FIGHT LIKE HELL, FIGHT LIKE DOOM MARINES!

Ch.27: Secrecy...

(Vincent/Doom Marine, Canterlot Castle, home base. One week later...)

“Vincent? A word?” I heard Celestia said to me, just as I was coming out from my Workshop.

“What’s up?” I asked her, dusting off my hands.

“It’s about the new training program you and the others had proposed.” She told me.

“What? Are you gonna scrap it?”

“Not exactly. While I do agree about the reasons behind its harsh structure and methods, this sounds like it’s only just the start.” She explained.

“That’s quite the educated guess.” I stated to her. “Yes, that’s only the beginning of it. This was something we’ve been planning for a long time, the only problem was the means.” I told her, waving my hand to have her follow me.

“That being?” She asked, following closely behind me as we went through the portal leading to our secret Manufactorum.

“We’re going to change Equestria’s military structure. The Royal Guard will still exist, to an extent, but a new military branch will be made. The Royal Marines.” I answered her, as I called for transportation to get us where we needed to go.

“The Royal Marines?” She blinked in confusion.

“Yep.” I nodded as our ride got here, a Train of sort, the one that the Doom Slayer used to get to where Hayden was at. When the doors opened, we hopped on board and I went up to the controls, punching in the sector to transport us.

“Are...you boys for real?” Tia asked, her voice laced in disbelief. “I mean, is that even possible? I’m sorry, but I’m finding it hard to wrap my head around.” She said, taking a seat as the electric-powered Train started moving.

“We’re serious about this.” I told her, going over to where she sat and held onto the top railing.

“But...in the document you filed to us, you also estimate that more than half of our current Royal Guard staff would more than likely to drop out and stay within the Guard branch. How can you be so sure this will work?” She asked, her doubt was founded true.

“Because those with hardened steel of will and conviction make it work.” I answered and she chuckled.

“Is that so?”

“After what happened a couple or so months ago, many will be motivated. However, only a few dozen handful are made Marines.” I stated and she sighed.

“Those that don’t make it will be completely devastated.” She told me, feeling sympathy.

“Doesn’t mean they can’t get another shot at it.” I said with a shrug. “With how dire things are going to become in the near future, dealing with more threats other than Cocoon’s Hive, we don’t have a lot of time to be picky about this shit.” I sighed. Natural Selection can be such a bitch, but we don’t have the luxury for such things.

It didn’t take long for us to reach our destination; Sector 117. If you guessed it, congratulations. Wondering how is it possible we’re creating weapons just over four centuries ahead of time? Well, it involved Eliteslayer’s Summoning Token, as well as Palutena’s. So now we have UNSC weapons, armours and vehicles in preparation for the Royal Marines. Of course, I went looking through our computer’s databank, checking out the lore of the Halo Universe. Just to be sure I got everything right and spot on.

The Covenant weapons will be for another time. I actually felt really drained of energy after using two tokens for more extensive purposes. As for Celestia, well, she was slack jawed, looking through all of the manufacturing assembling lines with her eyes wide as saucers.

“... How?” She finally asked.

“Remember Palutena’s staff?” I replied with a question of my own, as she looked back at me. “Well, since she’s a Goddess of Creation and all that jazz and shit, I did some test runs with it to see if it still works. By using another’s Token to create...this.” I explained, my arms wide open in a dramatic fashion, showing off on what I had managed.

“Oh...that would explain all those explosions.” Oh, right... That.

If you’re wondering what she’s on about, let’s just say it wasn’t as straightforward as I thought it would be. Yep. More fireworks going off in my workshop. Well, at least I didn’t blow up the entire city, or the mountain, or even worse the country itself!

To be blunt and straight to the point, using Magic for the first time, was a lot more harder than I’d thought. I keep forgetting that the only reason why the Unicorns and Alicorns make it look so easy to do, was because they’ve been doing it ever since they could properly talk. There are a few bumps here and there when it came to controlling it, some random spasms of their own magic going out of whack. For me to be doing this with my sister’s staff, who’s a Goddess, I really thought it was going to be easy. Only to be reminded just how cruel Life can be to you, when you wish for too much. Reminding me how much of a HUGE bitch Karma can still be.

EAT THE FATTEST OF DICKS, YOU TWAT! AND GIVE A RIMJOB TO A HAIRY ARSE!

Letting out a sigh, I looked back at Tia, who was still gawking. “So, now you know.” I stated, gaining her attention as she shook her head. “Anything you wish to ask?” I asked her.

“I... I don’t know, really.” She answered, looking around. “Other than having you stop raiding my secret stash of sweets and treats. Seriously, stop doing that.”

“I’m only doing it because Bryan, Kevin, Visilia and that, told me to do so. Not only to stop you from having to stuff your face when no one is looking, but because I can burn that off easily just by running.” I told her, making her groan.

“Please? I need my sweets.”

“You’ll get fat, again.” I casually said, earning a gasp from her.

“Y-You dare!?” She screamed in shock and I nodded.

“Yes, because it’s true. I mean, have you looked in a mirror lately?” I questioned, folding my arms. “Honestly, your ass and hips were getting bigger than your tits, I was afraid the extra pounds you would’ve gained were gonna make them sag.”

She froze up, before looking herself over in a panic. She was feeling and checking each of her ‘feminine assets’, making sure none of them had deformed or lost their potential beauty of appearance. Once done, she gave a sigh of relief before smiling at me, in a cocky manner. “Hah! Nothing so detrimental has transpired as of yet. My beautiful, immortalised figure still holds true!”

“Well, let’s hope Bryan thinks so as well.” I said with a chuckle.

“What do you mean by that?” She asked, her confidence diminishing.

“Well, let’s see...” I hummed for a moment, before speaking again. “So far, he hasn’t tried to punch you, or yell at you. He treats you like a normal person... Well, in his own, special way.” I snickered, making her shiver at the thought. “However, he hasn’t been giving you time, has he?” This was a trick question, a bait, one that she took a bite on.

“What do you mean?” She asked, looking confused.

“Well, seeing as he’s not hounding at you, since you both have forgiven each other, do you two ever talk?” I asked.

“... No.” She sighed, letting her head hang low. “At least, not on a personal level, like, with Luna. We rarely ever talk, and even when we do, it’s just business. Professional.”

“Ouch.” I winced, cringing a bit.

“I didn’t want to say it, or show it, but... It hurts.” She said, her voice cracking a bit, as I could tell that tears were forming within her eyes. “I know things didn’t start out well, and even when we both got over our issues, I really thought we could start again. But, so far, he’s been so focus on working to protect Equestria, it feels like he still hates me.”

“Goddammit, Bryan.” I sighed, shaking my head. I knew something was amiss between those two. But, seeing as how fucking dense he can be, that tends to make you think that he doesn’t want to be friends. “Do you really want to be friends with him?”

“Of course I do.” She sniffled, looking back up to me as she wiped her teary eyes. “I want to be able to stand beside him. Get to know him better. Help him understand his own feelings...” And she was listing off things she wanted to do to make it up to him, wipe the slate clean, and all that other stuff. To be completely honest, this sounded more like a love confession to me.

Once she was finished, I asked her this question. “Do you actually have more personal, desirable feelings for him?” When that happened, there was a pause, her face went blank as her mind tried to comprehend what I had asked. After a few moments, her face lit up, slowly going from white to a light pink, before turning red.

“Do I...love him?” She muttered the question.

I shrugged at her. “You said it, not me.” Well, technically, that was half true. Only because, in hindsight, I kinda did ask, the only difference being that I wasn’t being very direct about it.

“Why?” She asks herself. “Why would I feel any love for him? We’re on opposite sides, always at each other throats. He even hits me!”

“To him, you deserve those. And you kinda do set yourself up.” I commented.

“No one asked for your opinion!” She snapped.

“Too bad, I’m still throwing in my two cents in there.” I retorted with a shrug.

“Hmph!” She huffed, turning away from me.

“Anyway, is this all you wanted to see?”

“... You say that as if there’s more to see.”

“Another time. Doing all of this with magic for the first time nearly killed me.” I sighed. “And I’m being serious, it felt as if my soul was being drained from my body.”

“Oh my gosh! Are you sure you’re alright!?” She asked in a panic, looking back my way.

I gave a chuckle and waved at her. “I’ll live.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” She sighed in relief. “Honestly, if anything had happened to you, Bryan would’ve gone after Palutena over a misunderstanding.” We both winced at the thought.

“Yeah, how about we stop talking and have you sent back?” I suggested, shoving her back on the train. “I need to check up on something.”

Before she could ask, the doors closed as she was ferried away. Once gone, I called in a ride of my own and have it fly me to a...secret part of this place. The only one that knows about it besides me was Kevin. Coming up to a deactivated teleporter, I typed in the code to activate it, I walked through and appeared to my destination.

I came by this place by accident, but one I was glad to had happened upon. Here’s why: Spaceships. That’s right, this place can indeed build us Spaceships, be they civilian, delivery, explorers, or military, this part can build them. All of it was prefabricated and assembled together by automatous machinery, for the last ten thousand years. This wasn’t the only assembly line, as their were many to build all of the many ships, right now I was in the military one. Heading up towards the control room to check the numbers of how many were made.

Currently, for the military graded ones, there are about... over a hundred and forty-five thousand ships ready for combat.

Yeah, that’s a lot. These machines can work fast. We won’t be needing them just yet. Now, yes, we could use them to search for Cocoon and her Hive, end the threat immediately and win the war. However, there’s still the problem of trying to detect their whereabouts. I mean, for all we know, we could just fly over the bitch and not really notice. If neither Guardian or Discord could find her, what are our chances of finding her, through technology? Zero.

Anyway, that’s besides the point. Once everything was checked out with the other assembly lines, I left the place and made my way back to Home Base. There were still some things that I was planning on, be they for our sakes, or our allies...

Now, how about I shed some light as to why I didn’t share this information with the other three? Simple. First off: the ships weren’t even ready, and we couldn’t exactly leave such dangerous devices in the hands of a primitive race. Any ONE of them could end up turning this world we all call home into a wasteland. Second: there was no point in using them, not to mention the learning curb of piloting such things would be too time consuming. Hell, I wouldn’t even trust Bryan flying the damn things, he’ll end up crashing the fuckers and burn us all. Third: the world’s populous would think we were now taking over, once Hell was dealt with. I mean, think about it, how fucking scared out of your mind would you be if you saw such a massive fleet hanging over head 24/7, just waiting to blow you the fuck up? You have to remember, we’re Humans. Aliens to these people we have sworn to protect. And here comes my Fourth: back then, no one in Equestria liked us. To show such force would only prove them right, or worse, making demands of us giving these war machines over to them. Yeah, not happening.

I guess what I’m trying to say is...we don’t want anyone making the same mistakes that Humanity has made, or would make, if given the chance. And we don’t want to get into unnecessary fights, if they can be avoided. Equestria, back at the time, truly felt very, very alone. Pitted against impossible odds and trying to survive, all so they could live a little while longer. Hell was gunning it for this country, for what purpose at the time, we really didn’t know.

Except now.

They were after the Tree of Harmony, a crystallised, magical tree where the Elements of Harmony were created from. Now, back then, nobody really knew of its existence, and the Demons didn’t really know where it was, hence the reason why they were always spotted within the Everfree Forest. They were close, so very close to finding it, that when we popped into the frame, they focused much of their attention on us. So, we managed to throw them off their game and fuck their plans up.

As for the Tree itself? Well, I don’t think it was a Tree, not yet. Perhaps, it started out as a Seed, trying to gather as much magical energy as possible to grow into one. The Seed of Harmony, that’s what it would had been known at the time.

Anyway, that’s it for a quick history lesson. Now, let’s see if I can find a way to upgrade our weapons and armour. It wouldn’t really hurt to be on top of your game.

Author's Notes:

Bit of a short story, as I’m trying to take it easy for now. Just something I wanted to throw together and maybe shed some light on some things.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this, and as always, thanks for reading.