John felt the end upon him as the infection form’s tentacle punched through his flesh, getting closer and closer to his spine. Still, despite being held in place by the wrench wielding combat form as it hung on his back, he was determined to fight on, to the end. Nothing less would honour his fallen brothers and sisters, the marines on this ring, Captain Keyes and Twilight.

But he was spared by the sudden intervention of Cortana, or so he assumed. He really couldn’t think of what actually happened, only that he suddenly jerked as the infection form pulsed with what seemed like electricity before popping, sending green blood spray across his visor. Ignoring the sudden swell of pain in his neck, John reached to his back, grabbed the still human arm of the combat form, his grip easily wrapping around the bicep before, in one swift second, tightening it with as much strength he could muster, breaking the arm in half.

With its only method of holding on compromised as the other side of the Spartan’s back was now covered in slick blood, the combat form slid off, its inhuman screech haunting the room. Time slowed down for John as his enhanced reflexes and instinct took over, his body already twisting around, elbowing the flood form a few meters away. His visor partially covered in flood gunk, John could still see well enough to catch the wrench before it touched the floor, leap at the combat form and used his remaining strength to plunge the wrench into the embedded infection form like a knife.

His breathing short and shallow, John wiped some of the gunk off of his visor, his arms heavy with fatigue before his ears caught a groan of horror and weariness originating from behind him. His eyes widened with realisation.

“Twilight!” he shouted as his fatigue instantly vanished, cold adrenaline now pumping in his veins.

He spun around and ran up to the prone pony, still caught in the deadlock between her and the augmented infection form. Her hooves were trembling, veins were popping out in her narrowed eyes, even as tears streamed down her face. Her breathing was rapid, incomplete as the infection form seemed to come closer and closer to her horn with each passing second.

John crossed the distance between them in no time, grabbing the infection form with his bloody hand, his fingers digging into the fleshy sack that was its body, penetrating it in a second, resulting in the inevitable pop.

He had no time to even register his actions before he was tackled by two other combat forms, driving him to the ground, attempting to use their defunct heads to bite him. He threw one off of him with his right hand as his left was used to hold the other combat form at bay, allowing him to alter his position into a much more secure guard position on the ground, protecting him from the combat form for the time being.

His motion sensor pinged red to his side, prompting him to look over with his peripheral vision, witnessing the other combat form get up on its feet and run towards him, before a translucent, purple spear pierced it through the side, ripping it in half.

Taking advantage of the opportunity given to him, John kicked the combat form with his armoured foot, right in the elongated, mutated neck, his superhuman strength breaking through the mutated flesh and breaking the combat form apart.

With the combat form taken care of, and his motion sensor showing no more contacts at the moment, John got up on his feet and looked at the now standing Twilight as she looked back at him, her concern very obvious.

His nerves were on edge and his heart was beating at a rapid pace, but he was alive and so was Twilight. That’s all that matters. At least, that’s what he told himself as he picked up his shotgun with trembling hands. His neck seared with pain from his wound, with his hand instinctively reaching out to it, only to find it half covered by his helmet in a way that his fingers couldn’t properly reach it.

“Chief?” Twilight whispered, as if afraid to speak. He glanced at her, the mental connection between the both of them conveying her demoralised state of mind to him. He sighed as he realised that she wasn’t demoralised from her encounter this time, rather seeing her armoured protector, her friend, almost fall, potentially becoming a combat form. Everything that they had gone through, and it was a single, fleshy ball that almost brought him down. It was a wakeup call for the both of them for how vulnerable he truly was. Only dumb luck, and Cortana, saved him.

“I’m alright” he lied to her as he straightened up, grasping his hand to stop the shaking, an action that did not go unnoticed by Twilight. She stared directly at his visor.

“No, you’re not, Chief!” She stated harshly. “You were almost infected! If you were fine, I would be even more worried for your state of mind.” She tapped her head with her hoof. “I can read your thoughts, so don’t bother lying to me, especially in your state!”

John was surprised at Twilight’s change of tone and attitude. She rarely even talked like that at all. He simply turned to look at her as tears began to stream down her face.

“I...I know that war is all you know! I know that you had no choice but to fight with everything you got, to remain strong for me, but you were so close to dying....no, suffering a fate worse than death, and I HAVE HAD IT WITH DEATH! I HAVE HAD IT WITH WATCHING MY FRIEND, WHOSE REAL NAME I ONLY KNOW FROM READING HIS MIND, ALMOST DIE FOR ME, AGAIN AND AGAIN, WITHOUT COMPLAINT OR EVEN REGRET!”

She ran up to him, knocking him back a few steps with the force of the collision and wrapped her hooves around him, sobbing into his armour.

“I don’t want to lose you, John!”

John’s eyes widened as for the first time, Twilight actually said his real name. The one he rarely told anyone. As he processed what he just heard, he realised how she knew.

“How long?” he asked in a quiet voice.

“Since you rescued me from the Flood,” sobbed out Twilight, who unwrapped her hooves and stood back, her tears slowing down. “I only heard the name, and saw some memories, but it took me a while to connect them to you.”

“If you knew his name, then why didn’t you call him that this entire time?” Cortana asked, curious.

“I guess I’m just used to calling him the Chief, Cortana”, Twilight answered with a sheepish smile.

“I don’t mind what you call me”, John assured her as he knelt in front of her, placing his hand on her shoulder. “It doesn’t change anything about how we view others or each other. We’ll still be friends, no matter what names we give each other.”

Twilight smiled. “You sound like me giving a friendship lecture back in Equestria.”

“And I promise that you’ll get back home” John said as he stood up. “But for now, we need to destroy Halo and get out of here.”

Twilight smiled, but realised that John was still bleeding at his neck wound. He seemed to realise this as well as he lifted his hands to his helmet and lifted it slightly to the side, allowing him to pull out an infection form’s appendage from the wound.

As he applied some antiseptic to the wound, Twilight turned around and grabbed her SMG from the ground, reloading it. She sighed as she saw that she had only one full magazine left of ammo for it. She would have to use it wisely.

John, now finished with patching himself up, led the way once more, the two of them now running through a series of passageways before encountering a Covenant patrol. Twilight used her magic to blast an Elite into oblivion while John ripped another apart with his shotgun before switching to an assault rifle and killing the grunts with short, controlled bursts of bullets.

Twilight attached her SMG to her belt and picked up a plasma rifle from one of the dead Elites, firing a trio of bolts to test it out before following John through the hatch into another network of maintenance tunnels, where infection forms lay in ambush. Her plasma rifle proved to be an effective weapon in the close space of the tunnel, each bolt burning an infection form with ease.

“Huh,” she said as she decided that the plasma rifle might be something she would use a lot more if she ran out of ammo or access to UNSC weapons. She still had to watch out for the overheating function though, and that she only had a limited amount of shots.

After maneuvering through the tunnels, the pair exited into another main corridor, this time with two paths, the main one leading to Engineering, the other one leading to an Armory. Knowing that time was not on their side, they went down the path to Engineering. The silence was unsettling, as Twilight had somehow got used to the chaos of battle and the quietness had become unusual.

They entered a new type of corridor, one that was more square and smooth in shape. As they traversed it and rounded the corner, Cortana spoke out.

“Engine Room located. We’re here.”

As if summoned by Cortana’s words, a pair of sentinels flew towards them, firing their beams at John. They were easily dispatched, but the familiar humming from 343 Guilty Spark could be heard.

“Of course he would be close by,” Twilight muttered to herself before remembering that Cortana had said that he was in Engineering beforehand.

“Alert!” Cortana suddenly cried out as the pair approached the main hatch. “The Monitor has disabled all command access. We can’t restart the countdown. The only remaining option will be to detonate the ship’s fusion reactors. That should do enough damage to destroy Halo.”

“If there’s no countdown, how will we get out?” Twilight asked, dread starting to fill her up once more, but Cortana’s reply dispelled it quite quickly. “The fusion reactors will take some time to explode after destabilization. We’ll use that time to reach the rendezvous point with Foehammer and get out of here.”

“However, we still need to start the process, so I’ll walk you through the most effective way to cause the reactor to go critical with what we have. First, we’ll need to pull back the exhaust coupling. That will expose a shaft that leads to the primary fusion drive core.”

“Oh, good.” John said as he reloaded his assault rifle. “Despite your assurances, I have a feeling that this isn’t going to be easy.”

“When has it ever been easy on this ring?” Twilight commented as they walked in front of the hatch, only for her motion sensor to go crazy. Her eyes widened as it displayed that there were five augmented infection forms past the hatch, meaning that her magic will be a liability when she enters Engineering.

“Shit”, she heard John say as he too saw the data. “That complicates things.” he looked at the hatch, then down the way they came before finally turning to face Twilight.

“Twilight, teleport back to the junction outside of the Engineering section and head for the nearest Armory,” he ordered as he opened the hatch, revealing a large room that had huge platforms and machinery everywhere, as well as lots of Flood and Sentinels fighting for control of it. “Once there, grab a rocket launcher and as much ammo as you can carry before teleporting back here. I’ll deal with the first step and as many of those augmented infection forms so you can use your magic properly.”

“What if they form five Abominations?!” Twilight asked.

“That’s what the rocket launcher will be for,” John replied, “If you run out of ammo for it, teleport back to the Armory, collect it then teleport back here. Understood?”

“On it, Chief!” Twilight reflexively replied, as John ran in, firing at a group of Flood. Twilight did as John asked, materialising back in the main corridor and running down the path that led to the Armory. It wasn’t far, so it only took her a few dozen seconds to reach it. She quickly entered the room, spotting a whole bunch of rocket launchers and rockets on the far side, as well as plenty of ammo for the shotgun, assault rifle, magnum, smg and dmr. What she didn’t spot were the multiple shimmers across the entire room until she accidently bumped into one.

She staggered backwards before powering up her horn, ready to take on the stealth elites, only they weren’t stealth elites, not anymore. No, these were flood combat forms with active camouflage, and there were a dozen of them. Fortunately, rushing towards her while roaring helped Twilight spot all of them, and she used up the remaining ammo on her plasma rifle and SMG to kill all of the Flood.

Sighing in relief, Twilight ran to the rocket launchers, grabbed one and some ammo for it before teleporting back to where she had left John. As she entered Engineering, she noticed that three of the five augmented infection forms weren’t on her radar anymore, and her magic didn’t feel like it was as erratic as it could be. She spotted John on one of the platforms above her, though she gasped as he dove to the side, barely avoiding being hit by a large barrel, almost rolling off the edge. Her shock turned into horror as two Abominations made their way towards him.

Her horror was replaced with rage and hatred as she raised her rocket launcher, aimed it at the Abomination closest to John and snarled.

“Infect this, you bastard!” The rocket flew directly into the sack-like head of the Abomination, rupturing the entire body of the Flood form. Twilight couldn’t help but smile at the devastation she caused on the Flood form, but the other Abomination turned its attention to her, and now lifted several barrels with HER magic and threw them at her.

“Oh, now you’ve done it, YOU BASTARDS!!!” Twilight shouted, giving into her anger and hatred of the Flood, blasting all of the barrels into dust with a single magic blast from her horn. As the Abomination shot a magic blast at her, she deflected it with her stronger magic.

‘So the augmented forms can control my magic, but not so much as Abominations’ Twilight realised, her mouth in the form of a feral smile. Now she had the advantage!

She launched a direct attack at the Abomination, but the Flood form seemed to absorb some of it, making the beam’s effect weaker than she expected, while also powering its own captured magic. Her smile fell as the Abomination leapt off of the platform with the intention of crushing her with its large tentacles. She teleported out of the way, but was struck when one tentacle swiped across the floor, knocking her back a fair distance.

This only made her even angrier, her horn pulsating with magic, her eyes glowing with hate. She got up onto her hooves, and charged right at the Abomination, while grabbing as many loose objects off of the floor and throwing them at it. It raised its arms to block the objects from hitting its head, before Twilight materialised a sword and sliced one of the tentacles off.

As she ran past and skidded to a stop, she looked on in satisfaction as the Abomination spewed out blood and gore out of its gaping wound. ‘Ha, serves that thing right...Wait, why am I satisfied with this! This is disgusting and horrible!’

She stopped, realising what she was doing and how she was enjoying being angry at the Flood, taking pleasure at seeing it get hurt in any gruesome way she could inflict on it. Granted, it’s the Flood, but this isn’t the way her friends would want her to feel. She winced as she understood that her anger and hate had blinded her to more sensible options to take out the Abomination.

Her pause allowed the Abomination to wrap its tentacle around her and throw her at John, who had just finished off fighting a horde of Flood. She crashed into the super soldier, sending them both falling onto the floor on the second level. John got up first, pulling Twilight up, just as the Abomination climbed up to their level. However, Twilight had regained much of her composure and senses, thus she telekinetically grabbed the fallen rocket launcher and fired it at the Abomination, killing it.

The two of them had a three second breather each before resuming their task. As they went to work, Cortana listed off the procedure and her recommendations. “Twilight, hand Chief the launcher. He’ll do the damage, while you go up to the third level and activate those panels, which will retract the shielding and give us a straight shot into the fusion reactor. Chief, once Twilight has activated the release mechanism, use your rockets to destabilise the magnetic containment field surrounding the fusion cell. We only have to do this four times, so save those rockets, Chief.”

“I’ve got enough for one rocket on each target” John remarked as he positioned himself, reloading the launcher. “If worse comes to worse, I’ve grabbed some grenades that’ll do the trick.”

“Since I have the ability to fly, I’ll just go to each panel, then once we’re done with this side, I’ll teleport you to the other side, Chief,” Twilight told John, who nodded.

She flew to the nearest control panel, activated it and watched as the cover was released, revealing a rectangular slot, which John fired a single rocket into, the explosion causing Twilight to put up a shield around her out of reflex. They quickly moved on to the second panel, though Twilight was distracted momentarily by a trio of sentinels, along with the Monitor, who had flown down to see what was happening.

“This is unacceptable, Reclaimer!” Guilty Spark stated in an annoyed tone, “Cease your actions immediately and surrender both your construct and equine companion!”

“Not going to happen!” John shouted as he put a burst of bullets into one of the Sentinels, causing it to fall to the lowest level and explode. Twilight activated the second panel and was subsequently hit by a sentinel beam, causing her skin to feel like it was being burned, yet it wasn’t as her magical shield was still up.

“How very interesting” Guilty Spark commented when seeing her shields in action. “It appears that the equine has almost permanent neural physical shields. Oh, how your dissection will help us develop countermeasures against future outbreaks!”

“Fuck you!” she shouted as John blew up the second opening, while Twilight fired a bolt at Spark, who easily dodged it. He continued to ramble on about how much of a scientific goldmine she was, ignoring all of the attempts she made to kill him as he hovered there, dodging left, right and center.

“Twilight, focus!” John said, having had to move to the ground level to get to the other side so he could shoot the two openings on the other side.

“Right.” she said, finally turning her attention away from the monitor. She teleported to the nearest panel on the other side and activated it, just as more Flood jumped down from somewhere above to ambush her. She looked up just in time, rolling out of the way as the combat forms used their tentacle hands to crush the platform panels she was just standing on. She pushed them back with a spell before firing her SMG at them, killing all but one, who she finished off with a magical constructed sword. The sword did the physical damage, but Twilight still saw the magic from it begin to get absorbed. However, she did find that the sword was great at slicing through the armour of the Elites: something useful against the Covenant. She morphed the sword into a spear, throwing it at a Sentinel. She didn’t even see it get destroyed as she was already pressing the button on the control panel, then sprinted to the last one.

She activated it and watched as John sent two well aimed rockets into both openings, completing the objective. The room began to shake, and a piercing siren wailed high above them.

“That did it! The engine has gone critical!” Cortana exclaimed as Twilight teleported John up to where she was. “We have fifteen minutes to get off the ship!”

“Do we have an escape route?” John asked, firing at a Sentinel that got too close with his Assault Rifle.

“Preferably one that’s close by!” Twilight gave a shriek in surprise as part of the platform next to her gave way.

On Twilight’s eyepiece, a nav point appeared. “There!” Cortana stated. “The third deck elevator. It will take us to a Class Seven service corridor that runs the length of the ship. Hurry!”

Twilight spotted the path, and teleported the two of them further down it, only where Twilight could see. After that, the two of them ran to the hatch, fighting through a pair of combat forms that seemed to be waiting there aimlessly, all without stopping. After having sped through the passageway, they arrived in one of the regular, larger corridors that they had previously travelled through in the ship, coming up directly at a large elevator area, where the nav point was.

Twilight sighed in relief, they were finally going to stop the Flood for good, and get off of this beautiful, yet terrifying and horrible Ringworld. This place has too many bad memories for her now. To the side, she saw John slightly relax as well as the elevator was coming to them. But then Cortana shouted a warning as the lift came to a halt from below.

Twilight felt time slow down as she turned around, her eyes widening as she registered the snarl from the Spec Ops Elite as he aimed his shade turret at John and opened fire.

It could only be described as luck that Cortana’s warning came at the right time. By the time the shade turret, along with the three Grunt escorts, had arrived, John was already in motion, backing away, allowing him to dodge the first three shots. However, he still took enough hits to dangerously deplete his shields before he got behind cover.

He heard a yelp of surprise before Twilight teleported next to him, as a fuel rod blast ripped through the air where she was a second before. It seemed that at least one Grunt was armed with a Fuel Rod Cannon.

“Where did that come from?” he exclaimed, furious at being caught off guard. And he also noted that the Elite gunner was ready to fire at the entrance, at him specifically, even though the turret’s barrel was aimed closer to Twilight. He easily concluded that the Elite was specifically gunning for him with a vengeance, leaving the Grunts to kill Twilight. If he had hesitated for a second, the Elite might have succeeded.

“It looks like someone has been tracking you,” Cortana said grimly, most likely having come to a similar conclusion to him.

He only had a limited amount of time to act, with the shade turret melting through his cover. Fortunately, just as the cover melted, Twilight erected a shield around them, absorbing the continuous fire from the shade, a volley of fuel rods and several plasma bolts. The shield began to crack, yet it had given them a breather.

“I’ll take control of the elevator and cause it to drop. Twilight, blast them from the sky when they’re distracted while Chief, roll a couple of grenades down the shaft.”

“Roger!”

“Got it!”

Just before the magical bubble shield broke, the lift suddenly dropped down, with very little time to process the action. John ran to the shaft, already having primed a grenade while Twilight swept past him and sent a single, yet large bolt of magic down at the plummeting squad of Covenant. If there were any unfortunate souls who survived Twilight’s bolt, their lives were painfully ended by an explosive packed full of shrapnel.

John couldn’t help but wince when he saw the result of the carnage as Cortana brought the blood stained and burnt lift back up to them. Twilight, despite having been exposed to gore and violence for a while now, still gagged at the sight of the mangled bodies and the stench. The two of them reluctantly stepped onto the platform and felt it rise at a fast rate. They were just in time, as the corridor they were just in erupted into flames, the sight of it sobering up John and Twilight.

As they ascended, Cortana contacted Foehammer over the radio in order for her to come pick them up. As he felt several explosions, John’s eyes constantly flicked towards the countdown timer that Cortana had projected. He just wished that the platform would be faster, even though it already was quite fast.

Twilight wasn’t much better. He could tell from her fidgeting and her ears rigidly straight. He softly patted her head as a means of calming her down, if only very slightly, even as he and her listened to Cortana’s conversation.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, yet was only a minute, the lift came to a halt. The pair quickly ran off while Cortana spoke to the both of them. “We have six minutes before the fusion drives detonate. We need to evacuate now! The explosion will generate a temperature of almost a hundred million degrees. Don’t be here when it blows!”

“A hundred million degrees?!” Twilight exclaimed. “I can’t even fathom that high of a temperature.”

John ignored Twilight’s statement as they entered a warthog hangar, where there were a dozen still parked. He ran to the closest one and jumped into the driver’s seat. As he ignited the engine, Twilight flew to the turret on the rear.

“I wouldn’t recommend getting on that” John warned. “It requires human-like limbs to operate the trigger.”

“And somehow, I can still operate triggers with physical contact from my hooves,” Twilight stated as she jumped on, her horn lighting up as she materialised boots onto her back hooves, allowing her to stand up and operate the turret like a human while not at risk from slipping off. She gave John a ‘told you so’ expression as she swivelled the turret to the side and back, showing off.

John shrugged before turning his attention back to the warthog and the countdown. It was already five minutes and forty seconds. With that in mind, John pushed down on the accelerator and drove out of the bay, right into a skirmish between Covenant and Flood. He ran over an Elite and three combat forms, driving past the rest as Twilight maneuvered the turret to open fire. His mental link with her told him that she was preferring killing Flood over Covenant, which he could hardly blame her for.

He drove up the ramp as it bent a curve, before continuing down the slope as he didn’t want to lose any time at all, but slow enough that he could slow down or stop to prevent a mistake from occurring. John swerved to the right as an explosion caused a part of the Autumn’s superstructure to come crashing down into the warthog’s path.

He avoided crashing into the debris and continued onwards into a large, open room, with several pillars, arches and platforms on different levels. John chose to drive straight through the middle, going down a ramp that quickly led back up, the momentum carrying the warthog into the air before falling back down to the floor, the suspension working overtime to prevent the warthog from flipping.

Twilight growled as she fired at several sentinels who fired at the warthog, leaving scorch marks on the side of it. John noticed that her aim with the turret wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t as bad as he would have thought for an equine. His attention quickly returned to driving the ‘hog as he went down another ramp and back up, this time the momentum carrying the ‘hog over a shade turret, which fortunately had just finished blasting a horde of flood to the side, allowing John to drive out of its range before the turret even finished swivelling to face them.

The corridor they entered was designed in a way that made John cringe. Who designed maintenance hallways this large to curve left and right like a snake? If he could meet the designer of the Halcyon class, John would have a chat about this. Even so, the warthog traversed the corridor quickly, driving past several fleeing Covenant squads.

They passed through four more large rooms, each different from the last before John slowed the warthog as he reached the navpoint Cortana laid out for him and Twilight.

“Wait! Stop!” Cortana exclaimed in an insistent manner. “This is where Foehammer is supposed to meet us.”

John brought the warthog to a stop and looked to his left to see Echo-419 barely able to keep itself in the air, It wasn’t long before the banshee trailing it fired a blast from it’s fuel rod cannon sending the dropship into a nosedive. John knew that foehammer was done for, likely scrambling with the controls to attempt to make a survivable landing. What surprised him was a feeling of determination from Twilight as she disappeared and then promptly reappeared with the pilot in tow.

“Foehammer, take shotgun!” John barked to the stunned pilot. “We’re getting off this damn ring.”

“There's a Longsword in launch-bay seven.” Cortana said with a sense of urgency. “If we move now, we can make it!”

John gunned the warthog as the timer raced towards zero, propelling the vehicle across a large gap, almost losing Foehammer and Twilight in the process. They finally reached the nav point, right behind a series of containers that prevented the warthog from going further. With just more than a minute left, John and Twilight leaped from the warthog, the spartan slinging Foehammer over his shoulders and the trio booked it for the Longsword

Twilight’s eyes widened as she took a quick glance at the countdown: 01:02:45. Just over a minute left. They sprinted towards the longsword fighter on top of the raised platform as both sides of the walkway were filled with explosions, bodies, and firefights. Why a straight path to their objective couldn't be simple was a question only Celestia herself knew the answer to.

Twilight cried out in surprise as the body of an Elite collided into her, the neck spewing out blood where the head should have been. She threw it off before dodging the combat form that swung at her with a bloodied tentacle. She kicked it away before teleporting to the top of the platform to make up for time.

“Take Foehammer and run!” John shouted as he tossed the pilot the way a desperate outfielder would chuck a baseball to the man at third base when the opposing team had two outs.

Twilight panicked before catching her with her magic, teleporting the both of them to the entrance of the longsword. Foehammer only spent a few seconds puking before running up the ramp and starting the launch sequence, while Twilight waited for John at the end of the ramp, only 40 seconds left.

She smiled as she saw John climb up onto the platform, sprinting as fast as he could towards her, her smile fading as she spotted a large horde of Flood following him. With speed that would make Rainbow Dash take notice, Twilight slammed her hoof on the button to close the ramp. Thankfully John cleared the distance and managed to soar through the gap, his armoured body grinding to a halt on the Longsword’s lower deck.

Twilight felt the longsword shift underneath her as Foehammer called out. ‘We’re clear of the Autumn and are almost clear of the atmosphere!”

Twilight went to help John up, but he was already on his feet, racing to the cockpit where Foehammer was at the controls. Twilight followed and found John jumping into the co-pilot’s seat next to Foehammer, motioning for Twilight to get in her own seat, which she did.

Twilight looked out of the window and was amazed at how fast the longsword was travelling, the blue sky quickly turning into black as the longsword broke free of Halo’s atmosphere.

‘Shut off the engine’s Foehammer.” Cortana said, “We’ll need them later.”

Twilight felt the smartfoam of the Longsword’s seat shift and expand to accommodate her equine stature. She was distracted by a bright flash of light as the Pillar of Autumn’s reactors went super critical and exploded. No sooner had the crater started to cool, did she notice the area around it start to shift and buckle until a char of Halo broke free. She watched as this shard tumbled across space shearing through the opposite side of the ring.

John stood up and strode over to Twilight, joining her in watching the ring fall to pieces. They watched as Halo slowly broke itself apart from lack of structural integrity as the ring continued to spin in space.

“Did anyone else make it?” John asked to the side, causing Foehammer to look down at her controls in order to not face the Spartan.

“Scanning” Cortana paused for a moment before speaking again. “Just… dust and echoes, Chief. We’re all that’s left.”

“Last thing I heard over the com in the pelican was that the Truth and Reconciliation was going down,” Forehammer added. “I don’t think anyone made it off that ship.”

Twilight’s ears drooped in sorrow as she thought about all those human lives that were so close to making it off the ring, only to have died at the last moment. She thought of Lieutenant McKay, who was the first ODST to actually be nice to her, and the marines that she conversed with back at Alpha base.

“We did what we had to do” Cortana stated, as if trying to convince everyone about the means justifying the ends. “For Earth. An entire Covenant armada obliterated, and the Flood… We had no choice! Halo’s finished.”

With a grim look in her face, Twilight looked over at John as he removed his helmet before saying, “No. The Covenant are still out there. Earth and for all I know Equis, are still in danger. We’re just getting started.”

Author's Note

Hi Everyone,

Life... life is a hard mistress to please. I can't apologise enough for this chapter taking this long to come out. Between everything that has happened lately and Uni being ever present, it has taken more than two months to complete this chapter. Special thanks to Equestrian Intelligence for helping out and co-writing parts of this chapter!

Now, we can celebrate as we have now completed Halo CE!!! Next up will be the novel Halo: First Strike! SO expect some combat in outer space and the return of a certain cigar wielding Sergeant.

Personal message from Equestrian Intelligence: Writing this chapter was a bitch, and life got in the way, especially for dalek. I thought that since we had y'all wait two months, might as well same a key pelican pilot. I hope you enjoyed.

Until next time!
dalek117