Chapter One: The Covenant
Chapter One: The Covenant
HALO: PONYVILLES LAST STAND
CHAPTER 1: THE COVENANT
Equestria, beautiful. Peaceful. Tranquil. All that used to be true, but now our land has been struck with a horrible plague. A plague so fierce it has destroyed Canterlot and reduced it to nothing but a large smouldering crater. This plague refers to its self as "the covenant".
They are making their way to Ponyville where my fateful student Twilight Sparkle is holding up the last line of defence. But not all hope is lost. When the covenant came so did the U.N.S.C.these brave soldiers are risking their lives to save us ponies. Even though our differences, they equip us with their Armour and their weapons, which they modified for us to use on our enemies. Our now common enemies.
As I am writing this Captain Bradford as well as Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie are making their why up the ships gravity lift. In hopes to plant a warhead and destroy the ship. Hopefully ending the war. But this is not important; you probably want to know how it all happened. It all started 7 months ago.
"According to this; it was that solar-flare”
"Come on, it went this way" Captain Bradford said as he ran through the trees of the Everfree forest with blinding speed rushing past his ODST squad. Determined to catch up to the large lanky reptile-bird like creature called a skirmisher that with such fast speed and agility swooped from the trees and slit the squads sergeants throat. As he was rushing he misjudged his steps and tripped over a branch. He stumbled and smashed into a shadowy figure
Lying dazed and confused he slowly stumbled up right, giving his helmet a quick smack to re-calibrate everything.
“Are you okay sir” An ODST said rushing up to the place where Bradford made his fall
“Yeah, I think so” replied Bradford.
The ODST heard some sounds coming from the nearby bushes and rose his weapon.
"Sir are you getting anything on your tracker?
The captain looked down and saw his motion tracker was static and flickering.
"No" Bradford replied softly.
“Oh I'm so glad you're okay, that is just bloody dandy” the shadowy figure said with the slight hint of a cockney accent, while gradually making his way out of the bushes that he was thrown so forcefully thrown into to.
“What the hell is that?” An ODST yelled.
"Stay back or I will fire" The two ODSTs aimed their weapons and kept it sighted at the silhouetted figure in the bushes that stepped into the light. It was a bright green pony with a bright red spiked mane and tail. It looked at the two soldiers with its bright blue eyes and saw them standing with such anger in their stance that he fell back and hit the ground.
“What-. What do you want?" The pony said as he sat on the ground frightened and startled. The ODSTs looked at the Spartan.
"What do we do captain? We have never come across a talking bloody horse!
"Put your weapons down! For starters! It's unarmed." The Spartan began to slowly approach the pony, as he did the pony shook more and more. The ODSTs stepped back and the captain through, fingers still at the ready
"What is your name?" The pony was startled and did not know what to say. But he swallowed the lump in his throat and said his name with a stutter.
"Um... Sly-Ranger"
"What the hell kind of name is that" the one of the ODST soldiers said.
"How rude" the pony said while gradually making its way up, shaking the leaves out if its mane "That is the name my father gave me. And it suits me quite well" The pony reached full height before flinching in pain and hitting the ground again." Ah good god, my first day of banishment and I'm already injured." The pony lifted up his front leg to reveal a large red gash running down the back of it. "Ah good it's only a minor wound it will heal. Now that we have settled down a bit. I have a question?" The pony slowly stood up wobbling.
“What are you creatures? Captain Bradford looked at the pony.
"We are humans. We are an alien race. We come from a different world entirely and believe me. We were just as scared of you as you were of us.” With a slight pause and drawback the pony raised its hoof as if to engage in a hand shake. The Spartan grabbed the hoof of the pony and shook.
The Pony and the Humans sat and talked for hours as they grew a more solid understanding for each other. They exchanged all the stories they had about the war and all the stories Sly had about his Job as a Postman. It was weird for both Sly and the Captain not to mention the ODSTs as they both have never encountered something like this. Sly looked at the Captain with contentment and only had thing to say.
"How did you get here?"
"It's a long story, I’d rather not talk about it"
"That's fine. I understand" Sly said as he started to get up. “I have to get going now. There is a town up head about 200 meters.” Sly started to slowly walk off into the dark depths of the forest slowly fading away. Captain Bradford knew this was not going to be the last time he would see this pony.
“Come on, we should continue on into this town he was speaking of. Captain Bradford led his squad out of the dark and haunting forest and into the brightened outskirts of Ponyville; where they saw all the weird intertwining and old era style buildings and structures. They have never encountered such odd structures that looked so close to home. They looked ahead and scouted out the nearest building. The building looked like it had been carved and built into a large and tall tree. The building also had a large amount of animals in its surroundings. The troopers began to slowly walk towards the building.
“Look” whispered an ODST. “Over there is another Pony” Captain Bradford gave a pat on the shoulder plate of the trooper and gave the “stay put” signal with his hand. Slowly he then began to move closer to the yellow pony with Pink long hair that curved around her young innocent face. The pony was tending to a bunch of animals that were in the ground.
“Hello there!” Captain Bradford yelled at the pony hoping to get a response. He did get one, but all the pony did was shriek look back and forth and run into the house screaming. Slamming the door shut with a loud bang then all the animals followed on inside, the pony then locked all the windows. The captain shrugged his shoulders not knowing what he just saw and gave the “follow me” signal. The troopers followed the captain as they kept walking through the foreign place. Whenever they came close to any building all the doors shut. All the windows shut. And everything went quiet.
“Let’s keep on going” said Bradford reluctantly.
As they made their way closer and closer towards the town center Brad ford noticed something on his tracker moving fast above him. Real fast. Bradford did the only thing he knew to do. He bent over and pounded the ground with his fist. The impact put a mighty crater in the ground. Suddenly in the blink of an eye the captain was covered with a bright blue layer of almost liquid looking material. There was sparks bouncing of his armour and hitting the ground and kicking up the dirt and hitting the visor of the ODSTs. The fast moving object slammed into the armour locked captain with unrelenting force. Bounced off and then slid across the dirt ground. The ODST’s walked up and grabbed the cyan pony with a beautiful rainbow colored mane and tail who starred intensely at the Spartan with her Dark Pink almost purple colored eyes.
“How did you know I was going to do that! HUH!” the pony leaned forward and with all its almost depleted energy sprouted its wings almost as if it was warning the Spartan to back away. Or challenging him to a fight. This would be a very stupid idea.
“Sir, should I kill this one” One of the soldiers said as he pointed the barrel of his MA5B assault rifle close to the eyes of the pony. The captain was about to speak but was interrupted
“Rainbow! Please do not assault our guests.” A Purple pony with a light purple mane with a bright purple strike in the middle said. Bradford couldn't help but notice the horn that stuck out through the pony’s mane on the top of her head as the pony started to make its way slowly towards the Captain.
“Please excuse my friend’s rudeness.”
“Ah, it's okay” Bradford replied.
“Now about your ship, could you pleas-” Bradford interrupted the pony
“let me stop you there? That is not ours. And you’re lucky that we are here to help you with the things that are inside” the pony looked confused “But if that’s not your ship. Then how did you get here."
Bradford looked deep in the pony’s eyes and saw confusion and worry. Was this the leader, or the welcome party? He didn’t know, but what he did know was his mission. To neutralize the covenant carrier. And minimize civilian casualties.
“Listen I'm going to be frank with you. We are not from this world. We come from a different place entirely. My ship crashed and we have wounded. All in all Listen to what I'm about to tell you don't worry about us you should be worrying about that ship” the captain pointed at the carrier that was positioned in the sky high above the clouds and that was stationed right overhead of the city of Canterlot.
“That belongs to the covenant. A group of marauding species that if they had the chance; will come down here and kill every single one of you.”
“How do you know this?” The cyan Pony flew right up close to the captains visor close enough to see her reflection in the gold tint that covered the captain’s pilot variant Spartan helmet. “Huh shiny face?”
The captain grabbed the sides of his helmet twisted it to the side. And as he did several clacks and clicks were heard. Then a short gust of steam escaped from the vents on the side of the helmet. He took off his helmet and revealed his war torn face. He had bright baby blue eyes and dark short shaven brown hair, his skin was pale due to the time he spent in the armour, he had multiple scars across his face including through his full dark brown eye brows. He then rested his helmet on his thigh and held it with his lower arm.
“because. I have seen it with my own eyes”.
"Oh you have, have you" said the cyan pony "well perhaps you can tell us which side you are on then. Huh?" The captain looked at the pony with a blinding stare. Frustrated the captain put his helmet on the ground and began to speak.
"Look I understand if you don't trust me considering I just came out of the forest spurting crazy stuff, but you must understand. The creatures in that ship are highly dangerous. If there is a place we could go where we could discuss this it would be not only a help to you but a help for me." Twilight looked at the Spartan captain. The way he stood showed he had a high level of discipline. It was the way he starred at her that made her believe though. His eyes showed a level of worry and selflessness that she only saw in her friends she looked away and paused for a bit. She then turned around and looked at the Captain with a Smile.
"Alright. Follow me. I'm twilight sparkle by the way." The purple pony extended its hoof out as if to engage in a hand shake
"I'm Captain Bradford" the captain grabbed the hoof of the purple pony and shook. The captain and his squad started to follow the purple pony. On the way the captain saw all the interesting architecture and wondered how these ponies managed to build everything.
"Doesn't my appearance disturb you or creep you out at all" The captain asked Twilight.
"No not at all, well not at first. You know you’re not the first people of your kind we have seen" Twilight said focusing on the path ahead. The Captain stopped and with such force in his voice he spoke.
"You have seen more of us? Where?" Twilight looked at the captain and nodded. But that was all she did. This gave the captain a deep sense that something went wrong, but he dared not ask any more questions. He didn’t want to know what happened to his other squad mates.
They eventually made their way to a huge building that resembled a large tree with balconies, as well as what seemed to be a large odd looking telescope on the roof of the building. On the way to the door, sitting outside was a large wooden sign that had a picture of a book on it. When he arrived inside he was surrounded by the largest amount of books he had ever seen, there was books of all sizes and colours, he was in awe. This collection was even bigger than the library on reach.
"So this is where you live, this huge library."
"Yeah this is it pretty much, I live here with my assistant spike" Twilight then pointed at the area where Spike was sorting books.
"So please tell me all about this Covenant" Twilight said
"Alright. About 30 years ago a ship over the mining planet of harvest was destroyed. When the U.N.S.C. went to investigate they found a transmission floating in one of the life pods of the vessel. It was a message from one of their prophets. And it said this."
The captain reached into the tactical pouch on his chest plate and pulled out a simple recording device. He fiddled with the buttons for a bit before laying it on the table and hitting play. The recording started with some soft static, and then vocals started to emerge.
"Your destruction is the will of the gods, and we are their instrument."
The captain hit the stop button and put the device back into his pouch. He then looked at Twilight
"Ever since then we have been fighting for our survival as a species as they destroy hundreds of our colonies. I'm only going to give you three pointers about the covenant. One, they do not take prisoners. Two, they will not listen to reason. Three, they will kill you and destroy your world if you try to get in their way. I've seen it happen before"
Twilight looked shocked and interested as the Captain told her everything about his battles and the war. But before she could ask any questions one of the ODST troopers ran through door. Panicked and exhausted he stood up and paused to get his breath back. Then he spoke
"SIR! We have a large radiation reading!" The captain stood up with panic in his eyes and walked over to the soldier and grabbed the reading device out of his hand. His arms then dropped. He gave the device back to the trooper grabbed his helmet and his rifle and then ran outside of the building ordering the Trooper and Twilight to follow him. He stepped outside, put on his helmet and looked at the covenant carrier. His fears were true. The ship was getting ready to glass
"That city over there, the one on the side of the mountain" the captain yelled at twilight “how many live there?" Twilight had a look of worry on her face as the captain questioned her?
"Couple thousand. Why?" asked twilight with her voice being slightly higher with the panic.
"Cause you see the light on the underside of the ship? That's its ventral cleansing beam. We disabled it during our fight. The bastards must have repaired it. From what I can tell we have about five hours before it fires and glasses that whole area" Twilight instantly knew what to do. She knew how to stop that ship and save Canterlot.
“Wait here captain. I know what to do" Twilight said with enthusiasm in her voice.
"What you have in mind?" The captain questioned Twilight with a hint of sarcasm knowing that the only way to destroy or neutralize a Covenant Carrier was either excessive MAC rounds into the hull or a warhead in the ship. Also a lucky shot at the hull when the shield sparked was one way of disabling the Ventral Cleansing Beam.
Twilight looked at the captain with a smile.
“We will use the elements of harmony. A powerful magic that can vanquish any evil. I'm sure it will work, as it has worked twice before. Now just wait here with spike." Before the captain could question the ponies plan Twilight had already bolted off to gather the elements. The troops looked at the Spartan as he sat on the ground and hoped. Hoped that this ponies plan would work, cause if she was wrong. They would all die.
Chapter Two: Captain Bradford. Service Number 009
Halo: Ponyvilles last stand Chapter Two: Captain Bradford. Service Number 009
Bradford sat on the hard broken dirt ground looking at the cruiser high in the air; he lifted his hand above his head to block out the sun. He could see the glow of the charging ball of energy on the underside of the covenant carrier. He sighed and let his hand drop onto his lap, and let his head sink down to his chest. He closed his eyes and he started to think back at the events that led him to this unknown anomaly of a planet.
“Oh god sir they are launching boarding parties.”
The crew member said with his head facing the side while his body and the rest of him continued to face forward towards the screens and monitors. Which were all flashing a bright darkening red, with the vast amounts of warnings that displayed on the screen one after the other.
“Keep at it crew man, we have Bradford on the scene on the lower decks mopping them up.” A rather short and skinny man wearing a white navy uniform with the title of “captain” on a badge on his chest said. He pointed at the crewman sitting in the chair in the corner watching the coms and ships sensors. A large and impacting thud was heard and felt against the underside of the ship that knocked the small captain about as the ship felt an impact.
“Oh shit sir. We have four more boarding crafts on the lower deck.”
The small captain got himself straightened up before giving a nod of acknowledgement. He reached up to his earpiece that sat on the back of his ear and fed into his inner ear. By pressing a couple of buttons he contacted the radio channel that the Spartan II super soldier known as “Bradford” was connected to.
“Captain Bradford this is Captain Montez just letting you know there are four more boarding crafts that have just attached onto the lower decks. Give’em hell.“
Captain Montez lowered his arm away from his ear and bowed his head. As explosions and crackle of gunfire echoed in the distance and sirens were going off Montez closed his eyes. Raised a cigar. Put it in his mouth. Lit it. And sighed.
The clinks and clanks of bullet cases hitting the cold steel floor engulfed ears of the Spartan as he mounted the turret and opened fire at the tall hoofed aliens with a split jaw. The four segmented mouths formed mandibles. These creatures were referred to as “elites” They had two long arms with 4 fingers on each end they were a menacing foe. Most wearing a dark blue set of armour and one even wearing a red set.
“Cortyn give me covering. West flank.”
The red Spartan said as his shoulder plates that were the standard MK.V that were small, lightweight but could still take a lot of punishment vibrated as the gun shot. The barrel spinning almost heating up to a point of red as the bullets came out at blinding speed piercing and mowing down the smaller of the covenant infantry. These were called the grunts. These arthropod creatures are around the size of an average human, very dumb and known for their cowardly behaviour. With a large methane tank on their back they can sometimes be used as cheap explosive ordnance. The bullets ripped through the skulls of the simple creatures as blue luminous blood spread and splattered all against the floor and on the enemies’ team mates. On the motion tracker in Captain Bradford’s helmet he saw with disbelief a small red dot behind him.
“how in the hell, How did he slip by me.”
He let go of the turret and turned around to see a faint liquid silhouette appear, It was 8 feet tall easy. It stopped and paused. So did Bradford. The Spartan began to slowly edge his way towards his knife that was holstered in a thick black leather sheath on his chest. The creature took note of this and uncloaked taking away his liquid curtain to reveal a pissed off golden armoured elite. The Elite sprang off his feet, charging towards him with a flared up handle that when extended revealed two long blades that protruded from each end. The handle was held horizontally in the hand of a skilled elite. The blades curved at the end, and then curved back inwards to form a long blade like point that could easily cut a shielded Spartan clean into two parts. Bradford had to react quickly.
As the gold tall creature charged at him; time seemed to slow down. He conveyed his decision and grabbed his knife and pulled it out of the holster and with a large amount of force. He swung upwards moving his upper arm and straightening his forearm and elbow to make a 90 degree angle, with the knife pointed upwards he then pushed up with blinding speed. The tungsten blade hit the elites shield. It sparked then gave way. With the knife still going the tip of the blade hit the layered armour of the elites fore arm. Like a hot knife through butter it went straight through. The knife penetrated the arm and bone of the creature. Bradford for a split second had control of the arm of the elite and he knew what to do. He pulled with all of the augmented might that he had and forced the blade into the exposed and rough neck of the gold elite. Everything stopped as the elite stood up right for a couple of seconds, his own blade through his neck, blood dripping down from his neck and his arm, splashing on the cold steel floor.
“That’s for reach you son of a bitch” The Spartan said before the elite went limp and collapsed to the floor like a ragdoll.
The clinks and clanks of standard issue drop boots against the steel of halcyon class cruiser interior could be heard as sergeant Cortyn made his way through the carnage of the busted pipes, broken glass and spilt metal. The smell of blood and anger filling his senses as he saw a mixed colour palette of blood. Green, blue, purple and red. Cortyn approached an obstacle in his path, a broken door black square door. He opened a small pouch on his upper pants pocket to reveal a small grey rectangular device that fit nicely into the palm of his hand. He placed it on the keypad for the door that was located to the lower right of the black door. Cortyn started to fiddle with dials as he tried to hack the door controls. All was silent around him, besides the odd crackle of gun fire that echoed through the empty halls of the cold steel ship, everything was quiet. Out of nowhere a loud bang was heard coming from the other side of the door. Cortyn fell backwards; he got back up to his feet and raised his MA5B assault rifle, aiming at the door, he held it tightly. BANG! Another large impact against the square black door. This time bending it almost out of shape. Sweat was slowly going down Cortyns tanned face, going onto his thin brown eyebrows and avoiding his green eyes. The door broke open with a huge swinging motion and then fell onto the ground with a collapsing thud. Cortyn panicked for a second as he saw a large red figure approaching.
“Cortyn! Planning on going AWOL where you?”
Cortyn lowered his gun and a sigh of relief escaped his mouth.
“Sir you do not believe how Glad I am to hear your voice. Sorry I got lost, I went to flank west and yeah… I got lost.”
The Spartan walked into the room where Cortyn was. The faint darkness of the room engulfed Bradford. The only source of light being the luminous red warning light that pulsated at the top of room on the ceiling. The Spartan rested his back on the wall. He slid down so he was sitting.
“I just got the order. We are abandoning this ship.” The captain sighed and muttered some swears under his breath. “The life boats are just down there we should go.”
The captain slowly rose and put his gun on his back. He raised his arm and flung it forward giving the “follow me signal” Cortyn stayed put and trembled before opening his mouth
“With all due respect sir. I am not leaving here until I find my husband.”
The captain looked at Cortyn and saw his hands all clenched up in fist and his body tense. Bradford walked up to Cortyn slowly his boots clacking on the ground, metal against metal.
“Never leave a man behind. Huh?”
Cortyn nodded. And spoke
“He was last seen at the mess hall which was down there, which was why I was going through that door… before you kicked it down.”
Bradford Began to walk through the broken entrance way. The fire of the broken pipes and scorched plasma lighting his armour in a magnificent mix of red, blue, purple and orange. This lighting continued as the Cortyn followed along beside Bradford as they made their way through the broken and dying ship. creaks and moans of the stressed metal was heard as the ship was hit by plasma shell after plasma shell. The halls all looked the same to Bradford. The dull grey and bland yellow on the floor showing the path to the mess hall. Braford had only been on this grey monster of a battle cruiser that looked like a flying almost cylindrical brick for a short time. A body guard for a package to a mining colony. One minute. To fighting for his life in the flying Metal coffin the next.
They arrived to the mess hall to see it in complete disarray and utter destruction. The tables were half melted there were bodies of covenant and human soldiers everywhere and reamins of limbs scattered aimlessly around the mess hall. There was blood on the floor, walls and ceiling. Plasma burns and bullet holes decorated the walls as well. Corrtyns heart sank as he saw the catastrophe that was the mess halls status. The soldier looked around for all signs of life frantically looking at all the dead soldiers scattered around everywhere. Bradford waited at the door and guarded the exit. He peered over to see Cortyn hit the ground on his knees as his body went limp. He lifted up his arms gradually and took a hold of his helmet; He lifted it up and threw it off. The helmet hit the ground and rolled. He leant over and rested his head on the chest of a marine who lay on the ground, his right leg missing and badly burnt and a hole in the left side of his chest. His face was as black as a badly burnt piece of meat; this was most likely caused from a plasma burn from an explosion from a plasma grenade. Cortyn lifted up and opened his lungs yelling at not just the state of his husband, but at his own stupidity for leaving him. Tears slowly started to form below his eyes and started to edge down his cheeks. He rested his head softly on the soldiers’ chest again quietly sobbing to himself. Bradford walked up slowly the metal click clacks not as loud; he approached the now sobbing Cortyn and rested his arm on his back gently.
“Hey…We have to go now.” Bradford said softly.
Cortyn sat up and grabbed his husbands’ arms and placed them across his chest one over the other. He grabbed the dog tags and pulled them off.
“it’s not fair… it’s just not fair… He was a nice man…kind…gentle. He didn’t deserve this.” Cortyn said, softly mumbling at some points.
“I’m sorry I really am”
Cortyn interrupted the captains speech and with blind fury he got up with blinding speed, he got up real close to the captain.
“Do not! Feed me bullshit. You don’t feel emotions; you don’t know what it is like to lose someone you care about. You are pretty much a Robot! I heard all about your Augmentations. So with all due respect sir. Stow it!”
The captain stood firm and held his ground.
“It was during training, and I and my twin brother Luke were more or less chosen to be a Spartan. We were going well. It was supposed to be a simple task. Take out the targets and get the best times. Luke was always a show pony, liked to show off. He pulled the pin to a grenade held it for three. Then decided to show off… he held it for that one second longer. Even though he was trained not to. He threw it, it was the right range, but he didn’t have enough time to run. It exploded, and a Piece of shrapnel entered his brain. He died on the training run… He was only 13 years old... So don’t tell me that I can’t feel emotions and I am a robot … till this day I still have his dog tags with me so I fight for his memory. And you should as well. Don’t let your husband die in vain.”
Cortyn looked at the captain embarrassed and shocked.
“I am so sorry sir… I didn’t know…”
Bradford patted Cortyn on the shoulder and nodded.
“It’s okay… now, we should go.”
“Captain? Captain! Are you awake? those ponies have returned”
suddenly the captain awoke from his grim and foreboding memory to find himself still stuck in the bright colour palette world that he crashed in. Cortyn stood in front of him still in his ODST gear and with the dog tags of his husband hanging from his neck. The captain slowly rose up and looked down and saw six bright ponies looking at him. One pink, one white with a beautifully curled purple mane and tail, one orange with a cowboy hat and yellow mane and tail tied up at the end, and the other was the yellow one that he saw earlier and the purple one and blue one with the fiery attitude was there as well. He scanned around at all of them and whispered to himself.
“what the fuck have I gotten myself into”
