Chapter 17

Daniels and Harvest were in the Phantom, cooking up a couple of MREs

"Any signal from the others?" Daniels asked

"Not since the attack" Harvest answered, "We may have to go on a rescue op."

This was nothing new, neither was having a vehicle parked in the forest as you ate and prepared for an upcoming battle

Of course thinking about it was a big factor, the initial message came with a small little video clip, it showed the strike force. Daniels could tell something was off; the princess may have been lying sure, but there was no way she had that many guards.

That was the main thing on his mind, that many guards simply didn't make sense, that and the fact they looked exactly the same? He would have to get there and take a look as soon as he could

Harvest finished his MRE and stood up, "Right, off to Ponyville then."

Daniels didn't complain, the sooner they fixed this the sooner they could get back to stopping the Covenant

The UNSC troopers were tough, but that was just unfair. Qualomee most likely obliterated more than half of the invading force with that massive weapon he made.

Harvest was silently piloting the Phantom as Ponyville was twenty minutes away

But a lot can happen in twenty minutes

[…]

Twilight wasn't left in the dark when the attack struck, instead she was left in a panic as her door was bashed against

Even she could tell something was off, each guard had his own tell, a slight gait, an accent of some kind, eye color, but these guards all were the same

Magic copies? Or something else, she retreated into her basement which had an iron reinforced door in order to protect from any magical accidents that might have occurred while experimenting down there

There was no sign of Joseph or his squad, then again that appeared to be one of the first things under attack, at least that's what Twilight suspected from the sounds of gunfire and magical blasts coming from that area

She should have been able to tell what was going on, but princess Celestia appeared to be the cause, and the town was in just as much a state of panic as she was

Twilight was in a huge state of panic, she could feel her magic begin to respond, her horn felt like it was about to explode

[…]

Daniels could see the town in the distance, but Ponyville looked pretty worse-for-wear, being covered in craters and some sort of slime

The Phantom descended, Harvest would park somewhere near the Scavenger while Daniels assessed the situation on the surface

"I'll see you in hell" Daniels said before saluting and turning to go down the gravlift

Daniels had grabbed a shotgun from the weapons locker and left, the slime covered most of the buildings and was seemingly blocking most points of passage

'Right, first things first.' Daniels made his way through the town, it seemed as if nobody was there

Only a few guards walked through town, accompanied by some strange black bug-like things, they were around the same size to the resident ponies, Daniels would have to move quickly and stay in the shadows. The last thing they needed was a single-man confrontation

"I've parked, I'm going to take a look at the Scavenger." Harvest patched through

"Alright, I want radio silence while we're here. Unless it's vitally important." Daniels ordered

Harvest's acknowledgement light winked green, Daniels would make his way there and avoid anyone except Harvest

Right now, he was behind enemy lines

[…]

'I need a vacation…' Harvest thought to himself

After disconnecting from Daniels he had picked up a plasma rifle, the only weapon left the in the locker

'At least it's better than a plasma pistol.'

He turned off his external speakers and turned on his VISR, he'd need to be able to see in complete darkness which wasn't possible if he had a flashlight

Harvest dropped down onto the ground, the Scavenger was in sight, a large amount of green slime was covering it and the entrances

Almost all of them, but Harvest remembered there being one on the top of the ship for maintenance

It would be a hell of a climb, but it would be worth finding out exactly what happened to his fellow ODSTs, and a really tall alien thing

Once he managed to get to the top he could see the door was seemingly left untouched, aside from a small amount of slime on the top of the doorframe

The lone ODST queued the door, and it slowly slid open

'Ambient to say the least.' He cracked

Then he raised the rifle and entered the darkened ship

[…]

Daniels had nearly made it to the library, if anyone would know what was going on Twilight would

There had been several close calls, at one point he had nearly tripped a small trap, it was hooked up to the school bells, if he had set that off the whole town would have known he was there

But the library was in view now, it only had the green slime on the possible entrances, this slime was odd, it gave off a sickly greenish glow

Daniels jumped up to a lower branch, then climbed up to the balcony, then further still until he was near the top of the tree

From this vantage point he could see a few more buildings with glowing slime on them, the bakery, a strange building with some sort of clothing shop on the bottom, and the Scavenger's silhouette was visible through the night haze

The ODST could drop into the attic from here, this thing being a tree and all, but when he was getting close he could see a barrier of branches weaved together by magic

Not an issue, as long as he didn't get caught he could force entry into the attic, and did just that

His boots hit the wooden floor with a dull thump, at least the library was made out of stable oak wood, now Daniels had to find Twilight in this dust factory

The library was solid, so it didn't creak as much as any normal house would. The downstairs was in a state of disarray, books strewn everywhere, and the door to the basement looked incredibly battered

Daniels walked up to it, trying the door, but despite how beaten it was, it didn't give way, must've been magically reinforced, but every lock had a breaking point

He braced himself, dug his boots into the hardwood floor and gave the door a good shove, the door was strong, but he could feel the hinges start to give, they creaked and then bent out of place, the door collapsed inward

The basement was dark, and the sickly yellow glow of the VISR outlined everything in the room slightly worse for wear computer technology, a few things he couldn't tell what were, but Twilight wasn't in sight

While he was there he decided he had to take a look for clues, the computer screen flickered to life and displayed a message

HELP ME