The Chief slid to the side as several beams of heat burned through the air where he stood in the past second. He snarled as he was hit by a lucky hit from a sentinel, that came from the side. He fired half the mag of his Assault Rifle at it, managing to cause it to go in flames and crash to the platform. He looked back to the entrance, seeing the Monitor disappear in a flash of yellow light. The sound of a machine staring to leave caught his attention as he spotted the machine carrying a paralysed Twilight start to turn in mid air.

'Not going to happen', he thought to himself in a cold rage as he ran at the machine and leapt off of the edge of the platform, landing on top of the huge sentinel like machine. He aimed his rifle at the centre of the machine, where a bright light shone. However, he was hit by a sentinel beam before he could pull the trigger, almost sending him flying off of the machine. He staggered back to his feet before a fifth sentinel hit him from behind, finally causing him to fall off of the top of the machine.

Luckily, he managed to grab onto a small ledge on the side, preventing him from falling into the abyss below. With his Assault Rifle being to heavy to hold and shoot with one hand as he held on, the Chief reluctantly attached his AR to his back and grabbed the plasma rifle on his thigh armour. It was lighter and easier to use with one hand in this situation. He aimed at one Sentinel that was flying towards him in an attempt to get closer in order to finish him off, pulling the trigger and firing a volley of plasma at it.

It seemed that the Plasma Rifle was a good choice to use against the sentinels as its plasma bolts quickly burned through the metal surface of the sentinel, destroying its vital components in the process, ensuring its destruction. The Chief, wary of the tendency of the rifle to overheat if constantly fired for too long, pulled the trigger sparingly, in quick bursts to allow the rifle to cool off frequently, while aiming at more sentinels.

After the third sentinel had been destroyed, the Chief reattached the plasma rifle to his thigh, grabbing another ledge with his newly free hand and pulled himself up, grabbing onto the top of the machine. He vaulted onto the top, grabbed his Assault Rifle and fired at the light on the top. After a few dozen shots, the light faltered and exploded, causing the rest of the lights on the machine to flicker and finally falter, even as the blue aura around Twilight fell away and the Chief could feel the machine start to fall down into the abyss below, taking him with it.

As it twisted in mid air while falling, he tried to leap off onto the platform, but a sentinel hit him with one of its beams right in the chest, the force of impact knocking him off of the machine, sending him falling into the abyss.

That is, until Twilight flew down, with her hoof reaching out towards him. As time seemed to slow, he grabbed onto the hoof with a firm grip. Twilight began to pull him up, though she was struggling to do so from his armour's weight, thus making them actually drop down a few times before Twilight caught herself in the air.

Despite this, they were still sinking down, so Cortana spoke up for the first time since the Monitor disappeared.

"Don't fly us up there, we're too heavy", she stated in a raised voice over the comms, "teleport us up onto the platform."

The Chief heard Twilight grunt in affirmation before he felt his whole form go weird as he appeared floating above the platform, still holding Twilight's hoof. He fell to the ground, accidently bringing a now fatigued Twilight down with him as she landed on top of him.

"Sorry! Sorry! I should have known about the...", the Chief heard Twilight say before she trailed off. He noticed that her face was now bright red as she looked at where she was. He didn't focus on it because he heard the now infamous sound of two sentinels flying up towards them.

He lightly pushed her off him, making sure that she wasn't hit by any sentinel beams that burned through the space where she occupied just before. He blasted them with his Assault Rifle, eventually destroying the both of them as he got to his feet. His motion sensor showed that the last sentinel was trying to flank him, but he shot it multiple times before it could fire, sending it crashing to the floor and exploding.

He looked around, making sure that there was no more enemies in the area before reloading his rifle.

"I think you may want to check up on Twilight?" Cortana suggested, with the hint of amusement in her voice, creating pause within the Chief as he wondered why she would feel humoured by Twilight at the moment.

He looked back, noticing that she was still on the floor, her shocked and guilty expression still present on her face.

"Twilight?" he asked in an effort to catch her attention, which worked, as evidenced by her face blushing and turning to face him.

"I don't know what has gotten into you, but we need to leave now", he stated as he offered his hand to her, which she accepted, using it to pull her onto her hooves, "the Monitor could send in more Sentinels at any time."

Twilight nodded at this, her distracted expression dilating slightly. "I'm still wrapping my head around about Halo being a weapon of this magnitude! What kind of energy source does this thing run on? And what did the Monitor mean about being capable of destroying magical contructs, if he calls magic 'Neural Physics' that is? And who would build something like..."

"Slow down, Twilight", the Chief urged, "you're going to give your self a panic attack over this if you continue to bombard both yourself and us with these questions. However, we have one question that needs to be answered now. How do we stop Halo?"

"I can answer that", Cortana said.

"Let me guess, you have a plan", the Chief said.

"Yes, I do", Cortana replied, "We can't let the Monitor activate Halo. We have to stop him, which means we have to destroy Halo."

The Chief heard Twilight gasp at this, but he ignored it, taking time to flex his stiff joints all across his body. "And how do we do that?"

"That seems impossible", Twilight added in, "the Ring is so large that it must be able to withstand momentous pressure and..." She began to rant again before Cortana interrupted.

"Well, yes. But my plan accounts for that. According to my analysis of the available data I believe the best course of action is somewhat risky. An explosion of sufficient size will help destabilize the ring and will cut through a number of primary systems. We need to trigger a detonation on a larger scale, however. A starship's fusion reactors going critical would do the job."

"But where are you going to find a starship?" Twilight asked. "I guess we could use one of the Covenant's ships, but then they could intervene and prevent it from blowing up."

"I agree Twilight, which is why I'm going to find out where the Pillar of Autumn went down. If the ship's fusion reactors are still relatively intact, we can use them to destroy Halo."

"Is that all?", the Chief asked dryly. "Sounds like a walk in the park", he stated later, inciting a giggle from Twilight and an exasperated sigh from Cortana. "By the way, it's nice to have you back."

"It's nice to be back", Cortana said to him.

"Hopefully, you'll stay this time round", Twilight commented. "I missed having someone to talk to about physics and reality."

Despite Cortana being inside the Chief's mind as a set of information and code, he could still imagine her giving off a bright smile at Twilights statement. The image of the two of them discussing all of these complex topics non stop caused him to groan in silence as he approached the door to the corridor outside of the Control Room, pressed the button and waited for it to open.

Twilight groaned in annoyance as the doors opened, revealing a group of Covenant standing guard at the other side of the corridor, though she was slightly glad that is was Covenant instead of Flood. However, the annoyance turned to interest as a trio of Sentinels flew out of a hatch and began to attack the Covenant. The two groups quickly annihilated each other, leaving only two Elites standing. They spotted Twilight and the Chief and decided to simply wait for the pair to come to there, baring their mandibles in anticipation.

Twilight in turn pawed at the floor, preparing to charge at them, with her horn lit up. The Chief raised his Assault Rifle and fired a short burst at the Elite to the left, enraging it enough for it to fire back, running towards him. The Elite on the right simply looked at Twilight, baring its mandibles and slightly raised its Needler, beckoning her to attack. She stiffened when her eyes fell on the Needler, all rational thought being swept away.

She obliged, teleporting behind it and fired a magic blast at it. Unfortunately, word must have gotten around somehow about her techniques in battle, because the Elite sidestepped, firing at her when it was able to after it twisted around. This caught her off guard, allowing three needle shards to collide with her new magic shield. She initially breathed a sigh of relief after she had teleported to the side, out of the firing ark of the Needler, when she saw the shards hadn't penetrated her shield, but then let out a scream as her vision turned red when the shards exploded, sending a significantly diminished, though still quite painful, version of the pain she experienced when she first got hit by a needler throughout her body, despite the explosion doing no physical damage to her body.

The Elite saw an opportunity when Twilight cried out, falling to the ground. She opened her teary eyes to see the Elite approaching her with eager viciousness. It aimed the Needler right at her face before turning its head to look at her flank. Normally, she would find this rude and unwelcome, but then she realised that it was looking at her scar. It's smile told her that it recognised the type of wound. However, the Elite was thrown back a step as a green bolt hit it, knocking out it's shields on impact.

Twilight's neck twisted round and saw the Chief standing there, the plasma pistol in his hands releasing heat at an alarming rate. She looked down at his feet and saw the body of the other Elite behind him. He threw away the pistol and unslung his Assault Rifle, firing a burst at the Elite, killing it.

Twilight groaned as she got up back on her hooves, tears flowing down her face, both of pain and guilt. She wiped her eyes with her hoof before she noticed the Chief looking right at her.

"Thanks again for saving me, again", she said with a forced sheepish smile. "This is becoming too much of a habit."

'You're getting better", the Chief said. "At least you can hold your own against most things."

"I know, but I always seem to lose it whenever a Needler is present." Twilight visibly shuddered at the thought. "Ever since I allowed myself to be hit by one of those shards, I have been..." She struggled to say it.

"Traumatised", Cortana stated.

Twilight bowed her head in shame. "Yes", she admitted, "traumatized so much that I either don't fight as well against Elites with them or I act to aggressively."

"I wouldn't say that", the Chief said as he started to walk towards the exit. "It's not the actual weapon you are faltering against, but the wielder. I've seen you kill many of the Covenant that use Needlers with ease, yet it is against the individual that you struggle to overcome."

"The Chief is right", Cortana added, "You've only been in this type of combat for only a few days. A lot of the enemies you have faced have been experiencing warfare for a very long time, especially the Elites. There's a reason why they are called 'Elites'. If anything, you should be proud that you've managed to survive some of them."

Twilight nodded, already starting to feel better. With her mood rising, so was her inquisitive nature, and the discussion about experienced enemies got her thinking.

"How do you tell if an enemy is experienced or not?" She asked the Chief as he was about to press the door controls. He paused before tilting his head towards her as he spoke.

"Sometimes you can't, but its usually from the rank of the enemy, normally distinguishable by the colour and layout of the armour", the Chief explained. "With Elites, the ones with the least experience are the minors, in the blue armour. When an Elite becomes a veteran, they don the scarlet armour and become Majors."

He pressed the button as he finished the sentence, stepping back as the mechanisms in the door groaned and faltered for a moment, allowing him to continue.

"I don't fully understand the hierarchy of the Covenant Elites, so Cortana can interrupt me if I..."

"Why, thank you, Chief."

"If I state something incorrectly", the Chief continued unfazed even as Twilight struggled to hold back a giggle. "The Elites next on the hierarchy are the Ultras. Their, and the rest of the higher ranks, have better shielding and sometimes unique armour, so they are especially deadly."

The doors finally slid open, revealing the snowy valley that Twilight knew all too well by now, and the exterior of the pyramid they were inside. On the platform in front of them was a single Elite, with white armour, holding what seemed to be an enlarged Plasma Rifle, but much longer and held like a regular rifle. It spotted the pair quite quickly, shouting out in its alien tongue and was soon joined by half a dozen Grunts and a pair of Jackals.

"Speaking of Ultras", Cortana spoke through the radio into Twilight's ear even as the Elite charged at the Chief, it's shields seemingly eating up the entire magazine of his Assault Rifle. Twilight fired a small bolt of magic at it, causing the Shields to brightly flare but not fail. She yelped as the Elite fired a quick volley of plasma bolts at her, the rifle it carried firing faster than a regular plasma rifle. She was quite unprepared for the speed of the oncoming barrage that a few plasma bolts impacted on her magic shield, causing her to experience significant but bearable pain.

She teleported behind one of the Covenant's deployable cover, an energy shield that was large enough to protect an Elite, and was glad she did so because the Grunts and Jackals began firing at her with their plasma pistols, though one Jackal was equipped with a red energy gauntlet and a Needler.

Twilight started to feel her anger rise again and her inhibitions fail, so she shook her head, repeating "Don't lose your head", over and over again under her breath for a few seconds before using her telekinesis to throw the Jackal over the edge of the pyramid, its cries startling the Covenant troops enough for her to grab a plasma pistol right out of a Grunt's hand and open fire when she flew over the cover, quickly eliminating three of the Grunts before the remaining troops opened fire in a panic, many of their shots going wide. She grinned as she realised she could now use her flight as a tool against the Covenant, flying high above the three Grunts and the single Jackal, dodging their bolts and firing back at them, swiftly killing them.

She turned her attention back to the Chief, who was still fighting the Ultra, with both of them having expended their shields. She couldn't help but continue to stare as both veterans leapt behind different pieces of cover, an deployable shield for the Ultra, a large piece of debris from the structure for the Chief, at the same time. After half a minute, flashes of light from both places informed Twilight that the two combatants had their shields restored. Soon enough, the fight resumed, with the Elite igniting a plasma grenade, throwing it at the Chief as he was coming out of his cover, who dodged it just before it could impact his helmet. He dove out of the radius of the explosion, firing his rifle in response at the Elite, getting in a few cheap shots on the chest armour of the Elite before it opened fire.

Twilight flew down at the Ultra, firing blast after blast at it. The Ultra snarled as it dodged the majority of her volley only to get hit by the last one. Its Shields flaring even as Twilight landed on the surface, creating a tiny shockwave from the impact. She sent the Ultra flying backwards, right at the Chief, who was ready to stab it with a knife he produced from a compartment on his wrist, but the Ultra pulled out an Energy sword, dropping the rifle it held, and swiped at the Chief.

The Chief was forced to abandon his attempt to kill it in order to not get cut in half by the sword and the Ultra kicked a pile of dust at Twilight's eyes. She cried out as she stumbled back, blinded by the dust, quickly wiping her eyes with her hooves in order to get the dust out of her eyes so she could see again. When she finally regained her vision, she was met with the boot if the Elite smashing into her face, sending her flying to the ground.

She wasn't done, as she sent a magical blast at it, trying to replicate the scenario with her first kill on the Pillar of Autumn, having dumped a very significant amount of magic into her horn, but the Elite dodged it. It grabbed her head and pinned it to the ground at an uncomfortable angle that ensured she couldn't fire at him with her horn.

It raised its sword before being tackled by the Chief, who dug his knife into the neck of the Elite, causing it to choke on its own blood. Twilight got up onto her hooves even as the Elite continued to spasm as it slowly died, until the Chief fired a round into its head, instantly killing it.

She sighed in relief, her shoulders sagging slightly. She walked slowly up to the Chief, on edge as she looked left to right, dreading the sight of more Covenant, or worse, the Flood. However, she was met instead with the sight of a plasma mortar heading towards the edge of the platform she stood on. She panicked, teleporting to the other side and found herself in sight of a trio of Grunts down a ramp, waiting for the Chief or her to appear. They jumped at her sudden appearance before running away as she launched into the air, flinging a large piece of debris at the spot where they were.

"Twilight, could you see where that Wraith is that is firing at us?" Cortana asked from the comm.

"I can see it already", Twilight replied as she saw the blue-purple monstrosity on the snowy plains, just hovering next to the edge of the pyramid. She also spotted the Covenant Soldiers rushing up the walkways towards the Chief.

"Covenant! Moving up the ramp towards you!", Twilight shouted over the comms as she saw three Elites appear out of nowhere onto the final ramp between them and the Chief, with more Covenant following them. She saw him raise his rifle and situate himself behind cover.

"Don't worry about me", the Chief said he fired at the first Elite as soon as it appeared after ascending the ramp. "Can you deal with that Wraith?" he said as another mortar was shot out by the Wraith, landing a bit closer to where the Chief was.

Twilight looked back down at the Wraith and frowned as she mentally calculated how she could take on the wraith. She then flew straight towards it, hovering far enough above it that she could dodge any mortar it launched at her, and low enough that the Wraith could not dodge her attack.

She drew up as much of her magic as she could into her horn and shot it as a single, constant beam at the wraith, melting its thick armour with ease, and the snow around it as well. She tried to ignore the scream of pain coming from inside the vehicle, which ceased as she intensified the beam.

The Wraith finally exploded, its reactor no longer able to withstand the heat. Twilight looked to the side in shame before spotting an empty Banshee just laying there, its cockpit open.

"Chief, there's a Banshee here, with no pony in it", she told the Chief over the comm. "Do you want me to destroy it?"

"That's a negative, Twilight", Cortana replied instead. "We'll need it to reach that platform up there."

A Nav point appeared on Twilight's eyepiece, to a place up high in the canyon.

"Why do we need to go up there?" she asked.

"Because located in that cavern is one of the three main primary firing mechanisms for Halo. We need to buy some time in case the Monitor manages to find another way of activating Halo without the Index, so we'll need to damage or destroy each generator so the Monitor will have to divert his attention towards fixing them."

"Alright", Twilight nodded, "Do you want me to teleport you down here."

"Yes, the Covenant are taking up too much of our time." Twilight could hear the slight urgency from Cortana's voice

"Alright then, hang on Chief", Twilight said to the both of them as her horn lit and in a flash of pink light, the Chief was suddenly standing in front of her. He stumbled slightly but then quickly regained his footing.

"Please warn me in advance before you two come up with these ideas involving me", the Chief stated sourly as he looked around before spotting something, clenching his fist. Twilight, curious, followed his gaze when she saw it, the body of a Flood Combat Form, half covered in snow.

'No, no, no!' she thought to herself as the Chief approached the body. 'Not here, not this soon!'

"The Flood is spreading, fast", Cortana said over the comm as the Chief picked up the shotgun next to the body. "We need to get to those generators as fast as we can, so we can find the Captain and blow up Halo, before the Flood get off this ring!"

Twilight was still staring at the body, her mind and breath racing. "How do they do it?"

"Do what?" the Chief asked, concern evident in his voice, undoubtedly directed at her, but she didn't notice it.

"Always finds us, or are here before us", Twilight explained. "It's like they can appear at any place they want, then pervert it with their...their presence. No matter how many we kill, even if the place is totally reclusive and on the other side of the ring, they always spread."

The Chief paused before he was about to enter the Banshee.

"I don't know how the Flood can do what they can, but even they can't be everywhere, even though it might seem that way. Not yet anyways. That's why we need to do what we can to prevent that from ever occurring."

Twilight couldn't help but give a grim smile. "Are we all going to say different variations of the same sentence, of destroying Halo, for the next few days?"

She saw the Chief shake his head, a sliver of light laughter coming through the comm, before he entered the banshee. She jumped into the air, hovering as she waited for the Banshee to fly. She cocked her head to the side as she waited for a few minutes before the engines finally lit up, and the Banshee was in the air, flying towards the nav beacon, with Twilight following close behind.

It only took a minute for them to reach the platform sticking out of the Cliff face, though they soon discovered that it was defended by a group of Sentinels, which sent out beams of energy at both her and the Chief's banshee, though she noticed that the Sentinels were only aiming for her hooves and wings, not where any vital organs were located. The Monitor must want her alive.

The Sentinels were easily dealt with, as the Banshee's twin plasma cannons quickly ripped them apart. Twilight landed on the platform as the Chief flew the Banshee right onto it, jumping out when he was sure that it was secure.

The two of them walked through the hatch, traversed a quick corridor before arriving in a large room, where a beam of light and energy were in an inner chamber.

"We need to interrupt the pulse generator's energy stream", Cortana informed the two of them. "Chief, I've adjusted your shield system so that it will deliver an EMP burst and disrupt the generator, but you'll have to walk into the beam to trigger it."

Twilight and the Chief looked at each other. "I'll have to do what?"

"You'll have to walk into the beam to trigger it. The EMP blast should neutralize the generator."

"Should?" the Chief demanded, leaving Twilight to laugh uncontrollably at the conversation. "Whose side are you on?"

"Yours", Cortana replied, her voice sounding firm, but also a bit insulted. "We're in this together, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember, but you're not the one with the bruises."

Twilight, barely standing from her fit of laughter, wiped a tear away but her laughter faltered as the Chief cautiously approached the beam of light.

"I'll have to walk into that thing?" the doubtful tone in the Chief's voice was impossible to miss.

"You'll be fine", Cortana replied in a smoothing manner. "I'm almost sure of it."

Twilight winced at her declaration. "I don't think you should have added the almost", she told Cortana before the Chief stepped into the light. The center of the light seemed to explode, the light pulsated and the entire room shook. The Chief quickly backed away, with Twilight noticing that his shields were down.

"The pulse generator's central core is offline. Well done", Cortana said.

This was just before a squad of Sentinels showed up from small hatched in the ceiling. Noticing how vulnerable the Chief was, Twilight erected a shield over the two of them. The Sentinels opened fire at it, causing the Shield to burn. Twilight cried out as she felt pain from the impact on the Shield, with the Chief's response being to rush out and destroy each Sentinel with his shotgun.

As the last sentinel fell to the ground, Twilight looked at the Chief, who looked back.

"One down, two more to go", she said in a forced cheerful tone.

"I can hardly wait", the Chief stated in a sarcastic manner.

Discord walked back and forth as he impatiently looked at the watch that appeared on his chicken hand. He barely took in his surroundings, with it being totally white, a single void with no end in sight and nothing to show any life nearby.

Except for the angel like creature floating next to him, who looked on with a grim expression. The tension was obvious to both of them, even non deities could sense it. But it wasn't between them, rather what was unknown to them.

"You know, for a Lord of Chaos, you are more ordered than I would expect at something like this", the angel stated to Discord, who barely registered his words. The Angel sighed. "I understand your apprehension, my friend, but you should have nothing to worry about..."

"Nothing to worry about?!" Discord shouted out, finally turning to acknowledge the angel. "When I came to the council for information about the location of my friend, I didn't expect them to lie to me!"

The Angel flinched in surprise. "They did?"

Discord sighed wearily, his shoulders falling. "I was told that Twilight was still in my Galaxy, albeit on the other side. But She isn't in the Galaxy in MY universe, Herseriv!"

Herseriv actually moved backwards in shock, as his expression transformed into one of consideration.

"How did you learn of this?" he asked Discord.

"I decided to consult an old aquantance for help in finding Twilight on the other part of the Galaxy. But he revealed to me that she wasn't there. He did track her lifeforce be sent out of the dimensional boundaries of the universe."

Discord began to pace again. "When she was transported by that structure, the power signature given off by it was small, too small for a feat of that magnitude. So the structure was too weak to achieve any dimensional breaches."

"Which means a deity, specifically one from the high breeds would have been involved", Herseriv deduced, "deities which sit on the council."

Discord nodded, his eyes lit up in anger.

"I want to know why"

"So that is why you've asked for a personal meeting with the Lord" Herseriv stated, understanding evident in his voice. "You know that he'll never see..."

Another figure suddenly appeared from thin air, a being made up of fluid, seemingly in constant motion with waves flowing across its entire body. Both Discord and Herseriv looked at it with humbleness as they took a step back in respect.

"Discord", the being said in a rich tone, "Lord of Chaos of Equestria, Lord Anazakos will see you now."

Author's Note

Hi Everyone,

Yes, this fic is still here, even if this took a while to finish.

So, Twilight is in another universe. That complicates things, doesn't it. In all seriousness, if this doesn't appeal to you guys, I'll be willing to remove it and replace it with something else.

Next time, Discord deals with a sudden revelation (hint in the chapter name) and the race to stop Halo continues.

Please post your thoughts and any errors you spotted in the comment section below.

Until next time,
dalek117