Blood.

It was all over the floor, and the walls, hell, even the ceiling. Sunset had probably lost gallons-worth of blood in her time of service with the VDFMC, but never has losing, or draining blood ever effected her, until she saw the bodies of her friends leaking it. Sunset paled as she knelt down beside a dead marine, her helmet melted into her head and skull, likely having died a very slow, painful death.

She removed the soldier's dog-tags.

CPL Krystyna Adamik. 441st MEU, Phoenix Company.

Sunset held back a few tears and looked at the back of the tag. The image of a phoenix was engraved into the backside, along with 441 in bold font underneath.

Sunset stuffed the tags into her bag and wiped her eyes.

"Dammit." she whispered to herself. Sunset shouldered her BR55HB and moved on, walking down the ruined front entrance with haste.

There were benches in the middle of the room, two sets of six benches, back-to-back. There were four large, rectangular windows on the ceiling, along with vines, moss and other plants growing on the concrete on the inside and outside. The front entrance was only there as a decoy, to look ruined, decayed and run-down so people strayed from it.

Flash pressed a fey keys on a data-pad mounted to the wall, and two bunker doors slid shut in a single, swift motion, sealing the base off from the front.

"That should slow the ground forces... maybe." Flash was genuinely worried. For his own sake, and for Sunset's. From what he could gather, General Celestia had put her on a special assignment of sorts to retrieve some sort of artifact from some experimental portal system they'd opened up. It was very unstable, according to the sergeant who'd ventured it.

Flash raised his MA5C and looked around.

"Seems clear enough. Let's move." Sunset nodded in response, following close behind the Major. He pushed up against one of the large, thick, powerless steel doors that kept people out of Fort Galileo. Sunset simply drew her leg back, then threw it forward in a knee-high kick that sent one of the doors off it's hinges.

"C'mon. We've got to get away before—"

Swooooooosh, KABOOM.

The two were sent flying. Sunset smashed her face into the ground and rolled for a few meters. She growled and got to her hands and knees, spitting blood.

"That... hurt..." Sunset got to her feet and stumbled. She steadied herself and held her BR55HB in a loose grip as she saw Covenant reinforcements from the top of the hill she stood upon.

Hundreds... no, thousands of Covenant ground soldiers were moving on Fort Galileo, very likely going to simply plow past Sunset and Flash. At the helm of the group, Sunset saw an enraged Sangheili Field Marshal. She turned back, to see Flash getting to his feet, a Sangheili Major approaching him at a stumbling pace, missing his left arm and two of his mandibles.

Sunset raised her BR55HB and began unloading the magazine into the Sangheili. His shields dropped, and the rounds tore through his chest, neck and brain, killing him instantly. Sunset slung her rifle and limped over to Flash, holding a hand out for him. He took it gratefully, and let Sunset pull him up to his feet. He brushed dirt off of his leg and picked up his MA5C. He raised it as a Sangheili with an Energy Sword appeared behind Sunset. They both heard the horn of a warthog to their left, and saw a VDF Ranger pull up in front of them, killing the Sangheili instantly.

"Get in, losers. We're going shopping." Sunset snickered and climbed up, mounting the M41 LAAG on the back. She spun the machine gun's barrel and began firing at a group of Unggoy that had followed the Ranger. Flash climbed into the passenger seat, and the Ranger began riding downhill.

The Covenant Ground Force began giving it all they had, discharging most, if not all their weapons. The Ranger, somehow, successfully avoided most of the rounds. A lone plasma grenade struck the hood and exploded, shattering the windshield.

"Goddammit! I just cleaned that, you sons-of-bitches!" He had a light Russian accent, though his English was on point. Sunset began mowing down the ground units that didn't have vehicles for cover, spinning the gun around to face their rear, while Flash covered their front from enemy fire. Plasma began scorching the hull of the M12 Force Application Vehicle. Sunset roared a war cry and let loose a torrent of hot lead, tearing Unggoy, Sangheili and Jiralhanae alike.

"We're not out of the pan just yet!" Sunset yelled as banshees began firing their plasma repeaters at the warthog. The Ranger swerved, avoiding taking any further damage, and turned to the left. A few boards were laid out over a broken down M808B. Sunset saw what he was doing, and roared, firing at the banshees as they launched off of the boards, into the air.

"Ooooh SHIT!" Flash screamed, firing his MA5C wildly as they smashed into the ground. One of the hub caps rolled off, chasing a random Unggoy, who fled in response. Sunset laughed at that, then watched as the battlefield became smaller as they drove away.

"... And into the fire." The Ranger finished as a green bolt of plasma struck the ground beside the 'hog, sending it spinning through the air. The Ranger hopped out, along with Flash, while Sunset ended up rolling with it. She smashed her head on the hull, and groaned, maintaining consciousness, just barely.

"Christ..." she slowly eased herself out of the crash, only to duck back under as a barrage of plasma hurled itself toward her.

"Fuck me." she muttered angrily, picking up her BR55HB that hung from the bent barrel of the M41 Light-Anti-Aircraft-Gun. She got into a fully prone position and leaned into the stock of the bullpup rifle. The feet of a Jiralhanae began walking past Sunset, sniffing the air. It stopped right as it passed her. The pair of hairy feet took a few steps back, and Sunset saw two claws grab the warthog's hull. The Jiralhanae pulled it up, saw Sunset, and would've yelled, were it not for the three 9.5x40mm rounds penetrating his skull, and blowing his brains out.

Sunset got to her feet and started sprinting as fast as her augmented leg(s) could take her. She rolled over an Unggoy and fired a burst through it's mask, causing a minor explosion, sending gore in every direction. The other Unggoy around screamed and turned-tail, full sprint. Sunset turned away from them and started up in a full-on sprint, trying to get as far away from the Covenant as fast as she could.

She felt her robotic arm short out, and saw a green plasma bolt melting into the thick, dense titanium plating. She slung her BR55HB over her good shoulder as her robotic became nonfunctional. She swore, ducking under a plasma grenade. She rolled to the side as it detonated, taking cover behind a boulder. She painstakingly removed her battle rifle from her back and pulled it into her good arm, leaning the grip against a niche in the rock, firing at any hostiles that approached. She felt something strike against the boulder. She turned to see Flash taking cover beside her, poking his head out to fire occasionally.

"Cavalry just arrived, hold on." Flash roared over the din of plasma fire. Sunset pulled her BR55HB down and settled it into the crook in between her shoulder and her body, barrel facing up. She looked forward, and saw a cloaked figure sprint forward, an M6S in his left hand, some sort of single-edged, long sword in his right.

He rushed up, climbing up onto the boulder. He launched himself in the air, landing squarely on top of a Sangheili Major. He swiftly drove his blade into it's skull, then launched himself off, pulling the blade out as he did so. His M6S discharged many times, the magazine sliding out, going down to his thigh, and a fresh one goes in. The stranger held his sword in a defensive stance, M6S no longer in his hand. A Sangheili Honor Guard exiting active camouflage, wielding a Type-1 Energy Sword, with an intricately designed cover over the hilt. He activated the sword and got into combat stance. The blade glowed a golden-orange color. The two circled each other for a time, before the stranger made his first move.

The strange human soldier launched forward with a one-handed swing from the left side. The Honor guard parried by raising his energy blade up.

The stranger's blade held firm, and did not melt. This, at first, surprised the Sangheili warrior, giving the stranger the time he needed to deliver a quick set of swings and thrusts.

Both fighters circled each other, a confident look upon the Sangheili's face, whilst the stranger's remained unseen. Both heaved from exhaustion, the fight taking it's toll on them both. The stranger's khaki-drab colored cloak, was now shredded at the edges, and the armor upon his legs, and that which was visible through the holes in the cloak, were covered in scratches, burns and dents from H2H and sword moves.

The Stranger's left hand reached back into a place on his back under his cloak, and came back out a clenched fist. He charged, sword pointed to the Sangheili's abdomen.

The Honor Guard was taken by surprise, harshly sidestepping the move. The Sangheili delivered a kick to the stranger's back. He spun around, throwing his left hand out.

The Honor Guard clutched his throat as blood began seeping through his three-fingered hands and mouth. He fell to his knees before the stranger. He picked up his blade, spun it around in his hand swiftly, then slid it into a scabbard on his back. The Honor Guard crumpled to the floor, revealing three, thin, yet sharp throwing knives lodged into his throat. The strange soldier retrieved the knives, put them back, and turned to the large amount of covenant troops that began pouring over the hill before him. The stranger turned to Sunset and Flash, motioning for them to run.

To which, they hauled ass, and got as far away as possible. Sunset ran as fast as her legs could carry her, with Flash a meter or two behind her.

Huuuuuummmmmmmm.

A barrage of blue plasma bolts slammed into the ground around Sunset. She looked up, to see a Type-26 Ground Support Aircraft, —A Banshee— and pushed herself.

Sunset slid down a hill, a torrent of plasma melting into the ground around her. The banshee still screamed overhead, unharmed. Sunset spun around, BR55HB drawn, and fired a single burst at one of it's engines. The banshee tilted and dove down. It's gun began charging, then discharged a single, large blob of plasma at them.

"Oh, shit, shit, shit!" Sunset ducked behind a boulder as the concussive blast struck the ground, still in range of Sunset. She was sent sliding, rolling and tumbling across the ground, skidding to a halt in a depression in the ground, leading to the entrance to a cave.

Sunset crawled forward as fast as she could—Without an arm, nor a leg, that was quite slow—trying to get into the cave before the banshee could come round for a bombing run, or to take her out. Sunset heard the sound of an SRS99D-S2 AM discharge, and turned onto her back to get a look.

The banshee's engine was aflame, the stranger standing some ways away, an SRS99D-S2 in hand. The banshee swerved and crashed into a cliff, going up in a glorious explosion of blue and purple fire.

Sunset leaned herself up against a rock and spat blood. She raised her BR55HB, awaiting any hostiles. Instead, the Stranger simply waltzed in, the sniper rifle no longer in his possession. He walked over to Sunset, placing a hand on her robotic arm and leg, both damaged beyond use during the battle. A swarm of small, black... bugs, no, bots, began climbing into her robotics, small sparks scraping off as they began... repairing her leg, reinforcing it with a shiny, silver-colored armor.

"W-Wha—?" Sunset looked up at the stranger, who had to be at least seven feet tall. His hood was down, revealing a black, MJOLNIR Mark VI Variant helmet, with a blood red visor, that shifted to a scarlet color when the light reflected off of it.

"Major Sentry will arrive shortly." his voice was gruff, and older, with a light Russian accent there, similar to their driver.

"W-Who the hell are you?" Sunset asked, lowering her BR and coughing blood. The stranger injected her with a strange needle, and stood up, watching the door, an MA5B assault rifle sliding out of the back-section of his cloak as he grabbed it, holding it in a protective stance.

"The name is Nikki. Nikki-046. VDF Black Ops. Phoenix Company." Sunset calmed a bit, hearing the last bit. She became excited at hearing "Black Ops."

"Whoa-whoa-wait, Black Ops?!" Sunset's eyes widened at the thought.

"Very big 'hush-hush', so keep quiet about it, да?" Sunset nodded and wriggled her robotic fingers, amazed that they even worked still.

I'm just gonna not ask. Sunset stood up, stumbling at first. She steadied herself, and shouldered her BR55HB as Flash ran in, taking cover by one of the walls.

"The wraiths stayed back, and they're shelling Galileo. Ghosts are everywhere. Dunno if we can even get past them without alerting the rest. The banshees are providing over-watch, as well. That goddamn CSO and the CAS are pounding the navy, from what I can get from radio chatter."

"Radio communication is going down, slowly, but surely." Nikki said, standing upright. He walked over to the cave's entrance, tossing his MA5B aside, in exchange for an M392 DMR strapped to his back, presumably. Either that, or he was magic, and just was summoning them.

Likely the former option.

"We'll camp out here until reinforcements arrive." Flash scoffed and slung his MA5C.

"That could take days, weeks, even!" Flash pointed accusingly at Nikki.

"I do not care. We either wait here, or try and get to the nearest form of city, which is twelve kilometers west. I gave your companion a stimulant, but she won't last. By the time we'd arrive, she'd be long dead, майор." Nikki knelt down and leaned into the stock of his DMR.

"Wait, do you hear that?" he lowered his DMR and stood. It was distant, quite distant, but still apparent.

The noise of an M41 LAAG firing, an MA5C discharging, and the sound of small-arms fire, likely from rifles. Sunset jogged over to the entrance and looked out, jaw agape.

UNSC forces were beginning to drop off all around, marines, ODST, hell, even a few SPARTANs, alongside Warthogs, Scorpions, among other vehicles.

"Damn it." Nikki walked over to Sunset.

"Can you run?" Sunset nodded in response, and Nikki took off like a bullet, running down the cavern. Sunset and Flash followed close behind, stopping as a torrent of gunfire filled the cavern. They each took cover behind boulders and outcroppings of rock and metal.

"Who the hell is shooting?!" Sunset yelled, firing a few bursts from her BR wildly.

"Cease fire!" Nikki yelled through Comms, and the gunfire stopped. Two VDF Army Troopers stepped out, helmets clipped to their waists. A man, and a woman. The woman had cyan hair with a "Pageboy" haircut, with different shades of cyan in streaks. The man had unkempt, dirty-brown hair.

"Holy crap, we thought you guys were UNSC, or Covenant! We saw those bitches touch down, not too long ago." the woman said, sitting down on a rock, holding a bloody bandage on her abdomen.

"UNSC started touching down in the valley not forty minutes ago. If I were to guess, they're gonna try and take back Harmony." Nikki leaned against a wall. Sunset heard the words come out of his mouth and froze.

The male army trooper whispered something to Flash via their private Comm channels, and he chuckled.

"She was one of the huge factors in the final battle that transpired before we took Harmony fully." The female army trooper gasped.

"Holy shit, you're Sunset Shimmer! The word around Comms is that you got offed, said your vitals suddenly spiked, then flat-lined all-of-a-sudden." she said.

"I'm Coco. Coco Pommel. This one over here is Samuel, but we all just call him Troubleshoes." the female army trooper introduced. Sunset nodded to them and leaned back.

"Now, what're we gonna do about the UNSC and the Covenant touching down? We can't fight 'em both at the same time. That's how we lost the Broadway and the Nagasaki." Flash slumped down against a rock, letting his MA5C hang from it's sling. Nikki hummed, thinking it over.

"We don't. The UNSC and the Covenant will fight each other, and only one will end up surviving. The most the VDF will do is send a few nukes in their direction, or stop setting up a mine field, probably of nukes." Nikki replied.

"They'll kill each other, or cripple one another to the point where the Romeo & Juliet can mop up what's left. We just need to stay under the radar until then." Flash concluded. Nikki nodded affirmatively.

"So, what do we do in the meantime?" Sunset asked, holding her abdomen, where one of her many wounds resided. Nikki stood up and paced.

"You need medical attention... we need to get out of this cave... Troopers." Nikki turned to the two misfits.

"I'll assume you two have been in the forward camp?" the duo nodded. Nikki sighed, relief in his voice.

"Okay, you're gonna bring us there, possibly get us transport." The two army troopers only nodded, and started their way back. Sunset, Nikki and Flash followed close behind.

They entered an underground complex, made entirely of concrete and steel. The walls were covered in moss, and crates in various states of damage were scattered around, along with wooden structures of varying design. Mostly barricades, or repairs to damaged wall or ceiling plates.

Coco took a left, and was met with an M90 pointed at her face for a moment.

"Nombre usted mismo, manos arriba, armas de distancia! ¡INMEDIATAMENTE!" Coco yelped and shied back a bit.

"Saffron, it's me!" the M90 went back and it's wielder poked out. A woman, with dark purple hair, along with a golden band holding her hair up. She had golden earrings, as well. A bandanna was around her neck. She had purple eyes, as well. She had two curveblades attached to her right thigh, two on her left, with throwing knives lining her lower back, along with an MA37 strapped to her back.

"Sorry, sarge. Papa is having another one of his moments, and we just ran out of medication." Saffron plead. Coco nodded in acceptance and walked in with Troubleshoes in tow.

Sunset, Flash and the Blacks Ops soldier followed close behind.

They were led into a medium-sized atrium, with broken armor and weapons strewn about, an old man in a VDF Ranger's uniform sitting at a table at the end of the room, grumbling as he field-stripped an M99 "Stanchion" Special Application Scoped Rifle.

"Papa." Saffron cleared her throat, getting the old man's attention. He glanced back at them, a distant look in his eyes... as if he were somewhere else entirely. Mentally, at least.

"Marines... and a Black Ops soldier. Great. More souls claimed by the Vanguard's power grab..." The old man grumbled.

"Papa, you need to calm down. I found you, and let you stay with me, sí?" the man sighed and nodded.

"Then you need to calm down. We're not going to war just yet." Sunset raised an eyebrow and looked to Coco.

"Uh, we've been finding various, uh, Insurrection bases, in the old mines in this mountain... We've been clearing them out, one-by-one, but there's still a lot of them left." Coco walked over to a crate and pulled out a paper map. She laid it out over a folding table and started putting pins in certain places. It was a map of the mines. Sunset got a good look at the room they were in, now that there was no immediate threat at the moment.

It was lit with hanging lamps. There were steel carts, pickaxes, crates of explosives, and mining gear of all sorts, just strewn about among the rations and military equipment. This was one of the main stations for the miners to take breaks, when miners were still alive... it appears they were likely all taken hostage, or killed.

"Well, the miners were under VDF protection, right?" Coco nodded shamefully.

"We... I stationed myself, Troubles and Papa Cumin on the entrance... we got a bunch of Innies and Covenant guys before they overwhelmed us and we had to fall back and seal the entrance. That back way was hastily made using instacrete, and we've just reinforced it, and put some railings and other stuff in after the initial threat was dealt with." Coco admitted, scratching the back of her neck.

"What about Cumin's armor?" Nikki asked, sitting on a crate.

"It was too damaged, so we melted down the titanium plates and used them to reinforce the entrance... I've got my force spread thin, here. I've got the two other marines other than Saffron stationed on the entrance, and the other troopers I commanded were killed, or captured. We buried the bodies in a section of the cave that's since been walled off." Coco groaned and slumped down to the wall, head in her hands.

"I... I served with the VDF Army during the Battle Of Eridanus II, the annexation of Sedra, hell, I helped in the defense of Meridian... I-I thought I'd never see anything more gruesome than those battles, but... seeing what I've seen in those mines, seeing my soldiers die... G-God, I can't handle it..." Coco sighed, just shaking intensely.

"We're gonna get the rest of your men back, and if possible, any miners these Innie bastards took. Don't worry, Coco." Sunset patted her shoulder and smiled. Coco smiled back and nodded, getting up. She slung her weapon—a BR55HB— into her arms, and walked over to the map.

"The command center is in the deepest section of the mine. It's like the center of the hive. All tunnels connect through three large ones that lead into this room. They've got an Elephant, and a bunch of Cyclopes in there, and that's what we know about... Be ready. There's ammunition and weapons scattered around if you need to restock." she turned to Nikki.

"My medic is down there. Get her back, and you'll get medical help for your friend. You can find nanobot recharge stations in the deeper tunnels, but be wary. We've found a race of these... creatures. Follow me." she led Sunset, Nikki and Flash into a room, where some sort of giant bug was lying dead on an examination table, a curved-bladed machete driven up through it's "head," along with other creatures and such scattered about.

"We don't have a proper name for them, from what the few eggheads we had said, but I just call them antlions. The one on the table, that's a soldier. The one lying over there is a worker. If you end up passing through the hive, you'll see them the most. Avoid the spit, it'll melt your armor. And this bugger..." Coco picked up a data pad and showed it to them.

"This is a Guardian. They protect the hives, nests, whatever you want to call them. There's one, and if you want, you can kill it, but I hear there's some sort of extract from these hive bricks. They're like bee hives, figuratively and literally. Hexagonal pieces of carbon material, and they're heavily guarded. The extract, I believe, is like a supercharged healing drug, according to the eggheads before they got capped... Go get my people back." Coco put the tablet down and squished one of the grub corpses, accident or not, that was unknown. Sunset shouldered her BR55HB and went to the main room.

Flash Sentry walked over to Sunset as she was setting up her load-out. An M90 CAWS, her MA5C and BR55HB, a few throwing knives, two Karambit knives, two Curveblades, and an old saber, along with a suit of battered Argus Armor and an Enforcer-Variant helmet.

"Nikki should be done soon, then we've got to move out... How're you holding up?" Flash sat down opposite Sunset. She raised an eyebrow at him as she began sliding a knife across a whetstone.

"Fine. Why do you ask?" Sunset replied, tossing the whetstone aside.

"You've seemed... different since you went on that mission for the brass, even more after you turned into that raging... thing, when the Sangheili pinned me down." Sunset shrugged.

"I don't see the problem with me being a bit more chipper... Oh god, I can see what you mean..." Sunset shook her head and pulled the crown out of the hardcase on her thigh.

"Damn thing seems to be... influencing me, I guess." Sunset groaned and stood up, shouldering her M90.

"Let's go. I want to get this over with as quickly as possible." Nikki walked in just as she said that.

His cloak was off, revealing a set of "scarred" Argus Armor, the design representing a slimmed-down version of the MJOLNIR Mark V armor. Ammunition pouches lined his waist. On his back, was an MA5C, a BR55HB, an M392 DMR and an M90. He had two M6C SOCOM magnums in holsters on his lower back, along with a dozen throwing knives. He had two curveblades that were connected to the katana, making a single blade.

"You pansies ready to move?" Nikki asked, readying the M7S in his hands. Sunset got to her feet and nodded, readying her weapon. Nikki huffed and walked out of the room.

Coco, along with Saffron waited by the mine's entrance. The entrance was a large grate door, held up by wooden support beams. A metal rail-cart track sat right in the middle of the tunnel. Blood was splattered across the tunnel, along with the corpses of miners, abandoned carts with varying amounts of supply in them, whether it be ore, rock, or the hardened carbon material that the hive pieces were made of.

Coco, with the help of Papa Cumin, opened the door for Sunset & company. She walked through and activated her helmet-lights.

"Let's go." Sunset's small group of soldiers followed close behind.

And with that, the first part of their adventure began.

Author's Note

Translations (Google Translate, 'cus I'm a lazy shit):

да - yes

майор - major

sí - yes
Nombre usted mismo, manos arriba, armas de distancia! ¡INMEDIATAMENTE! - Name yourself, hands up, weapons away! IMMEDIATELY!

A/N:

VDF ships with something like "&" in the title, are called Mothership-Classes. They're venators, the VDF's heavy cruisers, and are always positioned over colonies. There is only one exception, and that is a specially-made Mothership-Class, called the Honor & Justice, which, in a way, is like High Charity. It's like their capitol ship. They train the VDF Black Ops soldiers there, and those who serve on the ship, likely will serve for until they retire. Mothership-Classes' hulls have plasma and ballistic weapons lining them, while there will be missile-pods on the top and bottom sections of the ship, along with SOEIV pods. They're strong, and rival a CAS-Class Cruiser in size.

2.) Instacrete is something from the Halo lore, the link is provided here, for your convenience.