Halo: Equestrian Campaign

Ben-Hassrathee observed the scene outside his observation deck with an overwhelming sense of pride. Before him, suspended in zero-gravity, was the burning remains of the human frigate ‘UNSC Thermopylae.’ After the failed assault on his ship, the humans had all but given up the fight. Ben-Hassrathee had annihilated their vessel in a single grand  assault; firing every weapon simultaneously at his target until it was nothing more than a floating pile of slag.

“A day that will go down in history!” he enthusiastically thought aloud. “A demon slain, a human frigate single handedly destroyed, and a new planet discovered!” His gaze shifted from the wreckage to the planet that lay below him. The prophet didn't need to know of his victory just yet. At the very least, he felt he earned his desired sojourn to the planets surface.  “Fin’Rah!” he shouted to his personal bodyguard outside his room. “Prepare for a reconnaissance expedition, we going to do some exploring.”

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You look at the darkening sky with a feeling of great sorrow. What was once a scene of two massive cruisers doing battle in the sky, was now a grim and lonely moonscape that featured a damaged covenant ship floating amongst the remains of a human vessel.

Your thoughts shift to those of who you knew; Captain Chambers, Leon, and the few brave soldiers who were prepared to risk their lives on a mission that was destined to fail. You feel like you should mourn, or say something to your remaining comrades, but words would fall upon deaf ears and crying would do no good either. Instead, you swear to get back to fighting the Covenant as soon as possible and make them pay for every life lost onboard the UNSC Thermopylae.

Thankfully, your discovery from earlier gave you and your men a much needed glimmer of hope. The country-like settlement  you stumbled across was obviously inhabited and well maintained. Not only had the settlers survived without advanced technology, but they had thrived. Chances of getting off world were incredibly low, though, since no obvious signs of highly developed machinery were present. Regardless of how primitive the population was they were still a sentient form of life, and having someone to talk to besides five other trained killers would be nice.

Speaking of the inhabitants, you had grown quite curios about them. Though the town was obviously occupied, you hadn’t managed to catch a glimpse of those who lived there. It greatly perturbed you, and the thoughts re-occurrence in your head was a constant annoyance. Whatever they are, you hope that they are friendly.

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Twilight patiently sat on the porch of Applejack’s house, waiting for her research teams to return with good news. She was shocked that they hadn’t found anything, something as big as the meteorite that crashed couldn’t possibly be that hard to find. Twilight sighed and sank down deeper into her chair.

“What a waste of time,” she grumbled to herself . “ I should have just let the Princesses deal with this. Instead of just waiting all day I could have aided them in researching this, or done something, heck, anything prodctive.”

As twilight continued pouting, she failed to notice the figure that was hobbling towards her with utmost urgency. It wasn’t until the pony was at the steps to the porch that Twilight took notice of her.

“Huh? Zecora what are you doing here?” Twilight’s Zebra companion stood gasping for breath just a few feet in front of her. From the look in her eyes she was obviously scared, and the way she favored one leg over the other led Twilight to believe that she was also injured.

“What happened?” asked Twilight. “You look hurt, are you okay?" Zecora lifted a shaky hoof to silence Twilight before she spoke.

“Something attacked me in the forest, you see.” rhymed Zecora. “A beast never seen before by the likes of you or me.”

Twilight was taken aback by her friends statement. ‘Something never seen by the likes of you or me?’ Twilight knew an awful lot about the creatures that inhabited the Everfree forest, but not nearly as much as her striped friend did. And if Zecora had never seen the likes of the beast before, then its presence in the forest didn’t spell a good omen.

“What was it that did this to you?” asked Twilight. “I have ponies in the forest looking for something, and if there is a feral animal in there with them then they could be in even more danger.” Zecora closed her eyes to think back to her harrowing experience before she explained to her lavender friend what had happened.

“I encountered a two-legged creature earlier, before noon. It was made of black metal, with a stripe pattern of maroon. The thing watched me with it’s chrome featureless face, and soon after I left; it gave chase.”

A black, bulky creature with a flat shiny face? this certainly didn’t sound like anything Twilight had ever read about. She had hoped that Zecora had only been in shock from the attack and that a simple description of the monster would match up with something that she had heard about before, but the zebra’s strained rhymes only served to addle her brain even more.

“I ran as fast as me hooves could go,” continued Zecora. “But not after long I began to slow. I looked back to see if it was gone, only to find myself being chased by two of the spawn! I continued to flee like a crazed mustang but then I was hit by a very loud BANG!”

Zecora had practically shouted the last word, pulling Twilight out of her deep thinking and causing her to nearly jump out of her skin.

“Zecora, if this happened to you in the morning then why didn’t you come to the village sooner? Questioned Twilight, who was very disturbed by the fact that everypony in town was in danger of encountering a dangeroud animal.

“I would have come sooner, you see.” started Zecora as she presented her lightly tended wound to Twilight. “But my encounter with the monsters caused me great agony” Twilight was horrified by the crude gash in the zebra’s leg. It had been sown shut and a balm had been rubbed on it to either lessen the pain, or speed up the rate of healing. Regardless of the treatment, the injury looked horrible.

“Thank you for coming to me to let me know.” said a grateful Twilight. “it must have been awfully hard for you to trek through the forest with that leg. Come with me, ill let you stay in my home tonight. Those things are still in the forest, and walking back to your house would take too long.” Zecora didn’t protest as her unicorn companion led her towards her cozy library.

It didn’t take them too long to get there, thankfully. By the time Twilight had unlocked the door to the tree house, Zecora was about to collapse from the pain and exhaustion. As she levitated her unconscious friend up the stairs and into her bedroom, Twilight called out to her dragon assistant.

“Spike! Are you here? I need you to send out an important message to everypony who is still out searching for meteor fragments.” there was no reply at first, but before she could call out again spike emerged from the library’s basement.

“Did you call me? I couldn’t hear what you said because I was busy preparing your scie-” He was cut off mid sentence as Twilight dumped several rolled up peace of paper into his arms.

“Spike, can you handle sending out these notes to the Everfree search parties? There is something dangerous in the forest with them and they need to be warned right away!” Noticing the urgency in Twilights voice, Spike immediately set himself upon the task of using his dragon fire to send each letter to its respective owner, not even bothering to ask for details. “And when you are done with that I need you to set a kettle of herbal tea on the stove; Zecora is in a lot of pain and she is going to need it if she wants to get better.”

Before the young dragon could voice his complaint, Twilight had already disappeared into her room to attend to Zecora’s needs.

“Great,” he sighed. “I spend all day looking for rocks, and then I get to come home just to do chores. Sometimes I wish I had stayed with the dragons.”

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