MLP Halo: The Equestrian Event...

CH3

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Run Spartan Run...

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AN: 2012: This has not been edited so sorry if things seem inconsistent at the moment, this will be fixed at a later time. I do have my taxes and stuff to deal with so I'm running short on time.

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The next morning Carl had to make sure that he woke up at his usual time, he reset his internal clock to wake him at 5 in the morning at the planet's usual time, once then he went outside to do some practice, he'd go on a 30 minute run outside of his suit, following that he'd do some practice on some trees with his bare hands, he did this on ships and other planets, if not in combat though. He didn't see this as much anyway, and he had been in cryo-stasis the past 2 months before so he really needed to practice again.

He exited his suit, shutting down most of the systems; he left on his emergency power to get a fast start should he be returning with an emergency or problem. He stripped his armour into 10 neat pieces and left his bare skin suit on, the skin suit wasn't revealing, except that his torso was half bare, the suit was an EVA variant and he hadn't manage to change back to his standard Ranger gear.

He shrugged, it wasn't as if the ponies knew about human anatomy or even knew that he was physically strong. He jogged out of the room and headed on a following of his compass, he'd just follow it and then head back for normal drills, he just hoped Twilight didn't start poking around in his armour, he hadn't cleared it out in days and it smelled something sweaty.

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Applejack woke up early, she had work to get done, the apple trees needed harvesting in the next 3 weeks and she needed to know which trees required a little more time. This was usually a menial task that took days to get sorted out, but it was necessary. She went about checking with the fields on the left side of the farm, Big Mac wasn't going to get going until 6 to get the rest of the farm working. So she was on her own for now.

Applejack walked through the first dozen trees checking quickly which trees were either absent of certain red juicy apples or still had ones which were growing. She jotted through taking note on what was happening, she walked through for another 10 minutes and then took a look around the other side that was when she heard something. She turned about to see something in the distance, moving very fast.

Here's a fun fact, certain ponies are able to move very fast, such as ponies that usually pull trains along or ponies that pull busses, or pegasi such as Rainbow Dash, who just rip past with wings. That being that, there was one thing that Applejack had never seen, the humanoid shape of Carl moving fast enough that she was flung backwards as he ran in a straight line to the other side of the farm, her Stetson hat flew off into the direction that the Spartan ran and she soon followed after it. Her hooves kicked into action as she went into overtime, they didn't add Jack to the end of her name for nothing you know.

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Carl could have sworn he saw that orange pony from before, but he was trying to keep onto schedule with his run, he was kicking up dirt and wind like no tomorrow and also he seemed to have caught a lot of attention from something, because he noticed that there was someone tailing him. He then noticed that there was a hat following in the breeze right behind him, he plucked it from the air and the then looked at it while he ran. It was a nice looking hat, much like the ones from the frontier colonies he had seen years back.

He didn't know where it came from but he plopped in on his head and continued to run at his usual speed, he did keep an eye out on that trailing shadow though. They ran through the edges of Everfree and then to the path along to the roads which headed over to Lyra and Bon Bon's home and then headed all the way back to town, just making sure to pass along by Fluttershy's home on the way through though.

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Flutter shy looked about, she had just finished tending to a fruit bat which had been lost for a few days, she placed it over to the side and let it fly off, it was going to be sun up very soon and she didn't want to wait any longer for it. As soon as the bat flew off she hovered over to her garden to check on some of the plants, herbs from Zecora had been growing well, and her copy of Supernaturals had helped quite a bit in getting these new planets to flourish.

As she worked away, Angel Bunny came out from the house and quickly went to helping his caretaker, he picked up an early snack from the kitchen before anything else and went about looking for Fluttershy, he walked on the open dirt path and found her toiling away softly at the plants from that zebra that he knew little about. Chewing away he leaned to one side next to her and poked her.

Fluttershy looked away and took notice that Angel was mouthing. "What's up doc?"

"Oh Angel Bunny, you should know better than to snack in the morning, it's not very good for your health… and breakfast is coming up soon." She pointed to the skies now slowly brightening up.

He shrugged and turned his back and walked away, right onto the dirt path, it was then that a stampeding noise rushed by so fast that Fluttershy looked to see that Angel was no longer there and in fact he was moving away on the shoulders of that giant earlier yesterday that had ponynapped Twilight, and now he was trying to bunnynap Angel!

"Angel, I'm coming, hold on!" She zoomed off after the Spartan and Applejack at surprising speeds.

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Rarity had been cross with Sweetie Belle, but had let her off for the night, besides she needed the rest, and Rarity needed the beauty sleep early, she had to get something from that wool worker, Patch, who ran the fabric store in town. She had also had to get something from Pinch who ran the needle and yarn store over yonder.

She had gotten her early deliveries and was closing the distance back to the Boutique when she noticed that there was something odd. She couldn't put her hoof on it, but the ground seemed to tremble ever so much, as a matter of fact the longer she thought about it the more obvious it was, and now it was right next to her.

Rarity turned her head to watched the human from before running at her at full tilt, he narrowly missed her but he knocked a needle out from her mouth at high speeds, it sped off into the air. She was so glad that nothing else was knocked off her or lost. But never think about it if you really want it to happen, Applejack didn't waste time and knocked the hooves from right under her.

"Sorry, hat thief and ah lot of work." AJ said in short as she burst past.

Rarity realised that her fabrics had been caught on AJ and yelled. "Get back here with those you hoovingtons!"

She chased after them with Fluttershy trailing behind at a graceful yet impressive speed.

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Now about that needle, let's just say it landed in one most uncomfortable place, for the most energetic character out of all of the ponies in ponyville. Rainbow Dash was napping so much on her makeshift cloud that she didn't realise that it was not meant to stop sharp objects. A high velocity needle hitting a bare flank in a cloud= very nasty wake up call.

Rainbow Dash screamed and kicked the cloud in pain, and in surprise, the whole area was given a nasty boom. She turned away from the cloud and took notice of the where the needle came from; she traced it over to the group of runners going after the human.

"What the hay? Is there a race going on? And I wasn't invited?" She said in unbelief.

She'd show them, she bucked up her wings and then shot forwards, heading down to the ground at high speeds she raced to reach the group.

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Carl was nearing the end, there was just the town hall and then down to the library again, he took notice that there were now 5 individual ponies chasing him, and a thunder clap appeared out of nowhere. He was reaching the last stretch of ground to the library when he noticed that there was a blue streak trying to reach him, it was Rainbow Dash, the Pegasus that attempted to fight him the other day before.

He didn't relent and continued to stay ahead, once they reached the end, he stopped at the front of the library just as Twilight was leaving her home to go to the post office, she paused in shock as the Spartan bolted to a stop in front of her, but her friends were unable to slow fast enough, AJ just stopped at his back, while Rarity just landed on top of her and then Fluttershy with Rainbow Dash, but it was Pinkie who arrived from nowhere that the whole group landed on the Spartan and on top of Twilight.

They were all piled on top, Pinkie just then noticed and asked.

"Hey are you all having a Hug the Human Party without me?"

"No Pinkie, you just landed on top of us and we all tipped over on to Carl." Twilight said.

"Okay, because that would have been so awesome if you were, you know, greeting him…" Pinkie drawled off into the unknown about the whole thing while Carl asked Twilight.

"Is she always like this?"

The group replied.

"Yes."

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After a hasty discussion and a bit of heavy lifting which the Spartan was happy oblige, they all had breakfast at Twilight's and were introduced to the Spartan's cooking. The Spartan had brought his survival gear with him and for good reason, in case he had no food to look for, there was only 3 days' worth of rations and some water, and a filter, but that was required for places with murky water.

The breakfast rations would be fine for them all, it was just protein oatmeal with powdered pancakes and some syrup with potato preservatives, he knew what they put in these things, enough to last a few hundred years and yet fresh enough not to decay in the field. The UCAF rations worked wonders for troops in the field, they weren't harmful in the long run, but in the short run, people tended to get sick if eating the same thing for longer than 1 month they warned against constant use.

Carl had some bacon packs and some light powdered eggs, but he doubted that the ponies would like that; he made the bacon for himself and let the rest of the eggs on his plate. Once completing their meals he brought them all their servings of breakfast, he found honey and some fruits in the kitchen, they'd work well with the oatmeal, he didn't really like the oatmeal bland.

"Here you are." He said placing their servings down.

He set his last, to which the ponies wondered what the smell was, only Spike seemed interested in the whole thing, meanwhile Twilight eyed it curiously.

"What is that smell?" Rarity asked.

"Bacon, pig cut up into strips and cooked." He replied clearly.

The ponies all looked at him as though they had lost their appetite, except Rainbow Dash who proceeded to ask oblivious to the fact that her friends were staring away from her.

"Oh, can I have a piece?" She asked enthusiastically.

Twilight and the others looked at Dash as though she lost her mind. "Rainbow, that's a pig that's been cut apart and served on a plate. And how can you eat that?"

Dash shrugged.

"Hilda made me eat her lunch whenever I lost a bet, sometimes she had pieces of chicken cooked or slices of bacon, it wasn't so bad, but I'd rather prefer bacon. I did some searching up on it in a library in case it did something bad, from what I learned the books I looked at said it was fine."

Twilight stunned along with the others said. "You went to a library?"

Rainbow Dash looked at them smile and then laugh.

"Oh, ha, ha, now I get it." She grumbled.

"Not to be mean, but you never come here to read any books. It's just funny that you did back then." Twilight said.

Rainbow grumbled a bit and went back to eating. Rarity assured Dash.

"We're just having a small laugh; you should not take it nearly to heart, besides you're the one who makes laughs at everypony else."

That was true, Rainbow did make a few good jokes and pranks, and she couldn't feel all that annoyed.

"I guess you're right."

Twilight changed subjects.

"So, Carl, what do plan to do today?"

"I've got to go get my EVAF from the forests nearby, my extra communications systems were aboard it when I crashed here, I just need that and I'll have a team pick me up as soon as possible. You can come along with me if you want." He replied.

Pinkie snapped out of her babbling and said with excitement.

"Awesome, we get to see your space ship and everything, all the cool details, lasers, lights, and etc."

The group let Pinkie go off on her own yapping; Carl just went back to focusing on what he was explaining. "Yeah, so you can come with me to check on my EVAF, it's not far and I'm sure you'll learn something from the experience."

"That sounds fine by me." AJ said.

"Yeah, this is gonna be awesome." Dash agreed.

"Well it would be interesting what it might look like." Rarity said.

Fluttershy just stayed quiet and smiled at the idea, Twilight finished with.

"So when do we go?"

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Carl walked the way back with the ponies, when they arrived; the pond where the EVAF had landed had long since dried. Carl walked over to the side of the frame and began to try to power it up, it wasn't made for aerial purposes, but it was made to fly, so he'd just adjust the speed and the energy required and try to launch it from the forest, hopefully it would land close to the town, and if not, then he was dragging it over there.

Kicking in the drives he made sure to begin ignition sequence. He called out to the girls.

"Get back, the ignition on this thing is loud. It's going to fly, but don't stand behind it, the heat exhaust burns everything behind."

The girls stood a few meters away from the EVAF; Carl ignited the engines, the rear thrusters set aflame and dust behind it, the wing thrusters activated to lift the EVAF off the ground gently. The fighter frame was just hovering off the ground; Carl had to increase the energy transfer so the EVAF didn't accidently blow everyone away as he tried to move it away. He then increased propulsion and then he was off.

The EVAF left a trail of dust in the small pocket of the forest, but once in the air, it was an amazing sight, ponies of Ponyville watched as the EVAF soared overhead. Carl had to make sure that the frame didn't accelerate too much, he was trying to land the thing closer to the town, not land the thing on the other side of the planet.

He did circle the town overhead a few laps, then that was when Rainbow Dash caught up, the cyan Pegasus was amazed at the sight of the EVAF, she yelled out.

"That's awesome, how fast can you go?" She asked excitedly.

"At best, about Mach 5, five times the speed of sound." He replied over his loud speakers.

The cyan Pegasus was grinning with awe and respect for the metal thing that was now in the skies above, it was only another 5 minutes before Carl decided to land the EVAF in the outskirts from the town. It took a bit to make sure that he didn't scare the living day lights out of any pony that was nearby and settled the frame on flat ground, the landing struts pressed into the ground and sank a bit, the frame wasn't made for the ground.

Once stepping off he waited for the others to arrive at the frame, in the meantime he had about the entire population of Ponyville arrive to see the EVAF. They were all jostling to get a good sight of the machine, even taking pictures to send over all over the place. Carl knew that this wasn't the best idea to attract attention to his EVAF. Especially since that the frame was made to be used in the war, but the ponies of Ponyville did not know about that little detail.

Once Twilight and the others arrived, they excitedly began to talk about the machine that he used, Twilight asked.

"Wow, is that how you travel across distances?"

"Not really, there are many other machines we use to travel; this is just something I use in space above us." He replied.

A series of Oohs and Ahs made it simply understandable for the Spartan to just go on with what he was doing; he needed to signal the ship. In moments he climbed to his seat again and brought up the holographic display, he signalled across primary lines, he managed to thank the commander for thinking on his feet; there was a direct line to one of the orbiting satellites that the ship put up in his absence.

"Carl to Dauntless, Commander Thomas can you hear me?" Carl called.

The ponies had no idea what the Spartan was doing, but he was talking to the blue glowing thing on his flying machine, or space ship as the other called it. The ponies were all thrilled at knowing that there was something interesting happening that day. Twilight was quickly taking note of the whole situation and wrote down all the features of the EVAF, Dash was comparing the EVAF to her flight skills and wondered if she could ever reach that speed. Rarity was still curious as to what the armour of the Spartan would be like in pony size and Fluttershy just mutely smiled with Pinkie prancing around.

Carl waited a bit longer before he received a reply.

"Carl we hear you, what is your position?"

"I'm 121km due west, in a small town, you can't miss it, by the way, I'm surrounded by talking ponies." He replied.

"Say again? Talking PONIES?" The AI said with disbelief.

"Yes, I said that they are sentient Equestrians with the ability to understand speech, language and other things, though they do seem rather eccentric they're peaceful, and harmless, and over energetic." He replied.

"Okay, we'll verify that once you get back to base, and are you bringing any of these Sentient Ponies with you?" Celia asked.

"Yeah about 6+1 infant dragon and maybe two or three others, but they might find their own way there." Carl replied.

"Okay, well, we'll send in Aires flight 205 Dawn Breaker to meet with you and these sentient ponies, just stay there Lieutenant." Celia advised.

Carl knew that they all thought he was going insane, like when has there ever been a case of talking ponies in the history of mankind? He just shoved the thought back inside his head and just accepted that things were just as they were, and he accepted it. The only problem was that he had to bring along 8 ponies, two of which were god like and the rest normal with an infant purple dragon. Does anyone see the irony of his situation?

He stepped off the EVAF and then said to the ponies.

"Look we've got about 1 heavily armoured gunship on approach in 6 hours, and from what I know you should probably contact your princess and tell her that I'm getting picked up with you girls, seriously we need to hurry."

Twilight understood, she remembered that should the UCAF wish to meet with them the princess had to be alerted so either she or Luna or both could attend. She quickly drew out a prewritten message and asked Spike to send it off. Twilight was always prepared. Once the message was away, they just needed to wait. Pinkie on the other hand wished to tell everyone that there was another space ship coming to pick them up and there was little time, to get packing some stuff, so everypony quickly made some small treats for the trip and a going away gift on their trip to the mysterious alien ship, which was a box cake…

Carl didn't know if he truly was going insane.

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The Princess arrived but she brought her sister with her, Luna, the midnight blue alicorn seemed to rather surprise Carl, she looked rather nice, if not unique. Once they all gathered to get ready for the trip, Twilight started to ask.

"Princess where are your royal guards?"

Celestia replied.

"They were told to just wait in Ponyville once I returned, besides I have you going with me my faithful student, it would be not as necessary for that many ponies to go at once, and I am sure that there must be required space for the machine that Carl needs to bring."

Twilight understood, but then asked.

"Who will be running the kingdom if you and Luna are both going with us for the day?"

"The main body of government of course, I do run under a constitutional monarchy, even though I have thought to go back to a simple structure… it would be better to avoid any difficulties." She replied.

Well that answered a few things, they talked until there was an over wash of sound, from above they could see a large boxy shape appear, it was much bigger than that of the EVAF and even bigger than that of one whole wing of the castle in Canterlot. The gunship landed down and brought out a rig to lift the EVAF off the ground, the rear doors opened to show the ponies a large bay empty with just 3 humans like Carl waiting.

One marine commented.

"Wow they really are talking ponies…"

"Ha, you owe me 50 bucks." The other pointed.

"F***" The other yelled but was washed out by the engines.

Carl beckoned them towards into the flying machine. Twilight and the other followed aboard with Celestia and Luna going in last. Once they were aboard the rear doors closed and all the ponies waved goodbye. Once they all were inside, they could see the extent of the UCAF technology, there was lighting and windows to show them the outside, not to mention plenty of head space. But there were no proper seats for Equestrians, Carl decided to lift out one of the belts and strap the ponies downwards so they didn't straddle off in all directions. Only the princess and her sister stood with the motion, happily standing without moving at all.

From the windows they could see the speed of the UCAF machine speeding along, it was an amazing sight, and they passed through the many forests and plains and over the city of Manehatten, which raised the question of how the UCAF didn't get noticed sooner. They flew over the sight of many small towns and stopped at their destination at a clearing in a forest nearby. That was where they could see the massive ship that the UCAF had, and where Carl had come from or something similar.

Once landing they were shown out of the Aires and down to a medium sized hangar bay, humans of all shapes and sizes walked around. This whole new place amazed the ponies who were eyed by all the UCAF personnel with interest. It didn't take long before Commander Thomas was there with Celia in full form.

"So, this must be what you meant by talking ponies?" Celia asked.

"Yes, look I know its awkward, but I can explain." Carl started.

He didn't get far, the regal form alicorn answered for him.

"I think we should explain for ourselves Carl, I'm sure that your commanding officer should be able to understand the situation quite well."

The whole area fell silent, and was only broke by Pinkie Pie commenting.

"Hey where's all the fancy stuff?"

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(…)

So yes we have reached that point in the story about the UCAF and the Equestrians meeting, but don't worry I'll let you know what happens in the next chapter, I need to focus elsewhere before my head explodes.

And yes, we will be having the covenant attack, sometime in the near future; I won't hold them back before we finish building the proper bridges.

(2011)