Twilight landed with a muted thud on the floor of what could only be described as a dense jungle, this certainly wasn’t the EMSD Facility either, unless some on used way to much miracle grow with their potted plant. With a sigh Twilight unslung her SMG and held it at the ready so if she needed it was ready, jungle always had wild animals in them and many can be very dangerous after all.

Not having any if this jungle had people in it or not much less where they may be she started to walk in a random direction, luckily the jungle floor was easy to travers as it didn’t have to thick of foliage. After walking for some time the mare noticed a distinct lack of wild life, much less signs of wildlife that was unusual for a jungle this dense.

As she walked she finally got signs of life in that she heard movement around her and had a very strong feeling of being watched, and that watcher was defiantly unfriendly. She listened to the sounds as they move around her and she could tell they were moving to surround her and were trying to be stealthy about it, they didn’t count on her having augmented hearing though.

Twilight continued to walk on as if she was unaware of her watchers as the best way to figure out they were would be to simple let them try and ambush her and she had a district feeling wouldn’t be long.

She hates being right.

As she entered a clearing the watchers made their move in that they leapt from the trees, seems they had been running along the branched and not the jungle floor. What caught the alicorn off guard was the fact they weren’t animals, they were animal shaped but defiantly machines. They were low to the ground and looked much like Timberwolves only a dark orange with bright orange light running along their body, and they were armed.

Whatever they were they fired orange energy balls from their face, some at the speed of a semi-auto pistol and other at the same speed as an SMG. Twilight had to raise her shield as there were about a dozen of the mechanicals wolves all of them firing on her. The shield stopped the shots but whatever that energy was it was causing havoc with her magic and nearly broke through her shield in the first few seconds making her need to pour more energy into it to keep it stable.

Now she had the issue of the fact at least one of the mecha-wolves was firing at her at all times so she couldn’t drop her shield to return fire, at least while on the ground. Twilight spread her wings and took to the air and this seems to have confused the mecha-wolves as they scattered and headed for the trees to try and get above her while others fired from the ground, she was able to dodge better in the air though and began going through some of the maneuvers Rainbow used to always show her, seems that being made to watch was paying off though she wasn’t as good at them as Rainbow do to still being new to flying.

Even still with only two firing on her and the other climbing it gave her enough breathing room to take aim at the nearest mecha-wolf and fired off a burst. Despite being machines these wolves were susceptible to bullets and oddly enough seemed explode slightly when they died, not enough to injure their fellow wolves but enough to completely destroy them.

Knowing this Twilight wasted no time in maneuvering and firing, only pausing to switch to a more powerful and accurate assault rifle and before long she had dealt with the perusing mecha-wolves. The maneuvering as carried her a good deal of distance away from where they had ambushed her and she could now hear a distant sound she knew all too well, gunshots.

Seems she wasn’t the only one out here and whoever it was, was under attack and based on the sound by more of the mecha-wolves. Not missing a chance to make friends Twilight flew towards the distance gunfire and it wasn’t lock before she came across sighs of battle, whoever was shooting was on the retreat in the damage to the jungle floor was any indication. She quickly followed the shots and came across a group of humanoids, she wasn’t sure if they were humans do to the fact their armor covered their bodies completely though it looked similar to standard military armor she was used to humans wearing, the helmet looked a lot like the one she wore.

The humanoids were pinned down at the edge of a large clearing that sloped up and it looks like this was some form of defensive positions if the sandbags and crates were any indication. There were seven of the humanoids trying to hold off about four times their numbers of the mecha-wolves and other mechanical creatures.

There were two other types of machines fighting the humanoids behind the sandbags. One smaller one that looked like it had two fan like wings on either side of it and was flying out while the other was humanoid as well with broad shoulders and looked like a humanoid in armor. While the flying one didn’t appear to be armed, she wasn’t sure what it was there for, the humanoid machine definitely was as it fired a single shot that hit one of the besieged humanoids and Twilight watched in surprise as light rabidly spread over his body from where the shot it and then blew way leaving nothing but the humanoids gun to drop to the ground.

“Disintegration?” Twilight said as she looked at the large humanoid machine. “I am defiantly taking that.” She said, but before that she needed to go make friends and what better way to make friends then to aid in battle against overwhelming odds? As Twilight watched she saw a mecha-wolf run along the trees unseen by the defenders and drop down behind them to attack from behind and probably score a couple of kills before they knew what was happening. Wasting no time Twilight flew down as fast as she could and tackled the defender about to take a round in the back.

They both went down with the defender uttering a curse Twilight was familiar with but she didn’t have time to dwell on it as she rolled off the humanoid before he could try and fight her, no doubt thinking she was an enemy and she came up on her feet and put a burst into the mecha-wolfs head causing it to explode.

“Watch your backs, they are flanking you!” She shouted at the defenders, hoping they understood her or else this meeting was going to be short as two of them were turning their weapons on her. Thankfully they seemed to understand as they paused for a moment, she couldn’t see their faces behind their helmets and the fact they wore some sort of fabric around the lower half of their face but they got the message when four more of the mecha-wolves dropped from the trees.

Between Twilight and the two humanoids the attack from behind was quickly repelled and, one of the humanoid paused long enough to nod a thanks to Twilight before turning back to deal with the attack from in front, seemed she earned a bit of trust, at least for the current battle. Twilight took a position behind the sandbags along with the other soldiers and together they started to push the enemy back, it didn’t take long to figure out the mecha-wolves were weak against shots to their face as it seemed to be a major weak point and the soldiers with what Twilight saw were DMRs started picking them off while the ones with assault rifles focused on the larger two legged targets, only firing on the wolves when they got close.

They were doing well when Twilight heard something behind them and flipped around raising her rifle to fire on the flanking enemy and froze as she saw another humanoid in dark green armor that covered his body completely, it was clearly worn and had seen much combat as it has scorch marks and small dents and scratches along it, clearly having saved its wearers life many times but what caught the alicorn off guard was just how damn toll the thing was, it towered over her and the other soldiers, she estimated it was around seven feet tall, the only thing that stopped her from thinking it was part of the enemy was the fact it carried an assault rifle like the soldiers she was with, though it was aiming it at her.

The two aimed their rifles at each other, neither making a move as they weren’t sure if what they were seeing was an enemy or not, what broke the spell was one of the soldiers taking half a dozen shots from the energy SMG and collapsing back. “Damnit.” Twilight hissed as she looked at the soldier and received a deceased message. She looked back at the tall humanoid. “IF you are here to hell then quit standing around and help us repels the attack!” She barked, not sure if it understood her or not.

It seemed to, or at least got the meaning behind it as it looked up at the mecha-creatures and joined them at the sandbags. Twilight watched as shots were fired at the much larger target and seemed to be blocked by some sort of shield it had around itself. It fired it weapon with the cool precision and calmness only years of training and thousands of hours of combat could bring and with the large humanoid’s aid the attack was broken and the enemy pushed back.

It was at that point that the soldiers aimed their weapons at Twilight and she scowled. “That’s some way to show gratitude!” She said with annoyance.

Several of the normal soldiers, for Twilight was sure the smaller humanoids were normal size and the larger one was abnormal, shared a look. The only one not seeming to be showing any reaction to her speaking was the larger humanoid.

“Who are you?” The large humanoid asked in a deep voice that spoke of a being that had seen countless battles and nothing much surprised it.

Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes. “Commander Twilight Sparkle, Equestrian Defense Force.” She said and rested her rifle on her shoulder to show she meant them no harm.

The large humanoid nodded slowly. “Ok, why did you help the marines against the Prometheans?”

“You mean the mechanical things? Easy, they attacked me first and I saw your soldiers were also being attacked by them and saw an opportunity to make friends, saved one of their lived when one of the mecha-wolves tried to flank them.” Twilight explained.

“It’s true sir, if she hadn’t tackled me I wouldn’t be here right now.” One of the soldiers spoke up, his voice muffled by the cloth he wore over his face.

The large humanoid seemed to relax slightly as he nodded again. “Ok, well it’s clear you aren’t with the Covenant or the Prometheans.” He said as he slowly lowered his gun and the soldier followed suit. “What are you doing here?”

“Well what I’m doing here at this exact spot is trying to make friends as I have no clue where I am, as for what I am doing in this jungle I’d like to know that as well as I am not supposed to be here.” Twilight said with a shrug. “Also if I may ask who and what are you lot?”

“I’m Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan One-One-Seven and I’m what is called a human.” The Master Chief said and Twilight nodded as she recognized the rank though the name was odd as humans didn’t use numbers for their names, least none she had ever met. She looked at the soldiers.

“We are marines from the Infinity, we were on recon when we got separated from the main force and held up here.” One of them said.

Twilight nodded. “Ok, what is the Infinity, some sort of base?”

“No, it’s one of the largest and most advanced ships in the UNSC’s fleet.” One of the marines said.

Twilight nodded once more. “Alright, so then it’s a starship as I don’t think you would be reconing Earth.” She said and the marines tensed as they hadn’t told her their home planet. “Relax. “Twilight said waving a hand. “I’ve met humans before; I just didn’t recognize you do to all the armor you are wearing, kind of makes it hard to see exactly what you are under it you know?”

The marines looked at each other once more but before they could say anything more a female voice spoke up. “Not that this isn’t interesting and all but we have an LZ to clear if we want to get out of here.”

Twilight blinked and looked at the Chief as the voice came from him. “Wait I thought you were male? How the hell did you just sound female?”

“That was Cortana, she’s an AI.” The Chief said.

“A Smart AI thank you very much!” Cortana said and her voice distorted slightly and twilight blinked, she knew AIs and their voices defiantly were not supposed to distort like that.

The Chief looked as if he sighed in his armor before hefting his rifle. “Marines, I could use some help clearing an LZ if you are up for it.” He said.

“Oorah!” Several of the marines said raising their own weapons.

“Mind if I tag along and hitch a ride?” Twilight said and the Chief nodded that it was alright. With that the Spartan, the marines and the alien moved off with the aliens making a slight detour to scavenge that disintegration gun, which turned out to be some sort of sniper rifle from the downed Promethean as well as any ammo she could for it, when she got the chance she would need to figure out how it worked.

For now they had a lot of Prometheans and a collection of aliens Twilight assumed were the Covenant the Chief had mentioned. They found them all guarding a hill that lead up to some sort of structure and the group wasted no time in opening fire on the much smaller group.

Twilight and the marines took cover behind rocks and trees and began to return fire while the Chief sprinted around the side of the enemy; Twilight had to admit the human was fast, much faster than normal as with in seconds he was coming around a rock half way up the hill behind one of the humanoid Prometheans. With Speed Twilight had only seen in heavily augmented soldier the chest grabbed a spike the Prometheans armor had and tore it off before the Promethean spun around to try and slash the Chief with its sword arm only for the chief to dodge and thrust the spike he had under the Promethean’s face plate and it disintegrated as it died, leaving behind a strange floating field.

With the death of that Promethean the rest of the enemy noticed the Chief and sever turned to face him, including two birds like aliens holding shields, exposing themselves to Twilight and the marines. Twilight put a burst into each one of them then ducked a blast of green emerging from one of the small bulky aliens who barked like dogs a bit. One of the marines dropped in before it could fire another shot.

Nodding in thanks Twilight jumped over the log she was behind and sprinted for a rock and dove behind it, while teleporting would be useful the fact she didn’t know exactly where the enemy was she didn’t want to risk ending up in front of an unseen enemy and get shot in the back.

Slowly with the Marines advancing slowly up the hill and keeping up the pressure on the enemy Twilight was able to move up the hill rapidly and she caught glimpses of the Chief doing the same. With the two of them moving randomly through the enemy it was causing chaos in their ranks and the enemy kept exposing themselves to the marines who took full advanced and filled them with a healthy dose of lead.

Twilight came around a rock and came face to face with one of the humanoid Prometheans and she raised her rifle, but before she could fire a blue shield appeared between her and it and she saw a thin line attached to the shield and when she followed it she saw one of the flying machine hovering close by. So that’s why they hung around.

Twilight ducked back behind the rock to avoid getting her head taken off by the Promethean and came around the other side. After emptying half a mag into the flying machine she dove back around the rock as three of the bird like aliens opened fire on her. A moment later a small round grey object landed in the middle of them and exploded, splattering dark blue blood everywhere and Twilight caught a glimpse of the Chief moving behind a fallen long and mentally thanked him for the assist.

Coming back around the rock she emptied the rest of her mag into the promethean before lunching forward and burying one of her blades in the same place she saw the Chief do earlier. Sure enough the Promethean dissolved into that strange cloud.

It didn’t take much longer for them to reach the top of the hill and find it had been fortified with more of the human’s defenses only instead of finding marines fighting off an attack they found only the dead, the position having been overrun before they arrived. “These marines were overrun trying to unlock the door; their equipment is still hooked up. Chief get me close and I can work on cracking the door.” Cortana said.

When the chief neared some sort of pad beside one of the dead marines a ghostly image of a young women appeared above it. “Alright just give me a few minutes and I should have this open.” Cortana said form where she floated above the decoding equipment. The Chief nodded and the group quickly spread out among the defenses in case of attack, which of course arrived. The enemy really wanted them dead it seemed.

With Marines manning two gun emplacements and the rest scattered among the sandbags with Twilight and the Chief moving from position to position to help if it looked like the marines were about to be overwhelmed they were able to keep the enemy about half way down the hill.

That was till one of the humanoid Prometheans stepped out with some kind of large weapon and fire d it at one of the gun emplacement Twilight was beside to help the gunner. She dove to the side and barely avoided the blast and the second explosion as well, however the gunner and one other marine wasn’t so lucky, the gunner having taken the first blast while the second marine was caught in the smaller explosion and both were disintegrated.

Twilight cursed and grabbed the gun, which had survived the explosion with some minor scorching as it seemed the Promethean weapons were meant to kill organic targets, and hefted it as it had been torn from its stands. Holding the turret like a Heavy Trooper’s minigun the mare hosed the Promethean down with bullets before turning the gun on the nearby Covenant.

When the belt was almost depleted she tossed the turret into her pocket dimension as it may come in handy later if she finds ammo for it and took a risk to teleport to where the humanoid Promethean died, sure enough she found the large weapon lying beside the cloud and she grabbed it before she teleported back to safety.

Not wanting to wait to figure it out the mare hefted the alien weapon onto her shoulder like a rocket launcher and squeezed about where a trigger would be. The alien weapon kicked slightly and sent a ball of engager towards a group of Covenant and Prometheans, the first explosion killed two of the Covenant while the secondary blasts killed the remaining, she officially liked this alien weapon. Deciding now was as good as any time to test weapons she stored the alien rocket launcher and pulled out the sniper rifle. Aiming down scope she noticed it activated three lasers that marked where she was aiming and sited one of the larger Covenants, a humanoid alien in blue armor and fired sur enough it was a one shot kill as the blue alien disintegrated, it was official, and she was keeping these weapons.

Storing them once more as she had limited ammo for them she withdrew her LMG and began to open fire in burst why yelling “DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE!” at the enemy. After a few more minutes of fighting Cortana spoke over the radio. “Ok, doors open, lets clear us an LZ” She said and Twilight fell back to the door with the remaining marines, they had lost about half of them holding the position.

Through the door was a relatively flat clearing with a few rocks and trees and some kind of hovering vehicle Twilight had no idea what it was.

“Enemy mortar tank!” One of the marines yelled answering Twilight’s unspoken question. The group scattered as the tank lobed a ball of pure blue energy at them. Barley getting clear the clearing exploded into chaos as enemy ground forces came from behind the trees and rocks and opened fire while the tank continued to fire randomly as it saw a target. Twilight was having to focus on dodging the mortar shots as well as enemy small arms fire she wasn’t able to keep track of the marines or the Chief as she fired on enemies she found.

She tried to near the tank with the intents of taking it out but found a Covenant was manning a turret on the front of it and kept her away, so she would take out the tanks support first and forced on the infantry. When she found one of the humanoid Covenants behind a rock, getting a thankful breather from the tank she noticed it wore black armor unlike the others she had seen. She had enough time to wonder what it meant when it drew a small object from his hip and roared with its quadruple jaws splayed wide as energy shot from the small device and formed a double pronged sword of pure energy.

“Ok that is cool.” Twilight said with a smile before the Covenant lunged for her. Twilight dove to the side and came up to fire only to find the enemy had anticipated this and was side stepping where he was supposed to be before lunging for here with the energy sword.

Twilight deployed her own blade and parried this would work as she blocked the attack, it worked but she felt the blade started to heat up do to the pure energy of the sword. Twilight pushed the Covenant back and raised her rifle but the Enemy dodged before she could fire once more. “Damnit hold still! Your remind me of the damn black ops!” Twilight shouted in announce as she dodged another attack by the enemy soldier.

She gave up on the rifle and slung it as she engaged her second blade and took a righting stance with them. “Bring it on mother fucker!!” She said switching into combat mode, causing her eyes to shrink as down to the width of a quarter and glow red, it had the advantage of highlighting the Covenant soldier as a Hostile and made him easier to track, it also caused her blood to boil for some reason but that didn’t matter now, what did was tearing this bastard apart.

With a yell she lunged forward and the enemy blocked her slash with his sword and delivered a kick to her chest and caused her to stumble back. She regained enough balance to kick off the ground and avoid a slash from the black op covenant solder and came up again. The two circled each other eyes locked on their opponent, she had a strange feeling that the enemy was enjoying this battle.

It Was twilight who made the first move as she fainted left and then charged forward, the enemy barley recover from the face out to dodger her attack for the most part but the blade went across his side and drew some dark purple blood. The enemy reached down and touched the wound and looked at the blood on its hand before nodding to her and taking up another fighting stance.

Twilight knew the enemy was going to put everything he had in his next attack, she could only respond in kind and only one of them was going to walk away from this. As one both aliens lunged forward, Twilight used her left blade to parry the energy sword as she disengaged her right blade and spun around the enemy, drawing her combat knife from where it was sheathed on her left shoulder and came around and buried the blade into the enemy’s eye.

The Covenant spasmed once and went limp, Twilight’s blade sliding free as he dropped and she stood there panting. She felt like she was on fire and she just wanted take her blades to the corpse and make sure he was dead. She almost did but a cry of pain from one of the marines snapped her out of it and she shook her head before disengaging combat mode and the fire died out. She had no idea what the hell that was but there was no time to worry about.

Pausing only to grab the energy sword Twilight came around the rock with her assault rifle to find the battle mostly over. The tank was a burning pile of wreckage while only a handful of the cowardly aliens and two of the birdlike aliens remained. Twilight took aim and dropped the two bird like aliens as they were focused on two of the marines and before she could take care of the others they were dropped by the marines.

She moved into the clearing scanning for any more active targets and notices the marines doing the same, they had lost two more and one of the remaining ones was injured as he limped heavily but it couldn’t be treated till they were sure the area was safe. They got it confirmed when the Chief came from behind a rock and radioed that the LZ was clear and they were ready for pick up.

Twilight scavenged some the bodies for more ammo for their new weapons as well as anything else that may be of use, like one of the those shield gauntlets the bird like aliens used, she ended up choosing an orange one as it was the rarest so it probably meant something as well as some small blue spheres that one of the Marines told her was a plasma grenade and explained how it worked. She also grabbed one of the large green energy weapons from one of the humanoid aliens as well.

She had offered to help tend the injured marine but he said he’d be fine with bio-foam, which was then explained and Twilight asked if she could add it to her kit. The marines obliged her and gave her one of the cans and she stored it.

After a bit more humans arrived, one wearing as more stream-lined set of armor similar to the Chief and a human without any armor at all, just a uniform. When the marines with them saw Twilight stand from her scavenging they nearly shot her but the other marines quickly spoke up. After that it was another round of introductions as she met Commander Lasky and Spartan Palmer.

“So you are not native to this planet?” Lasky asked Twilight as they waited for a drop ship to arrive.

Twilight shook her head. “No, this place is just as alien to me as it is to you, and just as hostile.” She explained. “Why I decided to make some friends.” She gestured to the marines who were talking with the marines that arrived with Lasky.

“So you’ve never heard of the Covenant, the Forerunners or the UNSC?” Palmer asked and Twilight got the feeling the women didn’t trust Twilight, which was the mark of a good soldier who just met an unknown alien.

“Nope but I’m not exactly supposed to be here so that makes sense.” Twilight said. “So that makes sense.

Before anyone could say another word the sound of an engine overhead filled the clearing and when Twilight looked up she saw what she could only describe as a flying whale and judging by the fact everyone was grabbing gear that was their ride.

One the dropship, or Pelican as it was called, landed the rear doors opened and everyone boarded it and took seats, and like all human contraptions this Pelican was not built with ponies, much less alicorns in mind as Twilight had to lean forward do to her wings or else have them uncomfortable pressed to her back.

“Alright, according to the Captain Infinity is under heavy attack, they have boarders and some sort of sphere hovering above the ship that has disabled the Infinites weapons system, the marines are fighting back but as long as dropships can keep arriving it’s a losing battle, Infinity needs its weapons brought back online which means that sphere needs to go, and to do that the anti-air batteries need to be reset.” Lasky explained to the humans and one alien as the dropship flew.

Twilight nodded. “I’d be happy to help with taking out the sphere.”

“It’s call the Diadact and he the reason Infinite was dragged into Requiem in the first place.” Cortana said through the speakers on the Chief’s armor.

Lasky nodded. “Alright, well whatever he is called he needs to be driven off if we want to have any hope of repelling the Covenant Phantoms. Chief do you think you can handle that?” the human commander asked as he looked at the Spartan who nodded the affirmative. “As for you Commander Sparkle I don’t really have any authority over you but if what my men tell me is true I think you can handle yourself so I’ll send word ahead that you will be with the Master Chief so other marines won’t mistake you for some new Covenant or Promethean.”

Twilight nodded and checked her weapons to make sure they were loaded and read while Lasky made his way to the cockpit of the Pelican to use the radio. It was a quiet trip as everyone in the Pelican prepared in their own way for the coming fight as the area near the objective was too hot to fly in which meant Twilight and the Chief were going in on foot, though Lasky informed there that there was marines scattered around the route they would need to take that would help them if possible, and if not asked the two of them to assist the marines if possible so they don’t get overwhelmed as most of them were pinned down. Twilight agreed and mentally added assist the marines as a secondary objective.

It wasn’t long before the Pelican was as close as it could get and came in to trop off The Chief and Twilight before it took off again to head for a safer landing bay. Both the Chief and Twilight checked there surrounding and found it secure but they could hear the sounds of battle not far off.

Both augmented soldiers quickly made their way for their objective, Twilight having to follow the Chief as he had a waypoint set to where they were going and with Twilight not familiar with the terrain nor the ship all she could do was follow, she didn’t mind so much as the Chief knew what he was doing based on what she had seen so far.

It took only minutes for them to crest a hill that overlook a pitched battle between Covenant and pinned down marines, though there was a very useful piece of equipment sitting only a few yards away that would even the odds nicely and the Chief made a beeline for it while Twilight took up a sniper position on the hill with the alien sniper. While she started picking off what she was told were Elites, which acted as field commanders for the Covenant the Scorpion tank came to live and rolled forward.

The Covenant hadn’t been expecting the tank to suddenly come to life nor for a sniper to start disintegrating their officers and the scrambled for cover which gave the trapped marines some breathing room and allowed them to spread out some instead of being packed together. Between the marines, the tank and Twilight’s sniping the Covenant soon broke ranks and retreated and Twilight left her position and teleported down to the marines, that was a bit of a mistake as she startled one who ended up shooting her with his DMR, luckily her armor stopped it but it still hurt like hell. The marine was quick to apologize once he realized it was the friendly alien they had heard about over the radio.

As marine boarded the tank, one on the turret and for more on the sides it left Twilight having to fly and two marines having to try and keep up on foot, till one mention they had something called a Warthog that had flipped when it struck a rock while retreating. Once they showed it to her it wasn’t that hard to flip the Hog over with her magic and she climbed into the driver seat while the two other marines boarded.

Now with two fully loaded vehicles they group advance for a cargo elevator that would get them into the ship. Twilight let the Scorpion roll ahead and rain down explosive shells on the Covenant while the passengers kept the infantry away, Twilight used the speed and maneuverability for the Hog to run along the outside of the battle and let her marines pick of the fringe of the enemy.

She couldn’t help laughing madly as the hog caught air as she came over a hill and when they landed the gunner joined in with his own cheer before they got back to work. Thought she was used to driving to an extend the fact the seat wasn’t meant for a winged creature and that both the front and back wheels turned, making every turn sharp, it took her a bit to get used to driving the Hog but she adapted rapidly s she always did when it came to combat and soon it was like she always drove the alien vehicle.

The Chief and her kept up the same tactic of the tank pressing the attack while the Hog ran around the edges and flanked the enemy and broke their lines as they tried to organize a defense, Twilight even got the satisfaction of running over a few of the little barking aliens and they were satisfying speed bumps.

It wasn’t long before they reached the cargo elevator along with a small army of liberated marines as between the tank and hog completing the secondary objective was simple. And they arrived with their little army just in time as the marines defending the cargo elevator was in severe danger of being overrun, till the Covenant were broad sided by dozens of squads of marines and a tank and hog that came sailing over a small hill to land on several of them before speeding off as the marine on board sprayed the passing enemies.

“You know you are insane and I love it!” The marine in the passage seat said as he fired his assault rifle at a group of the barking aliens.

“Hey what’s not to love about this?” Twilight yelled back with a broad smile as she skidded around a large boulder and came upon more speed bumps. They came around the boulder after the speed pumps and the gunner sprayed more of the Covenant as they sped past.

After a short engagement the cargo elevator was clear and while the rescued marines stayed behind to ensure nothing came in behind them the Chief and Commander drove their vehicles onto the elevator. Once aboard it started to rise to carry them into the ship.

The Cargo hold was in chaos as boarder had arrived from the other parts of the ship and marines were scattered everywhere fighting for their lives in either little groups or individually with the only real defense being put up at the elevator. “Well then Chief, let’s see if we can even the odds shall we?” Twilight said over her radio, somehow her radio worked with the Spartans radio and was set to the correct frequency.

“Agreed.” The Chief replied and as soon as the safety bars droped Twilight floored it into the cargo hold while the tank rolled out behind her. The Cargo hold was a lot more confine then outside and with her having to watch for marines it severely limited the Hogs maneuverability but she was able to make it work, it helped the Scorpion was taking most of the fire as armor was always a bullet magnet.

Between the two of them they were able to thin out the enemy in the cargo hold enough for the marines to mount a defense and start to push them back, however there was no way to take the vehicles with them the rest of the way and they had to abandon them, well for the most part as Twilight moved the Hog into her pocket dimension in case they needed it.

The marines that had come with them stayed behind to help clear the cargo hold as the Spartan and Alien made their way to the next compartment. Inside was a bit calmer, at least where they were as a few squads of marine were set up to defend the area but the Covenant seemed content to stay away as they seemed to be setting up to defend as well.

“Ok, that is a lot of enemy units.” Twilight said as she looked out through the corridor, there were hundreds of Covenant dug in as well as what looked like a few automated turrets, she wasn’t sure even she could get through it.

The Chief was calmly collecting supplies from a few crates the marines had and Twilight decided to look over what the UNSC had to offer. It wasn’t much different than what she already had but still it couldn’t hurt to have a few more weapons so she ended up grabbing one of the assault rifles as well as a shotgun, sniper and rocket launcher, SAW, and a DMR. She can say with 100% certainty that she chose the weapons purely from a tactical stand point and she was not acting like a foal in a candy store and she was not drooling over the crates of weapons at all and if any of the marines say otherwise they are a liar.

Now armed with more weapons and ammo she felt a little more confident about their odds but still doubted they could get through as she ran simulations in her head, the prospects were not good.

“Hold on you two, I have something that may even the odds.” Lasky said over the radio, he must have been monitoring them from the bridge. A few moments later a cargo elevator descended from the ceiling and on it sat two vehicles that Twilight could only call mechs.

The Chief wasted no time climbing into one and Twilight soon followed, as the hatch closed she found that like everything else this was not built for a pony, much less an Alicorn as her wings were pressed to her back and her horn kept bumping into things in the confined space, oh well if it got them through the Covenant then who was she to complain?

After being given a quick run down by the marines on how to pilot a Mantis, why it was called that Twilight had no idea as it looked nothing like a mantic but she also didn’t know why the jeep was called a Warthog when it looked more like a big cat to her but oh well, it’s the UNSC’s toys so they could call it whatever they wanted to.

Once they were ready Twilight and the Chief advanced from the staging area and into the Covenant defenses. After a very brief tactical discussion it was agreed upon that Twilight would move along the higher path while the Chief when straight up the middle of the lower path.

The Covenant defenses never knew what hit them as the two Mantises advanced through their lines cutting down all in their path. Whenever the Chief’s shields went down Twilight was quick to cover him as they recharged, she didn’t have to worry so much as most of the defenses were set for the lower path and they hadn’t expected two of them. As they marched through eh line Twilight had very wide smile on her face and had to shut off her radio as she laughed at the covenant as they vainly tried to stop her advance. “That’s right, run little speed pumps! Run!~~~” Twilight sang out as some of the barking aliens tried to run for it, they didn’t get far before their florescent blue blood painted the deck.

To say Twilight was enjoying herself was an understatement, she had not gotten to enjoy this level of death and destruction in sometime and the panicked squeals and cries of the lower ranking Covenant was music to her ears, it had been some time since she got to just let go and enjoy herself fully and inside the Mantic against an army of an alien collective was the perfect time, the only issue was dealing with the after effect as she didn’t have Chrysalis to help with that, oh well she knew how to take care of herself quiet well and had done it for some time before Chrysalis.

It didn’t take long before they reached the ended of the corridor and Twilight was disappointed there wasn’t more, thought she was finding it very hard to sit still as she kept twitching, after the Diadact was driven off Twilight would need to find a nice quiet secluded spot to take care of a few things.

Still riding her high the mare advanced alongside the Chief out onto the main deck and she got her first look at the Diadact, ok that was a big sphere and she was sure even the Mantic would be able to scratch it. “Ok, you need to clear the jammers and then reset the system; once you do that we will have defenses again and will be able to deal with the inbound Phantoms.” Lasky said over the radio reminding her of the plan. She defiantly needed to take care of herself so her head was clear, she was clear headed enough to be thankful that even when off the mantic could receive radio broadcasts.

Without a Word the two soldiers moved to opposites side of the deck and much to the annoyance of Twilight found the jammers where shielded and the mantic couldn’t shoot through the shield and was too big to step in and shoot the jammer. Luckily she found the stomp worked just fine as there was no way in hell she was getting out of the Mantic like this till she had some privacy, insane or not she was s till a mare.

With that dealt with she moved onto the next jammer as she saw the Chief finish with his and they met at the third, with a cross fire of both Mantises the Covenant never stood a chance. With the last jammer down the Chief activated the reset and Twilight learned Lasky failed to mention that would take time, time they would need to spend repelling incoming Phantoms.

To say the fact the Phantoms were a lot more heavily armed and armored then anything else they had faced and they dropped two of the Covenant tanks on the deck which could take out a Mantic very quickly it almost ruined Twilight mood, almost. It still ticked her off at how close it came what she added her Magic to the fight and yanked several Covenant from the enemy drop ships and let them drop the hundred or so feet to the deck bellow as she fired on the phantom, she had learned her lesson in using magic on moving ships so didn’t even want to try doing anything to the Phantoms themselves unless it was normal magical blasts, which she couldn’t do without blasting a hole in the Mantis unless she got out.

Still between the two of them and with only a few close calls they were able to repel the attack till the defenses came back online and started firing on everything in the air, including the Diadact till he was forced to retreat from the ship.

“Ok, looks like the Covenant are falling back, good work you two. “Lasky said over the radio, a moment later another voice spoke up.

“Sir I am detecting a strange energy build up on the hull.” The voice said.

“Is it Covenant or Promethean?” Lasky asked.

“I don’t know sir, I haven’t ever heard of this type of energy before; it’s collecting in one area on the hull.” The second voice said.
“Location?” Lasky asked.

“Close to the Master Chief’s location sir,” The voice said. “Sir its building rabidly, it’s reaching critical levels!”

“Chief, Commander, I’d recommend you get out of there.” Lasky said and the Chief started to move back to the entrance into the ship but paused when Twilight didn’t move to follow.

“I think that’s my ride Commander Lasky, it should do any harm.” Twilight said.

“What do you mean Commander?” Lasky asked.

“Well, see when I say I shouldn’t be here I didn’t just mean this planet, I meant this universe and that energy build it is most likely my people trying to get me back.” Twilight explained.

“What? What are you talking about?” Lasky asked.

“You will see.” Twilight said and a moment later a Rift formed on the deck. “Yup that’s my people. “She turned the Mantis to face the Chief’s. “Well it’s been a lot fun Master Chief but time for me to head out as this is my extraction. Good luck to you in finishing off the Diadact.” Twilight said as she backed the Mantis through the Rift before anyone could say anything about leaving the mech behind and the Rift snapped shut.

Author's Note

slightly rushed but there is a lot to these two missions that didn't need covered by fully flushing out scenes.

The commander has some new toys as well as vehicles and we got to see psycho-twi, which we haven't seen in a while as she had fun in the mantis and we learned just how much she enjoys killing.