Halo: Fourth Ring

Installation 04

Rainbow Dash groggily woke up in the pod to shouting and rumbling.

Immediately she noticed that everypony in the pod was terrified.

“What’s goin’ on!?” Dashie barked.

“We’re comin’ in too fast!” came the reply.

Well, shit, Rainbow thought, as the ground rushed up to meet the pod.

”Rainbow? Rainbow!?”

“wha..?”

Rainbow was jolted out of unconsciousness by the sound of someone shouting right into her ear.

She rolled onto her hooves, and the voice said, “Oh, good, you’re finally up.”

Dashie soon realized that the “voice” was Luna.

“Thanks for wakin’ me up, Luna,” she said.

“No problem,” Luna replied.

Then Rainbow remembered the other passengers in her lifepod.

A check revealed that most of them were still alive.

Unfortunately, some unlucky marines had been thrown into walls of the pod at high speeds, breaking some bones, and at worst, crushing their heads!

She woke up the remaining soldiers, and the ragtag group of marines trotted out of the pod to take stock of their supplies.

After sorting the ammo and distributing the weapons, grenades, and medpacks to the group, Rainbow Dash and her “team” set out to find the other lifepods they had seen on the way down.

Rainbow stopped to get a look at the ring and its environment.

When she got a look, though, her jaw dropped, as well as the jaws of the marines.

The ecosystem around her was beautiful. There were several pine trees and some large bushes Dashie couldn’t identify.

What got everypony’s attention, though, was the sky.

It would’ve been like any sky on an Equestrian colony, were it not for the giant curved planet whatnot extending from the ground miles from the group.

Everypony was silent at this point, until Doctor Whooves, who had been in the same pod, broke the quiet.

”Wait a minute... that’s part of the ring we’re on!” he surmised.

Rainbow snapped out of her gaping, and replied, “I never expected it to be so...”

A few of the marines tried answering for her.

“Awesome?” “Beautiful?”

As much as I would like to call it awesome, I’m going with beautiful, Rainbow thought.

She ignored the two marines, and motioned for everypony to follow her.

The group came across a river, and decided to follow it, to see if there were any lifepods that had touched down near it.

Unfortunately, their journey came to an end, when they found that the river ended in a waterfall.

They did find a bridge, though.

It would’ve been any other bridge, but its design was WAY different from both Pony and Covenant architecture.

Doctor Whooves, always the one to give the group an explanation, or a theory, came up with a hypothesis of who, or what made the bridge.

“It was most likely built by something else. Not ponykind. Not Covenant. A completely different race. A new one we haven’t seen yet,” the scientist/marine explained.

“Well, it tells us whoever made ring is definitely not Covenant,” added Luna, who hadn’t spoke up in a while.

Dashie and the marines continued on, when Luna spoke again.

“Warning. I’m picking up Covenant signatures. Three of them. One “Spirit” dropship, and two “Banshee” aircraft,” Luna said.

Lightning Dust, who had also been quite silent the whole time, replied, “Then we’d better get goin’. Don’t want to be caught by the Covenant now, do we?”

Everypony shot glares at her, prompting a “Sheesh, what did I do?” from the now-confused pilot.

Sergeant Major Avery Applejack Johnson was busy directing the surviving marines of her lifepod into a metal structure when she heard the familiar roar of a lifepod.

Turning around, she saw a lone lifepod with the number 12 on it.

Knowing that lifepod contained her SPARTAN-II friend Rainbow Dash, and that it would land nearby, AJ thought, Oh, goodie, we’re gonna have us some help ‘ere soon.

Then, she noticed that it was coming in fast. Faster than Rainbow Dash herself.

Applejack, worried about her friend, could only watch in shock as it zoomed over her head and landed several miles away.

Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to help.