfully the mission objective was covered, so there was no fear of stray rounds taking out a princess.

In the center of the room was a bubble of light, a shield protecting four inhabitants from the dozen or so Covenant surrounding them. The aliens were stubbornly firing their weapons at the magical shield to no avail, and through the ripples of energy dispersed through the bubble Flintlock spotted four ponies.

They focused on the hostiles first. Twilight Sparkle erected a similar bubble shield over herself as well as a pair of pillars of light for the headhunters to use. All it would take for some simple verbal commands so she knew when to raise and lower the barriers.

“Firing!” both headhunters shouted and Twilight lowered the shields bar her own.

Marko and Ishmir ripped and tore into the unsuspecting enemy. Marko sprinted ahead and made short work of a jackal, pumping his shotgun and quickly flooring a brute with the next shot. A follow up put the monkey down for good and he moved into polish off some of the smaller aliens on his side of the throne room.

Ishmir jumped on a brute’s back and put half a magazine through the back of its head. It fell and the Spartan rolled smoothly on impact with the ground. Without missing a stride he yelled “reloading!” and dumped a mag from his assault rifle.

The MA5C clip hadn’t even hit the ground when Twilight erected a shield for Ishmir, absorbing some of the plasma fire directed at him from a line of jackals. Ishmir completed the reload and popped around the pillar, shouting “firing!” as he fired.

The shield popped out of existence as Ishmir moved out of the line of fire, firing a burst into the jackals. Unfortunately he didn’t drop them in one go.

The jackal shields interlocked frustratingly. Ishmir’s rounds just splashed against the disks of energy. The only way around them was literally to get around them. Which meant he’d need to get Marko to flank if he wasn’t terribly busy.

Or Ishmir could just go through.

Reaching back he pulled his frag grenade from an anchor point on his armor and primed the device. He linked the fuse to a timer on his HUD, counted, then flung the grenade directly at the jackals. It hit the polished floor, skipped like a stone over a pond and the object flew right between two jackals whose shields weren’t quite overlapped.

It was timed perfectly, the grenade thumping into an explosion right between the jackals. Consumed in fire and shrapnel, the two closest jackals were flung into a gory cartwheel. The others toppled, thrown off balance by the explosion. Ishmir immediately snapped up his assault rifle and raked the dog shit out of them while they were exposed.

Ishmir lowered his rifle for a second to turn and check on Marko when it hit. A freight train came ploughing through the Canterlot Palace throne room and collided with Ishmir, snapping his rifle clean in half and throwing him onto his back. The force of the impact dropped his shields down to a quarter. He was pretty sure the chest plate of his SPI was dented as well.

The halves of his assault rifle fell to either side of the Spartan as he lifted his arms over his head. The metaphorical freight train, which turned out to be a brute – go figure – lifted its own arms and started bashing the headhunter into the ground. His shields flickered some more until the energy bar was just a glowing sliver. Ishmir wouldn’t be able to take much more before the brute crushed him like a sailor crushing a beer can.

That was when something hit the brute back, and it wasn’t the Spartan.

With a splash of energy a small caliber round smacked into the brute’s temple. Then two more followed. Then another five rounds smacked into the helmet, the exact same place every time until the brute’s armor hissed and breached. Finally a quiet ‘twip’ sent a round into the brute’s temple and out the other side.

Two more rounds followed, practically passing through the same hole and the alien collapsed.

Ishmir pushed the brute off him and sat up, looking to see where the shots had come from. He half expected to see Marko had switched out his shotgun for a weapon with some more finesse. But instead he saw Twilight Sparkle with her shield down, levitating the smoking M6C pistol that had been holstered to her side in front of her.

Her eyes were wide and stunned. Ishmir couldn’t even tell if she was breathing, that was how still she was. Finding his feet he quickly moved closer, crouching in front of her and holding out his hand. If she accidentally fired again she wouldn’t breach his charging shields, but he wanted to be sure she didn’t hurt herself either despite clearly knowing what she was doing.

The level and angle at which she levitated the pistol allowed her to look through the sights with her magic manipulating the trigger and safety quite easily. And she was a darn good shot; Spartan-like grouping on her first go with a gun. She must have been watching the headhunters technique closely this whole time.

In the background he heard Marko yell “clear!” but he ignored his buddy for the moment. He trusted Marko enough to do a full sweep of the room, letting Ishmir focus on Twilight Sparkle for a minute.

“Warlock…” he started to say. “Twilight, are you okay?”

Ishmir edged closer reaching out for the gun. That was when Twilight blinked. She looked like she’d just woken from a trance and was figuring out where she was and what was going on. Then she withdrew the gun from Ishmir and looked down at it. The safety clicked on a second later.

Looking up again, Twilight swallowed, opening her mouth but unsure what to say. Looking past Ishmir she noticed the shield bubble still in the center of the room and suddenly the fact she’d just ventilated another living thing’s brain with bullets was forgotten.

“Celestia!” the princess cried galloping towards the shield, slotting the pistol back into its holster on her side.

As she ran up and planted her forehooves on the pink bubble of magic, Marko swaggered over with confusion clear in his voice. “Hey, Ish. What happened?”

“Warlock just dropped a brute.” Ishmir nodded to the brute with three neat holes in its temple.

“Oh, the virgin princess of friendship popped her cherry,” Marko laughed. “That’s great!”

Ishmir huffed, holding up a finger to tell Marko off. “We are not encouraging this,” he said moving after Twilight.

“Oh, come on, pops. You can’t protect the little ones forever.” Marko gave the dead brute Twilight had killed one more look then followed while pointing at the holes in the head. “That’s badass grouping though!”

Twilight Sparkle in the meantime was knocking her hooves on the bubble shield frantically trying to contact the pony-shaped blobs inside. “Hello!? Princess Celestia, are you in there?”

The bubble flickered then popped out of existence revealing the four ponies inside. Three were alicorns like Twilight, albeit taller. Another was a white furred unicorn in a fancy looking purple and gold permutation of the Royal Guard armor.

Twilight gasped with a smile at Princess Cadance and her brother Captain Shining Armor. Though they looked worse for wear, fur and mane a singed mess and tired bags under their eyes. Their horns flickered and spluttered, clearly having held that shield up together for a very long time while the Covenant assaulted them. Their magic was likely completely shot.

“Twilight?” Cadance asked wearily. “Oh, Twilight we thought we’d lost you!”

Cadance quickly scooped her little sister-in-law into a tight hug that Shining Armor joined in with.

“Shiny! Cadance! Thank goodness you’re alright,” Twilight nearly sobbed.

Shining Armor blinked then stepped back, checking out his sister’s combat harness and helmet. “What are you wearing?”

“Hey, I think she looks really fashionable,” Marko commented, drawing attention to himself and Ishmir.

The two ponies looked up and gaped, wide eyed.

Twilight quickly introduced her human friends. “This is Ishmir and that is Marko. They’re the Spartan headhunters I told you about. They’re here to help. You can trust them.”

“They’re real,” Cadance said with some disbelief and awe. “The aliens from the Everfree Forest you told us about… they’re real.”

Marko on the other hand greeted the ponies with a casual glance over his shoulder. “Hey, how you doin’?”

While the two stared at the tall Spartans, Twilight Sparkle tried to get back on track. “Cadance, have you seen Celestia and Luna. Were they...?”

She froze mid-sentence as Shining Armor stepped aside to reveal Celestia and Luna were nearby. And they looked worse than the married couple.

Luna’s injuries were less extensive despite the amount of blood in her coat. Burns and gouges in the skin spider webbed down the side of her face, narrowly missing her eye but connecting with the flank of her slender neck.

Princess Celestia lay on her side in a steadily growing puddle of blood that was connected with a smear of red indicating she had been dragged into the throne room. There was a massive raw chunk of meat missing from her chest with zig-zag cuts and bruises spreading down her side, across her ribcage and cutting into her wing quite a bit. Most of her body was stained crimson, but some of the bleeding was being stemmed by the magic emanating from Princess Luna’s horn.

The Spartan-3’s had seen the telltale gouge and burn of the brute maulers all too often. Normally any marine on the wrong end of the mauler would be an instant goner, but this princess was hanging on. She seemed strong, but they figured something to do with her sister’s magic was helping her hold on too.

Ishmir shook his head, not liking the looks of it none the less. “She’s not healing fast enough. Marko, biofoam.”

Marko nodded and threw Ishmir a can that was latched to his belt. Ishmir wasted no time kneeling opposite Luna as he deployed the can’s nozzle with a sharp click. But as he did the princess lifted her gaze and her eyes began to glow with the same light on her horn.

“Step away from our sister-…!” the princess began to bellow until Twilight Sparkle quickly jumped in.

“Princess Luna, wait! Let Ishmir help!” she cried almost pleadingly.

The familiar voice of her fellow princess drew Luna out of her rage as she averted her bewildered gaze to Twilight Sparkle. Satisfied the princess of the night was subdued for the moment, she gave Ishmir the nod and the Spartan set to work.

Pushing the nozzle as gently as he could into the hole in Celestia’s body he depressed the pressure valve and filled her up with a mixture of blank cells, disinfectants and anesthetic. Ishmir knew full well the cold burning sensation the biofoam gave you, having had holes in his body plugged with plenty of the stuff before. Celestia obviously felt the same sensation, twitching and drawing a ragged gasp of surprise. But then the anesthetic quickly set to work and she relaxed.

Pulling a field dressing from his kit, Ishmir finally set to work covering up her injuries to keep the biofoam in place. As he did the princess looked tiredly upward.

“You’re real,” Celestia whispered softly.

“So they keep telling me,” Ishmir responded as he tied down the field dressing. “The biofoam will kill some of the pain and help stop the bleeding, but you need to keep doing what you’re doing.” Ishmir looked up at Princess Luna to catch her staring into his visor. Angrily snapping his fingers in her face, he got her to focus again. “Did you hear what I said!?”

“We… err…”

“Keep doing what you’re doing.”

Luna swallowed, hearing this time and she set to work. Her horn glowed again and the midnight glow of her magic took to Celestia’s injuries. The white alicorn winced for a moment, but kept her eyes open and Ishmir saw some of the smaller gouges in her skin begin to heal again.

Lifting his gaze he nodded to Twilight Sparkle, who broke into a relieved look. The alicorn would definitely need magical healing therapy for a few hours but she’d pull through.

The time to celebrate was short lived though. Through the thunder of battle raging outside and rattling the throne room windows in their panes there was a loud, sharp ‘tchock!’ The sound of metal striking marble grew with each pregnant moment, sounding out with a steady predictable rhythm.

“Well that’s ominous,” Marko commented on the sound swiveling to face the source.

Where the streak of Celestia’s blood over the ground met a doorway, the door swung open and framed the hulking figure of a brute too large to fit through the frame. It had to lower its head and shoulder through, and as it straightened up, growing before their eyes, Marko let out a tired groan.

It wasn’t another regular brute the Spartans so loved to deal with. This was a chieftain, the alpha of the pack outfitted with tougher armor systems and a big old hammer that could squish a Spartan-3 with one well-aimed swing.

The creature observed the five ponies and two demons, then huffed at the sight of Luna healing her sister. The mauler shotgun pistol on its belt was obvious and it didn’t take much brainpower for Flintlock to figure out who had injured the alicorn.

“Now would be a good time to earn that trust,” Shining Armor whispered to the headhunters.

Ishmir and Marko glanced at each other then readied their weapons. Ishmir drew his pistol and Marko slid shells into his shotgun.

Assuming a battle ready stance, Ishmir addressed Twilight Sparkle without looking at her. “Warlock, get the royalty out of here. We got this.”

“But…”

Marko held up a hand to stop her. “You heard the man, Warlock.”

“We got this,” Ishmir promised, gaze locked on the chieftain’s eyes.

Twilight frowned, then nodded and levitated her pistol to her front before beckoning the others to move. It took some doing, a little support here and there and the gentle application of telekinesis, but eventually the four ponies working together managed to get Celestia to her hooves and helped her hobble towards the exit.

The chieftain watched them go the way the headhunters had fought their way into the palace and took a step to follow. At the same time the two Spartans shimmied over keeping themselves between the brute and the ponies.

The chieftain looked straight at them as if only noticing them now and gave a deep throaty chuckle.

“You stand between me and my prey, demon,” the brute growled.

“We got a talker.”

“You speak pretty good English, Bobo,” Marko sniped.

“Know your enemy as you would know yourself,” the brute replied. “Now step aside before you get hurt, child.” He noticed the headhunters glancing at each other and let a smile creep over his thick lips. “I have met your kind before. The demons called headhunters. Assassins… children. Only humans would be so barbaric to have their children fight the wars of men.”

“Keep talkin’, asshole,” Marko snarled glancing over his shoulder to check Twilight had made it out with the other ponies. “We got all the time in the world.”

“Unfortunately I do not.” The chieftain shifted his hammer into a two-handed grip and begun to stride forward.

The Spartans prepared for hell. Ishmir racked his pistol. Marko made a ‘come-hither’ motion with his shotgun. It was time to dance.

The chieftain lurched forward into a charge which was met by the Spartans. Ishmir ducked to one side as the chieftain yanked its mauler from its belt and tried to draw a bead on the red headhunter. He drew his aim to one direction while Marko lined up his first shot. The bark of the shotgun caught the brute’s claw in the muzzle flare, forcing the alien to drop the weapon.

Roaring with rage the chieftain swung its hammer one handed down at Marko who dropped to his knees and slid in as close as possible. His shotgun was held up and blocked the strike along the handle, keeping the deadly hammer’s head crackling with energy far away from him. The impact may not have been several metric tons of artificial force, but it was still the full strength of the brute, enough to bend the shotgun into the shape of a boomerang.

Shifting aside, Marko turned his shotgun into a club and swung the stock into the back of the chieftain’s knee as hard as he could. The brute’s stance yielded and it fell to one knee, giving Ishmir on the far side of the monster time to swing his armored foot around in a neat roundhouse kick that caught the back of the chieftain’s head.

The proud creature was levered face down into the marble flooring by the headhunters’ combined efforts where Marko attempted to hold the creature down and Ishmir shot it repeatedly in the back of the head.

The rounds flattened against the chieftain’s helmet and disintegrated, not even coming close to penetrating.

With a roar the brute heaved itself up with a powerful push-up that threw Marko off balance. With room to breathe the chieftain grabbed Ishmir by the foot and swung him around, batting Marko across the throne room one way, then flinging Ishmir in the opposite direction.

Flintlock-One smacked into the ground and tumbled. Sparks erupted from his armor as he hit one more time and twisted in the air, landing on his feet before he bounced a third time. Sliding to a halt, Ishmir wind-milled his arms for balance and gently came to a stop before cratering into a wall.

He reloaded his pistol with three quick motions, then ran headlong back into the chieftain’s roaring challenge. Seeing him coming the brute lined up for a horizontal strike. But Ishmir saw it coming as much as the chieftain saw his charge coming.

Ishmir dropped to the deck and flattened himself as best he could, skittering over his flaring shields and right underneath he chieftain’s clumsy swipe. Ishmir kept going, sliding between the brute’s legs before he dug his fingers and toes into the marble and scraped to a halt, firing his pistol into the chieftain’s back as he did.

Rounds popped out of existence against the shielded armor as the chieftain tried to turn. Ishmir immediately threw himself forward and collided with the hilt of the hammer to keep the brute from powering up a swing.

Locking the weapon against his chest, Ishmir used his pistol to strike downward on the brute’s arms in an attempt to loosen the weapon from its grip. But when that didn’t work he went for the face, a quick strike for the nose or anything else that might be soft and fragile.

The brute was faster though, catching the back of Ishmir’s fist with ease before lifting the combined tonnage of the boy’s enhanced musculature and armor into the air like he weighed no more than a children’s toy.

“Whoa-whoa-whoa!” Ishmir cried out, kicking for some kind of purchase as he was flipped head over heels and smashed into the deck.

Little explosions of pain materialized in front of his eyes as he tried to make sense of which way was up and down. The claxon indicating his shields were dead droned monotonously keeping him just conscious enough to spot the chieftain hefting his hammer.

Soon Ishmir realized he was at the striking pad on one of those carnival strength testers and the chieftain was about to flatten him. He held up his arms for whatever good it would have done… and suddenly something snagged his foot.

Marko heaved and pulled Ishmir from his Spartan-shaped crater, pulling his buddy clear of the hammer as it came down. When it did there was a shockwave and a lot of debris, but both Marko and Ishmir were very much clear of the blast radius.

The alien ape brought the weapon up again, howling with frustration as it turned to Marko, but the Spartan was already leaping forward.

His custom knife came down, ending Marko’s short flight as he slipped the blade into the chieftain’s collar bone. Then bracing his armored boots on the beast’s gut, cocked back his free arm and flexed his fingers into a solid fist.

The servos in his arm powered up to borderline dangerous output with a soft ‘bweeeeee,’ and Marko unleashed the fury. Punch after punch hammered the chieftain square in the face, with enough force and frequency to force the fucker back a few steps.

“Go to sleep!” Marko shouted with every jab that would pulverize concrete to the chieftain’s face. “Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep!”

Marko kept jabbing and punching, but it seemed he wasn’t doing any damage. And all progress halted when the chieftain caught the headhunter’s fist like a sniper snatching a fly out of the air as a neat parlor trick.

The chieftain smiled and Marko sighed with frustration.

“You’re going to smash me into the ground now, aren’t you?” Marko deadpanned.

“I’m going to smash you into the ground now,” the chieftain confirmed.

Lifting Marko clean into the air by his neck, the Spartan managing to drag his knife bloodied knife with him, the chieftain turned the young warrior over and smashed him straight into the ground. Then to follow up he kicked Marko in the chest, draining the rest of his shields with a powerful enough belt to send the Spartans sliding away.

Picking up his hammer again to follow through and pulverize the Spartan, the chieftain was distracted by a swarm of bees swatting his armor. Turning he averted his charge towards Ishmir who was scrambling to his feet and emptying his pistol into the brute’s chest.

None of the rounds had any effect and the chieftain howled with triumph and excitement. “You fight like young ones; with fire and rage! Refreshing! It reminds me of how I fought in my youth!”

Ishmir and the brute connected; and the chieftain swept Ishmir off his feet. They smashed into a wall, then went clean through the fine masonry and crashed into the floor on the other side. The corridor just outside the throne room was narrow and low, almost like a servant’s access tunnel rather than the grand royal tunnels the headhunters had explored thus far.

The chieftain’s hammer skidded off to one side in the aftermath of their crash, and the brute quickly brought a fist down on Ishmir’s helmet, killing the remnants of his partially charged shields and cracking the boy’s visor. Satisfied the groaning demon would stay put for the moment, the brute casually stood, brushing off its armor and sauntered to where his hammer lay.

“And then I learned to fight smart,” it said while lifting up the gravity hammer and inspecting it for damage.

“Too bad for you, I learned how to fight smart too.”

This confused the chieftain until the prone Spartan waggled his fingers at the brute. On each of the armored fingers glistened the safety pin from a grenade and with some horror the chieftain looked down to its grenade belt… every one of the devices was blinking a warning as the timed fuses counted down.

Ishmir laughed defiantly as the brute struggled to undo the grenade belt buckle.

“Tick-tick-b-…”

BOOM!!!

The explosion blossomed between them with enough force to split the supporting struts of the corridor and the ceiling came crashing down on both of them.

Nerbyus followed the long dried blood trails Celestia and Luna had made and back tracked to the skydocks. There were a number of fallen jiralhanae littered among the larger number of dead equines in guard armor. The drop ship had long pulled away to move more troops up and down the palace, and from his vantage point spotted a few of the ships in motion whizzing by with banshee escorts.

The chieftain brushed some of the chalky marble dust from his fur, then winced with pain. He had managed to undo his grenade belt in time and throw it aside, but he hadn’t managed to clear the blast radius in time. A jagged piece of grenade shrapnel was sticking out of his shin. He could barely put weight on the leg and used the hilt of his hammer as a crutch as he hobbled to the edge of the docks. He had been cut off from the demons that had given him such trouble, and he could only hope the red armored one had been buried alive and was now suffocating slowly to death.

He relished the thought.

His beacon blinked and the ops-coordinator aboard the Purveyor of Truth pinged his comms. “Chieftain. We can commence bombing of the palace once you are clear!”

“Negative,” Nerbyus responded hiding the pain of his injury from his voice. “Withdraw all troops and prepare for ascent to low orbit.”

“But chieftain! We have the advantage!”

Nerbyus nodded. “Maybe. But hubris has already cost us the lives of many brothers. We must reconvene. Meditate on what we have learned today. Have you completed the luminary scans?”

“Yes, chieftain. A phantom is coming for you now. I shall beam the results to a terminal for you.”

A gentle breeze played at the ends of Nerbyus’ longer strands of fur while a drop ship swooped down and turned to hover directly overhead. A beam of light connected with the jiralhanae and lifted him into the air, relieving the burning pain in his shin.

The relief was short lived though, as he reached the inside of the phantom and was set on the ground again. The sudden shift of his weight took the wind out of his lungs and a few jiralhanae warriors already aboard rushed to their chieftain’s aid. Any other chieftain would stubbornly roar at them, not willing to show any weakness. But these jiralhanae had Nerbyus’ unrelenting respect already. He taught them the physical muscle was not the only muscle that mattered in a fight. It was the intelligence of a warrior coupled with brute strength that won the day. Controversial thinking of course, but Nerbyus had made the philosophy work time and time again.

He brushed off his underlings and limped to the terminal at the front of the troop bay. The troops returned to closing off the flanking hatches and disabling the gravity lift as the ship gained altitude to rendezvous with the Purveyor of Truth.

Pulling out the terminal he ran his claws over the holographic panel. A luminary scan report blinked at Nerbyus and he began to read, making sure not to skip a single line.

A traditionalist jiralhanae chieftain would have pressed on stubbornly with the bombardment and wholesale slaughter. He could theoretically just bomb the ponies from orbit, incinerate them with divine fire. But they had proven a hardy and resourceful race thus far, should he turn their capitol to ash there was no telling how lethal and fanatical their retaliation may be.

Nerbyus was no traditionalist and he had no interest in making martyrs.

The report made him smile. Today had not been a waste of time and manpower. He had what he wanted, and what he had wanted this morning was time. Now the real work could begin. He accessed the ship’s weapons and vehicles inventory and found the item with associated schematics he was looking for.

With a single button press he sent the orders to release the Kraken.

“That’s right, you degenerates! Run!” Sergeant Buck Shot yelled with a volume that had Twilight thinking she would surely need an ear-drum healing spell.

At the bottom of the palace’s front steps the collection of leftover aliens Buck Shot’s team of guardsponies had successfully held off turned tails and ran for a waiting drop ship that took them away. In fact, all over Canterlot the alien ships were being recalled to the Covenant cruiser which was beginning to ascend in retreat. Though Twilight Sparkle couldn’t figure out why. The aliens had ponies dead to rights. Why pull out now?

Twilight Sparkle didn’t watch the Covenant. Her gaze was turned to the palace doors with an intense focus. Sensing her former pupil’s concern, Celestia limped closer and draped one of her ruined wings over young princess’ shoulders.

“They seem capable. I’m sure they are fine,” she assured, and Twilight nodded.

Celestia was still being seen to by Luna’s magic. It was a slow go, but more of the torn flesh staining her white fur red was knitting and healing. Shining Armor and Cadance were exausted on the other hand. The Covenant had been hammering their shields so hard they were too exhausted to even levitate a pebble. They just stayed in the cover provided by a few Royal Guard shield bearers and caught their breath.

Averting her glance from the other princesses back to the doorway she suddenly noticed one of the doors edged open a little more and Twilight Sparkle’s ears perked up. Then stumbling out came Marko, his olive green armor and numerous visceral trophies impossible to mistake. But burdened over his shoulder was a large red ragdoll.

“Ishmir!” Twilight gasped, running over as Marko fell uneasily to one knee, sliding his buddy off his shoulders.

Ishmir hit the deck with a loud metal clamor and didn’t move. At least, not until Twilight jumped on him, her forehooves connecting with his abdomen. As if he could feel the pressure through his armor, the Spartan gave an “oof!” and jerked to life.

“He’s fine,” Marko assured, brushing some of the dust and shrapnel from his armor. “Dumbass just thought it was a good idea to go playing with hand grenades.

Looking at the pistol carried in his hand, Marko threw it up, caught it by the barrel then offered it back to Ishmir. The Spartan lifted his head, glanced between the weapon and Twilight then took the pistol and tried to get to his feet. Marko took him by the wrist and with Twilight Sparkle’s magic pushing under his back they managed to get him upright.

“Gahd, you’d almost think you had just been blown up,” Marko joked.

“I was just blown up.”

“Ah, walk it off, ya’ pussy.”

“We need to get ready for round two,” Ishmir said once he was steady, and Shining Armor looked confused for a moment.

“Why? The aliens are retreating.”

“It was too easy,” Luna said darkly. “They don’t seem the kind to just retreat.”

Marko nodded at that. “Moon Princess is right. Covenant don’t just pull out. They’re either going to come back with a vengeance, or they’re going to try and bomb the shit out of us from higher up.”

“Celestia?” Princess Cadance asked timidly. “What should we do?”

Celestia seemed deep in thought for a moment. There was evident pain in her eyes, and nobody could tell if it was physical or mental pain… but Twilight’s money was on the pain of regret. They locked eyes for a moment and suddenly something in Celestia’s gaze clicked.

There was a darkness in her eyes the youngest alicorn princess had never seen before in all the years she’d known the matriarch. But at the same time there was a determination.

Lifting her head, Princess Celestia looked to the Covenant ship and said; “Kill them all.”

Marko scoffed, but did so with a smile. “Oh, shit. This princess is pissed. Covvies started a fight now.”

“They did start it.” Ishmir looked down and saw Warlock levitating her pistol in front of her, making sure it was ready for a fight.

“And we’re going to finish it,” the young princess added.

Flintlock shared a fist-and-hoof-bump and an unbreakable will to see this through to the end.

Flintlock is not out of the fight yet…