From War to Peace

Chapter 3
From War to Peace
Questions and Answers

The horses looked to each other and made some motions, a nod here and a shake of the head there. It would seem I was being debated on whether to be trusted or not. Eventually, Cyan backed off, and the Purple one marched up to me and motioned for me to stand,

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to escort you to my house where we can talk, and you can speak your peace, then we’ll decide whether or not to trust you… alright?” She stated while observing me.

I nodded stood up, grabbing my helmet from where it had fallen, “Crystal.” I patted the dust off my helmet and moved to place it on my head, but before it could get past my chest, a rather mysterious numbness coursed through my muscles beneath my neck, and I looked down to see my body enveloped in a bluish-purple glow.

“I’m sorry, we’ll hear your story out, but we don’t trust you not to bolt, you understand, right?” The Purple one said apologetically while squinting her eyes. I noticed the horn was glowing and suddenly got a rather sick feeling in my stomach as I began to levitate, my muscles still locked in place. Well, it seems we now know what their telekinesis does to flesh and bone.

We proceeded to walk through town as the Cyan one moved forward to secure me and make sure I didn’t somehow break free. The blond one stayed behind, whispering soothing words to the little ponies and sending them off to catch up with their friends. I figured by the end f the day. My little arrival would be the talk of the town.

As we proceeded through town, hordes upon hordes of ponies, all different shapes and sizes and even colors flooded out to stare at us. They all had in common that they all had a look of awe and feared battling in their eyes, almost as if they were trying to decide whether to run and hide or come up and investigate.

“Alright, y’all, clear the way now.” Yelled the Blond pony as she trotted up and addressed the crowd in a calming and commanding yet friendly manner, “We need to discuss with our new friend here, so if you could all just clear the way first, we’ll get back to you all on what’s happening all right? Now move along, come on.”

The crowd seemed to take this as a legitimate answer and began to disperse, heading back to their homes and shops. A few lingered and walked up to the blonde one to ask a few questions. In particular, one pink one seemed rather livid, bouncing around and yelling with what looked to be a permanent smile plastered across her face.

Eventually, we approached a tower-shaped structure that looked to be a house, and I assumed this was our final destination. As we approached the door, I looked up at the sky and wondered absent-mindedly if I was just going out of the frying pan and into the fir-

CRACK

“Sorry!” Yelled the purple one, strain evident in her voice as she tried to manhandle my tall figure through the door. Eventually, after a few more tries, a couple of sighs of frustration, and numerous bruises. The purple horse managed to move me through the door and into a large atrium-like room.

I looked around the room in a decent bit of awe at the walls covered in what looked to be books and tomes of all shapes and colors. Upon the second floor, I noticed a large window with a telescope, of all things, pointing out into the sky. Looking around a bit more, I was shocked out of my reverie when the door slammed closed, and the blond one giving off a sigh of relief and nodded to the purple one.

With an all-clear in mind, the purple one let go of her psychic lock on me and looked to me and in a deathly serious tone began to speak, “Okay, here’s how this is going to go, I’m going to ask a question, and you will answer as truthfully as possible, if I think you are lying I will warn you. If you persist in lying to us, we will take to the Ever-free forest and leave you there for the Timbers, and if we ever see you here again, we will take action against you, clear?” Asked the Purple one, her voice ending in a clip that frightened even me.

I nodded my head and made peace with the fact that I was gonna be here a while.

UNSC Infinity, Bunk bay Alpha 10:30 A.M.

“Wellllll, that went down to hell in a handbasket right quickly…” Calmly stated Blake with an almost bored look as he stood and stretched, popping his knuckles. Things had gotten rather tense in the bunks when Mike got captured and frozen. Still, the guys realized that there was nothing they could do, so rather Brayden decided that laying down and passing out would be a good idea, and Lane was busy trying to sketch the “Ponies,” as he called them, for his science journal. Other than that, it was strangely peaceful in the bunk bay.

“Well, I have a med bay duty in twenty, so I’ll jet,” Said Wolffe as he stood and popped his knuckles with a resounding crack. Picking up his gear Wolffe walked over to the door and said, “Also, do call me If Mike bites it or not. You guys got my Helmet number.”

As the door hissed shut behind Wolffe, we all sat in a pregnant silence until Gunny stood and started towards the door as well. Punching in the access code, Gunny began to drawl lazily, “Well, I got a training session down in the war room in about half an hour, so I better go and get-” Before Gunny could complete his sentence Wolffe crashed through the door, a clear look of panic etched in his face,

“GUYS QUICK!!! Del Rio and Palmer are on their way here for a report!!!” Yelled Wolffe in a barely controllable panic. We were all to our feet the second. He mentioned Del Rio. Moving like greased lighting in precise movements that could pass for clockwork, we all rushed to put our gear away, be semi-presentable, and make sure Brayden was kept far away from any weapons that could be used to shoot, stab, or bash Del Rio in the face.

“GENTLEMEN! OFFICERS ON DECK!” Yelled Lane as we all snapped to attention as Del Rio and Palmer walked through the door. Del Rio looked around at our bay and barely hid a look of suspicion from his face as he looked around at the now mostly spotless Living space and five Spartans standing at rigid attention in front of him… and the one drunken ODST on his bunk in the far corner.

“Gentlemen… Might you explain to me why you all have a live feed directly to a secret operation of the UNSC?” Del Rio Growled out in a contemptuous, filled voice. Gunny began to fidget as he realized he forgot to hit the off switch on the Television set mounted behind them, showing Mike being paraded through the streets of the settlement down below.

“Well, Sir, simply put, we wanted to monitor his situation and make sure that he… uh… didn’t end up hurt and... Uh… that Mike was alright and not being ripped apart by the local wildlife, yeah.” Matt feebly tried to answer while looking down and fidgeting with his Tee shirt.

Del Rio sighed in a barely controlled effort not to throw the men in this room out the airlock, and Palmer shook her head, trying to come up with the idea that would keep Del Rio from killing these five men.

“Sir, If I may,” Lane experimentally stated while reluctantly raising a hand in inquiry, “I think we should set up a research base here. The local wildlife is displaying rather interesting capa-“

“CAPTAIN I don’t particularly care whether or not the local wildlife can self replicate or teleport halfway across their world in the blink of an eye… All I CARE about is are they a THREAT to the UNSC!?” Yelled Del-Rio, finally snapping, his face beet red with barely controlled fury. He marched up to Lane, barely hovering an inch away from his face, and continued his rant. “ALL I want you to do CAPTAIN is monitor Hill’s progress and tell me what he is DOING!!! Understood?”

Lane glared and replied with a short and terse, “Crystal.” Before Del Rio backed off and ran a hand through his thinning hair and turned back to face us with a metaphorical stone mask of calm before resuming his questioning.

“So, Do tell me WHAT is going on down there.” Del Rio asked, scorn and fury tainting his voice as he gestured to the screen, which now showed Mike being questioned by a purple horse.

Many questions and screaming matches later…

“Let me get this straight. Captain Hill was captured and questioned by…. by these things?” Del Rio asked in frustration as he massaged his temples. He really needed a bottle of Advil right now.

“Ponies.” Lane said stiffly, trying to suppress his scientist urge to address everything with its proper name. “Ponies, sir.”

Del Rio looked at Lane again with murderous intent in his eyes as the rest of the line of Spartans took a healthy step away from Lane in caution. “I don’t care what they are Spartan if you don’t get a hold of Captain Hill, I’m calling in a strike team to go get him. Am I understood?” Said Del Rio, Anger, scorn, and a hint of murderous intent coursing through his words as the five Spartans all stood in a slightly flabbergasted shock, even Palmer managed to show a little concern for the Captains now paper-thin patience.

“Understood, sir.” Muttered Lane as if on autopilot. Lane then turned to the computer to contact Mike. Meanwhile, the rest of us dispersed to whatever jobs we had to do that day while Lane continued to tap away at the keyboard. Trying both to contain his fury and contact Mike.

Planet side Equestria

“So let me get this right. You’re from a planet called Earth, your part of a military organization called the UNSC, and a part of a super-soldier program?” Twilight asked as she paced frantically around the room, trying to understand all that I told her and not go mad from the information.

“Yep, that’s it in a nutshell,” I said with a smirk on my face.

“You must have done and seen so much,” Twilight said, Fascination thinly veiled behind a façade of formality as she stared at me with wonder-filled eyes.

Cocking my head to the side, I thought about my years in the UNSC. “Eh… sort of…” Most of the time I’ve been in the UNSC consisted of either being in a cyro-tube or combat with the Covenant. I seldom got the chance to enjoy the things around me, but I enjoyed it when given a chance. I could tell Twilight was about to ask more when I heard a loud buzzing come from my helmet sitting next to me on the table to my left.

“Mike. You there?” Lane asked over the comms. I reached over and grabbed my helmet, then pulled out the earpiece and placed it in my ear, bracing myself for the likely barrage of questions that were about to assault my ear.

“Lane, what’s….” I asked before being cut short by a rapturous yell from the other end of the line causing me to flinch and my eyes to water from the pain.

“SPARTAN!” a voice I recognized as Del Rio’s yelled, “Do you know that your breaking protocol? If you some much a give them a shred of sensitive information, I WILL have you arrested for treason.”

I grimaced in pain. That man really has anger management issues. “Sir, I was just explaining why I was here and wh-“ I tried to say before being cut off.

“I don’t care, Spartan, just get back on mission. You have until noon tomorrow before pick up. Del Rio–“ Del Rio Ranted before I interjected.

“WAIT! Sir, these locals have some pretty neat tricks like lifting boulders with their minds...” I knew Lane had probably already tried this appeal, but I had a secret weapon that Lane would never use Del Rio’s pride. “Stuff I think ONI might be interested in, and I bet a captain could go straight to admiral if he found a power that helped put us one up on the covies, Right? But of course, you’d do it for the sake of the good old UNSC.” I finished as I walked over and looked out the window at the mid-afternoon sky.

I could almost hear Del Rio’s glare off the Mic. Finally, he replied in an almost gleeful voice. “Tell you what, Captain Hill, You’ll have your science team, a full team, and security team to reverse engineer the Telekinesis trick… They’ll be there at noon tomorrow. Del Rio out.”

I pulled my earpiece out and clutched it in my hands in Puzzlement. If Del Rio was happy with giving in to Lane and me, then there was a DEFINITE gain for him and probably a regrettable loss for us. I continued to glare at the earpiece, almost as if demanding it gives up the secrets I desire before I heard movement behind me and turned.

“Mike, you alright?” Twilight asked, confusion lacing her voice as she and the cyan one I heard called Rainbow dash earlier came up behind me.

“Yeah, just my boss Del Rio chewing me out, nothing you need to worry yourself with.” I paused for a second, and after considering Del Rio’s words for a few seconds, asked, “Can I stay with any of you? I’m stuck here for another day.”

Twilight smiled gleefully and replied, “You can stay with me.”

Rainbow Dash looked like she would flip and nudge Twilight in the side before asking in a serious tone, “Twilight is sure that you can trust him?” She said, glaring at me like I was the anti-Christ.

“Yes, Rainbow.” Replied Twilight in a calming voice, “I’m sure I can trust him. But thanks for the concern.” she added on trying to reassure her friend.

Raising my eyebrow in curiosity, I pocketed my earpiece. “Why don’t you trust me, Dash?” I asked, feeling I knew the answer but wanted to hear it from her.

Dash turned to look at me with a near murderous look in her eyes. “You were sneaking around, and you pointed a weapon at Sweetie Belle!” Dash said, looking me up and down, trying to find a weakness in my armor to exploit immediately.

“And for that, I apologize. All of what I did was out of habit.” I said, raising my hands and giving a universal surrender motion of hands up by my head in my defense.

“Riiiiight, of course, it was,” Dash replied, sarcasm soaking her words as she shook her head and started towards the door after one last reassuring look from Twilight.

I shrugged and called after her, “Give me time, Dash. You never know.” Rainbow Dash looked back one last time and rolled her eyes, stalking off into town.

Recognizing the rumbling in my stomach, I chuckled nervously and asked one of the most important questions I could think of. “Hey, Twilight. Is there a place where I can get some food? I’m starved.” I asked, trying to figure out whether or not Del Rio would try and starve me out for disobedience.

Twilight sat back and rubbed her chin with her hooves in thought. “What is it that humans eat?” Twilight asked, her curiosity reaching a new high.

“We are omnivores, so we eat vegetables, fruits, and meat,” I replied. Any food would be nice, but hoo boy, I’d kill for something sweet right now.

Nodding her head in understanding, Twilight replied. “We can cover that. We can go to Sugar Cube Corner.” I smiled, liking the name's sound, but I noticed Twilight had a bit of an uneasy look on her face after hearing the “meat” added to the list. As a thought crossed my mind, I smirked. If Matt’s down here, he’ll starve if he can’t eat meat.

“Alright, sounds good to me,” I replied with a smile. We left Twilight’s house and started to walk to Sugar Cube Corner. While we were walking, the busy streets quickly emptied as the whole town went into a lapse of terror and hid in their houses and shops. I looked around and noticed the locals were peering through the windows out of curiosity, and I imagine slight fear.

We finally reached Sugar Cube Corner and proceeded to enter. I watched in slight fascination as the ponies inside were chatting, silenced, and either left or turned to watch me with either curious or suspicious looks on their faces. I smirked as my mind drew analogies to my treatment here, and as a Spartan by ODSTs, it turns out being a badass guarantee you a minimum safe distance boundary against normal people, man or horse.

“Hey, Pinkie! You there?” Twilight yelled in behind the counter as she worked her way up to the counter past the other horses. Almost before Twilight was done speaking, a pink pony popped up from behind the counter almost faster than my eyes could track.

“OH MY GOSH!” The supersonic pink blur I assumed was called Pinkie yelled. I was surprised when said blur managed to rush up to me and start similarly bouncing around me. A rubber ball would attract the rest of the restaurant's attention and destroy what was left of my anonymity as she began a barrage of questions. “An alien. Where did you come from? What’s your name? What are you wearing?” Pinkie asked as she bounced around the room.

Thinking on my feet and trying to calm the pink blur down, I said the first thing came to mind. “Uh, Pinkie… can we get some food first, then me and Twilight can explain everything.” This seemed to satisfy the little pink horse-blur, and to my utter surprise, she stopped dead in her tracks… literally. By some defiance of physics, she had stopped perfectly in mid-air. I could tell Matt and Lane were gonna flip their shit when they got here.

“Okie, dokie, lokie.” Pinkie said before jetting off into the kitchen, leaving a fire trail that took a second to manifest. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered that nobody seemed to pay attention to the apparent disregard of physics. If anything, it seemed to be a normal occurrence… yep, Matt and Lane were definitely gonna flip their shit.

Shaking myself out of my reverie, I manage to think up a quick and somewhat witty response to physics's apparent middle finger. “Sir Isaac Newton is rolling in his grave,” I said to myself as I trailed over to the short table that twilight had already occupied and sat myself down.

“Yeah, Don’t mind her. Pinkie has her own set of physics somehow.” Twilight replied, chuckling as she made herself comfortable.

“Definitely… Pinkie just essentially broke physics in half and tossed their remains into a giant blender that makes cupcakes.” I replied, still in shock. “Christ, Matt has probably turned to the drink already.” I chuckled mirthlessly as I imagined my friend’s reaction.

Pinkie soon returned with enough food to feed an army; there before me was a tray full of a vast array of cookies, plethora’s of cake, and enough pie to kill Blake, our local pie eater, ten times over. My mouth watered at the smell of the sweets, and I silently thanked the big guy above for the mind read blessing.

“Sweet Jesus in a manger, that looks AMAZING! Thanks, Pinkie!” I yelled, barely controlling both my stomach and my jubilee. Pinkie smiled and gestured to the feast before us.

“Alright, everypony dig in,” said Pinkie with a smile. I looked at the table, unsure where to start, and eventually grabbed a slice of apple pie. When I took my first bite, a rush of flavor flooded my mouth and dulled my staved senses of good old terrestrial grown food. I was pretty sure I was about to start moaning. It was so good, but I managed to control myself.

“Wow, that’s some good apple pie,” I said with a mouth full of food, temporarily ignoring any semblance of etiquette.

“Well, you are eating the finest apples of all of Equestria, thank you very much.” Said a voice proudly from behind me. I turned around to see the blonde one from earlier, and I think they called her Apple Jack, come waltzing in through the door.

I nodded my head and smiled, trying not to look like too much of a goof. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. I want to come back in thirty years, having it taste the same if not better.” I said, laughing with the rest of our little crew at our table as she walked up and joined the fray.

“Sure thing, sugar cube.” She said with a smile as she reached over for a slice of cake.

Thinking about my squad and the chewing they likely got from Del Rio and how much Blake would love a slice of this pie, I called over Pinkie and asked, “Hey, Pinkie, can I get some of this for my squad back home tomorrow?”

Pinkie jumped up and nodded her head as fast as she could. “I’ll bring a couple of pies for your squad. Sound good?” I nodded my head and immediately got back to eating; it had been a while since I’ve eaten.

“I looked around at everyone enjoying their meal, and Twilight was explaining to Pinkie what I was and what I was doing here. After a period of time, we finished, and Twilight gave me the grand introduction of everyone. I was quite impressed with them; Twilight, the element of magic, AppleJack, the element of honesty, Pinkie Pie, laughter, Rainbow Dash element, the element of loyalty, Rarity, the element of generosity, and Flutter Shy, the element of kindness. I still haven’t met Flutter Shy or Rarity yet, but I hope to meet them soon.

After a few hours of chatting and meet and greets, the day had just about the past, the sun resting on the horizon giving away to the dark of night. I was at Twilights house, improvising a cot out of hay and spare cloth, getting ready to hit the hay.

Knock, knock, knock

I

stood and decided to walk to the door, seeing if I could remember who it was at the door out of the preverbal army of faces I met today. As I got closer to the door, Twilight trotted up, and I hung back watching the door to see if I could actually get a name right.

Twilight trotted over to open the door and smiled in elation. “Hey, Flutter Shy, Hey Rarity,” Twilight said with a smile. I watched the two ponies standing in the doorway; one was a well-groomed pearl white-colored, and the other was cream-colored and was lagging slightly behind the pearl one.

“Ah Twilight, what a pleasure to see you again. I simply wish we could talk, but Fluttershy here would like to talk to you.” Rarity said, regretfully raising her hoof and motioning Fluttershy forward with a comforting but firm hoof on the back.

Flutter shy shuffled forward and began to stutter out a statement. “Twilight, the animals, have been acting strange lately…” Flutter Shy paused as we made eye contact. “AAAAAHHHHH A MONSTER.” She yelled before ducking back behind Rarity.

“It’s okay, Fluttershy. He’s a friend,” Twilight said, trying to calm Fluttershy. I moved forward slowly, trying to keep her calm as I popped on a knee.

“Are… are you sure?” Fluttershy asked, poking her head out around a calm Rarity.

I raised my hands and began to back up towards my cot. “I might not look that nice, but I am a nice person once you get to know me,” I said wistfully while trying to fix up my cot.

“Oh, so that’s the monster that everypony is talking about.” Rarity said her curiosity peak, and I could tell she also wanted to spam me with questions, “Well, I was here to return the fashion book that I borrowed Twilight. I would love to stay and chat with…”

“Michael, my name is Michael.” I filled in as I began to remove the plates of my armor.

“With Michael, but it is getting late, maybe we can chat over some breakfast?” Rarity asked as she tried to help Fluttershy keep her calm.

“Sounds like a plan,” Twilight replied, smiling ear to ear.

“Good night,” I said while Twilight and I waved them off. Flutter Shy waved shyly back, and Rarity gave a very graceful goodbye before they walked off into the fading evening light.

Heading back to get ready for bed, twilight turned out the light and got in bed, and I did the same. I looked out the window to see the moon slowly rise into view. A strange pang of sorrow filled my chest. The moon reminded me a lot of home, and with that, I let out a sigh as memories flooded my mind.

“What’s wrong?” Twilight asked as she rolled over and looked down to the floor at me.

Not really looking for a conversation, I shrugged and answered as noncommittally as I could. “Oh, nothing really, just watching the moon reminded me of home.”

Twilight nodded and smiled down at me and laughed, “Well, at least you have some friends on your ship… will we get to meet them?”

“Yeah, they should be here tomorrow. Well, good night Twilight.” I chuckled as I tried to soothe myself to sleep.

“Sweet dreams Michael.” She said sweetly as she yawned and quickly fell to sleep.

I soon began to doze off, and once again, I began to slip into the same nightmare I’d had for the last couple of years from the human-covenant war that started to flood my mind. I frowned as my mind slipped deeper and deeper into my own little personal hell. Every conscious night since the end of the war, I’ve been living in the same hellish nightmare.