Twilight teleported away from the spot she was standing, just before the thing that was Mendoza slammed into that spot. Seeing its prey get away, it switched to face the Chief, using its tentacle arm to strike him with superhuman strength, almost knocking him off his feet.

With her friend now in danger, Twilight leapt into the air, flying around while firing her rifle at the same time, distracting the reanimated Marine enough for the Chief to aim his shotgun and fire two rounds point-blank. What proceeded next was both intriguing and disgusting.

As the Corpse came apart, Twilight saw how the innards of the Marine had become occupied by a deflated, spherical creature, mainly located in the Chest, with its tentacles having been extended and spread into all parts of Mendoza's body. The blood of Mendoza's, originally crimson like ordinary human blood, had been converted into the fluid she had seen before, the one that contained the pure Mana. This sight, for her, answered one of her more recent questions during this mission: What did those spherical creatures do? Obviously, they infect their victims and turn them into a...Combat Form.

The Chief fired a third shotgun blast at the Infection Form, destroying it completely, along with most of Mendoza's body, except for the head, which showed an expression of unimaginable pain, despite the blank stare from the eyes. Twilight realized that killing Mendoza might have been kindness, since they were putting him out of his misery, if he was still alive in there.

The two of them just stood there, their minds processing what they had just seen. Not only were the Captain and Johnson's squad most likely all dead, but they have been turned into those creatures, a fate that Twilight believed was worse than death.

Twilight heard a noise, looked at the Chief, and found him feeding shells into his shotgun, one of, if not, the most lethal weapon Twilight had ever seen that could be used in close quarters combat. He looked back at her.

"You may want to reload any weapons you've used", he said as he pumped a round into the chamber, "These things seem to take a lot of firepower before they go down, the first time at least." He grumbled out the last words

"Not only firepower, but my magic", Twilight stated, attracting a look from the Chief. She began to explain, "Whatever those...parasites have done to their victims, they have converted their blood to that of the fluid we have seen before. Which means that all of the infected have Pure Mana coursing through their mutated bodies, allowing them to drain my magic."

"So, your magic is useless against them?" the Chief asked, concern evident in his voice.

"To a degree", Twilight admitted. "I can at least push them back, or damage them physically with my magic, but they absorb it at the same time, so it cancels out. With all honesty, it will be best if I use firearms against these things, until I find a way to resist their magic sucking powers."

“Agreed. They may also use your magic to make themselves stronger if they drain enough of it” the Chief reasoned to her, just as a hatch was ripped open, and more Combat Forms and the Infectors rushed at them. "They already are strong enough as it is!"

Twilight leapt into the air, hovering so that the Combat Forms wouldn't be able to touch her, a hope that would be crushed as two of the Combat Forms leapt up at her, their augmented strength allowing them to reach her height from a single jump. She had to dive to the floor to avoid getting hit by the tentacle arms.

As the momentum of the Combat Forms' jump carried them to the other side of the room, Twilight turned around, and shot them in the back with her rifle, causing them to flop onto the floor when they landed. One, however, got back up, and ran at her, limbs clawing out to get her.

She began to retreat backwards, firing her rifle as she went, to avoid the mutated Elite, but it was gaining on her. It didn't help that the Infection Forms were swarming out towards her. When they came uncomfortably close to her, Twilight teleported a dozen meters away, almost bumping into the Chief as he blew a Combat Form, and three Infection Forms, apart with a single shotgun blast, though there were many more attacking him, more than Twilight's.

The two of them instinctively moved to cover each other's back, aiming their rifles at enemies on all sides. That was the only pause they had before the swarm of both infected and infectors alike came at them with fearless ferocity. The room was filled with the sound of fire, screaming and death.

Twilight ducked to avoid being swiped by a Combat Form before using her hind legs to kick it, subsequently breaking it apart from her alicorn strength. She winced as that single millisecond of contact was still enough for the Infected to steal some of her magic. She fired her rifle at a dozen Infection Forms, popping them before sending a Covenant Crate at a couple of Combat Forms rushing at the Chief.

Similarly, he threw a grenade to the side, and the bodies of three Combat Forms who had almost snuck up on her were flung into the air, already breaking apart from the explosion. She couldn't help but feel satisfied that these things were dying at such a fast pace. Whatever they were, Twilight must not let them reach Equestria, by any means, due to at least how horrifying they are.

She then heard a rifle fire, and a round impacted on her newly formed mana shield. She turned around, about to scold the Chief for friendly fire, when she felt more rounds impact on her, and the Chief's shields flare from being hit as well. The Culprit soon emerged from the shadows, an Infected Human, holding an Assault Rifle with a single hand, a feat that only the Chief had accomplished, or so Twilight had seen. It continued to fire at the Chief, who fired back at the Combat Form. The Combat Form had its arm shot off first before finally succumbing to the Chief's volley of bullets, only for it to be replaced by more Combat Forms armed with a variety of weapons, both human and Covenant alike.

Twilight felt her blood begin to run cold as she found herself not only dodging rushing Combat Forms and Infection Forms, but also the Combat Forms that stood away, firing at her with their weapons. She continuously flew into the air, zigzagging side to side, up and down, in order to avoid getting hit.

However, the Chief couldn't fly so he was forced to be constantly moving, backing away while firing his weapon, the horde herding him back. Fortunately, despite the number of enemies he had to face, the Chief seemingly sent out an unyielding volley of bullets as he alternated between his shotgun, firing until it ran out of ammo, before switching to his assault rifle, only reloading when Twilight flew past, using her telekinesis to lift him up, much to his surprise.

They landed at the other end of the room, but not before Twilight saw the Chief throw a captured plasma grenade at a combat form, blowing up the creatures nearby with a plasma explosion, all but vaporizing them. There were only a handful of enemies remaining after that in the room, that were soon taken out by the Chief and Twilight. After the last of the infected fell to the ground, gurgling until the last second, the room was finally empty, with only the sounds of Twilight's rapid intakes of breath and the click of a rifle.

Twilight sat down on the floor, her mind processing everything she had witnessed the past hour. The horror of what she had to deal with was now starting to sink in to its fullest degree inside of her mind, causing her body to feel cold from fear. Tears began to stream down her face as she contemplated for the first time, whether or not she was destined to become one of those...things. She was afraid, like she had been so many times in her life but this was different.

This enemy wasn't like anything she had ever faced. Even the Covenant seemed to pale by comparison in terms of sheer danger and terror. What these things do to their victims was unforgivable and irredeemable. And Twilight had a feeling that what she had seen was only the tip of the iceberg.

She heard the clank of metal hitting metal, looked to her side and found the Chief sitting next to her, though he was not relaxed like she was, most likely alert so they wouldn't be caught blindsided. Once again, it was hard to look at his visor and see any emotion from it but this time concern seemed to emanate from it. Twilight couldn't blame him; she didn't know how scared, no terrified, and horrified she looked from the outside.

And like any friend, he came, saw and now swiftly began to attempt to help her. If she wasn't overwhelmed by everything, she as the princess of friendship would feel proud of him.

The Chief gave a sigh of weariness as he sat down next to Twilight, though his eyes were alert, periodically checking the motion sensor, and his ears were waiting for any audible sound of an attack by those infected, which he labelled Combat Forms, and the Infection Forms, as he called the squishy creatures. They were, without a doubt, the most dangerous lifeform he had ever encountered, even considering many of the Covenant species were extremely deadly and scary, Hunters being the prime example.

That said, he felt an almost unnatural amount of fear inside him, a fear that seemed to wish to petrify him. He fought back, of course, managing to hold it at bay, but Twilight seemed to be feeling the full brunt of fear from these things. He knew that she was extremely afraid of the Covenant, so she would be even worse with this enemy, whatever it is.

He looked at Twilight's shivering body, hearing her chattering teeth from fear. This was worse than he thought. He had seen a few cases of Marines exhibiting the same symptoms, before shooting themselves in the head, during a very traumatic battle. Best thing to do was to talk to her.

"Twilight", he said in a successful effort to attract her attention. She looked back at him, her expression relaxing slightly at the sight of him, but still filled with fear. Good start, but more work is needed.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like I'm in a nightmare, except that a nightmare would be a slight comfort compared to this." The Chief heard Twilight's voice crack multiple times. "And I've had experiences with very bad nightmares before."

"We all have", the Chief said, with Twilight turning to face him, confused. "No matter what you try to do, war never ceases to put you in scenarios that you wish you would never be in.", the Chief explained, "most of which scar you for life, whether in your waking hours, or when you sleep. The ghosts of the past never leave you alone, especially at night. But you have to keep on going, not only for yourself, but for those you left behind."

Twilight looked away for a moment, considering his words, before asking: "Who do you..." The Chief saw her mouth move, but knew she couldn't bring herself to finish the question. But he answered it anyways.

"My brother and best friend, Sam. The first time I faced the Covenant, he gave his life to complete the mission. I messed up and he died as a result."

Twilight's ears drooped and a combination of sorrow, pain and sympathy entered her voice. "I'm so sorry."

"I see him most nights when I sleep, and now the rest of my brothers and sisters. But they would want me to keep on going, and not stay consumed by their deaths. And that is all we can do. Move on, remembering them, but not be held back by it in a negative way."

He looked back at Twilight and saw her tear-filled eyes become serious as she asked one question: "Are we going to make it out of here alive?"

The Chief felt his mouth open, but no words come out as he pondered how to answer her. As he hesitated, Twilight became more and more sullen, and hope began to die in her eyes. He wanted to say that they will, but he knew that he couldn't say that here, not as a lie. So he decided to tell the truth.

"I don't know" he admitted to her, but quickly added to prevent her from losing hope quickly, "but all we can do is try our best, and kill as many of those bastards as we can. Maybe, if these things haven't spread outside this facility, if we can't make it out, we'll do our damn hardest to ensure they can't either."

Her ears drooped at hearing this, and Twilight looked away. The Chief worried that he may have said the wrong thing and was about to apologise when Twilight looked back at him, hope restored in her eyes, as well as a new sense of determination and acceptance.

"If it comes to that", Twilight said, with Chief nodding in agreement before standing up and unslinging his rifle.

"Let's move out", he suggested, "and find a way out of here."

They didn't have to look as a previously locked door was broken down and a trio of combat forms, along with two dozen infection forms, rushed through. They were far away enough though to give the Chief enough time to pull out a grenade, work out the distance and how fast the enemy was traveling. He threw it to the ground, just in front of the approaching swarm, counted three seconds, and saw them all go up in a loud bang, ripping their decomposing bodies apart with disgusting results.

Ignoring the massive pool of gore and body parts, the Chief led the way through the hatch, entering another large room, this time with Combat Forms on the platform above them, armed with whatever weapons they could scavenge. As soon as the Chief stepped through the hatch and walked a meter, they attacked him all at once, half of them staying on the platform, firing at him, while the rest decided to charge him. It was a very stressful scenario as his shields decreased at an alarming rate.

Twilight, thankfully, only had to deal with a single Combat Form, which she ripped apart with broken glass on the floor. Thus, the Chief didn't have to worry about her being in danger just yet. But he had to focus on the immediate threat instead, and pulled his full attention to the Combat Form trying to club him with a plasma rifle. He dodged to the side, and blew the Combat Form in half with a single shot. He then smashed the butt of the firearm into the next Combat Form, only knocking it back slightly before he shot that one too.

The third Combat Form was knocked back by a magical blast from Twilight, who covered her mouth at her mistake, even as the Combat Form stood back up, its mana blood glowing slightly.

"Oops", was all the Chief heard before that Combat Form, along with the remaining combat forms on the platform, finally took down his shields, and bullets impacted on his armour. He shot one of the combat forms off of the platform, amputating its weapon arm off, before the combat form on the ground swung its tentacle at him, knocking him to the ground.

He was on his back when the Combat Form leapt at him. The Chief kicked the combat form back before grabbing his knife and plunged it into the chest, where the Chief hypothesised that the Infection Form may reside, and indicated by the tentacles coming out from the fleshy mass. He scored, and the Infection Form popped, ripping apart the combat form with the force from the pop. It had the unfortunate consequence of covering half of his visor with fluid, making him vulnerable for a trio of Infection Forms to launch themselves at him from his now blinded side.

Fortunately, the Chief's shields chose that time to recharge, barely stopping the Infection Forms from latching onto his armour. He wiped off the gunky fluid and looked back, only to find Twilight struggling on the floor, with a combat form on top of her, with its tentacle arm wrapped around her throat. Its other had grabbed her hoof, pinning her to the ground as it drained her magic.

The Chief threw his knife at the Combat Form's tentacle, distracting it enough for the Chief to grab his fallen shotgun and blast the top half of its body. The now dead enemy fell off of Twilight, who grumbled as she stood back up on all fours.

"Why I am always on the ground!? And on my back!?"

The Chief simply stared at the carnage that they had wrought, thinking at how this room nearly became their deathbed, as he wiped his visor clean with his gauntlet. Only because of how sudden these things were, and how they could appear out of nowhere.

"That was too close", he stated as he picked up his Assault Rifle.

Twilight didn't hear him as she continued to complain.

"Come on. Can't I, at least between the two of us, be the one on top for once..." Twilight's voice trailed off. The Chief looked back to see if anything was wrong, only to find her face beetroot red. Within his helmet, he arched an eyebrow.

"Is everything all right?" he asked, and saw her begin to laugh in an embarrassed manner.

"Yep, hehehe...everything's fine", she stated in a stammered voice. "Nothing to hear here, especially not of bad form words that if Celestia ever caught me saying in public to somepony, especially you, she'll kill me", she whispered, as if not wishing him to hear it.

"You know I can hear you when you whisper, right?" he stated, causing her face to turn an even darker shade of her. "And why would someone kill you over saying what?"

"You're kidding, right?" she stated.

The Chief shook his head. They were getting distracted too easily. Especially over something he didn't even know.

"Let's get going. Those things will have more coming to kill us." This statement immediately sobered up Twilight.

The pair ran into another room, where they heard the sounds of gunfire seemed to echo from a neighbouring room. The Chief, in a brief moment of weakness, let his hope rise and ran to the door where the gunfire was loudest, opening it with his approach.

'Come on', he thought as he traversed another corridor, with Twilight right behind him, her face determined. 'Please let there be Marines still alive.'

He was forced to slid to a halt as a door in the corridor's side wall burst open, spawning out two dozen Infection Forms. He punched one with enough force that it popped five others from its own explosion. He destroyed the others with a single burst from his Assault rifle but they had succeeded in distracting him for a few seconds, which could be the difference between life and death in battle. He hoped that he was wrong as he continued down the corridor.

That hope swiftly transformed into despair and defeat as he exited through the hatch, and witnessed a lone Marine getting impaled by the tentacle arm of a Combat Form. Now seething in both anger and hatred, the Chief ran at the clustered group of monsters and tackled one to the ground, using it as a shield when another combat form tried to shoot him with a plasma rifle, killing the one he held. He threw it to the side and, with the shotgun in one hand, fired a single round at extreme proximity to the combat form, the impact shattering the combat form in half.

His motion sensor warned him of an attack from behind, to which he reacted with a step to the side, lowering himself as he twisted around, pumped a shell into the firing chamber and fired again, knocking back three combat forms at once, while pooping even more infection forms.

Twilight flew in the air, firing her rifle and a captured plasma pistol at the combat forms which had not engaged the Chief. Within a minute, the fight was over, with two very angry individuals triumphant over the forces of hell.

The Chief looked down at the body of the newly slain Marine, and found that there were two other Marines laying there as well, all of them mutilated by either weapon fire or physical damage. His anger dilated itself, swiftly turning into sorrow as he stared at the young face of a man who had died fighting an enemy that was worse than the Covenant.

He knelt down before each Marine, closing their eyes before ripping off their dog tags, placing them in his belt. They didn't deserve to be forgotten in this hellpit. He looked at Twilight, who looked at him with sorrow and pity.

"I'm sorry", she said to him as she slowly walked up to him.

"They didn't deserve to die to this enemy", he said to her. He heard the crackling of a fire, saw it with his peripheral vision and knew what he had to do.

"And they don't deserve to have their bodies tainted by those infection forms either." He gently grabbed one of the bodies, carried it on his shoulder up to the fire at the end of the room, confirmed that it was adequately intense and large, and carefully placed the body into the flames. Even as the body began to burn, he was already on the way back to collect the next Marine.

However, he found the body enveloped in pink and lifted off the ground. The Chief looked at Twilight as she magically carried the body to the fire. He was about to comment on how she should respectfully lower the body, when he saw the blip on his sensor, a blip that was fast and heading his way. He swivelled on the spot, raising his shotgun when he spotted an Infection Form attach itself to the last Marine corpse. From there, he could only look in horror at the sight that before him.

The Infection form wrapped its tentacles around the neck of the corpse, while bringing out what looked like pincers and imbedded them in the chest, digging into the flesh within a matter of seconds. Then, the infection form began to deflate at a rapid pace and get sucked into the holes made by the pincers. Then, the corpse started screaming, even though it was dead and began to spasm, rolling side to side, its limbs thrashing out as a tumour began to form at a near instantaneous rate where the infection form disappeared at. The tumour grew out, encompassing most of the upper body as blood was sent spitting out of wounds and the mouth, though it was quickly turning into the green fluid and flesh burst like in a intense heat. From the centre of the tumour emerged the front tentacles of the Infection form. The neck elongated and stretched out, while tentacles burst out of the left arm in a very gruesome manner, bones cracking. The skin turned into a sickly yellow/green and most features became heavily deformed. The screams morphed into growls as the corpse rose to its feet, turned to the horrified pair of the Chief and Twilight. It roared at them, the normal voice and tone of a human replaced by an bloodcurdling, demonic cry.

The newly formed Combat Form leapt right at the stunned Spartan, knocking both of them to the ground. The Chief grunted as his armoured head hit the floor, felt a tentacle wrap around his throat and was thrown to the side, a few meters away. He still had his shotgun in his hand, but felt a stab of fear when the Combat Form picked up a fallen shotgun for its own use and pointed it right at the Chief. His instincts driving him, the Chief rolled leftwards, narrowly avoiding the majority of the damage from the shotgun, though his Shields took a heavy toll from what he couldn't dodge. A M90 Shotgun at this range had enough firepower to both break through energy shields of an Elite and kill it with one shot.

Just as the Combat Form raised its tentacle hand to pump the shotgun, it was enveloped in a pink aura and flew out of its grasp, ripping the hand off of the arm. The Combat Form growled as Twilight levitated the shotgun in front of her and aimed it at the combat form. That did not deter it as it simply rushed at her, startling her enough for her aim to lower, leading her to simply blow its legs off as she pulled the trigger.

The Combat Form wasn't done yet, using its remaining limbs to rapidly crawl across the floor, much faster than both the Chief and Twilight thought possible, before the Chief, finally back on his feet, fired a single round at the chest, finally silencing it.

'What the fuck! What the fuck!' Twilight repeated over and over in her head as she processed everything she just saw. 'What the fuck did that thing do?!'

She knew the answer of course, but her hyperventilating state did not even consider that as she internally swore her flank off. Then she did something quite un-princess-like, but something that she has done quite often during this mission, and puked where she stood, all the while crying as she did.

After emptying her stomach of all of its bacteria, since she had emptied it of all food matter last time, Twilight wobbled to the Chief as he simply stood over the body of the corpse, every body part still.

All except for his hands, which were trembling with what Twilight reasoned to be a mixture of both fear and anger. Then she heard from the personal radio channel they had a whispered sentence that, despite being quiet, was filled with to the brim with emotion: "I'm going to kill every single one of them for this."

Twilight, still unwell from her expulsion, decided to divert the Chief's attention away from the corpse of the newly formed and destroyed Combat Form.

"Do you know how to reload this thing?" she said to him with a forced sheepish grin on her face, despite how bad she felt on the inside, waving the shotgun in her magical grip in front of her. Even though she used it as a distraction, Twilight was legitimately curious on how to reload the shotgun.

The Chief didn't react at all, still staring down.

Twilight's smile fell. "Are you alright?" she asked cautiously.

His head finally turned towards her.

"No", he answered. "Are you?"

Twilight shook her head.

"No, I'm not", she answered back. "These things are like the stuff that nightmares have nightmares about."

The Chief was silent for a moment, before speaking once more in a subdued tone.

"I had a nightmare", he started to say, much to Twilight's interest, "just before you arrived on the Autumn, of me facing off against an unknown, but terrifying foe that was covered in shadows. It seems I found what was hiding in those shadows."

Twilight gulped at this, but decided to press on.

"If you're afraid of dying from this enemy, I can promise you that you're the least likely to get killed by these things", she said in an attempt to cheer him up, but he only shook his head.

"That's not what I'm afraid of", he stated. "In the nightmare, I wasn't alone. In fact, I was defending someone...important, well, trying to. I had the body of a six year old and thus I was powerless to do anything."

He turned to fully face her. "That's my fear", he said. "Others being harmed because I couldn't do anything to prevent harm coming to them. And I have faced it too many times."

Twilight stared in surprise as he seemed to slightly sag under the pressure. For a moment, she didn't see any alien that was terrified or brave. Instead, all she saw was somepony who was tired and weary. But then he straightened and recovered.

"Lets move out", he said, raising his shotgun. "We shouldn't dwell on anything right now. Save that for later."

Twilight nodded in agreement and slung her shotgun onto her back, grabbing a fallen Assault rifle on the ground.

"You're still going to teach me how to use the shotgun", she stated as a means of breaking the sombre mood.

The Chief simply cocked his head slightly to the side at this statement. Twilight felt that maybe he didn't recognise it as the jab it was when he simply said, "didn't Johnson teach you that back at Alpha base?"

Her face started to heat up as she realised not only was he right, but that he was laughing slightly.

"Oh", was all she could manage in an attempt to save face.

They quickly walked to the nearest hatch, eyes alert for any movement. It opened with a hiss, revealing a dozen infection forms waiting for them. Even as Twilight screamed in surprise, the pod shaped creatures leapt at the pair, only to be blown away by a single shotgun blast from the Chief.

"Well, I can safely say, I'm grateful that if they're close to one other, they can pop each other", Twilight commented as they passed through the hatch. The corridor they entered was empty, except for the bodies of half a dozen Combat Forms littered around. Twilight felt a sense of relief as she noticed that all of the bodies were killed with bullets from human weapons, and that there was no blood from any human staining the room.

After finding another hatch, the pair expected to enter another large room like the ones they had traversed through beforehand, but found, much to their delight, that it was instead a room with a lift. The bad news: It was full of Combat Forms and Infection Forms. As if they could sense the pair before they even entered the room, all of the creatures were rushing towards the hatch as it opened, intent on killing and claiming the human and the alicorn.

Twilight was definitely opposed to this, fighting with her rifle and magic, which she used to fling objects at the Combat Forms, knocking them back if they were killed from the impacts. The Chief was like a timberwolf in the middle of a flock of sheep, ripping through his foes with his weapons like they were made out of paper. Within a minute, the room had been cleared, and the pair was free to step on the lift.

The Chief lifted his hand to activate the lift as Twilight prayed to Celestia with all of her might. 'Please make this thing send us up', she repeated in her head, remembering how the last lift sent them downwards, towards more of these things.

Her prayers were answered and the lift moved upwards at a fast pace. The pair reloaded their weapons, expecting another firefight with the enemy when they arrived at an entrance of the installation, only to find a squad of living, uninfected Marines waiting for them. Not only that, but she heard Foehammer's voice over the radio. Twilight couldn't help herself when she jumped up in pleasure, hugging the Chief in the middle of him speaking to Foehammer, much to his discomfort.

"We've made it!" she shouted, finally releasing the Chief from her hug so she could dance about She had never felt more relieved and delighted in her life to be out of an ancient place.

"Thank God you're here", one of the Marines said to the Chief in a frightened tone, his body practically shivering from fear. "We've been lost out here for hours. After we lost contact with the rest of the mission, we...we headed for the RV point and these...these things...these things ambushed us. We gotta get out of here!"

"That's command thinking", the Chief responded in an instant, "Let's move out!"

"There's a large tower a few hundred meters from your current position", Foehammer spoke out, hearing the conversation, "Find a way above the fog and foliage canopy and I can move in to pick you up."

Hearing this, Twilight finished getting out all of her relieved energy and all together, the group entered outside back into the swamp. Oh, how good it felt to be in the middle of the muck instead of dealing with those creatures inside.

'I hope that's the last time I ever see them' she thought to herself, letting her guard down after a minute of strolling through the muck, just before an Infection Form leapt out of the fog and latched itself onto a Marine, knocking him down and the both of them vanishing into the fog.

They couldn't see what was happening, but Twilight could paint a horrible picture in her mind from all the screaming and the sounds of bone and flesh breaking. The screams turned into growls and the Marine, now a Combat Form, jumped out of the fog. It was then that Twilight decided that there was nothing more scary than encountering this enemy in a foggy, dark swamp.

The Combat Form was quickly put down by the combined fire, but already Twilight could see the outline of Infection Forms and Combat forms running through the fog. Whatever this enemy was, it definitely is not contained within the facility like she hoped it was.

Despite all of their efforts, the enemy was too numerous, too quick and one by one, the group of survivors dwindled as its members were either killed outright or taken in the thick fog and were infected, their screams haunting the others.

Just as hope was lost, the survivors only numbering five, Twilight saw something emerging from the treeline. It was a cylindrical metal contraption, with two appendages and a red light at the front, hovering in the air before swooping down to approach them. More soon joined it and the sky was quickly filled with them.

A Marine raised his rifle at one of them, shouting "Contacts!" before the Chief stopped him, saying "Wait! Let's see what they do first."

Twilight, expecting the worst, cheered as the metal machines shot out burning beams of energy at the Combat Forms, burning them to the point that the bodies were unrecognisable within seconds. The survivors quickly saw the enemy get sliced by the machines, then watched as even more Combat Forms came out of the mist.

The Chief and Twilight continued to run, firing their weapons at any Combat or Infection Form that got too close to them or their teammates but there were too many of them, even with support from the robots. As the tower entered view, it was only the two of them left. they jumped onto a conduit of sorts that was higher up, preparing to make a final stand before Foehammer showed up, when suddenly Twilight heard something start humming from behind them, just as a flash of yellow light reflected off of the shiny metal that they were standing on.

She spun around and found herself face to face with another type of robot, this time one that was similarly shaped like a sphere. It had a similar texture to the tower and the other robots they say before, but it had a single eye that shone brightly, the 'iris' switching back and forth between looking at her and the Chief. Like the other robots, it had no legs, but unlike them it had no appendages and was simply hovering in front of them. It turned to look directly at the Chief.

"Greetings", It spoke in a friendly tone, though it had no mouth and its voiced sounded similar to that from someponies voice over a radio. "I am the Monitor of Installation 04. I am Three-Four-Three Guilty Spark."

Spark flew closer to the Chief's face, without the care in the world for personal space.

"Someone has released the Flood! My function is to prevent it from leaving this Installation. But I require your assistance." Spark finally turned to face her. "And you as well. Come. This way!"

Spark had spoken way to fast without pause to allow Twilight to process what he was saying, so she opened her mouth to ask a thousand questions before she felt the familiar feeling of teleportation, her sight was filled with yellow light and she was transported away, at the same time as the Chief, with Spark teleporting a second later.

Author's Note

Hi everyone,

Finally, 343 Guilty Spark, everyone's favourite backstabbing, insane AI is here, and the Flood has been unleashed on the Ringworld, and Twilight's mind.

Up next: Everybody's favourite Library and key to one hell of a doomsday machine.

Feel free to leave your thoughts and any mistakes you find in the comments below.

Until next time,
dalek117