Foreword: if you're confused by one of Captain Mitchell's lines in this chapter then re-read Chapter Eighteen; I changed his sexual orientation to make him a little more human as a character.
And here it is! The final chapter of What Else Is Up There! I hope you're ready.
Chapter Twenty one
Who we become...
March 30th, 2553
Equestrian star system
Old gem caves beneath the Royal City of Canterlot
Captain James Mitchell of the UNSC Dawn of the Sun
11:57AM
It was time to save Equestria.
Captain James Mitchell sprinted for the rock that the transport beam's transmitter was on, eager to get aboard the Forerunner Dreadnought before it took off.
"Captain!" Lieutenant Crusher yelled as Mitchell hoisted himself up onto the rock and jumped into the transport beam, immediately rocketing down the beam and into the Dreadnought as it ascended the morning sky and into the center hole of the Covenant space station Devout Believer, coming to a stop in the center hole.
With the Dreadnought a part of their space station the Brutes would have very little trouble destroying all of Equestria.
Not if Captain Mitchell has anything to say about it.
"If I overload the engines they should detonate with enough force to take the space station with it" the Captain said to himself, looking his MA5C over and preparing to move out inside the Dreadnought.
"Step one: find the engine room. Step two: light fuse. Step three: embrace my father" the Captain said, knowing full well what the explosion would incur.
Mitchell snuck his way through the Dreadnought, making his way to the engine room while avoiding any Brutes that might be on the Forerunner ship.
"It's your fault" the all too familiar voice of the dead Commander Preston echoed.
"Shut up, dad" Captain Mitchell replied.
Eventually he made it to the engine room and was greeted with the sight of the core glowing a bright blue, a Forerunner holo-console in front of it and a Covenant console off to the right.
Captain Mitchell sealed the room and approached the Forerunner console, looking it over and trying to see if he could start some kind of self-destruct mechanism.
"There's fucking circles and rectangles and squares and all sorts of other fucking symbols. How the hell am I supposed to know that causes this thing to go boom?" the Captain wondered aloud.
"Fuck it, I'll just shoot at the core until it explodes" the human declared, shouldering his assault rifle and preparing to fire.
"Reclaimer" a voice suddenly declared, reverberating off the walls of the cavernous engine room and causing the Captain to step back involuntarily.
"What the fuck?" Mitchell said, looking around the room in confusion.
"It is most excellent that you are here" the voice sounded again, deep and monotone.
The Captain noted that the engine core would brighten when the voice spoke, leading him to realize that the Dreadnought itself was speaking to him.
"What are you? What do you want?" Captain Mitchell inquired, taking a step toward the engine core.
"The meddlers have stolen this ship. Have stolen me. They plan to use me to destroy all life in the universe, for what purpose I do not know. But I know that they also plan to pillage more of my makers' creations" the voice explained.
"How do you know this?"
"Their encryption software is not very effective" was all the voice had to offer in response.
"They're going to destroy the whole universe? How do I stop them?" James Mitchell asked.
"You must manually access their data console and wipe all information from their battle network. Then, you must upload a virus I have fabricated that will force the self-destruct of all meddler ships in the galaxy."
"Where's the console? Right over there?" Captain Mitchell said, pointing over to the Covenant console he spotted when he first entered the room.
"No; the command center of their space station, Devout Believer" the voice answered.
Captain Mitchell's blood ran cold.
"B-But by the time I get there Equestria will be glassed" the human protested.
"Better it than all the galaxy. If you do not stop the meddlers they will eradicate all known life in the universe" the voice responded.
Captain Mitchell was faced with a hard choice; sacrifice Equestria, a partially glassed planet, to save the rest of the universe. Or follow orders and save the ravaged planet but let the rest of the galaxy die.
"Reclaimer, you may take this to help you in your fight against the meddlers" the voice declared as a hole opened on the ceiling and some kind of strange object floated down.
It was big, about as big as a Spartan Laser, but was designed with a stock to fire the weapon from the shoulder. The weapon had a strange grip and trigger assembly which was right behind the barrel which looked like four prongs that extended about a foot with magnetic coils on the inner side of the prongs.
The Captain grabbed the weapon and looked up at the Forerunner engine core, listening as the ship spoke to him once again.
"You are a Reclaimer, descendant of the Forerunners, your mission is to preserve the legacy of my creators by saving your kind. Without your kind the universe would be doomed. And without you your kind would be doomed."
Captain Mitchell knew then what his decision was.
Just then a bright flash filled the room and Twilight Sparkle appeared, immediately stepping toward the Captain.
"Mitchell? What's going on? Have you found a way to stop the Covenant?" the lavender Unicorn inquired.
"No, I haven't" Mitchell replied, noting that some kind of video feed had appeared on the Covenant console on the other side of the room.
The Captain walked over and saw that it was a feed from a drone far away from the space station, Devout Believer.
The two of them watched as the feed showed the space station firing its plasma projector onto the surface of Equestria, beginning the glassing process of the planet. In addition to the station hundreds of other Covenant ships had showed up and were also glassing the planet.
Blue superheated plasma streamed down from multiple projectors and swathed over the planet's surface in a criss-cross pattern, making sure every square inch of the planet had been glassed. Twilight Sparkle looked on in horror as one of the plasma beams streamed directly down on Canterlot Mountain, incinerating most of it and the Royal City in an instant.
Even in space Twilight was able to see where the town she was born in was at.
"What are they doing? Stop them!" she demanded.
"Listen to me, Twilight; the rest of the galaxy is in danger. I have been told by this ship that the Brutes are planning to destroy the entire galaxy. I have decided to stop these nefarious plans" Captain Mitchell explained.
"So you're just gonna let Equestria die?" the Unicorn asked, unable to believe what she was hearing. "All those ponies down there must be terrified of what the Covenant are doing! Knowing they can't escape but wishing someone would help them!"
"I know" the human answered. "I'm sorry but there's just no other way."
"My friends are down there! Spike, Derpy, Applebloom, Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle! Yourfriend is down there! You're just gonna let him die?" Twilight stated, looking up at the Captain who had a sorrowful expression on his face.
"I'm sorry" was Captain Mitchell's only response.
Derpy Hooves flew in a panic as she looked for her daughter, Dinky Hooves, in the streets of New Cloudsdale, desperate to find and rescue her before the Covenant evaporated the city. Dinky was in the city visiting Pegasus friends with the aid of a cloud-walker spell.
You may be all grown up but you're still my muffin Derpy thought as she soared across the sky towards Dinky's home in the cloud city.
The Pegasus mare smashed through the cloud wall with ease and frantically looked around the house, calling out Dinky's name and earning no response.
Extremely worried now Derpy stepped outside and watched as dozens of Pegasi scatted away from the city, only to be instantly vaporized by purple beams that were being shot out of a Covenant ship.
Derpy then realized that there was some kind of official evacuation going on down at New Cloudsdale's Cloudiseum.
Of course! That's where my muffin must be! Derpy thought, immediately taking off for the Cloudiseum to find Dinky so they could leave the city together.
As she flew down the streets of New Cloudsdale she felt as much as heard the Covenant evaporate the city, the superheated plasma streaming through Cloudsdale and destroying dozens of homes and Pegasi.
Suddenly ahead of her several hundred feet a plasma beam came down and incinerated a group of Pegasi desperately flying to the Cloudiseum, kill them all instantly.
Not gonna happen to my muffin! Not gonna happen, not gonna happen! Derpy's mind screamed as she streaked across Cloudsdale, soon reaching the Cloudiseum and smashing through the wall of the building.
"DINKY!" Derpy screamed as she frantically flew around the building, searching for her daughter.
She soon found her and they shared a quick hug before pulling back.
"Dinky, we have to go!" Derpy shouted as they down to the main floor of the Cloudiseum where the evacuation effort was under way.
One of the over-sized chariots took off and immediately began flying for the ground far below Cloudsdale, making sure to stay out of sight of the Covenant ship.
Sudden plasma fire came from the left and the chariot's pilots were flash-fried, causing the chariot to fall to the ground of Equestria with the screams of those inside echoing up to Cloudsdale.
A moment later a group of Covenant fighters flashed by underneath the city.
The fighters banked back around and headed straight up for the Cloudiseum, firing green blobs of plasma that impacted in the building and detonated, eliciting screams from the crowds of Pegasi.
"Come on, Dinky!" Derpy said, grabbing her grown-up daughter's hoof and leading her out of the building through the front exit.
"Mom, look!" Dinky said, pointing a hoof up at the sky at the Covenant ship hovering above them and Cloudsdale, a bright light growing directly above the duo, soon reaching its apex before streaming down into the cloud city.
The beam slashed through Cloudsdale, killing thousands that were too slow to escape the beam's impending wrath as Cloudsdale began to boil away from the heat.
The two were about to start moving when a nearby explosion knocked them to the ground, leaving the both of them dazed and staring up at the sky.
It's...beautiful Derpy thought as she took it all in; the blue sky, the sun beating its radiant light down on the surface, and the Covenant ship that hovered above it all.
Derpy shook her head to clear her mind after this last thought just as one of the Covenant's tear-drop shaped fighters streaked over head, spraying thousands of plasma bolts into the streets at groups of Pegasi.
Derpy was about to stand when an explosion tossed her across the street with an intense stinging in her right wing and back right leg.
"MOM!" Dinky screamed, scrambling to her hooves and rushing over to Derpy who lied on the clouds, coughing and struggling to look down to see what was causing the stinging.
"DON'T LOOK! DON'T LOOK!" Dinky yelled as she crouched next to her mother, her horn lighting up as she tended to something.
Derpy looked back and saw that half of her right wing had been vaporized and her rear right leg was completely gone.
"D-Dinky...muf-muffin..." Derpy said, her words coming out as wheezes, leading her to believe she had a collapsed lung.
"Y-you're gonna be OK, Mom!" Dinky yelled, choking up as she spoke, the tears already coming from her eyes.
Derpy looked up at the Covenant ship as its plasma beam began to charge again, this time hovering directly above the two ponies in the middle of the street.
Derpy Hooves looked back at her daughter who was oblivious to the Covenant ship about to obliterate them.
"D-Dinky" Derpy said, earning the attention of her grown-up daughter, who was almost completely crying at this point.
"I l-love...you" Derpy stated, the last words that would ever come out of her mouth.
"I love you to-" Dinky started to say, her sentence and existence ending when the Covenant ship fired its plasma projector once again into the streets of New Cloudsdale.
"I'm sorry, Twilight Sparkle, but this is the way it's meant to be! We have to save the rest of the universe!" Mitchell stated.
"You're letting all those ponies down there die! How can you do this? You're a monster!" Twilight yelled.
The Captain was angered by her tone. "Oh yeah? Well YOU let a thousand of my GODDAMN MARINES die when you told the FUCKING Covenant about Operation Reclaim!" Mitchell bellowed.
Twilight looked afraid. "Y-You know that..."she said, unable to finish her sentence.
"Yes. Princess Celestia told me that when you woke up the first words out of your mouth were 'They know'" Mitchell told her.
Twilight collapsed to the ground. "I'm sorry! I-I didn't mean to tell them! It just kinda came out!" Sparkle declared.
"I know, but you owe me. We're saving the galaxy" Captain Mitchell stated.
"But...all those ponies. My friends! YOUR friend! My ENTIRE species will die! The Griffon species will die! The Canine species will die! THEY'LL ALL DIE!" the Unicorn exclaimed.
"I know! This isn't easy for me, either. But would you rather let a dozen other species die because of your-selfishness?" the Captain asked.
"It's not selfishness! It's self-preservation of my entire race!" Sparkle countered.
"I don't care what you call it! We ARE saving the galaxy, Twilight Sparkle! I would rather one species died than seven!" the Captain replied.
"Then at least let me die with them! If my friends are going to die I want to be with them when it happens" Twilight requested, tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
"Forget it. You owe me. You're helping me do this" Mitchell stated, ending the discussion.
Twilight collapsed to the floor and began to cry, sobbing uncontrollably and screaming about her dead and dying friends.
Captain Mitchell looked up at the engine core/Dreadnought A.I. but it had nothing to say. It felt no emotions. No sympathy for the ponies. It knew that multiple species on the planet would be extinguished but it didn't care, so long as it was saving dozens others.
"Twilight, listen to me. I know this is hard, and no reason I could ever give could justify what we're doing. Facts are facts: I'm abandoning Equestria to save the universe. I'm causing the extinction of several species to save but a handful of others, but it's for the greater good. This is hard for me, too. I've lost dozens of friends to this conflict. I just lost Lieutenant Crusher, who was my greatest friend. Under different circumstances we could've been more, but now we'll never be anything. Do you see what I'm getting at? We've all lost friends, but we can always do something to prevent their deaths from being in vain" Captain Mitchell explained.
"O-OK. But...answer me this: what will happen to both of us afterwards?" Twilight inquired.
"I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I do know this: the galaxy may brand us monsters for sacrificing a few species to save the rest, but as long as we know that what we did was for the greater good it will not matter" the Captain explained, looking over at the video feed and seeing that the station was still glassing Equestria, the beams spreading over the rest of Equestria.
"My father once told me something very important; 'Who we become after dark is not important, but rather who we save during the light.'"
Suddenly there was a loud pounding at the door, followed by the deep barking that was the tell-tale tone of Brutes shouting.
"It's us against the last of the Covenant Empire, Twilight. It's time to begin" Captain Mitchell said as the door exploded and the Brutes poured in, immediately staring down the barrel of the Captain's MA5C.
It's show time Mitchell thought as he pulled the trigger.
The end of What Else Is Up There!
Oh my God I'm ending the story right here! I'm so diabolical! This is the 'Good' ending: sacrifice Equestria to save the galaxy. Captain Mitchell talks to Twilight about who they become after such a decision.
Author's note: I'd like to take this time to address some people: Michael Blackburn, who was my beta-reader for this long-ass adventure. The reviewers, who were so kind to do some writing of their own for me and this story. juter4397 and M306117 who provided some helpful info on the Halo universe to brush me up on my knowledge. And finally all the various things that provided me inspiration to keep writing. Thanks for reading and I hope you'll come back for future stories.
-Codename: One.
Last legal note: Twilight Sparkle, Spike the Dragon, and all related characters belong to Hasbro. Captain James Mitchell, Lieutenant Robert Crusher, and all related characters are copyright to me. My Little Pony belongs to Hasbro. Halo belongs to 343 Industries.