Advertisement
Not a member of Pastebin yet?
Sign Up,
it unlocks many cool features!
- >"Pod controls damaged. Manual override needed."
- >"Pod controls damaged. Manual override needed."
- "Nnngh..."
- >"Pod controls damaged. Manual override needed."
- >You blinked a few times, slowly coming to.
- >There was blood on the inside of your visor, likely from the cut you felt on your eyebrow.
- >"Pod controls damaged. Manual override needed."
- "Fuck off..." You grunted, still taking stock of your situation.
- >Slipspace rupture right in front of your eyes, blinding light...impact, then black-out.
- >"Command acknowledged."
- >The computer shut off, the red OLED above you blinking at a steady interval.
- >A quick self check showed that you were...physically alright, at the very least.
- >A little sore, a little beat up, but hey.
- >You hit the ground going at...Mach .9, it was a miracle you weren't *dead*.
- >Your weapons were still alright, nothing short of a Covie glassing could break these things.
- >Your medical kit was alright as well, though your grenades were shot.
- >Cracked open and leaking the explosive powder all over the pod...this could be bad.
- >You took them off and laid them on the floor of the pod, not wanting the explosives on you.
- >Your helmet, strangely, wasn't getting any radio signals.
- >Looking outside, you saw...trees.
- >There were no trees in Mombasa.
- >There were no buildings in this forest.
- >You looked about your SOEIV, looking for the emergency releases.
- >You hit the seven buttons, wondering for a brief moment why there were seven and not just, you know, one or two.
- >The door blew off, and you stepped out, M7/S in your hands and M6G on the holster around your waist.
- >Birds quickly retreated, scared off from the blast.
- >Your compass was attempting to get its bearings, spinning around fruitlessly.
- >Thankful there was a way to manually set it, you simply looked up.
- >The sun appeared to be setting rapidly, so you deemed that direction 'west'.
- >The compass then reset itself.
- >Now, to get out of this blasted forest to actually get your bearings.
- >You turned and began stripping your pod.
- >You weren't entirely sure why, though. There wasn't exactly a command post to move to.
- "Oh well."
- >You packed up your additional ammunition, MREs, anything and everything you could carry.
- >Your senses were still on edge.
- >This forest was...dark. Too dark.
- >Made the hairs prickle on the back of your neck, like something was watching you.
- "Gah. Just nerves."
- >You then started walking in a direction at random, you didn't care which.
- >As you walked, you took stock.
- >Twenty mags for your M7, ten for the M6G, two more frags, three C7 charges and a detpack, several MREs, an emergency beacon, and no idea what you were doing.
- >Goodie.
- >No IFF pings either. Hadn't been for over an hour.
- >Hell, at this point you'd be glad to see a Covie Grunt.
- >...granted, you'd plug his ass with lead the instant you saw him, but at least it wasn't this.
- >Walking, through a dark forest.
- >Alone.
- "Dammit, and Allez owed me a hundred creds." You grumped. "That's fine, though. Set up this beacon here, wait for UNSC rescue."
- >You sighed.
- "What in the fuck happened, anyway?"
- >Going in for Regret's carrier.
- >Chief cleared the path through that other assault carrier...
- >Deployed, then...a flash of white.
- >A jump in atmo? That had to have been suicide.
- >Didn't explain a whole lot, but did explain why you were separated from your squad.
- >You took off the stuffy helmet, just in time to hear something shift the bushes behind you.
- >Putting it back on and polarizing the visor, you drew your M6G and waited.
- "Come out of there slowly, this is your only warning!" You warned, aiming at the bushes.
- >Something lunged, and you pulled the trigger without hesitation.
- >The thing was suddenly missing a good quarter of its head as it blew past you.
- >Like a strange lion/bat/scorpion hybrid.
- "What...?"
- >You were making sure your helmet was recording this.
- >You kicked it to make sure it wasn't gonna get back up and try to kill you.
- >It merely bled a little more, unmoving. The spatter spread along the ground and to a tree behind it, where the bullet had finally come to rest.
- >Satisfied, you holstered your weapon.
- >You were finally leaving the forest, though it was still the dead of night.
- >There was a small hamlet in the distance, with some lights still on.
- >It appeared to be roughly fourteenth century, which was...odd, to say the least.
- >Any human colony would be built off of pre-fabricated buildings at first...perhaps they had been lost?
- >It wasn't exactly unheard of, especially with the war going on. Sometimes, early colonies were simply...misplaced.
- >Still, it didn't explain the poor state of things.
- >You shrugged. It was as good a place as any to get information. They might even let you set the beacon up.
- >You took your helmet off again, letting your head cool off.
- >These ODST helmets were always just a bit too stuffy, in your opinion.
- >Your next opinion would have to wait, as you were suddenly struck from behind.
- ---
- >"It's dangerous, Spike!" A female voice said, rousing you from your sleep.
- >"Are you sure? It seems pretty cool to me." A male voice responded almost instantly.
- >"I watched it brutally murder a manticore in under a second, yes I'm sure!" The female voice said again, at just under a shout.
- >You groaned, waking from unconsciousness twice in...who knows how long.
- >There would be legitimate brain damage before you were done, you were certain.
- >Trying to stretch a kink in your back, you discovered that your hands and legs were bound, and that you were sitting against a wall in a darkened room.
- >Your equipment bags had been removed, including the bulky one on your back.
- >Your armor had not, however.
- >The familiar outline of your ODST helmet was sitting on a small nightstand a few meters away, but you were pretty well restrained.
- >Another quick yank confirmed your suspicions.
- >This wasn't rope, this was iron chain.
- >The knife still under your belt wouldn't help at all.
- >"So what are you going to do with an obviously dangerous creature, then?" The male voice, Spike you assumed, asked.
- >"Interrogate it, see why it's here. It's not in any of my books, it HAS to be a new species! First contact rules, remember?"
- >"Oh, right. I suppose I'll get the parchment and quills..."
- >You grunted in pain when the door was suddenly thrown open, light spilling into the room.
- >Slowly opening them, you did a mental double-take and several slow blinks.
- >Walking towards you was a purple pony, whom would have been roughly thigh high from its shoulder on down.
- >The top of its head would have reached the top of your stomach.
- >It was sporting a tri-colored purple-light purple-pink mane, as well as wings and a horn.
- >The answer was simple: You were either hallucinating from Covenant interrogation drugs, or you were dead.
- >The twinge in the back of your head eliminated the second as an option.
- >Unless you had *literally* jumped into hell.
- >You had a magma-side suite to get to if that were the case.
- >Its horn suddenly glowed with a bright pink light, bringing over what appeared to be your dog tags.
- >Your mind was slightly blown, but you had more pressing matters to attend to.
- >Namely, getting these chains off.
- >"Captain Alomar, Blood type O Negative, serial number 051568-83430-RA." The horse read aloud.
- >Definitely your tags, and this was starting to look more and more like an interrogation every second.
- >The lights clicked on, and you winced.
- >Another, shorter being walked in seconds later, quill and parchment in his grip.
- >Purple, green underbelly, reptilian...not a Covenant species either.
- >"What did that manticore do to you?" The horse asked you suddenly, not angry, but demanding.
- >Is that what that was? A fairytale come to life?
- >Would definitely explain the winged unicorn interrogating you.
- >The possibility that you were dead or dying suddenly sprung back up.
- "Attacked me, I fought back." You replied shortly.
- >"With lethal force?"
- "I don't play games, little...horse." You said, pausing when you realized you didn't have a name for her.
- >"Twilight Sparkle." She supplied after a moment, cautiously looking you over. "Why were you coming here, to Ponyville?"
- >She was being...much too gentle for a Covie interrogator.
- >You hadn't had a plasma knife cut a finger off yet, or been slugged across the jaw, or tortured for hours...
- >She was also letting out far, far too much information freely.
- "I need...to get home."
- >"Home? Which is...?"
- "That's classified information."
- >"Hmph."
- >She walked around you a bit, and you followed as she did, eyes locked to hers.
- "Boo."
- >She jumped, wings flaring out in a display, before sending you a withering glare and tucking them to her sides.
- >You chuckled.
- "You're not Covenant, are you." You said, not really a question.
- >"Covenant?"
- >The two of you stared at one another, blankly.
- "...right. I'm going to have to have you let me go." You said calmly.
- >This was time that you could have spent setting up that rescue beacon.
- >"I can't."
- "...and why not?" You questioned.
- >"Because Princess Celestia is on her way to question you as well." The horse, Twilight, replied.
- >Great.
- "Can you at least let me out of these restraints?"
- >"I...I'm sorry, I can't. I can't trust you enough to not go on a rampage across Ponyville."
- >You sighed.
- "I won't leave this room, then. You can even have someone watch me." You said, trying to convince this (admittedly rightfully paranoid) unicorn that you would behave.
- >She stared at you for a few minutes, weighing her options.
- >"...fine."
- >Her horn lit up again, and you felt the chains loosen, then fall away.
- >Your arms and legs immediately felt like they were on fire as blood flow was allowed to continue in earnest, giving your blood-starved limbs what they needed most.
- >"If you leave this room, I won't be responsible for what I'll have to do to you." The horse said, attempting to act intimidating.
- >It wasn't really working.
- >Telekinetics, while somewhat worrying, wasn't anything to truly fret about.
- >When she was suddenly seven feet tall with a shielded suit, shouting at you in Sangheili, was when you could worry.
- >She and the reptile then left, and you heard the door get barricaded.
- >No matter.
- >As much as you didn't want to sleep, you knew it was in your best interest.
- >So you supplanted that need with your helmet.
- >You put it on, then looked through it for some vids to watch.
- >Something to keep you entertained before this "Princess Celestia" arrived.
- ---
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Advertisement