Twilight slowly opened her eyes only to find herself on a bed of sorts, with wires and monitors attached all across her body, especially her flank. Her vision still blurry and her mind still dazed, she struggled to take off one of the wires when a hand stopped her.

"Please don't do that, not yet at least", an unfamiliar voice was heard. She tried to locate the origin, but she still couldn't see anything.

"Your still in the early stages of consciousness after such a vicious wound, and an even more remarkable healing process, so I'm sure that you'll be quite tired and dizzy." The voice seemed to become distant. "Go back to sleep. I'll wake you up in an hour."

Twilight didn't hear most of what the voice said, as her eyes started to close once more. All that she heard before she went under was a new voice, that sounded more deep and menacing.

"Yes...sleep well, for you still have much to do, and experience."

Twilight woke up once again, though she remembered nothing of the time when she woke up beforehand. However, she felt very refreshed and somehow safe. Until she remembered what happened to her flank.

Panicking, her eyes went to her flank, with her trying to move in a certain way so she could see what happened to her. Surprisingly, all that was visually there was just a large scar. However, when her hoof touched the fur around the scar, it hurt like hell, emphasising the flesh still being raw from her wound.

She looked around at her surroundings, and found herself to be inside a large tent, with a few beds and equipment similar to that on the Pillar of Autumn. There were a few humans on the beds, though like on the Autumn, some of the beds had the occupants fully covered with a sheet.

'So, this must be like a makeshift hospital', she thought to herself.

It was at this moment that another human walked through the entry flaps of the tent. It was a female, and was dressed in another unique set of armour that was darker in tone, and had more armour pieces on it, though not as much as the Chief had. She had her 'hair' cut short on the sides and flat on the top, and her face was quite balanced with green eyes, full lips and a slightly flattened muzzle...nose, not a muzzle.

The female strode over to her bed.

"How are you feeling?" she asked Twilight.

"Like a timberwolf trampled all over my head and flank", Twilight groaned out, rubbing her face.

"Well, you did take a needle to your ass, so I'm very surprised that's the most your feeling." If Twilight wasn't so drowsy, she would have been appalled at the use of swearing. Instead, she was once more inquisitive.

"A Needle?", she asked.

"A small, needle projectile used by the Covenant in their Needlers", the human explained. "Each shard homes in on any heat signatures, making them hard to evade, and also highly explosive. If you thought your wound was bad with just one needle, two or three hits on an unarmoured human would have caused the human to be ripped apart by the explosion."

"Oh, great" Twilight spat out, "another thing to worry about. Don't the Covenant have anything better to do than kill or design weapons to kill?"

"Well, we do know that they are very religious, so they probably worship something, such as this ring where we are on now."

"Have they always been this...zealous?", Twilight asked.

"Yes, Considering how they decreed three decades ago that our extinction was 'the will of the gods'" the human said, a hint of anger and hate entering her voice.

Twilight shrunk back a tiny bit into her bed. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." the human put forward her hand. "First Lieutenant Melissa Mckay", she announced herself .

Smiling, Twilight put her own hoof out to shake McKay's hand. "Princess Twilight Sparkle"

"I heard about how you managed to fight off the Covenant pretty well on the Autumn", McKay noted, then added "for an alien race that is quite pacifistic."

Twilight paled at the mention of fighting, but managed to ignore her disgust for it. "How do you know about my..."

"Cortana briefed us on what you've told her about your species aversion to fighting and killing." McKay's face became sympathetic. "I'm sorry you had to get involved like that."

Twilight shook her head. "It's my fault", she said, "at my home planet, I did something stupid by activating an ancient ruin and was teleported onto the Autumn as a result."

It was then that she remembered what she had discovered beforehand.

"The same builders", she stated out loud, much to McKay's confusion. "This ring, and the ruins on my home planet that teleported me here have the same architecture, which means whoever built the ruins built this ring!"

McKay's eyebrows went up, the only sign of her being surprised, before she put her hand up to her ear, listening to something. After a moment, she nodded and looked back at Twilight.

"Are you feeling well enough to be able to come with me?"

Twilight considered her answer, and the state of her body, for while she was still in a small amount of pain, she could theoretically move about. After a moment of hesitation, she nodded. Siting upright at the bed's edge, she planted her hooves on the floor, and walked sluggishly up to McKay.

The pair exited the tent, revealing an open space filled with humans running about and hastily assembled portable buildings and equipment, both human and Covenant, which the humans must have captured. There were also some bodies on the ground, which groups of humans were picking up and taking out of sight. Debris and burnt sections of nature and structures were everywhere.

McKay led Twilight to a much smaller tent than the medical one she was in before. Outside the flaps were two guards, in a similar uniform to McKay. As they approached, the guards saluted McKay, but gave Twilight a semi hostile glare. Noticing Twilight's discomfort with them, McKay gave the guards her own glare, causing them to look away in guilt.

"Don't mind them", she said, gesturing for Twilight to enter first. "They've never met a friendly Alien before. That, and they're drop happy."

"What do you mean?", Twilight asked, stopping before the flap.

"Well, they and I are part of an Elite Special Forces branch of the UNSC Marine Corps, the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, or ODST for short. That stare they were giving you, every other person who isn't an ODST gets that as well from some ODSTs."

"Oh", was all Twilight could say. 'These humans are quite fascinating.', she thought to herself. 'I wish both of our species could get to know each other in a more peaceful way and environment.' She straightened up and walked through the flaps.

Inside was a human male sitting on a scavenged chair behind a similarly acquired desk. Twilight noticed that this man had some 'fur' around his mouth and chin. His hair was grey, and his face had some wrinkles on it.

"Welcome", he said, sitting upright as he saw Twilight enter. "I'm Major Antonio Silva, commander of the Autumn's contingent of ODSTs. I see you met my second in command, Lieutenant McKay."

"Princess Twilight Sparkle." Twilight lost count of how many times she had said her name, or how many times she probably will have to say it.

"So I've heard", Silva stood up and walked over to her. "Captain Keyes managed to give me a very brief update on you before the Autumn crashed and his subsequent capture."

"Well I didn't say that much anyway and … Wait, Did you say Capture?!"

Ignoring her outburst, Silva continued on.

"That being said, let's get to the reason why you're here," he said with a darker tone, rising from behind the desk and approaching her. Suddenly feeling intimidated by the human in front of her, Twilight unconsciously took a step back. The human studied Twilight in silence for a few uncomfortable moments before speaking again. "I'll be honest with you, princess. I don't like you. Even if Cortana is vouching for you, I still believe that your very presences here poses a threat not just to us, but to humanity as a whole," he bluntly declared. "You're an unknown factor in an already precarious situation. If it wasn't for the help you've provided us so far, I would have personally removed the risk that you represent the moment you stepped in our base."

Twilight gulped at his open hostility, briefly glancing at the pistol holstered at his hip. So far, Silva was the only human to outright threaten her. She suddenly wished for the Master Chief to be here with her. Even though her friends back in Equestria would be more comforting for her, the Chief was still a human and may be able to reason with any human who distrusted her. But, how did she know he didn't have secret orders to kill her if she did something bad. Even worse, he could be...

Agh, this complicated thought process was too much to handle. Better if she just ignored it and focused back at what was at hand. She composed herself and stared right back at Silva, ignoring the growing sense of anger within her.

"I only just met humanity through an accident." She explained to Silva. "Why would I cause harm to your species? Not only I empathise with you, but I personally find you quite fascinating."

"I don't know", he admitted, "Fear of the unknown? Jealousy over our achievements? There's a number of possibilities. For all I know, you may end up embracing the Covenant mentality."

"Or maybe I'm being truthful and you're letting your paranoia cloud your judgement," Twilight pointed out, honestly offended by his insinuations.

"Maybe," he was forced to admit. "But paranoia is what helped my people surviving all these years." The major leaned against his desk and crossed his arms. "You want to prove you're not a threat to humanity?" Twilight nodded. "Fine. Then help us fight off this ring, so we all can return back to our civilizations."

"Wh...What?!" Twilight stepped back, appalled by Silva's request. And from the looks of things, so was McKay.

"Are you suggesting that I continue to kill in order to show that I'm..."

"Yes", Silva said in a serious tone. Then his face became softer. "Look, I don't want you to fight every battle on the ring, though your magic does make you an extremely valuable warrior on the field. And, I would like you to be with a taskforce, whose mission I think you may accept."

Twilight's eyes narrowed at this. "How do you know what I may like, since you're asserting that I should kill for you?", she said in a dark tone.

Silva did not even blink. "Because, I know how nicely Captain Keyes treated you when you arrived, and since you call yourself the 'Princess of Friendship', I assumed you would want to help us rescue him from the Covenant."

Twilight hesitated once again, thoughts flying through her brain. After a pause, she looked Silva in the eyes.

"Do I have a choice?", she said, both bitter and reluctant.

"Sir, she's too innocent for combat.", McKay inserted herself into the conversation before any word could exit Silva's mouth. "From the Chief's report, she doesn't have the mental state to handle..."

"I know, I was there when he said it", Silva interrupted calmly. "But we are trapped on an unknown structure in space, with the Covenant owning much of it. Our commanding officer has been captured, most likely being tortured as we speak for information. We are cut off from the rest of human space, and since Reach has been glassed, there is very little of our space still intact. I'm very desperate for any advantage over the Covenant, and this pony is it. So I'm willing to send her out into battle so we can ALL live." His voice raised only slightly for the last sentence, but it drove the point home.

"That being said", he started, turning back to Twilight. "I won't send you off to war unprepared, or unguarded. I'm assigning the Master Chief to you as a protector, but where he goes, you go. Is that clear?"

Twilight calmed down slightly at the news of the Chief helping her. Out of all the humans, she seemed to trust him the most. Though she was hurt several times already, he had ensured that she would survive and recover.

But, it was more likely that he would be sent to the most dangerous areas on the ring, with the Covenant in greater numbers than other places. Still, a gut feeling told her that it would be all right. But she found it interesting that Silva's tone became almost scolding when he announced the Chief. She wondered why.

"Ok", she said, much to Silva's joy and McKay's guilt. "I'll help get Captain Keyes."

"Great", Silva said, rubbing his hands together. "I'll get the Chief and some marines to train you for combat, and to survive."

"Oh, sweet Celestia…" was all Twilight managed to get out before she fell to the ground, every bone, muscle and organ in her body sore from hours of constant training. Her fur was drenched in sweat and her mane was covering her eyes. Her hooves and chest were also bruised in concentrated area, though her Alicorn metabolism would ensure that they would disappear after an hour or two.

In front of her stood the Chief and the human known as Sergeant Johnson. The three of them were in an almost completely open area with Johnson's squad of marines scattered throughout it, having watched the three with intense attention.

The past three hours started with a simple lesson by the Chief and Johnson, teaching Twilight about the basics of combat, both close-quarters and ranged, hoof to hoof and firearm. It was also very enlightening to see two marines do a sparring match between each other: How they used every advantage against the other. Her newly acquired notebook had a large number of pages filled with details and calculations from the sparring match.

Then, Johnson called Twilight up, not to receit what she had seen, but to do a trial fight against none other than the Chief. And the rules were that Twilight would have to be the aggressive one and the Chief would have to retaliate. To put what happened in a simple way: Twilight had her flank kicked.

Within a drawn circle, Twilight's goal was to knock the Chief onto the ground, or push him out of the circle. The Chief's goal was to remain in the circle until a timer finishes. Within half an hour, they had done eight rounds, only one of which Twilight won because she used her magic to push the Chief out by surprise. Otherwise, it ended with her always failing due to the Chief's fast reflexes and his own training, managing to easily overpower her through tactics and knocking her out of the ring.

Other than seriously draining her energy, the exercise was a wake up call at the importance of learning close quarters combat. So Twilight was not surprised when they decided to get her to try out some fighting with a combat knife one of the marines produced. What did surprise her was the corpse of a dead grunt they had brought out for her to use it on.

"Why in Celestia's name are you bringing that here?!", she shouted, appalled at the thought of it all.

"Well", Johnson started, "we don't have a practice dummy with us, so we have to improvise with what we have. Secondly, it would be best to learn where to strike on an opponent. This way, you will have more visual information on how to kill an opponent, and which spot to aim for on each enemy."

He noticed Twilight's disgusted expression and went for a softer tone. "Look, I'm not happy about it either. Personally, I wouldn't even have you fight for us. However, I can't change that, but I can change the chance of you surviving, and I'm making sure that it is as high as it can be."

He walked up to Twilight, bringing along the knife which she was going to use. He opened up his hand, allowing Twilight to envelope the knife with her magic and take it out of his grip.

"If that means having to use a dead body as a dummy, then so be it." Johnson took out a small white tube put it in his mouth, raised a small metal box and, with the box, lit the tip of the tube. Twilight realised it was like a miniaturised smoking pipe that the nobles in Canterlot would frequently use. "I would rather do that than give the Covenant the satisfaction of turning me into a corpse."

Twilight looked away for a second, then looked back at him, a guilty look on her face. "I...would too, I guess", she muttered, the truth of that statement causing her heart to feel heavy from the guilt of it.

'What will everyone back in Equestria think of my choices here?' she thought to herself as Johnson stepped away and propped the corpse up.

"Now", he started, attracting Twilight's attention, "the best way to take out a Grunt...actually, most aliens within the Covenant, is to aim for the head with a gun. With a knife however...", -he pointed to a spot in the front of the neck-, "it's best to dig deep at this spot. That would fatally wound it, though it may still live for a moment or two."

"Or..." Johnson highlighted the mask on the grunts head, "just rip this mask off with your hand...hoof I mean, or your magic. Grunts aren't your typical alien in the respect that they breath methane gas instead of oxygen. So, remove the mask, they suffocate." Twilight paled at this, but nodded, remembering an encounter with a Grunt on the Pillar of Autumn where the Master Chief had actually done that.

After Johnson finished explaining the weakpoints, he had Twilight practice knifing the corpse in certain spots so she would get used to it. Then, Johnson brought out a few different firearms, some she had seen before, others were seen for the first time. One was a very, very long rifle with a curved box on the top. Another was in similar size to the MA5B, but had a pump on the front and lacked its bulkiness. The last one was much bigger than the rest, made up of two large tubes, with the firing mechanisms in the middle.

"Now, these are the some of the pride of the Corps", Johnson said in a proud tone. "Some of these you've most likely seen before but I'll go through a quick description of each."

He grabbed the pistol she had used on the Autumn. "This is the M6D magnum. Semi-Automatic Pistol, meaning that when you pull this trigger, it fires a shot. It only has 12 rounds in each magazine before you have to reload, like this." he gave a quick demonstration, then got Twilight to try it. "It also has a magnification scope that links with the HUD on an eyepiece or helmet. This means you can use it at range against enemies a fair distance away."

Next, he pulled up the weapon the Chief and the other marines used the most.

"This is the MA5B Individual Combat Weapon System. We call it the Assault Rifle. It is the backbone of UNSC infantry weapons, though this is just one model of Assault Rifle that we have operating. Unfortunately, the Autumn was only stocked up on this. It has a magazine capacity of 60 rounds, all of which is armour piercing, meaning this can damage vehicles. It has an automatic fire-rate, so when you pull the trigger, it keeps on firing as long as you hold down the trigger. It is best for close-quarters combat, so it doesn't do range as well as the magnum due to the bullets going wide after a certain distance."

After that, he went to the first new weapon, the long, thin one.

"This is the SRS99C-S2-AM Sniper Rifle, a four-round, gas-operated, long range rifle. Perfect for taking out enemy commanders with a single shot to the head. Has a much higher range and a better scope than the magnum."

"Next is the M90 shotgun, a close quarters combat weapon. Though it has considerable range, it excels when the enemy is almost upon you. This can help you out if someone gets the jump on you and is about to skewer you with an energy sword."

"And this, is the SPNKR Rocket launcher, one of the deadliest weapons ever designed. It is for extreme ranges only, as it is an explosive weapon. In each of the two tubes is a rocket, a much larger form of bullet, that when it collides with something, it explodes. Don't use it up close, or you'll be blown up by it. Great for large enemies and vehicles."

"Now", Johnson said, turning back towards Twilight. "I want you to grab these weapons, one at a time, and do a couple of laps around this area holding them. This is so you can handle the weight of these weapons in combat without them weighing you down. Now go!"

This was what Twilight had been doing for the past hout. That and actually trying out most of the weapons that were in front of her. While she had been practicing, she noticed that the Chief stood to the side, watching her intently, until she would make a mistake, helping her correct it. Out of all the humans there, it was with him and Johnson that she felt more at ease with, so she was more accepting of his feedback.

Then she once again had to duel the Chief, though this time she was allowed to use a pistol with dud rounds in it, so she could practice shooting a moving target. The Chief would have to avoid getting hit and take her down. Unfortunately, a medical scan of her body had come into Johnson's hands, which identified her bone structure as "strong as a Spartan's". This made Johnson give permission to the Chief to use substantial force.

The result of this was constant beat downs by the Chief on Twilight for the initial few duels. The Chief was unnaturally fast, though not nearly as fast as Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie when there was a party without her. He always managed to dodge her shots and close in to knock her to the ground.

After those though, before the Chief could knock her down on the eighth fight, she bucked him a fair distance away, surprising everyone there, including herself. Scared she may have hurt him badly, she was running up to him, her mouth spewing out apologies, when the Chief simply stood up, not even hurt, as his shields had taken the brunt of the blow. He shrugged it off and simply told her to do another duel.

As they completed more and more fights, Twilight was able to finally land a few shots on the Chief, and match his strength in certain scenarios. Though he didn't appear to be tiring as nearly as fast as her.

After she panted for a moment, another marine ran up to the Chief. They spoke a few words, before the marine ran off.

Twilight was shaken out of her recollection of the last three hours by the Chief offering his hand to her. She accepted it, and let him pull her off of the ground. As Twilight looked at the sky, she noticed it was sunset.

"It's time", the Chief said before handing her an AR and a headset with an eyepiece. She took them with her magic, fitting the headset over her, and saw the Chief collected another AR, and a sniper rifle.

From the distance, Silva and McKay walked up to them, with another squad of marines.

"We have received intel that Captain Keyes is being held on a Covenant CCS Battlecruiser, the Truth and Reconciliation", Silva told the two and the marines. "Now, since the ship has landed for repairs, its time to go out and rescue him."

Author's Note

Hi Everyone,

In this chapter, I decided on visiting a location that doesn't appear in the game, but is essential for the lore of the battle of Installation 04: Alpha base. Also introducing the characters from the book, Major Antonio Silva and Lieutenant Melissa McKay.

Next time: the attack on the Truth and Reconciliation.