An explosion rocked the VDF warship known as the Nightingale. It's hull was covered in scorches and torn panels of armor lit ablaze. Fighters adorned in the purple armor with plasma weapons of the Covenant, and those with steel plating and ballistic weapons of the UNSC fired their weapons at the weaker points in the ship's hull.
The captain of the ship sat at his chair, giving the orders to abandon ship, as he prepared a Cole Protocol scenario. A set of engineers behind him worked away at planting what at first glance, appeared to be HAVOK-Class nuclear explosives. One of the engineers, wearing a suit of thin white armor that went over a black body suit, along with a MJOLNIR Mark V variant helmet atop his head, walked over to the captain.
"The nukes are primed and ready. We'll give the order to detonate on your word, sir." The engineer threw up a loose salute. The Nightingale's captain nodded in response, tilting his head back as he downed a shot of whiskey and a few pills.
"Alright, all of you, bug out. Get to the escape pods and make your way to the coordinates punched in. I'm going down with the ship." The crew offered no argument, simply rushing out of the bridge with haste. The captain stood for a moment, staring out at the battlefield below.
VDF warships engaged UNSC and Swords Of Sanghelios ships and fighters in combat over the orbit of a large, habitable planet. They called it Equis. It was the center of the galaxy their ships now fought in, the sun and moon acting as they would normally.
The face of the moon was defiled by the large, empty and destroyed husk of the VDF Emporium Of War, one of the many VDF ships that have been destroyed in the combat before the Nightingale's captain. It, and the debris of several smaller ships, loosely made the form of the head of a unicorn mare, or something of that nature.
"Lucy, take a photograph of this battle, and make sure it's all recorded. Don't smudge any of the details." The captain addressed the Nightingale's AI. Her hologram appeared on the armrest of the captain's chair.
Her form represented that of a naval captain, with pieces of metal and leather armor attached to her outerwear as extra protection, a saber in a sheathe at the back of her waist.
"Yes sir. Would... would you like anything else before we pull the trigger?"
"Some peace and goddamned quiet."
The expressions on the face of a young VDF cadet began changing from enraged, to terrified, and finally, just... blank, as she watched her home, the home of thousands of her fellow cadets, explode in a glorious ball of flame. Millions would die from the explosion. The lives of so many, now have been wasted. And for what? So the United Nations Space Command could reassert their dominance? So they'd have a fresh new colony to inhabit, or, more likely, destroy, thinking it's a VDF stronghold?
"... Hell if I know. We're running around with our heads chopped off. These raids have been increasing in numbers for a while now... We all knew this was coming." one of the marines sitting by the cadet conversed with a VDF Ranger, their equivalent to a SPARTAN-II.
"The VDF's gonna fall. It's... it's inevitable. All we've done, though, won't be forgotten. Trust me. Now, if you'll excuse me-" The ranger stood up and walked over to the cockpit.
Everything went in slow motion for the cadet. The impact of the Anti-Air missile against the glass of the cockpit. The marines, and herself included, being thrown away from the blood-tray's hatch as it was torn apart by high-velocity shells. The blood that spilled from the mouth of one of her friends as a single round grazed their side, blowing them apart, as if a grenade were burrowed into their chest.
The cadet had been reliving this memory (among others) for only God knows how long. Every time, no matter what she did... Everything always fell apart before her. Nothing changed. The VDF Nightingale would go ablaze in nuclear fire. The dropships and escape pods would be targeted by UNSC ships' ballistic guns.
She would die.
Except, now, something had changed.
Because her eyes opened after she watched that incident go down. Her vision didn't go black, and she didn't wake up back a few months before her death, to relive that hell over, and over, and over again.
Instead, her eyes opened. The smell of burnt flesh was apparent, as well was the crackle of a flame. The cadet sat up, glancing around.
She laid in the back of the D-77 TC Pelican Dropship, none of the ship's crew still alive to tell the tale...
Also, their armor was severely rusted, and wherever skin should've been showing, bone showed, or, bone with moss and vine growing over it. The crackle was gone now. It was almost completely silent, other than the noises of the forest.
Birds chirping. Animals making their noises occasionally. The silence was what was killing the cadet. She got to her feet, only to stumble, leaning against a moss-covered plate of steel that used to be the wall of the Pelican, regaining her bearings.
My name is Michelle Campolo. I am sixteen. I am a cadet, squad Four-Five-Seven, Marauder Battalion of the Vanguard Marine Corps... I supposedly died.
Michelle groaned, holding her head as memories flooded through her head, everything soon coming back to her.
My body is augmented to fit the physique of a VDF Marine. I was off to get advanced training, with my squad, when our escort ships began taking fire from UNSC warships. We were raided, and had to evacuate before our ship exploded in a suicide-bombing technique that saved, and ended, millions of lives. Michelle inhaled slowly, then exhaled slowly. Inhale, exhale. Repeat. Repeat...
Michelle opened her eyes and let herself get a good look at herself, and her surroundings.
She wore a cadet's uniform, a white jumpsuit with black patches at the sides, elbows and knees. It had intricate designs sewed into it, with the number "457" imprinted into the shoulder, along with her rank and emblem. Her uniform had pieces of light metal covering the chest, upper arms, thighs and shins, while a basic training helmet with an amber-colored Heads-Up-Display, cracks dotting the screen. She was in the blood-tray of a D-77 TC Pelican Dropship...
Except it was broken down, overgrown with flora of all sorts. The remains of her, apparently long dead, comrades lie around her, partially overgrown themselves, decayed away to bone.
Michelle checked her calendar.
"Three-thousand sixty-seven..." she whispered, nearly collapsing from the shock.
She had been unconscious for a thousand years (give or take a few years), while the world her dropship landed on must've survived, probably left alone, given there doesn't seem to be any signs of civilization.
Michelle climbed out of the ripped open hatch of the blood-tray, shielding her eyes from the glowing sun. Pillars of smoke rose up in the distance. Civilization. Michelle took a check of her weapons and munitions.
She had her M6G magnum, three magazines and the one loaded into the chamber, an M20 SMG, two and a half magazines and the empty one loaded into the chamber. Her knife rested in it's scabbard on her calf, while a saber rested in a sheathe at the back of her waist. Michelle removed the saber and examined it.
It had a golden handle, with intricate designs of people melded into the blade. It was very sharp as well. Michelle sheathed it and began a slow stumble toward the smoke stack...
As Michelle stumbled through the treeline, she thought of what she could've missed, and questioned how she was even alive. The calendar could also have been broken.
I saw it with my own eyes. The dropship was decayed, destroyed! It couldn't... It can't be correct, though! I couldn't survive a thousand years if I was perfectly healthy, the most physically fit person! I'd still die... I think. Michelle shook her head and wiped sweat from her forehead with her sleeve. Although the uniform was meant to keep heat out or in, depending on weather patterns, the systems that seemed to manage that seemed to have failed. Michelle sighed.
"I can't keep going on like this... gotta find some shelter. Get some food, a reliable source of water, maybe. Start a fire..." There you go, Chell... Maybe our brain isn't fried after all. She joked to herself, laughing silently at the morbidity of her situation.
She was truly alone.
Cadets who wanted to go through advanced training, normally to become Freelancers, had to go through survival courses with no confirmed chance of success, but they at least pulled you out when death was approaching. Now? She truly had to work for it, if she wanted to live. Michelle crouched down, using her heightened senses and the barely working night vision setting on her helmet to look for any source of food. She unholstered her sidearm and took aim at a deer that grazed not a hundred meters away. She quickly looked up at the sound of wings flapping and nearly dropped her gun.
A small, pastel colored horse with wings, was carrying a paper bag of what appeared to be groceries. She had a yellowish coat, with a peach-colored mane. Michelle could tell it was female by the body build, but what caught her completely off-guard, was that it was... singing. Not only that, but the birds that flew around, not only flew around her, but sang along with her.
"Okay, my brain might be fried after all." she muttered, looking back to the deer.
Dammit. The deer was gone, though the horse was still in Chell's line of sight.
"Okay, maybe this wouldn't have been completely useless..." Michelle crouched down low to the ground, quickly following behind the... pegasus? Michelle chuckled quietly.
Glad I took the class on mythological creatures... I think... Michelle thought to herself as she slithered forward.
The horse seemed to jump at every. Little. Thing that scared her even remotely. It was slightly agitating, and, were the horse not providing her with food, she would've shot her then and there. That's when she saw it.
Down past a path that the horse went down, was the husk of a VDF cruiser, the pony's little animal shelter-like home was built on top of a VDF shuttle. It had the normal steel-gray coloration, with one of the wings bent out of proportions, acting as a bridge, with wood built over it to make a bridge up to the small pony's home on the hill that was the entire ship... She had built her house over a relic.
A VDF D-617 TDE "Hornet". It had a long body, a bit taller than ten feet, with a large storage/troop bay, where soldiers would hold onto rails built into the ceiling, similar to a twenty-first century metro train. It had two twin guns built onto the nose and wings, which lowered down toward the ground, and folded into the body of the ship. It's cockpit was built in the front, close to the nose of the ship, at the top of the body, below two large guns that sat above the place where the wings connected with the body. It was overgrown with grass and earth, the wing, and one of the large twin cannons mounted on the wings the only thing visible.
In a way, it was... beautiful. To watch nature overcome small obstacles, like humanity's creations, to create something much prettier than the ugly war machines that humanity used to kill each other with.
In another world, Michelle might've tried to dig it out and get the ship working....
But this isn't another world. She doesn't have all the tools to fix it, nor did she want to ruin the balance of life that grew over the VDF gunship.
"You miss home, don't you?" Michelle quickly spun around and fired three rounds in quick succession at the voice, missing as some mismatched child's artwork literally dodged each of the 12.7x40mm rounds that she fired. Birds cawed and flew off, the entire forest before her becoming dormant at the noise.
"Motherfucker." Michelle looked around for the creature, only to find it gone. She quickly holstered her pistol and dashed into the wood in hopes to avoid any pursuers. She slowed to a halt after putting a good few hundred meters in between her and the house. She placed her hands on her knees and panted, attempting to catch her breath. A low growl to her left pulled Michelle out of her trance. She drew her saber and got into combat position, poised to kill.
Three creatures made of, what appeared to be wood, slithered out to meet her, growling. They represented wolves, with glowing yellow eyes and sap dripping from their maws. Michelle got a look at her backside, quickly spinning off to the left, delivering a slash to the underbelly of a "Timber Wolf". She spun the blade around in her hands, grasping it within, then drove it through the side of the timber wolf's head, ending it's pitiful existence. The dead wood that made up it's body collapsed to the ground, a yellow mist rising up from the remains. Michelle drew her knife in her left hand and got ready to fight off the wolves, only to find the three others had disappeared.
They're intelligent enough to stay away when they know they can't win... Michelle snickered to herself as she slid her bladed weapons into their places on her person. She huffed and crumpled onto her back, breathing heavily. She felt as if she hadn't drank or eaten anything in days. Michelle pulled a small pack off her waist and popped open the clips that held it's flap down, rummaging through it, her expression changing from annoyed to enraged.
A few personal effects, some water, and a molded roll. The water was green, and there was barely any in the transparent canteen. Michelle pulled the roll out and lobbed it, then dumped out all the water from the canteen, looking it over.
It wasn't of use, so she chucked it into the distance, biting her lip to keep herself from screaming at the top of her lungs to the heavens. Michelle sighed and calmed down enough to begin walking off into the distance, hoping for better luck by simply scrounging. She walked forward a good meter, before she felt inclined to draw her blade and spin around...
"Hey, you!"
Dammit.
Twilight, when she first heard she was going to Ponyville, thought it was just a ploy by Princess Celestia to get out and make friends, though, when she got there, she found a lot more than just friends.
Ponyville was a historical site. According to local legend, a great battle was fought in the sky, and the chariots that delivered fire to the lands were sent to the ground, forever waiting for their masters to take up the reigns. It happened the night Princess Luna turned to Nightmare Moon.
Currently, Twilight was walking around a large metal husk that laid under the Town Hall, most of the husk being covered in grass and earth, buried in the ground and, somehow, mostly un-rusted.. Twilight was somewhat scared at first when she found the husk, then began to realize how harmless it was once she got a chance to peek around inside.
The halls were covered in moss, (minimal) rust, and grass, with a large, open room, an atrium of sorts that consisted as the entrance.
Twilight summoned a lighting spell, readjusting the hardhat she was given. Rainbow Dash, Apple Jack, Rarity and Pinkie were with her. Spike had gone to get Fluttershy earlier.
Twilight looked around the room, trotting over to a table with a bunch of clipboards and manila folders, coated in dust and decay. Twilight levitated one of the papers in front of her face and hummed. It's surface was a sickly yellow, and it was aged, meaning after she put it down, the littlest gust of wind, or pound of rain could damage it. Twilight read over the text, humming softly as she did so, reading the individual words with interest.
My sweetest Evelyne,
We're all going to try and get to that castle upon the mountainside. Hopefully, not all our 'Hogs have been destroyed. We lost Matthews and Mikaelys yesterday. Some sort of creature -one that looked a helluvalot like a manticore- killed Mikaelys, then stung Matthews. He succumbed to the venom late last night.
Everything is falling apart. VDF Comms are dead quiet, even with the makeshift radio equipment, and the surviving radio equipment, and you know what? I'm genuinely scared. If the VDF go, that would mean the worst things for humanity. All that information we had that would've gotten our patrons and citizens killed will get released, all the data we've collected will be used for the wrong cause...
Your dearest,
Lorenzo Di Petrilli.
Twilight hummed in acknowledgement, carefully putting the paper down. Somehow, nopony had thought of investigating any of the metal husks that dotted Ponyville's landscape.
They were relics at this point, and apparently ponies had tried to explore them in previous years, specifically, shortly after they had appeared a little over a thousand years ago. They were stopped by some... creatures they called "Guardians". The Guardians had denied them entry and huddled up inside, all of them now long dead, their bones still encased in the armor that protected their bodies, somewhere.
Ever since those few attempts, nopony really cared. Any threat the Guardians may have posed, was immediately gone once they had all keeled over. Nopony dared to leave the bodies where they laid, worrying that their souls may come back and damn them for their ill-will. The mass grave's location has long been forgotten. Twilight looked back at her "Raiding Party".
Rarity was musing over what appeared to be the personal effects and clothes of the Guardians that inhabited this ship. Applejack was looking over some notes on fruits and foods, and Rainbow Dash was spinning around on a wheeled chair aimlessly.
"Find anything?" Twilight trotted over to Applejack.
"These creatures definitely were somethin'. They grew all sorta plants and foods that Ah haven't even heard of before- Oh!" Applejack grabbed a few sheets of paper and slid them over to Twilight.
"Ah found these. It's a buncha scribbles and nonsense. Maybe ya can figure out what they mean." Applejack went back to looking over the various plants that had grown out of their storage units and threatened to overcome everything.
Twilight sat down on one of the seats and leafed through the papers Applejack had given her. There was a set of numbers stamped to the farthest left, a name, another number, an animal name, then an X. All of them, except one at the bottom, had exes on that checkbox, then it hit Twilight.
This is a logbook of when and who died. Twilight read through each one thorough. It appeared, by the winter of "59", at least a third of the people, soldiers, (according to the rank that was before their name) had died. Mostly from Manticore venom, or other creatures, mostly ones from the Everfree... or suicide.
Twilight shuddered and put the papers down, wanting to get as far away from there as equinely possible-
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Twilight's head turned to the sound, and the alicorn princess quickly flew out of the husk, to see birds flying away from Fluttershy's cottage.
"Come on, girls! I think Fluttershy may be in trouble." Twilight helped her friends out, one-by-one, with Rarity being the most difficult, as she was carrying a large backpack full of Guardian clothing, which seemed a lot heavier than it appeared.
Pinkie jumped out on her own, galloping toward the noise with the others, Rarity dropping the backpack off on the way.
They arrived at the cottage, where Discord was sitting on a lawn chair with an ice-pack on his head, whining and moaning and groaning, a bandage on his hip.
"Discord! What happened?! And where is Spike!?" Twilight trotted over to the troublesome draconequus, an angry expression on her face.
"Calm down, and quiet down! I have a headache." Discord sipped from a fountain drink and sat upright.
"Some weirdo had some... thing that hit me with a little pellet, and it hurt a lot. Your little dragon went off to chase it after he heard the noise." Twilight nearly snapped.
"You let him run off!?!" Twilight yelled accusingly and angrily. Discord rolled his eyes behind his shades and levitated up overhead.
"He went over there. He couldn't have gotten far." Discord replied, slinking down into his seat, massaging his temples. Twilight quickly galloped toward the Everfree in hopes to catch the baby dragon before the thing that attacked Discord attacked him...
Michelle stared down at a midget purple and green dragon, a hand to her saber, the other to her pistol. She lowered to the ground, the dragon peering up at her. Michelle scanned it's vitals and found it to be quite terrified and excited at the moment.
"What is it that you want?" Michelle asked, hand clasped around the handle of her long-bladed weapon. The dragon growled.
"You hurt Discord!" he yelled in response, taking a few steps back.
"He surprised me." Michelle casually answered, backing away slowly. She retrieved a smoke grenade from her belt and threw it to the ground, along with a shock grenade, quickly sprinting off.
"Hey! Stop!" a female voice, adult this time. Michelle groaned and took a hard left, setting a route for the D-77, when she heard both of her pursuers scream in terror.
Don't do it, Chell. They were just chasing to capture (and probably kill) you... don't do it... Michelle groaned and spun on her heel, running toward the scream.
She stopped and leaped forward, then rolled, facing the attacker.
It had a good few feet on her, with a large lion-like body, bat wings, long, pointed ears, and a scorpion tail. A manticore.
Michelle whistled and caught it's attention, and stopped in her tracks.
A helmet was crushed into one of the creature's teeth. Not just any helmet. A MJOLNIR helmet, one that went with Argus body armor.
Rage filled Michelle, and she quickly rushed forward, pistol drawn in her right hand, saber in her left. She fired the five rounds in the Army M6G, quickly replacing the magazine with a fresh one. The manticore caught her with it's tail, curling around her ankle, only for it to immediately retreat to avoid being chopped off. The creature roared and charged, claws ripping and tearing at Michelle, only for her to dodge each attack with unmatched speed, returning each attack with a 12.7x40mm round, or a slash from her blade.
The manticore took a round to it's eye, splattering the blood across Michelle's already cracked helmet visor. It screamed as Michelle rushed forward and drove her blade through the manticore's throat, ending it's life.
She watched it collapse to the ground, then quickly removed her sword from the beast and sheathed it. Michelle turned to the ponies, only to find them staring at her abdomen. Michelle hesitantly looked down to find a wound from the Manticore's stinger.
"Well... damn." The venom hit her hard, everything began spinning, and Michelle collapsed.
II: Venom, Poison, and Blood.
Michelle's eyes opened as she sat up, feeling some form of restraints at her wrists. The VDFMC cadet-sergeant looked down at herself.
She was pinned to a wall by shackles, ones that looked like time has had it's fun with, rusted, but sturdy enough to hold the equines across from Michelle.
But not her.
The cadet tightened her hands into fists and thrashed her arms about, slowly loosening the bindings.
One of the equine guards' eyes widened as he rushed up a flight of stairs, golden armor shining through the glints of sunlight from the one barred window in the dungeon. Michelle tore through her bindings, roaring. She removed the broken shackles from her wrists, then quickly undid the ones at her feet, looking down at herself.
She wore her new suit of Argus Armor, Hayabusa-Variant helmet, along with a sleeved duster, firearms, saber and knife missing. Michelle reached down and slid a shiv out from her boot, gripping it with the blade facing downward as she carefully reached through and picked the lock of the steel door that held her in the room of stone brick.
Click!
She kicked the door outward, walking out into the hall, listening to the terrified (and a few hopeful) roars and screams from the other dwellers of the dungeon. Chell ignored them and made her way over to the spiral staircase the guard had gone up.
She was confronted by a white-coated unicorn, wielding a spear. Michelle waited until he thrusted the weapon forward to strike. She sidestepped the attack with unmatched speed, quickly ripping the spear out of the unicorn's magical grip, snapping it in half. She used the bladed end and quickly drove it through his eye socket, ending him quickly as it broke through skull and tissue, cutting open his brain in a single, swift motion.
No going back now... Michelle thought to herself as she rushed up the flight of stairs...
Three weeks prior, Friendship Castle.
Michelle felt pain. Only pain. She saw black, and felt excruciating pain, and were it not for her having taken worse in training, she probably would've keeled over, or screamed. But, Michelle wasn't as weak as she let on. She bit back the urge to scream her lungs out and thrash about, simply breathing in, and out. In, and out. Her eyes slowly crept open, and now that she got a good look, everything was dark.
It was nighttime. Good. Michelle attempted to sit up, only to find herself too weak to even lift her arms. The cadet-sergeant gathered up her strength and pulled herself up into an upright position. There was a plate with a roll on it, along with a glass of clean water. Emphasis on the word clean. Michelle, despite her feeling of weakness, quickly grabbed the roll and wolfed it down, washing the bread down with a single gulp of water. She finished the rest of the glass and carefully placed it on the nightstand besides the bed she was in.
Michelle felt her strength seeping back to her, and she got to her feet, albeit a bit woozy. Michelle glanced around, finding her weapons resting under the bed, her helmet resting at the foot of the bed. She grabbed her weapons, slinging her M20 over her shoulder by the sling, sheathing her blades and holstering her Army-Model M6G. Michelle finally grabbed her helmet, sliding the basic cadet helmet over her head, watching the amber Heads-Up-Display light up with a subtle flicker from abuse.
Michelle stumbled over to a lamp and clicked it on. She found herself in a room made of what appeared to be crystal, with a wooden bookshelf lying a meter opposite the foot of the bed.
"Fuck it." she walked over to a large pair of double doors and shouldered her way through, meeting face-to-face with the creature she had shot at. She looked him in the eye, visor polarizing. He truly was a sad thing, from what she could tell by a glance into his eyes. Michelle took a step to the left, the mismatched creature following suit, blocking her path.
"If you don't get out of my way, I'll shoot you again, except this time, I won't miss." Michelle pushed past the creature, only to hear fingers snap, finding herself restrained by a red, magical aura. She growled, struggling and wriggling. She used whatever strength in her body to move herself to face the creature. Time slowed to a near halt, her HUD and heavily augmented mind processing every, single, little detail about the creature.
The weight applied at footfall, the amount of weight estimated the creature to be, etcetera. Michelle felt time speed back up, quickly pushing her legs forward with as much force as she could muster. Chell inched forward, earning an expression filled with surprise, and a little fear, from the "Dragon Horse". His magical grip faded, and she threw a hard right hook, staggering the creature.
"Leave. Me. Alone." Michelle spun on her heel, making her way down the hallway, mapping everything out within the confines of her mind and neural link.
She reached a pair of double doors made of crystal and shouldered her way through. Michelle found herself on a balcony, overlooking an entire town of homes, varying in design. She leaned against the railing for a moment, then quickly lifted herself over and lowered her body down to the ground by making indents in the crystalline structure with her fists.
She planted her feet on the grass and wiped blood from her knuckles. The young cadet-sergeant looked around, and stopped right there, staring.
There, before her, was the half-buried ruins of a small VDF escort cruiser, rusted partially, with only the nose of the ship poking out. It was covered in grass, moss and other flora.
Michelle walked up to it, ignoring the short tower built into the ruins. She saw a bulkhead door and moved over to it. Her hands felt along the door's individual ridges, searching for the emergency releases. She found them, heavily damaged and sealed. Michelle huffed in annoyance and gripped at the latches, doing her best to tear the door off it's hinge, to no avail. She huffed and shouldered it a few times.
Decay, as well as time had given her the edge she needed, and the door gave away, practically disintegrating as she rammed through. Michelle slung her M20 SMG into her open arms, clicking the flashlight on. The room lit up with a dirty, yellowish white flickering glow from her flashlight.
Michelle made her way down the long, narrow hexagonal corridors, with ceiling and wall panels occasionally missing, torn out of their proper places and lying, broken apart on the floor.
She saw skeletons, too. Wearing scraps of the gray VDF uniforms, with rusted metal pieces fixed to their shoulders or breasts, if the cloth was still there. If not, the metal pieces were lodged in the rib-cages, or lying beneath the shoulder blades.
She saw two bodies of VDF Marines. Suits of partially rusted black Argus armor on their bodies, damaged or destroyed, rusted M7S SMGs lying in their laps or strapped to their bodies by slings of broken down leather.
The two were positioned on either side of a large door, which was the storage bay of the ship, the entire thing representing a Stalwart-class frigate, in much smaller design.
Michelle clasped her fingers in the slit between the doors, slowly pulling them apart with retched noises of metal screeching against metal, a rust-colored dust filling the air.
Thank god for this helmet and it's filtration system... Michelle carefully climbed through, stepping over the bodies of long-dead VDF soldiers and scientists. The entire room had an octagonal shape, with a large tube at the far end, filled with putrid green liquid. The overheated acidic liquid was known as acidum cibus-Seventeen, or "Acid Fuel." It was manufactured as a -relatively- clean energy source to replace nuclear reactors. When an engine using AC-17 melted down, the liquid quickly turned to a green color, and became highly acidic. It was made from a rather passive material that classified as acid, though it was harmless unless ingested. It's collision with stomach acids would cause gas to fill the stomach and for the stomach to seal up, and eventually, for the lower abdomen to become a ticking bomb, which would spray the acidic material all over when detonated.
There were other tubes along the one, lining it on either side, with the glass being shattered, the corpses of victims of the AC-17's ingestion lying about in two large pieces, their bones an almost silver color, weirdly, tissue that glowed a sickly yellow, jiggling a bit, forming over the ribs and spinal cord. Michelle kept her distance from the corpses, and walked up to the still-standing tube.
By it's front, was a terminal, and an AI chip, inserted into the tube. Michelle carefully removed the AI chip. It was completely unharmed (likely kept in stasis, or something). Michelle hesitantly placed it into the port in the back of her helmet, and watched her HUD flicker with static, changing to a violet color as a voice rang out, glowing and changing the color when it spoke.
"Finally! Another living person! It's been too long! Literally, it's been like, a thousand years." the voice was female, with a powerful voice.
"Who-?" Michelle looked around, then realized it was the AI.
"Wait, AIs can only live for seven years before they go rampant!" Michelle did her homework when it was given.
"Ah, yes! I'm no ordinary AI. By the way, my name is Eve." 'Eve' responded heartily.
"Chell." the cadet-sergeant responded as she left the room.
"Well, Chell, it's good to meet you, I guess." Eve coughed awkwardly.
"So, what have I missed? The cameras (and the entire computer system) failed about... say nine-hundred seventy-six-point-two years ago, so I have been out of the loop."
"As far as I can tell, everyone's dead..." Michelle sighed. Eve hummed.
"Presumably. No records indicate a human that could live for a thousand years- No offense!" Eve responded with worry plaguing her voice. Michelle simply went on exploring, followed with a hearty laugh after hearing and comprehending Eve's sentence. Chell then realized what she carried after a few minutes.
"Can you perform a systems diagnostic on my helmet, by chance?"
"Ah yes." A window appeared in the upper left corner of Chell's screen.
Loading...
Optical Units: 53.9% Functional. Seek repairs immediately.
Filtration System: 96.2% Operational.
Weapons Display: 0% Nonfunctional, OFFLINE. SEEK REPAIRS IMMEDIATELY.
GPS/Mapping System: -30% Nonfunctional. ERROR_404_SCRIPT.
Hard Memory: 79.4% Operational.
Power: 37.1%, DROPPING - LOW POWER WARNING.
Recreational System: OFFLINE.
Communication/Radio Systems: ERROR_SIGNAL LOST.
Self-Repairing Systems: OFFLINE.
Neural Connection: 100% Operational.
Radar: 74.6% Functional.
Type-0300 Energy Shielding, Model B Status: 30.1%, CHARGED. Nonfunctional. Seek repairs.
Overall Status: Functional, recommend seeking repairs.
Michelle swore under her breath and quickened her pace as she made her way down the hall, taking a right and stopping straight in her tracks.
Another set of steel doors, blown open, with a large, bulky suit of Argus-Body Armor, covered in magazine pouches, heavy GUNGNIR shoulder pads, based off of the Reach-Variant GUNGNIR shoulder pauldron and a Security pauldron on the left shoulder, baring a sheathed Kukri knife bolted onto the plating, with a large blade on the back, the forearm armor having intricate designs done into the vambraces, with a thin rectangular piece on the lower wrist, concealing a blade. It appeared to be bolted onto a body already, undecayed under the bodysuit. The helmet was an EVA-Variant, with a skull etched into the visor.
The room itself was completely untouched by time and decay, with only the lighting systems offline. Glowing blue cables connected to multiple breaches in the armor, where braces held the glowing cables in place.
Michelle rushed over to a table by the hulking suit. There were MA5Ds, M7S SMGs, MA5K Carbines, BR55HBs, BR85N BRs, M90 CAWS Shotguns, M45 Tactical Shotguns, An ARC-920, a few M395B DMRs, and a single M41 Surface-To-Surface Rocket Launcher, with a dozen cases of rockets by it, with a variety of melee weapons, sidearms and armor modifications. Three suits of classic Argus-Class Body Armor rested on stands by one of the walls, with a few items of outwear by them. Aviator Goggles, Sleeveless Dusters, Sleeved dusters, leather jackets, bandannas, a few beanies and VDF military caps, along with a single brown leather jacket with patches on the elbows. Runes lined the upper walls, of unknown design to Michelle.
Michelle laughed aloud, finding joy in seeing the weapons and gear. This was the ship's armory, somehow preserved from decay and time, despite the doors being blown open.
Michelle stripped down to her underwear and put on a black bodysuit, scaling one of the light suits of armor to herself. The size was modifiable, thanks to nanobot technology, so that wasn't much of a problem. She was average-sized, compared to her other muscly cadet colleagues... well, they're likely all bone and no flesh by now. Michelle was flooded with guilt and sadness. She shook her head of the thoughts and gathered up one of the suits of armor, and the Hayabusa-Variant helmet resting on one of the metal stands.
She gathered all of the weapons, and the crates of ammunition into a stack of duffel bags and got into one of the armoring rings behind the large suit of Argus Armor. The rings spun around as dozens of robotic arms readjusted the armor and bolted it's individual pieces into Michelle's bodysuit, as well as magnetic locks acting as a backup to the bolts.
Michelle found two revolvers under one of the tables and examined them.
They had normal-lengthed, silver barrels, with intricate designs etched in, with red wood grips. They had the size enough to hold the same 14.5x114mm cartridges an SRS99 would fire. Michelle grinned to herself and slid the two revolvers into holsters at the back of her waist, pulling on a sleeved duster. She realized she hadn't heard Eve for a while. Michelle heard loud, big footsteps and turned around.
The large, towering eight-foot tall suit of Heavy Argus Battle Armor stood over Michelle, the visor glowing, each individual light on the armor glowing a golden-y bronze color.
"So, how do I look?" Michelle heard what she heard. Eve's voice, coming from that suit, but her mind couldn't comprehend. Eve snapped her large, metallic fingers, getting Michelle's attention.
"You look like you could snap a SPARTAN-II in half with your index finger and thumb." Chell responded jokingly, walking over and grabbing two of the duffel bags carrying weapons, slinging them onto her back. She shouldered an M7S and readied herself, watching Eve grab the rest of the bags, placing the extra Argus-Armor helmets in one of the bags. She hauled up a AIE-486H HMG, an M90 CAWS hanging from her waist.
"Great! Now, where to next?" Eve asked. Michelle raised an eyebrow.
"I was gonna follow you, considering I am just a cadet-sergeant, still a cadet." Eve giggled in response.
"Well, Michelle Azure Campolo, until further notice, you may be the last VDF soldier, hell, maybe even last human alive. In the power vested in me, I formally promote you to the rank of Gunnery Sergeant." Eve stated in the most formal voice she could manage, before going into a fit of giggles.
"Well, we should try and find shelter. No offense, but this place is too deep in the weird local-"
"The equines? They're relatively harmless... but I've got little on them. They stayed far away from the crash sites until long after the external cameras failed. I heard and felt their presence shortly before the internals failed as well. They gave up trying to get into the ship, and just let time do her thing, and now my ship is rusted beyond belief, and I cannot do anything about it!" Eve whined and answered, walking out into the hallway, a large, powerful flashlight mounted on the gun activating, illuminating everything ahead of them.
Eve saw movement and hummed, looking to Michelle.
"What?" Michelle clicked the safety off her rifle, kneeling down.
"I saw movement. I've got no advantages here besides my knowledge of the architecture, and that's far beyond useless at this point..." Eve moved forward, barrel sweeping over everything at the speed of a rabbit.
"Well, you can move and react a lot faster than I..." Well, to a degree. Michelle walked forward, lowering her preferred weapon, activating her Night Vision. She saw movement herself.
"We should go. It'll be morning soon, and it truly will be hell to pay if these... equines find us." Eve nodded in response, raising up her Gatling gun. Michelle took no hesitation, and quickly began jogging down the hall, following the boot-prints she had made on her way in. Michelle took a quick left, weapon raised. The barrel of her rifle swept over the corridor, and she quickly jogged over to the open emergency hatch, disabling her flashlight, Eve following suit.
Michelle carefully pulled herself out, listening to the ship creak and groan as her weight was much more than the ship's rotting frame could handle. The cadet-sergeant climbed out and waited for Eve.
The AI/Mech climbed out, only for the entire ship to groan and creak in frustration as something inside began giving away. The quick steps of what sounded to be, possibly three quadrupeds. Michelle quickly reached inside, finding three little horses latch onto her arm as the ceiling behind them collapsed. They calmed down a bit, then each opened their eyes, looking up at Michelle, quickly getting more anxious and frightened by the minute.
"G-G-G..." the white one with a light purplish and pink mane began saying, when her orange friend cut her off.
"GUARDIAN!" she screamed, the three little fillies quickly removing themselves from Michelle's arm. They took off, screaming. As that happened, the entire wreckage gave, the structure above collapsing along with the ruins beneath, causing even more of a ruckus, as well as screaming.
"Shit!" Michelle took off in a sprint, with little hesitation, surprised to find Eve dead silent as they ran, despite the fact her armor and metallic body weighed over a ton combined.
As the duo ran past medieval-esque styled buildings, they saw the lights of said homes turn on, ponies sticking their heads out of windows or doors, gasping or screaming at their appearance and the building crashing. Michelle stopped dead in her tracks as an orange horse with a yellow mane, wearing a classic stetson hat stood in front of her, halting her movement.
"H-How in tarnation-" The pony, in her freaked out state at the sight of the two VDF personnel, was unable to comprehend as she was lightly shoved to the ground, the two running forward at breakneck speeds.
"Hey, you! Stop!" someone yelled. Michelle groaned and quickly rolled to the left into an alley, her and Eve making their way through. The ponies appeared to run right past them, when a single voice yelled. Michelle immediately broke into a sprint, sliding down under a cart and out the alley, Eve simply pushing it out of her way, as her body, armor included, weighed a lot more than Michelle's.
"Damn it, we need to lose them..." Michelle took a hard left, firing loosely behind her, stopping the ponies temporarily. She realized she had lost Eve and swore.
"Michelle, you must make your way down this alley, take a right, and make it back to the forest, through the path." Eve's voice rang out over the radio.
"Wait, how the hell-" Michelle was launched forward as a pony pushed her down to the ground, a Pegasus to be exact. Michelle easily threw her off, shot up, and took a right.
"I've got radio equipment built into this suit." Michelle hummed and quickly made her way down the path, passing the treeline. She activated her night-vision as soon as she heard the equine villagers give up their hunt, as it was pitch black in the roofed forest. She waited for a good hour before she saw the easily recognizable distortion of a soldier under Active-Camouflage.
"Eve, that you?" Her response, was Eve lowering the camouflage.
"We must make our way further into the forest. There may be more scavenge-worthy wrecks out there. My scans, when we just crashed, located thirty-nine percent of the wrecks to have landed in the next section of the grid." Eve said, her visor's eyes creating a single, holographic cyan cone that scanned over everything. Michelle raised her firearm, the barrel lining up with the cone of light projected by Eve.
She killed five different entities on their way down the road... then Michelle saw it, quickly holding her hand to stop Eve from moving ahead.
It was a shack, built into a tree, with shamanic-esque objects scattered around it. Michelle magnetically-locked her M7S to her left thigh and began walking forward, her right hand grasped around the handle of her saber. She hesitantly pushed open the door, and stopped.
Balancing itself on a pole of bamboo, was a zebra. She opened her eyes and saw Michelle, but remained calm.
"What is this before my eyes? A Guardian, if I am precise." she rhymed, lowering herself to the ground, completely calm.
"Why're you not scared? All the other equines were purely terrified of us." The zebra laughed and wal-trotted over to one of the shelves on the wall, and began searching through the things inside.
"You and your people lived many centuries ago. They were wiped out, because of ego." Michelle tilted her head.
"So, you're not... scared of me?" the zebra simply nodded. Michelle sat down on the floor as to give her space.
"No. According to books and history, your people are quite intelligent. I find it to be quite arrogant." the zebra responded. She hummed and pulled out a book, picking it up in her mouth and giving it to Michelle. She hesitantly took the book and looked it over.
Equestrian History, Volume VII
"What's this?" Michelle looked up. The zebra grabbed a bottle with glowing blue liquid from a rack and swigged it. She let out a few short, harsh coughs, then cleared her throat.
"That is a book of history... I apologize for not responding immediately. My people were cursed long ago by a witch, and now we can only speak in rhyme, unless we take a certain brew. The effects are not permanent, though." Michelle took a deep breath.
"I'm... Michelle. Michelle Campolo. I just woke up not too long ago in this crazy place... You?"
"I am Zecora. I lived in a place known as Zebrica for my childhood and teenage years, then I moved here to the Everfree Forest, in this land, Equestria." Zecora held her hoof out for Michelle to shake.
"Ma'am, we've got contacts...!" Eve's voice rang out in Michelle's radio. She sighed.
"I'm afraid I must leave. Maybe if everything calms down, my friend and I may come over and chat over a drink, but for now, we must go- Here, so if we end up dying out there, you'll have something to remember me by." Michelle gave Zecora the extra helmet. It was a sage-colored Mark VI helmet, with a cracked golden visor.
"Good luck out there, miss Campolo. May you find whatever you need on your journey!" Michelle smiled and nodded. She crawled out through the door and nodded to Eve.
"Let's go. I believe I saw a nice, tree-free ridge in this direction." Michelle set a waypoint on a whim, and began walking through the trees.
On their way, she killed three of some sort of chicken, and a dragon-like body, two manticores, and a good dozen of those timber-wolves. Michelle began her climb up a hill that led to the ridge, admiring the nature around her, until she got a good look at the world around her from the ridge.
A good few thousand miles away, was one of the VDF's two Mothership-Class cruisers, the front end was driven into the side of a mountain, with an entire city built over the ruins, the ship itself barely rusted. Michelle let out a breath and fell onto her hind-quarters, out of breath, the realization hitting her like a rocket.
"We truly may be the last of our kind..."
