The Spartan's Reward

The questions lasted throughout the night and by the time the questions stopped, it was already 3:00 AM. "You should all go to bed now. Its 3 AM." Cynthia said as she walked over to the corner and sat down. "What about you?" Twilight asked. "Me? I stopped sleeping a long time ago. At least not on an alien planet. Years of war tends to make you paranoid." Cynthia said as she pulled out her M45 and cradled it in her arms as her head slumped back. The other ponies decided to sleep around Cynthia, so when they woke up, they could continue their onslaught of questions.

The next day, at the crack of dawn, Cynthia snapped out of her fully aware sleeping state and walked over to the balcony and saw Celestia on it, her horn glowing as it lowered the moon below the horizon and raised the sun. Judging by the show a few hundred years back, I'm not even gonna try applying the laws of physics here. Its obvious that if it ever was here, its long gone. Cynthia mused as she was noticed by Celestia. "Oh, I didn't realize you were awake." Celestia said as she began walking down the stairs. "You know what? I'm not even going to argue with what you ponies say anymore. Its obvious that if the laws of physics were here, they're long gone by now." Cynthia said as she hung her head in defeat. Celestia chuckled and walked down the stairs to see that the other ponies had awoken and some of them had already been cooking up breakfast.

"714, would you like to join us for breakfast?" Twilight asked as she pulled away from her cooking. "Nah, As it is, I gotta go 'shopping' if I plan on eating like a Spartan." Cynthia said as she headed for the door, only to be stopped by Fluttershy. "No, I won't let you kill any animals." Fluttershy said in a firm voice. Cynthia was getting a little pissed at this small, yellow pony for trying to tell her what she could and couldn't eat. But she had to just suck it up and follow if she wanted to have peace with these ponies. "Fine. I won't kill anything. Just let me go to my pod and get some supplies." Fluttershy leaped for joy as she pulled Cynthia into a hug, but quickly let go when she realized what she just did.

Cynthia came back and was holding some protein bars and a bag of nutrient stims. She sat down at the table and proceeded to open the bag of stims. Dash was curious as to what was in the bag and flew over to see, only to fly under the table at the sight of the large needles. "Um... Ignore what had just happened..." Rainbow said with a nervous chuckle. Everypony laughed a bit and then turned to Cynthia. Cynthia pulled out a syringe that was the size of a dagger by pony standards and had a blue liquid in it. Cynthia unlocked a couple of clamps under the helmet and rolled up the black part of her suit to reveal her slightly white skin. "Um, 714? That needle looks a little too big even for-" Twilight was cut off by Cynthia jamming the syringe into her neck and pushed down the plunger. Rarity and Fluttershy fainted and the rest had their jaws planted firmly on the floor. Cynthia pulled out the syringe, rolled the suit down, locked her armor and replaced the syringe inside the bag. "What?" Cynthia asked as she laid out the protein bars on the table. "Was it necessary to use such a large needle?" Luna asked with a stunned look on her face. "I don't know. But almost all Spartans say that direct application is best, hence the large needle." "How do you plan on eating those?" Twilight asked.

"Simple." Cynthia said as she removed her helmet with a soft yank and revealed her shoulder length tan hair and her hazel eyes. The ponies looked at how many scars Cynthia had and gave her some curious looks. "Like what you see?" Cynthia said as she unwrapped the protein bars and began to eat. "Tastes like cardboard, to be honest. But its just what I need." Cynthia said as she devoured three of the bars. "Where did you get that cool scar?" Dash asked. "You'll have to be a lot more specific. I have an entire collection." Cynthia said with pride. "This one!" Dash said as she pointed at a scar that ran down from the edge of her left brow to the joint of her jaw. "Oh that. I think it would be better to show you. Oh yeah, those with weak stomachs should look away." Fluttershy and Rarity were still unconscious and nopony looked away. "Okay then. Don't say that I didn't warn you." Cynthia said as she pulled out a small cube and tapped on it and entered a code. The cube showed a screen and Cynthia fast forwarded it, to spare the ponies what had happened on that day.

Cynthia leaned out of cover and found that the rest of the marines were dead. "Son of a bitch..." She said as she ran out from cover and engaged the Brute Chieftain in close combat. The Brute swung his Gravity Hammer, but Cynthia anticipated this and disarmed the Brute with a shot to the elbow. The Brute roared and swatted the MA5C from her hands and pulled out her Energy sword. Cynthia swung low with her Energy Sword and cut into the Brute's torso and it roared in pain. Cynthia tried to go in for another hit, but the Brute recovered quickly and caught Cynthia in it's powerful grasp, knocking off her helmet and causing her to wheeze in pain as it's relatively short claws dug into the side of her face. "You die here, human." The Brute taunted. "Heh. Wrong move, asshole." Cynthia wheezed as she dug her sword in the Brute's elbow, removing it and causing it to recoil in pain. Cynthia took her chance and sent the Brute to the ground with a kick to the face. Cynthia picked up it's Gravity Hammer and repeatedly slammed the head of the hammer into the legs and torso of the Brute. The Brute reached up with a pleading hand, only to have it cut off by her sword and she spoke the last words the Brute would ever hear. "Say goodnight, asshole." Cynthia said as she slammed the hammer into the head, making it explode in a shower of brain matter and blood. Cynthia took the Hammer and walked into the next room to meet up with the rest of her squad, but not before spitting on the Brute's mangled and mutilated corpse.

Everypony's jaws hit the floor with a loud thud and Cynthia chuckled. "I told you so." Celestia was stunned by the violent video that she had just seen. Sure, she saw combat before. But what she had just seen in the last 5 minutes had put thousands of years to shame. Twilight was about to lose her breakfast, but she held and scribbled down notes about the entire video. Applejack and Pinkie were just standing there, jaws on the floor. Luna just pushed her food away and scooted away from Cynthia. Only Rainbow Dash had not been affected the same way. "That.Was.AWESOME!!! You gotta teach me how to use that!" Dash said as she grabbed the Energy sword from Cynthia's hip, only for it to stay on her hip. "What the? Why won't it come off?" "Because I haven't disengaged the magnetic locks. It'd take a grizzly bear to pull this off with brute force." Cynthia said as she slapped Dash's hoof away. "I would also appreciate it if you would not touch my incredibly dangerous weapons." Cynthia said with an annoyed huff. Dash understood and sat herself back down. "Does anyone else have any questions about my scars, or was that good enough?" Cynthia got answers that centered around them having a good idea about how each scar was received.

Cynthia left the room, followed by Celestia. The others were still recovering from the gory video they had just seen. Celestia let out an audible sigh and Cynthia picked up on it immediately. "Something on your mind?" Cynthia asked. "It's nothing." Celestia said, eliciting a small chuckle from Cynthia. "Y'know, I can tell when you're lying." Celestia was about to retort when Cynthia spoke again. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Cynthia said as she walked over to the door. Cynthia's heightened senses (and adjustable 150 meter motion tracker) showed that there were entire shitloads of hostiles coming in from the south. "Princess, I think we might have a small problem. There are over 200 hostiles approaching from the south. And fast." Cynthia said as she drew her MA5C and ran out the door and to the south. "714, wait!" "What happened, Princess?" Twilight asked as she walked out of the dining room on wobbly legs. "She said that there were over 200 hostiles coming from the south and ran out the door!" The Princess said as she ran out the door and the other ponies followed suit.

Cynthia had stopped running at the edge of town and saw over 200 armored dogs running towards the town. "Finally, some action!" Cynthia said as she charged at the dogs, grenades primed and threw them. The dogs stopped and ran over to the grenades. Idiots... Cynthia thought as 10 of the dogs exploded in a shower of gore. Cynthia kept charging, this time with her MA5C and unloaded a full mag into the crowd, cutting down 7 of the dogs and the rest charged her. She drew her M45 and fired shell after shell at each approaching dog and returned it to her back when it clicked empty. Then she brought out her true tools of destruction: Her Energy Sword and M6G. She flashed a sickening grin as the blade came to life and the mag was inserted into the pistol. She performed a dance of death as her blade swung in an arc that took out 4 of the dogs and fired 2 bullets that took out 2 dogs. She cut her way out of the crowd for a second to breathe and unloaded her entire mag of explosive bullets into the crowd, killing 20 of them. She holstered her pistol and pulled out two Type 33's, or Needlers, from the cube and fired all the spikes at the approaching dogs. Since they didn't have shields, most of them exploded in a shower of spike shards and blood. The remaining 30 were still stupid enough to keep fighting and continued their charge, only to be cut down in Cynthia's well-rehearsed dance of death. Only one dog remained, and it was crawling away, or at least trying, until Cynthia kicked it onto its back and placed her foot on its stomach. It whimpered as Cynthia pumped her shotgun. "I believe that the sound of racking the pump of a shotgun is universally recognized as "kiss your ass goodbye"." Cynthia said with a devilish smile as she fired the shell into the poor dog's head, destroying it and leaving a puddle of brain matter and blood on the grass.

Celestia and the ponies were horrified at the sight. Cynthia had killed over 200 dogs in less than 10 minutes and had killed the last one in cold blood. Fluttershy and Twilight threw up on the grass, Applejack had looked away, Rarity fainted, the Princesses, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie all had their jaws dig 4 inch holes in the ground with their impact alone. "Hello ponies. I neutralized the threat." Cynthia said with a salute. "THAT WAS AWESOME!!! The way you took out those Diamond Dogs!" Rainbow Dash swooned over Cynthia as she deactivated her blade. "H-how could you do such a thing?" Twilight asked with a shaky voice. "Uh... Normally, I guess? Sorry you all had to see that." Cynthia said as she holstered the sword, leaving the Needlers in her hands. "What're those?" Dash asked, pointing to her Needlers. "Um, well.... They're called Type 33's by the Covenant, but we just call them Needlers." Twilight had pretty much recovered from the scene and asked a question. "How do they work?" Cynthia really didn't know how they worked, nor did anyone. "We don't really know. They fire these blue homing spikes, and when there are enough of them in an unshielded enemy, they supercombine and blow the enemy to bits." Twilight wondered why there were no spikes on the top of the weapon. "What spikes?" She was answered by Cynthia pressing a pair of buttons on the weapons and blue spikes popped out the top of the weapon, causing Twilight to jump back. "These spikes." Cynthia said as she replaced the weapons in the cube. "How do you fit those in that small cube?" Celestia asked. "So are the wonders of technology. I can't tell you. Mainly because you wouldn't understand." Celestia was a little annoyed, but managed to keep it from showing and gave an understanding nod. "Well, maybe we should go over and explain what happened to them." Cynthia said as she pointed her thumb at the approaching crowd of multi-colored ponies.