>"Pod controls damaged. Manual override needed."
>"Pod controls damaged. Manual override needed."
"Nnngh..."
>"Pod controls damaged. Manual override needed."
>You blinked a few times, slowly coming to.
>There was blood on the inside of your visor, likely from the cut you felt on your eyebrow.
>"Pod controls damaged. Manual override needed."
"Fuck off..." You grunted, still taking stock of your situation.
>Slipspace rupture right in front of your eyes, blinding light...impact, then black-out.
>"Command acknowledged."
>The computer shut off, the red OLED above you blinking at a steady interval.
>A quick self check showed that you were...physically alright, at the very least.
>A little sore, a little beat up, but hey.
>You hit the ground going at...Mach .9, it was a miracle you weren't *dead*.
>Your weapons were still alright, nothing short of a Covie glassing could break these things.
>Your medical kit was alright as well, though your grenades were shot.
>Cracked open and leaking the explosive powder all over the pod...this could be bad.
>You took them off and laid them on the floor of the pod, not wanting the explosives on you.
>Your helmet, strangely, wasn't getting any radio signals.
>Looking outside, you saw...trees.
>There were no trees in Mombasa.
>There were no buildings in this forest.
>You looked about your SOEIV, looking for the emergency releases.
>You hit the seven buttons, wondering for a brief moment why there were seven and not just, you know, one or two.
>The door blew off, and you stepped out, M7/S in your hands and M6G on the holster around your waist.
>Birds quickly retreated, scared off from the blast.
>Your compass was attempting to get its bearings, spinning around fruitlessly.
>Thankful there was a way to manually set it, you simply looked up.
>The sun appeared to be setting rapidly, so you deemed that direction 'west'.
>The compass then reset itself.
>Now, to get out of this blasted forest to actually get your bearings.
>You turned and began stripping your pod.
>You weren't entirely sure why, though. There wasn't exactly a command post to move to.
"Oh well."
>You packed up your additional ammunition, MREs, anything and everything you could carry.
>Your senses were still on edge.
>This forest was...dark. Too dark.
>Made the hairs prickle on the back of your neck, like something was watching you.
"Gah. Just nerves."
>You then started walking in a direction at random, you didn't care which.
>As you walked, you took stock.
>Twenty mags for your M7, ten for the M6G, two more frags, three C7 charges and a detpack, several MREs, an emergency beacon, and no idea what you were doing.
>Goodie.
>No IFF pings either. Hadn't been for over an hour.
>Hell, at this point you'd be glad to see a Covie Grunt.
>...granted, you'd plug his ass with lead the instant you saw him, but at least it wasn't this.
>Walking, through a dark forest.
>Alone.
"Dammit, and Allez owed me a hundred creds." You grumped. "That's fine, though. Set up this beacon here, wait for UNSC rescue."
>You sighed.
"What in the fuck happened, anyway?"
>Going in for Regret's carrier.
>Chief cleared the path through that other assault carrier...
>Deployed, then...a flash of white.
>A jump in atmo? That had to have been suicide.
>Didn't explain a whole lot, but did explain why you were separated from your squad.
>You took off the stuffy helmet, just in time to hear something shift the bushes behind you.
>Putting it back on and polarizing the visor, you drew your M6G and waited.
"Come out of there slowly, this is your only warning!" You warned, aiming at the bushes.
>Something lunged, and you pulled the trigger without hesitation.
>The thing was suddenly missing a good quarter of its head as it blew past you.
>Like a strange lion/bat/scorpion hybrid.
"What...?"
>You were making sure your helmet was recording this.
>You kicked it to make sure it wasn't gonna get back up and try to kill you.
>It merely bled a little more, unmoving. The spatter spread along the ground and to a tree behind it, where the bullet had finally come to rest.
>Satisfied, you holstered your weapon.
>You were finally leaving the forest, though it was still the dead of night.
>There was a small hamlet in the distance, with some lights still on.
>It appeared to be roughly fourteenth century, which was...odd, to say the least.
>Any human colony would be built off of pre-fabricated buildings at first...perhaps they had been lost?
>It wasn't exactly unheard of, especially with the war going on. Sometimes, early colonies were simply...misplaced.
>Still, it didn't explain the poor state of things.
>You shrugged. It was as good a place as any to get information. They might even let you set the beacon up.
>You took your helmet off again, letting your head cool off.
>These ODST helmets were always just a bit too stuffy, in your opinion.
>Your next opinion would have to wait, as you were suddenly struck from behind.
---
>"It's dangerous, Spike!" A female voice said, rousing you from your sleep.
>"Are you sure? It seems pretty cool to me." A male voice responded almost instantly.
>"I watched it brutally murder a manticore in under a second, yes I'm sure!" The female voice said again, at just under a shout.
>You groaned, waking from unconsciousness twice in...who knows how long.
>There would be legitimate brain damage before you were done, you were certain.
>Trying to stretch a kink in your back, you discovered that your hands and legs were bound, and that you were sitting against a wall in a darkened room.
>Your equipment bags had been removed, including the bulky one on your back.
>Your armor had not, however.
>The familiar outline of your ODST helmet was sitting on a small nightstand a few meters away, but you were pretty well restrained.
>Another quick yank confirmed your suspicions.
>This wasn't rope, this was iron chain.
>The knife still under your belt wouldn't help at all.
>"So what are you going to do with an obviously dangerous creature, then?" The male voice, Spike you assumed, asked.
>"Interrogate it, see why it's here. It's not in any of my books, it HAS to be a new species! First contact rules, remember?"
>"Oh, right. I suppose I'll get the parchment and quills..."
>You grunted in pain when the door was suddenly thrown open, light spilling into the room.
>Slowly opening them, you did a mental double-take and several slow blinks.
>Walking towards you was a purple pony, whom would have been roughly thigh high from its shoulder on down.
>The top of its head would have reached the top of your stomach.
>It was sporting a tri-colored purple-light purple-pink mane, as well as wings and a horn.
>The answer was simple: You were either hallucinating from Covenant interrogation drugs, or you were dead.
>The twinge in the back of your head eliminated the second as an option.
>Unless you had *literally* jumped into hell.
>You had a magma-side suite to get to if that were the case.
>Its horn suddenly glowed with a bright pink light, bringing over what appeared to be your dog tags.
>Your mind was slightly blown, but you had more pressing matters to attend to.
>Namely, getting these chains off.
>"Captain Alomar, Blood type O Negative, serial number 051568-83430-RA." The horse read aloud.
>Definitely your tags, and this was starting to look more and more like an interrogation every second.
>The lights clicked on, and you winced.
>Another, shorter being walked in seconds later, quill and parchment in his grip.
>Purple, green underbelly, reptilian...not a Covenant species either.
>"What did that manticore do to you?" The horse asked you suddenly, not angry, but demanding.
>Is that what that was? A fairytale come to life?
>Would definitely explain the winged unicorn interrogating you.
>The possibility that you were dead or dying suddenly sprung back up.
"Attacked me, I fought back." You replied shortly.
>"With lethal force?"
"I don't play games, little...horse." You said, pausing when you realized you didn't have a name for her.
>"Twilight Sparkle." She supplied after a moment, cautiously looking you over. "Why were you coming here, to Ponyville?"
>She was being...much too gentle for a Covie interrogator.
>You hadn't had a plasma knife cut a finger off yet, or been slugged across the jaw, or tortured for hours...
>She was also letting out far, far too much information freely.
"I need...to get home."
>"Home? Which is...?"
"That's classified information."
>"Hmph."
>She walked around you a bit, and you followed as she did, eyes locked to hers.
"Boo."
>She jumped, wings flaring out in a display, before sending you a withering glare and tucking them to her sides.
>You chuckled.
"You're not Covenant, are you." You said, not really a question.
>"Covenant?"
>The two of you stared at one another, blankly.
"...right. I'm going to have to have you let me go." You said calmly.
>This was time that you could have spent setting up that rescue beacon.
>"I can't."
"...and why not?" You questioned.
>"Because Princess Celestia is on her way to question you as well." The horse, Twilight, replied.
>Great.
"Can you at least let me out of these restraints?"
>"I...I'm sorry, I can't. I can't trust you enough to not go on a rampage across Ponyville."
>You sighed.
"I won't leave this room, then. You can even have someone watch me." You said, trying to convince this (admittedly rightfully paranoid) unicorn that you would behave.
>She stared at you for a few minutes, weighing her options.
>"...fine."
>Her horn lit up again, and you felt the chains loosen, then fall away.
>Your arms and legs immediately felt like they were on fire as blood flow was allowed to continue in earnest, giving your blood-starved limbs what they needed most.
>"If you leave this room, I won't be responsible for what I'll have to do to you." The horse said, attempting to act intimidating.
>It wasn't really working.
>Telekinetics, while somewhat worrying, wasn't anything to truly fret about.
>When she was suddenly seven feet tall with a shielded suit, shouting at you in Sangheili, was when you could worry.
>She and the reptile then left, and you heard the door get barricaded.
>No matter.
>As much as you didn't want to sleep, you knew it was in your best interest.
>So you supplanted that need with your helmet.
>You put it on, then looked through it for some vids to watch.
>Something to keep you entertained before this "Princess Celestia" arrived.
---