Twilight stared out at the huge ring on the horizon, reaching upwards and over her. She had been flying for at least two hours now and was getting very tired, her wing movement starting to slow a bit.

“How far away is the Autumn?” she wearily asked.

“Too far for you to fly without rest or supplies” Chief answered. “That’s why I suggested that we head over back to Alpha base.”

“The more time we spend there, the higher the chance the Flood gets off of the ring”, Cortana said.

“Don’t play devil’s advocate, Cortana. You suggested this.”

“I didn’t say we shouldn’t go. I just said that we have to spend as little time as possible. We do need supplies, Twilight needs rest and we should report directly to Silva and tell him what has happened to the Captain. Besides, I have already contacted the Major’s AI, Wellington and have informed him partially of the threat, but that was before we found what had happened to the Captain.”

Twilight heard Chief’s thoughts darken at the mention of Silva. She herself didn’t like the man, but it seemed as if the Chief and Silva were almost antagonistic to one another over a single topic.

‘Don’t ask’, the Chief mentally thought, which Twilight heard, so she filed the topic away in her mind, however secure that was recently, for another time.

“Twilight, do you have a moment?” Cortana asked.

“Sure, as long as I can stay in the air,” Twilight half-joked.

“I’ve been investigating how your magic is being influenced by the flood, and I think I have a partial answer.”

“What?!” Twilight exclaimed. “What have you discovered?”

“When your magic began to act counter-intuitive, I decided to alter some of the Master Chief’s sensors in his suit. A task that is quite easy for an AI of my level…”

“I didn’t hear you ask for permission,” Chief said over the radio. Twilight could feel the slight annoyance in his mind, but could tell that he would have approved of it anyways.

“Well, you were very busy on the Truth and Reconciliation, doing many things such as fighting a veteran Spec Ops Elite in a sword fight to the death,” Cortana rebuked calmly. “For such an insanely dangerous action, you needed all the concentration you could get.”

“Anyways, I finally managed to find a sort of radiation that went active once you used your magic, and used that to triangulate whenever the Flood was affecting or manipulating your magic.”

A display popped up on Twilight’s screen. It displayed a map of a part of the Covenant ship, with multiple dots, some of which had a circle with a large radius around them.

“This is an overhead representation of the area just before we escaped the Truth and Reconciliation, with the dots representing living life forms. I distinguished both you and the Chief with blue dots, purple for Covenant and green for the Flood. The green dots with the circle area around them are the augmented infection forms that were in the area.”

The dots then began to move around, one blue dot disappearing and reappearing in different spots on some occasions. That dot was most likely Twilight herself.

“As you can see, whenever Twilight was near one of the augmented infection forms, her magic started to behave in a detrimental form. The more augmented forms there were, the more control the Flood had over her magic. And while she was next to that… thing in the control room, it had almost full control. However, when it was killed, the Floods ability to use her magic started to decrease.”

“Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that Twilight’s magic will work fine as long as there isn’t an augmented form, or anything created from it, nearby. With this in mind, I have modified both the motion sensors for both you and the Chief, to pick up the augmented forms in the distance,and highlight for immediate termination.”

Twilight let out a sigh of relief. One of the many problems that she faced was now at least marginally contained. She then smiled as Alpha base came into view.

Within a minute, she was on the ground, lying down as the Chief landed the Banshee not as gracefully as she would have liked to have seen. It took Silva and Lieutenant McKay half a minute to arrive where the Chief was waiting.

John switched off the engines and opened the canopy, stepping outside into the bright light. His visor prevented most of the glare of the sun from blinding him, so he was able to see Silva and McKay clearly. He sighed, unhappy with the news he was about to deliver, but waited for the two of them to reach him. As they approached, Twilight appeared to fall asleep from exhaustion, which John could sympathise and understand.

He saluted as they arrived, with only McKay returning the gesture. Silva however stood there, silent, as if he was expecting, correctly so, bad news.

“Master Chief,” Silva stated, his voice neutral. “Why did you come here in a Covenant Banshee and why isn’t Captain Keyes with you?”

John, ever the professional, somehow managed to keep his voice from breaking when he spoke. “In an attempt to recover the Captain, we infiltrated the Covenant Cruiser that we had previously extracted him from.” He paused before continuing. “However, we arrived too late.”

Silva’s eyes slightly hardened at hearing of the Captain’s demise, while McKay’s face fell into slight hopelessness.

“Please tell me at the very least you killed the Covenant bastards responsible for…”

“It wasn’t the Covenant, sir” John informed Silva, causing the major to slightly jerk with shock. “It was the Flood.”

John hoped to see that the two officers before him would respond with expressions of confusion, but he was met with expressions of understanding and horror, especially from McKay, her eyes aimed at him but obviously seeing something else.

“Was he a combat form?” Silva asked, his voice quiet. John shook his head.

“Negative. He wasn’t a Carrier form either. He was… absorbed into a larger Flood form that seemed to act as a controlling influence on the Flood. From what we could tell, it seemed to be why the Flood have been getting smarter and acting less feral.”

“A controlling influence…” McKay repeated while Silva covered his mouth, deep in thought.

“How did the Captain even get infected by the Flood from his original position?”

Cortana answered this time. “The place where he went was a flood containment facility, originally occupied by the Covenant. That’s where the Flood was unleashed.”

“So the Covenant unleashed this while looking for anything relating to their faith,” Silva surmised, somehow unsurprised. He sighed in resignation. “So all those hours you spent away were trying to find Captain Keyes then?”

“Negative, despite attempts to do so. After fighting through the Flood at the containment facility, Twilight and I were acquisitioned against my will to fight within some kind of citadel on the other side of Halo by the Monitor of the ringworld in order to help retrieve a device needed to activate Halo’s defences and stop the Flood, though he didn’t tell me how it’ll help.”

“However, since I was in Halo’s control room, I discovered what that actually meant: Wiping the Galaxy clean of all sentient life” Cortana’s statement shocked the two officers to the extent that they took a step back.

Cortana and John then explained everything in as much detail they could fit in as little time as possible, with the first encounters with the Flood, the Monitor appearing and teleporting them away, the vile experience in the Library, the confrontation in the control centre, damaging the pulse generators and finally finding the Captain. McKay paled significantly but kept her composure, while Silva listened intently, only swearing at the description of the Flood form that absorbed Keyes.

“Thus, we need to arrive at the Autumn ASAP, because the Flood are attempting to get off the ring by any means. The sooner we destroy Halo, the less likely they’ll succeed.”

Silva hesitated as he mused over what he just heard. “When you contacted Wessley, I thought that Halo was just the home of the Flood, not this.” He then nodded, “Agreed. We’ve, unfortunately, have had experience of how fast they spread. In fact, the Flood were underneath Alpha Base, trying to break out. But we have contained the threat, for now.”

John frowned at the ‘for now’ part. But then refocused as Silva continued.

“Alright. We’re currently preparing for a full-scale assault, but I’m sure that the armoury has more than enough equipment and ammo for you to resupply.”

“An assault on what target?” Cortana asked.

“The Truth and Reconciliation,” Silva answered, much to the astonishment and horror of the Spartan and AI. John looked at McKay, who looked back at him with a stoic, yet tired expression, but her eyes spoke volumes about her disagreement with her superiors decision.

“With all due respect, Major,” John started to say, but Silva cut him off.

“No, Chief. From your own description of events, the Covenant were purging the cruiser of the Flood when you left, and that Flood controller was destroyed. I see no major threat from the Flood there, but a vulnerability on both the Covenant and the Flood.”

With his hands behind his back, Silva walked to the side, looking down at the landscape below. “The Truth and Reconciliation is the closest vessel that can fit all of the survivors of the Autumn, plus it is filled to the brim with Covenant Tech, all of which will help us win the war back home.” He turned to face John, ambition in his eyes. “So, yes. We are taking the Truth and Reconciliation and that is final.” The tone of his voice suggested that the decision was final, and no amount of arguing would change it.

John sighed silently but still nodded. “Acknowledged, sir.” He paused before continuing. “However, I need to inform you about several new forms of the Flood, creating using stolen magic from Twilight. The smallest are Infection forms that are slightly bigger and glowing, but they are immensely dangerous. If one attaches itself to a group of combat forms, they merge to form a much more deadlier and larger form, an Abomination. They are highly lethal and heavy weapons are needed to destroy one. If there are any traces of magic in the vicinity, the Flood can absorb it and become stronger.”

Silva waved away the concerns. “We’ll manage quite easily. You were one man, we are a battalion of the finest men in the UNSC. They won’t know what’s hit them.”

McKay on the other hand, looked very sceptical of her superior’s claims and looked horrified. “Perhaps there’s another way we can get off the ring,” she suggested, but Silva gave her a look that shut her up.

“Restock on weapons and supplies, Chief. Then head to the Autumn and destroy it. Us honest to god humans will handle the cruiser,” Silva ordered before walking off. McKay remained for a moment.

“I’ll try to further reason with him, but I believe his mind is set,” McKay said. She looked at John with a face of despair. “We found one of the marines that accompanied the Captain, but he was changed into a combat form. However, he was still partially aware and has helped us with finding the Flood underneath us. What they did to him…” she visibly shuddered, much paler than before. “We can’t let the Flood get off the ring.”

Her face then transformed to one of grim determination. “Don’t worry about us or the cruiser. If the flood is onboard and Silva is still going to fly it back to UNSC territory, I’ll make sure that it won’t happen.”

John’s face also transformed into a grim expression, but at how the actions of a superior officer and the random chances of fate has led to McKay having the burden of choosing to sacrificing her and the other marines’ chances of survival for the future of the galaxy if it came to that.

“I hope you won’t have to,” he said honestly. He saluted, which the lieutenant returned.

She started to walk off before pausing. “You know, despite what many of the other ODSTs will say and think of you, you’re no freak, or a dying race. You’re still human and never, ever forget that. Good luck.”

With those last words, McKay walked off to prep for the assault. John stared for a second, processing her statement and the fact that a great marine like her will most likely die away from home, before walking up to Twilight and waking her up.

Twenty minutes later, John was inside the Banshee once again, restocked with ammo for his Assault Rifle and Shotgun, and flew off, with Twilight beside him outside, armed with an smg and magnum.

Twilight’s eyes widened as she beheld the sight before her, seeing the full scale of the Pillar of Autumn against the beach landscape in the distance, and the impact gouge left behind by the Autumn when it crashed. Unlike her previous glimpse before, she could see all the details of the ship, wowing her with just how different the human ships were to the Covenant.

As they approached the cruiser, the Chief’s Banshee started to let out smoke on one of the wings and began to slowly fall. Twilight’s eyes widened as she saw this happen as they were getting closer and closer to several empty airlocks.

“This thing is falling apart.” Cortana stated, sounding very concerned.

“It’ll hold.” Chief’s reply was the complete opposite, sounding calm and stoic as usual for him. His tone did little to dissuade both Cortana and Twilight for worrying about the state of the Banshee as the wing tip caught on fire.

“We’re not going to make it!”

“We’ll make it.”

Twilight groaned in frustration before teleporting both her and Chief into the airlock, out of the Banshee as it crashed below them. She sighed in relief and turned to face the Chief.

“You two sound like an old couple arguing,” she playfully teased before walking off, leaving Cortana spluttering various replies and Chief silent, not knowing how an old couple would even act.

They entered a very familiar type of corridor, with Twilight hearing Cortana sigh with relief at the sight of the interior. However, it was clear that the crash had damaged a lot of the superstructure and many of the panels on the walls and ceiling were either loose or had been thrown off entirely.

“We need to get to the bridge,” Cortana began. “From there, we can use the Captain’s Neural implants to initiate an overload of the ship’s fusion reactors. The explosion should damage enough systems below it to destroy the ring.”

“What about our escape plan?” Twilight asked as they passed the corner at the end of the corridor and approached a maintenance corridor.

“Once we trigger the countdown, Foehammer will come to pick us up and take us to the Truth and Reconciliation, if Major Silva manages to cleanse it of the Flood,” Cortana replied. “It’s not a likely scenario, but it's all we got at the moment.”

“Still, once we get you in the Autumn’s computer, could you see if there is anything we could use as a backup still in the inventory,” Chief stated, as they walked through the corridor before running into a trio of Infection Forms that appeared from an accessway on the floor, thus destroying the hope that the Flood had not found the Autumn yet. He quickly fired a burst from his Assault Rifle before jumping down. Twilight quickly followed suit, finding herself in the middle of a firefight between the Flood and a group of Sentinels.

Twilight fired her smg at the closest enemies, a bunch of infection forms, easily popping them. She then turned her attention at a sentinel, who burned a combat form into a blackened state, using her smg to penetrate the metal surface at multiple points, the last few rounds destroying the propulsion unit, causing the sentinel to drop to the floor and explode.

She fought with fury against the rest of the enemies in the room, with Chief and her slaying them all. As the last sentinel was destroyed, a hatch on the other side burst open, spewing out another horde of Flood. Twilight snarled as she fired at them, before cursing as she had to reload, just as three combat forms leapt at her. She materialised a shield in front of her, preventing the combat forms from touching her, allowing Chief to blow them into body parts with his shotgun.

She reloaded quickly until a new ping on her motion sensor came into focus; an augmented infection form has entered the vicinity and judging from the bunch of red nots next to it, it wasn’t alone.

Fear started to emerge from within her causing her throat to harden, making it difficult for her to breath. Despite the threat of the augmented infection form being easy to overcome now, she still had flashbacks to that initial encounter, and the subsequent mindrape that occured to her. If it happened before, it can happen again.

She was knocked out of her thoughts by Chief grabbing her and pulling her out of the radius of a carrier form’s explosion.

‘I won’t let that happen again!’ Chief’s promise, unspoken except in his mind, was heard by Twilight, signaling that he had known what she was thinking about. She smiled as she too peered into his mind, the mental connection showing her that his mind was filled with both concern and duty, willing to do anything to protect the human race, Cortana and her.

‘Hopefully, you won’t need to’, she thought back, as she spotted the augmented infection form rush through the broken hatch. She pulled out her pistol, aiming directly at the infection form, ignoring all other flood, and fired an entire magazine at it. It was mostly a waste of ammo, as the infection form died after the fourth round, but she didn’t care. If wasting ammo made her feel better, so be it.

As the last of the Flood were mopped up, again, the pair went through the broken hatch, traversed the short corridor and found themselves in the middle of a skirmish between the Covenant and the Flood. Despite the large number of Flood forms, it seemed the Covenant had the upper hand in the fight, the Spec Ops Elites and Grunts killing dozens of Combat Forms easily. It didn’t help the Flood when three sentinels arrived and began hosing down the combat forms with their lasers.

Twilight immediately used her magic to construct a large spear, and threw it at the nearest Elite, piercing its skull and leaving it hanging on the wall. She then bucked an unfortunate Grunt before firing with her SMG at three more. She then threw an abandoned barricade at one of the Sentinels, the machine having barely enough time to even swivel slightly before exploding on impact.

Then, her blood ran cold as a Hunter entered through one of the hatches that lead to the cafeteria next door. The roar that announced the imminent attack seemed to echo throughout the corridor before a Fuel Rod blast enveloped the area where she had stood just milliseconds before.

Twilight snarled as she materialised behind the Hunter. She pawed the ground as she built up her magic into a single point in her horn, and fired at the Hunter. The bolt of magic struck true, sending the Hunter flying, colliding with the wall and sliding down, its back sizzling from the blast.

Twilight frowned. After her initial contact with the Flood in the containment facility, Twilight’s magic had grown exponentially, providing her with a magic shield and much more powerful spells. Here, she easily killed a hunter, despite how much trouble it took for her magic to penetrate the shield of one in her first encounter. In some way, the Flood had helped her.

She shook her head. No, the Flood used her new potential to fuel their own methods of infection. She was beginning to suspect that she was a tool for them to exploit.

She was knocked back to reality when the second Hunter hit her with its shield, sending her flying across the corridor. If it wasn’t for her magic shield, she would have been killed by the impact, however, she hurt all over.

‘Serves me right for underestimating hunters’ she grimly thought to herself as she got back up on her feet, before spotting the Hunter charging at her.

She raised a magical barrier that broke apart when the fuel rod blast hit it, but then the Hunter wailed and fell to the ground. Twilight looked past the corpse and saw the Chief turn and fire at an unseen threat through the door, a dozen dead Covenant behind him.

He swiftly took cover to the side of the hatch, narrowly avoiding a Fuel Rod Cannon aimed at the spot where his face was. Twilight teleported to the opposite side, reloading her smg.

‘Three Spec Ops Elites, and six Grunts, two with Fuel Rod Cannons’ Chief thought, knowing that Twilight would hear that information through their mental link. She then saw the memory of him looking at the Cafeteria, seeing where all of the Covenant were. It appeared that their mental link had progressed enough that they could send memories to each other now.

She nodded. ‘What to take the left?’ she mentally asked him so that the Covenant wouldn’t hear them. ‘The right is all yours’ he responded.

In a single motion, Twilight teleported the both of them into the cafeteria, near the middle, away from the doorway where the Covenant had their sights aimed. Exploiting the element of surprise, the two of them fired at their respective targets; Chief with the Elites on the left, Twilight with the Grunts armed with Fuel Rod Cannons on the right.

The remaining Covenant reacted quickly, the last Elite fired at Twilight with its dual plasma rifles, moving backwards towards cover as it did so. Twilight simply ignored the pain as the plasma bolts hit her shield. She telekinetically lifted the Elite and threw him down on the ground with enough force to snap his neck. The fleeing Grunts were subsequently mopped up by the Chief.

Just as they were about to move out, another trio of Covenant entered, An Elite followed by two Grunts with Fuel Rod Cannons. As soon as they spotted the duo, the Elite roared and pointed at them, commanding the Grunts to open fire, which they did. Twilight erected a shield that stopped the first three shots, allowing her and the Chief to move out in different directions, firing at the Elite.

One of the Grunts was seemingly enjoying the experience of firing his weapon, as Twilight could hear its ecstatic, almost borderline insane, laughter as it fired round after round at her. The grunt was silenced when Chief threw a plasma grenade which landed on its head. Twilight heard silence for a second before the grunt shrieked, running around and finally exploded, just as it ran past the Elite and its comrade, sending all three of them into oblivion through plasma.

Twilight waited a second for the Fuel Rod Cannons to detonate before she cautiously moved forward. Chief quickly joined her as she arrived at the hatch on the other side of the cafeteria, before entering first, his assault rifle raised. He fired a full magazine at an unseen foe, after which Twilight heard an Elite wail, followed by a thud.

Twilight entered in the corridor, recognizing it as the corridor near the bridge before spotting the corpse of an Elite in dark purple armour, a Covenant Carbine lying next to it.

“What does the purple armour mean?” Twilight asked, curious at the Covenant colour oriented ranks.

“I think it’s a newer variant of the Spec Ops Armour,” Cortana answered. “Some of the Covenant Fleets must be replacing the black armour with this for their spec ops contingents.”

The discussion was interrupted by Grunts armed with a variety of weapons came out of the Bridge, firing as they walked. They were quickly dispatched and the pair entered the bridge.

“The Bridge,” Cortana said. “We made it. Let’s get to work.”

The bridge was barely in one piece. Every inch of the area was either burned, ripped out, bloodstained or smashed. Twilight was amazed that Cortana thought she could even use it for anything.

A single Grunt with a fuel rod cannon was left in the bridge, it’s weapon held in a shaky grip as it saw Twilight and the Chief. It screamed in fear, but still fired a shot before Twilight shot it in the head with her pistol.

“Chief, I need you to upload me into the control systems. The terminal is located next to the main view screen.”

The Chief grunted as he walked towards the view screen. Twilight watched as he took out a chip from the back of his head and inserted it into the terminal. The semi-transparent model of Cortana appeared, who looked around the bridge, shaking her head.

“I leave home for a few days and look what happens.”

“Can’t say the Covenant are into renovating places,” Twilight commented as Cortana brought a hand to her head.

“This won’t take long…” There was a brief pause before Cortana opened her eyes and a countdown appeared on the screen. “There! That should give us enough time to make it to the pelican when it comes and put some distance between ourselves and Halo before detonation.”

Twilight grinned, until another voice was heard.

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”

“Oh, hell.” Cortana stated.

Twilight and the Chief spun around, expecting to see 343 Guilty Spark behind them. Instead, the bridge was devoid of anything, but Twilight could still hear him talking into her ear through her headset.

“Ridiculous! That you would imbue your warship’s AI with such a wealth of knowledge. Wouldn’t you worry that it might be captured? Or destroyed?”

Twilight turned back to face Cortana, who frowned in frustration. “He’s in my data arrays—a local tap.”

Twilight growled as the monitor kept on talking.

“You can’t imagine how exciting this is! To have a record of all our lost time. Human history, is it? Fascinating! Oh, how I will enjoy every moment of categorization. To think that you would destroy this installation, as well as this record… I am shocked. Almost too shocked for words.”

On the screen, the countdown froze, the text turning red as words appeared underneath. “He stopped the self-destruct sequence,” Cortana warned.

“How?” Twilight spoke out, now worried. “Shouldn’t he be here to stop…”

“Why do you continue to fight us, Reclaimer?” Spark demanded. “You cannot win! Give us the construct and the Equine—and I will endeavor to make your and the equine’s deaths relatively painless and…”

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief as the monitor’s words were chopped off as if someone had thrown a switch. “At least I still have control over the comm channels,” Cortana said.

“Where is he?” the Chief asked, Twilight already knowing that he was fearing the worst had come to pass.

“I’m detecting taps throughout the ship,” Cortana replied. “Sentinels most likely. As for the monitor—he’s in engineering. He must be trying to take the core offline. Even if I could get the countdown restarted...I don’t know what to do.”

Twilight looked at the AI in surprise. Throughout her journey here, Twilight has almost completely relied on Cortana to know everything so that she could learn and survive. But this, this was something new.

“Could I try to use magic to…”

“Twilight, I wouldn’t. If you tried anything, it might cause the core to go offline, explode now with little impact or destroy everything. We know very little about how fusion reactors will react to your magic.”

“How much firepower would you need to crack one of the engine shields?” the Chief asked.

Twilight turned to look up at his helmet. Even without having the mental connection, she could somehow tell that he had an idea of what to do, for his voice was determined, filling her with a slim piece of hope.

“Not much,” Cortana replied, “a well-placed grenade perhaps. But why?”

The Chief produced a grenade, tossed the device into the air and caught it again. Twilight couldn’t help but smile at the sight, her hope fully restored. “You were saving that, weren’t you?” she jested, to which the Chief responded with an unseen smile.

Cortana nodded. “Okay, let’s go.”

The Chief began to reach for Cortana’s chip, but was interrupted when a squad of Sentinels flew into view outside of the bridge. “Chief! Sentinels!” Cortana warned as Twilight erected a shield around them.

The Sentinels opened fire, easily burning through the magical bubble as Twilight ducked under the console. The Chief quickly joined her as he removed Cortana from the terminal and inserted her into his helmet.

“Ready to get back to work?” the Chief asked Twilight.

Twilight gave a grim smile. “I thought you’ll never ask.”

The two of them nodded and emerged from cover, weapons raised at the machines.

John reloaded his shotgun for what seemed like the third time in the last few minutes, enjoying the brief moment of silence. Twilight and him were in a passageway heading towards the Cryo chamber, though jammed hatches, locked doors and other obstacles meant that the two of them had to take several detours on the way there.

Not only that, but they were under almost constant attack by either the Flood or Sentinels, so much so that John actually felt relief when they would come across the occasional Covenant squad. Unfortunately, that had not been the case just then, as both he and Twilight fought through a large horde of flood, with most of them being quite resilient. Finally, the last one fell to the combined onslaught of the Spartan and pony duo, but at the expenditure of much of their ammo.

John entered a large room, abandoned rifles, shotguns and pistols on the ground. The sounds of combat could be heard from an area beyond a closed hatch on the far side of the room. He quickly stocked up on ammo, throwing Twilight a couple of magazines for her pistol, before heading for the closed hatch. As he approached, the noise faded away, as the battle beyond seemed to have ended. He opened the hatch, slipped out into the seemingly empty corridor and put his back against the wall, trying not to make a sound.

His caution proved fortuitous for behind a cargo module stood a Hunter, unaware of his presence, judging from the almost lax state of its spines. The second Hunter could be heard moving slowly nearby. Twilight tiptoed next to him, her horn alight, ready for the fight.

‘Just think the thought,’ he heard her in his mind as she aimed at the Hunter.

‘No. Aim for the second hunter when it comes,’ John stated in his mind as he pulled out two grenades. He primed them and threw them over the cargo module, at the first Hunter’s feet. The behemoth went down with a bang, followed by the roar of outrage from its bond brother.

The second Hunter charged at the Spartan, knocking the cargo module away before it was hit with a beam of magic, sending it flying backwards into the wall. It wasn’t dead yet until Twilight teleported directly to it, and fired a hail of bullets at the exposed worms, finally killing it.

“Honestly, Twilight”, Cortana stated as John nodded in approval to Twilight, “I think you’re becoming quite the expert when it comes to dealing with Hunter’s quickly.”

“You think so?” she asked John.

“Yes,” he replied. “Hunters are amongst some of the toughest enemies I’ve ever had to deal with, but you have the potential to quickly kill them without much effort. For me, either heavy grade firepower, tactics or just luck is needed to survive most of my encounters with Hunters.”

Twilight blushed at the compliment, but they were interrupted by the sound of automatic fire in the distance. They made their way through the ship’s corridors, passing past blood-splattered bulkheads, bodies, blown hatches, junction boxes with sparks flying out and a series of small fires that were thankfully fairly well contained. They arrived at a very familiar area, next to the cryo bay. John’s mind briefly flashed back to him escorting Twilight out of the Cryo Bay when she first arrived, believing her to be a potential threat. How the times have changed.

The sounds of combat were coming through a hatch that led into a large room, where another large horde of flood were fighting for control of the room against a group of sentinels. John waited for the combatants to take some losses on both sides before firing at them with his assault rifle, with Twilight flying into the air to avoid contact with the Flood and to deal with the sentinels.

As the room was cleared, John walked over to a ladder at the other side of the room, climbed a ladder up to the catwalk above, where Twilight joined him. From there, they looked on to the otherside of the catwalk, where the Maintenance Control Room was. It was also the stage of another skirmish between the Flood and the Sentinels. They seemed too occupied fighting each other to notice the pair watching them, so John decided to take advantage of that to enter the control room, entering the fight as well.

A big mistake.

At first, it seemed that both him and Twilight were easily taking out the enemy combatants, quickly destroying the sentinels and most of the Flood. But everytime one of them killed a Flood form, two more seemed to arrive to take its place, like the hydra from ancient mythology back on Earth. Soon, both he and Twilight were forced to retreat into an antechamber adjacent to the control room.

Forced against a locked hatch, John fired, kicked and punched his way out of certain death, against a ruthless enemy, running out of ammo completely in his assault rifle. He was thankful that Twilight decided to teleport a short distance away to escape the flood. That way, she was at least safe for a brief moment, allowing her to get her bearings while John took the full brunt of the horde.

He discarded his rifle and pulled out his shotgun, blasting apart several flood forms before forced to reload. He ducked to avoid a tentacle aimed at decapitating him, slicing it off of the main body with his combat knife. Another combat form was hit with the butt of the shotgun.

He was then helped by Twilight, who had managed to procure a container of grenades, priming and throwing them against the seemingly endless horde. The ensuing detonations seemed to bring about a pause in the Flood’s relentless charge, allowing the two of them to escape the room and enter another corridor.

They fought through corridor after corridor, room after room, trying to make their way to Engineering. They dispatched the last member of a Covenant combat team when an augmented infection form threw itself at Twilight, who erected a barrier, a barrier that grew a large hole that the infection form flew through and wrapped its tentacles around Twilight’s neck. It tried to grab Twilight’s horn, but she managed to get a hoof in the way, blocking it from touching her horn, but it was clear she was struggling to hold it back,a fact that she was clearly aware of, due to the overwhelming fear on her face.

“Twilight!” John shouted, rushing towards her, just before a combat form leaped onto his back and smashed a large wrench into his helmet. His shield failed from the force of the blow, allowing an infection form to land on his visor.

Even as he staggered from the impact, trying to grab the slimy bastard, the infection form exposed its penetrator and punched its way through his neck seal, slicing open his bare skin.

John gave a cry of pain as he felt the tentacle slide down his flesh, towards his spine, and knew it was over.

Author's Note

Hi Everyone,

Well, the finale for CE is here, but cut in half. Twilight's in trouble and the Chief may soon be a ravaging Zombie, or will he? You know what's coming.

As you can see, there has been a new cover art for Halo: Twilight of a Spartan. Special thanks to the awesome Str1ker878 for drawing it, and for Equestrian Intelligence for commissioning it. Hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

Next time: exploding ships, rocket launchers and a car drive.

Until next time,
dalek117