Haylo: A Spartan Discovery

i will be putting Jacobs thoughts in blue so that it will be less confusing.   also I'm sorry there isn't much action in this chapter, I will make it up to you in the next chapter

Haylo: A Spartan Discovery

Chapter 2: Decisions, Decisions...

The mare walks up to me and introduces herself “I am nurse Redheart. I remember yesterday you brought in a small pony with a wound in his upper thigh. You also told us that there was a metal object in there as well. Well thanks to you we managed to take it out and stitch up the main artery before he completely bled out.”

I nod “how is he now?”

The nurse hesitates “he is… stable at the moment”

I reply without thinking “Dead is stable”  (if anyone gets that reference i will love them)

Shocked that I would say such a thing she freezes for a moment before recovering “he is alive if that’s what you’re implying. But he has no home to go to and the orphanage cannot pay for the treatments that could otherwise save his life… without treatment he won’t survive. Normally we would help him but the hospital is low on funds at the moment due to an increase in accidents so we cannot afford to undergo such procedures…”

Her voice trails off as she stares at me. I pull my hands up and remove my helmet. I look into her eyes and she looks into mine. “Do whatever it takes to keep him alive. Charge me, do ANYTHING you hear me ANYTHING to keep him alive. Just. Don’t. Let. Him. Die. I don’t want his death on my hands, not now.”

She slowly recovers, terror fading away from her face, she nods her head understandingly “very well but you will need to pay me back, if you don’t Celestia help you I will not rest until you come to justice.”

I nod my head “may I see him?”

This is met with a small smile “I’m glad you are taking full credit for your actions, follow me, I will take you to him. Are they here with you as well?”

Applejack comes out from behind twilights shield, presumable put up in case something terrible was to take place “yes ma’am we’re here to see pipsqueak as well if you don’t mind.”

She beams at Applejack “of course follow me. I must warn you though he is a little paler than usual, and he is still resting so you can’t really talk to him. But what about… the other one” She points to the dog that is now sitting attentively.

I turn my head, and I saw his jaw drop. I chuckle to myself and tell him to stay put. He salutes and moves back to his original resting spot before lying down and (probably) falling asleep. She leads us through a maze of corridors before showing us the room pipsqueak is in. we see him resting on the bed with what looks like a life support machine plugged into him, as well as a drip and a heartbeat monitor.

Their technology is similar to that of ours in 2070 but with less buttons. They also seem to be technologically advanced in some areas but less advanced in others’

I get to see part of his face, he almost seems comfortable, unfortunately I couldn't go and see him properly, so she pushes us back out the door.

We arrive back in the lounge to be greeted by the small purple dragon, which I was introduced to at Pinkie pies party, named spike. He is holding up a paper scroll with a red ribbon tied around it with a red wax seal.

The next thing I see amazes me. A purple aurora encircles the parchment and levitates it in front of twilight, I recall glimpsing at a book title in her library that read unicorns and magic but had assumed it to be a fiction. I realise that twilight is using a kinetic spell, allowing her to manipulate the object in front of her.

Twilight breaks the seal and clears her throat before continuing

Dear Twilight Sparkle and Friends (including Spartan-088)

I have received word of the Spartan and I wish to see him about his actions and what he can and can’t do. I have placed eight tickets in this scroll, one for spike as well, so you can all leave whenever it suits you best. If you are reading this aloud tell Spartan-088 that I know his stay is going to last a long time, possibly years. He will need to get himself his own house, not living with you twilight, he will also need to learn about our culture and all the necessary requirements. Tell him that he must see your town mayor and that he can go to the library afterwards so that he can pick up ‘the culture and etiquette of Equestria’ so he can memorise it on the train.

Your tutor

Princess Celestia

Twilight looks at me and I stare back “you know, staring at everyone is even creepier when you don’t have a helmet on. But it looks like you have a very busy day ahead of you.”

I sigh, being unable to leave this place for so long is unbearable, I have a war to fight and they need all the Spartans to help them with this. Ever since the fall of reach there hasn’t been many new Spartans. And those that are new don’t survive long enough to live up to our motto.

“Well I better get this sorted quickly” I say “Where is the town hall?”

Applejack offers to show me the way, saying that it’s on her way to the apple farm, I accept and I follow her into the centre of town. There are quite a few cautious ponies along the way, eyes turning in my direction before hurrying away. It looks like I will have to earn my trust within the village, as well as some more respect.

We eventually arrive at town hall where a brown pony meets us at the entrance. Applejack says her goodbyes and I follow the mayor into town hall.

The mayor leads me into a small office where she sits down. She offers me a seat and I kindly refuse, she insists and I am forced to oblige.

After I remove the last pieces of the chair from my armour I sit on the floor. I am still at the same height as her, even with my legs crossed in front of me. She carefully inspects me and I shift uncomfortably.

After a minute of close inspection she hands me a large pile of paperwork “the princess has told me that you are in need of accommodation, she has also told me that you also don’t have a job is that correct?”

I nod my head and she resumes “the first lot is the papers for your new home. Can you sign here, here, here and here”

After continual here’s we finally manage to fill out the entire lot of forms and she hands me the deeds to my new home. My hand is beginning to get cramp when she puts another, somewhat smaller, pile of paperwork on the desk. She points towards it “this is a number of job vacancies here in Ponyville, I took the liberty of removing all the Pegasus and unicorn only jobs and settled for a couple of jobs I think you will exceed at. The first of which is the job at sweet apple acres, the town’s main source of income and the best apples in Equestria. However if you would like to be a blacksmith, clockwork technician or an assistant librarian you are welcome to choose.”

She smiles at me and I ask which job pays the most, this is quickly answered by a courteous response “ah, I had expected you to say that, your answer is the job at sweet apple acres, I take it she has probably already offered you a job there?”

“No she hasn’t, do you know when I can begin work?”

“Of course, as soon as you arrive you are expected to begin work immediately, but I suggest asking if you can work there first”

I nod my head “then what are these forms for?”

“Billing address and some other important stuff that I’m sure Somepony of your intellect will understand”

I sigh and begin signing the rest of the paper work. After a while she files the papers away and turns to me “now that’s out of the way I must insist that your weapons are handed over and locked away safe-“

“No”

She looks at me and scalds me for refusing “I must insist that you hand-“

“No”

She seems to get angry. She cools herself down, taking deep breaths, after she calmed down a little she responds “very well then. Your weapons must be left inside your house and they cannot be shown in public”

“I think I can live with that”

She smiles and stands up. We shake hands… hooves… whatever, and I leave the town hall, Deeds in my thigh satchel along with a pair of identical keys.

Not wanting to waste a moment of my time I pick up Rex from the hospital and hand him the keys. I give him the number and directions to our new home and send him on his way.

Later, I arrive at the library and knock on the door. I am greeted by an altogether too exited twilight. She brings me inside and tells me to sit down. I sit down with my back bolt upright; I know that whatever twilight has in store is going to be altogether too long. I wait for some time before finally seeing her walk into the room carrying an extremely oversized book. The words on the front read “beginners guide to Equestria” I inspect the book further to find that, indeed, twilight had written it.

She places the monstrosity in front of me and tells me that I will have to memorise this book on the train to Canterlot. I place my helmet back on and begin to carry the book out of the library. I turn to find that twilight has put on a pair of saddlebags on her back. They are bulging and there is an abnormal amount of paper inside them. I ignore the overburdened pony and walk outside. Realising that I had left my machine gun at the hospital I ask her if I could leave my machine gun at hers whilst we’re at Canterlot. She agrees with me and I retrieve my machine gun placing it to one side in the library. I pick up the large book and carry it to the train station.

We were the last to arrive, the other five, as well as spike, had arrived earlier and were now waiting for us to turn up. They ogled the book I was carrying for a few moments and gave me looks of sympathy before boarding the train.

I wait for the others to board and I was about to follow them when another pony tells me that I haven’t got the ticket for accommodation but for luggage. I was slightly annoyed about this but my better judgement decided that it would probably be for the best. I enter the last cart on the train, which by luck is the one right next to where the other seven are sleeping and is also tall enough for me to almost stand upright.

The train creaks as I enter and the cart tilts to one side. I carefully make my way to the centre of the cart and sit down. To my relief the cart didn’t break and I place the book in front of me. I hear a pony outside call “all aboard” and the train blowing its whistle. After a few moments of silence the cart jerks forward, the cart quickly speeds up. I carefully open the book and begin flicking through the pages.

I skimmed the book to the last page. To my horror I find out that the book has a total of 3475 pages. I know I wasn’t going to memorise this book when an idea strikes me “Hannah, do you think you could take pictures from this and store it in your memory banks?”

“Yes I can but I thought the idea was that you were going to memorise it”

“Somehow I think the prospect of dying seems more pleasing than reading this book”

My A.I manages to pull off a sigh; this is an impressive feat as she hadn’t made this gesture before “fine but you have to read the book after my photographic memory has finished with this book”

“Okay, okay, just take pictures of this book before I die of boredom.”

I lost track of time when we got to the thousandth page, only after I noticed it had started to get dark did I finally close the book. I read a couple of pages that were of interest, such as unicorns and their magic. I also read how Pegusi and Earth-Ponies also have the same magic but do not have the right lay lines to channel it. Instead they have the magic channel through their bodies; making Pegusi have better control of the elements and making Earth-Ponies stronger and more resilient.

I decide to get some rest so I slide over to the back of the cart. It makes groaning sounds but I manage to prop myself up against the far wall without the cart disintegrating. I start to drift off to sleep when the door opens. I don’t move, I let my eyes look up but I am unable to fully see who it is. Very soon a yellow hoof came into view. I look up to see a very nervous Fluttershy jump back and make an effort to hide herself in her mane. This surprises me as well, I didn’t expect her to show up, or even get anywhere close to me for that matter.

I’m not sure how long we stood there, but I know we hadn’t moved a muscle. To show that I wasn’t as heartless she thought I was a raise my hands up to my helmet, she shrinks back in fear and my hands freeze. Seeing that she is scared I decide to break the silence “I’m just going to take my helmet off, you don’t need to be afraid”

She calms down a bit and nods her head, still trying to hide behind her hair. I continue to raise my hands, slowly, ‘how dramatic’ I think to myself. My hands reach the release and I activate it. Again there is a loud hiss as the suits air levels equalise. I yank the helmet sideways, which brought a muffled squeak from Fluttershy. I remove my helmet and place it down beside me.

Fluttershy stares at me; I can see a mixture of emotions. I’m not sure what she sees in me but she seems to reach a conclusion. “I-I still don’t forgive you for what you did, b-but I-I am willing to start over again, that is I-If you want to, if you don’t mind that is.”

“I thank you for being so understanding, and I would be glad to start over again. However I only ask that you can accept my apology.”

She smiles and looks into my eyes, I stare back unblinking, we hold gazes for a while before she finally breaks away, blushing heavily and hiding behind her pink mane again “a-apology accepted”

I sag with relief and show a small smile. She immediately sees my tension release and trots up to me feeling a little more comfortable. Curiously I ask why her friends weren’t here with her and she replies with a kind smile “oh well umm you see I-I didn’t want to wake my friends up and they all just looked so peaceful so I decided not to wake them up. I-I was a little scared that you were all alone. And no one had m-mentioned you today so I decided to see if you were okay, I-I noticed that twilight had given you such a large book to read. Umm if you don’t mind me asking w-what book did she give you?”

I pull the book over and show her the front page. She looks at the thickness of the book and then sees the title which she reads aloud “the beginners guide to Equestria, by Twilight Sparkle, oh my. I-I didn’t know that she had made her own book on Equestria. It’s so big, if y-you don’t mind me a-asking, h-how many pages are there?”

“3475 pages to be exact, I have completed 1288 pages so far”

As soon as I said this I hear a gasp from behind the Fluttershy. I look behind Fluttershy and see a shocked Twilight Sparkle. She is standing in the doorway with her jaw dropping on the floor. I sigh inwards and I was about to ask what she was doing her when she shuts her mouth and runs up to me, she glances at the book and then at me “how can you read that quickly? It’s only been a few hours since I left you with that book. Even with my dedication to knowledge I wouldn’t be able to read that fast, even if I wanted to.”

I pick up my helmet and put it on my head. “Open the book on any page, when you do so show it to me for a few seconds and then pull it away. Hannah will then recite the page, you will confirm if Hannah is copying the book word for word”

Twilight, eager to put this to the test, finds a page in the book and faces it towards me. She then turns the book away and begins looking at the book, waiting for Hannah to start speaking.

“Page 2769. In a market, foodstuffs are bought and sold with bits, bits being the source of currency. Depending on the quality and quantity of the items you are purchasing, the quantity of bits you need is increased or decreased…”

I stop listening to Hannah to watch twilights face as she reads the book and listens to Hannah talking. However this doesn’t make the situation any better as twilight gets frustrated quickly and slams the book shut “how can you do that? You only glimpsed the page for less than two seconds and you can still read out the entire page. It takes me a couple of minutes to read a single page and you only need a few seconds. AARRGGHH”

Hannah sees the distraught pony and explains how she is able to memorise it “it’s quite simple actually. The helmets visor acts as a camera, when I look at the page I take a small picture. I then translate the picture to text. And then I can delete the picture to save memory. Whenever I need the information it’s always in my memory banks, I can pull the information up whenever I want to after that”

Twilight calms down a little; she mumbles a complaint of being smarter than her and sits on her haunches. I begin to ask questions “in this book on the first hundred pages you mention that the sun is raised by princess Celestia and the moon is raised my princess Luna, is this true?”

“Yes of course, why would you ask?”

“That’s impossible! The sun and moon revolve around a planet due to kinetic forces and the planets gravity. It’s impossible to control such gigantic objects”

“They’re not gigantic they are in fact 100 times smaller than this planet and the princess do raise the sun and the moon. I’ve seen it with my very own eyes!”

I pull out the chip from the back of my head I hold it out on the palm of my hand “Hannah can you show Twilight harvests solar system.”

“Of course”

There is a slight blue fuzzy mist and then there is a large blue orb. Surrounding the orb are several smaller blue orbs, but not as bright as the one in the centre “this here is the sun, that one is harvest, surrounding harvest are three moons, the rest are just other planets. But they all take part in keeping harvest liveable.”

Twilight and Fluttershy stand there shocked. Obviously they hadn’t seen anther solar system, Twilight was speechless for once and Fluttershy looked at the solar system in awe. Seeing their faces was priceless, I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. I decide to compare their solar system to harvests “Hannah can you pull up a schematic for this planets solar system, following what twilight says”

“All right”

The image fuzzes again and there is a single planet, alongside the planet are two smaller orbs, one blurred and the other solid “this is what you’re saying; this is Equestria and these two here are the sun and the moon. The fact that these two are in such close orbit to the planet is a complete mystery to me, the sun should have crashed into the planet eons ago and the moon… well the moon I suppose could be able to orbit like that, I remember seeing a planet with a closer orbiting moon.”

Twilight sees here opportunity to defend her princesses honour “it can be explained. First reason is that the princesses use their magic to raise the sun and the moon.”

“Still impossible, first is because they would need to be constantly raising the sun and the moon, the planets circular after all. actually I suspect all they really need to do is push the sun a little bit back so that it doesn’t spiral down and crash. Okay, I guess it’s plausible, but I won’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes. As they say the proof is in the pudding”

Suddenly out of nowhere “THERE’S PUDDING, WHERE?!”

A pink pony jumped out from behind me, scaring not only me, but both the ponies in front of me. My hands were a blur; my right hand clenched the microchips blue lights were instantly cut off. My left hand pulled my knife from my shoulder guard and buried the knife up to the hilt in the wooden frame behind me. My senses went into overdrive, my hand had jerked up at the last moment and instead of the ponies face the knife cut deep into the ponies pink mane. Twilight and Fluttershy were completely shocked be my reaction.

“Silly billy that’s not where you pin the tail on the pony, it’s meant to go on the rump”

The pink pony jumped forwards as if nothing had happened, her hair bouncing back into its original fuzzy state. three quarters of us stood there in shock.

Eventually I managed to find my voice box “I-I *mm-hmm* I’m terribly sorry I didn’t mean to do that… it was a reflex action…”

My voice trailed off. I looked at Twilight and Fluttershy I saw the look on their faces they were horrified at what I had just done. Pinkie Pie decides to break the silence “so what you been up to huh?”

I couldn’t bare the tension “look can you all just leave me in peace for a moment. I think it would be safer and less… eventful if you would all leave me be for the rest of the journey, this includes you Miss Pie. And especially no more surprises, it isn’t… wise to surprise a Spartan.”

Pinkie Pie saw the seriousness in my face and her mane seemed to deflate, but she soon perked up again “okie dokie lokie”

And with that she dragged the other two out of the cabin; I sagged with relief when she left. I need some rest; this trip is going to be very long indeed. I pulled my knife out of the wooden frame and re-sheathed it; I then put my helmet back on and put Hannah’s chip into the back of the helmet. Feeling more secure I lay my head back, I opened up the suits database and pulled up a file named ‘music’ I opened it up and played a song at random ‘Skespsit-Reflux

I was glad to be listening to something with a steady beat, as I slowly let sleep take me away.

The rest of the trip was less eventful than I had hoped. On the fourth day on the train at around 11:00pm I saw a comet in the sky and it is on a collision course for this planet, I assumed that it was a natural occurrence and it must happen quite frequently, so I thought nothing of it. I was undisturbed for the rest of the ride; I finished copying the book and had just finished properly reading page 1982 when the train finally stopped.

Glad to be finally at my destination I got to my feet and picked up my oversized book.

What happened next however was unsuspected. A group of six ponies with spears entered and pointed their weapons at me. By instinct I raised my shield, the suits shield hummed to life and then the suit looked like nothing had happened. The ponies were put off, except one of them who stood forwards “you are the one known as ‘Spartan-088’?”

I reply in a lowered voice “yes I am. Why do you come in here with weapons?”

“It’s a safety precaution, follow me. And if I were you I wouldn’t make any sudden movements, there are over a thousand royal guards here and if you even think of harming one of her majesties subjects you will find that you will not even live to regret it.”

I grunted ‘so much for a warm welcome’. As we left the carriage I saw the other 6 ponies, including spike, get out of their carriage. I noticed Twilight hug one of the other guards. I was about to move forward when one of the spears rose menacingly, or at least as menacingly as possible when facing a seven foot Spartan super soldier. I sighed ‘well now what’ I thought to myself.

After what seemed like hours I was finally told to follow the group of six ponies to a large castle like structure. When we got there I was led to a large pair of highly decorated doors, presumably a throne room.

At the entrance I was asked to remove my weapons, when I didn’t oblige the guards at the door lowered their horns, their horns glowed ominously. Without seeming to move I was lifted slightly after a few moments the guards started panting heavily and I planted myself on the floor again. After a few minutes after they recovered they realised that I wasn’t going in without my weapons, I had reasoned that I was only going to use them in self-defence and that they were already holding their weapons at me.

My thoughts are answered and we enter a large open space, at one end was a pair of… cushions… and on these cushions is an even stranger pair of unicorn/Pegusi. I remember the book saying that these two were Alicorns and that they are also the princesses,co-rulers of Equestria.

When I enter I also notice that the six ponies I recognise are all bowing to the princess, except Twilight who just rushes over and muzzles the white ones side. Twilight sees me enter and blushes red. The two Alicorns watch me as I am escorted to the edge of a pair of stairs.

I stood there like a complete idiot, however being treated as a monster wasn’t my idea of a friendly welcome “well so much for the welcome par…”

I stop right there and glance at Pinkie Pie, who returns my look with a penetrating gaze, egging me on to finish the sentence “so much for the warm welcome” I state bluntly, much to Pinkies disappointment “are the spears necessary?”

The princesses eye me for a moment before nodding to the guards around me. As if on cue they lower their spears and back away. 2 of them seemed altogether too hasty in backing off. I release the tension in my arms and relax. Glad that I am no longer classed as a threat I continue “so I assume you are princes Celestia” I point towards the white Alicorn “and you are her sister princess Luna” I point towards the dark blue Alicorn, who as it turns out seemed to be drowsing off. She jumps at the mention of her name and gives me an annoyed look before turning to her sister who was glaring at her for falling asleep.

The princess returns her gaze at me and begins to look over me sceptically. Seeing that she wants to know my name I give it to her “my name is lieutenant colonel Jacob Spartan-088. But you can either call me Jacob, Spartan, or lieutenant.”

She seems satisfied but then she begins to focus on one aspect in particular, the large knife on my shoulder guard. I glance towards it and shrug my shoulders “this is only for self-defence, or getting food, but its main use is for cutting things”

She then starts to stare at my other weapons, I sigh ‘looks like I’m going to have to teach these ponies a little about my weapons. I pull out my shotgun and pistol, as I did so the guards moved forwards in front of me and take up defensive stances in front of their princesses. The princess wants an explanation so I am going to give it to her “relax guys I’m not here to hurt anyone, at least not intentionally. But I’m going to tell you what these things are”

“We already know what weapons you have. As to how they work we’ve no idea, maybe you will be kind enough fill in the blanks”

I almost chocked on my own spit ‘how do they know what guns are? and more importantly, do they have any of their own?’ “This here is a shotgun, it fires many small pellets, at short range it can be devastating, long range; it’s completely useless. This is a magnum, it has a single metal slug called a ‘bullet’, this bullet is special because its armour piercing, it’s pretty accurate mid-range and close range, however isn’t very accurate over long distances. I have a machine gun at twilight’s house; it fires many bullets, although they’re slightly bigger than the magnum and it is a little less accurate than the magnum, plus it’s extremely heavy”

I finish speaking, the princess eyes me warily. I hold steady and return her glare, with the assistance of my visor. Eventually we broke off hearing a loud snore coming directly to her left, princess Luna has nodded off again. Celestia huffed and shot a bolt of yellow at the sleeping Luna. Luna jumped several feet into the air and stayed there for a moment before gravity took hold of her. She landed on her cushion with a thump and glared at her sister, who returned her glare with an annoyed look. They seemed to look at each other for a couple of minutes. After a while Luna broke off, whatever seemed to be going on, it was obvious that Luna had lost.

Celestia looks back at me and stares, after a few moments she seems puzzled, and then smirks “who else is with you?”

I was surprised by her question ‘how can she know so much, yet so little about us? Is there another human on this planet? Or are they just spies sent by the covenant?’ “Well technically no one, but as to something, I think you mean Hannah, that’s my A.I. An A.I is an-“

“artificial Intelligence, I know”

‘how did she know that? She knows things before I can say them, she can’t possibly know these things, can she?’ I think for a moment before I suddenly notice a green blip on by motion sensor, it’s walking straight towards us.

I look right to find a pair of side doors; the princess sees my new-found interest “ah here he comes, Jacob I think you would very much like to meet him”

My heart skipped a beat; who is this guy? is he dangerous or does she generally think I would like to meet him?

The double doors glow as the two pony guards begin to open them using their magic.