Halo: The Interlopers

Jason got up and surveyed the area he’d landed in. The forest was less dense than he’d expected considering the canopy’s thickness. His gear was still with him and in working order.

Good. I’m in deep and I’ll need every bit of help to-

He spotted Fluttershy.

“Oh no,” He moaned, worried about the state of his companion. He rushed over to her, and knelt by her side. There were eleven lacerations along her right side, varying in depth from just a millimeter deep to a whole centimeter deep.

The cuts on her wing were fairly shallow, which was fortunate as it would have been much more difficult to apply any treatment through the feathers. The other lacerations went from her chest to flank, and were significantly deeper.

She was clearly conscious, her eyes open, although squinted in pain. She groaned softly, the gashes taking their toll and stinging her badly.

“Fluttershy,” Jason whispered. “Stay with me alright?”

“O-Okay,” she murmured.

“Good, now I’m going to apply biofoam; that’ll sting a lot at first. After that it’ll numb the pain. It’ll seal the wound and prevent infection; you’ll be almost as good as new after I apply it.”

Jason grabbed a nearby piece of wood, and showed it to Fluttershy.

“I want you to bite down on this as hard as you can when I spread it onto the cuts, and try to be quiet, alright?” Jason instructed.

“Alright,” Fluttershy said weakly.

Jason sprayed a small amount of foam on the deeper cuts, and rubbed it in gently. Fluttershy squealed in agony and bit down on the wood Jason had given her; the foam felt like hundreds of burning ants crawling through the wound. He repeated the process with the shallower cuts as well, which stung less than with the deeper ones.

“Okay, I’m done. Sorry about the pain, but biofoam just does that.”

Fluttershy spit out the chunk of wood; the bite marks on it were surprisingly deep. She got up on all fours rather quickly, and stretched her legs. Satisfied that everything was working all right, she turned to face her healer.

“Thank you Jason, I feel much better now,” She said with a smile.

“Don’t mention it. Oh, and here’s a fun fact: the name ‘Jason’ is Greek in origin and means ‘healer’. Kind of fitting, seeing as I’m fairly skilled with medicine.”

“Oh, that’s actually a rather interesting coincidence.”

Jason stood up and drew his M6G.

“Come on, we should try and find Ethan and Rainbow Dash. I have a rough idea of where they are, so we’ll work with that.”

Fluttershy nodded and followed him. She was very worried about Rainbow’s condition, and was eager to make sure she was alright.

***

“Damn it, not again!” Rainbow Dash groaned.

Ethan rose out of the water he’d landed in and looked at the source of the complaining. Dash had struck a thick tree branch when she followed him down, and injured her wing.

“What do you mean ‘again’?”

“This is the same wing I broke a few months ago! Please tell me you’re not gonna keep me bedridden!” She gave him a sad look, her rose-colored eyes dominating his attention.

Ethan looked around. “I don’t see any beds to stick you in, and I ain’t carrying you unless I have to. You aren’t cut or bleeding anywhere, so infections won’t be a problem, so just try not to fly on that wing, okay?”

“Okay.” Dash said with a sigh. She moved her wing into a resting position, groaning as she did so. “Now what do we do?”

“I’ll try to contact Jason first, and we’ll meet up with him and Fluttershy. Then we’ll try to get help.” He activated his comms. “Surgeon, this is Maverick do you copy?”

“Aff-ksh-tive. I have Fluttersh-kshhhhhhhhh but she’s gonna be alright . I’ll rendezvous w-kshhhhh at grid postion seven-echo-niner. What is your status?”

“I’ve got Dash, but she broke a wing coming down. We’ll meet you there. Maverick out.”

The transmission had been patchy, but the location was understood fine; the phoenetic alphabet had been created for situations like this, where communication was unclear or difficult to distinguish, whether that be because of natural reasons or artificial ones.

“What was that about?”

“Jason and Fluttershy are alright, and they’ll meet us six klicks northeast of here. We’d better start moving now, bogs like this get dangerous at night. From what I know of the animals that live on this planet, it’ll be even more so than usual.”

Ethan inspected his weapons; his assault rifle was perfectly functional, although that didn’t surprise him, and his shotgun was in working condition as well.

He slung his shotgun over his back and began to wade through the waist-deep water. For the grounded Rainbow Dash, it was more like chest-deep, and she hated every moment of her immersion.

“This sucks,” she said.

“I like the way this sucks,” Ethan responded. “I’d have more fun if somepony weren’t whining, though.”

“I’m not whining, I’m complaining! There’s a difference! Besides, it’s not like you’ve ever broken a wing.”

“You’re right, and I’ve never broken a bone either.”

They waded silently through the water until they reached the shore. At that point, Dash shook the water off with absurd efficiency, and got it all over Ethan’s armor. The water simply flowed off of his shields, and onto the ground, leaving his black and olive armor as clean as ever; which would be not very much so.

“Hey,” Rainbow asked with a sly grin, “I know what’d make this more fun!”

“What?”

“A race. First to get to that big tree wins.” Rainbow gestured towards a huge oak tree, approximately five hundred meters away. “When I win, you carry me for an hour. If by the grace of Celestia you win, hmm…”

“When I win,” Ethan retorted, “I get first choice of sleeping spots when we reach an area we can rest.”

“Deal!” Rainbow shouted. She spit on her hoof and held it out. Ethan grabbed and shook it, careful not to hurt her. “Nice grip,” she remarked.

“Three, two, one, go!” They counted down together.

Rainbow surged ahead, leaving Ethan in her dust. Ethan picked up speed and matched her velocity in less than four seconds. Rainbow looked over her shoulder to see Ethan right on her flank.

They were neck-and-neck when they reached the halfway point. Dash conserved her energy for the final stretch, and gave it her all when she hit it. She beat him hooves down!

As if to ruin her joy, a deafening roar came from behind her. She turned to see not one but two manticores attacking Ethan. He fought them off as best he could, but they didn’t give him a chance to do anything but dodge their attacks.

Dash charged and yelled at them, hoping to distract the monsters long enough to help Ethan get away. “Hey furballs! I’ve got your flank steak right here!”

Dear Celestia that was horrible. I need to think of better lines than that!

One of the manticores went after her, and closed with frightening speed. Ethan punched the other one in the jaw, stunning them with their mouth agape. He armed a grenade and threw it into the orifice, and ran for the next manticore. The resulting explosion and shower of meat obliterated the midsection of the beast and littered the area with red paste and blood sausages.

Rainbow Dash dodged the one charging at her and bucked it in the stomach. The animal backhanded Dash, leaving her vulnerable to a finishing blow. It paused to reorient itself, exposing its head to Ethan. Ethan fired a short burst into the creatures skull, penetrating it fully and ending its life.

Ethan calmly strode towards Dash, and reloaded his rifle. “Thanks for being the rabbit, I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Yeah you could’ve. Less awesomely, maybe.”

“Hah! Okay then, we’ve got another five clicks to go, so let’s pick up the pace, RB.”

“‘RB’?”

“R-B; Rainbow?”

“Okay, got it Eeth.”

‘RB’ and ‘Eeth’ continued their trek.

***

“You sure you don’t need to rest? I can carry you, or maybe get Ethan and Dash to wait for us,” Jason offered.

“No thank you, that’s okay,” Fluttershy responded. She seemed to be tougher than Jason had initially thought. He was beginning to see a remarkable mental resilience behind her aqua colored eyes.

The forest was getting increasingly dense. It was becoming difficult to see more than a few meters in front of them, and foliage was impeding their progress. After another hour, they came to a small clearing.

The space was about six meters in diameter, and one way in or out, with the other directions blocked by a pair of ancient felled trees. There was thick but not tall grass growing in the alcove. It was an ideal place to rest.

“Maverick, this is Surgeon, we’re turning in for the night; you might as well do the same. How copy?”

“Solid copy Surgeon, we’re resting in a hollowed-out tree for the night. On our feet at 0500?”

“You know it, Surgeon out.”

“How are Rainbow and Ethan?”

“Good. We’re leaving at 0500 hours, so get some shut-eye, okay?”

“0500? That sounds late.”

“It means five hours after midnight; the first two digits are the hour and the last two are the minute. So you can go from 0000 hours, which is midnight, to 2359 hours, which is a minute before midnight. It’s 2100 right now, so we can get eight hours of sleep between now and then.”

“Oh, okay…” Fluttershy yawned and fell asleep almost immediately on the soft grass. Jason took this to mean she was good at ignoring fatigue, which was always a good skill to have.

He set his suit to wake him up at 0440, so he could have a bite with Fluttershy before they left. He lied on his back and gazed at the stars through the large blue visor of his Security helmet until he fell asleep.

***

Ethan and Dash rested in the hollow of a large tree, safe from the elements and the local animals. Ethan still wore his gold-visored CQC helmet as Rainbow Dash leaned on him, sound asleep.