Beacon 428: Spirit of Fire

Subtle as Always

Douglas’s Pod jolted downward, dragging him down as his inertia wanted him to stay still. The shaking drop pod soon started to heat up as it entered the upper atmosphere. As it cooled down, his pod door’s translucent material slowly ceased the orange coating around it. In turn, Douglas looked out at the planet below him, there were some mountains, lots of grassland and a forest here and there. He saw what thought to be a town, but his pod radio interrupted his observations.

“EMERGENCY COURSE CORRECTION! 0490217! NOW!” The intensity of Jerome’s voice was enough to let the Spartans know that there was a problem. Which, there was. They could not enter the forest they were assigned to drop into, the Spirit launched the pods at an angle, not straight down like regulation drops were. The Spartans corrected their course, slamming into a mountain.

Douglas checked his surroundings through the “windows” in his pod. He had slammed onto a flat part of the mountain, with plenty of room to exit. He activated the pod’s five explosive bolts, and after a hiss, his door flew off with a bang. Douglas stepped onto the snow-covered ground, surprised it was only ankle-deep. He quickly looked around for any hostile forms, and grabbed his equipment from the pod. All of his equipment was fine, save for one syringe from his medical kit. He checked his HUD for the callsigns of his squadmates, which miraculously landed in another flat spot of the mountain, only a kilometer away.

“042! This is 092! I have 130 with me, what’s your status? Over!” Jerome asked him through the short-range comms.

“This is 042, I’m green. Equipment is fine, cept for a medical shot.” Douglas quickly replied, he was ready to get off the mountain, itching to get on with his mission.

“Copy that 042, we think we see a town, or a city, on the cliffside. Can you confirm?” Douglas looked over the edge of the clearing and sighed, he hated the cold, but the mission came first.

“Confirmed.” He tried to hide his disappointment.

“Doug, sending you cords for rendezvous point, meet us there. Out.” A new blue diamond appeared on his HUD, about 3 kilometers up, but only half a kilometer northwest.

“Copy all, out.” Just as he was about to begin his climb, he thought he saw a dark-blue horse, with wings and a horn, and a flowing, midnight blue mane that seemed to sparkle a bit. “Man, I’m gonna need to see a doctor after this mission…” Just for future reference, he played back his helmet cam, and snapped an image of the abnormal creature.

===

“Twilight, YOU don’t know what it is? YOU?!” Asked the cyan pony.

“No Rainbow, I don’t.” Twilight responded, insulted by Rainbow Dash.

“Well, whadda ya think it is Twi?” Applejack was curious to know what she thought it could be.

“Well, it looked like it was burning, and it fell onto a mountain near Canterlot. So, it could be an asteroid. Wait, no, it changed its flight path midair. Uh, what COULD it be? I don’t know.”Twilight was getting annoyed that she of all ponies didn’t have an idea of what the thing could be.

“OOH! Maybe it’s a metal pod with a thing wearing total body armor and has miniature cannons that shoot miniature cannonballs!” Pinkie guessed, getting nothing but confusion out of the other ponies. “What? Don’t you ever read crossover fanfics?” Pinkie responded, confused by their confusion.

“Uh, anyway, I think we should check it out.” Rainbow Dash loved adventure, ever since she discovered Daring Do she loved adventure even more.

“I have to agree, maybe there are some jewels in it!” The white unicorn seemed eager to find out if it had any valuable materials inside of it.

“Alright, we’ll go first thing tomorrow morning.” Twilight said, much to the relief of  everyone but Rainbow and Rarity, who were ready to look for it that instant.

Yes, I know the chapters are short. I don't have writers block as bad as some people, but I do have it. Might add-on to chapters later on. Give the story some more detail, instead of some unnecessary crap focused on one item. In other news, I'm fixing the dialogue issues. Critics are still welcome!