Chapters Helljumper and Hellbringers.
Rilik and Johnson had been in slipspace for a day now after they failed again at finding a peaceful place to hide out in, every planet they came across was either glassed by the Covenant or was barren and couldn't support shit. The two former ODST's had been going around all planets they could for a place to hide.
"Hey Ril, the drive is going out, we gotta pull out of slipspace." Johnson said as he was checked all the screens on the ship, moving around uncomfortably as his bulkyness in his armor caused him extreme chafing and he was large by normal standards.
"Alright Rob pull us out and start checking where we are on the map." Rilik said as he moved around the cockpit of the fighter, his bulky ODST armor making movement difficulty. They pulled out of slipspace and Rilik took in the surrounding planets, "Ok there's a planet that looks like it could sustain people and it isn't glassed, ok what does the star map say?" He studied the planets features "Ok it has oceans and inland lakes, plains are green and looks like it has forests. " He thought.
"Should we check it out bro?" Rob asked as he began the descent towards the planet.
"Yeah let's hope this isn't a waste of our time, so what's this planets name and does it have a colony?" Rilik was checking the systems when he thought about fuel consumption, "So how much fuel we have until we are on the fumes?"
"We're on bingo fuel with the Slipspace drive and got about 15% remaining fuel on the primary thrusters, rerouting the fuel to the drive will be useless, we're to far out to get anywhere with a fueling station, as for the planet it isn't even charted on the maps." Rob said.
"Wait what? Then how did we get here? I thought we needed coordinates to get somewhere?" Rilik asked, confused by this coincidence.
"Well after awhile I got tired of having to search for proper coordinates and just set us in a direction that was cleared awhile back by one of the fleets." Robert said as we began the breach of the planets atmosphere.
The flaming craft rocked as the g-forces being exerted on the ship were great, the turbelence stopped after a few minutes, Rob whisteled at the sight below them, "That is one gorgeous scenery down there, clear night and it's all awesome." He said in awe.
"Yeah bet we can scavenge something if there's people here, check the radio frequencies for any comm traffic just in case there's people here." Rilik had begun setting up a broadcast for help when he noticed a many lights on the ground. "Dude something's going on down there! If we can just get a proper landing zone we can start looking" Rilik announced as he started flying the ship around.
"Hey Ril there's no comm traffic any frequency that I can get on this thing, we'll have to just land somewhere, alright if we-" Rob looked up to see a humongous dark cloud forming over the ship, "Oh my god Rilik where did that storm come from?"
"What are you talking about bro the sky was clear not even five minutes ago." Rilik looked up at the sky to see the cloud looming over the ship. He was about to start flying away from it when something rocked the ship and warning lights started blaring in the cockpit. "What happened Rob!?"" Rilik demanded as the ship began to plummet to the ground.
"I don't know! Something hit the starboard engine and completely tore the wing off!" Rob was trying to regain control of the ship, as it careened downwards.
"The one thing they don't put on their prototype is ejection seats! Get ready for a crash Rob." Rilik shouter over the noise of the alarms sounding off as they got to close to land by the ships sensors. They braced themselves as best as they could for an impact, Rilik pulling up the nose of the fighter just a few seconds before it hit the ground.
The prototype fighter smacked into the ground with a high pitched grinding noise, Rilik was groggy and a bit hurt as he lifted off the broken remains of the canopy, he stepped out to a war zone, around him he heard the sounds of battle, men screaming battle cries or screaming because of pain, he looked up as silence usurped the field, he saw colorful equines before him, some odd shades of purple, teal, and orange. The battle resumed as the ponies seemed to lose interest in Rilik.
"Hey Rob get up here I think I might be going crazy!" He shouted down at his friend still clamped into the seat, fumbling with the harness securing him to it. Rilik had looked around when he heard a whizzing sound go by his head, he looked back at a long metal spike coming out of the ship behind him. He dove for cover, a boulder a few yards in front of the ship, Rilik tried to locate a source of the spike and didn't see a man or woman around to do it. He noticed some of the equines had wings on their back and some had horns on their head, the ones with wings had metal armor and the horned ones didn't have armor as much but an aura surrounding them.
Rob peaked above the ship and was almost nailed by multiple projectiles as he rushed for the same boulder Rilik was behind, "Ril you're seeing the warring ponies with horns and wings to right?" Rob asked as he looked around.
"Good news: we're not crazy, bad news: we're surrounded by hostile horses! Did ya grab the guns man?" Rilik asked his pal.
Rob sighed and began to talk, " Shit shit shit! They're on the ship, you're the faster one see if you can grab 'em real quick bro." Rilik tensed up as he ran towards the ship trying his best not to be hit by the spikes that were landing on the ground near him. He dove for the safety of the cockpit, he opened some hidden compartments in the lower parts of it, he grabbed and armful of weapons and ammo and ran back to the boulder almost getting nailed in the leg by a spike.
"Alright I grabbed some." He panted as he laid out all the weapons and ammo on the ground, he had grabbed two MA5 assault rifles, a shotgun, a BR55HP SR Battle Rifle, and two magnums. The two former ODST's grabbed a MA5 AR and Rilik grabbed the shotgun, while Rob grabbed the battle rifle. A winged pony dove straight for Rilik he fired a slug into its face, causing half of its face to be almost melted off and it plummeted to the ground not moving again. A regular pony charged Rob from the side, Rilik shot again this time into the ponies side making a deep crater in it, the pony cried out and died bleeding.
Rob poked out of cover and fired a burst of his battle rifle into a horned ponies face, its eye blew up in a gorey mess and the next two rounds hit the center of its head, it was dead before it even knew it. Rob took aim at an armored wing equine and fired another burst, a round bounced off the armor while the other two tore of a wing making it tumble into the ground below.
"Helljumper, helljumper, where you been? " Shouted Rilik over the sounds of battle. He jumped out of cover firing more slugs into two regular ponies they died before they hit the ground.
"Feet first into hell then back again! " Shouted his friend in response as he fired more bursts into the fray of ponies.
"When I die please bury me deep! " Rilik yelled as he and his friend performed the old ODST slogan just like before they deserted.
"Fix my MA5 down by my feet! " Pronounced his best pal in the world as Rob beat down a tan normal equine. Rilik found his next targets in the form of a much taller equine with a rainbow mane that flowed like it was alive. The figure vanished and Rilik looked around for the larger pony, he fired two slugs into two advancing winged armored ponies, the rounds easily punching through the meager armor, he looked around the field, he saw his friend fighting off more advancing equines as he backed up a bit, he turned his head toward a giant mass forming on the horizon.
"Rob we got a big incoming!" Rilik announced pointing at the mob of mixed ponies rushing them, he heard them yelling something as another army came out of nowhere from behind them.
"For Equestria!" Rilik heard the ponies rushing from behind them chant, he heard another chant from the opposite group.
"For Celestia and Luna!" Chanted the others as they appraoched he activated his HUD visor and was able to see the tall pony he saw earlier leading the army opposite of Riliks position. The army that had appeared behind them was quickly beaten back to the ship's position. Rilik's shotgun clicked when he tried firing.
"Fuck I'm out! What about you Rob?" Rilik yelled over the cries of the battle. he heard no response from his friend, he tried again on the comm, "Hey Rob you run out of ammo?" Still no response he looked over to where his friend had been to see nothing but ponies in a big circle around his friend. "Rob!" Rilik noticed the magnums on the ground and picked them up, clamping them both to his sides. He pulled out his MA5 and poured rounds in the equines surrounding Rob, multiple ones fell from the sixty rounds that had just been pumped in the group, the remainders turned on Rilik and started to rush him, he reloaded as fast as he could and pumped more rounds into the group, bullets ripped into the lead ponies flesh and they fell, even if they survived the bullet hailing the stampede that followed would have sure killed them from trampling. He batted a winged pony away with the butt of his gun and smashed another ones head in as it prepared to stab him with its horn. He turned to the next one too late and was greeted by two hooves colliding with his chest, he tumbled through the air, the power of the kick sent him gasping for air.
Rilik looked over to his friends form sprawled on the ground, the large pony lifted him up in a blue aura and ripped him in half with some sort of twisted magic, Rilik got up and pulled the two pistols off his back and fired into the ponies that surrounded him, one shot peirced a big red ponies head and two more ripped into the chest of a dark grey one. He fired rounds into the larger equine to have all his bullets stop short of the horse and be redirected back at him, he caught a round in the left arm and dropped a magnum. He fired one handed into the large equine with the same failure as last time but the round collided with his chest, he checked his armor, it didn't peirce as he felt in the hole it made, he decided to draw his tactical knife and ran up to the large pony, "Your armor can't protect you now " Rilik thought as the knife peirced the eye of the large horse and he shoved it deeper into the thing's eye socket. It slumped over, dead, he got up on wobbly legs and watched as the angered army approached him in a stampede. He muttered a prayer and looked at the ground while the horde approached him.
Rilik thought of an idea, he ran to the remains of the crashed prototype, he checked the slipspace drive, "It's still functional, good. " He thought while he toggled multiple switchs in the cockpit, A red light blared and a countdown started down on the screen. He climbed up the broken ship, he saw his MA5 rifle that was forcefully discarded from him earlier lying on the ground in front of it, he rushed for it, a regular pony blocked his way, he made sure that move was its last as he stabbed it in the head with his knife. He heard a clank of metal come from the skull and tried pulling out his knife to find that it had been shattered from the rough impact, he ran down to the assault rifle and grabbed it, he fired whatever was remaining of the clip of the assault rifle into four advancing horned ponies, ripping ones head off and the others were caught in the hail as multiple rounds caught their chest cavities.
He looked at the countdown, the screen read ten seconds till core detonation, he looked out at the army drawing near to him as he reloaded his last magazine into the assault rifle.
"I'll be right behind you Rob, first ones in and the last out." Rilik said as he fired a five round burst into a lead winged horse, the shots dinged off the armor, he noticed as this one got closer it had a horn and was much larger than the others, its midnight blue color gleamed in the night, He watched the screen turn to a giant one.
"Burn you son of a bitch!" Rilik yelled as white light enveloped all that surrounded the ship for a two mile radius.
Failure is not an option.
The white light was soon replaced by the night again, Rilik didn't understand what went wrong, he set it to detonate, he tried to run for the cockpit to start the overload again when he was impaled in the chest by the midnight blue equine. Rilik gripped the horn trying to pry it out of his chest, blood seeped from his wound, he fired what was left of his clip one-handed into the equine only having failure be rewarded by his endeavor, he gazed around the field for any answer of why the core didn't detonate, he looked back at the ship, he saw ten horned equines surrounding a ball of glowing light, he was shocked, they had contained a slipspace drive explosion, he returned his gaze back to the horse that had impaled him.
The large pony flung him effortlessly off it's horn and into the raged army, he gripped his empty rifle and hit the ground with a thud, he tried getting up but was crowded by the angry ponies as they stomped him, tried to stab him and rammed him. His armor took a lot of the brunt, but some of the of the hits hurt and passed through his armor, he butted the face of one of the ponies with his gun.
The large midnight colored one stepped over to the remains of the other large one Rilik had killed, he tried to fend off more attacks with his gun but one of the horns of the equines shattered it to pieces, he took out the remains of his knife, it was alot shorter but he used it anyway, he held of the head equines that got to close and slit it's throat with the sharp part of the miniature knife. The still alive large one's horn was glowing as the dead body of the other was lifted and it's wounds healed. Rilik saw this and knew his efforts of trying to avenge his friend's death had failed, he over stepped at trying to stab at a pony and tripped since the battlefield was slick with equine blood, he was kicked on the ground until he heard something being yelled, he rolled his head side to side trying to identify the source. He saw crimson pony approach his body, the thing looked disgusted, Rilik was suddenly being dragged through the crowd of equines each one kicking him as he was dragged past, his body ached at being pulled so roughly, as it felt broken from the relentless beating of the colorful ponies. The dragging stopped and Rilik was in pain from everything that had happened since the adrenaline had wore off.
"What is it?" He heard a voice say, he rolled his head around again to see the crimson on being towered over by the two larger ones, they were obviously talking about him.
"We don't know princesses we just know the pegasi troops brought the thing they crashed in down." A deeper voice said. Rilik looked around spotting his friend's corpse on the ground near him, he crawled to it, he was prone next to his friends corpse, he took his best friend's dogtags from his body.
"You didn't deserve this man, I shouldn't of asked you to come along." Rilik couldn't help but cry a little for his dead friend. He saw his friend's assault rifle on the ground just feet away, he grabbed it and checked the clip, full, he tried to take aim at the large equine's who were now studying him. His body ached, he couldn't lift his muscles to do it, he just slung it on his back for later use if he lived that long. He had to avenge Rob's death, he knew Rob would do it for him if it was him that had died, the one he had killed walked over to him, now towering over him while he was prone.
Something lifted him up in the air, he was face to face with the equine, he threw a punch at it, but his muscle's retaliated at his effort, his punch seemed to dissapate half way to the thing's face.
"I am going to kill you, you abomination!" He growled into it's face. He let his body go limp to rest, he felt his arms being forced behind his back by an unknown force, a rope tied his wrists together.
"Why did we have to come upon this planet. " He thought as he was forced into a giant wagon, loaded with equines that were muzzeled and tied up, the larger equine the one assumed to be the boss closed the door on the wagon.
The wagon started off, he was sitting in the back, the large equine he had murdered not to long ago sticking with it, He felt as though it was mocking him with it's presence. As the wagon went on, he started to cut the rope slowly with his broken knife.
Rilik's body ached from the previous fight, he couldn't move alot other than walking, he had checked the extent of his injuries on his suit's HUD. Several red lights showed up on the skeleton that popped up on the screen.
"Damn, several broken ribs, arm is shattered, and a punctured lung. " He remembered the impaling from the midnight blue equine. He shuttered at the thought of what would had happen if it had been deeper, the wagon stopped and the door opened, daylight flooded in, they had some time ago closed a hatch letting light in, letting them sit in total darkness. He tried pulling off his assault rifle, he gripped nothing in his hand, he tried again and nothing, they must of snatched his rifle when the revived equine picked him up.
He saw a guard come into the wagon and started to bark orders rapidly, the only word he understood was "follow", he hid his hands behind his back so the guard wouldn't notice his restraints were gone. Rilik thought about revealing his knife to the guard when he slit it's throat, he decided agaisnt it as he would be surely be subdued again, possibly killed and he would lose the knife if he were to be caught. He put the knife in his boot to hide it, the guard came back to Rilik and shoved him out of the wagon, he tumbled out and rolled on the ground, only hurting his wounds more as he tried to get up again. He wobbled on his aching legs and was again shoved by the guard to follow the other prisoners, they came to a halt in front of a big beautiful castle, the prisoners were diverted left into an underground structure, Rilik was walking up to entrance of the structure when a guard shoved him back and five guards converged on his back and flanks as they shoved him forward to the castle.
He entered the castle, the architecture was grand but it didn't catch the eye of Rilik, he was only concerned of what was happening and where he was going, the guards came to a halt in front of a hallway with a lone door at the end, he was pushed down the hallway and started to approach the door, he opened it and in front of him were two stacks of hay on one side and another on the opposite side. He sat down on the side with just one stack of hay, he saw the door open and the midnight blue pony and large white one with the rainbow features, he growled when they entered, he wanted desperately to kill them for what happened to Rob, but was convinced otherwise when two guards entered the room as well.
"What are you?" The white equine said as it examined his features.
"Name and rank is all your getting beast, former Sergeant Koros." Rilik retaliated with a snarl.
The midnight blue one spoke up, "We said what are you, if anyone is a beast it is you!" It was obviously more tempramental than the other. Rilik was getting sick already of this terrible interrigation.
"Former Sergeant Koros you bastards! Thats all you're getting." Rilik growled as he remembered what happened to Rob.
"You ignorant beast! Tell us what you are or you will be executed!" The blue one was getting very angry faster than Rilik had assumed, the guards tensed up and took a few steps toward Rilik.
"Sister we must keep a level head in this." The white one said as it placed a hoof on the blue ones shoulder.
"Sister we must try more lucrative methods, I have an idea." The blue one muttered as it stepped over to Riliks sitting spot, he felt himself being lifted off the ground and thrown forcefully agaisnt the wall behind him, his body ached once more as his wounds flared back up in pain. He felt two things smash into his chest, causing his wind to get knocked out of him, he gasped for air as the two hooves smashed into his chest again. He couldn't breath, he gripped his throat trying to breath again.
"Sister that's enough! Anymore and you'll kill it, we must study it's behavior and for that it must be alive" The white one announced in a overly loud voice. Rilik was dropped from his position high on the wall, he finally was able to breath as he slumped to the ground, he curled up in a ball as he felt pain roar throughout his chest, his armor was indented where the hooves hit the chest plate.
He was dragged outside of the door and out of the castle, he saw where they were taking him, the underground building, he was thrown into the prison that all the ponies are in, there were no guards, no security, no nothing only a small hole in the ceiling give light to the prison cells, he was thrown into an empty cell, he tried sleeping but the pain from his wounds stayed and prevented that, he sat there gazing through the hole in the ceiling as daylight passed into night.
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"Subject Koros MIA, assumed captured by hostiles, Subject Johnson confirmed KIA, Prototype Gladius is a scrap heap boss, next course of action with the op?" A voice said quietly as it surveyed the battlefield.
"Operation Retrieval is a go, retrieve Subject Koros." the other voice said as they dissappeared back into the night.
The cell faded into darkness as Rilik fell to sleep, it truly was a welcome embrace for him after the long day's that he had been having. The ponies fed him not to long ago, but it was just an assortment of vegetables, he was forced to search the pouch's on his armor for something else, he found and old M.R.E in one of them, he choked it down since they normally weren't the best and add that it's been sitting in his pouch's for who knows how long.
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"Ten minutes till drop boys!" Rilik yelled over the sound of the Broken Justice's MAC gun firing, the six ODST's in this drop pod bay were preparing their equipment for the landing on the planet below.
"They say it's hell down there boys! Just what we're made for." Rob said as he double checked his MA5 AR,
"Yeah well when we're done the Covenant will be shaking in there armor, begging us to not kill them!" cheered one of the ODST's who was already in his pod.
"Cool it Mickolovitch, we'll be kicking ass in no time boys, there's enough of those ugly bastards to kill as is, we don't need an ODST getting cocky with no kills. Thats just insulting to the squad." Rilik announced as he cocked his shotgun. smirking under his helmet.
"We'll see if any Cov'e bastard gets past me when I'm holding my sniper." announced another ODST, holding a sniper rifle loosely by the barrel.
"Hey easy now, Ril's and my team last time was green as grass, what do you think happened to them? You're an even greener bunch, and can it Alexander you're shot's are wilder than Elmer Fudds!" Rob said, laughs came out among the squad all except for Alexander, she wasn't to happy about it.
"Alright everyone in there pod! Sparza and Bradley that means you to!" Rilik yelled as he entered the small pod, securing his weapons on the holding stations. "Alright command, mind telling me what the mission exactly is?" Rilik asked holding his comm on.
"Your team is going to help spartan team echo evacuate civilians, you are going to provide rear escort and make sure there arn't anymore civies in the surrounding buildings, there are covenant infantry in the surrounding districts so be careful." The command respondant said.
"One last thing, you neglected us any details on where we are also, mind giving us info on the planet?" Rilik asked preparing for the coming drop.
"All there is left to say sergeant is, welcome to Reach." The respondant said as the pods moved into position. The pods lurched out of the dock bay and started to descend the atmospher flaming as they did.
"Sergeant did he say Reach? Last I heard this planet was in a full scale assault from the Covies." Sparza radioed over from his pod.
"Alright guys, every live we save is another that can help us in the future, so we give our lives for these people alright?" Rilik said as he was bombarded with a chorus of "Yes sir". The pod was near the designated city, Manassas. The pod smacked into the ground outside a tall building and refugees were flooding forward, spartans soon herded them down one of three city ways. The pod door exploded off and Rilik made his way out.
"Alright Mickolovitch your with me and Rob, Sparza you take Alex and Bradley down the right alley." Rilik, Rob, and Mickolovitch adavanced down the left alley it's streets littered with trash. The team proceeded into a house making sure no one was in it.
"Bedroom and kitchen are clear." Sounded off Mickolovitch.
"Upstairs is clear." Came Rob's voice.
"Alright the living area and the closet is clear." Rilik said as he made his way out of the building, Rob and Mickolovitch right behind him. As they proceeded out of the building the onslaught began.
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A/N
I'm sorry for the cliffhangar and it being short but this is setting up the next one which will come back to the previous gore and after that the story line. The reasoning behind the sudden flash back will be known in the next chapter so be patient! :)
An explosion rocked the earth as they stumbled out of the building, a blue flame streaked across the sky as it smacked into the house they had just been in.
"Sparza status on civies and the squad!" Rilik yelled into his comm as he, Rob and Mickolovitch surveyed the surrounding area, sweeping the landscape with their assault rifles at the ready.
"We're all good and that explosion killed some of the civies on the tail end of the group, we saw it when we were in a house." Sparza radioed back.
"Ok proceed with the search and rescue but be caustious that was a wraith, we haven't seen it but it sure see's us." Rilik said back as he shut off the comm link. "Alright let's keep searching. Only two blocks of house then we have to just keep running, we can't search them as throughouly as we like but we have to just give 'em a hollar." Rilik said to Rob and Mick as they approached another house.
"Hello anyone here? ODST's, from the army, you have to evacuate!." Rilik yelled into the house, he walked in a few feet, two bodies were on the ground, a man and a womans. He began to to walk out when he heard a faint cry. He started to search around more until the cries became louder as he approached a closet, he opened it, he looked down and saw a little girl crying in the corner, he picked her up, she tried to fight him but she was a little girl, he looked around the house more and found a picture of her and her parents. He picked it up in case he could get her to a shuttle she deserved to know what her parents looked like. He examined the parents bodies on the ground and saw two charred marks coming out of their clothes.
He exited the building with the little girl in his arm crying her eyes out. "I found a little girl, her parents are dead, energy sword burns in them." Rilik muttered a bit of sadness in his voice as he could relate a bit to the girl. "Hey umm.. little girl it's alright we're with the army we're gonna get you out of here and somewhere safe ok?" He tried to calm her down. The girl looked at him, her face red with tears streaming down her face and just nodded and buried her face back into his shoulder.
"Aww you're a natural parent." Mick joked as he chuckled a bit at the sight, Rilik made his visor clear and just stared at the private with his grey eyes. This didn't help Mick as a spike round collided with his helmet, ending his life with a bad joke.
"Contacts!" Rob yelled. as he and Rilik reentered the abandoned building, Rilik set the little girl in the closet again, she was crying louder than before at the sounds of war around her.
"Grunts and Brutes inbound Ril!" Rob shouted firing a burst of fire into a brute, it's armor was torn off in the volley and it had it's gut torn open as well as a leg severed from the proceeding fire it recieved. Rilik fired a four round burst at a grunt, it's tank getting ripped off sent it running, he didn't waste his time trying to murder it since it would suffocate soon. Rob fired another volley at a set of grunt's, each ones face catching a round or two, one's face was horizontally ripped off and the other had no face as it was just a blue mess. A brute slammed into the house's door and barged in, Rilik pulled the shotgun off his back was batted away into a wall, he yelped as he felt like something snapped or broke in his body, he got up and rammed the brute and fired point blank into it's face, he looked up at the body and the brute was headless but it was standing vertically up.
Rilik backed up from the headless brute and watched it's body slump to the ground in a bloody mess, blood spurting from it's neck. He walked back to the closet, opened it and the little girl was curled tightly in a ball, he tapped her on the shoulder and she recoiled and squeked.
"Hey it's alright it's me the one who got you out the first time, the big bad aliens are gone, we have to leave." Rilik said as the girl uncurled and held out her arms to be picked up, he did so and she held onto his shoulder like it was her lifeline, they steped out onto the street and ran for the evac point.
"So what's your name little girl?" Rilik asked.
"My name's Sally" The girl responded, her voice squekey after crying for so long.
"Well Sally I promise we'll get you out of here." He said as they ran to the shuttle point.
"Under small arms fire from some grunts and jackals sergeant." came a voice from the comm.
"Alright just get to the evac point, run if you have to, if you have civies make sure they get there!" Rilik yelled as they approached a landing pad with a shuttle on it.
"Roger that, lets move people, evac isn't gonna wait forever!" Sparza said over the sounds of plasma sizzling.
"We gotta get there now." Rilik said to Rob as they were just a hundred feet from the evac shuttle and a pelican on the pad.
"Ok let's get her to the shuttle and then we'll help Sparza and them, and then we're off this god forsaken planet!" Rob yelled happiness in his voice.
They stopped at the boarding ramp of the shuttle and he set the girl down, "Now you have to be strong ok? Your mommy and daddy would be proud of you for being strong." Rilik said trying to make Sally feel better, she nodded and ran up the shuttle ramp, he watched as she went and sighed, he was about to go when he heard a voice.
"Wait, wait! Mister, mister what's your name?" Rilik turned around and Sally was tugging on his leg armor.
"My names Rilik, Sally you have to go now the shuttle will be leaving soon" He said and the girl nodded going up the ramp.
"Contacts are now jump jet brutes! Approaching the evac sight prepare for a firefight!" Yelled a worried Bradley. They came out of an alleyway near the landing pad, Rilik and Rob rushed to help the team, Bradley was tackled by a brute who gripped the ODST's arm and pulled with all it's ape like strength, ripping the man's arm off, he screamed a blood curdling cry at seeing and feeling the savage brute use his arm as a club, bashing the poor troopers head in with his own arm. Alexander fired point blank into the brutes face with a sniper, she missed badly and had the sniper taken from her by the brute and her precious rifle broken in half, the thing clobbered her with a hard punch to the gut and then an uppercut, she spun through the air and hit the ground groaning from the pain.
A fast green man ran past Rilik and headbutt the brutes gut, the man punched the brute in his gut many times and right hooked the brute in the jaw, a loud cracking noise could be heard as the brute was hit in the jaw, it hit the ground, dead, Rilik couldn't believe what he saw, a spartan had just beat a brute down in hand to hand combat. He hurried over to Alex's position as she continued to groan in pain. He checked over the woman, she was fine other than maybe a few broken ribs, her helmet was shattered to, and she had blood coming from her mouth.
"You'll live but you need some help." He said trying to comfort the wounded ODST. The spartan walked past Rilik and just got on the pelican with the two others that had been detailed to the evac. He pulled Alex up and she yelped a little at the sudden jolt of pain caused by the movement. She climbed aboard the pelican as did Sparza and Rob. Rilik watched the evac shuttle take off and got in the pelican.
"At least I was able to save one life " He thought while the pelican lifted off and flew by the shuttle.
He was smiling when the shuttle was bombarded by green strobes of light and blew up, the pelican flew away from the explosion, his smile was lost as it's wreckage spilled onto the city below, he dropped to his knees. He was broken, how could someone or something just blow up an innocent civilian ship. He cried a little bit but kept his visor dark, not wanting to show it to his fellow mourning ODST's. Losing people was part of the job, but losing civies is a big no, he stared at the remaining fire and smoke of the transport, as they sped away into space even after the pelicans ramp had closed he stared at the spot where the transport had used to be in his vision.
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A/N
That was the flashback people and I kept thinking about the ODST live action trailer song throughout writing it, kinda sets the mood in a sad place.
My original idea on this whole thing was for a rogue spartan but decided it'd be better for an odst since everyone does spartans usually.
Rilik woke up from his memory and searched the pouches of his armor, looking for the photo, he had forgot to give it to Sally, he pulled it out a picture of the girl and her parents they were at a kid's play park, she was on the swing her dad pushing her and her mom pushing the girl as well. He felt tears start to form in his eye's, "It's not right this life was taken so early in that war, nobody deserves that. " He thought as he stuffed the picture back into the pouch.
"Was that your family in that photo?" Said a voice, Rilik looked around for the speaker, he saw a white equine that was coated in dirt staring right at him.
"No, just someone I tried to help..." Rilik said.
"So what are you exactly? Never seen or heard of anything like you." The equine looked old, Rilik studied the other prisoner's, they were all young men or older ones covered in dirt.
"Look I'm not in the mood for introductions, and your kind has already taken enough from me, I'm not losing my sense of trust." Rilik said as he looked up through the hole in the ceiling, it was night the cell only illuminated by a perviously unnoticed torch.
"Fella we're all in the same boat arn't we? We're all prisoners now, doesn't matter what we are or where we come from, we're all prisoners of war now." The pony said, the logic in his words true.
"Fine, I'm a human, humans are from Earth, but we have other colonies, I'm from such a colony called Harvest." Rilik muttered as he gazed around the cells.
"You got a name?" The old equine said, prying at Rilik's temper.
"Rilik Koros," Rilik wanted answers now to, "Why are you all warring if your all the same thing?" He asked looking at the pony.
"Well we were all happy until people like us wanted to revert back to the old ways, those are that all the three pony tribes, pegasi, the ponies with wings, the unicorns, the horned ones, and the earth ponies, thats what the rebellion is made of, wanted to have all the tribes just stay away from each other and just have little to no contact, but royalty wouldn't want that, Princess Celestia and Luna wanted peace, however they got it, that's when your thingie crashed, they had just arrived and the pegasi must of really wanted that thing out of the air, they tore that thing pretty much in half!" The pony chuckled. Rilik was taken back to the battle and just scowled.
"Leave me alone now." Rilik said as he just curled up on the ground again, wanting to sleep more.
Rilik woke up as he heard footsteps approach, he sat up supported by the wall behind him, his wounds had healed thanks to the rest, his arm still hurt like a no tommorrow though, two guards approached his cell, they looked ferocious, ready to kill.
"Get up beast now!" Yelled one of the guards, Rilik leaped for the guard, he snatched the knife out of his boot and stabbed the neck of the first, dragging the knife across it's neck as he ran right of it, he jumped over the dead corpse and held onto the wing of the second, he pulled on the wing of the other, he heard a terrible ripping sound as he pulled harder, the wing came off, ripping some of the equines back with it. Rilik saw the pony was still alive and pulled the knife out of the first guard and stabbed through the eye socket of the second, Rilik got up and was immediatley tackled to the ground, he tried to get up but felt crushed under the weight of whatever was on him, he felt the knife get ripped from his hand and his arms locked together with some heavy material, he moved his arms, a rattling noise came from behind him.
"Great I take an oppirtunity and get my arms chained. " He said as he was hauled to his feet, he was shoved hard out of the cell and up the stairs, he came into daylight and saw a podium at the castle gate, he was shoved towards it, he walked towards the podium, the guard in front of it stopped him before he started to walk up, he heard someone making a speach on it, he listened as the voice went on.
"Faithful subjects! We have stopped the rebellion and your strong army was granted by the god's with peace by force as harsh it was, your pegasi troops brought down an even feircer threat, an alien vessel was taken down and two aliens emerged! We your noble princesses captured the beast and killed the other invader!" A voice boomed through the air, Rilik heard a series of gasps and laughs erupted from a hidden crowd. Rilik felt as though that was his cue and marched up the stairs, he saw the two 'noble' princesses behind the speaker, he walked up next to the podium and the crowd gasped at his appearance, the laughs stopped and silence was the only thing that was present in the crowd. Flashes erupted from the crowd, "They've invented flash photography great. " Rilik thought as he was shoved onto his knees, he looked up and saw a white pony, he figured if the play on words were right this one was Celestia.
"Citizens of Equestria do not fret! We subdued it and it poses no harm anymore!" The voice from the Princess boomed over the crowd. Cheers came from the audiance and they yelled praises towards the royal ponies.
"Harmless? Tell that to the guards I just killed in your prison bitch. " Rilik thought as he was looking among the crowd.
"We will study it as it melds into our society!" The white princess said, whats erupted from everyone in the assembly.
"Wait what?! No way I'm staying here. " Rilik said as he tried struggling, he twisted his body and stood up straight with the equine, he headbutt the pony and was kicked swiftly into the crowd. The crowd erupted in anger at him hurting the princess, he stepped on the ponies heads as he made his way over the crowd, he tried to step and his foot was bitten hard by one of the equines, he yelped at the sharp pain that started in his foot, he shook the thing off and had the other pony he was stepping on shifted out from under him, he got to his feet quickly and started running through the crowd, ramming some to get them out of the way, he got to the stairwell and saw two guards converging on him, he jumped off the edge and landed on a flat roof, he saw the guards flying towards him as he looked over his shoulder, he leaped off the roof and onto a stair case leading to a house, he got to the edge of the structure holding up the house, he looked down to see a large lake at the base of a mountain the city was on, he looked back at the guards they were closing fast on him, he looked once more over the edge of the ground and jumped off the structure. He was diving face first into the water, sharp rocks or not it was better than this.
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A/N
That raps up the sixth chapter I believe, hope you enjoyed it! (I'm an addict for cliffhangars for some reason.) :P
Revenge is Best Served Drowning.
Rilik hit the water hard and with a thud, he looked around his surroundings, stalactites were everywhere, they covered most of the area around him only giving reprieve in a select few spots.
"Holy shit I'm lucky I didn't get impaled on that stuff " As he thought looking around at the area a body smacked into the water, Rilik saw that one of the guard equine's had accidently impaled itself on. It was extremely hard for Rilick to swim, in his armor with the combined weight of the water in it, and add to that his hands were tied behind his back. he kicked towards the light and surfaced, he swam to shore, another pegasus smacked into the water this time being more fortuneate than the last.
Rilik stumbled onto land and saw the pegasus hot on his trail, he put his boot on the pegasus and shoved it face first back into the water, the pegasus tumbled into water , it tried to get up but it's face was forced back in by Riliks boot.
"This is what you get for locking me up you son of a bitch!" Rilik yelled in the drowning pegasus' face, the bubbles quickly stopped coming from the horse and it's body just floated. Rilik needed rest again,
"This is why they say not to go swimming in the armor, it weighs a fuck ton now!" He said aloud as walked off, he walked for what seemed like hours before being to exhausted to keep up the walking, he spotted a cabin in the distance, his mind didn't care if it belonged to any of those guard ponies, he would just deal with that later.
He approached the cabin, he noticed it was carved out of a ginormous tree, the door was open to the house, animals roamed free in it and swarmed throughout the house, a white rabbit ran up to Rilik and held up a paw.
"What the hell? He's protecting it? Well I've almost seen everything now, all that's left on that list is a giant dragon, hehe what's the possibility?" He chuckled as he kicked the rabbit away and entered the house. There was a couch in the house which he just kinda slumped on, and fell asleep.
He woke up and his arm's were on his stomach, "Wait how did this happen " He looked around the house for the person who did it, there was a tan equine with pink mane, it was feeding the animals, the rabbit didn't look to happy. The pony wandered over to him looking very scared.
"Here's your food mr. ape thing." The pony put a food bowl full of fruit and vegtables on the floor near the couch, "It didn't seem right that a rare thing like you should be chained, well I've never heard or seen you before so you must be a rare species." The equine said. Rilik had just remembered that he hadn't ate in day's, he wasn't to thrilled that he was considered an ape, he took one of the apples, he was happy they had a fruit he was alreayd familiar with, he lifted up his helmet and took a bite out of it, it tasted so sweet. He began to take more bites out of it until it was nothing but core, he put his helmet down and got up, the equine stepped back as he did.
"How did you get the chains off exactly" Rilik asked, stretching his limbs as he got up, the equines eyes shrunk to pinpoints and she backed up to an edge of the house.
"You! You... can talk?" The pony said as it shook in fear. There was a loud knocking on the door and it opened, another equine stepped in, it was a purple and had a horn, Rilik saw this as an oppurtunity to run and shoved the equine out of the way as he ran out of the house, the purple equine was shocked at what had run into her.
Rilik was running and wasn't gonna stop until he was clear of any and all pony like creatures. He cleared a gate and was going down an arranged path, he saw a village in the distance, "Best to avoid the lot of them " He thought as he stepped off the path and into the woods.
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A/N
Writers block for a little while is a bitch, this chapter might be a bit crappy as I'm working on the block and a possible new out of the loop story if it happens.
Rilik came upon a field of rolling hills, it was strangely familiar to him as he went throughout it's many hills and stumbled upon the place he never wished he had to return.
The battlefield, corpses still littered it's field and the crash sight was still there, he started off towards the abandoned ship for a look at what had become of everything whilst he was detained.
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"Boss, he's back." A voice echoed.
"I know they always come back, just depends on when." Said the deeper voice, the figure stood up, it's weapon in hand, energy pulsed throughout the bright weapon. The other figure held in it's hand a giant bulky weapon.
"Subject Koros is approaching the ship, command said they need him alive." Said the raspy voice. It started to climb the rest of the hill and began walk down to the ship.
"Captain, what was the ship's damage?" The lead figure said as they started descent down.
"Slipspace drive showed signs of an overload." The lead figure stopped and looked back at the second.
"But how is this still even here? The drive overload would have made a crater here and nothing else would even live here." The lead was getting rambunctious as they got closer to the ship and the man they were after, the second figure just shrugged.
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Rilik was looking over the ship as he heard, foot step's approach, he dived into the cockpit and searched the hidden cabinets for a gun, he found an antique six shooter, he smiled as he checked it over, he pulled out a whole box of bullets for it, he recalled one of his last conversations to Rob.
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They had just arrived in a pawn shop, they were both on a colony planet at the time, Rilik had saw the antique revolver in the shop's glass case.
"How much for the six shooter?" Rilik asked the pawn broker.
"I'll give you it for one-fifty." The broker said as he took it out of the glass case.
"Aww Ril, don't waste a hundred fifty on that piece of junk, it's older than the Empire State Buidling!" Rob said to his friend "Get a new magnum or something those are better!"
"Rob, I want a piece of history not a new shiny coat magnum, these are where the gun industry spawned and that's where I'm putting my money!" Rilik said as he pulled out the money required for the pistol.
"Does it work?" Rilik asked.
"As fine as it did the day it got off the line." The pawn broker said as he gripped the barrel.
"Alright you got yourself a deal." Rilik took the gun out of the man's hand and gave him the money.
"Hey! You can't waltz on out of here with that you need to fill out some paperwork and you'll get the gun." The broker said as he walked to a register. Rilik and Rob followed suit, they got out of the pawn shop and Rob started the conversation again.
"You really like that gun don't you?" He said as he began smoking.
"Yeah, this is the gun I want to go out using! Thats how you go out in style Rob, firing your six shots into six heads and then go out in a blaze of glory!" Rilik yelled as he twirled the gun around like an old west cowboy.
"You're an idiot you know? If I know you, you're gonna fire six shots into a crowd, hit no one, and then die from getting hit by a rock." Rob and Rilik chuckled at Rob's overwhelming friend speach.
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The world returned to Rilik as he remembered where he was, he drew the gun and held it straight aimed for the fool who tried to attack him, two figures appeared around the corner of the ship, they also held their guns ready to fire.
"Rilik Koros?" Came the voice of the lead figure.
"If I checked right I'm the only other human on this planet." Rilik said blankly at the new comers.
"Don't be a smartass, I'm Petty Officer Solcom a Spartan III, and I believe you've already met Captain Sparza." The spartan said.
"Sparza? How in hell did you make captain?!" Rilik asked the former private.
"Command promotes someone real fast when the squads senior officers ditch us and take a highly classified ship, one question, how did ya snatch it man?" Sparza asked.
"You'll be surprised what you can grab while you're the only one on guard duty." Rilik said lowering his gun.
"So not only did you steal it but you tried to blow it up? How come it failed" Solcom asked him.
"The natives are much more handy than I thought when I tried to blow them sky high." Rilik said as he looked back at the ship.
"We were sent to retrieve you from whatever planet you landed on, I'm amazed you didn't find the tracker in that ship, you're important, you know things you don't" The spartan told him.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean, I'm a fucking nutjob?" Rilik said.
"No just the spooks words, we don't know shit about you, well Sparza might and I don't. Point is you're valuable to the war for some reason, so was Rob apparently, and you steal a prototype ship and take it for a test drive out in nowhere and command really wants all there toy's back." The spartan said with a hint of annoyance in his voice.
"Hey Sol, we got incoming air bogeys, we startled the natives!" Sparza yelled as he fired a few rounds into the sky with what looked like a silenced smg. Rilik ran back to the ship again and took a satchel from another compartment. He put it in the pouch under his chest armor.
Many pegasi started to try and take shots at the three soldiers by trying to behead them with razor sharp wing fronts. Earth ponies emerged from the hills surrounding the ship, while unicorns had yet to make an appearance.
"It was an ambush! I shoulda known they'd be watching over this place!" Yelled Sparza as he fired another burst into the sky, the spartan used dual smgs and a hail of bullets into five charging earth ponies, they were all cut down in the storm of lead, Rilik fired a round into an eath pony and it's head burst off in gore, a pegasus charged him from the sky but was cut down as one of the massive revolver rounds tore of it's wing and back leg. Sparza fired a burst into the air again, a pegasus dropped but was quickly replaced as the new one grabbed Sparza's armor, Sparza had dropped his gun in the pick up and was dropped to the ground before he could do anything. Rilik saw the earth ponies kept taking shots at the spartan who was deemed the bigger threat in this battle, he fired the rest of the six shooters clip into the surrounding ponies, the spartan fired one hundred and twenty rounds into the surrounding ponies, his shield went down in the fray and the all the earth ponies had been mauled by the lead spewed from the guns, Rilik stowed the revolver in his chest pouch and walked over to the spartan, he was about halfway when bright lights flashed around the spartan and the two princesses appeared horns ready to impale him, his shields weren't up so they had clear shots.
"Not again," Rilik said as the spartan was impaled by the two sisters, he was twisted since they skwerred him in different directions. Riliks memory flooded with memories of Rob, everything repeated, he fell to the ground on all fours, he didn't want to watch what was going to happen next. He heard a scream and only the sound of hooves agaisnt dirt remained, he looked up to the thing above him, he knew what was next.
"We must demoralise them from ever coming back here! I vote we show his execution in the Canterlot square, everypony must come!" Cheers rose among the ponies.
2 days later....
"Ponies of Equestria! We have killed the aliens and to prevent further excursions from these beasts we shall execute this one in show of our dominance!" Rilik's hands were unbound, everyone was assured he could be no harm, they were wrong they neglected to check his chest pouch, he would have his vengeance. He was magically lifted by Princess Celestia.
"Enjoy your final moment's..." Came the words from Riliks mouth, he pulled out his revolver and shot two rounds into the princesses head, to make sure no reviving would be done he ran up to Luna, sidestepping a horn and put the gun to the equines head, and fired two rounds, the crowd watched in horror, they would be the center and finale of his life, dedication to vengeance. Four pins dropped to the ground and four circular objects rolled into the crowd, the ponies gathered round the objects, obvious mistake, gore erupted as the grenades blew up, sending chunks of blood and body parts all over, more grenades were chucked numbering a total of twelve, the crowd that didn't die or get wounded fled the assembly, the rest of them were either chunks of ponies or ponies with chunks missing from them. Rilik spun around and shot a guard pony in the face, another approached it's purple and gold armor shined in the daylight, Rilik was to slow and was impaled on it's massive horn, he gasped, blood spilled out of his mouth, the equine looked victorious if it had only remembered one thing, he had another round, Riliks gun fired into it's neck almost severing it's head from it's neck. He gripped the horn and kicked off the head of the equine, the horn came out, his wound bleeding more profusely, he tried to gasp for air, there was a light in his vision now.
"Rob, I did it for you man, Helljumpers and Hellbringers till the day we die." He said as his eyes closed and the light was the only thing he could see.
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There would be no memorial, no gravestone, no funeral, only piles of dirt near the spot where the ship crashed, the UNSC would have it covered up, labeling nothing happening and no operations taking place in the solar system, casualty reports never existed, the spartan and the ODST's were wiped from the records making it seem they never existed, all family photos and memories of the ODST's faded the spartans flash clone was enough for them to leave him alone other than his service records which were wiped, the prototype gladius was labeled as stolen by raiders. Equestria after that day was only savage and brutal land after that, each tribe competed for who would have the next rulers crowned, soon the world would burn as the covenant would approach it soon enough and glass it, seeing the ponies an affront to their religion. Their stories didn't die with them that day, as Rilik made a log, this log was sent back to earth in a pod, so I tell you dear reader, don't forget these brave men, don't let their stories die with them.
January, 31st, 2554
Ship Desgination: Broken Justice.
Time 1:56 A.M.
Over Previously Glassed New Mombasa.
A door slid open to a pitch black room, a silhouetted figure entered, the light being forced out as the door closed again, the figure puffed some grey smoke as it walked to the center of the room, the silhouette reached out and grabbed a hidden chair, it sat in it and rolled forward. It came to an abrupt halt as it hit a desk, the figure inhaled more of the cigarette and exhaled more smoke, it took the cigarette from it's mouth and put it out in an ashtray. It's hand slid forward and hit some buttons on a lone keyboard, an orange light illuminated the room and the silhouette as a holo-screen came up out of nowhere. The man rubbed his thin beard as he searched through tabs, he glanced at titles, Operation: Red.... Operation Upper... He came across a blinking tab and instinctively clicked on it, he looked at the title. Operation Retrieval.
The computer had taken him to a squad listing, he looked through the squads, all of them have a word in red written beside them, DECEASED. He came across a blinking squad, Squad Epsilon, he looked through it's summary, ODST Squad, used for Recon mission and extraction mission during the Covenant assualt on Reach, Sergeant Koros and Lieutenant Johnson deserted after surviving the assault on a prototype Sabre class fighter. (5/6) Members confirmed KIA or discharged from duty to early for results.
"There's one left? Thought we lost them all on Reach? Must be a bug or something." The man said to himself as he looked at the squads roster. Captain Sparza: NO FILES ON SUBJECT. Private Mickolovitch: DECEASED, Private Alexander: HONORFULLY DISCHARGED AFTER INJURY ON REACH. Private Bradley: DECEASED. Lieutenant Johnson: NO FILES ON SUBJECT. Sergeant Koros: PROTOTYPE ARMOR HAS WORKED, SUBJECT ACTIVE. HEALING PROCESS STARTED IN 2552.
"Shit, shit, shit, gotta get something. " He thought as he began typing furiously on the keyboard, he found a private networked chatroom for the admirals, he logged onto it.
"User Name: Karoc-1, Password *************." Popped up on the computer screen as he typed, he contacted one of the admirals, he needed a ship or anything.
2:10 Karoc-1 has joined the chatroom, server is now half full.
2:15 Karoc-1: Come on, come on!
2:36 Eronus has joined the chatroom, server is now full.
2:37 Eronus: Alright what do you want Karoc?
2:38 Karoc-1: I need a ship or two, one of the old operations have come up good.
2:40 Eronus: Which one came up?
2:41 Karoc-1: It's a real old one, Retrieval.
2:42 Eronus: Karoc that project is one of the oldest and we all know it was a failure, the suits never worked since the Covenant tore our men apart. Plus I just don't know if I could give you a ship we have all our ships hunting down the remaining loyalist Covenant forces. I know that was your own project but if I would be only able to give you possibly the Broken Justice.
2:44 Karoc-1: Alright, we may be out of contact for awhile, the place we are going to is far out. We have one lead, one worked, although it took two years for the subject to heal properly in cryo stasis.
2:45 Eronus: What? How do you know the subject is still alive then? Maybe it's a bug. I'm putting alot of faith into your right now Karoc, ONI intel better be right or I'm taking the ship back and you're gonna be on cleaning duty.
2:46 Karoc-1: Alright admiral, I'll have your ship back within a few months.
2:47 Karoc-1 has logged out of the chat room, the server is now half full.
2:48 Eronus: He'd better not damage that frigate.
2:50 Eronus has logged out of chatroom, closing encrypted server.
Karoc pressed a few buttons on the keyboard and opened a communication line to the bridge of the ship. "Alright Captain Terok take us to these coordinates and make it fast, don't wanna keep the subject waiting now do we?" His voice said as the captain started to give orders.
The ship entered slipspace and Karoc sat in the orange illuminated room smiling, he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a glass, he poured the whiskey and set the bottle back down, he took slow drinks from the glass and couldn't help but smile since his project had a breakthrough.
"Alright Subject Koros here we come. You're going to be our number one subject now." He said as he drank the whiskey slowly, he shutdown the computer leaving the room in the dark again. He just sat there thinking in the dark, contemplating what he would do when the subject was in custody, "The project never got this far, so what exactly happens now? " He gave a shrug to himself as he thought.
Two Days Later....
The ship lurched out of slipspace and floated in orbit over the planet it had been told to go to, the captain looked at previously known images of the planet from the fleet that cleared it awhile back, he noticed that no one bothered naming it since it was so far out in Covenant territory. He looked at the images, green hills, great lakes and oceans and forests everywhere, the planet before him looked nothing like the paradise it had been in the pictures, the once green hills were now a grey-green color and the oceans were not the blue they had been but a murky black color now dominated it's hue. He opened a comm to his "high value " passenger's room.
"Whatever you think is here you're probably wrong, the planet was glassed it seems." Terok said as he studied the hell once more, on one side of the planet is was a complete desert covered in night, on the other were the gray hills, this one was on the bright side of the planet, he noticed something odd about thing planet again, it wasn't rotating, it seemed as though it was just sitting still, the sun forever staying on the one side of the planet and the moon staying on the other.
"Captain no need to be negative, whatever is down there that is sending the signal has to be alive, I just know it!" A voice crackled to life on the intercom in the bridge. "Just send a pelican with some marines and have them go to the coordinates the signal was sent from." The intercom static died as the voice on the other end hung up.
The captain opened another com line and his voice came out in a bunk room with five marines in it, "Rodriguez, I need your squad to be on a pelican in five, hurry."
"You heard the captain, Filmore, Ross hurry up and get your stuff, Slanko and Chung stop chatting and get your gear." Rodriguez said as he prepared his equipment, checking his MA5 Assualt Rifle, and Magnum Pistol, the other marines checked their own rifles and pistols, Slanko checked his favorite rocket launcher, Rodriguez never understood what was so special about it.
"Slanko why don't you trade in that old M19 for a newer model man, that's the oldest piece of tech on this ship." Rodriguez said as he nonchalantly waved his assault rifle around at the surrounding walls. "Ever since this thing took a bad hit by one of those covie ships they patched everything up and made it brand-spanking new! So ditch that thing and get one of the M41's, you're making the ship look bad."
Slanko shook his head and started to explain, "Come on man Rusty's a classic! That and the thing has gotten me out of alot of tight situations before, it's my lucky charm! I can't just throw it away or trade it to some military armory guy, that's bad luck right there my friend." Slanko said as he patted the rusted and old rocket launcher.
The five of them finished readying their equipment and marched off into a hallway, navigating their way through the ship they entered the hangar, there was a pelican, a Vulture and five hornets inside the humongous open hangar, the five approached the pelican and the drop bay door opened on it, Slanko and Ross on one side and Rodriguez, Filmore, and Chung on the other.
"Alright guys hold on and wait, we'll be there in around 20 minutes." the pilot said as the pelican rocketed out of the hangar, the ride was very quiet, the pilot was flying towards the signal when he noticed a giant blip on his radar.
"Uhh. Hey Justice? I've got a giant contact on the radar and I don't know what it is. Should we have a course correction or do we take our chances and just go forward?" the pilot radioed over as he stopped the pelican in mid-air, allowing it to just float.
"Affirmative Thunderbird, rerouting your course now, we'll send a scouting party later to the contact, over." the command correspondant replied, a new route appeared on the display screen in front of the pilot seat, the pelican started off again, the pilot took a long turn around the contact and proceeded towards the beacon.
A Few Minutes Later....
The pelican touched the gray plains below it with it's landing gear, the drop bay door opened and the five marines hopped out, the pilot shut down the pelican just to avoid unneeded attention. The five marines saw a torn ship just yards away, they saw piles of dirt and rocks over some odd shapes in the dirt, the surrounding scenery consisted of the ship, and just grass dotting the surface around them.
"Wait are we gonna dig those up with our hands?" Slanko said a bit of shock in his voice.
"No we got a shovel in the pelican, but since you so graciously volunteered I guess you're digging them up with the shovel." Rodriguez humored but serious at the same time, Slanko marched off to the pelican, sighing as he went, Chung and Filmore marched off to the ship remains in the distance, Slanko came back and started to dig up one of the four piles of dirt.
"So if this guy is even here, wouldn't he have suffocated in a grave? I mean seriously?" Slanko complained.
"Well this guy says that he's in a cryo suit, say's you don't breathe alot of air when you're in cryo, so he's probably still alive, and if he's not well then we can go back to the ship and have the rest of the day off." Ross muttered as he looked through a data package that held the info on the mission. Slanko hit something hard with his shovel and cleared off the dirt of whatever it was, a coffin, they opened it up.
"Oh god! Get me outta here!" Slanko cried as he jumped out of the hole, the insides of the coffin were grotesque, it was two halves of an ODST just put right next to each other, blood still stained the coffin.
"Who is that? Intel say's there just supposed to be one guy and the description doesn't match. Slanko dig up the other coffins quick, something's not right, if there are others, well lets just hope there arn't more in this ones condition." Rodriguez said as he frowned at the site before him. Slanko dug up the other coffins relatively quickly, they waited until all three of the other coffins were unburied. Chung and Filmore came back from there investigation of the wrecked ship.
"Ship shows signs off being searched." Chung said bluntly as he looked at the coffins before the squad.
"Alright lets open them one by one." Rodriguez ordered as he motioned for Slanko to open the first one. Slanko sighing as he realized he had to open them to. The first one was another ODST, he didnt match the description of the man they were sent to find, they opened the third one, a spartan was inside, he was in similar shape to the first one, cut in half. The squad was astonished that whatever did this could kill two ODST's and also a SPARTAN.
"Man whatever happened I don't think we need to be apart of it, this is deep shit, ONI SHIT!" Slanko yelled as he freaked out. They braced themselves for whatever horror lay inside the last coffin, Slanko opened it and all eyes focused on the space in it, all the marines eyes went wide as they just stared into it.
"Now, I wasn't expecting that..." Rodriguez mumbled as they couldn't stop speculating what had happened with this one. All that was in the coffin was, simply, nothing. It was empty.
A/N
So big question for my readers, Sequel or not?
An Unknown amount of time earlier...
Rilik's eyes opened as he came back into reality, he couldn't believe it, he gripped his chest as he felt for the wound that had killed him. There was a deep hole but it was covered up by a piece of armor, his vision was foggy and it wouldn't go away, he felt around him and found out he was incased in a box or something, he tried pushing on the board above him but his arms felt like they were just dead weight on him, he tried again at pushing the top board incasing him, the board moved and dirt fell in, the ODST fought his way out of the burial of dirt and saw light poke through the places the dirt hadn't covered.
He positioned himself out of the casket and closed the door again, he still had the dirt covering him to deal with, he tried to force it all off and was provied with success as he was in daylight now, he recognized the scenery around him almost immediately, he looked around and saw the remains of the ship not to far away, he got up from his previous grave and tried walking. His legs gave out almost immediately as he tried walking, he tried again, only to be rewarded with the same failure.
"What the hell? Why are my legs fucking to weak to support my weight?" Rilik cursed at himself while trying to walk. After multiple failures his legs were finally able to support him, he wobbled over to the ship remains, he lifted up his helmet and rubbed his eyes clearing the foggyness that had remained. His legs felt a little better after using them and he was walking normal other than a slight stumble every now and then, he climbed up the remains of the ship and searched around the compartments.
He found a the barrel of a gun in a hidden compartment, there was a note in the end of it, he snatched it and opened it up, the hand writing was unmistakably that of his dead friends.
"Rilik, in the ship's compartments is a hidden sniper rifle that is disassembled if you find it all and it's yours buddy.
From, Rob"
"That motherfucker hid a sniper from me all the time, gotta give him props for it though. Even in death he helps me." Rilik muttered as he searched more of the compartments. He found the receiver, and the stock but no ammo to it, he felt around the cockpit for more compartments, he found one right under where Rob's feet would have been. He opened it, he found a bag in it, he lifted it up and it was quite heavy for looking so small, Rilik opened it up and he grew a smile under his helmet, not only was their lots of ammo for the sniper but there was a weird looking pistol with two more clips to it, and there was last but not least, eight rectangles of pure C4.
"Damnit man how, did you sneak this past me." Rilik whispered to himself as he inspected the pistol and it's magazine, it seemed to be one of the ODST silenced pistols modified to use major tranquilizer rounds, he put in on his side holster and then began to run through the weapons he had.
"Tranquilizer, check, sniper rifle, check, C4 check, wait didn't I have my revolver? " Rilik thought as he started to search the many pouches of the armor, he found it in his chest pouch, it's barrel had been broke off a little bit but was not beyond being unable to fire. It held no bullets within it's chamber so Rilik opened a compartment that he had stashed the reserve ammo for it before the massacre. He grabbed as much ammo as he could and put them into the handy speed reloaders he had in the ship.
Rilik proceeded to climb down the ship and took one last look at it, he noticed it had become decayed and badly rusted over whatever amount of time he was gone, he didn't want to look at it again but decided not to blow it up.
"Just in case I ever need to find here this'll be the landmark." he said then patted the rusted ships hull one last time. He set off in the direction of the town he saw when he had escaped that nice equines house.
"What am I doing here? What am I going to do? Haven't I done my part already... " Rilik couldn't help but think as he walked.
He soon came across the town and took the sniper rifle off his back, he studied the sky to figure out what time of day it was, the sun was high in the sky, he spotted the town in the distance and set up on a high up hill.
Through his scope he could see the town, it was wrecked but for the most part it seemed as though the equines still used it, the buildings were partially destroyed but ponies still used them like nothing had happened. They all seemed oblivious to the fact that their town had been destroyed, he spotted the ponies putting up multiple decorations and furnishings going throughout the buildings.
"Just what are you planning now you stupid equines." Rilik muttered, he zoomed in on a particular sign hanging on two street posts, it read "Welcome Prince Helios!" Rilik thought for a moment and decided to investigate further into this new prince. He despised these things, he had killed it's previous rulers, his vengeance brought upon the world before, but he didn't believe in second chances, this society was condemned to death no matter what. He spotted sort of plaque in the middle of the town and a few of the ponies gathering around it, they were all crying there eyes out as far as he could tell with the scope.
He zoomed out of the village and got up from his position on the hill, he started the long walk towards it, being careful not be spotted in the light, he looked up to the sun to see if it was going to be dark soon, he noticed it was in the same position as the last time he looked at it.
"How is that even possible? It's at least been an hour." Rilik said to himself as he strolled down the hillside. He came upon the town shortly after, he hid in the shadows of alleyways which were few and very tight squeezes.
He came up on a house, it was dark inside and no one seemed to be their, he slipped into the house and went up to the attic of it, he found a convenient window up in it and the whole attic was shrouded in darkness, he had a good view of the center of town and the way in that had the welcome sign on it.
He found some boxes in the attic and put them in front of the window, he set up tghe sniper on the boxes and zoomed in on the plaque, the amount of zooming allowed him to read it word by word, it read:
"To the families of Ponyville that lost ones in the alien attack on Canterlot and the beams of light that killed so many ponies. We put this here to comemerate the loss of those ponys and to give our sympathy to Ponyville residents, the horrendous acts of these alien species is unforgetable and is a very dark spot in our history, we want you all to know that the acts of the aliens shall be remembered as the worst terrorist attack in our history."
"Lies! None of that is true, you attacked us first! It was self defense, you bastards just attacked us. My acts were as justified as ever, you killed Rob senselessly." he yelled in anger. He zoomed in on some of the ponies crowding the center of town and saw they were all focusing on the horizon, he moved his sights and saw the object they were all staring at, a flying chariot was coming towards the town, it was being carried by two pegasi ponies that were plated in gold.
Rilik put in a magazine for the sniper and loaded it, he saw it's passenger in all his glory, waving and smiling to smaller equines below, the yellow and red equine was truly a sight, his mane a glowing red, orange, yellow color that kept shifting colors.
"Well this was never gonna be easy." Rilik said contemplating what he would do, he set his sights on one of the guard ponies and just watched them descend.
Rilik heard a door open and quietly got off his sniper perch and grabbed the tranquilizer pistol from his side holster, he took slow steps towards the stairs and heard voices start talking on the lower floor, he cursed at himself quielty for not being prepared if someone did in fact live here.
"Haven't you noticed that it seems like Twilight and Rainbow Dash are going out?" said a female voice.
"What are you talking about it? It's more like Twilight and Applejack, and Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy!" said another voice. Rilik mentally facepalmed at the gossip.
"I end up in the house of two gossiping school girls. Fuck me, this is why I never liked these urban covert ops missions. " Rilik thought as he readied his tranquilizer pistol.
"Wait does that mean Rarity and Pinkie Pie are going out?" said the first voice.
"Probably Colgate." said the second.
"Well don'tcha think it's weird that they all turned out to be dating each other Cherilee?" the voice now known as Coilgate said.
"Well I heard it from Applebloom who heard it from Derpy Hooves and she heard it from Scootaloo." Cherilee said.
"Your their teacher and you believe it?" Colgate asked.
"Well it does sound pretty farfetched to me but Scootaloo seemed pretty sure of herself on it." Cherilee said.
"Oh the prince is coming over here maybe he'll see our new store!" Colgate yelled in excitement.
"Prince Helios! Prince! Come see our new store." Cherilee boomed over the crowds outside.
"Looks like it my lucky day. " Rilik thought as he smiled waiting for his chance to 'talk' to this new prince.
"Guards wait outside I'm sure that these two lovely women wouldn't want to hurt me." Helios said, his posh voice clearly different than the Ponyville residents.
"It's a bit empty and dark in here isn't it ladies?" the prince asked.
"Oh it's because we just got started and we have all the supplies and furnishings coming tommorow! It's so nice to meet you Prince Helios!" Colgate yelled in glee.
"Oh it's quite alright my ponies, but what is this store going to be selling exactly?" Prince Helios questioned.
"Well we're gonna be sel--" Cherilee said but was cut off as Rilik jumped out of the attic and shot the two gossiping ponies with the tranquilizer darts, they fell to the ground instantly with the effects of the paralysis and sleep poison mixed in. The prince tried using his magic to throw Rilik of course but was struck on the horn very hard with the but of the pistol.
A shattering noise occured and Rilik smiled as he saw that the prince equines horn had been broken off by the force of the attack, the guard ponies emerged from the doorway and were shot with two tranquilizers and immediately fell prey to their effects. The prince tried bucking Rilik but had no success as he dodged it and hel the prince by the neck.
"Your gonna listen to me right now, your gonna do me some favors or your name is going to be on an obituary. Now I want transportation, and your going to change that plaque out their and all like it to say you ponies killed my friend first so what happened to you and your people is your own god damn fault. Your planet being glassed was just deserved I suppose since your a bunch of xenphobes." Rilik cursed in the prince's ear.
"Why do you do this to my people foul beast? We have not done anything to you! Your kind has cost my ponies enough pain, I don't need you and Khons terrizing my people!" The prince shouted, more guards converging on the building.
"If you don't tell your boys in armor to stay back you'll be having a shorter life than your last rulers." Rilik whispered in his ear. With that Helios eyes went wide and started to panic a little, he didn't know what was going to happen to him and what the alien had planned, he could only hope that it was just something that hurt Khons and not him and his citizens.
Rilik held the prince in a choke hold, the so called "divine power" of this world quivering in fear. Rilik stood there he had no idea what to do, Helios hadn't spoke for some time and the guards were on the ground snoring along with the two mares he had tranquilized.
"Look if you let me go, I... I can do that and I know Prince Khons has alot of the extreme teleportation method books, he could get you back to where ever you came from!" Helios lied through his teeth. Rilik stood motionlessly holding the prince, the silence of the room was suddenly interrupted by a gathering crowd outside the store.
"Tell them to get back or I blow everything here, including you and me to hell." Rilik hissed into the princes ear. The prince stood there for a minute, his expression blank and frozen in place. He stumbled forward out of Riliks grasp and opened the door with his magic, he put on a fake smile for the crowd and started to talk.
"Residents of Ponyville! Do not be alarmed by the events happening right now, this is a mere trial run for any kind of... uhh... hostage taking events that might ever happen and... decided it would be best to try it here in the wonderous neighborhood of Ponyville, now if you all would be so courteous to be on with your day and leave us to our quaint tasks I would be very thankful." The prince announced in front of the ponies. Rilik had decided it would be best to duck down and hide for the best on not being seen was probably the brightest thing to do, during the speech he had snuck upstairs and grabbed his sniper while the speech was going on, he got the sniper off it's post and proceeded back down, shooting one more tranquilizer in each of the unconcious ponies incase they woke up early. The ponies cleared out of the front of the house with a slight mumble of conversation here and there, Helios turned around, his calm face had turned once again shaky and fearful, Rilik couldn't help but chuckle in spite of the so called crown ruler of Equestria now reduced to lying and shaking.
"Alright just stand over there and I'll teleport you within walking distance of Khons palace, he should be waiting for you to arrive and then he will send you home." Helios said, his lies were obvious to Rilik but he had to take this chance.
"If he can do it why can't you?" Rilik said, raising an eyebrow under his helmet.
"Well... well he's just uhh.... a better prince in some aspects of being an alicorn than me..." He mumbled while staring at the ground.
"Alright just do it then or your dead." Rilik stated coldly as Helios' horn lit up and started to eminate everywhere around the ODST. Helios took a step back as an orb projected from the shattered remains of his horn onto Rilik, his vision faded into white and he suddenly found himself in the middle of blackness.
He lifted his helmet off his face and ran his fingers through his hair, he sighed, he hadn't had a proper shower in ages and his hair and beard were greasy. He rubbed his eyes and found that the blinding light had impaired his vision for this place, it was considerably much darker than his previous surroundings, he saw the glint of a sparkling object nearby.
He walked towards the light, he heard a distinct sound of splashing as his foot hit the ground again. He rolled sideways to just be submerged in more water, he found the water cool against his war torn face, he put his head into the water and began to run his gloved fingers through his hair, he felt the sniper start to impair his ability to bend so he stood up straight abd unslung it from his back. He dunked his head back down in the water and tried his best to wash his brown hair and beard. He got up and looked in the reflection, his once short beard had grown quite a bit and and his buzz cut hair had grown down to his eyebrows, the dark brown of it now black because of the water, he felt disgusted by himself, he was once a proud military soldier of his world, now just some filthy man wearing the armor of a once great man who served his world, now reduced to killing equines in name of revenge that was already dealt with.
He got up and picked up his sniper and slung it on his back, he clipped his helmet to his waist and started walking to a now noticeable light in the distance, he didn't like the fact that what he did was all for naught and was pointless.
"All of this is pointless, why am I even here? Rob is dead, the whole UNSC is probably nothing but ash by now and I can't even get a damn break and see if any of my family are alive. " Rilik thought while trudging his way through the water and onto the land, his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw the light coming from a series of hills, more hills, his hatred for this land formations haunted him, they reminded him of his first encounter with this place and it's previous rulers. Rilik shrugged his anger off and just tried to forget.
As Rilik plummeted towards the watery grave below time itself seemed to slow down, glimpses of the past had gone through his eyes, childhood on Harvest, the bully's picking on him as he walked to the bus, another got in his way and shoved him to the ground, as Rilik stood he sucker punched one in the jaw. The other caught unaware of the attack was kicked severly in the groin, as he fell the little Rilik picked up his stuff and jogged off to the buses.
Another flash back, meeting his to be wife at a local store when he was a teenager. She was gorgeous, brunette hair, brown eyes and a nice thin body, he couldn't help but stare as she walked past, she glanced back at him with a small smile on her face. He stumbled as he came back into the reality of the store as his mom shook him.
Rilik came back to the day of his proposal to her, her name was Olivia and they had been going out for two years and he had finally racked up enough courage to ask. Seeing himself propose again made Rilik felt awkward, he felt as though he stumbled on the words a few times.
The wedding day was next to come in his series of flash back, he was nervous and his friends were there in the best man section, she walked up the aisle her dress was magnificent, his jaw had dropped as she entered. The priest had started to say the lines but Rilik didn't hear anything until it was time for the vows, he said his vows and so did she. Even though they had dated for a long amount of time he still felt the same nervousness as the day he first saw her, as they started to kiss the flash back ended a new scene of memories took center stage.
Boot camp. He had joined a little over a month after he had been married, local insurgents had been causing trouble and Rilik thought it was his time to do something. When he had first entered he thought it would be smooth sailing. He was wrong. As the boot camp trainers pushed Rilik he had overcome most of the challenges thrown his way, now he was in the main office, with the boss of the camp. He had been upgraded from marine to ODST, all the trainers had suggested him to the CO and the request was approved, he was set to go aboard the Broken Justice in orbit in a few weeks to train with the other ODST's.
Rob. He had met Rob aboard the Broken Justice when he arrived, Rob was a green horn as well and a strict by the book at the time, he never differed from the set of rules for ODST's. Rilik himself was assigned to his assigned to be the sergeant of the fireteam, his team was there, Rob busy reading the manual, Alex sitting quietly in a corner, and the others chatting amongst themselves. He remembered in his mind how long it took to get this team functional and ready, Rob becoming less of a stickler and relaxing, them becoming almost brothers. The memory ended as it predecessors did with a flash of white light and onto the next.
Combat. As Rilik geared up to drop they were above Harvest, aliens had attacked the planet, the UNSC was being deployed in mass. They were set to drop in five minutes, Rilik and the squad was angry as most of them were drawn from the Harvest ranks with the exception of Sparza, he had come from a nearby planet which Rilik hadn't the slightest clue of the pronunciation of it. They were in their pods and strapped in as a count down sounded off, as the pods lurched out of the ship, he saw the swarm of pods following them and the covenant ships below firing their tremendous beams onto the planets surface. The squad had been deployed behind enemy lines, it was an area which Rilik was all to familiar. His home.
Coming back was hard to see as he entered the remains of his family were strewn across the house, plasma burns covered them and stab wounds coming from his parents midsection, he would have to get in touch with Olivia and see if she was okay, seeing as their home was situated far away from his parents. There laying next to his parents body was an alien corpse, it's reptilian face repulsing and the mandibles of it horrifying, next to it lay a pommel of some sort. Picking it up Rilik felt a switch on it and pressed, the pommel had dispersed energy from it in the shape of a double point sword. He pressed the switch again and put it on his side, his thoughts at the time were coursing with the thought of vengeance. He stepped out of the building unslinging his MA5 rifle and proceeded to search the buildings for any of the aliens.
Reach, Rilik had barely aged to his thirty's by then, he and his team had been forzen in cryo for several years, coming out of each time they had cursed command and the cryo bastards for forgetting them. This would be his last time serving for the UNSC as he would be horrified and angry with the war and how much pain it brought. His wife had been fine, she had.. remarried, Rilik had a biological daughter he never knew about until his deployment to Reach, she had thought him dead as he was never able to call or write, strict UNSC protocol that he never understood, only applied for the crew of the Justice. He knew because someone had given him a message that had been reluctantly been given to him by command. He had felt betrayed and for that he didn't go back to her when he deserted.
As he came back to the fall he hadn't moved far, he could see the mocking face of Helios peering over the side of the cliff, Rilik wouldn't go down in a wimper of weakness, he did something that was going to be impossible.
Karoc sat patiently at his desk as a blip came up upon his screen, the same one that had come up when they had first discerned the presence of a last subject. It was an emergency beacon from the subjects helmet, this was trouble. He was quick to dispatch the services of the marines to the location.
"I need you there now sergeant!" Karoc had yelled into the radio.
"Calm down we're on route, just wait and we'll tell you what we find!" replied the sergeant.
---20 minutes later ---
"Uh captain, that major blip on the radar is a massive cloud, wait, it's filled with pegasi? And the architecture is that of the old Romans and Greeks! What should we do?" radioed the pilot of Thunderbird 1-2.
"Mac blast it now! Drop into orbit if we must! If these things can do what the marines have described to a spartan and some ODST's I'm sure as hell not taking a chance about them not having anti air capabilities!" the captain yelled as the ship shook as the MAC blast launched from it's massive cannon. A few minutes later the radio crackled to life as the pilot of Thunderbird began to talk.
"Target eliminated, returning to the Justice Thunderbird out." the pilot responded as the friendly icon in the map moved back towards the ship.
"Alright captain this is Thunderbird 1-1 we have arrived at the target location, it is the remnants of a village with a torn foundation at the edge of a cliff. Locater suggest the target is near or in the water, will scan the side wall for any signs." said the voice of the pilot as Karoc listened in his quarters.
As the pelican scanned the side of the wall with the marines checking in back Rodriguez saw something, "Hey someone give me a hand I think I see something!" he yelled as Ross and Chung made a link with the sergeant. He saw the helmet of an ODSt on a branch of the rock wall he grabbed it and checked the contents of it. A picture, the memory card for the ODST's video recorder sat inside the helmet. Rodriguez plucked out the picture as three faces on it immediately greeted him, a little girl and her parents. Was this the ODST and his/her family ? he thought as he also took out the memory card. Only time would tell when they watched this and the records of the ODST, whoever he or she was. He threw the helmet over into the water, leaving only the two important items in his hands.
---1 hour later, aboard the Broken Justice ---
Karoc had waited long enough for this oppurtunity and rushed to the flight deck as the marine group had plugged in the memory unit and a grizzled man had appeared before them, his face was devoid of emotion and scars and a scruf beard were also on his face. He look at the camera as the flashlight of it brought a creepy illumination to him. The darkness surrounding him was barely penetrated by the flashlight.
"Now see here, if anyone is to find this, I am dead in the most likely case but I just need to say two things before I do what I am about to do. One, this place is not for us, I have seen the inhabitants rip apart us, may they fall before is in hails of bullets but their ways of killing, is brutal. Do. Not. Come. Here. Two, the photo you have in there, I recently recognized as my ex-wife, at the time I never realized it but it's true. I saw my own daughter die and I wasn't able to save her." the man on the video had his voice cracking now, "I didn't even know she was my daughter at the time but my wifes face eventually came back to me. This is Rilik Koros of the 56th shock troops signing off for good."
The image cut to the sky and the shadow of the cliff hanging over the person wearing the helmet, heavy breathing residuated throughout the speakers and a sniper was pulled into vision, the sniper was aimed at an orange and red equine gazing down on top of the cliff, as the ODST took aim the picture which held the ex-wife and daughter flew out and snagged itself on the front of the scope, the helmet was dislodged from the head and the picture grabbed from the scope, as the figure plummeted he threw the helmet and it snagged on the branch it had, luckily the picture or memory unit had fallen out judging from the angle it hooked on. The helmet tilted down and watched it's bearer plummet to the watery depths beneath, a loud splash and water fountain obscured the view of the soldier, a green light coming from the water and then quickly fading as it did, the recorder maltfunctioning almost immediately after.
Revolt! Revolt my Brothers!
Rilik came upon the source of the light as he came upon the last hill, the city in the distance was dark, only illuminated by the bright glow of torches. He moved down the hill and heard a crack of thunder, it was soon joined by the flash of lightning and the sudden downpour of rain.
"How odd, where did this come from? " He thought while he continued towards the town, he came down onto the flat plateau of the land and heard the crash of waves against rock. He had figured this place was on the edge of the cliff, just waiting for the castle to come crashing down.
"How cliche... Rob if you could see this I know you'd be making so many damn old movie references." He chuckled to himself as he walked towards the castle. He sat down on grass and scoped out the town walls with the sniper, they were heavily fortified, guard stations only giving reprieve in a 10 foot gap between them. He noticed the guards moving out of their stations and going down what he guessed to be stairs in the castle.
He unzoomed from the scope and began to stand up, he jogged towards the wall, holding the sniper rifle in his arms. He found bricks out of place and began to climb the mishapen wall, he hears a rustling and climbs faster and pokes his head over the top of the wall and sees a guard arriving.
It was not like the ones he had seen before, it was a dark blue and bat-like wings and it's armor was also a dark black. Once the guard had passed he set foot on the top of the wall, he quickly launched himself over the other side, into the city. He liked this part of the city, barely any visible light for him to be seen in and plenty of alleyways and dakr spots for him to blend in with.
He took a right and head down an alleyway, it was empty but he activated his visor nonetheless, it outlined most of the alley and objects in it. His helmet had static everywhere in his vision, he smacked it once and the static went away, he continued down the alley.
He heard voices as he neared the end of the alley, then a loud central voice became dominant among the others.
"Brothers, Sisters! We must unite and over throw the shackles of the dark-one! He has done nothing but bring upon us war and famine, we need the sun to grow our food! Not the moonlight he so adores!" The voice shouted. Rilik came upon the end of the alley and took cover against the wall and poked his head out, he saw a pegasus preaching to a large crowd that had drawn near. He was inciting revolt amongst the peasants, most of them were wearing straw hats and had pitchforks and farming equipment as weapons.
"If we are to thrive we must over throw him and take back our right to have the sun's rays on our crops! He says the moonlight is the thing that sprouts terror in the hearts of our enemies but all they do is laugh at us with their full stomachs and march on our castles unhindered by the guards to weary and weak to fight back! Our brethren in the other castles are also planning to have their alicorn prince give up the sun and be graced by the moon for sleep! We will have a new age dawn on us full of warmth and brotherhood with our families and friends in the west!" He rejoiced as the crowd started to cheer with him and raised their pitchforks in their hooves.
"Perfect I can just follow the mob until they get to the castle. " Rilik thought as a smirk grew under his helmet.
The riot started and guards stood in the street, prepared to fend them off, to only get run over by the angry civilians. The guards converged on the riot with a double effort forming a barricade at the end of the street. The civilians clashed with the guards and Rilik ran amongst the alleys, remaining hidden from anyone who was there, the civilians numbers were strong and they seemed to be winning as the guards were pushed back by the never ending crowd.
As the crowd moved on from the former barricade and toward the castle Rilik took notice of the gruesome scene, guards had picthforks stabbed into them and other various farm tools; the rioters bodies also littered the streets but in greater numbers, spears and sword weapons portruded from the bodies.
Rilik moved behind the crowd at a distance and observed as they made their way towards the castle of the prince of the night. He moved along the shadows as the mob closed in to the castle gates, he saw them lynch a few guards and winced at the horrendous brutality of the equines.
He saw the gates being forced open by the mobs and the ponies starts to flood in like a wave, he moved behind it and snuck into the castle courtyard. He continued to the edge of the cliff, the castle was actually off the cliff and supported by wooden stilts on a narrow ledge of the cliff.
"Well they made my job of screwing them over easier. " Rilik thought as he climbed down the rock cliff. He put his foot down on the ledge and began to sidestep towards the stilts. He slowly pulled off his bag and opened it, he snatched out a detonater and 3 blocks of C4, he armed and planted them on the stilts and moved back to the cliff side.
As he approached the cliff he heard rapid hooves against rock and voices getting closer, "Run everyone, their coming, theirs to many for us to fight!"
"We can still try Thunder Clap! We left people behind in their!" Another vocie said as Rilik peaked above the cliff. He saw the rebel equines running in fear and their numbers dwindled since the last time. He saw a grey one with dark blue mane pulling on a black one with a yellow mane, he felt almost felt sorry for these things, almost.
Rilik watched as two flying guards descended on the couple and killed them like animals, the guards' daggers sticking out of the other equines bodies, the guards started to drag the bodies towards the cliff side. Rilik pulled his tranquilizer pistol out and readied for the moment.
The guards tossed the bodies over the edge and chuckled to themselves as Rilik aimed at their throats, he shot twice and they fell to the ground unconcious. He pulled himself over the cliff side and dragged the guards bodies over to the decline, he threw one of and watched as it plummeted towards the water below with a wet smack. He stared and the second body and dragged it to a cliff side that held sharp rocks under it, he threw it over and walked away from the side and heard a smack. He slowly strided to the castle doors and found the prince just behind them, Rilik took note of the equines with paper, pens and scrolls around him, Rilik stopped and gazed at the prince until the royal bastard started to charge him.
"I've seen this before... " Rilik thought as he sidestepped the prince and fired the rest of his tranquilizers magazine into him. The prince tripped as he fell into the effects of the tranquilizer fluid, Rilik dragged the body into the castle stared at the rest of the equines who were cowaring in fear.
"Round everybody or else you all die." He stated coldly as he pointed his tranq towards the paper carrying posse. They said nothing as they ran off into corridors of the castle, Rilik dragging the prince's body by the horn, he made his way into the central atrium of the castle and sat in the throne, the prince's body casually left on the floor.
After a few minutes the equines returned, guards were nowhere and fancy ponies and maids sat in the middle of the atrium. Rilik stood up and looked at the princes body and remembered the revolt and how it ended.
"They call the rich and powerful nobles, but there isn't anything noble about them at all. " He thought as he turned his gaze back towards the crowd of equines.
"What is the meaning of this you monstrosity?" An equine had yelled, it was dressed in a fancy tuxedo shirt.
"Who here is a worker, raise your hand..." Rilik asked, his voice icy. No one raised their hooves or moved.
"I said WHO!?" Rilik bellowed as the crowd visibly winced at the outburst, a few raised their hooves, all of them in rags or dirty.
"Leave.... now." Rilik stated as he sat back in the throne, one of the well dressed mares stepped forward.
"Why do they get to leave? Their just peasants, I'll give you all the bits I have if you let me leave." She asked, Rilik scoffed and just ignored the equine, the workers were leaving and the nobles would stay.
"Stay here..." Rilik said as he began to make his way to the door, some of them argued and tried to run, but it was all to late. As the ODST exited the castle he flipped the switched on the detonater, sending the castle careening down into the abyss of water below.
He leaned over and watched as the castle plummeted down the cliff, smashing against the rock wall and landing with a big splash, Rilik smiled, he didn't know why he was but he did. He turned around and saw a face he didn't want to.
Prince Helios'.
The prince had a grin on his face and several guards behind him, Rilik was puzzeled for a second until the coin dropped in his mind.
He was tricked, while he had killed the night prince and the revolt happened Helios and his army would be waiting to strike. He had been played like a fool. He tried to punch the prince but was met with bright hooves colliding with his abdomen, he could feel the sense of gravity pulling him down as he was now plummeting to the water below.