Act Two
Reclamation

Intermission

Date: September 20th, 2555
Location:
Sangheili Corvette in space between Equestria and its moon, Trinity
Individual:
Commander Robert Crusher
Time:
5:17AM

"Can't this shit fly any faster?!" Commander Crusher asked Shipmaster 'Makab on the bridge of the Corvette as they struggled to escape the Promethean black sphere that was right on their tail, firing laser beams at them.

"We are moving as fast as we can, human. For now we will have to rely on our wits and hope their aim doesn't get better" the Shipmaster replied.

The human Commander had quickly returned to the Corvette after killing Twilight, having decided to bring her body back to give her a proper burial on Equestria, though he decided to not let Spike see the body.

If you want your Unicorn back come to Trinity, the moon of Equestria the Prisoner's voice echoed in the Commander's head, filling him with sorrow.

Well...I got her back he thought bitterly.

Suddenly the Corvette bucked violently, throwing everyone on the bridge to the floor with the exception of Shipmaster 'Makab, who braced himself against his command console.

"What in the name of the Gods was that?!" the Shipmaster demanded.

"Prometheans just struck our engines, Excellency. We are now being sucked in by Equestria's gravity well, and with nothing to slow our descent I do not predict we will survive the landing" the Operations officer explained.

"By the Gods... Human! Get you and your Demons off my ship! It is vital to Equestria's survival that you live!" Shipmaster 'Makab declared, facing Commander Crusher.

"What about you and your Sangheili?" Robert asked, standing back up.

"I will remain here and do everything in my power to slow our descent, as will my men. Go, human!" the Shipmaster exclaimed.

The Commander turned and ran from the bridge, bracing himself against bulkheads when the Corvette bucked from explosions as he made his way down to the closest hangar where his Spartan-IV team was at.

As he approached another door it slid open and suddenly all the air was rushing out, forcing Robert to topple over and scrabble at the floor to find grip as he was sucked out of the corridor.

The energy barriers in the hangar had been turned off and the vacuum of space had replaced pressurization. When the door opened the corridor explosively decompressed.

As he flew through the air Commander Crusher embraced his fate to being sucked out into space and was about to commit suicide to prevent a cold death when he suddenly stopped careening through the air, having been grabbed by one of the Spartans in the hangar.

"I got you, Sir. Good thing you chose an environmentally-sealed combat suit back on the Infinity or else you'd already have suffocated" the Spartan said, clearly a female given the way her voice sounded.

"Thanks, Spartan. Where's 035?" Robert asked.

"Up there, trying to get the energy barriers back on" the Spartan said, pointing to the upper deck and the Spartan Officer that was there trying to get the holo-console to respond.

"He's not having much luck, apparently" Commander Crusher commented.

"No, Sir" the Spartan next to the Commander replied.

"Well, we're getting the fuck off this ship, Spartan. So I'm going to tell 035 to stop what he's doing so we can board that Phantom up there and ditch this doomed vessel" Commander Crusher stated.

"Understood, Commander. We'll cover you" the savior Spartan responded, standing up and opening fire on some Prometheans across the hangar.

Commander Crusher rushed up the ramp to the platform that had the holo-console on it as Spartan-035 still struggled with it.

"Spartan, leave that. We need the barriers off to get out of this ship!" Robert yelled, prompting Spartan-035 to look back at him.

"We're leaving this ship, Sir?" the Spartan officer inquired.

"This ship is going down, Spartan. The Shipmaster told us to ditch before we crash into Equestria's surface" Commander Crusher answered.

"Understood!"

The Spartans regrouped and headed to the left side of the hangar where Spartan-035 hit the glyphs necessary to bring the the Phantom down from its cradle on the ceiling to a point level with the platform, at which point Commander Crusher and the Spartans jumped aboard.

Spartan-035 hopped in the cockpit and pushed the craft forward toward the hangar exit. They were about to make their escape when the energy barriers reactivated, having been turned on by a Promethean.

"Damn, that complicates things" Spartan-035 stated.

"Shit, I'll take care of this" Commander Crusher said, jumping out the side door of the Phantom and dropping to the deck beneath the upper platform, where he then charged up the ramp and killed the Promethean with the plasma rifle he'd taken from the Corvette's armory before hitting the glyph that dropped the energy barrier.

"Go! Get out of here, Spartans!" Robert ordered over the radio, watching as the Phantom soared out of the Corvette and down to Equestria.

Leaving Commander Crusher on the Corvette, which was about to enter Equestria's atmosphere.

Robert killed the rest of the Prometheans in the hangar and reactivated the energy barriers as the flames starting to lick around the Corvette as it entered Equestria's atmosphere with the Promethean black sphere still firing at them.

As the Corvette rocketed to the ground trailing black smoke from the engines Commander Crusher looked out the hangar at their surroundings, seeing what looked to be Canterlot Mountain in the distance. Upon further inspection the Commander could see they would be crashing down in the ashes of New Ponyville.

"All warriors, brace for impact!" Shipmaster 'Makab shouted over loudspeaker as the Corvette made landfall a flaming wreck and tore a 700-foot long gouge in the dirt before an explosion sheared the vessel in half; plumes of black smoke bled into the sky and fires raged as the remains of the ship came to a stop just outside the grounds of New Ponyville, which would be its final resting place.

Slowly coming to his feet the Commander grabbed Twilight's body out of the pod they had put her in and put her over his shoulder, carrying her outside.

Dazed and exhausted Commander Crusher staggered out of the wreckage of the Corvette and made it a few feet before collapsing to the ground and passing out, his face buried in a pile of ashes that, unbeknownst to him, had once been the flesh and blood of the former Cutie Mark Crusaders.


Rain.

Rain was falling down upon Equestria and apparently had been for several hours, soaking the ground and the Commander as he lied in the ashes of New Ponyville, having woken up from his unconscious state.

After the Prometheans had swept through the town all that had remained was ashes; houses, furniture, and ponies all reduced to ash.

A flash of lightning revealed a shadow looming over the Commander, prompting him to look up slowly and wearily, not caring if it was a Promethean that had come to kill him.

It was Spartan-035.

"Sir? Are you OK?" the Spartan-IV asked, crouching down before Commander Crusher who had pushed himself up onto his knees.

"I...killed her, Spartan. Twilight Sparkle... I killed her, I had no choice" Robert said, looking down at the Unicorn's body.

"I'm sorry, Sir. But we need to get moving; the Prometheans are on the move and have already swept through dozens of towns and cities" the Spartan explained.

"Oh what's the point, Spartan? The Prometheans have decapitated the Equestrian nation; Canterlot was destroyed in minutes of their awakening. They obliterated Ponyville, they had some kind of base inside the moon. They're unstoppable, Spartan. What's the point of fighting them?" the Commander asked.

"Sir, with respect; start talking like that and the Prometheans have already won" the Spartan officer answered.

"I know, it's just...Twilight Sparkle was my friend, I wanted us to be more than that, but now she's dead. Killed by my hands. What am I going to tell Spike?" Robert stated.

"I don't know, Sir" Spartan-035 responded.

"No...I guess you don't" Commander Crusher deadpanned, slowly standing up and sighing.

"But hundreds of thousands of ponies are counting on us, Sir. Their entire species is counting on us. The Canines, the Griffons, they're all counting on us, Commander. We can't afford to give up, Sir" the Spartan told Robert.

"I know, Wilhelm... Come on, let's go get me outfitted" Commander Crusher declared, following the Spartan to the Warthog he had driven out to the ashes of New Ponyville.

"What time is it, anyway?" Robert asked, trying to wipe the ash from his face with the falling rain.

"Around nine o'clock, Sir" the Spartan officer answered courteously.

"Thank you, Spartan."

"You're welcome, Commander. So what happened to Shipmaster 'Makab?" Spartan-035 inquired.

"He's dead, just like every other Elite that was on that Corvette" the Commander replied, looking out the Warthog at the landscape as it rolled past them.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Sir" Spartan-035 said, turning the Warthog around a curve before speaking again.

"Yeah, it sucks" Robert deadpanned, his thoughts focused solely on Twilight Sparkle.


Spartan-035 stood outside the barracks of the temporary UNSC outpost that they had taken a few of the civilians they'd found to, including Spike the Dragon. Commander Crusher was currently comforting the baby dragon who was crying his eyes out over Twilight's death. From what the Spartan officer had heard the Commander had not told the dragon how Ms. Sparkle had been killed.

While the Commander had been doing this the Spartans took the Unicorn's body and buried her under a tree outside the base, sticking a marker in the grave with her name on it.

The baby Dragon would be told the grave was empty.

After returning to the outpost Commander Crusher had replaced his damaged armor components with new ones and had a medic look at his legs which, despite being visibly shredded, had almost no actual damage done to them.

The Commander had almost cried when the medic told him that.

After he had been checked out by the medic Commander Crusher went to the armory and grabbed new weapons, including an BR85HB-SR, the new shotgun model, and an M6H magnum sidearm to replace the M6G/B he lost during the Corvette's crash onto the planet's surface.

Spartan-035 got the impression that the Commander would've discarded the weapon anyway as every time he looked at it he would've been reminded of Twilight Sparkle, which would most likely have been detrimental to his morale.

"Sir, what's the situation?" one of 035's Spartans asked as she walked up, saluting the Petty Officer who returned the gesture.

"Waiting on orders from the Commander, he's currently comforting one of the civies, who was close to the Unicorn we attempted to rescue from Trinity" Spartan-035 answered.

"Understood, Sir" the female spartan replied.

"So what happened to that Spartan that saved the Commander's life on the Corvette?" Wilhelm inquired.

"He's in the command center with the rest of the team, awaiting orders" the female Spartan answered.

"Very good. Carry on, Spartan" Wilhelm ordered, earning another salute from his fellow Spartan.

"Yes, Sir!"

Just then the door to the barracks opened and out stepped Commander Crusher, a patch of his armor suit soaking wet with dragon tears.

"Let's get to the command center, I've got a plan to hit the Prometheans and end this war against them" Commander Crusher stated, a look of confident determination on his face.


Legal note: Commander Robert Crusher, Spartan Wilhelm-035, and all related characters belong to me. Twilight Sparkle, Spike the Dragon, and all related characters belong to Hasbro. My Little Pony belongs to Hasbro. Halo belongs to 343i.