Canterlot Castle, Half an Hour Later…

What can I say about Spartans that hasn’t already been said by my peers and superiors? They’re freaks of nature? They’re brutally effective soldiers? Both points are true and have been hashed out after every encounter with ONI’s resident Spartan lapdog Naomi. Obviously the humans working with us have divided opinions as a number have fought alongside some of these super soldiers, even crediting them as the main reasons that their species could claim any victories over their war with the Covenant.

But now we stand waiting to escort a wounded Spartan to our infirmary after one was apparently wounded fighting on our behalf. It’s a rather unexpected change, and one that clearly has the entire castle on edge if most ponies body language is anything to go by. And as the newer Pelican landed in the courtyard I could tell that I was starting to feel a bit apprehensive as well.

The ramp dropped and the assembled group of Spartans began to file off. They all wore different models of armor, all with similar blue and white color schemes. That pattern was broken by the female being carried by the last of the group, trading blues for grey and red. “Welcome to Canterlot. I’m Commander Dart, leader of Blaze Squad. We’ll be your escorts for the duration of your stay here.

“Fair enough.” The horn-helmeted one replied, sounding familiar all the while. “Majestic, helmets off. We’re among friends here.” As the group removed the directed piece of armor, the horned one’s helmet front jutted forward, allowing the helmet to roll off onto the human that he was carrying. I wasn’t entirely prepared for the reveal, but Dusk’s dark mane and horn proved his identity right away. “It’s good to see you again Dart. Hell, it's good to see all of you still in one piece.”

With all of my previous opinions in mind I froze. Seeing the pony that helped me find purpose in life wearing that armor made me realize that something had been done to him… He had been turned into one of those same freaks that I’ve complained about for years.

“You’re certainly taller.” Don observed.

Dusk shrugged. “You could say that. Now is the infirmary still in the same place?”

“It is.” I managed to squeak out.

“Good to know.” Dusk said, nodding at his companions. “Fall in Majestic.”

One would image that escorts would be leading visitors about, but Dusk obviously wasn’t having any of it as he took the lead into the castle. And what could I do to stop him? He’s a veritable half ton walking tank.

But even with that glaring fact, Don fell back with me as we followed the Spartans to the castle infirmary. “So you’re just letting Dusk run the place?” He muttered.

“Do you think I have a choice?” I whispered back. “We’ve had trouble dealing with just one of these freaks and now we’ve got six of them under their own power. Lets just try to avoid trouble if we can help it.”

While I was going back and forth with Don one of the Spartans had dropped to the back of the group and finally fell in with the two of us. “I know the feeling.”

“And just what makes you think we’re on the same page?” Don spat.

“Buddy, I’ve been fighting aliens bent on destroying humanity for years. And only a few hours ago I was told to follow the orders of one alien that I don’t know anything about.” The Spartan replied. “Trust me, the whole ‘shades of grey’ bullshit gets old. Some days it makes me miss the Corps.”

“Corps… You mean the Marines?” I asked.

Our new companion nodded. “I was in the marines for the last half of the war with the Covenant. Hoya and Palmer were an ODSTs, Thorne did time with the Army, Ray worked in Signals Intelligence, and Grant was involved with armor development. If anything Grant’s been a Spartan longer than any of us.”

We know next to nothing about Naomi, so I took note of the varied backgrounds of the group. “What’s your name?”

“Call me Madsen.” The human replied.

“So Madsen, what are you guys anyway?” Don asked. “Are you all second-generation Spartans?”

Madsen force back a growing smirk. “Right, you guys wouldn’t know. We’re actually all fourth generation. The original Spartans that showed up during the beginning of the war were the second generation, while the third started appearing around the middle of the war. Most of them had that cheap, unshielded power armor.”

“Well thats something to know…” Don muttered. “So did the originals get recruited like you guys did?”

“Not even close.” Said Madsen. “They were all children when their respective programs got started. The Twos were all abducted and put through some serious training, while rumor has it that the Threes were recruited from pools of orphans that were evacuated from worlds that the Covenant glassed. That's part of why they were all so good, they were trained from well before puberty hit.”

“Is that even legal?” Don wondered aloud.

Madsen only shook his head. “Probably not, but I doubt anyone cared at first considering ONI gave both projects full support. The only thing that they considered wrong was when the Twos were replaced with flash clones after they had been abducted. From what I know that's what ONI used to justify locking up Doctor Halsey.”

The conversation ended the moment we walked into the infirmary and watched as Dusk laid the wounded soldier out on one of the beds. “So who’s that?”

“That’s Palmer.” Madson replied. “She took a round from a Scorpion at point blank… I still don’t get how it trashed her armor.”

Thinking back to our few encounters with Naomi, I remembered that even without shields the armor itself is incredibly durable, being able to survive near-impacts from high explosive shells. “And a Scorpion did that?”

“It did.” Dusk said as he finally joined us. “Until we get the analysis on Palmer’s surviving armor components we won’t know for sure what hit her.” Behind him doctors and nurses had already set to work on treating the unconscious super soldier, and were starting to remove the body suit she was wearing.

Instead of one of the doctors showing us out, the Spartan that was at Palmer’s bedside did it for them. He didn’t have to even be asked, and none of the other soldiers complained as he shut the door behind him. “Dusk, you think that the Commander will be all right?”

Dusk nodded at the Spartan. “Palmer is a tough lady Thorne. She’ll come out just fine.”

‘Thorne’ simply nodded. “So what do we do now?”

“Hold on, none of you are doing a damn thing without us giving you the green light.” Don forcefully replied. “If I tell the lot of you to jump, every one of you should be asking how high. Kapish?”

I elbowed Don in retort. “While my associate here has a point, I’m not above reason. What do the lot of you think should be on the docket?”

Bar Thorne, the other Spartans seemed conflicted. He finally decided to make the decision for them. “We do need to debrief with our superiors. Could you arrange a joint meeting between your leadership and ours so we can all get on the same page?”

As much as I don’t like the idea, simply because one of these super soldiers suggested it, I can’t argue with its merits. These Spartan had ostensibly served right alongside our own soldiers, and their vessel had helped deal with the Anvil. I finally came to a decision. “I’ll see what I can do.”

***

Two Hours Later…

I can’t say that I’ve had to jump through more loops in the last three years than I have in the last few hours. As soon as I posed the request for a joint meeting to Celestia and Luna they got on board, but that's where the trouble started. Within ten minutes a rather angry General came knocking on the space in the castle that I was setting up for this assembly.

In the past Meteor Shower had been the ‘big stick’ that was swung at Naomi when she made an appearance. And now that he heard he would be sitting at a table with seven other Spartans he was not entirely pleased. He could tolerate the fact that Dusk had led them at Dodge City, but he simply refused to do more with them. And as it turned out he had put the Spartan logistics officer under heavy guard after Dusk had taken the others to the front lines outside the city.

His tirade ended the moment I told him to piss off and bring it up with the Princesses. While they told him that the matter was settled Meteor clearly wasn’t having it. The next issue that cropped up was him telling Major Dooley that he wanted every single one of the Human visitors cleared. And to ensure that the Spartans would submit to what would likely be a slanted interview process he ordered all four Special Forces teams in the castle to gather whatever weapons they could and ensure that the Spartans didn't leave the area that Dusk had set up so they could bring in the proper equipment to remove their armor.

The kicker is that I wasn’t given the order, Steeljack and Don received it instead. While Steeljack, Comet and Strike saw to the orders, Don came to me questioning it. By the time we reached the west wing of the castle Captain Sentry had five unarmored Spartans at gunpoint while Dusk was trying to figure out what the hell was happening from Steeljack. Once he learned the truth he delved back into the room for a time.

When the General showed up to ensure that his orders were being carried out Dusk emerged carrying a large weapon that he called a railgun. Dusk also still had a clear amount of animosity towards Meteor over his abandonment and the General’s later return. As he put it, “How far do you think you’ll go if I fire one of these off straight up your ass?”. While a decided improvement over an anger-driven physical confrontation between the two, none of Captain Sentry’s ponies seemed to see it that way and promptly held Dusk at gunpoint as well.

When Celestia arrived to see what all the commotion was about I was expecting someone to start shooting. But instead of asking questions she looked at the Spartans, looked at the detail of her soldiers holding them at gunpoint, and finally settled her gaze on Dusk at Meteor. As the two kept arguing she simply walked up, nudged Dusk’s weapon out of her way, and then promptly struck Meteor right across the jaw before ordering all the troops to stand down and return to their previous duties.

While she dragged the General back to the throne room for what was likely a major grilling between her and Luna, Major Dooley never got the memo to stand down as he wasn’t present. So as I was finally finishing up I got a radio call from Roland asking that I go help the Infinity’s Captain out in the courtyard. When I arrived I found Major Dooley and a number of Royal Guard holding the Captain at spear’s length while the Captain’s two Marine escorts kept their pistols moving between targets.

I was about to pull rank on the Major when his radio squeaked to life, and Princess Celestia gave him the word to ignore the General’s prior security order. I don’t know if she was watching but her timely intervention avoided yet another potential interstellar incident. I ended up escorting the rather annoyed Captain to the meeting room myself, and in the interest of not pissing off the human with the giant starship in orbit I dusted off the old servant skills I had learned many years ago while under De Witt’s employ and basically did everything I could to take care of him.

As the Spartans and my own team filed in we all took seats around the rather large table. While it certainly wasn’t appealing, but the human Spartans and Blaze Squad intermixed on our side of the table while the Captain took a seat opposite of us. As the Royal Sisters, General Shower, Captain Baxter and Dusk walked in they ended up joining the Captain on his side of the metaphorical line. So here we sit, in easily one of the most awkward silences I’ve endured up until this point in my life.

Finally the other Captain seemed to get sick of the silence. “I think proper introductions may be in order.” He said, offering his hand to Princess Celestia. “Captain Tom Lasky, UNSC Infinity.”

The Princess took the gesture in kind. “Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria.”

In just under a minute we went around and exchanged names, and finally Dusk tapped his knuckles on the table. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way let's get down to business.” In the center of the table a light turned on and Roland’s avatar appeared. “By now everyone at this table knows we’ve got a major problem, and it’s called the Office of Naval Intelligence.”

The leaders all murmured in agreement. “Princess, I’d like to offer my apologies for ONI’s activities over the last few years. Thanks to a datachip Dusk supplied us with, Fleetcom has ordered a general stand-down of all ONI assets and ordered them to return home while we sort all this out. If we had known what ONI was up to-”

“Say nothing of it Captain.” Celestia said. “My sister and I have long suspected that Admiral Osman’s organization was acting alone, as up until today ONI hasn’t done anything more than supply the Enclave with technical assistance. Simply put you’re here now, and I see no need to dwell on the past.”

Lasky’s expression softened at that. “Well you have our full support. Lord Hood has ordered us to do whatever we can to help you end this conflict.”

“Then let's quit beating around the bush.” Meteor growled. “Why did ONI take up a direct role in the assault on Dodge City?”

“I think that I can answer that.” Roland answered. All around the table holographic readouts of communications between Admiral Osman and West Wind popped into existence. “According to the files that Dusk stole Admiral Osman wasn’t too happy with the constant setbacks that Kilo-Five and the Enclave were dealt, and neither was this West Wind character. From what I can tell he has been pushing for more direct ONI involvement in their war for the last year and a half.”

“But why did they get involved to begin with?” Luna asked. “Is that answer in the files Construct?”

Roland’s avatar nodded. “At least part of the answer. I still don’t know for sure how ONI made contact with the Enclave, or even how they managed to move such a sizable force between realities, but apparently Equis was discovered by Section One thirty years ago while they were attempting to identify and map Covenant space. Section Three finally sent a research team here about ten years ago in the hopes of identifying and determining viability of previously disregarded materials as resources to feed the war effort. Instead of materials they found your species and began studying it from afar. They recognized the potential of your species and thought that the varied abilities that you all possess could help restore the ecosystem of planets that were glassed by the Covenant. And for whatever reason they determined that acquisition of samples would further that research, hence why Dusk was captured three years ago.”

Celestia leaned forward in her chair and finally rested on her elbows. “Then why not just ask us for help? The ponies of our land would certianly listen to any proposals, and you’d likely have volunteers step up.”

“With previous first-contact with the Covenant in mind, Admiral Osman was of the belief that diplomacy would turn out to be a failure.” the AI replied. “It's not clear how contact was established with the Enclave, but from what I can tell elements in Section Three moved to assist the Enclave as part of a regime change operation.”

“They didn’t know if we’d be friendly…” Meteor Shower observed. “So ONI decided to make sure there’d be a friendly government in place for when the rest of the government discovered our existence.”

“And it wouldn’t take much.” Lasky pointed out. “All someone would have to do is put this planet's coordinates on the priority survey list for the Colonial Authority.”

“It’s just too bad ONI found these guys first…” One of the Spartans observed.

“What do you mean by that Hoya?” Dusk asked.

“Well think about it. How threatening are a bunch of pastel-colored horse aliens?” The Spartan offered. “Bar the General, most of the ones we’ve met seem rather friendly. I don’t care what the spooks thought at the end of the day, there was no reason to attack your people.”

“I’m sure we’ll get Admiral Osman’s opinion on the matter eventually.” Celestia pointed out. “Although there may be a line…”

Lasky nodded. “Lord Hood didn’t seem all to pleased when gave us our orders.”

“And in his position I’d likely have a similar attitude.” The Princess replied. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We need to discuss the day's events. Captain Baxter, I assume you have something you’d like to add?”

The bearded veteran nodded in agreement. “Those refits your student made saved our asses up there. Without at least those shields I doubt I’d be here to even talk about it.”

“What about your ship?” Luna asked. “How did it fair?”

The Captain shook his head at the question. “Better than I’d have hoped, but worse than I expected. She’s in the shipyard now getting a new elevator section built. Lucky for us we’ve got a sizable debris field to scavenge the raw materials from. If all goes well I’m expecting her to be combat ready again within thirty hours.”

The Princess then turned her gaze to me. “Well Commander, I think it’s your turn to share.”

“The Pioneer was empty.” I said with a sigh. “Everything was rigged up for remote operation, and until we used the master code that Roland provided she was run from control stations on the Anvil. Once we disembarked some sort of charge blew on the fuel cells and wrecked the ship, knocking it off the collision course to the Enclave base that we had programmed. I just don’t know offhand where the debris landed.”

“Fair enough.” Celestia replied. “Luna, do you have anything to add?”

“Indeed I do.” The lunar princess stated. “Commander, given the outcome of this engagement do you believe that we’re equipped to handle the main force that ONI supposedly has en route?”

“Main force?” Lasky asked. “What are you talking about?”

“Those ships were just scouts Captain.” Don said. “Based off of records we’ve recovered ONI allocated a number of cruisers, carriers and battleships as part of a task group to invade the planet.”

“But they’ve been recalled by Fleetcom.”

“And that’s assuming they were even listening when the message was sent.” Don pointed out. “If those ships are reported as back at their starting points in the next few days I’ll definitely say that we didn’t have anything to worry about. But we keep in mind that this is ONI we’re talking about. What’s to say that the Captains of those ships don’t have contingency orders on top of contingency orders?”

“Tremble has a point Captain.” Dusk added. “We’re not going to know if we’re safe at least for another few days.”

I smacked my hand down on the table and got the attention of all of the gather humans and ponies. “Back to Princess Luna’s question I’d have to say no, we’re not equipped to handle a larger fleet. We’ve got two frigates, a corvette and what started out as a Condor. None of them have the firepower, individual or combined, that can take on anything much larger than a destroyer if that sacking we took up there is any indicator. And even with Infinity we still have the numbers against us, both in weapons and ships. Long story short, we’re fucked if that fleet shows up and opens fire.”

Its at that point that Dusk seemed to snap as he slapped the tabletop. “What the hell happened?” He asked. “All I’m hearing is a long and drawn out explanation as to how fucked every living being on this planet is. Where’s the possible solutions?”

“We’ve been fighting a defensive war for three years Dusk. What would you have me do?” Meteor asked.

“Anything other than sitting in a damn trench!” Dusk yelled. That's when I stopped hearing what Dusk was saying… Instead as I watched him rake his Grandfather over I started feeling enamored. When I first met Dusk I developed a bit of a crush. He was energetic, passionate, he cared… But as the years ticked by and things slowly began going south before his disappearance I stopped seeing that from him. But this, this was the Dusk that I'd first met.

And I absolutely was loving it.

“And you!” Dusk yelled at me, snapping me out of my stupor. “Dart, you knew how the Enclave was coming here. Yet you didn’t even try to cut them off?”

“Hey, it isn’t her fault!” Steeljack yelled. “We’ve been trying to keep the Enclave contained!”

“And how’d that work out?” Dusk spat. “Because from my perspective you’ve all done a miserable job.”

From there things actually calmed down. But Dusk’s words stung like a bee. He was right, we could’ve done more. But even with that in mind I kept finding myself staring at him, and that same feeling kept coming back.

...Wait. I think I know what this is. This is love. And I’m falling for the pony sitting right across from me.

Aw hell. This is going to be a thing, isn't it?

Author's Note

Yes, those who have read the stories in the Mirrorverse do know that this Dusk-Dart emotional connection is, in fact, a thing. While I don't plan on writing it just yet, the next chapter will be a heart-to-heart between both Dusk and Dart, which ended right at the point in Broken Mirror Part I when Palmer woke up and walked outside her hospital room.

In the meantime, anyone got questions? Like what you're seeing so far? Hell, maybe have some gripes? There's a comment section and the Mirrorverse Codex. Read and comment away, because I want to hear from you fellow denizens of this corner of the internet. Until next time gang!
-Striker