Why?

I ask myself this every time I look in the mirror. For twenty six years. I've woken up. Gotten dressed, ready to go feet-first into hell, look myself in the mirror, and ask myself.

Why. Why do I keep fighting after it all? Why can't I remember...

Why not me?

I lost Flash. He's gone... I dragged his body to the nearest site and buried his body, placed his helmet on his rifle instead of a headstone, said a short eulogy, then I left.

That's it. I don't mourn the dead of my teammates. I don't look the dead in the eye.

Am I still human?

All the parts that make me, well, me... I'm losing another one every day.

This time, it was Flash. I'll try and brace myself for what's coming, but in the end, every fucking time, it's gonna be twelve times fucking worse...

Christ, what the hell is wrong with me? According to this Twilight chick, I'm not even human... I'm some sort of equine creature from her world. I was apparently a pupil to their Goddess or some shit.

And you know what? I didn't care. I still don't. I don't ever want to go back to that world... It'd be death for me... but that's not what I'm scared of.

I'm afraid I'll remember. That is one of my greatest fears...

And I'm seeing them come true every coming day.

And every time, I find another shard of my humanity forever gone.

End Note.

Sunset carefully slid a pencil over the empty part of the page, slowly but surely, she was sketching.

She was sketching a picture a Flash... Right on his deathbed. Lying on the ground, bleeding out. The image was the only one in her mind, and it haunted her. Sunset looked down at her fingers. They were covered in thick scars from burn wounds.

Twilight sat nearby with her dog, simply staring out. Their objective wasn't clear. They didn't know what to do. Sure, they had to take care of the UNSC and the Covenant, but Sunset was the only one combat-oriented, and even she... she was just one soldier. Sunset patched into the FLEETCOM and listened in.

"... In all accounts, we can't fight two fronts. We're spread thin, with Dabreaux and his fleet still in the Epsilon Eridani system! We... we need to fall under the UNSC's radar, or get us a temporary alliance. They want Harmony just as much as we, considering they controlled it for much of the H/C War." Sunset recognized him as Rear Admiral Hudson Hawkworth, captain of the Romeo & Juliet. Harmony's flagship.

"There is no way in hell I'm letting a bunch of UNSC... Dogs onto my ship. There're all kinds of faults there!" Captain Rockford, captain of the VDF Nobility, one of the few Destroyer-Class Venators left. Most were destroyed by 2540, when the Covenant finished with the VDF-Controlled colonies, albeit, the VDF went down swinging in that scenario.

"I never said anything about letting them on our ships. I said a temporary alliance... All we need is one less hand in the bag. One less weapon that's being slashed at us." Admiral Hawkworth replied. The captain thought it over.

"... Alright, but just know you'll be to blame if this goes FUBAR, Admiral." There was venom in his voice, but was disguised by a respectful tone. You didn't speak down to Rear Admiral Hawkworth.

"What happens with the Covenant? That CSO-Class is tearing up our orbital defenses, albeit slowly, but surely. They'll have destroyed our entire orbital defense by the time we can get reinforcements! By then, it'll all be over." He had a point. If the orbital defenses above Harmony fell, it'd only be a matter of time. Even with the VDF's "primitive" plasma weaponry, they'd take or glass Harmony before the end of the week. The VDF could've held it, sure, and their ships provided good cover, but those orbital stations were important. They all intertwined electronically to create a giant energy shield. Only one was broken, but that was enough to send the VDF into disarray as a few CAS and CCS cruisers stealthily made their way in, and were able to begin putting boots on the ground.

Sunset closed her sketchbook and placed it in her bag. She lost Flash... what was the point? She'd lose Harmony too, if she didn't... then it hit her. That's why she kept going. Kept kicking... She had a duty to fulfill. This wasn't a time to be whining and bitching because she'd lost her best friend! She needed to get more soldiers. She needed to do her goddamned job, as nobody else was gonna do it.

"Gotta do my job." Sunset whispered. She grabbed her helmet and stuffed it on her head, whistling as she began grabbing weapons and ammunition from the captured communications center. Normally, Flash would've policed weapons and ammo, while Sunset got a rid of the bodies, but it appeared she was a bit short of personnel at the moment. Sunset walked over to one of the radios.

"This is s-Major Sunset Shimmer, VDF Marine Corps, 441st MEU, Phoenix Company. I require more ground forces on my position." she said into the mic, hoping it'd catch someone's attention.

"We hear you loud and clear, Sunny-D. Last I checked, you were a sergeant..." Fuck. That was Citron, the VDF Mariposa's AI.

"Flash... Flash didn't make it. He gave me a field-promotion before he went MIA." Sunset replied. Not unlike ONI, all specialized company soldiers were reported WIA or MIA in the events of death, same with Black Ops, Spec Ops and Rangers. The Army Corps and the normal Marine Corps got no special treatments.

"I'm sorry to hear... but we cannot spare any soldiers for immediate—you've got a marine corporal and an Army Corps sergeant en-route to your location, ma'am." Sunset gave her thanks and got off the radio. She walked over to Twilight and sat down beside her, wincing at her aching muscles and bones.

"How're you feeling?" she asked the civilian, who sighed in response.

"T-There... There's so much death here. H-How do you cope so quickly?" Twilight asks quietly, looking up at Sunset, who simply shrugs.

"I always took death rather well in comparison to most others." that was true. Not in this case, specifically, but still true... Flash Sentry was her best friend. Hell, she considered him like a brother. Now, after the twenty-or-so years they've been kicking, his acknowledgement light had winked out. For good this time. It hit Sunset hard... but she always recovered from wounds. Physical, and emotional. Twilight yawned.

"You haven't slept much. Why don't you take a nap or something? The reinforcements shouldn't—" the roar of a pelican filled their ears, followed by yelling. Sunset stormed out the front doors, and saw two soldiers, one in a sleeveless duster and a stetson, smoking a cigarette, the other with a rainbow-colored accent in her hair, a pair of shades upon her face, and a Spec-Ops beret, blood-red.

"... Ah mean, yer not that bad for a green-marine, Rainbow, but yer a bit of a hothead." the one in the stetson said, shouldering an M90 CAWS, slinging a BR55HB onto her back. The rainbow-haired one simply scoffed, shouldering an M45 Tactical Shotgun. She began sliding shells into the receiver, while looking over an MA5K beside her.

"Sure, ah mean, yer a good soldier, but ya got a nasty temper. That's not really a good skill to have in a combat sit." the stetson-wearing one said, slinging the M90 in exchange for an M6C with a silencer screwed on. She had a southern accent. Twilight seemed to recognize them. The rainbow-haired one had a scratchy voice, with no apparent accent.

"Screw you, Applejack. I'm a one-hundred-percent green-bad-ass-marine-killing-machine!" the rainbow-haired one pumped her arms. She had an evenly-distributed muscular frame, with a large amount of graffiti on her suit of Argus armor. She had a large scar going down her cheek, stopping at the base of her neck.

"Yer ego's just as bloated as always, ah see." the rainbow-one huffed and shouldered the MA5K carbine. She turned to Sunset and started walking.

"Yo." Sunset frowned. She looked over the gear of the VDFMC corporal, each feature of her armor, weapons, etcetera.

The corporal wore a suit of Mark VII ARGUS-Class Body Armor, with an enforcer-variant helmet clipped to her waist, alongside a blunt object Sunset recognized as a folding maul.

"You just gonna check me out, or are we gonna get to the mission?" Sunset's frown became more apparent and she rolled her eyes.

"Head inside. I'll speak to the sergeant for a bit, then we'll move out." Rainbow-woman nodded, and walked inside. Sunset spun on her heel and walked over to the one known as "Applejack."

"Howdy, Major." she tipped her stetson, then went back to disassembling her MA5C ICWS.

"You're the reinforcements?" Sunset asked as she walked around the pelican, examining it.

"Eyup." was her simple response as she began to reassemble the ICWS. Sunset worked at hauling crates out of the blood-tray.

"So, got any new intel on what's goin' on upstairs?" Applejack asked. Sunset shook her head with a sigh.

"We lost Galileo station, Sector A-Four. We're taking heavy fire from the CSO up there... Luckily, they're not gonna be glassing this place anytime soon, what, with all the Forerunner tech stashed about. They've been trying to find a way past our shields for a long time..." Sunset admitted, picking up a large crate of ammunition.

"Sooner or later, it'll be over. Either way, ah at least know those Covenant freakshows ain't gonna take mah home without losing half their goddamned fleet." Applejack gestured to the broken down husks of Covenant ships and vehicles that had been left behind since the first battle. Sunset chuckled. The VDF had been able to defeat the Covenant on several fronts. Meridian, although once they had been exiled by UNSC officials, the Covenant came back in force and glassed it. Hell, they even helped defend Harvest. That first battle was won because they were able to adapt to the Covenant. They already had energy-shielding tech, which proved to be highly resilient toward plasma, and their primitive plasma weapons tech proved to be quite damaging to the alloy plating on Covenant ships.

Sunset readied her assault rifle.

"Get yourself ready. Lightweight. Three-Hundred Kilos or less." Sunset ordered, getting a subtle nod from Applejack, who then began securing gear.

"I'll be right back." Sunset walked into the base, and saw the Rainbow-haired woman standing on her hands, with Twilight sitting on a wooden panel uneasily as the woman began pushing her up and down.

"Oi!" Sunset broke her concentration and the woman yelped, collapsing to the ground, the wooden plate with the sixty-pound girl and five-pound dog simply slumping down beside her. Twilight got off of the plate, dusted herself off, and asked the Rainbow-Haired woman if she was alright. Sunset's level of skill was amazing, but even she had her limits, as she could barely contain the soft chuckle as it left her throat.

Sunset grabbed the woman's arm and pulled her up violently.

"Identify." Sunset said to her, giving her a steeled gaze. The woman returned with a cocky look, a dumb smirk, and now a lit cigarette in her mouth. The woman was suddenly on her back before she could realize what had happened, Sunset's knife to her throat, the cigarette sliced cleanly in half... There were a rare few whose augmentations were a bit naturally boosted by existing skill. The rainbow-haired woman had paled, the color drained from her face as she now had a knife pointed to her throat.

"C-Corporal R-Rainbow Dash, m-ma'am. 441st, F-Falcon Company." Sunset took a second to check for truth, before stepping back, sheathing her knife.

"No smoking on my watch or else." Rainbow Dashed nodded quickly, getting a smirk from the sunny—pun intended—Sergeant-turned-Major.

"Alright, Twi, you go outside, Corporal Dash, I want you to go help your comrade load all the weapons and armor into the base. Leave food, water, navigation and radio equipment out here. Am I understood, marine?" Sunset got close to Rainbow, looking her down. She nodded with no hesitation and ran outside, eager to get away from the crazy Major.

"That wasn't really necessary, Sunset..." Twilight said, standing up from her place on the floor.

"Yeah, but I had some fun. That's what's important, right?" Sunset turned to Twilight. She kept her helmet on, as Twi had made it clear that the prosthetic eye gave her a bit of fright. Twilight shook her head and sighed.

"No... What's important is that I want you to have really good friends... Maybe not these two, but someone." Sunset sighed and nodded.

"Well, get outside. I need to go get some horses." That confused Twilight, but she went outside anyway. Sunset slumped down against the wall and went over the plan in her mind.

She was going to get a few horses, and she was going to use them for transport instead of a warthog or scorpion. Much too slow, but could carry more. The horses she'd seen, were the ones the VDF had brought with them. Specially bred, trained. Of course, they'd done that decades ago, and the horses she saw, likely were a few down the genetic line. Either way, she needed the horses for her plan.

Sunset ran up to the window area where James-005 nearly bested her, then hopped down. She looked around for any sign of the horses she'd seen.

Aha! several brown horses with white muzzles grazed nearby. She carefully walked over to one of the large creatures, petting it on the side of it's face.

"Hey, girl..." For some reason unbeknownst to Sunset, she'd always been able to seemingly talk to and understand horses. People thought she was crazy, until she was able to take down an armed Black Ops sergeant with nothing but a horse and an M6C Magnum, stun rounds, of course. That got her some respect among her 'mates. The horse reared back and neighed.

"Whoa, girl... it's just me..." she, after a few hours, was able to tame the horses. That took a bit shorter than normal. She climbed up onto the back of one of the horses. It had white fur, with a pinkish-blonde mane. The horse trotted forward slowly, the subtle movement making Sunset feel a bit at peace.

She'd always liked horses... she didn't know why, though. Of all things, why horses? She decided she'd call this specific one "Sunbutt." No idea why, but she did. She named the other one, whose fur looked blueish, with a lighter blue mane, "Moonbutt." The third one she just called Sassafras, which she'd ride. It had gray/black fur.

Sunset got onto Sassafras and rode the horse to the main complex, then whistled. Twilight paled at the sight of Sunset riding the horse. Applejack chuckled, whilst Rainbow Dash simply kept smoking her cigar.

"I said no smoking..." Sunset growled. Rainbow snuffed it out on Applejack's shoulder, then began loading their gear onto the horses, along with saddles, which were made for such an occasion. Sunset climbed down and did the same with her own horse. She talked to the horse for a while, as well.

"Neigh."

"Neigh."

"Neigh."

"Neigh."

"Neigh."

That's about as interesting as that conversation was, to the outside at least. The equine creature was definitely intelligent, like the VDF's trained horses in a way... After a few hours, Sunset was able to get Sassafras to let her load her gear onto her. That took a long time.

Sunset climbed onto the saddle and grabbed Sassafras' reins. Twilight climbed up and sat behind Sunset, rather uncomfortable. Sunset took a wild guess that saddles were sexualized or something, but shook it off and started off with a slow trot, heading toward the Elugari Desert for the second part of their journey...

UNSC Cortez, 2551, Sometime In Early March.

Ensign Sandro Vasconcelos flattened out the creases in his uniform one last time as he stood in the elevator, along with two armed UNSC Army Troopers, wielding MA37 Assault Rifles. Sweat gathered up at his forehead. It wasn't very hot in the elevator, quite cool actually, but he was very nervous. One of the Captains leading the assault on Harmony, Jacobo de Vergara, had set up a meeting with him to speak about... something. Sandro knew what it was about. The controversy around the VDF-UNSC war. The VDF were training elite soldiers that could match up with a SPARTAN in skill, though despite their many attempts, they weren't able to necessarily "infiltrate" the Vanguard's military. They reminded Sandro of ancient Japan. Their warrior societies, specifically. If you visited a Vanguard-Controlled Colony, you'd occasionally see a few soldiers fighting with blades in the street. Marines or Rangers, normally the latter.

The Rangers were pretty honorable. They never attacked civilians, ran by morals instead of ROE. Most of them were retired by now, though. The Ranger Corps—according to the little information they could gather—was the VDF's attempt at a SPARTAN-esque program. It produced the VDF-equivalent to the ODSTs. They were very durable, strong as a SPARTAN, and normally don't go down without a few bullets to the skull. Their bones were reinforced with some super-metal, making them even worse to fight. 'Course, they went down easily, but getting them in the position to go down in the first place is the tricky part. They always move, never slow down, and are always trying to kill you. Sandro went up against one a while back and it costed him his right arm, which at the moment was simply a normal prosthetic. The elevator made a subtle ding, and the doors slid apart.

The bridge was bustling with activity. UNSC servicemen at every station working 'round the clock, doing what the Ensign believed to be something important, as a look of fear and determination filled the features of each of them. The Captain stood in front of the primary viewport, a cigar in his mouth.

"Sir." one of the Army Troopers addressed. The Captain glanced back and nodded. The two soldiers nodded and went into the elevator, likely to go to the bar for a drink. Sandro hesitantly walked past each station, and over to the admiral.

"S-Sir, you requested to see me?" he asked, snapping to attention.

"Ensign, I've heard some good things about you in the past." The Captain spun on his heel to face Sandro. His face was littered with scars. He had stubble upon his face, and bags under his eyes. He walked over to Sandro.

"You've killed a Ranger?" That got the attention of some of the crewmen around them. Sandro had found de Vergara to be a lenient person. He spoke his thoughts when he wanted, not caring about consequences, and was generally laid back.

"Y-Yes sir." The Captain smirked and turned back to the viewport, where a VDF super-carrier they called "Motherships" began coming into view off to the left side of the port.

"Well, what if I told you that you could kill every of those god-forsaken motherfuckers right now?" Crazy filled Jacob's voice. He turned to Sandro, that same look in his eye.

"W-What do you mean, sir?" Sandro replies wearily, shifting uncomfortably under the thousand-meter stare that Jacobo held.

"I mean, the VDF Romeo & Juliet is approaching our nine-o-clock, and I'm going to send that fucker right to Valhalla with the rest of those freaks!" he all-but-screamed.

"We're gonna hit them at the fucking knees! We're gonna cripple these motherfuckers and send a message right to that big motherfucking ship orbiting their Home-World!" he screamed.

"ALL HANDS FIRE AT WILL!" he yelled. The crewmen took no hesitation and began activating the weapons systems of the UNSC Cortez. Suddenly, thousands of Archer missiles, Longsword fighters, and even a SHIVA-Class Nuke flew out of the weapons ports of the dozen ships the UNSC had brought along.

The explosions were minor at first, then intensified. The VDF Romeo & Juliet began drifting down toward the planet, when it launched it's attack. The Ensign's pupils shrank to pinpricks and he hit the deck as thousands upon thousands of missiles and large bolts of plasma began striking the UNSC fleet that had moved to engage.

"Sir! We just lost the Pizarro, the Carvajal—" The crewman would never finish that sentence, as a plasma bolt slammed into the bridge's viewport and vaporized the crew, followed by a large explosion that rocked the ship to the core. Those Army Troopers would never finish their drinks, as they'd be floating in the vacuum, their suits' EVA gear only going to last so long before they're killed.

Hélder Fernandes, the Captain of the Romeo & Juliet sighed as he watched the UNSC fleet break apart under the small torrent of plasma and their supply of Archers. The surviving three ships went to go open up a portal into Slipstream Space, when the VDF Di Vinci intercepted them and took them down with a single blast from the large cannon mounted at the front of the massive battle cruiser.

"The UNSC will come back with a lot more than a simple scouting party..." he turned to one of the crewmen.

"Status update!" he yelled, walking down from the viewport.

"We've got breaches in dozens of decks, shields are offline, fusion reactors A-3 through B-7 are offline and we're losing power fast." he reported, coughing.

"Life support won't last long, either." Fernandes swore under his breath.

"Start immediate evacuation, if we're not out of here—" the Romeo & Juliet shook violently, strobe lights turning on overhead as they began getting bombarded by heavy plasma weapons.

"Dammit! Ensign, status report!" Fernandes looked out the viewport and saw several CCS-Class battle cruisers, led by a CAS-Class, appear from active camouflage.

"Fuck!" Fernandes accessed the main intercom.

"All crew, abandon ship! I repeat, abandon—" The Romeo & Juliet's bridge sealed off as a large plasma bolt struck it's viewport, the crew flying out into the vacuum without another word.

The Romeo & Juliet's fuselage descended, then crashed onto the surface of Harmony, offline, leaving the VDF with one less form of defense.

Author's Note

Neigh.
Yep.
Neigh?
Nope.
Neigh!
No.
Neigh.
No.