The Chief snarled as he threw himself backwards, just in time to avoid the tentacle arm of the combat form that swung at him. He had just entered the second pulse generator and thus his shields were down from powering the EMP, leaving him vulnerable. The Flood chose that moment to attack. Rushing in from every angle with their mutated combat forms and infection forms, the odd one out firing a rifle at either himself or Twilight.

After taking down the first generator, the pair backtracked through the same route they took while trying to find the Control Room. What slowed them down considerably was the fact that the Flood had taken up residence in many of the corridors and cavernous rooms that made up the path. The eldritch horrors were fighting with such ferocity so they could achieve one goal: Consume the Master Chief. Looking behind him, Master Chief was starting to notice that the Flood weren't trying to infect Twilight, but instead drain her of her magic. A fresh onslaught of infection forms took away his attention, but he made a mental note to ask his escort the next chance he got.

His motion tracker went crazy, revealing multiple blips trying to blindside him. He turned around, shotgun at the ready, and fired. The volley of pellets he shot out collided with the dozen or so Infection Forms that were mid leap, causing them to burst. Behind them was a single Combat Form, with a shotgun in hand. The Chief cursed as he backed away as fast as possible. His shields hadn't recharged yet, leaving him open to be killed by a single shotgun blast from that combat form. The flood form seemed to realize this as it used what remained of the hand on its left arm to pump the shotgun and aim it at the Chief.

Time seemed to slow as he saw the infected Elite pull the trigger, but suddenly the shotgun was aimed away from him as Twilight literally flew in and kicked the Combat Form in the chest with enough force that it shattered, the shotgun flying from what was left of its grasp. Unfortunately, it was not angled away enough for the buck shot of the shotgun to avoid hitting the Chief. A sharp pain on the side of his chest informed him that he had taken a hit from four pellets, piercing part of his chest plate.

He grunted as he instinctively covered the now bloody hole in his armour, but forced his hand to the grip of his rifle as he fought against the pain, firing at another combat form. This one was unarmed, but still ran at him with incredible speed, acting more viciously as if it could sense how its prey was wounded. That was, until it took a beam of magic to the chest, sending it flying backwards. With its blood glowing from the magical blast, it quickly got back up onto its feet. This time however, Twilight was ready for it, materialising a spear in front of her and throwing it at the burrowed infection form inside of the combat form. This caused the corpse left behind to fall apart with rotting tendons splitting from bone.

Satisfied with how Twilight dealt with those two Combat Forms, Chief quickly did a check of the room before realising that there were no more enemies nearby. Their bodies, or what was left of them, still remained, some of them showing evidence of them being killed by Twilight. Despite the pain he felt, the Chief couldn't help but feel a small, guilty sense of pride as Twilight was becoming better at fighting and winning. That pride quickly fell away as he realised that she would be quickly losing whatever innocence she had left.

From all the stories Twilight told, Chief couldn't help but wonder what her friends back home on her home planet would think of her if they could see her now. Would they place the blame on him? The latter thought didn't bother him too much. Over his long history as a Spartan, he had been the receiving end of hostility, scrutiny, and blame from others in the UNSC, so he was used to it. He couldn’t shake the thought about how Twilight could possibly be treated. Would she lose her friends and be banished from her society? Or would they ignore it and still accept her for who she is?

He shook his head as he considered what he was thinking. 'I'm over thinking this too much, getting distracted from the mission by a pony.' He paused as that didn't sound right at all. He immediately realised why. 'Not pony, friend.' He now easily admitted to himself that he cared for Twilight deeply now, close to how he cared for his lost brothers and sisters. The two of them had experienced in only a couple of days so much that no one else could share with them over it. Her not being human or even a Spartan could take that away. He was so caught up in his thoughts that it was only when he felt a slight impact on his helmet that he came back to reality, hearing Twilight say his name in an urgent manner.
"Chief! Chief, please don’t be dead,” she repeated, knocking her hoof on his helmet in an effort to elicit a reaction of any kind. He lightly grabbed her hoof as a gesture of showing he was still alive.

"You're bleeding pretty badly," she said, pointing at his wound, “Will you be okay?”

Cursing himself for ignoring his wound, Chief reached for the object attached to his belt, a med pack he had found lying next to the body of a fallen Marine. He began to treat his wound, using biofoam to close the wound and sealed the penetrated armour.

Discarding the used med kit, he straightened up, the pain in his chest reduced to a dull throb . He grabbed the shotgun that was used to harm him and quickly removed all of the shells still in the weapon. He needed all the ammo he could get.

Twilight followed his example, while still eyeing him to see if he was alright, procuring several magazines for her M6D magnum, putting them inside her pouch. Chief was surprised that, in all of the melee battles, flying and teleportation that she has been involved in, the pouch was still intact, including the strap.

After acquiring fresh munitions for their weapons, the pair moved out of the generator room and back onto the platform in the cold, snowy landscape, high in the air. There lay the Chief's ride out, a Banshee, the second he had commandeered within the last hour. He got in, activated the engines and flew off, with Twilight following, her wings flapping at a steady pace.

Beneath them was a small group of Covenant Ghosts fighting off against a wave of Flood Combat Forms, with support from a Dropship that distributed a Wraith before flying off, still hosing down the Flood with its plasma cannon. Despite being their enemy, the Chief suddenly, for a split second, felt a pang of concern for the Covenant as his sensors showed that many of the Combat Forms carried Rocket Launchers, allowing them to blow up several Ghosts. The Covenant may be ruthless and genocidal, but they sure as hell were better than the Flood.

It was then as the Chief was flying circles above the battle, waiting for the two sides to annihilate each other, that Cortana spoke up.

"I've located the Pillar of Autumn. She put down twelve hundred kilometres up spin. Energy readings show her fusion reactors are still powered up."

"That's good, then?" Twilight asked over the radio.

"It is, though there is one crucial detail that complicates this. There are some safeguards that even I can't override without the Captain's authorization on the Autumn. To start the fusion detonation, we'll either need to find him, or his neural implants."

Chief felt his stomach churn from sickness as he recalled that the last time he saw the Captain was on Private Jenkins’ recording, right when his group was ambushed by the Flood.

'There were Marines that managed to get away', Chief told himself, 'So the Captain could still be alive and well.' Even as he thought it, he didn't believe a single word.

"One target remaining, Let's take care of that final pulse Generator." Cortana announced.

As Master Chief and Twilight watched the two sides fight, he noticed that there was a large tunnel, one that both he and Twilight had traversed through before. The one where the Flood have now occupied, and judging from the reinforcements flowing in from it, they were quickly turning the tide in the battle below. While the Wraith was still active, more and more of the Covenant were being overrun. Some of the unlucky bastards were being converted into combat forms, their mutated bodies turning against their former comrades.

Chief and Twilight flew high above the battle raging below them, though Twilight had to fly above the Chief's Banshee to avoid all of the weapons fire coming towards them. Chief glanced at his controls as the Banshee seemed to absorb hit after hit, but knew that it wouldn't take much for it to become overwhelmed. He noticed multiple flashes coming from the ground, his gut dropping as a volley of rockets flew towards him.

He spun his Banshee backwards, dodging the volley, yet more were fired at him in quick succession. Twilight yelped as she almost scraped the side of one rocket that flew way too close for comfort. Chief fired at the source of some of the rockets with the Banshee’s fuel rod cannon and was rewarded with the sight of multiple combat forms getting melted by plasma.
“It would appear that the Flood are starting to prefer explosive ordinance launchers to attack aerial vehicles,” Cortana told Chief and Twilight, “And considering that they were originally using whatever their host had upon infection would appear to indicate an increase in intelligence.”

Another volley of rockets narrowly missing the banshee caused Cortana to stop speaking and allow Chief to focus on flying. Twilight however, was having a difficult time dodging small arms fire from Flood and Covenant alike.

Chief activated the boost on the Banshee, quickly flying into the open, square like corridor that was at the end of the 'natural' tunnel. The last time he traversed this corridor, he was in a Scorpion tank. Chief decided that a Scorpion would be quite useful in this operation, as it could take quite a lot of punishment and dish it out at the same time. The only problem he could see with it was that it was a bit slow, and potentially the Flood could overrun the tank and...

'And hijack it', the Chief's eyes widened as he saw on the monitor that a ghost in the corridor that was piloted by an Elite suddenly had a combat form leap onto it and throw the driver out before jumping into the seat and using the Ghost to kill the former driver. 'Shit!'

"Did that combat form...?!" Twilight's voice was filled with fear as she saw what just occurred, before the Ghost began to fire at the Banshee. Fortunately, a single fuel rod blast was all that was needed to destroy the Ghost and liquefy its pilot.

"It did", Cortana's voice was subdued. "I would be fascinated if it didn't mean more trouble for us. The Flood is definitely adapting, growing more intelligent. But how, I don’t know?"

Only half of the Chief's attention was focused on what she said. The other half was focused on flying the Banshee, before they reached the large doors that remained closed. The Chief landed the craft, with Twilight landing smoothly on the ground beside him, got out and moved to the controls on the side, pressing the button.

He didn't expect the explosion from behind the door as the mechanisms partially failed, leaving only a small opening large enough for the Chief to fit through. With his shotgun raised, he approached the opening, just as a combat form rushed out of it, quickly falling victim to a shotgun blast. He looked back at Twilight, who had her side arm drawn out, nodded to her and walked through.

Twilight moved through the opening, behind Chief as he swung his shotgun to either side of the area near the door, in case there were Flood waiting to ambush them. From the lack of the sound of the shotgun firing, Twilight could easily tell that the coast was clear, for now.

She looked at the huge cavernous area they had entered. The last time they had been here, there were Covenant shade turrets positioned on the corners of the room, and next to the bridge that connected the two sides of the room together. This time, it was quiet, too quiet. No movement whatsoever.

If she had remained in Equestria, Twilight would have just felt relief in finding a quiet space after lots of action, perhaps even taking out a book from her pouches and reading it to help her destress, but instead she now felt uneasy, paranoid even. This was just too good to be true.

Apparently, Master Chief felt the same way, as evidenced by how cautiously he moved, head constantly on the move, surveying the area. They approached the bridge slowly, the Chief focused on what was in front of them, while Twilight focused on what was behind them, walking backwards as she covered the rear. They only walked a few meters on the bridge before a hundred infection forms suddenly sprung out of their hiding place behind some pillars on the bridge, followed by a couple of combat forms. She leapt back in surprise as she fired her pistol at the flood forms, knowing that her pistol wasn't as effective against the swarm of Infection forms.

'How do they keep on appearing...Oh, for Celestia's sake. I'm not going to continue to ask myself this', she thought to herself as Chief tossed a grenade into the middle of the swarm and watched them all pop from the explosion, sending the two combat forms flying off the edge of the bridge. 'It's almost like Pinkie Pie, except much, much more frightening.'

From another section of the bridge, more Flood appeared out of the woodwork, this time a much larger group of Flood. There were too many coming too quickly, so Twilight was forced to leap into the air in an attempt to divide the Flood's attention, which only partially worked. The majority of the swarm were aiming for the Chief. It's like they thought she wasn't a threat, or a good food source.

'Well', she thought to herself, 'they may not want to infect me, just use me as a constant source of magic. But why?'

Chief was forced to back away from the swarm, firing his shotgun as he went, taking out either one or two combat forms or a dozen infection forms at a time with each shot. Twilight shot a carrier form and watched as the ensuring blast caused the flood forms around it to be flung off the bridge.

Finally the swarm was dealt with and Twilight subsequently flew to the other side. Waiting for the pair however, was an even larger swarm of Flood.

"Shit!" Twilight screamed as a rocket flew past her head, the trail singing her fur slightly. She fired a magical blast at the combat form , but the only positive consequence was that the rocket launcher itself was destroyed. The combat form became enraged upon the destruction of its only ranged offensive option. It leaped high into the air, grabbing Twilight’s hoof, subsequently dragging her down with its weight.

She aimed at its chest area with her pistol and fired round after round, blowing holes through it until the infection form was destroyed, and the body simply fell apart. She looked down and saw that Chief had single handedly defeated most of the ambushers. He had picked up an MA5B and used it to tear through the combat and carrier forms, switching to the shotgun for the infection forms.

She couldn't help but stare in awe as he fought through each enemy. Realizing what she was doing, Twilight immediately returned to firing at the remaining Flood from the air. That is until she heard something behind her and turned to see a massive robot rise from the abyss. It appeared to be made out of the same materials as a sentinel, though it had two blue energy shields on the front and what looked like several appendages made for grabbing large objects on the bottom. As it reached a high enough position in the air, it began to fire at both the Chief and the Flood. She flew to him, grabbed him and teleported two meters closer to the exit, just as the place where he stood was blown up by explosives made of light.

The large machine slowly turned to face the pair, as sentinels flew down from hatches across the ceiling. And they were closing in fast. She fired two bolts of magic at the large robot and stared as the energy shield simply absorbed them. Then the Sentinels fired those burning beams at her, with those that actually hit her causing no physical harm, but made her feel like she was burning. She clenched her teeth together as she fought back, flinging two Sentinels together and watching them explode.

As she fought, she noticed that the machine had turned to face away from her. She looked down to check on the Chief and found that he wasn't there. In fact he was running towards the pile of dead Flood, dodging the incoming missiles fired at him. He slid towards a dead corpse and, in one single, fluid motion, picked up a SPNKr rocket launcher, aimed it at the Machine and fired just behind the shields as it turned. It wasn’t destroyed, but the shields appeared to be taken offline and it was heavily damaged where the rocket had hit.

Twilight fired another blast at it, this time hitting it and causing several appendages to fall off, the magic having a lesser degree of success against the materials of the Forerunner creations. One last rocket finished it off, the explosion knocking out several more Sentinels.

Twilight flew to the exit door, landing next to the control panel, with the chief close behind, having discarded the launcher. He pressed the panel and together they moved through the door before they could be overwhelmed by the number of Sentinels. As they passed through, Twilight teleported Chief and herself to the other control panel, with Chief quickly pressing the button to close the door, barely stopping a few heat beams coming through at them.

"That was a close one," Twilight said, her adrenaline pumping throughout her body. "I'm not sure who was worse, the Flood swarms or those Sentinels and that huge machine?"

"From what I discovered while inside Halo's control center", Cortana spoke through Twilight's radio, "looking through whatever database I could, I believe that I found that machine listed as another type of Sentinel: An Enforcer Sentinel, to be precise."

"Charming name", Twilight muttered, then frowned. "Do you know what the normal sentinels are called?"

"Accurately speaking, the sentinels we have encountered are the most common form of Sentinel, the Z-1500 Automated System Drones, or the Aggressor Sentinel, though it is simpler to just call them Sentinels and the Enforcers as...Enforcers, but there are many other different types of Sentinels, most of which I do not want for the three of us to encounter."

"Why? Are they larger than that Enforcer?" Chief asked.

"Lets just say that some sentinels are the size of a capital ship", Cortana stated. "Fortunately, there shouldn't be any other type of Sentinel on this ring, except for the constructors, which are harmless, by the way."

Twilight suddenly looked up in alarm. "Wouldn't these constructors be able to fix the two broken Generators?"

"Yes, but not as fast as you fear. Remember Twilight, the Monitor can't activate the Ring without the index and the Generators were only meant as a diversion to divide the Monitor's attention."

"Oh, right." Twilight replied sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck with her hoof.

"Let's move out,” Chief barked as he started to walk down the large corridor they were in. "Those sentinels will be after us again soon, not to mention any Covenant and Flood that are situated in any area they can be."

With that statement in everyone's mind, the two of them traversed through the corridor and exited into the open, snowy space at the bottom of a canyon, only to be once again ambushed by the Flood. Though there were very little in terms of infection forms for once, there were plenty of combat forms to more than make up for their absence, some of which were—once again—armed with SPNKr rocket launchers.

Twilight vowed to herself that, if she was able to alter the universe in any way, she would immediately ban the Flood from ever being able to use the stupid weapon ever again. Especially with one rocket colliding into her. The explosive didn’t cause obvious damage to her because of her shield but it sure as Tartarus hurt a lot more than any other injury she had dealt with. She was flung back and collided with the rocky cliff face, creating a crater on impact.

Twilight groaned as gravity took over, causing her to fall to the ground with a thud. She could feel that something had broken inside of her: several ribs and she probably cracked the bones in her legs too, putting her both in severe pain and making her pissed.

Very pissed.

Her horn began to glow as she pumped more magic into it than she had ever used in one go. She got back up onto her trembling hooves as her Cutie Mark began to glow with a lavender light. Her mouth formed a sneer as a growl began to emit out of her throat.

She opened her eyes as she leapt into the air, wings outstretched, magic bleeding out of her eyes, the air around her almost being vaporised by the energy now being emitted. The snow melted quickly on the ground, with snowflakes in the air turning to rain drops.

With the loudest, most angry scream that had come out of her throat, she sent a beam that seemed to fill her entire vision with a flash of purple at the horde of Flood. She could hear the scream not only from the parasite, but seemingly also from various voices interwoven underneath, which she believed must have been the hosts' voices.

As the blast ceased and the purple began to fade from her vision, she felt very exhausted, similar to how she felt when she first used magic on Halo, falling to the ground with a thud. Her eyes slid shut and slid into brief unconsciousness.

She heard a voice calling out for her. As she began to drift back into consciousness, she began to recognise the voice. Then she felt her body being shaken by something. The voice was instantly recognisable as the Master Chief's. She opened her eyes and saw him shaking her body with his hand.

"Twilight!", he called out, alarm evident in his voice.

"I'm here." she sluggishly replied, much to the relief of the Chief as he visibly relaxed a bit and Twilight could barely hear the fraction of a sigh of relief in the radio.

"Good," she heard Cortana say, "your vitals dropped once again, like when we first arrived here. Luckily, it seems that your new power upgrade seems to make you recover much faster, since it took you a few minutes to fully recover from before, but here you only fell unconscious for half a minute."

"Half a minute?!" Twilight practically yelled as she immediately sat up from where she was lying on the ground from surprise. "But scientifically, that can't..."

"We can focus on how impossible you really are later", the Chief interrupted, "but we have other priorities right now, such as what you did with that blast."

"What did I..." Twilight asked before looking over the Chief's shoulder and gasped.

Where the Flood forms that were attacking them once stood, there were now burnt corpses. What was most surprising was that the fluid Flood had for blood was everywhere, and it was glowing brighter than Twilight had ever seen. She stood up and took a step towards the blood and immediately felt the magical energy that seemed to emit from it. Then, she felt a familiar connection with that energy and after a few seconds of contemplation and came to the conclusion that it was her magic. The biggest amount of magic she had ever conjured up and dumped into a spell, and the Flood, even dead, still seemed to absorb it.

"The readings from that fluid is extraordinary", Cortana exclaimed in an intrigued voice. "Just before you fired your magical blast, the amount of magical energy was so large that even I could detect it using the Chief's sensors in his suit. You must have really been pissed off"—Twilight sheepishly laughed for a brief second at this—"Then, when you fired and hit all the Flood, it burnt everything but the fluid."

"Now, here's the most intriguing and mysterious part: the blood didn't boil like I would suspect it would. In fact, a small area began to sizzle and glow like it is now, but only in the area where one Combat Form once stood. As it glowed brighter and brighter, the magical energy left by that blast seemed to dim significantly. That same energy that was disappearing then reappearing within the blood. It was being transferred and...altered in a way I cannot yet determine. But that single amount of blood seemed to have a limit to how much magic it could absorb. When it hit its limit, another blob of blood began to absorb. This continued on until all of the magic was transferred."

Twilight's mouth dropped at Cortana's description of what had occurred, her mind internally both excited about what this could mean for magical studies and horrified at what this could mean for the Flood. Most likely from experience something horrible for everything else.

"All that, in half a minute?" her voice barely a whisper.

"Is the blood a direct threat?" the Chief asked, his rifle half raised, ready for anything to happen.

"I wouldn't recommend touching it", Cortana replied, "but the bloody area stops just over to your left, so we can easily go around it. I'm also pretty sure that the magic is dissipating at a slow rate, but it won't be here for too long."

"Good, we don't want to know what the Flood can do with that magic if they can get the chance", the Chief stated as the pair started to walk around the Blood and continue their way to the final Generator. They just cleared it when the Chief suddenly stopped.

"Behind us!", he said, twisting around, raising his rifle. Twilight did the same but the both of them paused as they beheld the sight before them.

Three carrier forms had come out of the blue and gathered near the largest concentration of blood. They waddled up close before their flimsy tentacle arms suddenly lashed out and attached to the blood. Then the glowing texture of the blood seemed to become absorbed by the carrier forms as their 'skin' began to pulse and glow over their sack like body. Twilight could easily tell that the magical energy was being transferred to the carrier forms, due to the glow fading from the blood.

One of the carrier forms then started to shake as it's arms retracted to its normal length before collapsing on the ground, it's bulbous areas expanding, then contracting in size before infections forms started to pop out one at a time in the most abominable, gruesome manner. As the carrier form slowly deflated, Twilight spotted that these infection forms were not the same as the Infection forms that she had been fighting against.

They had the same basic shape, except they were significantly larger, and the tip of their pod body was more exaggerated. They had a lot more tentacles, albeit they were shorter. Then there was the colour. They were glowing like the pure mana blood, but much brighter than what the carrier forms had been, so much so that Twilight's uncovered eyes unconsciously half closed in order to block out the glare from them. The skin itself was pulsating slightly as well, but the ripples were more intense in a way as Twilight could literally see the most powerful magical sparks she had seen fling out from them.

Another key difference between this type of infection form and the normal type was that wherever this type 'walked', the ground would transform into a veiny, fungus like surface, with a texture similar to that of the flood. It was like the infection form was turning the environment into a Flood haven. The infection form was also faster than the normal type and seemed to almost let out a really, really tiny growl that Twilight could only hear through practice of hearing Fluttershy speak when she was very shy.

All of these factors made Twilight feel ill from fear and horror, almost shaking on the spot, as she watched more and more of the magic-augmented Infection Forms get released from the carrier forms before they fully deflated, then melted into a puddle of Flood biomass.

Twilight pulled out her sidearm, her magical grip shaking from fright, preparing to be assaulted by the Infection Forms, but was surprised when they suddenly spun around and shuffled away from her and the Master Chief. All, but three, who just stood there.

Twilight looked at Chief in confusion, which he returned, or at least she thought he returned when he looked back at her through his visor.

"Any idea why they're standing there?" she asked the Chief, who shrugged.

"If I was doing a similar thing in front of my enemy, it would be as a..." the Chief trailed off as his grip on his rifle tightened, "...distraction,'' he whispered as Twilight saw him turn around, and followed his gaze before gasping in shock and becoming petrified from fear, not feeling a warm substance dripping down her flank.

A group of thirty combat forms had snuck up behind them, along with a couple of carrier forms, all of which where now running towards them, all of them armed. Then she heard the growls and groans from both her left and right, not needing to look to know that more Flood were swarming in from the sides. It was the shots fired at the Chief that finally shook her out of her trance before she fired some very ineffectual shots at the Flood gunning for her.

Within seconds, the pair were overrun, Twilight being grabbed by at least a dozen tentacles, thrown away from the Chief before being dragged along the snow, all the way to the three mana Infection forms. She was dumped in front of them before being restrained by multiple combat forms.

She struggled to get free, shaking and wiggling in an effort to slip out of the grips of the Combat Forms, pain from her broken bones lacing her body, while shooting magic from her horn in order to knock back any Flood she could, succeeding in a few attempts, but not enough to help her break free. But she was pleasantly surprised when the combat forms suddenly let go.

Then, everything erupted into pain and horror as a carrier form wrapped its tentacles around her neck and started to suck out her magic at a rapid rate. She could feel her magic disappearing, being extracted out of her against her will, similar to how Tirek did it to her, except worse. So much worse. As much as she tried to hold on to it, hide it away inside of her, the magic was always found and ripped out of her.

It wasn't just her magic that was being affected. She felt her mind, her heart, her soul, her very being, all of which were being violated by the flood. She could feel the flood coursing through her innermost self, trying to reach every part of her that it could touch. She shrieked out as the Flood seemingly studied her then proceeded to rip out the parts of her which it wanted, her emotions, her memories, her personality. They were still there inside of her, but now it was no longer her own personal self. The Flood had taken all that she is. All that she felt now was pain unlike anything else. Not just physical pain, but mental, emotional, from the soul. Everything that made her was screaming out in pain, overwhelming her to the point of death being a much, much preferable alternative What was worse was that she could feel a sense of sadistic enjoyment and victory coming from the Flood.

Finally, she felt that she was nearing the end of her magic being drained, almost welcoming the end just so the Flood could end her suffering. That is, until she felt the tentacles of an infection form touch her horn and started to feed into her small specks of pure mana, which seemed to completely restore her magic. She had a brief second of realisation, all hope lost of escaping this fate before the draining started again, sending her into more spasms of pain.

This time, however, she felt her own magic begin to abandon her slowly. Beforehand it struggled to stay with her, but now it was starting to willing go to the Flood, be drained from her. She was now starting to lose control of her magic as it now seemed to obey the Flood's will, becoming bolder and bolder with its allegiance to its new master.

As she lay there, trying to break out while in the middle of the pain, one thought seemed to blossom in her mind, as if the Flood was encouraging it to come out.

Her own magic had betrayed her.

The Master Chief was knocked back as twenty combat forms tackled him to the ground. Despite their augmented strength, he was able to grab hold of a rocket launcher in one of their tentacle grasps, ripping it away along with the frail hand of the combat form, and used it as a bat to knock off the combat forms on him.

He got up to his knees, aimed the launcher at a group of twelve combat forms running towards him and fired, blowing up the entire group with a well aimed rocket to their feet. He discarded the launcher after seeing it only had that one rocket in it before grabbing his shotgun and blasting apart two more Combat Forms that tried to rush him. He wasn't going down again like he did just before.

A continuous blood curtailing shriek erupted from the side, shaking him to his core, especially when he recognised the voice as Twilight.

'Oh, no...please no', he instinctively thought before calling out. "Twilight!"

He turned around and saw her in the distance, surrounded by Combat Forms with a Carrier form standing over her, its tentacles wrapped around her neck, pulsating as it drained her magic quickly. The only sight that gave him the slightest speck of relief was that the Infection Form, despite it's tentacles being attached to her horn, was not infecting her.

He only took this in for a split second before his peripheral vision spotted movement behind him on his motion sensor and instinctively lowered himself before twisting around, bringing his shotgun to bear right into the remains of the infection form embedded within a combat form. He pulled the trigger and the former Elite shattered. Before he could rush to help Twilight, more combat forms arrived, armed with a variety of weapons, intent on shooting him where he stood.

Aware that he could not help Twilight until he had dealt with the current enemies, he decided to find out what exactly were they doing.

"Cortana, can you identify what the Flood are doing to Twilight?!" he shouted out to Cortana as he ran to the side, firing six shotgun blasts before he heard the chamber click as it was empty. He started to feed shotgun shells into the weapon, only managing to get two in before he felt multiple rounds of both bullets and plasma collide with his shields. He found the closest of the culprits, sent that monster to hell with a single round before aiming at another. He fired the last round he had in the shotgun currently, but the combat form used its tentacles at the last minute to nudge the shotgun to the side slightly, causing the combat form to survive, barely.

Snarling, Chief smashed the butt of the shotgun into the center mass of the combat form, finally killing it before bringing out his MA5B. Though it was less effective, he managed to take down three or four combat forms with well aimed shots before he expended the magazine. He reloaded and began to take down the remaining attackers, one by one.

"I can't be sure on this, Chief, but I think that the Flood are using her to fuel the carrier forms with her magic so that they can create more of those augmented infection forms. It seems to correlate with what I am viewing with your sensors, due to the carrier forms that drain her reaching a certain level of magic storage before being replaced by another carrier form, and imploding, releasing those infection forms."

Chief would have been much more horrified by those words if he wasn't so focused on avoiding being killed by another rocket launcher wielding Flood form, running erratically to confuse the combat form and cause it to fire in the wrong direction. Out of all the enemies he had encountered on the ring, he feared them the most. A group of four hunters would be better than them.

"So..." he began as he finally had a window of opportunity as the rocket Flood had to reload, firing a long burst at it before being rewarded with the sight of the Flood form crumbling under the weight of the volley. "She's a battery for them until she runs out of magic?"

"Yes, though from the rate of how much magic is being drained from her, she should have been dry a minute ago. Somehow, one of the augmented Infection Forms are able to refill her magic supply easily, thus making her a prisoner of a never ending process. By my calculations, within ten minutes, the Flood will use Twilight to create approximately ten thousand augmented Infection Forms."

'Ten thousand?!' he grimly thought to himself as he grabbed hold of a knife from a fallen infected human and brought it down onto the chest of another Combat Form. "We can't let that happen! Do you know what will happen to Twilight if we interrupt it now?"

"With the current data I have currently, I don't know. Either she'll be physically fine, or she'll die. I can't be sure. What I am certain of is that we'll have to risk it."

That dug right into the Chief, as he knew she was right, and he wouldn't hesitate, but he still hated that fact. Still, if Twilight would die, she would be free of the pain that she was feeling at the moment, due to the shrieks and howls of pain and agony that he was hearing. This hate turned into anger and sheer determination as he rapidly killed form after form.

He finished off the last couple of combat forms before running towards Twilight, firing at the carrier form in an effort to stop the sickening process. He tried to avoid looking at the spasming body of Twilight, her eyes closed as she wailed, tears flowing down her face. As he got much closer, the Chief could see the magic flowing out of her.

The carrier form was hit, releasing Twilight from its grasp before collapsing on the ground and exploding, sending out ordinary Infection Forms. The remaining Flood gathered around the single augmented Infection Form that was still grasping Twilight, but another showed up and attached itself to the nearest Combat Form. Chief raised his rifle, ready to fight for Twilight, who was still alive and her mind still intact, but paused as he witnessed something unexpected.

The Combat Forms all decided to attach themselves onto the single combat form that the augmented infection form was currently on, before they all collectively began to melt into a puddle of biomass. Then the biomass began to take a much larger form, rising from the ground, shaping into a large, monstrous creature, no sign of the hosts bodies except for the substance it was made of. A large, yellowish sack of skin began to form at the top of the biomass as it rose, with two long appendages separating themselves from the main body until they seemed to form two long tentacle like arms, which were longer than the main body and seemed to flop limp to the ground. The stocky, long legs were next, the final mass of biomatter being used to construct them finally disappearing into the creature.

Chief lowered his rifle in sheer shock, his mind slowly coming to grasp with what he just witnessed before the creature attacked him, swinging its extra long arm with a surprising amount of density and force, knocking Chief right into the cliff face. The impact of both the arm and the cliff face caused Chief's shields to collapse and he felt several ribs crack as he fell to the ground.

He grunted in pain as he got back up onto his feet. He felt and heard heavy footsteps coming his way and saw the newly formed 'Pure' Flood form stomp towards him with a heavy stride and surprising speed. It raised its arms above its 'head' and, with the intention of crushing Chief, brought them down towards him. He just managed to roll away, cursing both at the Flood form and the pain on his side.

He ran to the nearest weapon on the ground, a Plasma Rifle, grabbed it, twisted around and started to fire short bursts at the Flood form, backing away as fast as possible. The Plasma Rifle did absolutely nothing to the beast, except enrage it as it was now extending its arms to crush the Chief. Once again, despite the speed and force of its attacks, Chief always seemed to avoid being hit, having learnt from the first time.

Instead of attacking, Chief opted to let the Creature have the initiative for now, in order to study its movements and abilities, trying to find a pattern or weakness to exploit. This almost turned out to be a fatal error as the Abomination, as Chief chose to call it, stopped and raised its tentacle. Chief was confused, until he saw the rock flying at him from the other side, enveloped in an aura that was like a hybrid between Twilight's magic and the mana blood's colour, except it was more obvious and bright. He ducked, the rock barely scratching his newly recharged shield before noticing the same aura seemed to be around the tentacle of the Abomination.

The Abomination swung at Chief again, trying to grab him, while using magic to throw objects at him or even shoot out a blast of magic from its arms. Chief was constantly on the move, fatigue quickly spreading throughout his body. At the first chance he got, he dropped the plasma rifle for an assault rifle, which was slightly more effective as the rounds pierced the sack on the 'head', the small holes slowly leaking fluid.

Finally, after the Abomination charged at him and missed, he saw a weak section of flesh on the hip. Even better, he was standing next to a rocket launcher.

In a single, fluid motion, Chief grabbed the Launcher, aimed it at the weak section of the Abomination and prayed that the Launcher had a rocket in it, since he grabbed it so fast that his HUD couldn't link up with the weapon.

He pulled the trigger and was rewarded with a rocket shooting out, colliding with the creature, ripping it's mid section into two. Now aware that there was one more rocket in the weapon, he aimed at the bulging, pimple like sack that seemed to be its head and fired. The head exploded, spewing out bright mana blood and the Abomination seemed to crumble into chunks of flesh and gunk.

Without even a moment of breath, Chief raced towards Twilight, throwing away the Rocket Launcher and procured a Shotgun from a fallen combat form. He slid over to her still shaking form, spotted the infection form still attached to her and reached out to rip it off. His finger touched it and then the Master Chief's vision went blank.

He found himself in a strange void, endless in all directions, though the background all seemed to be fluid, not dissimilar to that of the Flood's oily blood. He looked around, attempting to spot any potential threat or exit, finding none. Nevertheless, he still felt as if something was with him, watching his every move.

"Cortana, can you find out where we are?" he asked, but there was no response. His gut now filled with dread once more, Chief tried again. "Cortana, do you copy? Cortana?!"

He lowered his head as the realization that he was alone dawned on him, sending a shiver down his spine. It was this moment that he realized how much he came to depend on Cortana or Twilight being there with him on Halo, almost making up for the loss of his Brothers and Sisters.

As he thought of his fellow Spartans, his head began to ache as the entire landscape shifted and transformed into an all to familiar place. Somewhere that he thought he'll never see again: The Spartan Training Facility,on the Planet Reach.

Within his helmet, he blinked in surprise and confusion, once again doubting his sanity for a brief moment, an all too necessary action when considering the Flood as a whole. Then he heard the voices to the side, which caused his heart to stop beating for a full second. He turned around and just stood there, disbelief etched all over his face and body language.

He saw himself, not as the Master Chief, not as the Augmented Spartan, but as John, a nine year old boy, surrounded by his many friends...no, family. The only family he ever knew, gathered together discussing a plan to beat trainers. All his brothers and sisters, all young. All alive. A tear began to slid down his check from a mixture of happiness, sorrow and anguish. He almost choked when he heard his best friend Sam’s voice ask, "When do we start, John?"

Immediately, when his name was uttered, the entire scene turned red as Chief experienced a full blown migraine. The then scene crumbled and returned to the void where Chief originally was. It was then that Chief felt something, a presence, withdraw nearby. A presence that had the intention of studying him, but retreated after his own name was spoken. He also barely noticed a hint of fear, though not from him, but+ in the air.

'That must have been a memory', the Chief thought to himself before he heard Twilight's scream not too far away.

He immediately ran towards it, the void giving way to him as Twilight suddenly appeared in the distance, sinking into the floor, which had become a pit of Flood matter and tentacles, pulling her half-conscious form into the pit. He immediately jumped into the pit, but was surprised when the Flood matter gave way to a solid surface just before any part of him touched it, like it was scared of him.

He didn't pay this much attention as he was fully focused on Twilight, running towards her as she was now almost completely engulfed by the pit. He reached out and grabbed the closest hoof and started to pull her back up, struggling as the Flood mass did not seem to want to give her up, quickly creating a stalemate.

As he continued to hold on to her hoof, 'playing' a game tug of war with the Flood, it seemed that the Chief became connected to Twilight's mind as every single memory that she had began to bombard his own mind. Her first moments of life, her toddler—or as she called it 'foal years'—school and tutelage years, her friends and family in Equestria and all of the adventures and emotions she had ever experienced until her arrival on the Pillar of Autumn, he saw them all, seared into his own memories now.

Here, fighting to save her, was when he finally understood everything about Twilight. Her inquisitive and scientifically minded process of thought, her moments of madness when confronted with peculiar problems, her initial reluctance and aversion towards making friends until her final acceptance of it, her internal journey that led to her ascension as an Alicorn, her personality.

This only seemed to strengthen him as he began to pull harder, slowly pulling Twilight out again. He could feel frustration emanate from the Flood mass as it too increased its effort to pull Twilight back down, but the Chief wasn't giving them an inch. He gritted his teeth as more tentacles erupted from the Flood mass and attached to both himself and Twilight, the ones attached to his arm trying desperately to break his grip, while the others were helping the original tentacles pull Twilight.

'No! I'm not losing another friend!' he shouted within his mind as he pulled harder than he ever had before. His friendship was the only thing driving his strength. "You can't have her, ever!" he shouted at the Flood, causing some ripples in the pit to stagger backwards. A sudden memory of a motto that Twilight lives by popped into his head, giving him the strength to finally make Twilight start to come out faster and faster.

"Because, Friendship...Is...MAGIC!"

As he shouted with the loudest tone he had ever used in order to both convey a message and intimidate the Flood pit, Twilight popped out of the pit. Time seemed to slow down as a roar of anguish and anger filled the entire void as it slowly turned to white, leaving Twilight and John alone.

John opened his eyes, blinked, then realised that he was looking back to Twilight's body, now limp, but breathing heavily, in the snowy canyon ground. He looked at his hand, seeing the squirming Infection Form in his grasp as it struggled to break free from his grip.

Disgusted, he crushed it, sending Flood matter splattering everywhere, but he didn't care. All he cared about was that Twilight was still breathing and not infected.

"She's coming to." John was never more glad to hear Cortana's voice.

Twilight opened her eyes slowly, before tears started to flow down her face at an extremely rapid rate before she started sobbing. John's heart broke as he recognised the escalating sobbing and cries to be that of an eternally traumatised person, doomed to live with an event that would haunt them till the end of their days.

He pulled her close as a means of implying protection and in turn, she wrapped her hooves around his waist and planted her face on his chest plate, continuing to sob and scream from the immense terror as the last remaining innocence she once had was taken from her.

He sat there for a moment, letting Twilight cry her heart out, with no comment from Cortana, who was disturbingly quiet. Finally, her tears started to slow down and the crying became quieter and quieter. She still trembled but it seemed as if Twilight was getting better. John, however, knew that Twilight might never heal from her ordeal at all.

Tears still rolling down the fur on her cheeks, Twilight closed her mouth for the first time since Chief had rescued her, her throat sore from screaming and crying. Her breathing was still quick as her heart continued to race. Her eyes were wide open, not seeing Chief's armour but rather the Flood perverting her very existence with what it did to her. That was seared into her brain, never leaving her vision for a single second.

It wasn't the sound of Chief's voice, or Cortana's, that shook her out of her trance, but rather the screech of a Banshee as it flew overhead, firing down at the both of them. She felt Chief lift her up and move her out of the way of the plasma bolts before lowering her gently to the ground.

Twilight, barely even understanding what was happening, looked on at Chief as he ran to another spot in the snow, firing his shotgun at the Banshee in order to gain its attention, which he succeeded in. As Twilight's brain finally started working to its normal ability, becoming totally aware of her situation, she almost panicked as the Banshee flew down towards Chief, as if trying to ram him. But he had it under control, using the pilot's own intentions against it as he fired several rounds at the Banshee as it got too close to him, causing major damage that resulted in the vehicle's destruction.

She got back up onto her hooves and slowly walked to Chief, who waited for her calmly. When she reached him, he knelt down, his visor opposite her face. She could see her reflection on it and knew that Chief was staring at her from behind the helmet with a look of concern.

"How are you feeling?" he asked her, sympathy and concern rolling off each word.

Her mind flashed to what she experienced, causing her to tremble from fear and terror, but she managed to shake her head even as fresh tears started to swell up in her eyes. As she started to cry again, she felt Chief's hand on her shoulder, his grip firm, yet soft and calming. She immediately felt slightly better, the horror and fear still present, but almost pushed to the side in her mind.

"I...I don't know how to explain what just happened to me,'' she whispered in a sullen tone. "The F...F...Flood just used me like a power source, making sure that every individual part of me in my mind had been c...contaminated. Taking my magic from me, but also ensuring that I was always full so they could feed, and that the nightmare would never end."

The Master Chief was quiet for a moment. "Do you remember anything about sinking into a pit?" he asked in a wary tone.

Twilight, her terror momentarily forgotten, looked at him in surprise, his words making no sense with what she had experienced.

"No", she answered, "no I don't. All I remember are my memories, personality..." her words became stuck inside her open mouth as she struggled to even speak, choking off of her newly reignited terror.

"Chief, I don't know where you got the idea of a pit from." Cortana stated in a confused tone. "We obviously both saw the Flood holding her down and sucking the magic out of her."

"Please don't say that!" Twilight moaned out as she covered her face with her hooves. "I'm getting more than enough f...flashbacks to torment me for life right now."

"Sorry", Cortana said, guilt in her voice over the radio. "But I still don't get why you would even..."

"When I grabbed the infection form, I'm not exactly sure how, but I found myself in a strange, dream like world." Chief explained, much to Twilight's astonishment. "It was like a never-ending world, yet it didn't feel right. I never felt like I was alone, something was watching me, studying me. Then the void disappeared into a memory of my early years, until something that was said seemed to break the world."

He then looked right at her. "Then I heard you scream. I ran and found you sinking into a pit of Flood."

Twilight suddenly felt really ill from the mere suggestion, much less the imagined visual representation in her head, but refocused as Chief continued to explain.

“I rushed over to grab you and pull you out, but when I touched you...” He paused and looked at his hand before looking back. “The Flood reeled back.”

Author's Note

Hi everyone,

So, don't hate me... Yeah, I'm a really bad person for making this happen to Twilight, but it was necessary. This story is M rated so we need to strive to keep it.

Now, to an important announcement: Introducing my new editor, Crossman Legacy. “I’m not leaving until the heat death of the universe.” - Crossman Legacy. Yes I actually said that.

Special thanks to CommanderApplejack for reading over this chapter as well.

Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Until next time,
dalek117