Halo ODST: Feet First Into Equestria

by DontBeThatGuy

Chapters

I Don't Need A Weapon
Troopers Know What The Ladies Like
Do you think we'll ever meet them?
Folks Need A Hero
This Is Not Your Jail, But You Are Welcome In It
Ms. Princess Celestia, Our New Boss
Thought I'd Try Hanging Out, Mix Things Up A Little
It Blew Right Through Us!
Truth and Reconciliation
Short Night of Solace
Prepare to Drop
You Know The Music
Epilogue
Feet First Into... Equestria

I Don't Need A Weapon

“Troopers! What makes the green grass grow?” A heavily muscled NCO barked across the formation.

“Blood, blood, bright red blood!” The 143 Troopers in ODST School replied.

“What is the spirit of the ODST?”

“To kill kill kill with cold hard will!”

“There are two types of people in the world, who are you?”

“The quick!”

“Who are they?”

“The dead!”

“Let’s go troopers, assume your combat stance!” 143 bodies dropped into the same position, feet shoulder width apart, one leg dropped back about six inches. Chests were squared up with their opponent, hands opened with the one slightly leading the other. The exact position (with the exception of arm posture) used for shooting, moving, bayonet drills, and hand to hand combat. The philosophy was the less time spent thinking about where they were supposed to have their body in combat, the more time they could spend killing. So far, their track record approved of this philosophy.

Jennings faced Naber, his sparring partner, blinking back the sweat and grime that coated his face. They had been drilling endless bouts of hand to hand combat, with both sides changing periodically between offense, defense, who has a weapon, and who doesn’t. Even so, the sparring wasn’t the biggest challenge. Fighting exhaustion and dehydration consumed most of his effort, considering that he and his partner had been punching, kicking, kneeing, stabbing, and bludgeoning each other since approximately 0300. It was now well into midday, and the heat and humidity were unforgiving. Every single Trooper’s black PT uniform was soaked through in sweat, grime clinging to the uniform and the soldiers on every part of their bodies.

“Strike!” Naber snapped out his left hand, snapping Jennings in the head. Losing his balance, Jennings slammed to the ground.

“Trooper Jennings, do you love the ground?” Jumping to his feet quickly, Jennings responded in the enthusiastic manner he had been trained.

“Yes Sergeant!”

“Do you love to sweat?”

“Yes Sergeant!”

“Good! Start pushing, and tell me what your mistake was.” Jennings dropped and began pumping out pushups. Normally able to over one hundred in a go, his exhausted body got to ten before he began struggling.

“Well?” Arms shaking under duress, he replied.

“I let my guard down and got hit in the face, Sergeant?”

“You think I care if you get punched in the face? Try again, Trooper.” Jennings’ face turned beet red as he struggled to push himself up the final few inches. He paused at the top, trying to think about what he did wrong. “Did I say to stop?” He lowered himself again.

“My stance was off, Sergeant!” He tried to shout, but his voice was stifled from exertion.

“Your stance was fine,” the NCO said, distractedly. Jennings hit the low point of the pushup, and tried to reverse direction, but only succeeded in hovering.

“No excuse, Sergeant.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, Sergeant.” Jennings’ pushup was starting to slip downwards.

“You fell. I don’t give a shit if you get punched in the balls. Downrange you can get shot in the arms and legs and not give in. Keep fighting. Don’t stay down. You got punched in the face, I know soldiers who have had rounds bounce off their heads and not fall down. Stand your ground, fight back. I don’t care if they have a gun and you have a bubblegum wrapper. Find something in the environment to use as a weapon, and keep the mental edge over your opponents. Recover.” Jennings rose to his feet, gasping for air.

“Strike!” The blow glanced off his hands, hitting him in the head, wobbling him off balance.

“Trooper Jennings, drop your hands.”

“Yes Sergeant!” his hands dutifully fell to his side, grateful for a break from holding up his arms.

“Trooper Naber, you will follow my instructions.”

“Yes Sergeant!” the stocky man replied.

“Trooper Naber, punch Trooper Jennings in the face. And Trooper Jennings, I swear to god if I see your hands move to protect your face, I will not be able to be held responsible for what I do to you.”

“Yes Sergeant!” Jennings grabbed his legs to keep from involuntary flinching. The blow rocked Jennings’ head, doubling his already painful headache… but his feet didn’t move.

“See Trooper Jennings? One punch to the face isn’t that bad. Stand your ground.”

“Yes Sergeant!”

“Strike!” Jennings deflected the blow this time, returning with a grappling takedown, as he had been instructed by the Cadre.

“And one more time for the Trooper in the sky, strike!” Everything was done +1 for the trooper in the sky, and unarmed combat was no exception. While a single extra pushup or a single extra pull-up may not seem like that much to be concerned about, a single extra repetition becomes very noticeable after 1,500 four-count overhead arm claps. Especially when one person doesn’t do it, and the entire company has to start over.

“Change positions, strike!” Naber didn’t have the same problems that Jennings did in performing the exercise, having entered the course with significant martial arts experience. They completed the ten iterations plus one without many difficulties. One Trooper broke a bone when he was dropped and his partner dropped a knee onto unfortunate Trooper’s tibia.

“Troopers, are you ready for the next exercise?”

“Yes Sergeant!” 142 voices sounded in unison.

“Troopers, watch my high-speed demonstrators show you how to react when your enemy grabs on to your arms.” The two Cadre struggled momentarily before one launched himself at the other, knocking them to the ground. “Now, does anyone have any questions? Good! Strike!” Naber latched onto Jennings’ forearm. The two pulled for a bit, before Jennings launched himself towards his opponent, landing two blows before the repetition ended.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“And you’re sure you can take care of it?” Mayor Mare asked Twilight, observing the sleeping figure of Jennings on a bed inside the library.

“Of course, Mayor. I’m the town’s foremost expert on foreign studies.”

“But you don’t know anything about it, it could be dangerous!” the Mayor protested.

“I am sure I would have seen some indication of that by now. We haven’t even found a weapon on it, with the exception of that small knife. Were it a dangerous, it would undoubtedly carry a weapon like a broadsword or spear.”

“What about the strange devices we found inside?”

“We’ll just ask it when it wakes up.”

“Twilight, as long as you know what you’re doing, I’m fine. The second you think it might be too much to handle, you let me know.”

“Sure thing, Mayor!” Twilight showed her the door, and moved back towards her subject to make some more observations.

“Status: unchanged. Subject still shows signs of reaction to outside stimuli, but has yet to awake. Stencils on the bulky clothing may indicate name: Jen-ning-s.” Twilight grabbed a small needle, prodding the exposed skin on the hand. No response.

“While the subject responds to changes in external habitat like temperature, light, etc., it appears to not respond to mild pain impulses. Perhaps the subject cannot feel something that small, due to anatomic differences between us and it. Beginning with touching a larger surface area, to see if that has any impact,”she said, grabbing forearm.

Jennings launched upwards and sideways towards his attacker. Still thinking he was in the combat pit, he got in two solid strikes with his free hand before landing on his opponent in the mount.

Purple.

Horse.

The hell?

Jennings blinked, trying to take in what he saw before him.

“Ow, what the hay was that for?” Twilight said, wiping her now bloody snout. Talking purple horse.

“Uh…”

“I mean seriously, is that any civilized way to greet a pony?” Talking purple horse.

“You know, I didn’t realize that you would wake up so rapidly, to such a simple stimulus. I should make a note of that,” Twilight said, already moving past the abrupt assault and on to science. I mean come on, there are priorities.

“Um…”

“Can you speak? Can you understand what I’m saying?”

“Uh, yeah, I can.” Talking horse! That’s purple!
“Oh good, I have plenty of questions for you. Starting with: can you get off of me?” Jennings looked down, noting that he was still in the mount, with an arm cocked to land another blow.

“Oh yeah, uh, sure,” he said, trying to stand up, but immediately tumbling onto his side.

“You are probably still weakened from the injuries you sustained when your vessel crashed.” He propped himself up on his elbow, clawing at the edge of where he had been laying, and pulled himself up onto the horizontal surface, opting instead to sit back against the tree instead of laying down.

“So, where am I?” He asked.

“Why in Equestria, of course.”

“Equestria.”

“Yes.”

“And where is that? Do you have grid coordinates for it?”

“Grid coordinates?”

“Never mind,” he said with a sigh.

“So…” ventured Twilight, “do you have a name?”

“Sergeant David Jennings, serial number 554609802-016, 105th Division,” Jennings rattled off stiffly.

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to say that again, this time a little slower. I have to write all this down,” Twilight explained. Jennings repeated the information that had been seared into his brain.

“And the ‘one-oh-fifth,’ what’s that?”

“My unit, Ma’am,” his customs and courtesies were beginning to return as his began to settle down.

“Your unit?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“So, you’re in the military,” she said as more of a statement than a question.

“Yes Ma’am.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘Ma’am,’ my name is Twilight, that’ll do fine.”

“Yes Ma’-, I mean thanks, Twilight.”

“No problem!” she said cheerily. “So, what do I call you? Sergeant?”

“Just Jennings will do fine. Hell, I’ve been called everything from ‘Sarge’ to ‘Shitbird.’” Twilight eyed him carefully.

“Jennings, you know swearing only decreases your vocabulary, right? Think about all the other words you could have used in that single sentence that would have added more to the meaning!”

“You ever been in combat?”

“No.”

“Swearing is fast and accurate. That’s all you need downrange.”

“Down-wha? Never mind. But you’ve been to combat.”

“Many times.”

“Then keep the swearing there.”

“Yes Ma—er—ok. Sure thing, Twilight.”

“And how do you fight with only a tiny little knife?” Twilight said with growing curiosity, gesturing to the combat knife laying on a nearby table.

“We don’t.”

“You don’t fight?”

“We don’t use knives for combat. That’s archaic.”

“Well what do you use? Magic?”

“You don’t have to joke about it. C’mon, take a serious guess.”

“What’s not serious about magic?”

“Besides the fact that it doesn’t exist?”

“Sure it does.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever!” Jennings opened his mouth to protest the existence of magic, when he realized he was debating a talking purple horse—no check that, a purple unicorn—about the existence of magic. He decided to skip it and move on.

“We use firearms. Guns. Missiles. Rockets. Artillery. A bunch of different things.”

“What are firearms?”

“Those are firearms,” Jennings said, gesturing towards the devices on the table. Twilight wandered over to them, grabbing the Battle Rifle by the barrel, and swinging it around like a battle axe.

“How do you use it? It doesn’t seem very effective…” Jennings barely stifled laughter.

“Bring it here,” He said, gesturing a ‘come hither’ with his hands. She brought the weapon over to him. He promptly grabbed it and racked the bolt, sending a 9.5mm round into the chamber. He opened the window directly behind him.

“What are you doing?” Twilight asked him, as he flicked the weapon onto ‘semi.’

“See that potted plant?” he gestured with his left hand at a clay pot almost 100m away.

“Yeah.” Jennings squeezed the trigger, sending clay fragments high into the sky with a sharp cracking sound. Twilight
jumped at the loud report.

“You could have warned me!”

“I could have, yes,” said Jennings, chuckling like the two were old friends.

“You have to tell me how everything works,” Twilight said, leaning in towards the strange military figure with an eager expression.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Deep inside the Everfree Forest, a crashed purple ship pulsed with fading energy.

“Status report,” Lo’Vadomir growled to the unggoy below him.

“Our ship has sustained heavy damage,” the minion squeaked, afraid of the inevitable punishment.

“And where are we?”

“Unknown, something struck us as we neared The Holy Prophet’s vessel, and we are now… here. It does not look like Earth.” Lo clicked his mandibles in frustration at the statement of the obvious. Lo could think of only one explanation, that he had been struck from normal space into… this. Whatever this was. He turned his maw towards the terrified grunt.

“Tell me, what do the Prophets say about our realm?”

“That we are the chosen realm? That nothing can exist outside our realm because we are the chosen?”

“Exactly.”

“But we see life, does that mean the Prophets are wrong?” The bridge of the Phantom grew deathly silent.

“What you say is blasphemy.”

“No! What I meant was-” The unngoy wracked his brain to try to create a way where what he said didn’t mean anything blasphemous. He was unable to think of anything before a glistening plasma sword erupted from his middle. Tossing the still twitching corpse aside, Lo gathered his flight crew and soldiers, placing all of them in the cargo compartment. Lo’Vadomir began his speech.

“25 circuits ago, we waged war on the humans, for opposing the Prophets and the Great Journey. Today, we face a similar challenge. Though we have but the one compliment, this very world threatens everything we hold dear. We will kill everything in sight, before we turn its surface into glass. Today my brothers,” he said, turning to the smaller contingent of sangheili, “we fight for the honor of all those before us and all those who come after us. Let us make them proud.” The armor-clad warriors snorted, their blood beginning to yearn for combat. Each sangheili turned back to his own unit of grunts, jackals, and lower ranking sangheili, barking out various orders, sending the younger and smaller soldiers scurrying about in preparation. Finally, Lo’Vadomir’s second in command returned.

“We are ready to kill the heretics.”

“Lower the gate,” Lo ordered. The purple ramps hissed as they lowered to the ground. The covenant troops stepped into Equestria, plasma weapons humming with fresh batteries.

Troopers Know What The Ladies Like

Epsilon Eridanus System

Reach

22 May 2549

Jennings glanced at the altimeter in his pod, watching in disbelief as the numbers span by faster than he could see. The meter sped past 15Km, showing no inclination of slowing. He bounced around nervously in his pod as the temperature rose to uncomfortable levels. He was in charge of the raid they were about to perform, the first of many in the next month. His performance on this would determine whether or not he would pass, fail, or be recycled to the previous class. And he did not want to spend any extra time in this school.

The Cadre controlled a small compound, rectangular compound that sat atop a lone hilltop surrounded by grasslands. Because of this, Jennings ruled a stealthy approach out of the list of options. He eventually decided on a multi-phase plan. He was going to emplace two sniper teams, one to the northwest the other to the southwest of the objective, before anyone else could hit the ground. At the same time, decoy pods would be dropped in the courtyard of the compound. Each of the pods had been rigged with the training claymore mines, each timed so that the door would blow open, at which point the instructors would likely duck to avoid the flying metal. A few seconds later the Cadre would pop back up and fire into the pods to kill the Troopers. Hopefully they came back up, the mines would fire, splattering red paint on the Cadre and freezing their armor.

Then, phase two would begin. Three squads would land, storming the Compound from the North and West. Their objective would be was to secure the outside of the compound. In the third phase, first and second squads provide security on the structure, while third squad would breach the target building within the compound to find the intelligence. A contingent of pelicans would drop from the sky to pick them all up, and exfil back to their main base. To be entirely honest, he hadn’t been authorized the Pelicans, though he had never been told not to use them. Basically, after a couple months of scouting around, he discovered a way into the Pelican bay, and found a couple Troopers who knew how to fly it. The Cadre were always telling him to be innovative, so he was. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

“Assault element, deploy chutes,” he said tersely into his microphone. Three squads decelerated, letting the sniper teams and the decoys rocket ahead of them. A few seconds later, he could feel the thrusters fire, slowing the pod to a non-lethal level.

“Sniper teams are in position,” the report crackled through his helmet.

“Stand bye,” he said, glancing at his video feed from his drones. The windows were blossoming with red paint as the Cadre opened fire on the closed door from various emplaced MG positions. Jennings grinned within his helmet. He had ‘accidentally’ left plans around, detailing his assault. In these fake plans, he dictated in great detail how an element was going to land on the inside of the compound, working their way to the gate to let the rest of the force inside. As he had hoped, they had set up more defenses than they normally would have facing inside. Ah, the smell of subterfuge in the morning!

The doors of the pods exploded outwards, sending a few ducking behind cover. Immediately, they jumped back up, pouring volleys of fire into the interior of the pods. Jennings depressed the button on the detonator, watching with glee via the camera as quite a few Cadre toppled over with rock-solid armor.

“Engage targets,” he said into his mic. Over his radio, he could hear the loud SR-99 fire at compound.

“Ten seconds!” One of the squad leaders said over the radio. Every man braced in their own respective pods. The jarring impact with the ground rattled every bone in Jennings’ body. The door blew open, Jennings leapt from through the opening, pulling his M7S into his shoulder. Overhead, sniper rounds hissed seeking the already cover-seeking Cadre.

Jennings regrouped with his squad, directing their placement along the north wall. They stacked on the wall about 20 meters from where the door was. The number one trooper in the stack pulled out a spray-on explosive device, covering the wall 10 meters from the door in a thick layer. He stepped back into formation, awaiting the signal.

“First and third squad are in position, over,” came a call on the radio, from the element assaulting from the west. Jennings depressed the second detonator, shredding gaping holes in the solid rock walls. The elements filed in rapidly, splitting off into their own distinctive sectors.

Jennings sped through the brand new entrance, weapon at the ready. He snapped a few rounds off at a Cadre on the wall, who was raining bullets into the lower levels with an MA5B. The frozen soldier toppled off the wall, landing in a heap on by the base of the wall.

By now it was obvious the Cadre were surprised by the sudden, ferocious attack. Normally it wasn’t until the end of the Trooper-led raids when they were beaten, and even then it wasn’t usually this sound of a beating. The Cadre were dropping rapidly, and they were pretty obviously unhappy about it.

Eventually, the pissed off Cadre holed themselves on a small packet of the wall, barricading themselves in, and away from the sniper rounds. From their covered positions, they rained a wall of fire upon the advancing students. A thunderous explosion rocked the compound, coating three of Jennings’ Troopers in red paint. The remainder dove for what cover was available.

“What was that?” Jennings barked over the radio, ducking as a round from the Cadre snapped just overhead.

“Stand bye, we’re trying to get eyes on as to the source!” a squad leader shouted over the gunfire. Another explosion detonated nearby, ‘killing’ another Trooper.

“Oh, shit! Scorpion column on approach!” Two Scorpion tanks were rolling up the road, firing off their main cannon as fast as it could be reloaded. Jennings dropped to his stomach, making a snap decision.

“Raptor Two-Three this is Raptor Two-Seven, over.”

“Go ahead 27.”

“We need you inbound now. Be advised, there are enemy Scorpions firing on our position. Recommend preparing heavy weapons.”

“Roger 27, 23 is inbound hot.” Jennings turned back to his men.

“Two minutes! Backup will be here in two minutes!” Another explosion killed a Trooper.

“Hey Jennings!” Naber shouted at his buddy in the growing racket.

“What?”

“Do you think we’ll last that long?”

“We have to!” Jennings spun, firing off a few rounds which impacted harmlessly on the outside of the barricade. Naber fired again, with similar results.

“How long now?” Jennings glanced at his watch.

“One minute, fifty three seconds!”

“Are you kidding me? We have to get off the wall, the Scorpions will shred us up here!”

“No, we aren’t moving! If we abandon position, the Cadre will have the high ground, and we won’t have any momentum. We have to hold here.”

“This is about to get real intense.”

“Hell yeah.” Jennings fired a quick burst, catching the helmet of Cadre with one round, not killing him but removing him from the fight for a few hours at least.

“Jennings, we’ve got incoming Pelicans!” Naber pointed skyward, noting the delta shaped formation of the four vehicles. The Cadre immediately started cheering, knowing how the Pelicans slaughtered Troopers every time. The Tanks ignored them as they passed overhead, continuing their oppressive fire on the entrenched Troopers.

“Hey Troopers, ya see that shit! Enjoy tasting led, ha ha!”

“Oh darn, if only we had prepared for this!” Jennings shot back sarcastically. Half of the Cadre looked up at the Pelicans, expecting to see red paint pathetically splatter over the side of the bird, in a vain effort for the Troopers to save themselves. Instead, they watched rockets fly out the back, killing their tank column in a matter of seconds.

“Oh shit, open fire, open fire!” Red paint splattered pathetically over the side of the Pelican as the Cadre tried in vain to save themselves. The tail end whipped around, and the gatling guns rained death over the Cadre positions.

The immediate opposition cleared, third squad stacked up on the roof of the target building, laying down explosive in a circular pattern. Jennings gave them a green light, and the earth shook with an earsplitting roar as the debris from the detonation rained down. The squad jumped in, clearing the room with ease. Only thirty seconds later, the squad emerged through the door, having cleared the room without casualties (the Cadre weren’t expecting troopers coming in from above), and with the required intel.

“Everyone onto the Pelicans, let’s move!” Jennings tapped the Troopers on the shoulder as they loaded onto the pelicans, making sure he had every single soldier with him. He motioned to the pilot with his hand, and the flight of took off, stopping to retrieve the snipers en route to their main base of operations.

Four weeks later…

Jennings stood stiffly at attention with his 37 other remaining classmates. Finally receive the coveted ODST tab to wear on his dress uniform, and to serve in combat with the finest soldiers the UNSC could field. He was proud to have finally finished the long, arduous course.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what you have in front of you is the best the UNSC can offer. These soldiers have stood the test, and risen above the challenge,” the speaker read over the loudspeaker as families watched on. To be honest, Jennings tuned out the majority of the speech. In fact, he didn’t listen to any of it. He was just so relieved to be done, and so anxious to move on with his life. Finally the speaker read off a list of names.

“The Honor Graduate, Trooper Jennings. Top rated in combatives, Trooper Naber,” he said, scanning down the list.

“Welcome to the 105th, Helljumpers.” The reply was thunderous.

“Feet First, Sir!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“And that’s how I graduated at the head of my class!” Twilight finished her story, pointing towards various pictures on the mantel. They had been talking for hours about various complexities (or at least to the level the Jennings knew, not necessarily to the level that Twilight wanted), and the day had rapidly faded into night.

“So… you’re an egghead.” Twilight hesitated slightly before making a correction.

“I’m an academic.”

“But still, you love school,” Jennings insisted.

“I love knowledge,” she corrected again, this time a little more gently.

“I don’t know man, I just go crazy staring at numbers and letters all day.” Twilight looked at him askew, abruptly changing subjects.

“ Are you sure you are in the military?”

“Uh, yeah. Pretty da-darn sure,” he abruptly changed his cursing when Twilight gave him a murderous look.

“But you’re so…” Twilight trailed off, looking for the right word.

“I’m so what?”

“Undisciplined.”

“Undisciplined?” he said, grinning. “You think I’m undisciplined?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And what gave you that impression,” he said, almost snorting with laughter.

“Well, your vernacular isn’t exactly high-class. You use colloquial phrases constantly. Your poise is terrible, too! Your clothes are in disarray. And even if they weren’t, they look bulky, cumbersome, and nowhere near the level of our royal guard. And how would you get people to respect you with that mane? You can’t do anything to it, it’s far too short.”

“That’s your criteria for military discipline?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Well then I don’t fit in, in your military. I could kill your military no problem, though.”

“Unlikely.”

“Oh, it’d be easy. Your military, based on your description, loves its appearance. Our military trains us to kill.”

“Oh right. So you go to schools on killing?” Twilight said sarcastically.

“We sure do. And I graduated from the best school.”

“And that is…” Twilight sounded a mix of disbelieving, disgusted, and curious.

“Orbital Drop Shock Trooper school. Approximately 300 of us started, only 38 of us graduated.”

“And how do they teach that? I thought you didn’t like school.” She pantomimed writing on a chalkboard, beginning to
talk in a high-pitched , mocking voice. “And you stab in this part of the body for maximum effect!”

“Well, sort of. Except we usually used knives on corpses, so we could see their full effect.” Twilight blanched at the thought.

“I was joking.”

“I wasn’t.”

“That’s barbaric!”

“So is war! And we train brutally so we can win! Don’t even try to tell me you wouldn’t do the same.”

“Not in a million years! That’s uncivilized!”

“You don’t train like you fight?”

“We do, but we don’t fight like barbarians! We’re civilized!”

“Then your enemies must be civilized.”

“Well, we haven’t had a full-scale military conflict in a while,” she confessed.

“I thought as much.”

“And you have been in full-scale war?”

“We have for the last 25 years.”

“Why haven’t you used the elements of harmony?”

“The what?” Jennings gave her a bizarre look.

“The elements of harmony. You know, character traits of true friendship.”

“Fu- Shi- Dang I need to live in this world for a while. Your world seems so much nicer.”

“You don’t have them?”

“The only element I have known is misery, conflict, and blood. Not exactly friend-making material.”

“Well, haven’t you at least tried to talk to them? Figure out a good middle ground?”

“Lady, they attacked us. All attempt at contact has lead to death and-” The door crashed open as a rainbow colored blur sped through the opening. Surprised by the noise, Jennings dove across the room, bringing his M7S to bear on the new threat.

“Hey Twi I was-whoa! It’s awake!” Rainbow Dash sprang across the room in a single leap, landing, with her nose almost touching the suppressor on the stubby submachine gun in the strangely clad creature’s claws. “What’s that?” Jennings had thought he had seen it all.

“Rainbow.”

“That’s me.”

“With wings.”

“Most pegasi are.”

“A rainbow-colored horse with wing.”

“Technically I’m a pegasus pony, but I’ll let it slide.”

“What the f-”

“Ahem!” Twilight interrupted. “Jennings, meet Rainbow Dash. Dash, Jennings.”

“Hi!” Dash said enthusiastically, sticking out a hoof. Jennings cautiously shook han… shook hoo… exchanged common courtesies with the brilliantly colored pegasus before him.

“Um, hi.” Inter-species diplomacy wasn’t exactly his strong point. Well, that depends on how you define ‘diplomacy.’

“Hey, I was there when your meteor crashed. No, wait! Meteorite!” She grinned triumphantly.

“Oh yeah. The meteor. Right. That thing.” Jennings was still recovering from the shock of a rainbow colored flying horse. Seriously, what the heck.

“Jennings, could you stop pointing your weapon at Rainbow, please?” Twilight asked, her eyes locked on the weapon Jennings was leveling at the athletic pony.

“What? Oh, right. Yeah, sorry about that.” He placed the M7S on the table.

“That was a weapon?” Rainbow commented, suddenly getting angry.

“It’s not any weapon you or I would be familiar with,” Twilight interjected.

“Why the hay was it pointing it at me?”

“Jennings is a ‘he,’ and because you startled him. He’s a soldier. A very…” Twilight paused, trying to think of a good word. “…effective soldier.”

“A soldier, huh?” She immediately punched him in the shoulder. Before the blow even landed, Jennings deflected the blow, grabbing Rainbow and throwing her to the ground at lightning speed. “Ow.”

“Careful Dash, they don’t value the same discipline that our military does. They focus on killing the enemy.”

“Really? Cool! You’d get along great with the great pegasus military leaders.”

“Jennings, could you let Dash up, now?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Hey, Jennings, right?” Dash asked. Jennings nodded. “You should talk to some of the pegasi generals about your military and the training you do. I’m sure they’d like to hear your opinion.”

“Oh. I can do that, I guess.”

“Speaking of meeting people, I need to introduce you to Pinkie Pie. I’m sure she’s got a party planned for you, or something.”

“Shouldn’t I wait until my burns are… huh. The burns are gone,” Jennings said, feeling his neck.

“Well, yeah,” interjected Twilight. “Burns don’t take long to heal. Maybe a day, tops. If you’d broken a bone though, you’d be down for at least a week.”

“One week.”

“Yeah.”

“Where I’m from, it takes at least six.”

“Six weeks?” Dash said aghast.

“Yeah.”

“Man, if I’d been down for six weeks after I broke my wing, I’d be miserable. I thought a week was bad.”

“Apparently not. To me, six is normal.”

“Whatever. We can solve the differences between your world and ours after we get you some cupcakes.”

“Did you say cupcakes?”

“You have cupcakes where you’re from, right?”

“Yeah, we do. I’ve just never had one.” He mentally reviewed the ships he’d been on, and all the military meals he’d been issued, the miscellaneous meat and vegetables scrounged from somewhere. Even as a kid, he’d grown up as a refugee from Harvest, and always had to scrounge for what he could eat. Nothing fancy like a cupcake. He’d watched through glass windows as bakers had made them, but never could afford them himself. Never thought that Earth’s last stand would be how he got his first cupcake.

“You’ve never had one?” Dash said, her jaw dropping.

“Our race has been at war for almost as long as I’ve been alive. My planet was destroyed when I was three, and I’ve been on the move since. I haven’t exactly had time to sit down and eat luxury food. Then I joined the military, and been eating military rations ever since.”

“Oh, wow. That, that sucks. Couldn’t your parents get you some of that?” There was an awkward silence for a few moments.

“My parents were killed in the first attack.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t look so depressed. Plenty have lost more than I have. Let’s go get some cupcakes,” Jennings said, sweeping
his weapons from the counter, and grabbing his helmet.

“Oh, sure!” Dash still felt bad for bringing it up.

“Wait!” cried Twilight. “Don’t do anything rash to him, Dash! I’d prefer to have our first alien visitor intact in the morning!”

“Don’t worry, Twi. Geez, you expect the worst of me,” she said with a sly grin before closing the door. “Alright Jennings. Let’s do some work on Ponyville” Dash strutted off down the nighttime ponyville. “Look, I’m sorry that I have to tell you this, but we aren’t getting cupcakes right now. Those’ll come later. Besides, Pinkie isn’t even at her bakery right now. We’re going to have some fun tonight.”

“Oh?” He said, raising an eyebrow, his helmet still under his arm.

“Oh yeah. You’ll like this place,” she gestured towards a building, with a glowing sign above reading ‘VS’ with subscript ‘the nightclub.’ Blaring bass and pulsing lights accentuated the familiar feeling.

“Twilight will kill you.”

“So don’t say anything.”

“You know how long it’s been since I’ve been to a club?”

“Too long?”

“Yup.”

“Let’s hit it.” Dash walked up confidently to the bouncer. He welcomed her to the VIP line.

“Welcome back, Ms. Dash. Vinyl is backstage if you want to say ‘hi,’ she’s going on in fifteen minutes, so make it brief.”

“Thanks. I’ll make sure to. Oh, he’s with me. And don’t even try to stop him, you wouldn’t be able to.” The bouncer flinched at the insult to his ability, but let the hulking behemoth of a human walk by.

7 colors in your hair

Get your boots on dear 'cause we're going out there

Don't care bout the dress code

Put it on, let's go

Girls go wild 'cause we're going "al fresco"

Ha!

No need to perform

Hooves on our bodies gonna keep our skills warm

We need social reform 'cause we're just so criminal

Linguist subliminal, damages minimal

The bass pounded his ears as he walked through the pulsing lights and dancing horses. This place was so weird, and yet so familiar.

“Hey Vinyl!”

“Dash! What’s up my pony?” A brilliantly white pony with crazy blue hair whirled, giving a fist—er—hoof bump to Rainbow.

“Vinyl, I want you to meet a friend of mine. Jennings, this is Vinyl Scratch.”

“’Sup Vinyl.”

“Not much, Jennings. Man, that’s way too long of a name. Jay, it’s good to meet you.”

“Vinyl Scratch is a peculiar name. Let me guess, you like to DJ.”

“Hay yeah. I DJ all buckin’ night.”

“So, is this your club? I just noticed that the initials match your name.”

“He’s a fast one, isn’t he? It sure is! I do most of my shows here, but I’ll occasionally bring in talent, like livemau5, who’s onstage right now.”

“He’s good.”

“Hay yeah he is! You like club music?” She said, offering him a fist bump.

“When I went to clubs I did.”

“Why’d you stop, man?”

“I went to war. I made music with my weapons from then on.”

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Make music in any circumstance. Listen, I’d love to stay and talk, but I have to get onstage! Catch ya later!”

“Later!” No sooner had she left, than Dash was pulling him elsewhere. They emerged onto the floor right as Vinyl took her spot, shouting out into the crowd to get them riled up, immediately launching into another bass-heavy song.

“Where are we going now?”

“The bar!” Dash had to shout to be heard over the reverberating bass. Now that’s what I’m talking about. “Two shots of vodka, put it on my tab!” She shouted at the bartender. Two shot glasses appeared, filled to the brim. Dash handed one to Jennings.

“To new friends!” She said, downing her shot.

“To new friends!” He said slower.

“Another two!” The glasses appeared rapidly. She nodded at him.

“To the friends lost.” He suddenly had a faraway look in his eyes.

“To friends lost,” Dash repeated, more solemnly. She had no way of knowing everything he felt, and never planned on losing all the friends that he had.

“You’re awake? And I didn’t even throw a party!” A loud voice appeared at Jennings’ side.

“Jay, this is Pinkie Pie,” Dash introduced. “Pinkie, Jay.”

“Jay, you’re going to love your party!”

“Hey Pinkie,” Dash interrupted. “Jay’s never had a cupcake before.”

“What? That’s an atrocity! How can you have never had a cupcake before?”

“I’ve been running from death all my life. I haven’t had time for luxuries.”

“Luxuries? Cupcakes are essential! Come with me right now!” Pinkie led the two out the door, making a beeline for her
bakery.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Go with the blessing of the prophets. Lead your element and kill all those in the village.” Those had been Lo’Vadomir’s exact words to the red elite. His blood was riled, he wanted blood. He wanted to prove himself to his superiors and his family. He would bring death upon the heretics. He would show them pain like they had never known before.

“Spread out,” he growled to the Unggoy and Kig-Yar under his command. Dutifully they moved apart, the Kig-Yar igniting their energy shields.

“Heretic!” A Unggoy squealed, leveling a plasma pistol on a passing pony.

“Hold. This one is mine.” The elite covered the open ground between him and the light blue pony in a split second. He grabbed the pony by the scruff of the neck with a crushing grip, raising it to eye level.

“Ow! What did I do?” she proclaimed.

“Pathetic. No fight. I will purge you heretics from existence!” He slid the sizzling blade into the body of the struggling mare.

“Why…” Her struggling ceased. He tossed the lifeless husk to the ground. The elite paused, noting a familiar scent in the air.

“Human.” He saw a single human soldier walking along with two of these other heretics. The man flipped his helmet on leveling a notoriously effective human weapon in his direction. The human dropped the only three Kig-Yar he had with him in a flash, turning his attention next to the grunts.

“Kill the heretics!”

A/N I know for a fact that the next two weeks (ish) I will be unable to post anything, do to the fact that I will be in the front leaning rest repeatedly, then jumping out of helicopters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlxJtHpVqnE&feature=related

I doubt I will be able to do any writing during that timeframe, but I promise I will as soon as I can. I have some plans as far as where to go. I can’t wait to start writing again, it’ll be a nice break from full muscle failure.

Also, I tried to tone down the swearing in this one. Barring a few bursts of planned vulgarity, this is about the level of profanity that will exist for the rest of the story.

Do you think we'll ever meet them?

Epsilon Eridani System

Tantulus

Capitol City

33 Aug 2552

Three years ago, Jennings had been in this same system graduating from ODST school. Now, he was fighting for its very existence. Jennings took cover behind a concrete wall. Plasma bolts boiled chunks out of the wall, steadily whittling away at his protection.

“Incoming!” A plasma mortar from a Wraith tank impacted 10 meters away, shaking the ground with the detonation. Somehow, none of could have prepared him for what he was facing now. He spun around the wall, firing a few bursts from his BR at the column of enemy troops on an overlooking bridge. He recognized a splatter of brilliantly colored blood, mentally confirming a kill of another alien.

“Jennings, move up!” His new squad leader directed. He and Naber had been put into a new squad recently. Nobody else in their last squad had survived. Jennings sprinted, sliding behind a concrete barrier.

“What?”

“I need concentrated fire on that bridge!” Jennings rolled his eyes inside his helmet.

“Shoot at the enemy? Brilliant plan, Gunny. Couldn’t you have told me that while I was in better cover?” He raised up, squeezing the trigger repeatedly.

“You know you’re a real smart-ass, right?”

“And you know you could stand to learn a thing or two in common sense?” Jennings said during his reload. His Gunny shot him a death glare through his visor.

“Give me some covering fire, I am going to make a run for the Scorpion?”

“Why? You’re the NCO, tell someone else to do it!” He fired another two bursts from his BR, penetrating the shields on an elite and putting two rounds into its brain.

“You know what Jennings? Shut the hell up.” He rose, beginning to sprint forward. An explosion lifted him, tossing him backwards. Without legs.

“Gunny! Can you crawl back to me?”

“Oh God, my legs! Where are my legs?”

“Gunny, I can’t move into the open! Crawl back here!”

“My legs are gone! We have to go back and get my legs!”

“Gunny, shut up and crawl to me!” He tried to raise himself to what remained of his legs, but he was bleeding out of both his femoral arteries, and the ground was slick. He kept trying to stand but slipped in his blood.

“Jennings! Help me!” His scared screaming drew the attention of more covenant.

“Gunny, crawl to me! I can stop the bleeding!” Concentrated fire from many plasma rifles rained down on Jennings’ position, forcing him to flatten himself against the ground. The Gunny raised himself up. A plasma round incinerated his head, almost instantly melting and popping the NCO’s skull with blistering heat. His smoking shell collapsed to the street, smelling of horribly charred human and blood. Jennings stared at the lifeless form of his superior officer in shock.

“Shit.” He couldn’t help but notice that the Gunny’s hands were forever frozen outstretched, reaching for Jennings. It would be a while before that memory would leave him.

Jennings shook his head, he couldn’t focus on the dead just yet. He had to survive first. He crawled along the barriers flatter along the ground than he had ever been in his life. Working his way back towards the wall of a building and actual protection against incoming fire, he spotted Naber firing a sniper rifle towards the bridge.

“Naber!” The helmeted soldier looked towards Jennings. “Give me some cover fire!” Naber swung back out, dealing out swift death and destruction. Jennings stood to his feet, sprinting over the open ground to the building at a lightning speed.

“Where’s the Gunny?” Jennings pointed to the bloody and burned carcass in the street.

“Dead.”

“Shit.” Naber muttered. “What’s next?”

“We have to get the Scorpion up. We need to take out the Wraith on the bridge.” On cue, another mortar round impacted the ground with searing heat.

“Alright, I got this one. I’ve always been better in the Scorpion then you, anyways.” Naber handed Jennings the sniper rifle.

“Hey!” Naber paused. “Good luck, man.” Naber turned, sprinting towards the unmanned Scorpion tank. Plasma bolts peppered his feet as he tore across the pavement. Jennings fired upwards towards the bridge, taking out the brave who strove to kill the running human. Naber dove into the pilot seat, immediately closing the hatch and swinging the cannon around. Naber began pumping rounds out of the Scorpion as fast as possible. Blue explosions rippled along the bridge, chaining into larger and larger detonations. Jennings noticed a familiar sound in the air, shouting out a warning as loud as he could.

“Banshees! Naber, get your ass out of there!” Green bombs landed on the Scorpion, sending the vehicle flying in flames, flipping multiple times before landing on the ground again with a crunch. Agonizing seconds passed before Naber poked out of the rubble, emerging with a victorious double middle-finger salute.

“Still got my arms and legs! What now, you stupid Covenant sonsabitches!” Jennings laughed in relief, raising his rifle in victory.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jennings raised his rifle, dropping three Jackals in the blink of an eye.

“Kill the Heretic!” Jennings grabbed his two companions, dragging the two to cover as plasma bolts sped past them. He deposited the two in cover behind a nearby building.

“What are they?” Rainbow Dash asked, eyes bulging.

“Stay down, get help,” Jennings hissed through his helmet.

“But what are they?”

“Let’s just say I have experience with them before. And they aren’t friendly.” He sprinted off in a desperate flanking maneuver. Pinkie looked at Dash.

“The hay with that! I’m going to help him, you fly to Canterlot as fast as you can and get help!” A determined look lit Dash’s face, and the two separated at high speeds. Moments later a sonic rainboom erupted in the night.

Jennings pulled up short of a corner, pausing and listening for any noises around the corner. Satisfied the coast was clear, he moved around the corner, bringing his M7S up to chin height, scanning vigorously for hostile targets. He moved up slowly behind a pair of grunts who he hoped were the rear guard of the formation. Killer instincts honed to perfection, the trooper moved stealthily through the night behind the unaware Covenant. He transitioned his non-firing hand away from the suppressed submachine gun, slowly pulling his combat knife from the polymer sheath. He lunged forward, plunging the knife deep into the neck of the squat footsoldier, twisting and bringing the knife out the other side of the neck in one smooth motion. His right hand swung the M7S over the body of the fatally wounded grunt, firing a burst into the head of the second grunt.

He moved quickly to the side, pausing to see if anyone had heard the commotion. He moved on towards the next group. This group appeared to have about five grunts firing indiscriminately into a building, catching the wooden structure on fire with the intense heat put off by their pistols bolts. He slowly moved on them from behind, his black armor making him invisible in the night. He raised his M7S, aiming carefully at the head of one of the soldiers, planning on working his way from right to left killing as he went.

“So that’s how you like to party, huh? I’ll show you how we party in Ponyville!” A thunderous crack lit the darkness with a sudden burst of light. “Nopony can withstand the Party Cannon!” A victorious Pinkie stood above the five stunned grunts, who were suddenly covered in confetti. Jennings’ submachine gun whistled, the five grunts dropped spurting blue blood from their chests and abdomens.

“Nice job, Pinkie. Next time try loading it with something more lethal,”

“I wasn’t trying to kill them!” Pinkie said, horrified. “I just wanted to stun them until the Royal Guard could show up.”

“Somehow I doubt they’ll show up in time,” Jennings said.

“You never know,” she said with a grin. Jennings looked disbelieving.

“Right. I’m sure they’ll be here any time.”

“Yuppers!” Jennings shook his head, he was getting distracted from the mission at hand. Must find and kill the remaining covenant. Jennings took off into the night, a pink fluffball at his side.

“Let’s not kill the next group of bad guys, ok?” Pinkie was obviously a little distraught at the sight of the mass killing right before her eyes. Her normal cheery attitude was somewhat lessened, though she tried to maintain a normal attitude.

“Not happening. If I find them, I kill them,” he whispered back to her.

“But what did they do to you? They weren’t doing anything bad.”

“Other than burning down a house with people inside?”

“Ponies. And maybe they didn’t know what they were doing,” she suggested.

“No, they knew. I’ve seen that tactic before.”

“But seriously, wait for the guard this time. They can deal with it without killing anypony. That’s the ideal way!”

“There isn’t an ideal way to deal with combat.”

“But…” Jennings shushed her with a hand clasped over her mouth, catching a glimpse of an elite surrounded by a posse of three grunts. His hand went to a grenade in his belt as he crept forward, planning his strike.

“Stop this very instant!” The aliens stopped in their tracks, slightly confused by the audacity of the pink-maned pony standing before them.

“Um, heretic?” A grunt looked up at the elite for guidance.

“You are hurting other ponies! Now, what do you have to say for yourself,” the pony eyed the elite with an angry look. The elite drew himself to his full height.

“You heretics stand in the way of purity. Your blood will cleanse my path to the Great Journey,” he growled, raising his sword high.

“Fluttershy!” Pinkie bolted from her hiding spot, tackling her friend as the sword swung through the air. Jennings swore under his breath as Pinkie ruined the surprise. His submachine gun rattled, hosing the grunts in a spray of death. The mag clicked empty; Jennings transitioned fluidly to his BR, keeping a deadly bead on his opponent, whose shield struggled to stay lit. He grabbed rapidly, pulling Pinkie off of Fluttershy and up as live shield. Jennings halted his fire momentarily.

“Isn’t that a dishonorable way to fight?” He taunted.

“There is no honor in fighting beings that are so far beneath me,” the split-jaw replied.

“So what’s keeping me from shooting your feet and keeping your shields from recharging indefinitely?” The elite raised the sword, cutting into Pinkie’s chest with a sickening sizzle.

“Don’t even try, human.”

“Alrighty, then.” Jennings retreated two steps to a fallen grunt, never taking his weapon off of his opponent. He dropped to a knee, taking careful aim. He waited until the shield just started it’s recharge cycle before acting.

“You see, human? You’re pathetic—raaargh!” He put a burst right onto the elite’s hand, the shield slowing the bullets to keep them from penetrating into Pinkie’s body. The surprise sharp pain caused the elite to drop the sword to the ground. Jennings launched himself forward, knocking Pinkie from the elite’s grip, tossing the two warriors to the ground.

“Your shields are gone now!” Jennings flipped around, jumping on top of the angry alien. The elite picked Jennings up, tossing him into the nearby building. A large, human shaped dent remained.

“And your life is gone, human!” The elite hissed, grabbing his sword with his good hand. Jennings read the move and ducked forward as the blade seared the air inches above his head. Jennings drew his knife rapidly, swinging it up and plunging it into the neck of his opponent. The elite froze for a second. Jennings slashed the knife through the rest of the throat, tossing a spray of bluish blood high into the air. The elite toppled over, dead seconds later.

He turned his attention immediately back to Pinkie Pie. He dashed the few meters back to where she lay, blood running from her partially cauterized wound. Wasting no time, he whipped out his biofoam cartridge, filling the gaping wound with the healing salve. He looked straight at Fluttershy, who recoiled in fear at the sight of the masked figure covered in alien and pony blood.

“Is there a hospital nearby?”

“Um…”

“Tell me!” He shouted, tired of people unable to act on a battlefield.

“Eep!” She cowered further away, terrorized. Jennings calmed somewhat, knowing he would not get any help like this.

“Look,” he said with a forced calmness in his voice. “If you want to help me save her, you have to tell me if there’s a hospital nearby.” Fluttershy nodded.

“Y-yes,” she said so quietly he barely heard it.

“Great! Can you take her there?” Again, a nod and a unintelligible whisper. “Good, now you have to get her there quickly, ok?” Fluttershy loaded Pinkie onto her back, taking off towards the hospital. Jennings stood there for a few seconds, fairly certain that they hospital did not want to deal with a new species at the same time. He opted instead to head back to Twilight’s tree.

“Freeze!” A troop of white, male pegasi landed all around him, their spears facing inwards. “We have found the perpetrator!”

“Whoa guys, I think you have the wrong alien!” He protested, raising his hands into a mock ‘I give up’ stance. It also happened to be the same stance he used for unarmed combat.

“A likely story, just how many different aliens are there?” Jennings cocked his head.

“As in how many total? Or how many right here? Am I supposed to include dead ones?”

“Enough talk, wise guy. Are we going to have to do this the easy way, or the hard way?” one of the stallions said, the only unicorn of the group, said. Jennings glanced around, weighing his odds. He decided that he could probably take them, but he didn’t really want his first interaction with the local law enforcement to be a negative one.

“I’d prefer not to go in at all, but if I have to I don’t really want my first interaction with you to be a negative one.”

“Well, you are going down. So stick your hooves out in front of you.” Jennings did as instructed, not having long to wait before cold metal shackles encircled his wrist.

“Alright, where am I going?”

“Canterlot,” one of the soldiers said gruffly.

“It’s alright everypony, you can come out now. We’ve solved the situation,” the unicorn shouted out. Rainbow Dash poked her head out from behind a building.

“Did you stop the bad gu-hey! Why’s Jay in chains?”

“I guess they don’t like me taking care of their problems for them,” Jennings shouted back at Dash as they ushered him away.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“I think we should execute it, quietly and away from the populace. Put this disturbance to rest, after we extract as much information from it as we can.” The military commander was the first to break the awkward silence. Celestia’s top advisors had been called to an emergency meeting to discuss the problem of the sudden influx of aliens. The first response came from the appalled voice of the internal affairs advisor.

“Are you mad? How would that solve the situation?”

“We know this creature is a skilled fighter. We learn its tricks, then we kill it so it can’t fight against us. We could imprison it, I guess, but that would cost way more.”

“From a purely logical point of view, that makes quite a bit of sense,” the economic advisor said.

“Logic? What is logical about murdering another sentient being?”

“Isn’t that what it did earlier this evening? From the reports,” the general said, flipping through pages of hastily generated statements, “it moved with remarkable speed and precision, dispatching enemies with skill.”

“So it could be a valuable ally too, right?” The general responded immediately.

“Yes, he could. However, he has no reason to stay loyal to our side. More likely, he’ll become a mercenary.”

“And how do you know this?” the political advisor queried.

“I don’t,” admitted the general, “it just seems the most likely given the situation.”

“So you’re saying you have no actual data to back up your predictions,” the internal affairs advisor questioned.

“Nothing firm, no. Just predictions based on what I have seen in the past.”

“Tell me General,” the political advisor started, “what experience do you have with an alien invasion? About as much as the rest of us have. None. Does anyone else have suggestions with what to do with it?”

“Well,” said the economic advisor, “I do recommend that we keep financial concerns on the table. It would cost a considerable amount to incarcerate it for the remainder of its life. We don’t even know if it dies of natural causes!”

“Pardon me,” an old, frail pony said at the back of the room. Up until now, he had remained silent. As a long time judge and the advisor for all things judicial to Celestia, he was used to sitting back and gathering all of the facts before speaking. He spoke rarely, and when he did, everypony listened. “but we all here are ignoring one major fact of the report. And that is, that this one alien—the human—has not fought against us in the slightest. In fact, all of his fighting has been against this second group of aliens—the covenant. Only the covenant have attacked and killed a member of Ponyville. Perhaps that should be considered when rendering judgment.” He sat back down quietly, leaving his words to be absorbed or rejected by the rest of the advisors of their own accord. The advisors slowly turned back towards each other to discuss.

“That is a fair point,” argued the internal affairs advisor.

“I don’t think you’re afraid enough of what this thing can do,” the general stated emphatically.

“And you are? Scared of an individual?” The general slammed his hoof down emphatically on the table.

“You’re right I am! And you should be too. You haven’t seen the bodies of the aliens it dispatched with ease. Their physical and technological capabilities far exceed our own, and it took them down single-handedly.”

“Maybe we could convince it to tell us how it was trained?” the internal affairs advisor joked. The general mulled over the idea, giving it some serious thought.

“That’s not a bad plan…” his voice trailed off as his eyes went towards the ceiling. He trotted towards the door in a hurry, saying one last thing before disappearing behind the heavy oaken door.

“As long as I can get him to talk to me about training, I don’t care what you do to him afterwards. You can decide that.” The door slammed shut.

“So, we get to make the final call on what happens to him, after the General talks to him for a while?” the economics advisor stated, making sure that everypony was on the same page.

“Yup.”

“Excellent. Am I to understand that nopony wants it dead?” Heads nodded. “And furthermore, that simultaneously poses a serious threat?”

“Agreed.”

“Well then, we have but one course of action. Permanent incarceration,” the internal affairs advisor said with finality, while the economics sighed in despair.

A/N.

I’m back, and now I’m pinned with Air Assault wings. Booyah. No guarantees on when chapters can be posted, as my schedule is still being worked out. Sorry. Thanks PadwanTGL for giving me this idea for the council meeting deciding his fate, even if it was in a roundabout sort of way.

Folks Need A Hero

"To the Helljumpers, Marines, Sailors, Infantry, and everybody else who's died in this war," Naber raised his glass of beer high into the air, almost shouting to be heard over the crowded bar. Almost every single colony was represented here, in this bar. It was situated just outside the spaceport, and refugees from every single glassed or threatened colony were constantly streaming on to the planet in order to find some safety. Rich, poor, vagrant, and everything in between stood clustered together in the throng, vying for a drink. Jennings raised his glass in a wordless salute; the two drank in somber silence.

"Hey man, remember when Joey convinced us to play a prank on the CO?"

"Ha ha! Yeah, we got all disassembled his car, and moved it piece by piece up to the top of the training barracks. Then re-assembled it hanging from the radio receiver."

"I have never seen a man more attached to a vehicle. Nor have I ever laughed so hard at the expression on his face."

"And it took them two weeks to get it down! They never did find out exactly who did it, though he did suspect us."

"I remember having the 'randomized' cleaning roster. We cleaned the bathroom for almost two months. Still worth it."

"Joey was a good kid."

"Yeah," Jennings said, both of them trying to put from their minds the day his torso had been ripped apart by a plasma grenade. He had been close enough to Naber that Naber had to find wipe his visor to remove enough blood to be able to see the battlefield. The two leaned back in their chairs, BS-ing about the friends they'd made and lost. Stories of heroic feats were passed between the two, shared with a sense of gratitude and awe, while remembrances of their dead companions to a somber tone. Hearty laughs filled the air, replaced the next second with tears as the two processed the constant fighting the two had been through in the past few years. This was the first time they'd had a chance to de-stress and relax, and they planned on using it to the fullest.

Jennings leaned back in his chair, letting down his guard for the first time since he'd joined the military. It was so nice to be able to just think about the good and bad moments. He finally had to reflect on his time in the trenches, fighting for every blood-soaked centimeter of ground, only to have it ripped away when the Navy overhead lost its fight. As far as Jennings was concerned, he had never lost a battle. Others had lost their positions and then recalled him from his position, but he had never lost. Glancing back up at his squad mate, he was glad to have come through with him.

Naber had always been there for him. They had met at ODST school, and the two had grown close there. Their brotherhood had been forged in the furnace of combat, and the two stuck together to pull each other through, when all odds spoke against it. The two had faced the down covenant hordes solo while Marines and Troopers fell at their side. Standing resolutely at the brink of death, the two had repulsed wave after wave of enemy troops, helped turn the tide in key battles, and battled enemies so vastly superior physically, that any attack seemed impossible. Yet, the two were survivors. They had the will to fight, and always fought to the last bullet. Once the last bullet was gone, they'd scrounge for enemy weapons. When they had been depleted, they always had their trusty combat knives.

"Jennings?"

"Yeah, bro?"

"I'd have never made it through, if you hadn't been there. You've saved me countless times. Thanks, man."

"Dude, don't worry about it. You've saved me a few times, too."

"Yeah, I know. It's just, there's been so many times we've cut it so close. We shouldn't be here."

"And yet, we are."

"What have I become, my sweetest friend, " Naber began, singing a song that had become popular among the war-torn soldiers.

"Everyone I know, goes away in the end," Jennings finished, both their eyes downcast onto the table in front of them.

"What now?" Jennings said, dropping his empty mug back on the table.

"Now, we go home. My home. My folks don't live too far away, and they're expecting me. Just wait until you have some of Mom's Apple Pie, you'll think you've died and gone to heaven," Naber said, suddenly brightening. He too, did not want to dwell too much on the past.

"Let's get a move on, then." The duo rose from their table, moving towards the exit through the throng of refugees. Jennings tripped flying forward and landing on the floor with an undignified flop. He immediately jumped back to his feet to see who had tripped him.

"Holy shit, Paul?" The offending figure said. It took a few seconds for Jennings to recognize his childhood friend.

"Sam?”

“Yeah! I haven’t seen you since we were rushed off of Harvest! How’ve you bee—you son of a bitch.”

“Pardon?” Jennings was confused. Evidently, there was some part of the coversation that he was missing.

“You became one of them!”

“An ODST?”

“You joined the UNSC!”

“Well yeah, they saved our asses.”

“They abandoned us to the damn Covenant in the first place!”

“What? No, they didn’t!”

“You just believe that UNSC bullshit propoganda, don’t you?”

“About what? That the Covenant attacked? Pretty hard to think of that as propoganda.”

“No, screw you. And screw your UNSC buddies. You’ve done nothing but make us miserable, and make us die!”

“You better cool it, Sam! Have you been on the front lines fighting Covenant for the last few years? I didn’t think so!”

“You uppity UNSC dogs think you’re so unique, so much better than the rest of us!”

“Who has ever said that?”

“You still won’t listen to me, huh?”

“I’d listen if you weren’t an idiot!”

“Well, listen to this shit then!” Sam drew a handgun from somewhere within his jackets, firing two rounds in rapid succession. Someone from the crowd through themselves in front of Jennings, absorbing the bullets. Jennings flew forward, breaking Sam’s wrist in an instant. The handgun clattered to the ground. A quick twist sent Sam flying into the corner of a table, knocking him out cold. Jennings turned back to the stranger who had saved his life, in order to thank him and provide first aid.

And the last shred of his sanity died.

“Jennings! Never… stop… fighti…” Naber’s words faded as the last of his blood gushed from the severed aorta.

“Naber,” Jennings said, still in disbelief. “Naber! Damn it! Why did you do that you stupid sonofabitch!” He dropped to his knees next to his friend, his knees splashing blood everywhere from the extensive puddle. He was used to combat, and there was always a distraction. Things to shoot, missions to accomplish. He wasn’t sure what to do when there was just the body of his only friend. There was nothing he could do. He glanced around, more out of habit of looking for that one extra bad guy, then out of any idea of what to do next. While people had scattered at the first gunshot, a crowd had formed around the site of the gunfire. The onlookers looked upset, scared, many looked sick to their stomachs at the sight of close and personal death. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“What?” He snapped, sounding sharper and more irate than he intended. The man that got his attention retrieved the handgun from the floor, raised it up and executed the unconscious insurgent.

“It sure is a shame he committed suicide,” he commented, tossing the firearm towards the corpse. Heads started nodding in the group, many people voicing the same sentiment. The man walked away, disappearing into the crowd. Jennings turned his attention back to his dead comrade, his mind going blank. He had no idea how long it had been until he heard sirens approaching. The New Mombasa Police Department moved people apart, clearing the body of the crowd. One policeman tried to forcibly remove Jennings from the scene. He would be waking up in an hour or two.

“Sergeant, if you could go over what happened,” one of the officers questioned Jennings. Jennings responded in turn.

“Not much to tell. I ran into someone I hadn’t seen in years. He got pissed that I was in the UNSC, and tried to shoot me. Naber jumped in front of the gun. I took the gun away, knocking Sam unconscious. Naber bled out. Sam killed himself.” The officer scribbled viciously on his pad of paper, noting what Jennings said, how he said it, facial expressions, tonality, and various other things that may have been used for an inspection later.

“Any interaction with this ‘Sam’ recently?”

“Nope. Haven’t seen him since childhood.”

“Any idea behind his motivation?”

“He blames the UNSC for the Covenant’s destruction of our colony.”

“That’ll do it.”

“Look, do we have to do this now? I’d like to think about something other than the death of all my comrades for a few seconds.”

“Sure, do you have a place to go?”

“Nope. I’ll find a hotel somewhere. Or I’ll sleep on a bench.”

“Not like that you won’t. That’s a sure way to get picked up by police,” he said, gesturing towards his civilian clothes, now stained heavily with the blood of his comrade. Jennings mentally smacked himself for making such an obvious oversight.

“Is there a clothes shop around here?”

“I doubt anyone would sell anything to you like that. I’ll see if someone on the force has their civvies in their car. I’ll get you something.” The cop walked away, asking other policemen if they had a change of clothes. Jennings looked back down at Naber’s white face.

“Sergeant!” How much time had passed? When did the officer get back? It was obvious by his impatience that he had been there a while. Was this what it felt like to be a civilian? Where death was not commonplace, and people could actually process death?

“Yeah?”

“Here’s a change of clothes, I hope it fits.” When Jennings changed, it was quite obvious that the previous owner of the clothing had been quite a bit shorter and wider then Jennings. “Alright, that’ll do until you buy some new clothes. You might want to wash your face, next chance you get.” The officer motioned with his left hand towards his face, pantomiming where areas of dried blood were on Jennings’ face. Jennings wiped his face with his sleeve, only succeeding in wiping off flakes of the blackened blood.

“Thanks,” Jennings said, perhaps ungratefully. He walked out onto the dusty streets of New Mombasa, noting immediately that night had fallen. He had to find something to do for the next few days.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He hadn’t introduced himself to Naber’s parents yet, it was just too much for him to handle. And yet, somehow someone had contacted him and asked him to give a eulogy. What was he going to say? He was terrified, and he’d faced down hundreds of aliens before. Now, a few dozen unarmed people were making him quiver in fear.

He pulled his collar together, fastening it tightly. The military in its infinite wisdom had chosen a rather uncomfortable, high-necked uniform for its dress uniform. He glanced at himself in the mirror double checking that every piece of his uniform was starched, shined, and aligned correctly. Giving himself a nod of approval, he grabbed his Service Cap, tossing it under his left arm, before striding out the door with a stiff professional appearance culminating from a closely-tailored uniform and a practiced body posture.

Stepping onto the sidewalk, he pulled his cap on his head, the short brim shading his eyes from the blazing sun. The brilliantly lit day characterized the polar opposite of his mood at the time, and he refused to even grant the oblivious teenagers causing a raucous down the street a casual glance. They had no idea what was going on outside their sheltered world. Jennings hailed a taxi, the automated driver asking in its robotic voice for a destination. Jennings relayed the name of the gravesite. Odd, he could have sworn that the face emblem for the AI looked—sorrowful? Sad? He must have imagined it, because the green circle with white dots for eyes was back to normal, now.

Minutes later, he stepped out of the Taxi, many onlookers staring at his uniform in awe. It wasn’t often that battle-scarred, highly decorated soldiers bearing the distinctive red and orange epaulets befitting ODSTs visited this particular area of the world.

A crowd was already forming around the gravesite of his friends; chairs lined up in neat rows with a perfectly centered aisle bisecting the arrangement. Apparently they were waiting for him.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, please find your seats.” There were supposed to be three speakers. Jennings was the third to go. The first was Naber’s father. It was obvious the gentleman was barely keeping it together, as he reminisced about Naber’s youth. Things they had done together. How he watched him grow up to be a man. His qualities. His virtues. How proud he was when he joined the Marines. How much prouder he was when he graduated ODST school. He concluded with a simple phrase.

“I’m going to miss you, bud.” He then sat down, tears brimming. Jennings didn’t even hear the second speech. It probably had something to do with the circle of life or some BS. All he knew was suddenly he was being prodded to go up to the mic. He walked up there, his practiced precision and discipline beginning to fade. He didn’t stand as straight or walk as stiff as he normally did.

“Um, hi. I think most of you are expecting a speech about Marines, hoorah, let’s blow stuff up.” Heads were nodding in the audience. “Well, I can’t give that speech now. Maybe I’m not as tough-as-nails as you think I am. Mr. Naber, I met your son at ODST school. You mentioned being proud as you pinned ODST wings on your son. Well, I was the Marine to his right, your left when you did that. And then we went off to fight. Naber, myself, and a few other fresh graduates went to serve in the same unit. Naber and I were put in the same squad, and immediately shipped out. We went to the outer colonies first. Our squad always won. We always won. We always fought to the last. In fact the last thing he said to me was…” he stopped, his words catching in his mouth. “Never stop fighting.” Goddamnit, he was crying now. “We used to say that in our unit all the time. ‘Never stop fighting for what you love’ was the whole phrase, but we shortened it to NSF. In fact, we used it everywhere. We yelled ‘En-Sef’ in battle, and every place we ever served had the ‘NSF’ spray-painted somewhere. We even put it on our armor,” he stopped wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Because that’s what we did. We fought. We were fighters. That’s what we were paid to do, and that’s what we did. And we were the best at it. And Naber… he was the best of the best. On the toughest days in the toughest environments, we stuck together. We fought together. And damnit we were unstoppable. There could have been hundreds of Covies, and we’d come through. We just got back from Epsilon Eridanus, where the rest of the squad died. We survived that together, too. We made it all the way back here, and one rogue gunman had to go…” He had to stop for a second.

“Someone once said that every person has a bullet with their name on it, and you have to live your life without ever meeting the guy who has your bullet. Well, I met him the other day, the guy with my bullet. And Naber took it for me. He’s already saved me a thousand times, and he had to go and do it again. Why’d you have to do it again man? Why did you do it?” Jennings dropped his head, crying quietly.

“Naber was a true hero,” he said finally. “He was the kind of man every person should strive to be. He never thought about himself, he only cared about the guy next to him. Damnit Naber, you’re the best person to have come out of ODST school. I don’t know if I can be a Trooper without you. I depended on you. You were my best friend,” he said stepping back from the mic. When he was far enough back that it couldn’t pick him up anymore, he muttered “you were my only friend.”

“Ready, fire!” Seven rifles fired at the same time, sounding as one.

“Fire!” Jennings saluted the casket as it was lowered.

“Fire!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Jennings stayed by the gravesite until the headstone was placed, long after everyone else had left. They had been battle buddies, and he wasn’t leaving a man behind.

“Sergeant, is there anything I can help you with?” a groundskeeper said to him.

“No, I’ll be going shortly. Just saying my final goodbyes.”

“Alright, well if you need anything, just holler.” Jennings walked over to the gravesite, standing in front of the headstone.

“Well man, this is it. I messed up. It was my fault. I should have seen it coming. Damn, I’m a shitty soldier. But seriously, why? That bullet was meant for me, damnit! It was my day to die! You could have lived! You had a family, I’ve got nothing! Not a damn thing! Why would you do this?” He shouted, trying in vain to shake the headstone. “I’ve got nothing left, man.” He turned, walking out the graveyard, plopping down on a nearby bench to think. And maybe cry a little, too. He cast his gaze skyward, hoping magical guidance would fall from above. Various lights twinkled high above. During the day? What is up there? His phone rang; he picked it up reluctantly.

“Jennings.”

“Sergeant? This is Captain Meckley.” His CO? What did he want?

“Sir, don’t you know where I am?”

“I know Sarnt, but we’re sending a Pelican to pick you up. The Covenant are attacking.” Well, that explains it. “Higher is putting together a high-risk mission. Near suicidal. Our unit is going back in.”

“Suicidal? Sir, that sounds great about now. Sign me up.”

“Pelican will be there in less than five, get ready to jump.”

“Feet first, sir.”

Everyone I know, goes away, in the end

This Is Not Your Jail, But You Are Welcome In It

Jennings lay back into the jail cell bed, sighing in comfort. The furnishings in these jail cells were comparatively luxurious to what he had endured for the last few years. Most of the time, he was sleeping on the ground in extreme temperatures. The few times he wasn’t in the field, he was cooped up with the rest of his squad in sparse barracks on Navy ships. Even if the Marines were a department of the Navy (the Men’s Department), the Navy didn’t go out of their way to provide comfortable rooms for the fiercest and deadliest soldiers around. In fact, it rather seemed the opposite.

Most of the rooms he stayed in on Navy ships were what one might consider ‘devoid of common comforts.’ The Navy laid out wafer-thin mattresses over solid metal frames, in order to fit more soldiers vertically. With that arrangement, they could get four Troopers to a bunk, fitting entire ODST squads into two bunk beds. The gunmetal grey everything cried out for a splash of color here and there, if for no other reason to provide something for the Troopers to do.

Needless to say, the Troopers got bored on those ships rapidly. They were used to thinking on their feet, killing, and being constantly on the move doing something productive. When that amount of killing energy gets bottled up inside a ship, mayhem rapidly forms. In fact, ODSTs were notorious for their destructive behavior on ships. ODSTs were responsible for so much trouble, that regulations were constantly being updated regarding the behavior of ODSTs during transit. It had become a nuisance for the Navy Captains, and a game for ODSTs. They tried to find new holes in the regs and new holes in the brigs. Most ships had developed ODST-specific holding cells, which of course just challenged the Troopers to invent new ways of escaping. Imagine the combined creativity of a squad of highly trained escape artists, and you are now getting an approximate picture of what the Navy brass had to put up with on a day-to-day basis.

Fortunately for Jennings, the Equestrian jails were much more comfortable than the Navy jails. In fact, if the Navy made their jails more like the one he was staying in now, ODSTs would be waiting in line to be locked up during their voyage. Despite his comfort, he did not want to stay in that room forever, but it was a good place to spend the night, at least. He had already enacted most of his escape plan, and could essentially leave whenever he wanted. But for now, he didn’t feel the need. Right now, he was just going to lay back and relax. He bolted upright.

Could have sworn he heard Naber say ‘Never stop fighting.’ But he knew that wasn’t true. Not only was he in a different dimension than Naber, Naber was… well…

“So you’re the creature that’s been plaguing Ponyville,” a blue-haired unicorn said. It was standing a bit behind the bars of his cell, just out of arms reach. Jennings would discover later that this guy was ‘Shining Armor.’ Jennings thought the name was hilarious.

“If by ‘plaguing’ you mean ‘saving,’ then yes. I did save Ponyville from the Covenant. Thank you for noticing.”

“You drew those things to that location, you put all of Ponyville at risk. Most importantly, you put my sister at risk.”

“Uh huh. I drew them there. Right. I just shot a flare up in the sky and invited them to tea and crumpets. How much experience do you have fighting them, again?”

“None.”

“I didn’t think so. Leave the war fighting to battle-tested soldiers, kid.”

“You think I can’t fight? I’ve fought in plenty of wars. I repelled an invasion with my wife not too long ago.” Jennings almost choked.

“Did you say your wife?”

“Yes.”

“And is she a combat master?”

“No, she spreads love wherever she goes.”

“Right. And together you fought off an invasion? With love?” Jennings chuckled, not sure if he should be taking this guy seriously or not.

“Of course!” The Shining Armor said, growing agitated at the creature’s indifference. For a second, Shining Armor thought that the creature’s face was about to break. And in a sense, it did.

“Bwa ha ha ha ha! Let me get this straight—hee hee—you fought off an invading army with nothing but the love of your wife? Oh, ha ha ha, this is rich!”

“Yes!”

“Oh, that’s comedy gold! And how, pray tell, did you do that?” Jennings was doing a poor job of suppressing his snickering.

“The power of her love enabled me to cast a spell that knocked them out of Equestria.” Shining Armor was now past agitation, and fully into the realm of anger.

“And how many died in this operation?”

“None.”

“Alright, Romeo. Once you engage in a campaign against a genocidal alien race, and watch all your friends die in your
arms, then come back and we can talk about combat.”

“All your friends died?” Now it was Shining Armor’s turn to not believe a word that Jennings said.

“Yup.”

“Well, they must have been terrible soldiers, then. If they had half the capabilities that my guard does, you wouldn’t have lost a single one of them. It probably also means that you are a terrible soldier, too.” All the joviality left Jennings.

“Excuse me?” Jennings said, rising to his full height, walking up to the bars forming his cage. He kept his body at an odd angle so that his right hand stayed concealed behind his back.

“Do you need it spoken more clearly? You’re obviously a terrible soldier if you let all your friends die.” Shining Armor normally wasn’t this abrasive, but frankly he was pissed off at this creature’s actions. It had endangered his sister, and been rather rude regarding his wife. It needed to be put in its place.

“You think you’re safe, don’t you?”

“From the ‘Covenant’ as you call them?”

“No, not the Covenant. They’re probably regrouping right now, so you have a day or two to come up with a plan of attack. I was referring to myself. You think you’re safe because I’m in here. You think this cell can contain me? Think again, Romeo.”

“I’d like to see you escape,” Shining Armor said with a daring tone in his voice. Jennings twisted rapidly, tossing a bar through the air with lightning speed. Shining Armor reacted a second after the sharpened barb had buried itself a couple inches into the wooden wall on the other side of the hallway, mere inches away from his head.

“I don’t need to escape to cause damage. I could have easily killed you there, but I didn’t. See? Evidence that I’m a good guy.” A look of pure rage covered Shining Armor’s features.

“I’m going to have to put you in the deepest, darkest dungeon we have.”

“Knock yourself out, I’ve gotten out of the best brigs the Navy has to offer.” A knock sounded on the door, followed by a guard poking his head in.

“Sir, the prisoner has a visitor.”

“Not. Now,” Shining Armor seethed.

“We tried to delay it sir, but she was given permission from Princess Celestia to visit.” Shining Armor muttered something under his breath, and then admitted the guest on the condition that a guard was always watching. Shining Armor left the room in a huff, already making preparations to move the prisoner. He left at the same time that the visitor entered.

“Hey, Jay.”

“Dash!” Jennings was pleased to see a friendly face. Hopefully Dash wouldn’t turn on him, too. Needless to say, he’d had about enough of former friends turning against him of late. “How’s life?”

“Ok, I guess. I just wanted to come and apologize.”

“For what?”

“ I just feel so bad about this whole deal. I brought the guard to Ponyville, and they arrested you. I hope you know I didn’t think they’d arrest you for trying to help out,” Dash said, her eyes downcast and body slumped forward in a guilty posture. Jennings leaned forward.

“Hey, Dash. Don’t worry about it. I’m used to stuff never happening according to plan. Battles, flights, even vacations can become disasters at the drop of a hat.”

“Vacations? How do those become disasters?” Jennings leaned back, looking calm and contemplative.

“Some people change over time, and many things happen beyond your control.”

“That’s very vague.”

“That’s all I can tell.”

“Why? Is it a big secret?”

“Sort of. It’s not like I’m being coerced to not speak, I just don’t think I’d be physically able to discuss it rationally.”

“That makes no sense,” Dash said, looking at him askew.

“And let’s hope you never have to understand.”

“Okay…” Dash said, not really sure what to say next. She’d never had a conversation with a prisoner before. She didn’t usually frequent prisons, and was only visiting because she—in a way—led to Jay’s arrest. “I’d ask to come in, but I don’t think I can.” She chuckled awkwardly, not really sure what was considered acceptable behavior in a prison.

“Oh, you can. The door is unlocked,” Jennings gestured towards the metal grating that constituted a door. The guard who was observing gave a slight start in surprise.

“They just leave it open like that?”

“Nah,” Jennings said, returning to a seated position on his bed. “But it wasn’t hard to open.”

“So you opened it and didn’t leave?”

“Meh, I was bored. And these beds are way more comfortable than what I’ve been working with for the last few years, so I didn’t really have a reason to leave.” Dash reached for the door, swinging it open cautiously, half expecting klaxons to sound and guards to come running. Noting nothing out of the ordinary, she stepped into the cell, and moved over to where he sat. She sat down on the bed next to him. She noticed that he shied a few inches away from her.

“What’s the matter,” she laughed, prodding him with her elbow good-naturedly. “Are you afraid I’m going to bite?”

“Well no, it’s just I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing,” he admitted with a perplexed look. Give him hordes of Covenant to fight, and he could tell you what to do in chronological order. Stand here, position body just so, shoot here, throw grenades here, move here, etc. He had trained for war and was an expert in all things ground warfare. He was sort of out of place in inter-species politics. Especially when the alien species looked to be about the same size as the Great Dane he had had as a kid. The coat looked like about the same as his dogs’ too—color notwithstanding. He had a sudden urge to throw his arm around it and scratch behind its ears, maybe throw a tennis ball or something. He had to keep reminding himself that this was another sentient being, and not the dog he’d loved in his teenage years. Who knows? Maybe scratching behind the ears was considered foreplay here. Wouldn’t that be awkward.

“Doing in jail? Probably not much.”

“No, I meant inter-species politics. Never been a focus of mine. I’ve always focused on carrying out the orders of the politicians. And now I find myself in their shoes. Fantastic. Just what I wanted.”

“To be honest, I’m not a politician myself. I’m an athlete. The fastest flier in all Equestria!” She said proudly.

“No kidding?”

“Hay yeah! I’ve won a few competitions for amateur fliers, and I’m working on trying to get onto Equestria’s best flying team, the Wonderbolts. This is the first year where I’m old enough to try out, it’s been my dream my whole life!”

“Well good luck with that. Hold on to your dreams for as long as you can,” he said. “When I was growing up, I wanted to be an actor. I never had the greatest upbringing, and theater was always a good escape for me. I wanted to capture people with the world I was portraying, and together we could have adventures away from the troubles of daily life.”

“I can kind of understand that, too. My family wasn’t what you’d call the best family around. As soon as I could fly, I practiced flight as often as I could, just so I could get away from my drunken father. When the wind whistled in my ears, and clouds dropped behind me at breathtaking speeds, I almost forgot that I had to land again. It was my way to escape.”

“Makes sense to me. I’d probably have done the same,” Jennings said.

“But you didn’t, you abandoned your dream. You became a soldier.”

“I didn’t abandon it, I just refined it. My reason for being an actor was to escape. But that was selfish of me. I decided to take the next step, and become selfless. I joined up so I could protect those who can’t protect themselves. I wish I had had someone there to protect me growing up, and now I can provide that for someone else.”

“That’s… noble. I guess. Ah jeez, you’re making me feel bad for being an athlete, now.”

“Woah, wait! I’m not suggesting you join up. Far from it. I’ve sacrificed more than I could have ever imagined. Don’t have a magical change of heart from what your dreams are based on one conversation. You can still protect people and inspire people by being the best athlete out there. This is just the path I chose.” There were a couple of seconds of silence between the two.

“Aw ponyfeathers! How’d you get me to talk about that! I’ve never told anypony that before!” Dash suddenly cried out. “Are you some sort of dark wizard?” She was hovering a little bit above him, gesturing downward with an accusing hoof. Jennings had barely seen her move. She really was fast.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to bring up bad history,” he said apologetically.

“Well, next time don’t ask questions about my past!” She was nearly shouting at Jennings.

“You brought it up!”

“Yeah… well… fine!” Dash stormed off in a huff. Jennings noticed that the guard was tracking Dash’s movements with his eyes. The guard let out a low whistle when she had gone. When the guard looked back at Jennings, he saw that Jennings was just looking straight back at him with a knowing smile.

“You think she’s hot, don’t you,” Jennings asked with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“Don’t you?” The guard said with an ‘isn’t it obvious’ expression.

“Not exactly attracted to your body type, sorry,” he said with a chuckle. The guard was saved an extremely awkward silence by an interruption from another guard.

“Princess Celestia wants to meet the prisoner.”

A/N: I am aware that Shining Armor may be a little out of character. I tried to give him a reason why he was being such a jerk. And I must say, if someone had endangered my sister in the same way, I'd probably act very similarly.

Ms. Princess Celestia, Our New Boss

Jennings was marched through a maze of corridors, flanked on both sides by an inordinate number of guards. The excessive security was probably due to him mouthing off to the Head Honcho—the one referred to by the other guards as Shining Armor. It appeared that they were intentionally trying to misdirect him, as he passed by various landmarks repeatedly. It worked too, he had a general sense of where to go, but the individual turns he needed to take became muddled in the half hour trek through endless hallways.

Finally emerging into the sunlight, he noticed how serious everyone was being about this. Soldiers—in what appeared to be the pony equivalent of riot gear—were blocking off the streets, clearing a straight path towards what he guessed was the Princess’ office. It actually looked more like a cathedral than a building suiting the executive branch of government.

The road before him was barren of all activity, populated only by the stones paving the path and soldiers in armor. A quick glance confirmed the presence of ‘snipers’ as it may be. In reality, it was just an assortment of guards with bows and arrows or javelins ready to be thrown. Essentially, they just had ranged weapons. He had no idea how precise they may or may not be at significant distances. Ponies crowded the streets, just on the other side of the riot-prepared guards, craning their necks to get a peek at what was causing this hubbub. As soon as he stepped outside, gasps arose from the crowd, his alien body towering above his guards.

Cameras flashed as he was escorted down the street towards the ruler of Equestria. It was obvious that this was going to be major news for the next few millennia or so. Reporters scribbled down things in their notepads, feverishly asking guards for more information. Those capable of flight swooped as low as they could (before being forcibly removed by the guards), each one vying for the best camera angle on the new, biggest story in Equestrian history. Aliens! Bipedal aliens! What did they want, where did they come from? Why was it under armed guard? Was it convicted of a crime? Every single question was received the same non-answer response.

“I have no information for you at this time.” While it certainly felt like the guards knew a lot and were refusing to tell anypony, in actuality they knew about as much as the public did. Only a select few knew what had happened in Ponyville and what events had transpired to bring this strange being to Equestria.

He was finally at the base of the steps that led into the cathedral… building… office… thing. For some reason, he felt like being cheeky and decided to stop, turn, and wave to the masses like a famous politician. There was no real reason behind it; he just felt that it was appropriate. He had spent his military career operating behind enemy lines, forever away from the press, fame, and fortune. Now, he at least had the attention of every single pony in the audience. Grinning, he spun around, waving to the crowd. The guards did not appreciate his stopping, and roughly pushed him inside the giant wooden doors, closing them behind Jennings with a thunderous boom.

He slowly faced the interior of the building, noting that the ceiling was a lot taller than it had looked from the outside, and that the hall was lined with massive pillars and stained glass windows. His description of it as a cathedral was becoming more and more accurate. However, what caught his attention the most was the pony in the middle of the room. This had to be the princess they were referring too. She stood head and shoulders above all the other ponies, and it would probably been more accurate to refer to her as a horse. A tall horn stood on her head, at least twice the size of any horn he had seen prior. And while she definitely stood head and shoulders above any other pony and was bore monstrous wings proudly, the most noticeable feature about her though was the hair.

Lots and lots of hair. He couldn’t quite count how many colors she had in her mane, as it appeared to be constantly in motion. He half expected to feel hurricane-force winds blowing throughout the room, but the air was strangely still. And yet, the mane kept waving. He noticed that all the other ponies were bowing. I guess that would be appropriate, given the apparent royalty before him. Maybe it was their form of saluting? He bowed rather stiffly, as he was not accustomed to bowing at all.

“You must be the alien that has been the source of conflicting reports,” Celestia said, walking over toward Jennings. He couldn’t help but notice that despite the fact that he was standing next to her, there still wasn’t a breeze. How was it still waving?

“Uh, yeah. That’d be me. Wait, conflicting? What was conflicting?”

“Well,” said Celestia, in a smooth, very calming voice, “Some ponies have been saying that you were causing disruptions in the area, and instigated the fight on these ‘Covenant.’ Other reports say that you defended Ponyville from invasion. You can see why we need to get to the bottom of this,”

“You think I instigated the fight, and dragged Equestria into a war,” Jennings stated matter-of-factly.

“Essentially, yes. Did you kill them without warning?” Celestia asked, arching an eyebrow. Jennings shrugged.

“More or less.”

“So you did start the fight,” she asked, sounding slightly alarmed.

“In the same way that you see someone drawing back for a punch and you punch them before they punch you.”

“So you’re saying that you started the fight—after they initiated the intent to fight?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“You do realize that that’s awfully hard for any sensible jury to go for? How can you prove that?”

“Ma’am, I’m no lawyer. I’m not a politician. I don’t speak with a silver tongue. You ask me a question, I give you an answer. You give me a lawful order and I follow it to completion, no matter the cost. I’m just a soldier.”

“Fair enough,” she said, turning to look out a stained glass window. “So you’re defense is only that you think they were about to attack?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“And do you have any evidence for this?”

“Nothing tangible, Ma’am.”

“But you do have some evidence, even if it isn’t a physical indicator of innocence? What evidence do you have?”

“Only my memories and experiences. They were bringing their weapons up, and I’ve fought enough Covenant in the past to know what their intentions were.”

“Your memories?” Her voice struck an odd tone.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Do you remember your battles against the Covenant vividly?”

“Ma’am, I haven’t been able to get sleep in who knows how long. Vividly doesn’t begin to describe it,” he said, the hardened edge to his voice momentarily vanishing as he relived the destruction of a planet in a split second.

“If I were to view these memories, would it bother you?”

“As long as the process doesn’t damage me in any way,” he paused for a second, deep in thought. “I guess it’s ok.”

“Agreed. I will cast a spell that allows me to see into your mind, and if you could be so kind as to remember a few things I will see if your experiences align with what you say.”

“Alright,” he said, with a slight hesitation. He generally tried to avoid remembering. But if it would help prove innocence, that would be fantastic. Her horn glowed brilliantly, causing sunspots in Jennings vision. In a flash, he teleported back in time.

He tried to give her a complete history of his military career, so she would fully understand where his position was. It was odd to be sharing a mind and memories with another entity. He could sort of feel her presence in the memories. Sort of. He just could sense a change of her emotions, for instance he could tell when she was empathized with him, when the sights made her angry, and when she felt pained by what was happening.

He started off in Basic Combat Training, going through the shark attacks, the smoking, the pushups, the pain. Drill Instructors coming from seemingly nowhere to apply pain and suffering when it was least expected. He jumped ahead to ODST school, showing the length and suffering all the Troopers went through during their immensely long training program. He finished off the memory with him and Naber being pinned with their shiny new ODST wings.

He jumped up to his first deployment, a Covenant invasion of another outer colony. He could feel Celestia grow anxious during his first combat drop, as the pod grew hotter and hotter, shaking violently as it feel at supersonic speeds from orbit. Celestia could feel Jennings’ horror as he faced down Covenant for the first time. She watched through his eyes as an Elite tore a human in half with its bare hands. Blind terror gripped the two of them as the Elite turned and started charging towards Jennings. The BR thumped rhythmically into his shoulder, accompanied by a feeling of overwhelming relief when the shields popped on the Elite. Another burst to the head dropped the massive foe. One of his squad mates ran towards Jennings. Celestia’s relief turned to shock as the man’s head exploded with the impact of a sniper rifle, coating Jennings visor in a red mist and grey matter.

He moved forward a few battles, to an infiltration mission, far behind Covenant lines. His squad was moving in to plant a bomb in a Covenant facility, and things weren’t going to plan. They had gotten into the structure no problem but an alarm had been triggered when they were leaving. Special Ops units of Covies had been dispatched to take out the humans. Celestia could feel the fear felt by every man in the unit as they hunkered down in the darkness, hunted by invisible Elites. Every few hours or so, a strangled cry could be heard as an ODST was found and killed. Usually the troopers were able to take one of the Spec Ops elites with them, but not always. Right as day was about to break, an Elite found him, and he fought for his life desperately, firing his suppressed SMG into the chest of the Elite. As the weapon was batted away, he dove desperately for the arm of the Elite that grasped the sword. He was able to keep that dangerous weapon from stabbing him, and immediately spun back around to stab the Elite in the throat with his combat knife.

He cut rapidly between the deaths of each of his squadmates. His squad leader and Joey died defending damn politician’s transport. Like politicians were helpful in a conflict like this. He remembered the exact sight and sound of his squad leader’s replacement as he screamed for help while bleeding out on a battlefield far from home. One by one, his squad mates died that day by a covenant weapons of some type or another. Plasma rounds, energy swords, grenades, etc. until only Naber and Jennings were left. Finally, brass decided to give them some air support. Nice how they got it after everyone had died defending a piece of ‘mission critical terrain’ from enemy hands. Here came the hard part.

Celestia felt Jennings’ gut wrenching agony as his last friend bled out on the floor of some bar, on Earth’s surface. She watched Jennings jump into combat attached to a brand new squad. Then the plasma round hit and he was sent through the slipspace rupture, landing in Equestria. He attacked Twilight out of confusion, and the two spent a long time discussing everything related to Earth and human culture. Rainbow Dash showed him around Ponyville, and he ran into the Covenant again. As soon as he heard them, he brought his weapon up, killing them as fast as he could. And just like that, the memory sharing was over.

Jennings grunted, dropping to a knee. He was soaked in a cold sweat, and spent a few moments trying to re-bottle all of the memories he had reopened, and were now wreaking havoc with his psyche. Celestia stood still for a few seconds, blinking in a daze. She finally shook her head, trying to process and push away the sudden brutality.

“Now I understand why you did what you did,” Celestia said in her signature, smooth voice. She had regained her composure remarkably fast.

“So you’re clearing me of the charges?”

“Yes, I am.”

“That’s great! By the way Romeo over there,” Jennings gestured over his shoulder, thumb pointing at Shining Armor, “was treating me, I assumed I was already guilty.”

“Really?” Celestia said, intrigued. “And how did he treat you?” Shining Armor’s shoulders drooped, knowing what was coming.

“Oh, he said almost verbatim that the reason my soldiers and friends died was because I was an incompetent and terrible soldier,” Jennings features darkened, then abruptly returned to normal as the wave of anger passed.

“Is this true?” Jennings noticed that Celestia was no longer addressing him, but instead, talking to Romeo. He also noticed that Celestia seemed to be towering over Jennings. Maybe she was irritated at his disrespect or still a little rattled by the vivid recounting of the deaths of his compatriots. Who knew. Needless to say, all Jennings wanted at this moment was some popcorn. And maybe a sofa.

“Well, uh, technically yes, but…”

“Please, tell me what you mean by ‘technically,’” Celestia said, focusing intently on the answer of the blue-maned stallion.

“Well I did say it. But the only reason I said it was because I was angry that he acted dismissive of my wife, and he endangered my sister by bringing the Covenant to Ponyville!” Celestia did not seem impressed. Jennings gave her some serious kudos for how calmly she addressed him.

“Until I have decided what role Sgt Jennings will play in our fight, I feel that your presence may just make proceedings go a lot slower, it is obvious that you and our guest do not seem intent on getting along. I will call for you when I need you next.” Shining Armor slunk out of the room, obviously angry at this alien getting his way.

“Thanks,” Jennings said.

“You’re welcome. Whose fault the altercation between you two was must be decided at a later time, we have more pressing matters to address now.”

“Like fighting the Covenant?”

“More like preparing for the worst. Hopefully it won’t come to that, but I refuse to let my nation be unprepared.”

“Alright, what do you need from me?”

“I will direct you to the General in charge of our military. I’d like you to coordinate with him, in order to discover what weapons and tactics we have currently that will be most advantageous. Also, I’d like for you to design a course like the one you went through. Obviously there would be many differences, but a course that challenging could only serve to improve our military strength.”

“That’s kind of an odd request, but ok.”

“Do you not want to do it?”

“Nah, I can do it. I just was not expecting it.”

“Good,” Celestia said, her smooth voice never wavering. Jennings felt suddenly unnerved. It wasn’t that he found Princess Celestia to be a threat, it’s that he didn’t. He treated everything as a threat. Until it had been proven beyond a doubt that it didn’t mean him harm, he always regarded new people, new things, and new situations with extreme caution, as his life often depended on it. But there was something different about Celestia. Her voice was disarmingly smooth; it felt kind and heartwarming just to listen to. At the same time, all you had to do was listen to her for a few seconds before you got the impression that she was extremely wise, and had earned her position as ruler time and time again.

“Alright then, I’ll go and talk to this General. Which way?” Celestia gestured down a hallway, and provided him brief instructions on where to go and who to ask for. Jennings disappeared down the hall, greeting the General appropriately, immediately beginning discussion about what was necessary for preparation.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“How could this have happened?” Lo’Vadomir was not pleased with the reports of his scouts. His fist slammed against a wall hard enough to dent the alloy and cause his shields to flare. The Kig-Yar under his command were keenly aware that their next words could mean the end of their life.

“Sir, we only discovered their graves from scent alone. When we dug them up, they were all killed by either a blade or a human weapon.”

“But there was only one human!” Lo’Vadomir roared.

“Maybe there were more that we didn’t see,” suggested one of the cowering Kig-Yar. A blast from a plasma rifle silenced him forever.

“There was only the one pod! Though I suppose it is possible that there were some that came in after we fell through.” Lo’Vadomir issued out some final orders. “Begin thorough scouting of the town. I want to know how many heretics we are dealing with, and what their strengths are. As soon as I know what we’re facing, we’ll wipe them from existence!”

A/N: Is there any specific day that you would prefer chapter releases? Due to Labor Day weekend, I was able to get a chapter ahead. That being said, this only offers me the luxury of choosing what day I put out the chapters. I don’t want to put them both out, because inevitably something will come up and I won’t be able to finish a chapter, so I want to have some buffer.

Also, the next chapter is probably the worst writing I've done in a while. The ending is absurdly rushed. However, I won't have time to edit it for a while. Let this go as a warning to you, that the next chapter may suck. A lot. I will fix it as soon as I can.

Thought I'd Try Hanging Out, Mix Things Up A Little

“What’s the proper protocol? I’ve never done this before,” Jennings said self-consciously, rather out of his comfort zone.

“You have never been on a picnic before? How have you lived?” Pinkie Pie was quite distraught at this fact. “Life without picnics? That’s like life without frosting!”

“In a constant state of fear and on the run from a genocidal alien race,” Jennings said without a hint of emotion. He had discussed all the necessary plans with the top brass of the Equestrian Armed Forces, and they had given him mandatory R&R while they went about building and creating what he had requested. Jennings wasn’t exactly keen on the idea. He preferred to be doing things, instead of waiting around. Besides, he’d had bad experiences with vacationing of late.

“Jennings, could you lend a hoof with the set up?” Twilight asked, levitating towards him a checkered blanket. He grabbed out of the air, glancing between it and the ground. He finally placed it—unfolded—on the ground and promptly lay down under it. The other ponies there looked at each other, each having their own separate reaction. Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack all guffawed, Rarity erupted into ‘lady-like laughter,’ Twilight facehoofed, and Fluttershy looked like she was trying very hard to contain her laughter.

“Oh silly, that’s not what it’s for!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed between outbursts of laughter.

“And how was I supposed to know that? It’s a blanket, right?” Jennings said crossly, defending himself. It also wasn’t helping that he wasn’t wearing his armor anymore (and instead wearing a luxurious suit designed by Rarity), so they could see his facial expressions quite clearly. And he looked very confused.

“Why yes of course Darling, but for picnics you don’t use it as a blanket. You lay it on the ground to prevent oneself from getting dirty!” Rarity demonstrated by sitting down on the other side of the cloth.

“Oh.” He removed himself from under the blanket, instead sitting down on the blanket like the ponies were doing. Well, most of them. Rainbow Dash was hovering (literally and figuratively) by Jennings right shoulder. Sandwiches were passed out promptly. Jennings was about to take a bite when he saw what was in the sandwich itself.

“What’s the matter, Jay?” Dash asked Jennings, noting that he had not yet taken a bite.

“There’s grass in here. And I think I see some flowers,” he stared at the sandwich in disbelief.

“Well, duh,” Pinkie said through a mouthful of sandwich. “What else do you put in sandwiches?”

“I dunno, lots of things. Ham, cheese and mayonnaise. Roast beef. Probably peanut butter and jelly is the most popular.” He looked up, all of them staring at him in disbelief. “What?”

“You eat meat?” Fluttershy said with a horrified expression.

“Well, yeah. Humans are omnivores, not herbivores.”

“Do you eat ponies? What about rabbits? Or deer? Or bear? Or-eep!” Fluttershy would have gone down the list of every single animal at her house had Applejack not grabbed her.

“Not ponies, no. There are a few animals that are taboo, but most of that depends on the culture you come from. For instance, where I come from, it’s frowned upon to eat things like horses, ponies, dogs, etc. People from India hold cows up as something to be revered, while most other parts of the world have no qualms about eating them.” Fluttershy looked like she was about to pass out.

“How barbaric,” Rarity shuddered.

“Do you ever put other humans in a sandwich?” Pinkie asked. The other five ponies turned towards her with ‘what the hay, Pinkie’ expressions on their faces. “What? I’m just asking.”

“Um… no. That’s definitely a taboo in all civilized parts of the world.”

“What else do you put in a sandwich?”

“Geez, I dunno. Lots of things. Once, we saved up the scraps from our meals until we made cookie and frosting sandwiches, but that was only a one-time deal.” Pinkie’s eyes grew as wide as saucers, images of various cookie sandwiches flooded her brain.

“Any other horrifying aspects of your culture that we should know about?” Twilight, still a little unnerved by the whole ‘eating meat’ thing.

“Hey, there are parts of your culture that are equally as weird to me. For instance, none of you wear clothes. What’s up with that?”

“Wait, y’all have to wear clothes all the time? Like—100% of the time?”

“Pretty much.”

“Augh! That’d be so annoying! I hate it when I have to wear clothes, they’re so restrictive! They keep me from competing in top form!” Dash complained.

“See that attitude right there? If someone competed naked, not only would they be disqualified, they’d be put in jail for ‘public indecency.’ ”

“That wouldn’t be too bad,” Rarity said. “Seeing people in elegant clothing like that fine suit you’re wearing (if I don’t say so myself) all the time wouldn’t be bad at all. I wouldn’t mind living there, one bit.”

“Yeah, I guess. But nobody wears these. Only to formal events. Most days, people wear jeans and a T-shirt.”

“Jeans and a T-shirt?” Rarity said, sucking in air. “Forget what I said, I couldn’t bear that kind of torture. I’d rather wear fewer, more elegant clothes than be saddled with,” she shuddered at the thought, “jeans and a T-shirt all the time.”

“So… you gonna eat that sugarcube?” Applejack stared at the untouched sandwich in Jennings’ hand. She had already finished her sandwich and was still hankerin’ for some more food.

“Well, I do like salad. So I guess I can try it,” he said with a slight waver in his voice. It sure didn’t look appetizing.

“If you’re going to eat it, eat it. If not hand it to me or Applejack.”

“Oh no you don’t! I called it first, so it’s mine if he doesn’t eat it!” Her southern drawl was accentuated by her hooves, which were pointed at Rainbow Dash accusingly.

“Oh, he’s going to eat it,”

“No he ain’t.”

“Eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it,” Rainbow Dash chanted. Soon all the other ponies (except Applejack) joined in on the chant. Jennings closed his eyes, taking a big bite from the sandwich. Rainbow Dash cheered.

“Woohoo! Go Jay!”

“Well, watcha think?” Twilight queried. Jay opened one eye, then the other, chewing slowly and deliberately.

“Well, it’s not bad. It’s certainly not a salad. It’s definitely eatable, but I prefer PB&J.” He looked up from his sandwich to find six sets of eyes fixed intently on him. “What?”

“We’ve never seen an alien eat our food before,” Twilight said. “It was… interesting.”

“I was really hopin’ you wouldn’t like it,” Applejack said disappointedly.

“If he likes that, he’ll probably like pie, too!” Pinkie exclaimed suddenly.

“How in the hay does a sandwich taste similar to a pie?”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t. I just mean that he likes our food!”

“And how does enjoying one sandwich mean he likes all of our food, automatically?” Jennings was apparently oblivious to the heated exchange between Applejack and Pinkie Pie.

“I haven’t had a pie in… years probably. I was going to go to Naber’s parents’ house and get some Apple Pie, but plans sort of fell through,” he said shifting his eyes from side to side, not looking at any of the ponies in the eyes.

“What do you mean by ‘fell through?’”

“Things didn’t go according to plan.”

“Hey now, no lying!” Applejack said.

“What, I wasn’t lying!”

“But you weren’t telling the truth either. I can tell when someone isn’t telling the truth.” Damn.

“Ok, fine. Some things out of the ordinary happened.”

“Like what? Party emergency?” Pinkie Pie asked innocently.

“No, nothing like that,” he said still trying to evade the question.

“Did somepony need your help?” whispered Fluttershy from the corner.

“No, well… sorta. There was nothing I could do to help.”

“Was there a-”

“He was killed.” Jennings ran his hand through his close-cropped hair, staring off into the distance.

“I- uh- I’m so sorry. I had no idea,” Twilight said apologetically.

“Oh my…” Fluttershy was by his side in a flash, trying to comfort him. He appreciated the effort, but he really wasn’t used to being comforted by anyone—let alone a yellow, pink maned Pegasus. It was weird, to say the least. “Did your friends and family say come to the funeral to support you?”

“There’s no one left. My family died when my planet was invaded, and my friends were all killed on our last mission. Naber was the last one.” Fluttershy felt like the worst pony in the world for bringing all this up.

“Well, we can be your friends, if you want to that is.”

“Yeah! We’ll be your friends, and we’ll have a party to celebrate having new friends!” Pinkie pulled a party hat seemingly out of nowhere (Jennings discovered later they were stored everywhere in case of party emergency, whatever that means).

“No, I can’t let you. Everything around me dies. You don’t want to be my friends.”

“Oh, ok. Can we still be acquaintances?” Fluttershy asked in a cowed voice.

“That’s fine.” He felt a hoof on his shoulder.

“Sugarcube, I don’t care what you call us, but I call you a friend. And you need some apple pie, pronto. Why don’t you come with us to Sweet Apple Acres, and we’ll get you something to make you feel better?”

“I’ll take you up on the pie, but I don’t need it to feel better. I’ll survive another day inside my own mind.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“I can’t believe I forgot to make cupcakes for Jay. He’s never had a cupcake! Do you know what a tragedy this is?” Pinkie Pie wailed inside Applejack’s house.

“Pinkie, you can use my kitchen, if it’s really that big of a deal.”

“I can’t! I picked out special ingredients for Jay! This is his first cupcake! It has to be special!” Pinkie buried her head in her hooves, utterly shattered that she had forgotten about this entire ordeal.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be running the training camp for a while. You can bring them by then,” He lay his hand on the shoulder of the crushed Pinkie, patting it awkwardly. He had no idea what the appropriate custom here was. He could help people walk through the shock of combat no problem. It didn’t even phase him when he had helped fresh Marines deal with the loss of friends. And while the loss of ingredients didn’t seem that important to him, he wasn’t even sure what constituted great suffering for ponies. Hell, he didn’t even know what things civilians worried about on his own planet.

“Pinkie, don’t worry about it. We’ll eat Applejack’s pies, then we’ll go back to Sugarcube Corner for the cupcakes. Easy-peasy.” That Twilight, she was always solving problems. Pinkie brightened, processing and accepting the situation.

“Okie dokie lokie!” Jennings leaned over to Dash.

“She sure bounced back from that tragedy quick.”

“She does that with everything, it’s one of the things I like about her. Each of my friends have their own unique qualities that make them the best. Pinkie can recover from anything, Applejack will stick by you no matter the hardships, and while Rarity may look and act like a snob, she’ll go way out of her way to help you. You can go to Twilight with any problem, and she’ll stay up endlessly trying to research a solution. And Fluttershy? She’s just always there. She’s like the counselor of the group. And lately, you are like the super-awesome fighter who will go to blows for anyone you care about.”

“I told you, you don’t want me to be your friend. Everyone around me dies or gets hurt in some way.”

“And as your friend, I don’t care. Because that’s what friends do.”

“But I don-” Dash cut him off.

“And we are your friends because you don’t want us to get hurt.” Jennings was saved face by Applejack’s timely interruption.

“Get som’ pie while it’s hot!” she said rather loudly, shoving a heaping plate of goodies in front of Jennings. He accepted the plate graciously, glancing around for a few seconds.

“Whatcha lookin’ for?”

“Well, I was looking for a spoo-” he paused suddenly realizing that they probably weren’t familiar with the concept of silverware. “Never mind.” He grabbed the pie with his hands, and wolfed it down in three bites. The six of ponies stared at him as he announced his appreciation of the meal.

“You ate that… quickly,” Twilight commented. Jennings shrugged.

“I did?”

“Don’t ponies savor meals where you come from?” Rarity asked, slightly disgusted at the lack of manners displayed by the human.

“I guess. For the last few years, most of my meals have come during breaks between firefights. I guess fast for me is different for you. Can I have another slice? I’ll try to eat it slower this time.” Applejack handed him another slice, much to Dash’s chagrin.

“Wait, he gets two slices and I don’t?” she glanced from her single slice to Applejack, and back again.

“Well of course. Have you seen how skinny he is? He could actually use a few extra pounds or so,” she paused dramatically, suddenly acquiring an evil grin. “Unlike somepony here.”

“Oh you did not just go there.”

“Darn right I did.”

“Well at least some of us aren’t such heavyweights that when they box they each season they go up a weight class!” The others in the room watched on in amusement at the good-natured, verbal competition between the two already super-competitive ponies.

“That would be you, right?”

“You wish you were this thin.”

“But at least-” Pinkie

“Girls, girls! We can decide which one of you is fatter after we get cupcakes! C’mon!” Pinkie trotted merrily out of the room. Dash and Applejack stared at the door then at each other.

“I don’t know how,” Applejack said, “but Pinkie won that one.”

“Yeah. Seriously, what just happened?” That was all Twilight could take, she and Rarity were doubled over in laughter. Even Fluttershy looked like she was trying really hard to contain herself. It took a few moments before the room could regain composure and move outside to rejoin the impatiently waiting Pinkie Pie. Jennings was the last out of Applejack’s house, closing the door as he went.

“Jay, are you ready for the best cupcake of your life?”

“Well, I still haven’t had one. At this point, any cupcake is the best one of my life.”

“Double the reason to get a move on, c’mon!”

“Wait!” Jennings stuck thrust his arm forward, his hand forming the ‘stop’ signal.

“What? Cupcakes are waiting!”

“Does anyone else hear that?” The six ponies froze, listening carefully.

“Yeah, I hear it. What is it?” Dash said. Jennings had heard the sound of plasma rifle fire too often to be able to mistake it for anything.

“The Covenant are back.” He took off sprinting towards the Everfree Forest and the sound of weapon fire. Dash grabbed him under the arms, getting Jennings towards the sound of gunfire as fast as she possibly could. A cone of rainbow exploded outwards as they approached the site of the skirmish. Jennings pointed towards an elite towering over the wounded Shining Armor. At the last second, Jennings noticed the short blade of plasma held in the elite’s hand, being raised for a thrusting motion towards Dash.

“Look out!”

A/N:

I have sort of adopted the following song as the theme song for Jennings. While I don’t think the lyrics match Jennings perfectly, they get the vast majority of his motivations. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but I recently discovered this typography video and loved it.

It Blew Right Through Us!

“Look out!”

One hour earlier:

Shining Armor slipped into his breastplate, the plates of metal clanking together as he fastened them together. He was preparing to take a contingent of the Canterlot Guard into the Everfree Forest to confront these Covenant. That being said, he wasn’t expecting to run into any. Even if they did, the Covenant would never be so foolish to attack such a vastly numerically superior force. Having no experience fighting the Covenant before, he couldn’t say for sure if they had better training or more disciplined troops than he did, but he was fairly confident that he had the advantage in that area too. If that human could wipe out about ten of them without too much work, he and his 50 Guardians would have no problem at all.

“Sir, we are ready to move out,” said one of his soldiers.

“Thanks Rookie,” he said to his newest soldier, Stormchaser. “Ready for your first excursion in the big leagues?”

“Yes, sir! I’ve been wanting all my life to be in this unit.”

“But are you ready?”

“Yes, sir. I have been running through all the battle drills in my head. I refuse to let you down, sir!”

“Good to hear. Normally on the first mission, the newest member sticks by the most experienced soldier in the unit to gain as much knowledge as they can.”

“And who is that, sir?”

“That would be me.”

“Ah, right. I knew that. So where do you want me to stand?”

“Doesn’t really matter, just be nearby.”

“Yes, sir!” The Rookie said enthusiastically, fairly jumping closer to Shining. Shining concealed a grin at the youthful vigor of Stormchaser. Shining Armor walked up to his unit, disseminating orders in a rapid, practiced manner. He split the unit up into various sections, each one having a certain area designated to search. They were going to move forward through the forest in a linear fashion, sweeping all the Covenant before him. He would wipe them out before this human could start that diabolical training camp of his. He would prove to Princess Celestia that there was no need for any extra training, that he and his men could protect Equestria without the help of a reckless alien who endangered and insulted his family.

“Sir, everypony is in position,” his second in command reported.

“Move ‘em out.”

“Forward, march!” Shining Armor’s NCOs were notoriously loud, and this stallion was no exception. Ears ringing slightly, Shining took his own place in the line, moving slowly forward through the brush. Minutes passed without incident, each pony pushing forward in the line, searching high and low for the alien intruders. Nothing could be found so far.

“Is this how most of your missions go? With nothing happening?” Stormchaser asked after a while.

“Normally there’s more action. But I am predicting that not much will happen on this mission. Even if we do find them, by description the enemy sounds rather weak in comparison to the strength we have mustered here.”

“Oh, really? When I read the reports, I found them rather terrifying.”

“You haven’t had as much experience in the Everfree Forest as I have.”

“That’s true sir. Umprf!” Stormchaser walked into the back of another soldier as every person in the line halted, staring upwards. Stormchaser looked up at what everypony was staring at. Over 100 eyes tracked a blue, fuzzy ball as it hissed through the air in a lazy arc.

“What in Equestria…” Shining Armor trailed off, watching it float through the air. It stuck to one of his soldiers a short way down the line.

“Is that a parasprite? Get it o-” A massive concussion shattered the air. Shining Armor blinked his eyes, trying to get rid of the spots that were left over from the brilliant blue flash.

“What happened to him? Where did he go?” The rookie asked innocently. Shining Armor couldn’t find words as bits and pieces of shredded meat rained down.

“Kill the heretics!” An elite jumped from the bushes, its hands encircling a small bluish device. Blinding bursts of light erupted from its nose, zipping through the air. Everything the bolts touched burned or burst into flame. Shining dashed to his left, hearing one of his comrades howl in pain.

“What’s wrong?”

“That thing got me!” The soldier held his stomach in pain. Shining ducked as more of the bolts scorched the air just above his head. Shining couldn’t look at the wound very long, he knew he couldn’t do anything. The stallion had been gutted the plasma. He tore his eyes from the gore, making eye contact with the soldier. He struggled to find words to say to comfort the dying stallion.

“I’ll… I’ll go get a medical kit, stay there!” Shining ducked and dodged through the smoke, fire, and exchange of low and high tech weaponry looking for his second in command.

“Sir, over here!” Shining ran to the cluster of stallions who were furiously firing arrows at the Covenant. A few stuck into the armor wore by the grunts, most bounced off the shields of the Elite.

“Sergeant, what’s the situation?” He already knew the situation, but he hoped his NCO had a shred of intelligence that he hadn’t been told yet that could turn the tide.

“Reports say there are very few enemy soldiers. One tall, two short and fat, two short and gangly with odd bits of fur at various points on its body.” Not too many enemies. That was new. And good.

“Anything else?”

“Nothing has any effect on them! Spears, arrows, even magic doesn’t pha-” His NCO’s head exploded as a plasma bolt struck him square in the temple.

“Buck!” Shining Armor stood there for a few seconds, slowly realizing the liquid covering his own body had once belonged to his second in command. And this whitish piece of goo was… an eyeball. Shining jumped away, shaking his body vigorously.

“Sir, what are your orders?” The cluster of terrified soldiers stared at him with wide eyes. In the few seconds that passed while Shining processed the situation, hundreds of plasma rounds passed overhead. His training started to kick in again, albeit slowly. Soon, he was dishing out orders as if he knew what was going on.

“You three, keep up the volume of fire from your bows. Rookie, you sprint around to another section, tell them to form a good defensive position. Once they do that, get to back here and we will flank the enemy. Go.” The soldiers gave a quick salute, and carried out their own duties. Shining Armor gave a quick look around for a weapon of his own. Nothing lay nearby. What was it that the sergeant was saying about magic? It wasn’t working? Well, at this point he had nothing left.

Shining jumped up a nearby stump, his horn glowing brightly. He directed all his energy into propelling a blast wave outward to knock away his opponents. The purple sphere pulsed outwards, flooding the woods in a vibrant light. The Covenant may have been knocked back onto their heels, but were far from being launched into oblivion. He wracked his brain, trying to come up with another solution.

Incoming fire intensified, focusing on his silhouette. He ducked behind cover as plasma fire burst the stump he had been standing upon into flames. He sprinted at a crouch to a new position. Regaining a dominant view of the battlefield, again he channeled all of his willpower into a single blast, this time kinetic in nature. He hurtled a large boulder at the enemy position, crushing the two skinny aliens and two squat aliens beneath the behemoth weight of the stone. His moment of victory was short lived, as a plasma bolt glanced across his shoulder, causing him to crumple to the ground in agony.

“Sir, crawl over here, we have some medical supplies!” One of his few remaining soldiers cried over the sound of the raging battle. A brilliant blue explosion turned the area into a temporary inferno, burning the three remaining soldiers in the defensive position to a crisp. Shining Armor watched as one of the crispy, charred soldiers twisted and fell to the ground, the corpse shattering on impact. Ash spread across the ground as the horrible smell of burnt flesh filled the air.

All sounds of battle ceased.

Where were the other positions? Had Stormchaser reached the rest of his unit and carried out the instructions? Was he the only one left? He glanced around rapidly for answers, his burned tissue not letting him move quickly in any direction. One of the hulking alien bipeds in red armor stepped into sight.

Shining Armor lay perfectly still, hoping this creature would not notice him. He watched through mostly closed eyes as the split jaw of the being opened and closed, uttering many guttural noises that he could only guess was some form of language that extolled the virtues of violence for the sake of violence. At least, that’s what it sounded like.

The creature moved around through the battlefield, rummaging for some unknown item, obviously not finding it by the angry demeanor the creature took. In savage frustration, it kicked the heads of one of the charred soldiers off, causing bits and pieces to fall on Shining. Involuntarily, he flinched. The elite noticed, and set on him in a heartbeat. Shining felt himself being picked up into the air quite easily and held at eye-level with the towering fiend.

“Where is the human?” It said in a low, gravelly voice. The manner in which it spoke conveyed its murderous intent.

“Last I saw, he was at your mom’s house—rrgh!” The elite put almost all of its weight on the burn.

“I have unfinished business with the human. Tell me where he is, and I’ll let you live.” The eyes of the creature told a different story, flicking back and forth angrily.

“I haven’t seen him in quite a while. Tried not to associate with him. He fed us a bunch of tales about how bad you guys are. Didn’t believe him myself. Turns out, I was wro—rargh!” The elite pressed one of its large fingers into the wound, twisting.

“Where would I find this human?”

“Don’t know, you could try—umf!” The elite threw him easily a full 100 meters, sighing in disgust.

“Useless, just like the last few I talked too.” The elite withdrew a small, plasma blade and reared up to strike. Was that an explosion? Apparently the elite heard it too, pausing to see its source.

“Look out!” Jennings called at the last second. Dash saw the blade at the last second, twisting to avoid the dangerous blade. Dash smacked into the elites body heavily, draining the shields on impact.

The impact sent Dash, Jennings, and the elite spinning off in different directions. Jennings and the elite were back on their feet in a split second, leaping towards each other with murder on the forefront of both their thoughts.

Jennings ducked as a powerful arm swung heavily over his head, shattering the tree trunk behind him. The elite grunted in pain as he withdrew his bruised knuckles, turning rapidly to keep tracking the speedy movements of the physically inferior human. What he lacked in power, this human certainly could account for in agility. Jennings clambered up the back of the elite, standing on its hips. He pounded the neck and face of his opponent with elbows, causing the elite to roar in pain. It reached back, grabbing Jennings, tossing him against a nearby tree. Jennings hit with a sickening thud.

Jennings tried to shake the stars from his vision, but the elite was upon him before he could recover. Through his blurry vision, he made out the shape of foot coming from the sky to crush his head. He rolled to the side, the boot crashing to the ground where his body had been moments earlier. Jennings continued his roll, finding the other leg the elite. He popped up on an elbow, trapped the heel of his opponent, and struck the hip, causing the alien to tumble to the ground alongside the ODST.

Jennings jumped to his feet, grabbing the nearest rock. The elite jumped up, blood roused by the surprisingly good fight put up by the puny human. The elite closed the distance in a split second, preparing to throw a bone-crushing punch. Jennings jumped up and in, grabbing onto the chest plate of the alien, plantings his feet on the thighs of the elite. He swung the rock downwards, cracking the skull of his opponent. The elite’s eyes narrowed in anger, and its mandibles twitched. The elite lunged its head forward, diving for Jennings’ neck. Jennings ducked his chin, head butting his opponent. The elite’s bite was diverted down; the elite grabbed a full mouthful of Jennings’ left shoulder, ripping and shredding it with ease.

Jennings screamed in pain, swinging the rock again, striking with almost as much power as before. The elite let go, diving forward to crush Jennings beneath his massive weight. Branches snapped, pressing painfully into Jennings’ back as he fought the behemoth for control. The elite raised an arm again, aiming for Jennings’ face. Jennings twisted his body slightly; the fist whizzing by his head with unimaginable force. Jennings leaned upwards, reaching his arm around the elites’ head and around to the other side of its face, the back of its head cradled in the crook of his elbow. He plunged his thumb into the eyesocket of his opponent, wrenching the head backwards and at an angle, throwing his opponent off of him. Jennings scrambled to his feet, grabbing one of the branches he had broken with his body for defense.

The elite grabbed at its eye, semi-blinded by pain. The abrupt and forceful yank on his already fractured skull was not doing him any good. In a rage, he flew at Jennings flailing wildly for a strike. Jennings batted the blows away with his stick. Jennings dropped to a knee, throwing his arm forward abruptly. The elite stopped dead in its tracks, staring down at the branch protruding from its stomach. He reached down, pulling it from his flesh with a sharp motion. He held it up to his eyes, noting the blood dripping from its point. His blood. His anger knew no bounds. To be severely wounded by a human in a hand to hand fight? Unaccepetable!

Jennings raised his left arm at the last second as the branch had been turned against him, transformed from a human stabbing weapon to an alien club, dripping with gore. The branch shattered against his arm and shoulder, the impact tossing Jennings a few feet sideways and into the dirt. Tossing the destroyed stick, the alien set upon Jennings with a new fervor. He grabbed Jennings by the shoulders, raising him up and repeatedly slamming him against the ground. The elite stood up, apparently taking a second to enjoy the view a human bloodied, bruised, and at his mercy. Jennings stuck his arm out on the ground, reaching for another rock or stick to use. The elite leaned in, grabbing Jennings by the head, preparing to squash it with its crushing grip. He lifted Jennings up to eye level, so that he could stare at the human who almost bested him. Jennings swung his right arm with all his might, sticking a branch into the neck of the elite.

The elite dropped Jennings, clutching at its throat. As soon as Jennings hit the ground, he grabbed another stick, clambering back up the front of his opponent, thrusting it into the neck repeatedly. The elite looked confused for a few seconds, staring at its hands as its lifeblood rushed out from the gaping wounds in its neck. A few seconds later it toppled over, twitched, then lay still.

Jennings left his dead foe behind, immediately running over to where Shining Armor lay.

“Are you alright?”

“Did anypony else survive?”

“How bad is your injury?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said grabbing at Jennings, locking eyes in desperation. He repeated his previous inquiry slower. “Did anypony else survive?” Jennings looked around, shaking his head.

“I don’t think so.”

“No, I refuse to believe it. Help me up,” Jennings pulled the injured commander to his feet.

“Alright. Where to?”

“Half the unit is supposed to be over in this general area,” Shining said, still in disbelief. His mind registered the charred and burned bodies of the men around him, but he couldn’t process it right now. Somepony had to be alive. Jennings walked alongside the soldier. Sometimes it just helped to have someone else there.

“Take your time, you’re still injured.” Shining paid no heed to the words of the ODST.

“Hello? Is anypony there?” He shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Sir,” a voice choked out from the ground below. Shining looked down, seeing Stormchaser lying on the ground in a pool of blood. A gaping hole in his neck causing him to choke in blood few words.

“Rookie! You ok?” Stormchaser shook his head

“I failed to make it to the rest of the platoon. I messed up.”

“What? No, you did everything right, Rookie. You did great. Now we’ll just patch you up and send you home.”

“Did anypony else make it?” Shining shook his head, trying to push off the bitterness that was beginning to creep into his mind.

“No, Rookie. Just us. You made it.”

“I’d rather not have, sir. I’d rather have saved my buddies.”

“Don’t worry about what happened to them. It was out of your hooves. Nopony could have expected them to be so formidable.”

“I’m sorry I failed, sir. I’m sor…” Stormchaser’s voice trailed off as his eyes rolled back in his head.

“Rookie, you did the right thing, none of this was your fault. Rookie? Rookie? Stormchaser!” He was shouting in desperation, shaking the body vigorously in an attempt to wake up his fallen soldier. “Damnit!”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A/N:

The reason why everything went nuts this chapter, was that I wanted to have a significant event directly influence other… things… yet to come. Secretive things. Awesome things. At least, awesome in my mind. I hope everyone agrees with me.

Truth and Reconciliation

Equestrian secret service swarmed the forest, pushing ponies away from their normal routine into different routes. Everypony was curious as to what the purpose of the swarm of black suit and sunglasses was concealing, but none could crane their neck enough to look through the dense forest and into the quarantined area. A few saw scorch marks littering the ground, but couldn’t draw conclusions from such a small sampling of abnormalities within the forest. For all they knew, scorches in the forest could be commonplace. A few became even more curious as Celestia herself escorted a yellow Pegasus and purple Unicorn inside. A gathering of three ponies—a white unicorn, orange earth pony, and pink earth pony—talked in low tones directly outside the perimeter. A few curious souls approached, asking them if they knew anything about what happened inside. All three shook their heads, mumbling something about ‘being left in the dark.’

“What’s taking them so long?” Rarity wondered aloud.

“I don’t know, I hope they’re ok.” Pinkie said.

“If only we had shown up a few moments earlier, we would have been able to see what happened before they locked down the area. Dash is lucky she can fly so fast.” Almost on que, Rainbow Dash came emerged from the perimeter, face drawn into a tight grimace. She didn’t even slow down as she kept up her pace past the gathering of her friends.

“Rainbow Dash, what happened?” The trio mobbed Dash, blocking her exit.

“Not now. Alcohol first, questions later.” She broke through the three of them with a push, making a beeline for Vinyl Scratch’s club. The trio followed, barely containing their barrage of questions.

Dash barged past the bouncer and all of her normal club friends without even a ‘hello’ as a common courtesy. She elbowed ponies out of the way to get to the bar as rapidly as possible.

“Applejack Daniels. Now.” The bartender looked at her quizzically, but nonetheless complied. They knew who she was, and she had never ordered strong drinks before. She usually came here to socialize, hang out with friends, and had stated on many occasions that she preferred to remember the activities of the night before. This abrupt change was—unusual. After gulping down the shot, she was immediately assaulted by her friends by a barrage of questions.

“What happened?”

“Are you ok?”

“Is Jennings ok?”

“Did somepony die?”

“Whose blood is on your hooves?” Dash looked down at her hooves, noting in surprise that they were indeed smeared with a deep crimson. She started in surprise, struggling to wipe them off on anything. Pinkie eventually couldn’t bear anymore, and grabbed Dash’s head to get her attention.

“Dash! What happened?”

“I can’t even describe it, it was that bad.”

“Did somepony die?” Rarity asked, bracing herself for what was coming.

“Did somepony die? Everypony died! Over 50 Royal Guards walked in, and only one is left! So yeah, somepony died.”

“So whose blood is that? Are you ok?”

“I’m fine, I have no idea whose it is. There was blood everywhere. Somepony’s head was split open like a melon, all the brains were leaking out of it. And ponies were burnt horribly, their skin fused to shrubs if they weren’t lucky enough to be burnt to a crisp immediately. Oh Celestia, that smell. And the sounds! They didn’t all die immediately! If I knew first aid, I could have saved one or two of them! AJ, I could have saved them but instead I watched them die!” Rainbow Dash’s hooves were smashed against her skull, trying to keep the memories at bay. Her eyes were fused shut, trying to force back the images.

“Easy, hon. It’s not your fault.”

“They lay there screaming in agony, and I did nothing! How is that not my fault?”

“Look sugarcube, I imagine this isn’t the easiest thing you’ve ever dealt with before, but you’ll pull through.”

“Oh yeah? And what bountiful experience do you have witnessing the murder of 50 ponies? I slipped on somepony’s intestines, for Celestia’s sake!”

“When was the last time you watched from a carriage as your parents were eaten alive by a pack of Timberwolves, huh? Do you remember that? I do. I was eight.”

“Well, no I uh-”

“I didn’t see quite as many ponies die as you did, but I’ve worked through what you’re going through now. And let me tell you, it gets worse before it gets easier.”

“Thanks, AJ. You’re a real support.”

“Anytime,” she said with a smirk.

“Yo, what is up my ponies? Hey ‘sup Dash? You look like shit, you ok?” Vinyl Scratch’s methods of saying ‘hello’ certainly could use some finesse.

“Yeah, I’m fine Vinyl. You good?” Dash’s fake smile wasn’t fooling anypony.

“Nah, nah. What’s really goin’ on?”

“Rainbow Dash has suffered through a—new experience—of late.” Rarity searched for the most obtuse term she could think of, hoping Vinyl wouldn’t investigate further. She obviously did not know the DJ well enough.

“What’s the matter? Finally had her first way with a gifted stallion—if you catch my drift,” she elbowed Rarity, winking. Rarity rolled her eyes.

“That’s not what I meant at all. Nothing quite so commonplace.”

“Oh, that’s commonplace? I think I should stop by your house more often. So you get it every night, then?”

“What? No, that’s not what I meant at all, I-”

“Ah, I’m just messin’ with ya. I know you don’t get out that much.” Rarity’s eyes narrowed in anger.

“Are you saying I’m a recluse?”

“Nah, nah. I’m just sayin’ you don’t come around here very often. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen you here once. Name’s Vinyl, Vinyl Scratch. I run this place. Pleased to meet you,” she stuck a hoof.

“Rarity,” she said in return, slight disdain tainting the edge of her voice. She shook hooves with the rather obnoxiously outgoing mare. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you around once or twice.”

“Maybe, I don’t get out much during the day. I prefer to sleep through the day so I can DJ all night. Or most of the night. Then I’ll spend the rest of the night getting well acquainted with somepony who’s well-endowed. Really well acquainted.” She waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Yes, I gathered what you meant without you having to repeat it.”

“So, Rarity. What’d you do to Dash here, that makes her look like shit? Was it roofies?”

“Pardon?”

“You know, roofies! Trying to get in with Dash, if you-”

“Yes, I get what you’re saying! And no, that’s not why she is looking sub-par.”

“So you did roofie her, and it hasn’t kicked in yet?”

“What? No, I-” Pinkie couldn’t take it any longer. She burst out laughing at how well Vinyl was messing with Rarity. Vinyl was a pretty good prankster, Pinkie did have to admit. Whenever there were lots of pranks at loud parties, it was a safe bet that Pinkie and Vinyl had teamed up to create a master plan.

“Oh Vinyl! Hee-hee! Give it a rest, and just let her talk!” Rarity suddenly realized what Vinyl was doing.

“Oh, ha-ha,” she said in a mocking tone. “You ponies are honestly so immature sometimes!”

“I’m sorry Rarity, I couldn’t help myself. We’re cool, right?” She offered her hoof a second time. Rarity sighed.

“Yes, Vinyl. ‘We’re cool,’” she said, slightly mocking Vinyl with the tone of her voice. Nevertheless, she returned the hoof bump.

“Oh man, that was hilarious!” Dash looked like she was about to bust a gut from restrained laughter.

“Hey, I’m glad I was able to cheer you up a bit. So seriously, what’s going on?” Vinyl said.

“Oh it’s nuthin’!” Applejack interrupted.

“Like hell it is,” Vinyl turned her attention to Dash.

“It’s… complicated.”

“Stallions? I hear ya. That’s why I like to keep it simple. Two, maybe three nights tops.”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Well then what? It’s not like there’s been any mass-murdering around here.” The four ponies stayed silent, eyes downcast. “You’re shitting me.”

“Not murder, but let’s just say Equestria may be at war now. And I was at the first battlefield.” Rainbow Dash stopped to gulp down another shot.

“Are you sure you want to discuss this in full view of everypony?” Vinyl said, glancing furtively around.

“I don’t want to talk about it at all, I just want to forget for now.” The bartender poured her another shot.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Are you feeling better?” Fluttershy asked timidly, tying off the bandage on Shining Armor’s wounds.

“No.” Shining Armor stared vacantly into the distance.

“Is there anything else you want me to get for you?”

“No.” Twilight and Cadence stood off to the side of Shining, unsure what to do or say. They had both known him forever, but now he was… different. Off, somehow. They had asked Jennings what to do, and how to help Shining, but his only response was ‘Shining will be fine, just give him time.’ This answer infuriated the ponies. How could he be so callous? With all this death and destruction, how could he ignore the suffering of a fellow soldier?

Twilight eyed Jennings angrily as he moved about the scene, directing the secret service, telling the ponies who to do what job, and what was the best way to complete it. Look at that jerk, He lacked any sympathy. He’s just doing his thing, letting everypony else suffer for his mistakes. He brought these Covenant here, and look at what they did!

“Shining, are you ok?” Cadence once again tried to break through the wall he was putting up. She scooted closer to him, putting a hoof around his neck.

“I’m fine. Get Jennings.”

“Is there anything I can do? Jennings doesn’t seem to want to help.”

“Yes he does, he just understands. Get Jennings.” Cadence looked up at Twilight with a pleading expression.

“Shining, we’d like to understand, can you just explain it to us?” Twilight tried.

“No! Jennings was right, I didn’t understand. I’d never been there. Now I have, and now I do. Get Jennings!” Twilight visibly flinched, conflicted between her loyalty to her BBBFF, and her hatred for this human who had uprooted their lives and in general caused chaos for everypony.

“Fine,” she eventually conceded, albeit resentfully. She returned a few minutes later with the human in tow, still wearing the suit Rarity had given him; although now it was a blood-soaked tattered mess.

“Let me guess, you keep running it over in your head trying to figure out what you did wrong, also stuck on the deaths of your friends?” Shining nodded. “Can’t get that death of the Rookie out of your mind?” Shining shook his head.

“Well, you have to process everything eventually. You’ve got two fine ladies over here who want to help. Just talk to them about the dead, specifically the good memories you have with them. Then if you can, talk about the battle. Admit the fear you felt. Eventually, it gets easier to bare, but it never goes away.” Shining nodded his head, grasping his head in his hooves, keeping his eyes downcast as his wife and sister moved closer to help.

Jennings moved away from the group therapy, and towards the group of Equestrian brass that was surveying the battlefield.

“It’s a disgrace,” one of the generals said.

“An embarrassment for all Equestrian forces.”

“I think they did fairly well, considering what they were up against,” Jennings chimed in.

“Nopony asked you, human.” Another said with disdain.

“Why the hostility? I’m saying your troops performed admirably.”

“I don’t need your condescending arrogance! You want to set up a camp to train others in your so-called ‘superior fighting ability.’ Well your fighting ability didn’t do much to help 50 of Equestria’s finest.”

“I saved as many as I could. Besides, I didn’t show up for a while.”

“Yes, your tardiness will come under investigation shortly. In the meantime, your training camp will go indefinitely on hiatus,”

“You can’t be serious. You need more soldiers trained by me now more than ever! You can see how ineffective your men where!”

“I thought you just said they performed well.”

“And they did, given their armament. But they were woefully outgunned. I can train your troops and give you some of my weaponry to replicate. Give me a month or two, and you’ll have the finest soldiers Equestria has ever seen!”

“Absolutely not, we won’t have your kind polluting our military.”

“How about this, I train some of your drill sergeants, and as a team we work together to train up your armed forces.”

“Again, no! Do you not understand the term ‘no?’”

“Frankly, I don’t believe in it. Anything can be accomplished given the right materials.”

“And what materials might those be?”

“Troops, supplies, and morale. Key among those is morale. And once word spreads of this attack, I’m sure there will be plenty of morale.”

“Oh, word of this will not spread. I’ll make sure of it.”

“What?”

“You heard me, I can’t allow such tragedies as this to be commonplace knowledge.”

“Why not, we learn the most from our mistakes.”

“Well, we don’t tolerate mistakes! Perfection is what we demand of our military!” Jennings was getting irate, and knew he was going to cross a line with his next comment, but he didn’t care. He was about to live the dream of every grunt. He was finally getting a chance to tell his commander to his face that he is in fact a complete and utter moron. For most it never happens but sometimes when the stars and the planets align in glorious harmony one grunt is offered the chance that all wish for. And it is glorious.

“And you can see that works so well for you,” he said, gesturing with an open palm behind him.

“Why you little-”

“Allow me to show you how you’re perfectionist ideals works when encountering an actual enemy. How many died? 49? 50? I hope those deaths don’t mar your record. God forbid that a commander cares more for his troops then he does for his personal record.” The General’s eyes would have popped out of their sockets in rage had Celestia not arrived.

“Gentlemen, please be civil. Jennings, was that called for?” Celestia turned her attention to the human.

“Well… no. But they’re planning on canceling my training program because… I don’t even know why. It seems like they just don’t like the idea of a human being better prepared then they are.” Why did he sense that conversation with to Celestia was like talking to a parent? He always felt so child-like in her presence.

“And why do you want to cancel the training that Jennings is offering us?”

“Well, Princess, because we don’t feel its right to respond to this tragedy by going to the alien that brought this plague upon us.” Jennings observed that apparently everybody felt that way, as the general seemed to shrink down upon seeing the Princess again.

“Even though his tactics and weapons have proved far more effective than our own?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, yes ma’am. It’s just that we—the generals—don’t think it’s a good idea, that’s all.” He gave a sheepish grin.

“You have to set up the camp. It will benefit us in the long run. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to prepare myself for the press release.”

“Press… release?” The General’s jaw dropped.

“Well, that whole conversation worked out well for you,” Jennings commented before walking away.

A/N: I was looking through previous chapters to make sure I was referencing the right thing, and I gotta say something. The first few chapters suck! A lot! Actually, most of them do. Then again, I barely have enough time to write them, let alone sit down and edit them to the point where everything is pristine and the way I’d prefer it. The curse of having a 20 credit hour semester.

Also, I apologize for the tardiness of the chapter. I blame the school load + sinus infection.

Short Night of Solace

The sun was barely peeking through the windows, poking its shiny face above the horizon just enough to sear painfully into Rainbow Dash’s eyeballs. She clamped her eyelids closed to no avail, the unrelenting sunlight pierced her eyelids with daggers of excruciating pain. Groaning, she rolled over, away from the window. Apparently, sudden movements didn’t suit her hungover headache too well. The throbbing within her skull sent painful remainders to slow the buck down. Unable to return to the blissful realm of sleep, Dash decided it was time to search for that wonderful product called Tylenol.

Dash swung out from her bed, impacting the ground with what normally would have been a soft landing. Today however, the blow reverberated up her spine, sending shock waves through her skull. The need for Tylenol increased exponentially. She shuffled to the bathroom in a haze, hastily opening the medicine cabinet and rummaged through the unorganized shelves. Where is it, where is it? In her haste, she knocked over some antibiotics onto the counter. The bottle smacked against the hardened cloud with enough force to hurt Dash’s hungover hearing. Recovering from the mind-shattering sound, she managed to search through the remainder of the cabinet without incident. Of course the bottle would be at the very back.

She grabbed the bottle and worked her way slowly to the kitchen. With significantly more care than she worked through the medicine cabinet, she grabbed a glass from the cupboard, and filled it with tap water. She downed the Tylenol, hoping, praying that it would kick in soon. What the hay did she do last night? She had been drinking with a bunch of her friends. She remembered Vinyl being there, and Rarity. She was pretty sure that Pinkie and AJ were also there. They were usually her drinking buddies. But why did she spring for the hard liquor? She never did. Oh. Ah, crap. That’s why.

All the memories flooded back in an instant. That’s why she had been drinking. Maybe she had another bottle around here somewhere… no. No, that’s not going to help. Besides, she had responsibilities to attend to eventually. She couldn’t show up drunk or hungover to weather duty. She had the Tylenol, all she needed now was some sleep.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rainbow Dash bolted out of bed, expecting to see the elite towering over her ready for the kill in her waking state. Still, the fear lingering from her nightmare lingered and she glanced about the room frantically, knowing every shadow was going to jump out and kill her. She jumped out of bed, making a mad dash for the kitchen. She flung herself across the counter, grabbing the biggest knife within reach, before twisting and landing on the floor with the weapon pointed at the hall that connected to her bedroom. A few minutes passed without Dash moving a muscle. Slowly she relaxed her grip on the knife, her breathing slowed from the heavy, stressed panting to a more normal pace. Then, she started snickering, then laughing. The Covenant? Find their way up here? Ludicrous!

“What’s so funny, Rainbow Dash?” Dash spun around with a yelp, hurling the knife as hard as she could. The blade stuck deep into the mailbag of grey pony behind her.

“Oh my gosh! Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!”

“Why did you throw a knife at me, Rainbow Dash? What’d I do wrong?” The mare said with a sorrowful expression, unsure what she did to deserve this punishment. It must have been something terrible!

“Derpy! You didn’t do anything wrong! I did something wrong! Oh, Celestia! Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m fine! How are you?”

“I’m terrible! I threw a knife at you, how could I be ok with that?”

“I’m sure you had your reasons. Anyways, here’s your mail!” She tossed a few letters in Rainbow Dash’s general direction. “Bye!”

“Wait, don’t go!” Rainbow Dash called out. “Is there anything I can get you, seeing as I almost killed you a few seconds ago?”

“Well, I really shouldn’t…”

“Come on, it’d make me feel a whole lot better.” Dash pleaded with the duty-driven mail pony.

“Ok, fine. But only if you have some muffins.”

“Muffins! Right! I think I have some,” Rainbow Dash searched frantically through her kitchen for her carton of store-bought muffins.

“It’s in the cupboard to the left,” Derpy chimed in.

“Uh, thanks.” She retrieved the muffins from the exact spot where Derpy had predicted, filled it with water and placed it on the stove. How the hay did she do that?

“I hope you like,” Dash paused for a second, trying to find the specific type of tea it was that she was about to brew. “blueberry muffins.”

“Oh yes!” Derpy looked quite pleased at the prospect.

“So, how did you know where they were going to be? I mean, even I didn’t know, and it’s my kitchen.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Mom always said I had a knock… a nook…”

“A knack?”

“Yeah, a knack! She said I had a knack for muffins, and I’ve just always been good at finding it when I need it!” Derpy seemed satisfied with her answer, even if Rainbow Dash did look at her skeptically. “So what was so funny?”

“Huh?”

“When I first came in you were laughing. What was so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. I just woke up scared from a nightmare, and was trying to protect myself from it in real life. Imagine, me trying to fight off my own imagination!”

“Must have been really scary,” Derpy observed.

“Why do you say that?”

“You’re still shaking.”

“Oh. Heh heh, I guess I am.” Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t keep her hooves from shaking.

“Anyways, I better be going. Thanks for the muffin!” She said with a smile, wolfing down the muffin before her.

“Yeah, you take care, Derpy!”

“Will do!” The friendly mail pony said cheerily before departing. Derpy. What a character. She was so nice, it was impossible not to like her. And she had thought it was her fault that Rainbow Dash had thrown—oh no. She had forgotten about the knife! Derpy still had the knife! Now everypony she met would think that Dash had tried to kill Derpy! Dash sprinted out of her house, hovering a few feet off the porch.

Where did she go, oh sweet Celestia where did she go? Glancing frantically around, Dash caught a glimpse of Derpy as she delivered mail to Twilight. Oh this going to end marvelously. Her headache was coming back just imagining Twilight’s lecture. Nevertheless, she hastened to the library, hoping to supersede some of the lecture.

“Thanks for the mail, Derpy. No, no please. Let me take that. I’ll make sure to talk Rainbow about this.” Buck.

“Alright! Have a good day Twilight!”

“Take care, Derpy!”

“Oh, hiya Rainbow Dash! Twilight just said she was going to look for you, how convenient timing!” Derpy said as she left the library. Rainbow Dash was constantly making ‘cut’ and ‘stop talking’ motions to no avail. Derpy’s well-intentioned, albeit loud, one-sided conversation drew Twilight’s attention.

“Oh, Rainbow Dash, you’re already here? How nice, please come in!” Twilight said with a deceptively sweet smile. Dash slunk through the door, dreading the upcoming conversation. “You threw a knife at Derpy? What were you thinking?” Mother of god, that mare could be loud when she wanted too.

“Could you please keep it down? I still have a hangover,” Rainbow Dash clapped her hooves over her ears.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you discomfort while you try to murder our friends!”

“Ow! It was self defense!” Twilight’s volume had not lessened.

“Self defense? What could Derpy possibly do that merits a knife to the chest?”

“She didn’t do anything, it was in response to a nightmare, all right? She just happened to show up and startle me.”

“A nightmare.” Twilight sounded extremely skeptical.

“Yeah, you were at the woods last night. And you arrived after the elite was dead. You didn’t get to watch it’s murderous rampage first hand. Don’t even try to tell me you can shake off what you saw last night.”

“Well, no but I didn’t throw a knife at anypony!”

“Again, you showed up afterwards! I’ve seen these things in action twice! So buck you, I’m going back to bed. Actually, do you have any Tylenol, my head is killing me.”

“Where you drinking last night?”

“No, I got a hangover from flying too slowly.” Twilight harrumphed, retrieving a bottle from the medicine cabinet.

“Here’s my only bottle. Though I must say, if the experience shook you up that much, you might want to talk to a therapist.”

“A therapist? No thanks, I’m not going to admit to anypony that I can’t cut it. Because I can, I just need some time.”

“Well fine then. Why don’t you go fly a bunch then? That always seems to help.”

“Nah, I already do that a bunch. Didn’t help. Any other suggestions, O Wise One?”

“Well, everything I’ve read regarding PTSD involves doing something to keep yourself distracted, it is best if you can take up something that will confront the problems you’re having. Do something proactive to force yourself to confront what scares you, so you can overcome it.”

“Great. Well that’s supremely unhelpful.”

“Maybe you should take up karate?”

“Already a black belt.”

“Oh right.”

“I dunno, I’ll think of something to do. Right now, I plan on sleeping. You know what, I’ll talk to Jay, he probably has some experience in this area.” Twilight was still angry at Jennings, but conceded that he was the subject matter expert in that particular field.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Anyways, I am going back to bed. I’ll call you if I figure out something to help stop this. Who knows, you might want to use it, too.”

“Who says I have PTSD?”

“I do. Based on the number of books I see laying about, I’m gonna guess you haven’t slept since the incident.” Twilight looked back into the library, embarrassed to see mounds of books laying about. “Didn’t help take your mind off of it, did it?” Twilight shook her head.

“No, not really.”

“Didn’t think so.” Dash jumped off the ground, stretching her wings wide to catch a gust of wind. She floated back to her room, popping open the bottle of Tylenol. It was going to be a long day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Dash arose the next day, remarkably not rested. Every few minutes she was woke up in a cold sweat, and felt compelled to search through her house with a flashlight and a baseball bat. Needless to say, she couldn’t stomach another night like that. As soon as had fully prepared herself for the day, she set off to Canterlot in search of Jennings. He had to have a lot of experience in this area.

Dash set down in the upper tier of Canterlot, near where she expected to find Jennings. There was a military section of the compound up here where the high-ranking brass liked to chill and talk about military things, so she assumed he would be up here to. Glancing around, she saw one door with about 20 different ponies clustered around, all of them staring intently within at some bizarre spectacle. Dash correctly assumed they were watching Jennings work. Dash elbowed her way through the crowd (much to the dislike of the ponies in her way, she received more than a few unpleasant comments). She reached the front of the crowd, only to find the doorway blocked by two of the largest stallions she’d ever seen.

“Excuse me sir, can I go through?”

“No.”

“But Jay is my friend, I need to talk to him.”

“Unlikely.”

“Come on, it’s important! I need to talk to him about what happened!”

“Lady, we’ve heard that same story since this thing showed up. Stay back.”

“Unbelievable,” Dash muttered. “Jay! Jen-nings!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, finally gaining the man’s attention.

“Dash! Hey guys, let her in, it’s ok.” The guard begrudgingly stepped aside, allowing Dash to pass. The crowd outside was in an uproar as to why the rude young lady was allowed in, and they weren’t.

“Hey, Jay. I’ve got a question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you ever have problems sleeping?” Jennings leaned back in his chair.

“Nightmares? Having trouble remembering too much?”

“That obvious?”

“Come on, let’s go for a walk.” Jennings grabbed his coat and a brown fedora, leading the way towards the back of the building and away from the crowd. Emerging from the rear of the building, Jennings put his hat on with a flourish, half striking a pose before busting out laughing. “Whatcha think?”

“Of what?”

“The suit. Rarity was kind enough to make another, and I specifically requested the hat. She claimed it was old and out of style, but I digress. Classics like this never go out of style.”

“The suit looks great. The hat is… unique.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Here, have a seat,” Jennings motioned towards a bench.

“Thanks. Now about the whole sleeping issue,” Dash prodded.

“Hold your horses—no offense. I swear it’s just a saying on Earth.” Spotting the confusion on Dash’s face, he elaborated. “It means to stay calm and wait for a few seconds. Now about sleep. You asked if I lose sleep?”

“Yes.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“Well I’m not sure what else there is to say. Yes, I lose sleep. Yes, I still jump at loud noises. Does it get better over time? Most certainly. Does it go away? Definitely not.”

“Don’t you do something to help combat it? You know, confront the issue?”

“Most of the nightmares I have revolve around my guns not working, or my unarmed strikes not being effective. So when I have those dreams, I go and train. When they get me scared I’ll die, I’ll train more to force that terror away.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have anything like that.”

“Didn’t Twilight say you’re a Karate black belt?”

“Yeah, but that’s against ponies. It probably won’t work against an elite.”

“Do you have any skill with a bow or sword or something?”

“No, not like it would matter. The royal guard was so effective with them the other day.” Jennings shrugged in agreement at Dash’s obvious sarcasm.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I dunno. I can’t think of anything that will fight…” Dash’s voice trailed off and she looked up at Jennings hopefully.

“If you’re about to ask what I think, the answer is no.”

“Come on, Jay, please? I can’t think of a better solution!”

“No! There are better ways to deal with PTSD than to join a special-ops unit!”

“You said the best way to deal with it is to train? What better place to train then to train there?”

“Well there isn’t one, but you realize that what we do is nothing but combat? You’ll just get more PTSD!”

“Yeah, well I’d rather get more of it, and be with ponies who are also dealing with the same thing I am. We could go through it together! Isn’t that how you are supposed to process it?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“But what? Jay, you have to let me do this! I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it if Ponyville gets attacked again and I can’t do anything.” Damn it, he knew that exact feeling. Jennings sighed in resignation.

“Do you know what a challenge coin is?”

“No, but that doesn’t sound like a yes…”

“Will you just shut up for a second and let me finish my thought? Thank you. A challenge coin is a coin made by a unit. You take them to bars and stuff. When someone pulls out a challenge coin, everyone else has to pull one out as well. If somebody is missing theirs, than they owe everyone a drink. If everyone has one, the lowest ranking coin buys everyone a drink. Here’s the one from my old unit. We had a motto, a catchphrase more like. It was ‘Never stop fighting for what you love,’ but over the years was shortened to Never Stop Fighting. That’s why there’s the NSF engraved in the middle of the coin. I want to give this to you. If you promise to Never stop fighting for what you love, I’ll let you in. Can you promise me that?” Dash jumped past the coin, crushing the man in his first pony-hug.

“Oh thank you thank you thank you! Yes, yes, I can do that. Thank you so much!” Once he could breathe again, Jennings managed a few words of warning.

“Urgh! You’re welcome. Just remember, when you get to the training, I’ve never met you. In fact, I’ll probably be the biggest jerk in the world until you graduate. If you graduate.”

“Oh I’ll graduate, just wait and see. I can’t wait to start! This will be my first new challenge since perfecting the Sonic Rainboom!”

“Ok then, I’ll see you in a week. Rest up, and say goodbye to your friends. It’ll be a while before you see them again.”

“Ok. Will do! See you in a week!” Rainbow Dash had almost disappeared into the distance before she finished the sentence, she was so excited. Jennings shook his head with a smile. She had no idea what she was getting into.

A/N

Why the fedora? Am I obsessed with older styles of clothing or something? No! I just freaking love Indiana Jones.

Prepare to Drop

Rainbow Dash pulled the thin blanket over her head, falling fast asleep on the uncomfortably thin mattress. The previous day had been a horrendously long day of in processing. Endless forms, uniforms to acquire and fit, weapons to draw, and haircuts to get. She really missed her mane, the close-cropped cut she had now just didn’t seem natural. Needless to say, when she was finally able to get into bed at 2330, she was ready for some sleep. She learned a lot of new vocabulary that day, ranging from the designations of the weapons they were issued (plans copied from Jennings’ memories but altered to fit hooves), to the new name of the room she was staying in. She was in a bay, with the rest of her platoon. 20 ponies slept on each side in a column of 10 bunk beds, perfectly aligned. Her bunkmate, the stallion Skybiscuit, made a sensible prediction that they would probably be woken up at 0300, or some other ungodly hour. Needless to say, Rainbow Dash wanted to get as much sleep as she possibly could between now and then.

A small, metallic device clattered across the floor. Dash would soon learn that this device was referred to as a ‘flashbang grenade.’

Brilliant light. Darkness. Ringing. Confusion. Where is the ground? Rainbow Dash fell out of her bed painfully, answering the final question, but was still reeling from the detonation. She struggled to regain her composure… and sight.

“Wake the fuck up!” Jennings came kicked the door open, storming into the bay with three other ponies. Each had a ‘smokey bear’ pulled down tightly over their heads, so that each interaction was like talking to an eyeless demon.

“Get on line, right now!”

“What are you doing? Get on line!”

“Stay out of my killzone! What are you doing, huh? You think you’re special?”

“Oh Celesetia, look at this pony right here! She thinks she’s special! Just fuckin’ prancing through the killzone like it’s no big deal. Go on, say it. You think you’re better than us, right?”

“Uh-”

“Just say it! You obviously do, or you wouldn’t be in my killzone. You know what? Screw it, start pushing.”

“Oh, you’re just going to stand there, and let your battle buddy do pushups? Hey, I’ve got an idea. As the president of the ‘let’s screw my battle buddies over’ club, why don’t you lead the platoon in pushups?”

“What are you waiting for, start pushing!”

“You’re in my killzone again! Do you not see your buddies pushing over there? Go on, join them. Get out of my killzone! Get! Out! Of my! Fucking! Killzone! You’re still here! Move!”

“So you’re just going to stand up and walk away? No, screw that, get back here! Push! Now move! You stood up again! Push and crawl at the same time!”

“Everyone outside! Form up outside! Four ranks, go! Move, move move move!”

“Hey, Trooper! Did you just touch me?”

“No excuse, Drill Sergeant!”

“Damn right there’s no excuse. Get outside quickly, before I lose my mind. Go!” The trooper scampered at speeds he had never thought possible. The group converged on the pavement outside, mass chaos erupting as they all fought for their designated place. Bickering arose as the terrifying Drill Sergeants looked on in disdain. The Troopers fought with each other to gain proper alignment until the Drill Sergeants interdicted with remedial PT. The Platoon alternated between a small assortment of exercises, all relatively basic and surprisingly painful. After they 1000th repetition of iron crosses, they mercifully switched over to pushups, continuing on for another 100 reps. Dash’s muscles ached in ways she wasn’t aware were physically possible as she stood up, praying for the end. Her relief would come after ten minutes of squatting. Drenched in sweat, the exhausted Troopers moved into formation with a new-found haste. Dash stole a glance at the clock. She had to look again, staring in disbelief. The luminescent face shone 0057 down upon them. This was going to be a long day.

“Right face!” The harsh voice of the drill sergeant called out. They platoon jogged out towards the PT field, about to begin their only prescribed PT session of the day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For the first time in the past six weeks, Dash was extremely thankful for the bulky, black body armor that all the Troopers wore. While it took a long time for them to adjust to the added bulk, by now they barely noticed the additional weight and girth, able to perform remarkable physical feats without restraint. But right now, Dash’s motionless body was just thankful for the heat regulation built into the suit.

Condensation dripped from the freezing metal surface of her SR 99D-S2 sniper rifle, indicative of the almost freezing temperatures they operating in. Dash and her spotter settled into their respective positions, preparing themselves for the wait.

“Distance, 3244 meters.”

“3244,” Dash repeated, making adjustments on the scope.

“Adjust 1 mil dot right for wind.”

“1 mil dot.” Their conversation was kept to a minimum, making sure that adjustments for the Coriolis Effect were taken into consideration, as well as humidity, temperature, gravity, cross wind, and a multitude of other factors to make sure the round landed precisely where Dash wanted it to. The duo sat stock still in the freezing, wet weather, waiting for the rest of their team to arrive.

During the last few weeks, squads had been preparing for this final exercise, pitting all the squads against each other, from all four platoons. A total of 16 squads were operating on their own in the training ground, running missions against each other and against the Cadre. During their last infiltration, they had heard one of the opposing squad members discuss this cache of information that was supposedly the final mission they had to complete before ‘winning’ the exercise. At that moment, they discovered that the opposing squad had acquired significant amounts of heavy weaponry, and Dash’s squad had opted to retreat with the information they had gleaned. Now they were launching their own attack on the objective, hoping to beat the opposing squad to the ‘final mission.’

Dash watched through the scope as the green outlines of her squad crept through the grass as slowly and quietly as possible. Dash keyed her mic.

“Squad Leader, spotted three hostiles, likely more inside. Haven’t seen Thunder Squad, yet. Over,” she said in reference to the squad who they had gleaned the intel from.

“Roger, keep an eye on the treeline. Watch for movement, over.”

“Wilco. Out.”

Dash kept her overwatch position, scanning the objective. The objective was a small building complex in the middle of a field of tall grass, bounded on all sides (about 200 meters away) by a forest. Dash herself sat about halfway up a series of major hills, providing just enough height to get a good view of the objective. The squad was about 50m away from the building complex when Dash keyed the mic again.

“Stop, stop, stop. I’ve got eyes on Thunder Squad at the edge of the clearing. Looks like they’re emplacing a machine gun, and have two rocket launchers. Don’t see anypony with a sniper, but there are definitely a lot of BRs and SMGs.”

“Dash, I’m open to suggestions, over.” Dash scanned the area with her weapon, weighing the options.

“I’d wait until Thunder Squad begins their assault, then finish off the weakened victor. If you can keep moving and stay out of sight, do that. Get to cover as safely as possible, over.” The sinewy green silhouettes crept forward again, each hugging the ground with a newfound fervor. Dash’s scope picked up a burst of light, followed by a detonation of red paint a few seconds later as the rockets from Thunder Squad opened up on the entrenched Cadre. Red paint covered the exterior of the structure from the onslaught brought on by the turret, while far more precise fire from Thunder Squad’s BRs rained down upon the Cadre. The Cadre valiantly returned fire, but were soon overwhelmed by sheer quantity of incoming rounds. All seven of the Cadre were ‘killed’ while Thunder Squad only lost two of its eight members. Dash’s squad was only eight meters out. They could make it.

There was more raucous gunfire as Thunder Squad cleared the complex, searching high and low for the ‘intel’ that would let them dial up the correct frequency to end the war games and declare Thunder Squad the victors. The rest of Dash’s squad crossed the final ground in a crawling sprint as soon as Thunder disappeared inside. They took up positions on the corners of the buildings two sides of the objective, waiting for the signal. The Thunder Squad Leader emerged from one of the buildings, holding a folder high up in the air, and beckoning the radioman over.

“Fire.” Dash’s round sliced through the air, cleanly impacting the pony in the back of the head, locking the entirety of his armor in a simulated death. The folder flew from his hooves, landing in the dirt. Dash adjusted aim, squeezing the trigger a second time. The radioman dropped, taking the round full in the chest. Thunder Squad ducked for cover as the rest of Dash’s squad opened up a heavy volley of fire, covering three of the ponies in a thick layer of red paint. The last member of the squad ducked away, taking a round to the leg. Launching into the air, the survivor flew towards the squad shotgun at the ready in a last-ditch attempt to take out as many as she could before she took another round. She immediately received a magazine of M7S to the face.

The Squad Leader sprinted over, grabbing the folder from where it lay on the ground. He nervously punched in the frequency, following the directions on the sheet nervously, expecting at any time to receive contact and get wiped out like he had done to Thunder. He dove for the ground in surprise when Dash fired two shots at an approaching squad. No need for anypony to interrupt her SL. Approximately 10 minutes later, everypony got a call on the radio. The exercise was over. Dash stood up, hoisting her rifle over her head in a victory pose. She honestly didn’t care who had won, she was just glad she would be getting some sleep now that she was graduating.

A/N: I apologize for any terrible writing that may have occurred. Crazy schedule this week, even crazier next week. (Hence the brevity of the chapter.) I will be very surprised if I post anything on schedule next week. Right now, my goal is just to survive next week, let alone do any fun writing.Next week I have a 500 point test (courses are 1000 points) in two separate classes (the tests happen to be on the same day. Yay.) I also have a paper to write, a project to complete and present, a Math problem set, Russian test (much smaller than the other tests, though), Russian presentation on Stalingrad, an Econ presentation. Yup. It’ll be a fun week.

The next chapter is probably going to be the second to last chapter, maybe third to last. I’m getting to the end of the planned story arc. Not that I’m running out of things that could possibly happen, but I’m trying to finish the story before Halo 4 drops for two reasons: one, because I’ll be playing H4 and not writing, and two, because I’m considering a sequel that takes up where this leaves off but integrating it with the Halo 4 campaign.

Also, I looked up the Halo timeline and realized my story doesn’t fit very well. Drat. Should have thought ahead better. If I ever rewrite it, I’ll fix it, but don’t have time to go back and do that now. Until then, accept that this story does not fit into the canon timeline.

You Know The Music

“Class, dismissed!” Rainbow Dash joined in with the raucous cheering as one of the first pony Troopers in the history of Equestria. Jennings had been right, the course had challenged her in ways she could have never imagined. It was way tougher to complete than she thought it would be, that’s for sure. The crowd of Troopers thronged off the platform amongst cries of ‘Helljumper,’ ‘Never Stop Fighting,’ and ‘405th.’

Jennings stood above and behind the crowd, staring down impartially at the mass of ponies. In his full gear, he looked like shadowy god of war ready to take somepony’s life at the drop of a hat. Having fought both aliens and insurrectionist humans, he was not going to assume that everypony there was attending for good reasons. He knew for sure that he had made some enemies in the establishment of this training center, and he wasn’t ruling out the option that one of them would try to sabotage this celebration. As of yet though, there wasn’t anything suspicious, just a massive crowd of newly minted Troopers conducting a hasty ambush on the bar. To be fair, they were still half starved to death and exhausted from their training, which had only wrapped up a day or two earlier. And as any exhausted, hungry soldier will tell you, the first order of business is always acquiring alcohol, which the Apple family had been kind enough to provide. To be fair, they were just asked to make some for Canterlot function, and were not told the specifics of the actual event. Had they been told ‘oh by the way, it’s for a secret military group that’s been starved for the last six weeks,’ they probably would have made a lot more. Despite all the festivities going on, Dash worked her way up the stairs to where Jennings stood, arms crossed and face fixed an a stern expression.

“Shouldn’t you be partying with your classmates?”

“Shouldn’t you be relaxing? C’mon, you just finished a stressful training cycle! Doesn’t that merit some time off?”

“We Troopers don’t get time off. While I’ve been here, my buddies on Earth have been dying. While at first the break was nice, I have to get back. I have to fight.”

“I’m sure Princess Celestia is already working on a spell to get you home. But… from the few conversations I’ve had with Twilight… trans-dimensional portals take time to prepare. But then, what do I know. I’m no unicorn.”

“Yeah, well every minute she doesn’t have one finished, another soldier dies.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic about it? Is it literally ever minute?” Jennings glanced down at her. Rainbow Dash could almost see the red glow behind his eyes. “Ok, I take back everything. Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood,” she said apologetically.

“Don’t worry about it. Just go enjoy your day off. Remember, guard duty starts tomorrow!” He said half-jokingly.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t remind me.” Dash had been one of the lucky three to be chosen for the very first guard duty the following morning. She got to sit up and wait all day in case the Covvies decided to wreak havoc somewhere.

“Seriously though, just go have some fun. You’ve earned it.”

“Alright, then. Will do. You don’t need any company?”

“I’ve been alone for as long as I can remember. A few more hours won’t kill me.”

“Well, now I feel like a jerk for leaving you alone! Nopony should be alone forever!” Jennings sighed in resignation.

“I’ll find someone after the war ends to spend the rest of my days with. Now go have fun, Dash. I’ll be fine.”

“Ok, fine. But I still feel bad about it.”

“I’ll tell you what, you can atone for your ‘fun crimes’ by showing up to guard duty tomorrow, without a massive hangover. At least try to be functional tomorrow.”

“You got it! I usually don’t drink too much anyways.” Dash trotted down the stairs, rejoining her buddies at the bar. Some of them were already on their third or fourth cider. It was so nice to cut loose a bit after months of training. Hooves first!

~ ~ ~

“I am so freaking bored,” Rainbow Dash announced to the two other Troopers who were sitting at the table with her. They had been playing Poker for the past few hours, having already performed exhaustive weapons and gear cleaning. Even after that Dash had clambered into her drop pod, jerking on the sticks wildly making ‘fwoosh’ noises in order to keep herself entertained. After about ten minutes of wild flying from the pod, she grew bored of that too and had joined the poker game.

The pod system that was developed for the use of the ODSTs was a combination of Human and Equestrian technology. Since Equestria lacked a key component of the ODST employment system (namely, an space-faring vehicle of any sort), they had to develop a new method of rapid deployment. Pony engineers had constructed a launcher of sorts that could aim and fire a series of four drop pods anywhere on the continent, with the ability to ‘reload’ another squad for firing within seconds. That being said, the components had only been tested separately. However, there had been no problems, and everything should function flawlessly. Should.

“I know what you mean, Dash. I’m bored out of my gourd, here,” the soldier on Dash’s right said. He was an old veteran of the royal guard before, and commanded the respect of all who worked with him, even if he was the same rank as the rest. Well, all but one. The only one who didn’t sat to Dash’s left, and was the ODST clown, always hilariously lazy, but always there in a jam.

“Oh, Celestia. Here we go again. Old Timer over here is going to off on us about how ‘back in his day,’ this and that. We get it! You’re better than the rest of us! Just shut up and bet.”

“I’m going to kill you. Slowly.”

“How?”

“Right now, I’m planning on ripping your skull out and beating you to death with it.”

“That doesn’t seem physically possible.”

“That’s exactly what the last guy said, right before he died.”

“Whatever. I’m going to get a refill.”

“Yeah, that’s right dirtbag, run!” Dash held her sides, trying to contain her mirth. Anytime these two were together was hilarious. She genuinely didn’t know whether or not they were good enough friends that they could insult each other mercilessly, or genuinely disliked each other.

Rainbow Dash became suddenly keenly aware that she was sitting directly underneath a klaxon. Jennings came sprinting downstairs from his perch by a slew of radios, monitors, and other security devices.

“Let’s go, helmets on, weapons locked! Covvies spotted pushing towards Ponyville again!” Dash and her compatriots snapped their helmets on, sprinting over to their pods at a lightning speeds. She had hoped that this day wouldn’t come for a long time. She had hoped they had cleaned up the last of the covenant during the encounter in EverFree, but obviously this wasn’t the case.

Dash spun around in mid air, landing directly in the seat of her pod, rapidly pressing the buttons necessary to prepare her for launch. The door swung closed with a hiss, audibly sealing a second later. She watched out the viewports as Canterlot swung before her, upside down from her position on her back. The mechanism clunked into position, locking in its firing solution. Dash tensed with the timer, preparing herself for her first drop into a firefight.

The sudden acceleration took her buy surprise as she accelerated feet-first towards the atmosphere, things starting to feel normal as the parabolic arc dropped her into a more normal position. That being said, the ground was approaching soon. Holy shit was it approaching soon. They had long-since passed Sonic Rainboom speeds, and they weren’t slowing down as the ground approached.

“Fire thrusters!” A blazing inferno appeared outside the windows, obscuring the impending collision with the ground. The sudden stop felt like it broke every bone in her body, but the door blew open and she jumped out, Assault Rifle at the ready.

The Troopers all landed in the same area, in the center of the Ponyville Market. Fortunately, nopony was hurt. Nonetheless, all were terrified at the sudden arrival of three strangely garbed and armed ponies, and one strangely outfitted… thing. This was the problem with working for a secret military unit, nopony knows that you’re there to help. Hence, the screaming and running in panic. Only the rare few who knew about Jennings had any idea what was happening.

“Jennings? Is that you?” Jennings helmeted head snapped around.

“Twilight! Get everyone inside, now!”

“Jennings, what’s going on?”

“No time, get everyone inside now! Move!” His gloved hand forcefully formed into a pointing motion away from where his unit was moving.

“But…”

“Go!” Twilight scampered off, trying to gather everypony into a coherent group that could be moved into the largest building in Ponyville—the club.

The quartet of death fanned out, moving slowly through the streets, scanning in all directions. Jennings watched via his VISR where each of his compatriots were pointing their weapons, noting with satisfaction that they were spread out equally, scanning their individual fields of fire. So far no movement. So far. An acknowledgement light blinked in his HUD. All four of them froze. The grizzled ancient gestured down one of the side streets. Jennings nodded in acknowledgement, deftly giving out silent instructions via subtle head movements and hand signals. The squad broke into two teams, Jennings and Dash moving out in a flanking maneuver. The veteran his annoying compatriot exchanged glances, opening fire on the column of grunts they had spotted.

The first three in the group dropped, clutching at bloody holes in their exoskeleton, but the remainder dove for cover. After the first few seconds, they were beginning to return with a volley of their own weapons. Traces, plasma, and needles crisscrossed in the narrow alleyway in a deadly light show.

Three hulking shapes appeared behind the column. The duo adjusted fire, alternating between who was shooting and who was reloading. The bullets sparked off the shields of the three elites, causing them to cast a faint blue light on the walls surrounding them as their shields strained against the barrage. A frag grenade detonated in the confined space, popping the shields on the first two.

Jennings and Dash unloaded a hail of bullets from the roof of one of the flanking buildings, killing the first of the three elites. The shields on the third elite stubbornly refused to drop, a testament to the strength of the elites’ oddly colored armor. The third and second elite jumped into the nearby buildings to avoid the rain of bullets. Dash primed another grenade, tossing it down the alley where the remainder of the grunts were gathering. Jennings fired his BR at the second elite, causing its shields to glow again as it dashed between buildings and north.

“Bravo team, the red elite is running north. Cut him off and kill him before he gets into the club, where he could do some real damage. We’ll get this elite,” Jennings ordered through his radio.

“Yes, sergeant.” The two troopers below him abandoned their covered position, beginning their trek northwards, parallel to the path the elite took.

“So what’s our next step?”

“Search the buildings around here. Very, very carefully.”

Jennings moved downstairs first, carefully pie-ing the corners, looking cautiously for an elite foot, gold armor, or something jutting off the elite’s body that would allow him to start shooting the elite before the elite ever saw him.

He eased slowly from room to room, slowing his breathing down significantly to keep a steady aim. The fans inside his helmet worked overtime as fog accumulated near the base of his visor, blurring the floor slightly. His eyes were extraordinarily active, darting this way and that , constantly looking for that slight edge. He heard a sickening crunch behind him, ducked and spun. The elite must have gone invisible and snuck up on them. He had just batted Dash away, knocking her unconscious by throwing her into a wall. And now, it was staring at him.

“Human.”

“Name’s Jennings, hinge-head.”

“You have caused me a lot of trouble in the last few months,” Lo’Vadomir said.

“Yeah, well I certainly haven’t been wanting to be here either.”

“It was your vessel that knocked us into this dimension.”

“And it was your cruiser that made mine lose control. I still blame you, for a lot of things actually.”

“Your species is an insult to the gods.”

“Yeah, well your religion is a lie.”

“Blasphemy.” A brilliant beam of plasma erupted from the elites’ grip, indicating their conversation was over. He pulled the trigger faster than he ever had before, spending his entire magazine in a few seconds. The bullets bounced off the elites’ shields, making it gleam with energy. The elite pounced forward, stabbing the air. Jennings ducked, coming up swinging his firearm like a battle axe. It bounced off the chest of the elite without doing much of anything. Lo’Vadomir swung his sword in a horizontal sweeping motion, aiming for Jennings’ neck. Jennings dropped to his knees at the last second. His rifle fell to the floor in two pieces, glowing red hot where the sword had cut it in two.

Jennings jumped up, grabbing onto one of the nooks in the elite’s ornate armor in order to hang off of his chest. Drawing his M7, he unloaded a magazine, finally popping the elite’s shields.

So that’s what that feels like.

Jennings looked down, watching blood trickle out of his armor and sizzle on the superheated plasma blade sticking into his abdomen. Lo’Vadomir removed the blade with a sharp pull, causing Jennings to fall to the floor. Lo’Vadomir spat at the bleeding form of Jennings, moving over towards the unconscious Rainbow Dash.

“Wake up, filth.” Lo’Vadomir shook Rainbow Dash vigorously. She woke up, still in a dazed state. “See what allying yourself with nishum does.”

“Jennings…” Dash struggled to say, trying to wake up enough to fight. She still couldn’t figure out where the ground
was. Lo’Vadomir dropped Dash in a heap. Her head laid limply on the ground, unable to move. Lo’Vadomir raised up his sword in an executioner pose. He plunged the sword downwards. Jennings rolled to the right, the blade severing his left leg. Struggling upright, he latched onto the elite’s armor. Dash recognized the distinct sound of a grenade arming. Lo’Vadomir swung the sword, stabbing Jennings in the side. A split second later a grenade detonated, showering the room with fragments. The elite slumped to the floor, missing the majority of its head. Jennings collapsed to the ground, riddled with shrapnel.

“Jay…” Jennings coughed, managing to speak.

“Never. Stop. Fighting.” Dash’s vision faded into black.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One month later

Dash stood at the ODST launching pad, along with 39 other soldiers, all under her command. Her recovery had taken far too long for her liking. Mainly because it made her miss Jennings’ funeral. She was still pissed that she couldn’t make it. But now, it had come full circle. She had been given command of the ODSTs, and she was using her newfound power to push her agenda. Jennings had been there to help out Equestria in its time of need, and had died doing so. All the while, he was waiting for Celestia and Twilight to figure out a way to get him back home, so he could fight for those he truly cared for. And now, they had done it. They had figured out a way to portal back to Earth, and now, Dash was going to repay the debt she owed to Jennings. She was going to take the fight to the Covenant.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“We’ve got a new contact, unknown classification!” A Naval tech shouted.

“If it isn’t one of ours, take it out,” Lord Hood replied.

“This is Spartan One-One-Seven, can anyone hear me, over?” Well hot damn.

“Isolate that signal!” Lord Hood barked at the tech. “Master Chief, you mind telling me what you’re doing aboard that ship?”

“Sir, finishing this fight.” Lord Hood was about to reply when he was interrupted.

“Sir, there’s a new slipspace rupture, much closer to Earth. Lots of contacts, inbound! They’re transmitting UNSC IFFs, but I don’t recognize the codes.” Lord Hood was leaning over the tech’s console in an instant.”

“Drop pods?”

“Maybe sir, can’t tell.”

“Give me radio contact.”

“Done, sir.”

“This is Lord Hood. To whom am I speaking?”

“Romeo-Delta Zero-Five-One. Don’t worry about what we are, just know we hate the Covenant just as much as you do.”

“Excuse me, did you say ‘what’ you are?”

“Yes, sir. Strictly speaking, we aren’t from your dimension. But Trooper Jennings represented humans well, and we want to help. Just point us at the target.” Lord Hood stood there silent for a second, before responding.

“Well, we’ll take all the help we can get. Transmitting coordinates now.”

“Roger that, we will be on the deck in less than two mikes.”

“Thanks for the assist, soldiers.” Lord Hood stood up from the console. Another tech flagged him down.

“Lord Hood, sir? I’m getting reports of what appears to be flying horses in ODST armor.” Lord Hood frowned.

“Say that again?”

“Flying horses, in ODST armor, sir.”

“And they’re shooting the covenant?”

“Yes, sir. Apparently, they’re kicking ass.” Lord Hood just smiled.

“And I thought nothing would ever surprise me, ever again.”

A/N Alright, that’s the majority of the story. Just one more chapter next week, relatively short. It’s just an idea that came to me that didn’t really fit in here. An epilogue, if you will.

Epilogue

Dash walked forward in a half crouch, keeping a firm grasp on her battle rifle. The weapon felt cold to the touch, due to the frigid external temperature. Nevertheless, she pushed her squad forward, through this muddy ditch. Her breath turned to fog before her eyes in the crisp night air, obscuring her vision slightly. She kept the weapon in front of her, lowered slightly so that her line of sight would be unhindered.

Dash held up a hoof signaling ‘freeze.’ Every pony in the squad froze where they were, some halting mid-step. Breathless seconds passed while Dash scanned the area before, trying to figure out what was wrong. Something was wrong. What was it? She could hear her heart beating in her chest as she scanned the burnt countryside for that missing component. From her vantage point on the hill she saw everything. Charred corpses, smoking skeletal buildings, burnt grass, and destroyed hills. This was what she had been looking at for the past ten kilometers, why was this different?

Maybe it wasn’t something she could see. She closed her eyes, listening intently to the surrounding environment. Fires crackling, her soldiers breathing, a few bugs clicking… nothing really out of the ordinary. Oh, there we go. Smell. Something smelled different. What was that odor? Something smelled horrible… rotten almost.

A hail of plasma fire erupted less than one hundred meters or so below their position. All the troopers splashed into the ditch with a grimace as the freezing mud started caking their suits. But the fire wasn’t aimed at them. Dash had expected to see a hail of plasma fire come flying over their position, but nothing was happening. She crept forward, peering down below. She could make out the Covie positions easily, blue and purple flashes illuminated their covered positions within the ruinous town. Plasma sizzled through the air, burning holes in… what the hell were those? Brownish figures distorted in ways too hideous to describe sprinted towards the Covie line wailing inhuman howls. Dash made a snap decision, once those things had finished off the Covies, they’d surely come for Dash and her squad. She had to work with the enemy.

Dash motioned thrice, and a hail of grenades landed in the open space that these new-found foes were storming across. Dash’s squad lit the area up in a firestorm of death. Tracers licked back and forth across the open field, sometime starting small fires in the crispy grass. These sons-a-bitches did not care about losses. The squad was quickly running low on ammunition. As Dash reached for her last magazine, they suddenly stopped coming. Dash doubted highly that they were out of personnel. More likely they decided it was going to be easier to attack from elsewhere. Needless to say, Dash didn’t stick around to find out. They were out of ammo and deep in enemy territory. Time to haul ass back to base camp to report what they saw and re-arm.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lord Hood apparently had some genius plan to follow the Covenant through a portal and attack them on their own turf. Dash didn’t really care where they fought. The best part about this whole plan was that they finally got to use the Navy’s ships for a bit. Showers and hot food. Finally. The rest of her squad stormed the showers first, but Dash opted for food. As soon as she entered the mess hall she realized this was probably a bad idea. She had her helmet tucked under one leg, and needless to say nopony there was expecting her to walk in the door. Every pair of eyes in the entire place tracked her every movement up to the counter to get a tray.

The chefs gawked at her until she motioned towards the tray, irritably. They slowly ladled some of the ‘food’ onto her plate, never taking eyes off her. She rolled hers in annoyance, not making them feel any more comfortable. She grabbed the tray off from the counter, striding over to a table and promptly sitting down. Despite her ravenous hunger, she forced herself to eat in a civil manner. Some random buck private showed up at her shoulder, staring down incredulously.

“Hey, who the hell let horse in the mess hall? Why is it even on the ship?”

“You mean, ‘who let a pony in the mess hall, sergeant.’ “ she said, stressing her rank. She gestured to the stripes adorning the shoulder of her ODST armor.

“I… uh…”

“Oh, so no you want to address me, instead of talking about me and referring to me as an ‘it’? Genius plan there, private.”

“You’re a horse.”

“Pony.”

“But that’s not the point. How are you talking? I’m not the only one hearing this, right?” He glanced around, noting the incredulous nodding of the deathly silent mess-hall.

“Well, private, I’m not from around here.”

“Obviously.” Dash raised an eyebrow.

“Might want to watch your tone there, private.” Dash glanced down at her rank again. “I’m not from your dimension. Me and my troopers are here to help though. Show some respect.”

“Er, ok. Sorry.”

“Want to try again?”

“Yes, sergeant. My apologies, sergeant.” The private left with a bewildered, ‘what just happened’ look on his face. Dash looked across the table at a human staring blankly at her. She noticed he also wore Sergeant chevrons. Dash grinned lopsidedly at him.

“Fucking privates, am I right?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“You know, I never did get to say goodbye. The war’s over now, but somehow that doesn’t seem to help. You even gave your life for a group of ponies who you just recently met. Hell, we weren’t even your same species!” Rainbow Dash stood in front of a lone piece of granite. Sure, there were thousands of other slabs of nearly identical rocks in perfect rows, but this one was special. This one bore the name and rank of Jennings.

“You’d be proud of the good work your Troopers did. Well, they’re my Troopers now. So I guess they are our Troopers. They fought hard. We lost some good ponies. Gained a lot of good friends. And we fought the Flood. Never even imagined such a thing could exist. Sure was a shitty war. And hell, we were only part of it for a few days. You fought it for years without the slightest complaint.

“But now, the Elites and the Humans are working together. Kind of weird to think about. We both had the war introduced to us with Elites killing our family and friends. But in a weird turn of events, I ended up fighting alongside a bunch of them against Brutes and Flood. Kind of crazy to think about. I try not to picture what would have happened had one of them decided he’d had enough of this UNSC-Elite truce. They could have killed a lot of people. They were already in our lines. Would have been bad.

“Speaking of never saying goodbye, I never said thank you either. You saved my life in that house. I never even saw the jackass coming, but you did. You finished him off even after you’d been stabbed through the gut. I’ve seen more ponies… er people… aliens… whatever, get stabbed by those swords, and most of them just flop over and accept death. Not you. I have to give you some serious kudos for that. Ah, shit. Looks like somepony is telling me I have to go. Don’t worry, Jay. Earth’s safe. We did everything we could to make sure it’s safe. Some eggheads in Canterlot made a device that opens a small portal between Equestria and Earth, so we’ll keep coming and going, probably even start trading after a while. Who knows, we might even start vacationing to each others dimensions. You never know. Anyways Jay, I gotta go. Thanks for the chat. I’ll be back when I can.” Dash rendered a crisp salute, facing the white slab. She turned to leave, forcing herself to walk out without looking back. It was hard.

Dash was part of the last group to leave Earth. She glanced back over the still-smoldering landscape with sadness. Countless had been lost. Only very rough estimates could be made as far as the combined number lost between Human, Covenant, and Equestrian. She was going to have some heart-wrenching letters to write when she got back home. She sighed, and stepped through the portal.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Their ranks had been depleted. It was high-time they start filling them again. Fortunately, Jennings’ plans for training were still there, the framework was still there, Dash only had to restart everything. It had been relatively easy, too. Just lots of paperwork to do. Forms for this, forms for that. I mean seriously, who needs to eat on a daily basis? Absurd things like that were just endless paperwork. Troopers can survive on a meal every three months or so… right?

In processing was over, and Zero Day was about to begin. Dash watched with impatience as the clock finally clicked past midnight. 0001. Dash grinned, tossing the flashbang grenade she held in her hoof. She depressed the button, tossing it inside the bay. Screams of pain and confusion came from those poor souls inside. Dash smashed the door open with her shoulder, ramming it in painfully to an unlucky Trooper.

“Wake the fuck up!”

Feet First Into... Equestria

“Wake up, Marine!” Sergeant Paul Jennings woke with a savage kick to the side from his squad leader, the battle-hardened Gunnery Sergeant Jake Bowman.

“Hell, Gunny. Was that really necessary?” Jennings said, after quickly checking over his gear to make sure that none of his buddies from his ODST squad had messed with him or his gear (most importantly—his food), during his nap. A quick glance at the grizzled NCO told him all he needed.

“Maybe,” Bowman said, turning away quickly. Nevertheless, the gleeful look in his eyes, and the rest of the squad guffawing off to the side told him all he needed.

“Damn bro, that shit was hilarious,” one of his squad mates finally managed between bursts of laughter.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” Jennings tossed the first thing in reach—an orange—at his friend Smith Jefferson, or ‘Smitty’ as the squad called him. The over-ripened fruit burst on Smitty’s blackened armor, sending sticky orange juice in all directions. Smitty immediately yelled a few epithets towards Jennings, mostly regarding how long it would take to clean the mess from his gear. Fortunately for morale’s sake, the entire exchange had been recorded by CPL Fogh’s handheld camera. This was definitely being passed around the company.

Jennings got to his feet, double checking his gear before their imminent combat drop. His Battle Rifle was still functioning smoothly, a magazine inserted into the mag well, with a bullet out of the chamber: perfect. Slinging the comparatively bulky firearm onto his back, he grabbed his M7S, suppressed submachine gun from his side, checking the same functions on that weapon as well. Upon conclusion of these quick inspections, he clicked on and off his VISR mode on his helmet, and checked to make sure that all of his magazines and grenades were firmly seated in their respective pouches. A quick tug on his various armor plates ensured that they were properly tightened down.

“Let’s go, Helljumpers. Gather round me,” Bowman said in an especially loud voice, considering the confining spaces of the cruiser they were on. Already used to Bowman’s volume, the squad of six ODSTs sauntered up to their commander.

“What are we doin’ now, Gunny?”

“Yeah, we’re dropping in to take back New Mombasa, right?”

“The heck with that. Let’s turn this ship around, and attack the Covenent homeworld!”

“And where’s that, dumbass?”

“I don’t know, I’m just tired of winning the fights on the ground in order to let the Navy lose the war.” The squad bickered back and forth for a few seconds before Bowman lost his patience, and politely (loudly and rudely) told the squad to be quiet.

“And if you jackasses are done spinning your conspiracy theories,” Bowman said gruffly, staring down his squad. His battle-wearied eyes shifting their piercing gaze from face to face. “I will tell you what our next mission is.

“All done, Gunny,” Smitty said with a lopsided grin. Bowman silenced him with a cold stare.

“We’re dropping onto the covenant cruiser that’s above New Mombasa.” The announcement was met with a mix of blank stares and disbelieving looks.

“Excuse me?”

“What?”

“Where’s the entry point?”

“For that matter, how do we exfil?”

“What happens if we bounce off the side?”

“Or worse, what happens if we stick to the side, the door opens, and we fall to our death?”

“Don’t those things have AA? Are those going to be neutralized before we land?”

“Is there a rally point?”

“What about a main objective?” The firestorm of questions flew at Bowman rapid-fire, each one poking holes in what seemed like a poorly conceived plan to the ODSTs. Bowman held up a hand, trying to answer each one in turn.

“No intel on entry point. The goal is to secure the ship itself, so we exfil with the ship. I think. If you bounce off the side? Look out below. Same if you stick to the side. Yes they have AA. And maybe. No RP of yet.” The squad still stared at him, expecting any second to hear a ‘just kidding, we’re attacking a normal target,’ especially as such cruel jokes were common to the military. He didn’t say a thing, he just stared back. Finally, the stupidity and obviously rapid planning of the raid became apparent.

The individual soldiers slowly moved away from their squad leader, each performing final mission prep before dropping into a firefight. Jennings re-double checked his gear, partially stripping each weapon to check for debris or rust. Smitty had spent his own personal money on extra large magazines for his MA5C Assault Rifle, turning the already deadly weapon into squad-based suppressive fire destruction weapon. When covenant troops came upon Smitty with his AR expecting the normal 32 round magazine, they were unpleasantly surprised by a hail of bullets that lasted in excess of 150 rounds. Needless to say, this came at a price, and Smitty’s armor was by far the bulkiest and heaviest of the squad, and hence his armor needed the most maintenance Fogh clicked shotgun shells into place for easy reloading, simultaneously chugging water.

Jennings stepped into his drop pod, surveying the door seal for cracks or abnormalities as hard-learned lessons had taught him. He surveyed his fellow squadmates, noting their individual war faces taking over their features. Not the Hollywood ‘Hoorah let’s kill things’ face; instead it was a stern, jaw-set, mentally bracing, no-nonsense look that would terrify the lucky few who have yet to face combat.

The door to the metallic coffin closed slowly, sealing with a soft hiss. Jennings settled back into the frame, preparing himself for the bumpy ride, literally and figuratively. Glancing down at the various displays, he grasped hold of the familiar guidance system, scanning multiple displays simultaneously. Each display provided countless details on an almost innumerable amount of topics. Temperature and weather at various altitudes displayed on a small panel to his left. Small images of the helmets of his squadmates appeared before him, each one with a small heartbeat indicator underneath, as well as various other indicators of health of teammates. A large panel flashed to life to his right.

“Alright, troopers. Now’s the time to-” Jennings tuned out the rest of the motivational speech from the Sweet Williams cigar-chomping Sergeant Major Avery Johnson. While a legend in the ODST ranks, he had heard speeches from the good ol’ Sarn’t Major before. He heard a few snippets though, something about “sonsabitches” and “kick some Covenant ass” as well as a few other colorful descriptions of what the human forces would do to the alien ship.

Jennings took a few slow breaths as the familiar countdown beeping signaled his soon departure from the ship. A harsh jolted reverberated through his body, as his pod hurtled towards the ground. He glanced out the window, fiddling with controls to keep his small vessel in a tight formation with his fellow troopers.

“Smitty, close distance.”

“Workin’ on it, Gunny.” Each craft wove slightly, trying to lock in the ideal trajectory towards the alien vessel. Jennings spotted the danger first.

“Gunny, the ships is moving! Suggest trajectory change, up two-five-zero, right three-zero-zero-zero.”

“Course correction confirmed. Squad, adjust trajectory accordingly.”

“Earg-” the transmitted scream immediately cut off in a burst of static. Fogh shouted over the radio.

“Smitty’s KIA! Incoming anti-aircraft fire!” Below them, the surface of the ship boiled with a white-hot fury, pulsing brilliant flashes of plasma towards the frantically dodging pods. Each pilot yanked on the controls, forcing the pod to bob and weave in ways it was never designed.

“Deploy chutes!” The command sounded garbled over the radio, nevertheless the squad knew what to do. Jennings felt the material jostle the craft as it lurched open.

The world turned a blinding white, the pod’s internal temperature burst suddenly to unbearable levels. The pod began accelerating again as the bolt of plasma incinerated the parachute that slowed his descent.

“Jennings is hit! His chute is gone!”

“Jennings, engage thrusters!” Jennings slammed the emergency override button, starting the thrusters before they normally would.

WARNING, LEFT THRUSTERS FAILURE

WARNING, SIDE SLIP DETECTED

WARNING, CASCADE FAILURE

Alarms blared within Jennings pod, as it began tumbling end over end spinning towards the bow of the ship.

“Jennings, correct the pitch of the pod, or you’ll burn up in atmo!” Gunny Bowman shouted over the radio. Jennings struggled with the controls, which refused to respond.

“Gunny! The carrier is slipping!” Fogh screamed in alarm.

“What in the— brace for impact!”Jennings disappeared into the slip, spinning and twisting to infinity.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“And that’s Polaris!” Twilight announced proudly, pointing her powerful telescope at the star. She stepped to the side, allowing Applejack to peer into the telescope. Twilight had long-since decided that it was time to teach her friends basic astronomy, and this was the third of five well-planned lessons detailing star formation, constellations, celestial movement, celestial bodies, etc.

“Oh hey, I know that one!” Rainbow Dash said from the group, brightening suddenly. “A lot of pegasi use it to navigate at night,” she announced, proud to have already known something in an otherwise unfamiliar subject. She grinned for a few seconds, glancing at her compatriots who had their noses buried in star charts to prepare for Twilight’s infamous quizzes. Not drawing a reaction from any of them, she dropped her head back to the chart, frowning slightly.

“Hey Twi?” Applejack queried, her southern drawl strongly accenting her questioning tone.

“Yes, Applejack?”

“Why is that star getting bigger?”

“Let me see.” Twilight gently pushed her friend out of the way of the telescope, peering through the device again. She gasped gleefully.

“What is it, darling?” Rarity asked, thankful for an excuse to look up from the garish star chart.

“Everyone come quick!” The other five crowded around the window. Twilight pointed out the window towards the star that was gaining a tail and glowing brighter. “Can anyone tell me what that is?”

“A meteoroid!” Pinkie Pie squealed, jumping up and down.

“Close, but not quite.”

“Meteorite?” Rainbow Dash ventured.

“Nope.”

“Meteor?” Fluttershy said quietly from the back.

“Yes! And why?”

“A meteoroid is still in space, a meteorite has already hit the ground.”

“Correct! Now this meteor is slightly abnormal. The meteor shower wasn’t supposed to begin for a few days, and—”

“Boy, that sure is gettin’ bigger,” Applejack cut in. Twilight turned back to the window, gaping at the growing fireball.

“It almost looks like it’s going to—”

“Duck!” Pinkie screamed from the back. The meteor smashed through the top branches of the tree shattering every single window in the building. Twilight looked thrilled, despite extensive repairs that would have to be undertaken.

“Everypony outside!” The six ponies sprinted outside to catch their first glimpse of an extraterrestrial rock. Who knows, maybe they could do tests on and discover new minerals! Oh the things they could learn! Wow, that’s pretty angular for a rock. Oh.

The six ponies halted their charge just short of the ODST pod.

“What is it?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Whatever it is, the grey, black, and angular lines are not doing anything for its figure,” Rarity observed. The ponies fanned out, spreading around the pod, looking closely but careful not to touch the burning hot surface. Twilight rounded the front.

“Hey, there are windows!” She peered carefully inside, catching a glimpse of the ODST inside. “There’s something inside!” The others crowded around, peeking in.

“Is it a robot?”

“It certainly isn’t a pony.”

“Ugh! More grey, and look at those bulky plates on its body! I swear, nopony thinks about fashion anymore.”

“I hope it’s alive, then I can introduce it to everypony!” Pinkie seemed to be already absorbed in party planning.

“Hey, it’s moving,” Twilight observed. The figure slapped something on the inside, and cracks around the windows hissed momentarily. “Duck!” She jumped sideways, pushing the others out of the way as the door exploded outwards, spinning off into the night.

“Hey, I could have moved faster if you hadn’t grabbed me!” Rainbow Dash objected.

“What is it?” Applejack said, ignoring Rainbow Dash completely.

A long-limbed figure crawled from the box, obviously injured. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air as the being emerged fully. It slowly stood up, towering above the ponies at approximately twice their height. An appendage that most closely resembled Spike’s claw reached up towards its head, pulling off the helmet.

Twilight closely observed the face, noting its worn and ragged appearance. The mane was close-cropped, presumably to fit the helmet. Scars from a wound long healed snaked up the neck and across the face. Recent burns covered the neck and face. Most noticeable to Twilight, however, was the eyes. The eyes looked tired and worn, like they had lived one too many a lifetime.

The lanky figure tried to take a step forward, but collapsed under its own weight. Twilight dashed up to the creature, almost gagging on the overpowering stench of singed flesh.

“Quick! Somepony call a doctor!”

A/N: If it feels rushed and fairly unedited, that's because it is. I wrote this under extreme time limitations, and wasn't planning on publishing it at all. I only decided to at the last minute to see what kind of reception it would get. If it is well received, I'll continue it. If not, I'll continue it anyway for my own enjoyment.