Second chance: Noble

(The Forge)

Sitting in a briefing room Noble team and Cortana were awaiting the arrival for the Princesses of Equestria along with their northern allies from the Crystal Empire Prince Shining Armor and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza who were bringing their Eldest child Princess Flurry Heart who for the last five years had been training to be a general of the C.E.M (Crystal Empire Military). Looking ahead Carter didn't quite understand why Cortana had pushed for so many individuals into this meeting but then again Cortana was an individual who was playing a game far beyond even a SPARTANs scope thinking back she reminded him of Parangosky which was both terrifying and relieving. Hearing the soft click of the door all heads turned to see the group walk in Celestia at the lead followed by Luna then Twilight, after them a pink alicorn mare with followed she was wearing a lavender suit with a white blouse and pink tie her mane was a dark purple with pink and gold highlights her lavender eyes scanned over the SPARTANs before resting on Cortana. Next to her was a white unicorn stallion with dark blue mane and deep blue eyes that bore down onto Noble measuring them and trying to figure them out, he was wearing a formal military uniform with his left chest decorated with ribbons and medals. Finally, in walked a light pink alicorn mare her lavender and blue mane cut short and styled so it never fell into her eyes she also wore a formal military suit around the room she seemed to be looking for something but after a moment those eyes turned to Cortana and a small scowl dawned on her face.

Standing up Cortana cleared her throat and motioned for the ponies who had entered the room to take seats at the end of the table while she walked to the opposite side of them. As the ponies sat down Cortana prepared a projector aiming it at a wall parallel to them while also simultaneously casting a spell on the room cutting off any and all noise from the room so they could speak without the worry of eavesdropping. Once everything was prepared she began to speak "I see that all who've I've asked to join us are here today before I get into everything I'd Like to introduce Princess Candance, Prince Shining Armor and Princess-"

"General." The young mare cut Cortana keeping a cold glare her way sighing Cortana shifted and continued "Excuse me General Flurry Heart."

Motioning to Noble she quickly introduced them in succession starting with Carter and ending with Six, once that was out of the way she activated the projector and started a video showing the initial fighting motioning to the screen she spoke "As you can see Operation SUCKER PUNCH started without a hitch both Noble Three and Six managed to plant charges throughout the castle catching the guards off guard while providing over watch to make sure that Noble and the G.R forces could infiltrate and begin the initial attack."

Fast forwarding through the video Carter recognized his own helmet feed as the video arrived at the moment, they were about to breach the command center. Hitting play the group watched as Noble breached into the room and they watched up until Cortana paused the video after General Iron Tail was eliminated "As you can see Noble's One, Two, Four and Five managed to execute General Iron Tail, which was a slight disappointment BUT as you heard him say the G.C.P does plan to invade Equestria once they gained control of their country. "

"Besides that worrisome note, the other problem we now face and one I had hoped wouldn't be a problem. Intel has been passed onto Noble One who brought it to me, it seems that General Horus only passes out the advance weaponry he's been getting from the U.P.R. to specific Generals under his command who have strict orders to give it to their elite guard or their best operatives." Cortana hitting some controls the perspective switched to Six as he arrived to help Commander Light Feather and her team, pausing the video she did a screen grab showing both the mysterious projectiles both of which appeared energy base "Here is video evidence of said weapons being used against the G.R. forces we still don't have solid evidence that they are getting the weapons from the U.P.R. but we do now know they have these weapons. But we don't know the specific numbers and exactly how many teams or even regiments are equipped."

"So what about the weapons did Noble team recover any?" Shining finally spoke staring directly at the mare not flinching as she looked down at him.

"Unfortunately, our enemies aren't empty minded fools." hitting play again the group was show the self-destruction of one of the weapons destroying the bodies of the fallen, eyes going wide the group looked between each other concern evident in their eyes seeing this Cortana continued "We knew that this happened but not to this scale, so we will be careful in the future to only obtain the weapons when the holder has been incapacitated and searched."

"Searched?" Candance asked raising a quizzical eyebrow Cortana was about to speak when Kat suddenly cut her off "Yes searched, most agents like this will have a sort of failsafe to take their own lives."

"Noble Two is right, so I will now be equipping Noble with tranquilizers to put the target out of a fight just long enough to break the spell." Cortana explained keeping her tone even shaking her head she looked over the group gaging each of them and their reactions when nopony made any motions to speak she continued "Now onto the final matter on hand General Sharp Beak has been captured and my team has been interrogating him for the last five days."

As she spoke a video appeared on the wall showing a live video feed of Sharp Beak exercising in his cell seeing this Celestia scowled, she wasn't a fan of this new type of war Cortana was bringing to her doorstep but had little choice. Especially after the successful completion of SUCKER PUNCH taking a moment she finally spoke "What have we learned?"

"Nothing concrete," turning Cortan pulled up multiple images and files of different individuals and buildings before turning back "I've passed some intel onto the G.R. for verification but what General Sharp Beak has allowed us to gleam this is what the current military structure of Horus's military and government looks like."

Again, the screen changed showing a pyramid with Horus at the top and below him were eight more images and names nothing more. Walking up to the wall Cortana motioned to the individuals and began listing them off "First we have the right hand of Horus Colonel Grey Feather, next we have the left Colonel Vulture both are always with him and rarely leave his side unless explicitly ordered. Connected directly to Grey Feather is our own dear General Sharp Beak, but he still was left in the dark about much of what the top brass knew about."

"What he has gleaned for us is that General Iron Tail was on his way to be the third individual to enter that circle and become Colonel until we took him out. The reason I bring this up is because of these two griffins." highlighting their pictures in red a line formed on the grayed-out picture of Iron Tail while she continued to speak "General Grundel and General Ivory Talon were at odds with each other and Iron Tail about succession trying to undermine each other and gain favor with Horus. Sharp Beak theorizes that with Iron Tail out of the way the rivalry could intensify."

"Enough for them to make mistakes?" Shining asked placing his elbows onto the table as he leaned in smirking at him Cortana shrugged

"Maybe, Horus is a griffin that none of his followers want to betray or get on the wrong side of. Sharp Beak knows that they would simply pass off the blame of failure to each other or their subordinates once sabotaged."

"So, what do we do?"

"We stay on task and start mounting victories so Noble becomes a target."

"So, Noble will continue to infiltrate until they become a target for both generals?"

"Exactly, but that day may be a long way off." motioning to Noble Cortana frowned while saying "At the moment we need Noble to be boogeymen a tail that puts fear into the G.C.P. have them thinking that their everywhere and nowhere, well until Equestria is closer to being ready to officially join the fighting."

"Of course." Luna mumbled as she stared at the SPARTANs who had remained motionless for the entirety of the meeting so far even when Noble Two spoke up she hadn't moved or shown any emotion. Nodding her head Cortana highlighted the final four targets in yellow with connections to each of the generals Cortana said "These four are Commanders Half Wing, Black Beak, Raven Tail and Ocelot. Each of them is highly skilled and respected being deemed worthy to carry relics, Sharp Beak as stated that they would be called upon to fill the void left behind by both him and Sharp Beak BUT what he doesn't know is that Black Beak was assassinated a week ago by a G.R. strike squad. But G.R. command has informed us that no such mission had occurred due to Black Beaks unknown whereabouts, so I think a certain Griffin is trying to elevate themselves by taking out the competition."

"Do we know who?" Celestia asked as she looked between the three commanders

"We do not, the commanders do answer to the generals, but their assignments are classified and any one of them could have been paired with Black Beak when he was killed. But these seven are our VIPs if we see an opportunity to eliminate or capture them we immediately do so." pausing Cortana took a breath and rolled her neck before while she let the group digest all that they had heard, after a few minutes of nobody speaking Cortana spoke up again "So with that I will conclude this meeting and let Noble Team head back to Ponyville to resume guard duty and I believe the new company of guards is arriving to begin their training. I'd like to talk about that with you Celestia as we walk to greet them."

"Of course, Cortana." Celestia spoke as she stood to join her companion, while Noble filed out to find their way back to Ponyville. The others though seemed to stand by and wait for Celestia seeing this the solar monarch had smile grace her muzzle she softly spoke "It won't be long you all head back to Canterlot I'll be home shortly."

Nodding the group left watching them go Celestia turned and slowly followed Cortana out of the room heading to the massive auditorium where she would greet the 7th company of ponies to be trained here and would soon be informed about what the next six months of their life would look like for them. It saddened her that she was having to prepare for a war that seemed to be getting more and more complicated, but with Noble standing beside the E.N.M they would be fine and find hope on the battlefield knowing that.......super soldiers were leading the charge. Sighing Celestia stopped and looked out a window watching as the company who'd just finished their training filed out of the building, staring at them they were different their walk, their eyes, their entire being just different pausing Celestia was about to speak but Cortana beat her to it "I know this is a difficult time for you Celestia but this IS for the best."

"I know this, but it still hurts to see them like this."

"It always is," Cortana said walking up beside Celestia she stood with her watching the ponies filing onto a massive troop transport to head back home sighing she continued "And this is why I hate myself for asking you this."

"What are you about to ask me?"

"Celestia, you know how I've been taking small groups of ponies and giving them specialized training?"

"Yes, I've noticed this......why bring this up now?"

"I wish make an offer to those groups to give them Spec Ops training, I hope to recreate the ODST program from the UNSC along with the others."

"Spec ops training program?" Celestia slowly turned to Cortana seeing that her eyes never wavered from the ponies boarding her mind going blank Cortana continued "Yes but these programs will be offered to those who meet the requirements, it is something your ponies can turn down if they choose to."

"Why do you want to start one?"

"Because we need one." Cortana straightened up as she spoke her eyes seemingly lighting up with a fire she turned to Celestia

"Celestia, I have lived on this planet for eighty-five years and one thing I have seen is you ponies are like the humans I once lived and fought beside you have a drive to be the best of the best regardless of what it is in. Even your guards exhibited it during training always one team or platoon who stood apart from the rest of the pack and I want to encourage that with this project. I will offer them to come back here for more intensive training than before push them to their limits and forge them into something greater."

"You won't coerce them to join?"

"No, I planned on letting it slip through this battalion that was the future plan and see who contacted me. Or contact them directly to offer them a spot on the training roster."

"How many spots would you have?"

"Forty spots are going to be open every eight months, the training schedule would be two months longer for me to achieve the best results."

Sighing Celestia stared out the window watching as the final pony from the battalion entered the jet it didn't take long before the vehicle slowly rose into the sky turning as it did so it could head back home to Canterlot. Watching it go Celestia steeled herself for what she was about to say "I'll allow you to start the program Cortana."

"Thank y-"

"But tell me the truth," turning to her Celestia had a inferno in her eyes doing her best to melt Cortana cool exterior she asked "What other plans for the E.N.M do you have for the future? I would love to know what else you have hidden in that mind of yours."

Smirking Cortana was glad that Celestia was starting to catch up with her, slowly turning she decided maybe it was time to let her in on some of her plans for Equestrian military and the world as a whole. Before she walked away Cortana whispered "Let's talk to the company, and we'll talk."

(Ponyville 2 months later)

Walking through the streets Six and Emile were doing their usual ground route keeping a keen eye on the surrounding buildings and citizens as usual. Despite being gone for a little over a month the town was its usual peaceful self, after talking to the captain Noble had learned that a few of the citizens had come to file complaints due to their absence but other than that nothing of news had happened in their absence. The moles house was still under surveillance and nopony had been seen trying to sneak onto the property and even if they had made it into the house a series of traps designed subdue them would have been sprung allowing the local guards to capture them. Internally sighing Six thought back to the new faces that had joined the barracks recently almost immediately recognizing them as ponies from the fifth company, and with them joining the garrison Six knew that the E.N.M was halfway to being a full regiment.

Stopping both stallions looked ahead to see two of the elements of harmony Sunny Days and Silk Stitcher making their way towards them both smiling at them, today both mares were wearing gold sundresses. Most citizens back home, even here, they seemed to want to avoid the SPARTANs but then again, they were walking talking killing machines. As the mares reached them the mares looked them up and down as if trying to figure out where'd they had come from, staring down at the two mares they waited for them to initiate the conversation taking the hint Silk was the first to speak "It's so good to see you two again how have you been?"

"We've been good Silk." Six said giving her a small nod while looking around the perimeter making sure that none of the populace was trying to sneak up on the or showing a keen interest. Smiling a little uncomfortably Silk turned to Emile and said "Well i've been talking to my mother and she was telling me how Noble hasn't gone to her shop to cash in on her offer."

"Yeah, civies aren't exactly our style," Emile said as he shrugged his shoulders internally, he was rolling his eyes hard, since his inscription into the SPARTAN program Emile couldn't remember the last time he'd worn anything other than UNSC issued clothing turning back to Silk he continued "We don't have much time to ourselves to be in civilian clothes."

"Still why not try it out?" Silk said motioning to the crowd around her the two soldiers looked around seeing most of the ponies in town were wearing clothes while some were naked " The pony nation is starting to wear clothes and fashion is boooooming, soon the whole populace will be clothed and won't you want to be able to show your individuality?"

"Silk we're the most unique beings on this planet," Emile shot back puffing out his chest he gave it a good slap "I'm the baddest fucker in the next 100 miles...........well besides Six here."

"Nah you have me beat after that energy sword." Six stated giving his brother in arms a solid nod.

"Why thank you, but I digress, we don't have to worry about showing our individuality. All that matters is keeping up and being the best there ever was and ever will be."

"*SIGH* If you say so darling," Silk muttered but she knew this fight was going nowhere after all last weak Silk had done her best to drag Kat out on a filly's night out, only to have the supersoldier teleport her back to her dorm with a strongly worded stamped to her head. Sunny on the other hand was staring up at Six silently watching him a small smile tugging at her lips she whispered "Six how was the training?"

"It went well, showed the guards some new tricks." He answered plainly glancing down at the petite mare today she had her mane pulled back so both her eyes could be seen chuckling to herself she said "Well that's good, it can't be too exciting being back patrolling our quiet town."

"Its........ok."

"Well just don't work yourselves too hard," Sunny whispered reaching out she touched Sixes forearm looking down at the hoof, Sunny held it there for a moment before pulling it away suddenly feeling awkward. Turning to Emile Six motioned for them to continue on the patrol looking down at the fashionista Emile rolled his eyes and walked away, watching them leave Silk turned to Sunny and whispered "I saw that you know."

"It's not like that Silk," Sunny stated looking at her friend she held her eyes for a long moment before continuing "I'm just trying to be friendly, the only time we really see them is when their out on patrol."

"That is true darling." Silk sighed as she turned away from the departing SPARTANs making way toward their usual brunching spot, slowly turning to follow her Sunny kept her eyes on the two stallions before turning and following her friends. Turning to her friend Sunny decided to change the subject clearing her throat she said "So did you hear that Cortana is building a base on the moon?"

"Why yes I have, it's wonderful I can't believe that she's already planning to build something up there," looking up slightly Silk seemed to be looking for something while she continued "That mare has so many plans for future it's impossible to know what she'll be giving us next."

(Weapons Range)

Aiming down the sight of his rifle Carter fired the weapon into the distant targets hitting each target precisely, his groupings were tight and spread between the center mass and head. After a few more shots Carter ejected the spent magazine, put the safety on and shouldered the weapon turning he saw most of the range had stopped what they were doing to gawk at him. The weapons were introduced only a week ago and the only ponies allowed to use these weapons were the ones Cortana had trained to be Equestria's future military, ignoring their stares Carter began to walk inside heading to the armory to return his weapon. As he made his way to the armory Carter heard a young voice calling for him turning towards the voice he saw a young silver unicorn stallion running to him, his mane and tail were a bright blue and his green eyes held a particular spark Carter recognized of green recruits approaching him to ask about how to join with the SPARTANs. Coming to a stop Carter waited for the young stallion to catch up, skidding to a stop he took a few gulps of air before being able to speak "Commander Carter sir, if you have a moment I'd like to talk to you about something."

"What's this about private?" Carter turned giving the stallion his attention

"Sir, since you seem to know Cortana I just wanted to know if you've heard the rumors of her looking to train more elite soldiers."

"I have."

"Have you heard about any opportunities to apply? or a recruitment campaign?"

"I'm sorry to say I haven't," Carter answered giving a small shake of his head he continued "But I'm sure if you talk to the Captain he could point you in the right direction."

"I planned to do just that sir," the private said puffing his chest up a bit Carter looked at the name tag Dust Grappler after a moment Dust continued "Sir, the next time you meet Cortana put in a word for me I'll be heading to Captain Shields office."

Turning away the stallion rushed off heading straight to the captain's office watching him go Carter thought back to the training, remembering many of the teams they fought against during training and one of the few teams to stand out was Timberwolf. Particularly a young stallion named Dust Grappler who stood apart from his squad with daring moves and a determination that reminded him of the ODST's back home, and maybe that's why Cortana is aiming to recreate that program along with a few more. Taking a moment Carter had to respect Cortana's gut instinct allowing for a few parcels of information to leak out between the barracks saying that she planned on offering spots for select individuals to become special forces and that each class only had a class size of forty.

Carter had a sneaking suspicion that sooner or later there would be Helljumper's walking around the barracks at some point, looking to show up the SPARTANs again......hopefully the relationship would be healthier than it was back home. Slowly walking to the armory, he deposited his rifle and began to make his way back to the barracks, at the moment Kat and Jun were helping the G.R. disable certain supply lines of the G.C.P. to catch the attention of either the commanders or generals. Rumor had it since Noble started taking them out the G.C.P. started to roll back and strengthen their hardpoints. Chuckling at the thought Carter remembered how just last month he and Jorge had ambushed a caravan of troops delivering supplies to a garrison that the G.R. were performing guerilla attacks on. That was until Carter and Jorge blew the whole caravan up ending any possible resupply that could have helped turn the tide and end the attacks, but before they left Jorge and Carter were able to learn where the caravan had come from. But Cortana wanted better confirmation, so she sent Kat and Jun in after them to help finish the garrison off and to push deeper into enemy territory, hoping to find the exact location of the possible base or factory that they were coming out of.

The shadow war had been going on for the last couple months and was like any black ops slow and deliberate. Since the first deployment to capture The Endless Stone base the SPARTANs had only been deployed three more times, and each time it was intel collecting or caravan sabotaging. Horus had focused solely on defense since the G.C.P. had lost that base and his defense was admirable the G.R. couldn't even dent some of the garrisons or bases one recent attack only ended in the deaths of almost and entire platoon of G.R. troops due to it being a trap, according to the only survivor the soldiers had been using the weapons from the starts and killed his whole platoon. Horus had been shuffling those Griffins around each base randomly, Noble and the G.R. had no idea when or where they were, but the young was able to ID the griffins who led the group commanders Half Wing and a freshly promoted Glaze. Both were ruthless in the assaults they led against the G.R. leaving no survivors. Pausing in his walk Carter thought 'We need to take them off the board before more is lost.' looking over his shoulder he noticed a couple of ponies making their way to the captains office he shook his head before moving past them heading to the showers.

(An Unknown Location )

Cortana had done so much during her time on Equis doing anything and everything possible to prepare the world for when they ventured out into the starts. Now Celestia had approached her trying to gleam more of what Cortana was keeping from her and the other rulers, so Cortana did just that. First she brought Celestia to a research base she had constructed thirty-eight years ago and gave her a small tour explaining that the base has had been full staff of nearly fifteen hundred ponies for the last twenty years. As the tour continued Cortana guided the princess to a large viewing port that stared out onto SIX UNSC warships that have been and hidden on the dark side of the moon. It took Celestia nearly an hour to calm down before she demanded why Cortana built them and how she managed to keep so many ponies quiet about it smirking Cortana explained "Each of the ships took time to build but of course due to me still having the processing power of an A.I. and an alicorns magic. Building them ships was child's play and I did build them one at a time so I wouldn't make any mistakes, they've only been operational for the last decade and staffed for the last six years."

Staring at the ships Celestia was awestruck by their size.......just one of those ships could hold the world hostage keeping them all under Cortana's hoof. Looking around Celestia saw all the ponies milling around talking about projects and deadlines like this was a normal day and that warships weren't floating before their very eyes. Taking a breath Celestia demanded to know more about the ships, sighing Cortana stated that she had made one phoenix class support ship, two valiant-class super-heavy cruisers, and three Paris-class heavy frigates. Each of those ships were ready for war and only operated by the most trusted of naval officers. Just recently they had sent on of the valiant-class cruisers to the edge of the galaxy testing the new slip space engines, the ships name was Unto the Breach and the test had been a success with the ship jumping to and from the furthest planet without a hitch. Staring at the ship Celestia asked one of the many burning questions she had "Are their more?"

"There is another ship being constructed as we speak," turning away from the window Cortana motioned for Celestia to follow and she did slowly "This ship on the other hand is being built by the ponies staffed here. the schematics I have given them is for a Orion-Class Assault Carrier. The construction started about five years ago and is projected to finish in the next year, after which they will move on and construct a different ship class."

"You are only building them one at a time?"

"Yes, the ships are massive and I don't have the staff to build more than one at a time."

"But your automated systems-"

"Can only do so much," Cortana stopped outside a door looking into to sensor it scanned her eyes before a green light beeped and the door slowly slid open "And those systems are already busy building ferries and liners to help push your world into the stars and beyond."

"........what?" Celestia whispered her eyes going wide as she crossed the threshold to stare at a massive hologram of multiple planets hovering around the room and above them was a massive glass ceiling that allowed the two alicorns to stare unto billions of stars with billions of opportunities. Looking at them Celestia counted three worlds each of them green and blue with white clouds floating across them, stopping before one of the planets Cortana spoke "Yes that has been my plan for the last fifty years, develop this worlds technology guide you all to the stars and help branch out to hundreds of worlds. I don't care about power, money or even leading ..........I care about survival, I care about growing, and I care about the future."

"I see that now" Celestia muttered looking down at her own hooves deep in thought taking a breath Celestia asked "Do you think the Covenant exists in this universe?"

"YES, I do and you have to believe that they do." Cortana growled glaring up and out of the window a glare forming into her eyes she continued "The Cataclysm is proof of that a massive space battle took place over this planet and from the writing and drawings I believe that the Covenant had fought another alien species above us fifty thousand years ago and wiped them out."

"But why leave us alone, why not wipe us out?"

"I don't know, the best theory I have is that the world went undetected due to the intensity of the battle that took place. But I can't be sure about that the only thing is that if they are real and they do exist we will be ready and the war they try to wage on us will be one they soon regret."

Sighing Celestia placed a hoof on Cortana's shoulder and looked deep into her eyes before saying "Let's first defeat the U.P.R. and G.C.P. before looking to start a war with aliens, if you don't mind." chuckling Cortana stood and motioned for Celestia to join her after all she had one more item of business to show her to help with preparing for the war. Igniting her horn Cortana teleported Celestia and herself some coffee taking it from Cortana's magical grasp Celestia gave the beverage a small sip and hummed in delight from the taste.

Sitting down behind her desk Cortana tapped her console and brought up a small hologram of Equis and the two began to talk about the next moves they should take to push further into G.C.P. territory a recent report from Kat and Jun stated that they had taken out more caravans and found messengers who carried messages demanding to know exactly why the garrisons were failing at finding and exterminating the so called 'wendigos' that were attacking them. But that message had been sent by one Commander Half Wing, and Kat had a theory about where the next SPARTAN attack should be aimed.