*POV 3rd Person*

Minion strained to stand up. The enemy tank had hit their shelter, obliterating it as if it was made of paper. He looked around in a panic searching for Vinyl and Thompson, eventually he found the latter, unconscious, but a scan from his mask determined he hand no more than severe concussion. He soon spotted Vinyl lying unconscious in her pony form a few feet away from Thompson. He made his way over as fast as he could and quickly deployed a bubble shield, he stumbled over to Vinyl and quickly scanned her with his mask, his panicked expression worsened when the scans showed up multiple life threatening injuries, seems she had taken the brunt of the blast.

“Shit” he muttered, before carefully reaching behind her neck and finding a button hidden beneath her mane: this was a manual switch designed for just such a situation so that he could open up a diagnostics of sorts. He pressed on the button and a holographic interface started to project out of her horn. At that moment he heard Thompson stirring “Careful, you have a concussion”

“What happened?” Thompson asked.

“The panzer got lucky” Minion said, beginning to access a diagnostics report “I’ve put up a camo-bubble, the enemy will think we’ve been totally obliterated.

“What are you doing?” Thompson asked.

“Accessing her repair code” he said, typing onto a holographic keyboard “The existing Neu-Toa all received an upgrade of sorts last year, included in this upgrade was an external diagnostics installed for just such an occasion. The only problem is it’s unbelievably difficult to use coherently, even I’m struggling, but, I should be able to kick-start her automated repair program, which was knocked out in the attack” suddenly the hologram started flashing red and a message popped up

“What’s wrong?” Thompson asked, Minion sighed.

“Shrapnel entered her eyes, so now she’s blind…godsdammit”

“Can’t she just get a robotic eye like Ruby?”

“That only works when the optic nerve isn’t damaged, and unfortunately my mask of healing doesn’t work against nerves either”

“So, she’s permanently blind?” Minion typed on the keyboard, trying to find a solution, but none came up.

“Looks like…hang on a minute”

“What?” Thompson asked.

“I’m about to do something naughty” Minion sang, beginning to manually alter a part of the hologram “if I manually increase her other four senses, that can compensate at least partially, her mask of sonar will do the rest. After that we can only hope Sumerki is up for retraining her to fight blind”

“what do you mean?”

“Sumerki is grouchy at the best of times,” Minion said, rubbing the back of his neck before setting Vinyl’s systems to self-repair and closing up the diagnostics “and unreliable at the worst of times, she doesn’t like being a Neu-Toa. However, I do know that Thestrals are trained to fight in total darkness, and she knows better than to piss me off with something like this” he then stood up before picking Vinyl up and cautiously hoisting her over his shoulder

“What do we do now?” Thompson asked, holding his assault rifle at the ready. Minion smirked and held up a remote switch for the camo-shield

“How fast can you run?” he asked, switching off the shield and bolting into nearby building.

Blazewing watched with a sinking feeling as the Covenant flagship; the Song of Retribution, glided out of the nuclear fireball unscathed, it’s flickering shields the only acknowledgment of the warhead ever even detonating

“No way is that thing still working!” a crew member exclaimed as the enemy ship accelerated to glide alongside the Jörmungandr.

“Get this ship turned around” Blazewing said “NOW!”

aboard the song of retribution Jul ‘Mdama sneered whilst conversing with multiple Elites via hologram.

“Defiance ni noru ni wa, modosu tame ni dare o shitte imasu [Board the Defiance, you know who to bring back]” he said.

“Senchō [sir]?” an elite asked. Jul began tapping his claws rhythmically on the armrest.

“Watashi wa karera no hiza ni shinseibakuhatsu shi, kare no Noi  tōa o jisan suru tsumoridesu [I am going to bring Nova Blast and his Neu-Toa to their knees]” he said, clenching his fist. “Watashi wa karera ga jibun no kodomo o kou suru tsumoridashi, wareware wa karera ga oitsuite mimashou shitara, sonogo, watashi wa kare ga watashi ga tsūka shita mono o tsūka suru tsumoridesu [I'm going to make them beg for their children, and then once we've let them caught up, i'm going to make him go through what i went through]”

*POV 1st Person Nova*

I was sat on my bed, trying my best not to think about what was going on outside, suddenly I heard a massive bang and an alarm started blaring, before I had time to react an Elite broke through the door and I found myself frozen with fear as he approached menacingly and picked me up off of the bed and slung me over his shoulder, holding me by my rear legs.

“Let go of me!” I shouted, struggling to get free. He yanked my legs violently, sending pain shooting through my legs.

“You’re lucky the Didact’s hand wants you alive” the Elite grunted, I gasped in shock. As he stepped back out into the hallway a could hear Polaris, Sandstorm and Sunny screaming some distance away, I felt unimaginable rage boiling inside.

“No!” I shouted, my voice surprisingly deep considering the age I’d been regressed to. I began to charge up magic in my horn “you will not HURT THEM!” an aura surrounded me and the bracelet around my wrist exploded. The Elite was thrown away from me as the effects of the bracelet were reversed almost instantly. I shifted into my Neu-Toa form and picked the Elite up by the neck before pinning him to the wall.

“Where are you taking my children?” I growled.

“Didact’s hand…said he’d show you…true heartbreak” the Elite began chuckling before I crushed his neck and flung him to the floor. I began to run after the elites carrying my kids and Sandstorm, but an Elite slapped something on his wrist, causing them to disappear and leaving me to go barrelling through thin air. I slammed my thist into the ground before opening my comlink.

“Mother” I said “Recall, every single crewmember, vehicle and weapon assigned to the Defiance and get back here…NOW!”

“There is no need to…”

“They have my daughters!” I shouted over all the channels, the entire battle seemed to hesitate for a few seconds

“I’ll bring them up as soon as possible” my mother said, before closing the com-link, I opened up a channel with Vapaa.

“Vapaa, you better get your teams’ asses ready,” I said, trying to keep my voice level “I’m assuming direct command of the Wolfpack and I want you ready to leave now” there was a pause before Vapaa finally said.

“yes sir”

“Boris” I said “you better get your tail feathers back to the Defiance, Jul ‘Mdama has both mine and your daughters” the only response I got was an eagle-like shriek that blew the microphone on Boris’ headset. I teleported into the bridge just as Minion teleported on board with Thompson and Vinyl slung over each shoulder.

“Get them to medical bay!” he ordered.

“What happened?” I asked as ponies took the away on stretchers.

“I was a fool” he said “and now Vinyl’s blind and I don’t know how bad Thompson is, I didn’t get the chance to check”

“You can check on them whilst I’m tracking down Jul ‘Mdama” I said, as a series of mass teleports flashed on the planet below and small part of the Covenant fleet performed an unguided slip space jump. “the bastard has Sunny, Polaris and Sandstorm”

“leave some for me then” he said “the only problem is with an unguided jump he could end up gods know where, and us too”

“Nova” my mother said, teleporting in next to a bloodstained Eclipse “everyone assigned to your escort is aboard their respective vessel, as is the ordinance”

“Captain” I said “follow the covenant into that slipspace rupture”

“But sir, we could end up anywhere”

“I don’t have time for this, just do it!” the captain, a Vortixx, sighed before plotting a course for the entire escort, now in formation with the Defiance. A few moments later we began to make our way toward the slip space rupture, soon, I would get my hands on that damned Sangheili scum, and my daughters would be safe. Next Chapter: Chapter 21 Estimated time remaining: 5 Minutes