Former Horde outpost. Later in the evening.
Having been flown in to assess the damage to the place, Captain Val, Angela, Adora, Glimmer and Bow all stared, wide-eyed, at the piles of corpses that were being stacked by the Marines. Some of the men and women smiled and laughed as they hoisted the corpses into the piles, while others sang that same song as they hauled them and threw them beside their comrades with some disregard.
The scent of congealing blood and spent cordite filled the air, still-burning fires being put out by the UNSC's engineers as their fellows worked on disassembling whatever they could find from the Horde base with disregard, even outright ripping the armor off the corpses of some of the demi-humans in the area, as well as whatever human Horde soldiers were in the outpost's garrison. Each corpse that was still hole had, at the very least, two bullet holes in their chest, scarlet blood soaking the ground below in pools of dark liquid.
It was terrifying, to see such little care be given to the dead of their War, even if they were the poor fools belonging to the Horde's forces. Still, as the group walked past them, they realized that they were merely being put together for different reasons other than burning or to be discarded. A Marine Corporal called out, "This lot don't got dog tags either!" from beside a line of corpses.
"Jesus Christ, it's like they don't give a shit about their own!" A Major replied, running his fingers over the keys on his datapad to punch in information, "Alright, fuck it... Stack the bastards with the ones on the left! We're gonna bury'em a few kilometers away and leave a mark in case the Horde wants to come get their own! Get the SeaBees over here! We're gonna need their electrical engineers to disassemble these bots, see what they can salvage off them! Every part, every truss and bolt and ounce of steel off these things and outta their base, we'll need to fix and build our own shit!"
"Sir!" The Marine replied with a salute, dashing off to squad of Construction Battalion members who were working with explosives to demolish the severely-damaged walls of the former Horde outpost. Above them, as they walked, more UNSC Gunships and Transports flew in, their floodlights washing the darkening area of the former outpost with light. A Pelican hauling a larger transport pod unloaded a platoon's worth more SeaBees to get to work.
"Your men are... Awfully active..." Angela observed.
"Firebases need resources, Your Highness," Val replied with a smirk, "Anything we can get off the enemy's dead, dying and destroyed is just all the better for us."
"I see..." Angela hummed, watching as yet more groups began the salvaging operations, almost literally ripping anything bolted to the floors clean out and disassembling it on the spot, before loading it up into whatever vehicle they could find. The Bright Moon residents and the Captain approached the Major which had called out to the Marine just now about the corpses of the enemy and the two UNSC staff members saluted each-other.
"How many human corpses are we lookin' at, Major? And be honest with me," Val inquired.
"We counted at least forty humans among the Horde. They were among the first ones to fire... There may be more, though, since, well..." The man winced, then sighed, stating, "The Vulture gunships really didn't leave much in the form of bodies for us to find when they started poking at the Infantry with the thirty-mil cannons and missiles... It's not fun, trying to figure out the species of a pile of goo from another."
Complimented by the horrified looks of all four Bright Moon denizens, Captain Val chuckled darkly at that, stating, "Damn, forty humans...? Oh, well... How much can we scoop up in buckets and bury with the lot?"
"Enough," The man shrugged nonchalantly, then gazed to the Etherians and stated, "Take it you ladies and the gentleman are here to see the extent of the damage..."
Glimmer gagged, tugging at her costume's collar while Bow seemed quite uneasy. Adora narrowed her lips, smiling awkwardly and stating, "Captain actually wanted to show us the extent of the damage."
"Trying to torture them, ma'am?" Laughed the Major. Val took that at face value, elbowing him in the shoulder and waving the ladies forward. He rolled his eyes, then said, "Welcome to how the United Nations Space Command fights wars, ladies... We'd've probably dropped a MAC round from orbit if we considered this place unimportant enough... Which, quite frankly, it was. Seriously, there was barely a hundred soldiers and some dozens of bots guarding the place."
"Did you lose anyone?" Angela inquired, trying to ignore the quip about.
"Nada, ma'am. We moved too fast. Poor fuckers didn't even have a chance to respond," The Major replied absentmindedly, sending the first bits of their report over to the UNSC Battle-net while Angela stared on with wide eyes. So, this was the power of the UNSC. The distance they were willing to go in a War to finish it? All four of them understood the fact that their war was literally a matter of life or death, but to see firsthand what that kind of War bred men and women to be was staggering.
To even laugh at the deaths you caused was...
Angela shivered, speaking to Valerie and her soldiers in a whisper of reverence and fear for all she saw here "I've lived for many years, with my most recent memories being the War against the Horde... Yet, I never thought that I'd meet someone more brutal than Hordak and his closest Lieutenants. It seems the Universe has a way of proving even people like me wrong..."
Val smirked, "Good news, Your Highness... The meaner assholes are on your side."
The angelic woman sighed, then stated calmly, "I genuinely hope our Alliance will prove to be to the betterment of everyone, both on Etheria and on your ship..." as her thoughts turned to that little girl and the many like her that must've still been inside the vessel, "But.. I think I'll need a day or two to process what I... What we just witnessed here..."
"Understandable," Val nodded.
"I'm gonna need a bit more than that," Glimmer whispered to her friends, her mind full to the brim with the images of the bloody field around them.
"Yup..." Both of them voiced in unison.
UNSC FOB "Caledonia"
Bright Moon operational sector, UNSC MSR.
?/?/2552 UNSC Standard Military Calendar
Adora watched with bated breath as several drop-ships carrying more construction materials for the forward operations base of the UNSC swept in for a landing near the main pads. The base itself, as she looked down upon it from a nearby peak, was nothing to scoff at. Tall walls surrounded a compound several square kilometers in size, where multiple entrances to the underground had been set up. Still, according the UNSC High-Com, that being the Captain and Admiral, the base was nowhere near ready.
The roads were beaten paths of dirt and gravel, the landing pads were barely-laid concrete and the defensive towers of the FOB were still under construction, with the only things actually working properly being the electrical array in the far right corner of the base, which provided the power for the whole place, and the Firebase's underground section, where much of the UNSC Personnel was to be stationed alongside a slew of equipment and even their workshops and machinery, much of which was still being assembled as she stared at them.
She eyed the crews of Marines, SeaBees and other assorted units as they milled about their under-construction city, finally showing some degree of joy while either working, sitting idly or watching the skies for the arrival of more Drop Ships with supplies, troops or, heck, hopefully a civilian or two to populate the base. Curled up, the young woman watched from what would be the peak where a Radar Station, whatever that was, was to be built, as life seemed to turn to the UNSC's standard of 'normal' within the FOB.
"Kid?"
Adora nearly jumped out of her skin, scrambling to her feet and turning to where the noise had come from, only to see Reaver there, wearing what seemed to be the off-duty kit that the Marines wore. A short-sleeved green T-Shirt with the UNSC Logo on the chest, a pair of baggy cargo pants in woodland camouflage and unarmored combat boots with steel toes. He chuckled.
"Easy. I ain't gonna hurt you," He remarked, approaching Adora... Who just now noticed the man had some sort of curvy glass bottle with an opaque, brownish fizzy drink in his hand. He spoke softly, "Feels good to finally have a home..." watching as more of their drop-ships moved in for a landing, the crews aboard waving as they dropped off armored fighting vehicles.
She watched the man silently, waiting to hear him speak again. Instead, she found him just standing there, staring at the mountains and at the base, his mind probably far away to some memory he probably didn't want to share. She then looked to where he was looking, to see Marines helping a couple of actual civilians off a landed Pelican. A young woman with black hair, glasses and green eyes had walked out of the vehicle, arranging her turtleneck and giving a thankful nod to the Marines, beaming brightly.
Behind her and the other civilians, more people clad in labcoats and the likes, came a platoon of black-wearing fully-armored soldiers. They carried specialized equipment and their armors seemed much better than those of Marines, at least in protection. They also wore fingerless gloves and wielded what looked to be specialized firearms with thicker, extended forward barrels and some kind of optics.
Reaver whistled, surprised.
"What?" Adora asked, "What're they?"
"Orbital Drop Shock Troopers... Must be escorting the Doctor," The man hummed, "Color me impressed that they'd send the One-oh-First down as an escort for a group of eggheads..."
"Take it they're important...?" She raised a brow, "Like... Better than your standard Marine?"
The man snorted, "Adora, you remember the Spartans?"
"Scary bunch, tall, heavily armed and wearing armor that makes a lot of the stuff even the Horde has seem like cardboard by comparison, yeah..." She nodded, then froze, her face filled with shock and fear as she whimpered, "W-Wait, don't tell me these guys are tougher?" to which the man actually, genuinely laughed. Not in a mocking manner, though, more how a dad would laugh at his kid.
"Spartans are augmented with gene-engineering projects that are so top secret, I'm pretty sure that I could disappear tomorrow if I found out about them," He quipped, crossing his arms to his chest, "Not to mention the MJOLNIR armor, which is some of the craziest shit I've ever seen thrown into combat since the introduction of the M6 Magnum pistols... ODSTs? I think I can safely say they're the best that unaltered humans can be. And that's saying something, seeing as how these lunatics take the worst fucking missions command can come up with. Shit that, some times, not even Spartans are deployed for..." He then grinned, "Hell, another translation for their acronym is 'Only Death Stops Them'."
"oh..." Adora actually felt her heart sink. They had someone tougher than those robots. She went bug-eyed, then asked "Wait... Orbital?"
"Yup," Reaver nodded, chugging half his soda bottle in one go, foam forming inside the slim bottle as he pulled it from his lips, clicked his tongue and said "They drop in pods, straight into hell."
"... What do you people not have?" She asked incredulously, "First, you got people who are gene-engineered to be warriors, now you tell me you have people that jump from literal outer space and fight immediately after they landed...?" And she shook her head. The UNSC continued to impress, militarily and in technological standards. Seriously, the way they waged war was terrifying.
"Welcome to mankind's way of waging war," The man smirked, "C'mon. I think the Doc's gonna wanna meet you."
"Why?" Adora stood to her feet, afraid.
"Medical checkups and the likes. She usually wants to know what we're dealing with in terms of any pathogens and the likes... Now that she's awake, she's more than eager to help investigate," He smirked. Reluctantly, Adora followed the man down from their little perch and into the confines of the FOB, finding Marines on patrol duty, as well as their light scouting and transportation vehicles, what they called 'Warthogs', already being mobilized for outer area patrols.
The two passed by a pair of 'Hogs just as they rolled out toward the main gates, each manned by a gunner, a driver and the passenger. One was a 'Gauss Hog', a Warthog carrying a much heavier gun than its counterpart that had a three-barrel gatling machine gun. They were also blazing fast, from what Adora could see. She smiled slightly as she watched them depart, then said "I think it'd be fun to drive one of those."
"'Hogs are hella fun to drive," Reaver remarked, a grin on his face, "Some times, they do get unwieldy, though. And braking's kind of hard."
"Heh, noted," She nodded. The two walked on through the courtyard, with Adora hearing a lot of folks greeting Reaver as 'Mike' with smiles on their faces. She turned to him, raising a brow and asking, "Mike?" as they passed by a patrol of engineers, couple of which were young women, all hauling what looked like steel beams meant to help in building the walls.
"Some of the lads and ladies refer to me by my first name," He shrugged, "Civilian contractors working with the crew, mostly."
"That's nice," Adora smiled, then sighed, "I'm kinda known as She-Ra by most people..."
"So by what stands in for a rank rather than a normal name," Mike mused as they approached the tunnel to the FOB's underground section and descended.
"Yeah," She shrugged, "I dunno, but I kind of wish I was just... Adora... At least to many of the people I care about."
"I'd suggest ya don't ponder it too much, kid," He shrugged as they passed through the surprisingly wide vehicle bay and into the wide under-construction halls of the FOB, where electrical engineering staff worked on lining the walls with the necessary power conduits to feed the entire base. Mike and Adora took a right, down to where some freshly-painted signs had pointed toward. The Lab.
Entering the place, the two found it filled with active staff in labcoats already perusing data on consoles excitedly. Men and women alike read through and added to the data in the computer systems, smiles on their faces as they worked. On some of the newly-assembled metal tables and desks lay technology belonging to the Horde:Armor pieces, stun batons, grenades, bots and other assorted equipment. They were in varied states of disassembly, with one of the ball-bots being torn apart at the seams by a trio of scientists wearing some form of specialized suits and carrying plasma torches which sparked as they melted through the armor of the machines.
"... Huh..." Adora murmured, "That's... uh... interesting...?" She looked to Mike as if she was asking for what the heck was going on.
"Eggheads want to know everything they can about the enemy..." The man replied, "So we, the grunts, know how to counter them. I think the Captain's out on a talk with queen Angela, so she can send in some scientists of her own to assist us..." He then added calmly as they advanced down the rows upon rows of tech-filled tables and giddy eggheads at work.
"Huh. Hey, what're they hoping to-"
"Sergeant Reaver!" She heard a heavily-accented female voice call out, "Well, well, well!"
Mike and Adora both turned to see the smiling doctor from the Pelican, a touch-screen tablet in her hand. She spoke, "It's good to see you again, Michael! It has certainly been a while!" while she was still wearing that almost inhumanly large smile which managed to send shivers up Adora's spine the moment she saw it up-close. The good Doctor voiced, "I see you've brought our first new comrade! Greetings, you must be miss Adora. Some of the Spartans have told me of you and your... Let's call them extraordinary abilities."
"Doc," He nodded, smiling.
"Hi...?" Adora waved awkwardly. Seriously, the young woman felt more out of place here than anywhere else in the world, currently. The woman slinked up to Adora's side, examining every nook and cranny of her like she was a statue she had to chip excess stone off of. She cupped her chin, pursing her lips and looking over Adora while the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Princess stared, her cheeks flushed red. She looked to Mike, who was chuckling, before asking, "She does this with everyone... Right?"
"Nope," He stated bluntly, letting out a short laugh, before stating, "Doc Keller, this is Adora, one of the Princesses and a commander in the Army we're currently helping."
"Yes, yes, I read the Spartans' reports, Michael," She waved him off, "Huh, curious..." She stopped in front of Adora, smiling yet again now as she spoke, "You seem fairly human! What, pray-tell, gives you the power to become She-Ra anyway, frau? Is it some piece of archaeotechnology? Some form of locally-developed item? Maybe even something I can study?"
"U-Uh," Adora took a step back, still a bit surprised by the good Doctor's pure disregard for personal space, "It's my sword..." She then stated, drawing the weapon off her back, to reveal it to the Doctor. The woman gasped, smiling broadly as she looked over the blue-colored blade, examining its intricate details while a flurry of words in what Adora registered immediately as five different languages came out of her mouth. With some high level of energy in her system, the caffeinated doctor typed away data on her tablet.
"Heh..." Michael shook his head, then stepped up and explained, "Adora, meet doctor Amanda Keller, of the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence's Naval Special Warfare Section three... And now, Chief Scientist of the Forward Operations Base 'Caledonia'..." before
"Hallo~!" The woman greeted in a singsong voice, "Do you mind if we begin the examinations?"
"E-Examinations!?" Adora staggered. Holy lands, "What?!"
"Yes! Blood samples, my girl! Non-invasive procedures to determine your capabilities both in your enhanced state and out of it, as well as a deep scan of the Sword you wield!" The Doctor replied, finishing the type-up one of her probably crazy theories in the tablet, "I'm a woman of science, miss Adora. When I find something or someone interesting enough to warrant a closer look, I take that closer look immediately."
"Don't worry... Doc Keller isn't the one who's on autopsy business," the Sergeant remarked with a mirthful chuckle, watching as Adora's face wholely drained of color.
"Indeed! I much prefer indirect observation and non-invasive tests of living subjects over the work of my... Admittedly... Morbidly curious compatriots," Amanda beamed brightly at Adora, despite the girl now noticing the bags under her own bloodshot eyes. It looked almost like she'd wept before coming out to greet the soldier-princess pair. She was, however, as energetic as dear-old Entrapta, wherever that girl was. She then wrote up another line of something or other in her tablet and stated, "I will take her from here, Sergeant. ONI Business."
"H-Hey, Doc, aren't we moving a bit too fast?" Adora raised a brow, trying to avoid this little encounter. She whispered to Mike, "Sarge... Help..."
"Heh. Sorry, kid... Seeing as she's an ONI Major, she outranks me," He shrugged, "Don't worry. I'll come back with something for you to drink and eat after the blood sample drawing is done..."
"... Awh..." She whined as she saw the man salute the doctor and wink at her, before departing.
"Wonderful," Amanda smiled, grabbing Adora by the wrist and dragging her along, "This way, to the medical ward! We are going to do this the safe, sterile way."
"You're awfully energetic, doc..." Adora remarked, her voice suddenly raising in pitch, "How much blood d'you think you'll need?"
"Oh, a cup, give or take..." She smiled. Adora sighed, relieved for but a moment.
"Well, that's not so bad... Hahaha..." The blonde awkwardly laughed, before seeing the good doctor grab an empty plastic cup off a table they passed by. That was NOT A CUP!
"HOW MUCH..." Adora's voice cracked, to which the Doctor hummed a hearty song, dragging the girl along by the wrist, her sword dragging across the semi-cured concrete floor below and leaving a nasty trail. Ahead of them, a door slid over to the side, revealing medical staff, all of whom immediately backed away from the good doctor to let her and her new 'patient' come through.
The duo entered the FOB's medical wing, the utterly most complete section of the base Adora had seen so far. White, sterile walls, floors and regressed LED light strips greeted them, alongside rows of electric beds connected to the wiring in the walls and rows and rows of various medical equipment pieces from EKG machines to the basic IV Drip stands.
A couple of Marines were on the beds farther inside as the Doctor settled Adora into place on her own bed. She spoke, "So... A sword gave you your powers..." while looking over a string of tools meant to assist her in taking blood samples. Adora went completely blank when she saw the woman picking up some kind of needle encased in a plastic cap, with some form of container behind it.
"Y-Yup..." She whimpered.
"You do know I will have to look over that sword, right?" She asked, setting the needle tool aside and picking up some form of strap. She looked to Adora, then ordered, "Left sleeve up, please. All the way past the elbow..." and watched the girl reluctantly comply, revealing some actual muscle behind the spindly-looking white uniform shirt she was wearing. The Doctor snorted at Adora's weak nod, tying the strange elastic strap tightly around her arm. Hard enough that Adora felt her blood pumping.
"Relax," The Doctor said, "This won't hurt. Just look at me..." And she attached some sort of hose to the needle-tipped item before picking it up. She smirked, "I didn't think a mighty 'Princess' would be scared of needles. Spartans' reports told me you fight quite bravely... If a little clumsily," while Adora looked at her. Gently, the woman uncapped the needle and said to Adora, "Heh, hit a nerve?"
"I'm not scared of needles..." The girl remarked, "It's just... I've never had this done before."
"Never had a blood test done...? Huh, technology here must be a combination of ass-backward and highly-advanced with nothing in-between..." She quipped, to which Adora frowned. She was clearly offended by the quip, so the Doctor decided to be a bit diplomatic, by stating, "Don't take that the wrong way. It means we have what to teach your people... So, how does your sword turn you into a tall, buff woman?"
"Magic, really," Adora shrugged.
The Doctor chuckled, "Funny... For real, though."
"I'm serious," The blonde replied, causing the woman to stare at her with disbelief.
"... Mein Gott, diese leute sind wirklicht dumm..." She murmured in her home language, "My dear, Magic does not exist... Everything has a scientific explanation."
"Uh-huh..." Adora smirked, "Bet," as she wobbled slightly, "... Getting a bit dizzy..."
"... You're on," The Doctor flashed a toothy grin, "All done..." She then said as she pulled the needle out of Adora's arm, set it into a container of some kind and hefted up the 'cup' of blood, with heavy air quotations on the word 'cup'. Adora stared with wide-eyes at the pint of viscous red liquid that came out of her body and that the woman had so carefully covered with some form of sterile film so it didn't spill. She looked to Adora, then said "Don't worry, miss. Nausea should pass as soon as you wake up..."
"What nausea-"
Adora wobbled, her eyes rolling back, then collapsed into the bed she was sitting on.
... Never again.
No more blood tests.