AN: I don't own My Little Pony or Halo. They belong to Hasbro and Bungie/Microsoft/343 Industries respectively.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Spartan-A196, outskirts of Baltimare. 2258 Hours, April 05, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)
The moon was hanging mournfully in the sky, dimmed and subdued, as though reflecting the general feeling back in Ponyville after the militia's disastrous return, barely giving off enough light to safely see by.
It made little to no difference to Lisa but her companion, Shining Armour, had no low light optics or augmented eyes, and like in the changeling tunnels, he kept bumping into the Spartan as they crept towards the port city.
He was wearing a thick, rough robe covered in mud and leaves, hiding his brilliant white coat from sight with a similarly coloured and dirty scarf hid most of his face, so she wasn't worried about a sentry spotting him from afar as the pair edged closer to Baltimare, finally arriving after a week-long slog from Ponyville.
Neither had spoken much, merely alerting one another of possible threats and sounding all clears, and the animosity coming off Shining Armour was no less than it had been since setting off. He had remained a fair distance from the Spartan, never smiled, and answered as laconically as possible.
Lisa hadn't been bothered by it, revelling in the silence as it allowed her to be more aware of their surroundings and keep an ear out for noises that didn't belong, or sudden patches of silence.
There had been only two, both times caused by a long range griffin patrol likely scouring the countryside for threats and both times, Lisa had eliminated them with her battle rifle.
Now, as they came within spitting distance of Baltimare, she unlimbered her battle rifle again and stopped behind a fallen tree barely big enough to conceal her.
She turned to Shining Armour as he crouched beside her and said, 'You remember the plan?'
'Yeah,' the stallion whispered, nodding.
'Good,' Lisa said. 'Get into position and wait for my signal. Run into any trouble, fire off a beacon for me to zero in on and I'll try to get myself there.'
Shining Armour just nodded, pulling his scarf up to cover his mouth and set off into the undergrowth, heading south towards the River Haywash.
Lisa knew he would get to it, follow the current, then set himself up along the southern flank of the bay.
She brought up her mission clock and waited twenty minutes to give him a chance to get into position, then vaulted the fallen tree and ran in a half crouch to the outer limits of Baltimare, sliding to a halt behind a low lying wall, almost on her stomach.
Her motion tracker showed all clear and a quick check visually confirmed this, and Lisa got up and jogged out into the street, heading east towards the docks.
Lanterns were strung at irregular intervals, offering patches of light, mostly in front of large buildings the Spartan guessed were being used as barrack for the troops, and she looked at the general construction of the structures around her.
Stone exteriors with wooden windows and doors, with felt roofs, and enough space between buildings that two Scorpion tanks could have travelled down the street side by side with room to spare.
Lisa slowed her pace, passing by a building ten stories high with a lantern out front, debating whether or not to chuck one of the sources of illumination into the hallway, set the tower ablaze.
It would help lower the morale of the griffin troops stationed in Baltimare, and hopefully kill of wound a number of them, as well as tie a fair few up trying to combat the blaze from pursuing her Shining Armour, but there was no guarantee that the fire would stay contained to the one building.
An errant ember could drift to another building, set that on fire, and so on and so forth until all of Baltimare was burning, meaning she would have destroyed two cities, and Lisa doubted the Equestrians would respond kindly to that.
She sped up and left the building behind, following her street to the moderate port facilities of Baltimare where the Spartan ducked into cover behind a crate, taking in her surroundings.
The bay was still and silent, its water gently lapping against the harbour walls as nearly twenty ships lay moored up, their ropes and rigging creaking quietly in the night air, their decks lit up with more lanterns that allowed griffins to move about without fear of bumping into something or someone.
There was only a light guard on each deck, the night watch, with the rest of the crew below deck or barracked in one of Baltimare's many empty houses and hotels.
On the harbour itself were numerous crates, wooden beams, and barrels clustered near each gangplank, presumably ship building materials to repair any damage incurred on the voyage over here.
Lisa cast her eye over the ships at berth, noting none looked particularly worthy of oceanic journeys with hasty reinforcement done to their masts, and that most, if not all of them present, bore recently repaired damage or were still undergoing repairs.
She guessed the ones that had left were either undamaged, or had finished their repairs first and had been sent back for more troops and supplies.
Her knowledge of ship building was very limited, most of it gleaned from watching Sparrow's crew working to fix the Equestrian Trader after its bout with a storm, but Lisa had gleaned that waterproofing of a ship used pitch, of which she knew a little bit more of.
It was thick, gloopy, and burned like nothing else.
No doubt the barrels she had seen were filled with the stuff, and the Spartan began revising her plan of attack to take into account her new surroundings.
She scanned the harbour for what she would need, grabbed a nearby lantern, then ducked back into the shadows.
Spartan-A196, city of Baltimare, Baltimare harbour. 0025 Hours, April 06, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)
Lisa made her way quickly, silently, to the far end of the harbour and the ships located there as her newly revised plan went into action.
It started off which a shout of alarm from one of the griffin lookouts, followed by several dozen more, as a small boatshed began glowing from inside, a hellish orange glow, that very rapidly grew until flames began seeping out of the cracks in the walls and doors, caused by a liberated barrel of pitch and a stolen lantern.
Griffins poured out of their ships, roused by the shouts and bells that rang out across the harbour, a call to action in hopes of containing the fire before it could spread to a nearby cache of materials and a small number of trebuchets awaiting repairs.
But, they were too slow as fire seemed to just blossom across the wooden constructions, rapidly engulfing them all, helped by a liberal application of pitch placed on them by Lisa, and the main focus of the griffin's efforts was swiftly changed to containing that fire as well.
It had the desired effect of draining the night watch and whatever crews were still onboard away from their ships, leaving the harbour Lisa was sprinting for deserted.
She stopped near one such ship, its crew gone, and looked for a barrel of pitch which she grabbed and hauled above her head, using her augmented strength to hurl it onto the top deck where it collided with the hard wooden surface and broke apart, spilling its contents.
Lisa picked up a nearby lantern and threw that on deck as well, managing to drop it right in the middle and shattering the glass surrounding the candle.
Within seconds, the pitch caught and a third fire sprang to life, its light seeming to rival the sun for intensity in the night.
The Spartan didn't wait to see if the fire spread or not, running to the next unlucky ship and repeating the process once again as more shouts of alarm rang out from the griffins as they saw fire seemingly materialise on the deck of a ship.
Their cries became more urgent as a second, third, and then fourth ship went up, and the soldiers turned back to the ships.
By the time they'd drawn level with the first ship ablaze, Lisa had already ignited another three ships and was flat out sprinting for the last one in line, a galleon lookalike not dissimilar to the Equestrian Trader.
She threw a barrel of pitch onboard then ran up the gangplank onto the ship itself, untying all the mooring lines and unfurling the sails, before going to helm and taking hold of the wheel.
The ship began moving, slowly, away from the dock as what little wind there was got caught in the sails and pushed the heavy object, Lisa hauling the wheel hard to port and aiming for the mouth of Horseshoe Bay.
Her motion tracker picked up contacts, griffins flying after her, and Lisa drew her pistol with hand, the other keeping her captured vessel on course.
A flight of griffins came at her, swords at the ready, and the Spartan dispatched them with practised ease.
She zoomed in on the harbour and saw the seven ships she'd set ablaze were fully caught now, the fire licking at the mast and, in two cases, caused it to collapse, while at the opposite end the griffins not tasked with tackling her original fires were boarding the ships, getting set to come after her.
One of the griffins was looking at her ship with a telescope.
Lisa stuck her middle finger up at him.
She turned back to her ship and aimed for the opening to the bay as half of the remaining ships came sailing towards her, and the Spartan hoped Shining Armour was in place.
More griffins came her way, swooping in from above, but did little to stop her as she used a dead griffin to wedge the wheel into place, jumping onto the deck and opening one of the hatches.
Beyond it was the crew's living quarters, rapidly set up and rapidly abandoned with personal effects littering the deck, and Lisa pulled a satchel of C12 from her pack and threw it down amongst the framed photos and discarded clothes.
The activation light burned green, signalling it was ready to detonate, and the lone Spartan rushed back up the helm and corrected her course, kicking the griffin body away.
She was barely a mile from the opening and could see the waves of the North Faustian Ocean crashing against the land, throwing up great plumes of freezing saltwater, and behind her were half of the remaining ships, their crews readying for boarding action.
'Come closer,' Lisa murmured, both to herself and the ships pursing her. 'Come on, close ranks.'
They did, almost forming a funnel that was concentrated on her stolen ship, and when she came within half a mile of the entrance to Horseshoe Bay, Lisa grabbed the nearest lantern and threw it onto the deck where it landed in the midst of the pitch, catching almost instantly and lighting up everything.
Lisa paused a moment, letting the ships get closer, then ran for the railings and propelled herself into the night air before falling into the icy cold water.
Right as she made contact, Lisa sent the activation signal to the brick of C12 she'd lobbed below decks and detonated it, itself the signal for Shining Armour to blast whatever ships had followed her.
Wood went flying past the Spartan, some of it on fire, and the pressure wave from the explosive slammed into her, pushing her that bit further from her doomed ship as Shining Armour carried out his part of the plan, unleashing a beam of energy that cut through the darkness and the wooden hull of the lead griffin ship.
Its effect, and whatever else the stallion may have hit, was then lost from sight as Lisa landed in the water and began sinking, the heavier objects from her ship splashing down around her and making their final journeys to the bottom of the bay.
Spartan-A196, outskirts of Baltimare, southern edge of Horseshoe Bay. 0103 Hours, April 06, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)
The Spartan hauled herself out of the water, water cascading from her armour, and ran for the tree cover, only pausing to look out over the bay once she was in the tree line.
Her ship was gone completely, sitting low in the water as what remained of its top deck burned, while around it were the wrecks of half the fleet that had pursued her, either listing heavily to one side or capsized completely.
They were near the mouth of the bay, clumped together, but had failed to achieve a true barricade, merely posing a navigation hazard and limiting it to one ship in or out at a time.
Still, it was better than nothing and yet more ships had been taken out of commission, and Lisa took note that two of them had grounded themselves on the beach.
Both looked reusable though one had struck a nasty rock upon making landfall and water rushed into it, but what drew her attention more was the direction in which their evacuating crew was heading, and the sounds of battle she could hear.
Drawing her battle rifle, Lisa briefly glanced up as a purple beacon shot up into the air directly over the area everyone was running towards. Shining Armour's rescue beacon.
She sprinted towards it, downing griffins as and when she saw them with a triple tap from her rifle, its report mostly lost in the clamour of conflict, finally coming across Shining Armour as he tried to fight off nearly two dozen griffins.
'Where the hell were you?' he shouted upon seeing Lisa emerge from the griffin line, fighting her way to him.
'I went for a swim,' she said back, firing into the crowd.
With both of them fending off the attackers, Shining Armour knocking the griffins out and Lisa putting them down more permanently, the small skirmish was over before too long, leaving the Spartan and the stallion stood alone in a forest full of the dead and unconscious.
Shining Armour looked at the recently killed with a mixture of revulsion and horror, quickly beating a hasty retreat away from them with Lisa in tow.
They emerged from the trees further down from the beached ships, seeing the remaining vessels not taken out had returned to the harbour well away from the still burning ships that had almost burnt out, leaving behind charred remains that had sunken, creating another obstacle any ships would have to overcome if they came to this port.
'What do you think?' Lisa asked as the last remaining mast on the burned ships finally snapped and fell to the deck, crashing through it and throwing up a plume of smoke and embers.
'That I want to go back to Ponyville,' Shining Armour replied.
Lisa nodded, her eyes drifting over the remaining ships and their crews as they moved to secure them to the docks.
'Sure,' she said, shrugging off her bag and pulling out a NAV marker. She held her hand out for Shining Armour to stop, nestling the small tracker inside his scarf when he did. 'You head back to Ponyville now. I'll catch up.'
The pony looked at her suspiciously and said, 'Why? What are you going to do?'
'Take care of them,' Lisa said, jerking her thumb in the direction of the remaining ships. 'There's only six left. I should be able to set them ablaze easily enough. After it's done, I'll come to you and we'll all go home.'
'How will you know where I am?'
A cool blue triangle appeared on Lisa's HUD, directly over Shining Armour, and she said, 'I just will. Keep out of trouble, and you'll be back home in no time.'
She flashed him a thumbs up, got nothing in return, then sent the pony on his way, waiting until he was gone before setting off for the port town, only to frown as her armour picked up a snippet of a message being broadcast from somewhere inside Baltimare.
Her armour managed to get a copy of the transmission but it was brief, barely a second long, and a seemingly random series of beeps.
It wasn't Morse, and sounded like no code Lisa had heard before, so whatever message it contained, provided it was a message, would remain a mystery.
She shrugged and continued her trek into Baltimare, ready to set something one fire.
Spartan-A196, outskirts of Ponyville. 1136 Hours, April 10, 2553 (Military Calendar/Local Time)
Lisa and Shining Armour reunited a few miles outside of Baltimare, bedding down for a few hours until the sun came up, then walked with little interruption ever since, wanting to put the city behind them as quickly as possible.
As with their walk from Ponyville, their walk back was mostly silent but lacked any encounters with griffin patrols, and soon all that stood between them and the acting capital of Ponyville was a hill with a forest on top.
'Thanks,' Lisa said to her companion as they walked around the base of the hill. 'I couldn't have taken all those ships out without your help.'
Shining Armour stared at her for a while before saying, 'I didn't do it to help you.'
'I know,' Lisa said. 'But thanks anyway.'
The stallion didn't reply, picking the pace up a little, and the pair emerged from behind the hill and saw Ponyville for the first time in two weeks.
Smoke rose from a few sections of the town, creating a vague haze over the town, and whatever buildings had been left standing follow the Archer missile attack had been levelled with fresh craters blown into the ground, while Ponyville General was little more than a burnt out shell of its former glory.
The small town had been attacked again.
Lisa assessed the remains, her practised eye classifying the weaponry involved to be Anvil-II missiles from a Pelican dropship, and guessed that whatever dropships the Innies had left had been pitted against the town in their absence.
'Oh, no,' Shining Armour whispered. 'No. It can't- not again.'
He took off at a gallop, rushing towards town, and Lisa ran after him, catching sight of a crater on the fringes of town, right where Celestia's dome had been, but saw no sign of the Alicorn princess. Just stained dirt and shattered rocks.
Inside town things were far bleaker with barely a living soul in sight. Most of the ponies Lisa saw were dead, blown in half or burned to death, with only the occasional shell shocked survivor moving amongst the rubble.
They barely raised their heads in acknowledgement, merely watching the Spartan sprint by, and carried on with their sorrowful march through town.
Lisa made a left, then a right, then another right, and came out on the edge of the relief centre, seeing only half a dozen tents, maybe, whose frames were intact.
Everything else was flattened, burned away, or covering limp forms.
'You're back,' a voice to her left said, prompting the Spartan to swivel in the speaker's direction and see a bloodied and badly bandaged Royal Guard staring at her with equal parts relief and pain. Half his face was covered by a bandage and one leg was in a splint, and one wing was missing completely.
'When did the attack take place?' Lisa asked.
'A few days ago,' the guard said in a distant voice. 'I don't know. Everything's been kind of... kind of hectic.'
'Casualties?'
The Pegasus shrugged. 'Nopony wants to do a final count. Seems like everypony, though. There's, like, fifty of us left.'
'Where?' Lisa asked.
The guard shrugged again.
'Here and there,' he said. 'We don't really know what to do. Luna wanted to wait for you and Shining Armour to come back first before we do anything.'
'She's alive?' the Spartan asked. 'Princess Luna's okay?'
'Better than the other two,' the pony said. 'Twilight got pretty banged up. Don't know if she'll pull through or not.'
'And Cadance? Celestia?'
The guard shook his head dejectedly.
'They didn't make it.'
