Late evening, several days after the Summer Sun Celebration \
Throne room \ Canterlot Castle

"Welcome to Equestria," Celestia greets the armored trio, her voice only getting colder by the minute. Truth be told, it's scaring Twilight how unforgiving her mentor's tone is getting; she'd never seen Celestia get this upset before. "I believe you have some explaining to do. But first," Celestia gestures to the creatures' armor, "if you would be so kind, please reveal your faces and introduce yourselves; I prefer to know who I'm speaking with."

Twilight observes the group of creatures with bated breath. A thousand different scenarios play out in her head as the trio of strange creatures stand silently in the center of the room. Based on their body language, they appear to be communicating with one another somehow. Then, the one in the center shrugs and removes the head of it's armor, revealing its face. The other two that are flanking it follow suit. Then, in a voice that clearly belongs to a mare, the one in the center speaks in perfectly fluent Equish.

"Figures. Always to the point, even in the midst of utter nonsense." Turning to address Celestia, she finally introduces herself. "Well, might as well indulge you. You can call me Jane, I guess. Although it's interesting that you say we need to explain ourselves, Ms..." she trails off, looking to Celestia for guidance.

"You may call me Princess Celestia," the princess provides. The creature in the green armor mouths the words a few times, almost as if she is tasting them.

"Right... anyway, Princess Celestia, I don't know if you're aware of what's been happening elsewhere in the galaxy, but the bastards we helped your soldiers out with kind of want us dead. We simply returned the favor before they could get their wish." At this snarky declaration, the ponies in the room grimace in near unison. Even Celestia seems to lose her famously calm demeanor over this revelation.

"But cold blooded murder? How can you justify such a thing?" This time, the one on the right speaks up, in a voice that establishes it as a stallion.

"We do what we need to survive, ma'am. It's us or them; they want to see our race extinguished, no matter the cost. We want to carry on living. Believe it or not, the UNSC tried diplomacy first, back on Harvest. You know what those alien bastards did? Killed everyone on the planet- women, children, all of them." As the armored stallion speaks, Twilight shudders at the images put in her head by his story. What kind of monsters were capable of such a thing, harming innocent foals like that? The stallion continues, oblivious to the adverse reactions of Celestia and Luna. "Then, to make sure that the job was done, they fired plasma at the surface from orbit, turning the entire planet's surface to nothing but glass. They did this to planet after planet, slowly working their way towards our home world. They could do this to your world, ma'am, and they wouldn't even have a second thought." He pauses for a moment, chin resting on an armored fist. "Heh, almost forgot. Name's Seth, and don't forget it."

"Surely you're exaggerating--" Luna begins, only to be cut off by the last armored creature, this one also a mare.

"No, we're not. As much as we wish we were, we're not. The Covenant doesn't do anything halfway... especially in combat." She pauses, scratching the back of her bare head with an armored claw. "Come to think of it, Elites normally don't retreat. Something's not adding up here... anyway, please call me Alice. It is my name, after all..."

Twilight looks from the one that calls itself Jane, to the ones flanking her, Seth and Alice. Without the helmets, they almost seem approachable. Friendly, even. But if they are the good guys in the fight that they've described, then how could they be capable of the mindless killing they had displayed earlier? Were they really so desperate that they couldn't find a less violent solution? With a pained expression, Twilight turns to Celestia, who seems to already be on the same page.

"If you three will excuse my sister, my student and I, we need to discuss a few things." Celestia turns to the door hidden behind her throne; the one that will lead to her private quarters, and beckons Luna and Twilight to follow. "Don't think that you're off the hook yet; we still have quite a bit to chat about."

Then, Twilight follows her fellow princesses through the door.

1827 hours, July 25th, 2552 (Military Calendar) \
Unknown System \ Unknown Planet \ "Equestria" (Local Designation)

As Jane watches the creature calling herself Celestia and her two counterparts retreat through a hidden door to "discuss things," she can only shake her head. So far, this "Equestria" place is on track to have the most demanding leadership she's ever come across, and that's saying something. It's not easy to outdo Mendez's drill instructors in that department. Fortunately, Jane doesn't have long to brood on such thoughts, as a flashing light inside her helmet grabs her attention, and she quickly slips it back on.

"New intel obtained; standing by to deliver."

Jane chuckles, wondering just what Eden must've thought about the conversation with this Celestia character, if it could really be called anything other than an interrogation.

"Oh, look. You finally decided to put your helmet back on. I said the air was breathable; I did NOT say to break every protocol in the book..."

Jane rolls her eyes. "Well, you have my attention now, so why not get on with it?"

"Either way, we can discuss this later. For now, get the rest of Green to get their helmets on as well. You're all going to want to see this."

Raising an eyebrow, Jane decides to play along. She opens the COM channel that lets her speak normally to those around her, without the need to remove her helmet.

"Green, helmets on. Eden says he has something for us." Once all the helmets have found their owners' heads, she continues. "Alright Eden, what have you got?"

"Quite a bit more than you did from that little chat you had with the locals, I daresay. Speaking of which, how could you even understand them? They weren't even speaking English!"

Seth chuckles dryly. "I wish I could say we knew, man. One moment, all we could hear was snorts and whinnies. The next, it was like the world adjusted itself so we could understand everything... fucking bullshit, if you ask me. I'd almost rather take an energy sword to the gut over dealing with all this nonsense."

"I see. Well, I can tell you the same happened for those two Elites you let escape- nice work, by the way. All sarcasm intended, mind you. The idea is NOT to paint a target on your skulls, which is exactly what you did by letting that Ship Master and his buddy escape."

This time, Alice butts in. "Hey, it's not like we could've expected that would happen. You know as well as we do that the Covenant doesn't retreat, Eden." Jane can't help but admire Alice, especially in moments like this where her inner badass comes out to play, usually followed by some insanely wise statement. "Besides... there's no point in crying over what's been done. We can't change it, so it's time to face the music."

"Yes, that is a very astute observation. Regardless, they couldn't understand what happened, either. Turns out that it spooked one of their Grunts so badly that the thing opened fire. The skirmish you interrupted is what ensued."

"I guess the old saying is true; our enemies aren't that dissimilar from us," Jane muses. "Tell me; got anything, oh, I don't know, usable?"

"You know I don't appreciate that kind of snarky reply, Jane. However, the answer is yes, I do. Not much, though; for some reason this particular crew has some insane level of OpSec- even the religious rhetoric is toned down from what we'd normally expect. Let's start broad; we are currently located in the Equus System, with you being on the aptly named planet, Equus. Got it so far?"

"Well, I think I can start to see the theme," Seth snarks. "Technicolor horses, all the names of places so far being horse-related puns, black magic fuckery all around... come to think of it, that would explain quite a bit. Either we're tripping balls right now, or these horse things are doing some kind of hoodoo-voodoo black magic to make some of the things we've seen happen so far."

He cocks his head to one side ever so slightly, as far as his armor will let him. "Which reminds me; their ruler is a princess, this place is far too colorful to be real, and to top it all off they referred to open combat as 'cold blooded murder' like they've never been at war before. I wouldn't be surprised if we were in the middle of some fucked up variation of a children's story right now, to be honest."

Jane and Alice stare blankly at Seth, who is now shifting his weight back and forth uncomfortably.

"Something wrong, Seth?"

"No, I'm fine," he shrugs. "I certainly as hell don't feel like I just broke some kind of fourth wall right now."

"Right... I'll just pretend you didn't say that, and continue like nothing happened. Regardless, based on what I've been able to glean from the sparse communications among the Covenant forces around here, it seems that they're looking for some kind of weapon. There's talk of some other objective, but not enough to determine what said objective would have been. Either way, it seems that they failed that one because the Grunt with the itchy trigger finger."

"Is it just me, or does this Celestia character have more to explain to us than vice versa?" Alice asks nobody in particular.

"Celestia? You mean the white one?"

"Yes," Jane responds. "The white one. And yes, I think that she has some explaining of her own to do. Anything else, Eden?"

"Not at this time. I'll continue scanning; I haven't quite locked onto a position for whatever parent ship that Spirit was returning to, nor have I gotten a name, but as soon as I know more I'll pass it along. Good luck."

Jane takes a moment to absorb the new information she's been given. The Covenant are looking for something, but what? Still pondering, she turns around to face the raised dais with the throne on it once again, where the trio of winged, horned equines are just standing there, watching them.

Jane removes her helmet once more, and Green follows suit.

"So... the Covenant are looking for a weapon" Jane begins. "What do you know?"

Celestia bows her head with an expression of defeat, and remains that way for several long, awkward minutes of silence. Finally, she raises her head and begins speaking, but not to the Spartans.

"Twilight, gather the Elements and your friends... I only want to have this conversation once." The lavender one, now identified as Twilight, disappears in a flash of light.

Author's Note

This chapter is the last one I'm releasing before entering the marked hiatus. Part 2, when I get around to it, will loop back and tell the midsection from the Princesses' perspective, before actually going forward with the story.

Also, blah blah blah, no editor, if you see a glaring mistake feel free to point it out in the comments.

To explain a few things, the Spartans' personalities are a few different combinations of parts of the Mane 6's personalities, with some unique things tossed in. However, certain aspects of their characters couldn't come out to play before they came to Equestria, so they're unaware of these aspects of themselves until they DO come out to play (yadda yadda yadda, something about magic, we all know the trope that this is an attempt at an original interpretation of). I'll be pulling a similar stunt with the Ship Master, but you'll have to wait for him to appear again for me to explain what I mean.

Seth shares Rainbow Dash's fighting spirit and Pinkie Pie's perceived ability to break the 4th wall. His fiery temper and tendency to make decisions on the fly are only countered by his undying loyalty to his teammates, and his desperation not to disappoint Jane. (Chaotic Good)

Alice shares Fluttershy's trademark shyness and Applejack's perceived wisdom (when it decides to come out to play, that is; we've seen AJ make some pretty dumb decisions over the years). She wants nothing more than to see her team return from each and every mission safely, and that desire WILL be her downfall. (Lawful Good)

Jane is a natural born leader, sharing an odd combination of Twilight's propensity for planning and Rarity's perceived ability to improvise under pressure. She tends to plan things far enough ahead that she has contingencies for her contingencies, although usually not enough ammo to act on Plan D. (Neutral Good)