The Chief felt himself lurch as the Gravity lift hung him in the air for a brief moment before crashing down on the deck of the Truth and Reconciliation's lift bay. Twilight, Parker and half of the Marines had already arrived just before him, and more were still coming up. Twilight was obviously enjoying the sight of the Covenant Architecture, with their tapered rectangular boxes that were the equivalent of gear crates being stacked all around the high compartment, two of which were open, with Needlers being exposed, waiting to be picked up, as well as the high ceiling that had lights, the large and small doors on all of the sides of the bay.

Once the entirety of the extraction team had arrived, the Marines spread out across the bay, looking for any Covenant that could be hiding, waiting to strike. The Chief also went towards one of the high metal doors on the perimeter. Twilight simply stood in the middle, unsure of what to do.

"There's no Covenant here", one of the Marines whispered as Parker finally gave the all clear signal, "so where the hell are they?"

The Chief approached the portal, just as the red light in the middle turned green, having been unlocked, before the portal opened. There stood an Elite in brown coloured armour, whose expression shifted from boredom to shock. The Elite, which the Spartan recognised as a Stealth Elite, tried to activate his active camoflage to escape, but the Chief grabbed its head just as it turned invisible, shoved it into the wall and brought the butt of his rifle down at the exposed neck, snapping it, killing the elite. As the corpse slid down, the Chief hoped that the noise wasn’t enough for any Covenant to hear and-

Three set of doors flashed open on the other sides of the bay, revealing a swarm of Covenant Troops, who then began to rush out to kill the Humans.

A second Marine glared at the first Marine who had spoken the fateful line, even as he dove behind a crate for cover. “ ‘No Covenant,’ " he mocked the embarrassed troop, who was forced to duck to avoid getting hit. “You just had to open your mouth, didn’t you, asshole?”

A firefight quickly erupted in the compartment, with the Chief targeting the Elites, leaving the Jackals and Grunts for the Marines to handle. The first Elite he encountered was a major, and was thus prepared for a direct assault, so the Chief simply ignited and threw a captured plasma grenade at him. It attached to the Elite's chest, and the Elite speedily tried to remove his chest armour, but was too slow and was vaporised in the explosion. He emptied a full mag of AR ammo into a second Elite, who was a bullet sponge until the final bullet entered his skull.

As he fed a new clip into his Rifle, a third Elite had a hole blown right through its chest by Twilight, using her magic like a cannon. As a Jackal tried to rush her, she simply threw him to the other side of the compartment with her magic, and crushed him with a Covenant Crate. The Chief was impressed by her skill with her magic.

After the covenant troops had been killed, one of the large doors opened up, revealing a trio of Jackals. They opened fire at the Marines, but Twilight blocked their shots with a magical barrier, allowing one Marine to throw a grenade at their feet, the ensuring explosion sending the mangled bodies flying.

The team exited the Compartment through the now open doors, only to be blocked by another large door at the end of a large, but short corridor.

"Doors locked, sir", a Marine said after attempting to slice through the controls, "I can't bypass it. We can't go through here."

"There are a series of side passages through the small doors back they way we came", Cortana said over the Com. "We can use them to go around."

"Why bother?", Twilight said, much to everyone's surprise. "I can teleport us all to the other side of that door", she explained to the group.

"Can you handle this many at once?", Cortana asked, concerned.

"I believe so", she stated, only her eyes betraying her worry. "It's worth a shot."

"I say we do it", Parker said, looking to the Chief for confirmation. He weighed the risks and benefits, and decided to go for it. He looked at Twilight. "All right", he said, "but if you begin to struggle to control it, or you run out of stamina, abort at that instance, and I'll simply go around and open the door from the other side."

"Got it", Twilight replied, half distracted as she started to draw on her reserves for this magic feat. "Everypony, stay close!", she said, concentrating on the spell. The team nudged together, watching as Twilight's horn began to glow a very bright and intense pink.

Then, simply a blinding flash, and they were in another entirely different compartment. The Chief immediately felt the urge to empty the contents of his stomach, but his willpower quickly silenced the urge. Many Marines, however, weren't so lucky. Within seconds, the floor was covered in puke. The Chief, thankful that his helmet partially filtered the smell away, turned around to the rest of the compartment, and found himself staring at a dozen shocked Covenant Troops, their eyes glued to the ensuring scene as if they couldn't believe their eyes.

The Chief, however, took the initiative, throwing a grenade at the feet of the still shocked enemy. This threw them out of their trance, but it was too late. The grenade exploded, killing all but one Grunt, who was then dispatched by the Chief.

He turned back to the team, and found most of them had recovered, but Twilight fell to the metal floor, her fur pale and her body shaking.

"Well, that's something I'm never doing again for a while", she commented in a tired voice, before standing up on her still shaking hooves. "At least not with this many at once."

"Can you continue on?" Parker asked, just before a door opened up, revealing more Covenant Troops.

"Yes", Twilight stated in a firm voice, but then added, "though I won't be able to use many of my usual spells until I recuperate some energy." She was obviously still able to use telekinesis, as evidenced by her use of her now unslung Assault Rifle, firing at the Covenant Troops.

Within seconds, the Covenant Troops had been eliminated and the team was forced to move on through a series of small passages, where Covenant Forces lay in ambush. It was only due to the shimmers in the air that the Chief was able to spot the Stealth Elites waiting for the team to approach at the corner of one of the corridors.

While the Stealth Elites were dangerous with the element of surprise, and their ability to blend in with their surroundings using active camo, their only weaknesses was the fact that the glowing lights from their weapon's emitters were still visible, and they lacked energy shielding. With this in mind, the Chief noticed that both Elites were armed with plasma rifles, so he slung his rifle, pulled out a M6D he had acquired from one of the fallen Marines, zoomed in on their heads, and fired three shots. The first Elite went down with the first shot, but the second Elite dodged the bullet meant for him, and managed to get out a burst of plasma fire before the Chief took him down.

After they finished traversing the corridors, they entered a large hangar, where all hell broke loose.

Twilight ducked as a charged plasma bolt flew over her head. She turned around, saw the Jackal that had shot at her, and returned the favour with a burst of Assault Rifle ammo. It almost sickened her that she would resort to using a firearm this soon after she had decided not to, but her encounter with the Hunters, and her constant use of magic, had made it clear that she would need to fight with them in order for her to survive, as the Covenant wasn't going to single her out for living.

She fired a long burst at an Elite, only hitting it with half of the shots she had fired, due to the inaccuracy of the Assault Rifle from certain ranges, and her lack of skill with using the weapon. This would be a problem she would need to fix. The Elite snarled at her, firing his weapon at her. She leapt to the side, dodging the plasma shots, and telekinetically threw a crate at him, hitting it with enough force to knock out its shields. She then fired the remaining bullets in the magazine into the chest of the Elite, finally killing it.

Twilight looked around at the battle being waged around her, spotting that Covenant reinforcements were flooding into the hangar through several open doorways, some of them appearing on the platforms above their heads. Blood was being spilt everywhere, bullets were either ricocheting from walls or being embedded into flesh, plasma pretty much burned everything it touched and, the most frightening, purple needles were flying in the air, homing in on any target they could find. Wounded marines groaned as their comrades tried to find cover for them, while similarly hurt grunts screamed as they were used as living shields for their partially alright superiors and other grunts.

"We need a way out of this bay now", she heard the Master Chief say from the Com, "or there won't be anyone left to complete the mission." His worried tone did not go unnoticed by Twilight.

Then, Twilight's heart wrenched as she heard a bloodcurdling roar from the right. She turned and saw Sergeant Parker taking on a Hunter alone. He discarded his rifle as it ran out of ammo, and tried to grab his pistol before the Hunter leapt forward and used its shield to shred through his armour.

Twilight looked on with both horror and anger. She reloaded her rifle and began firing at the Hunter. So did the Chief. Together, they attacked the Hunter from two points, with the Chief distracting the Hunter, while Twilight came in from behind, and tried to put in numerous rounds from the side. The Hunter was too quick, and managed to swivel enough so her shots landed on its armoured back sections.

Then, when Twilight saw the Hunter position itself to leap out at her, a single shot was heard from behind it, and the Hunter stumbled forward, groaning, before collapsing to the floor, with two or three worms suddenly popping out, disgusting Twilight. Twilight looked at the Chief, but saw him look back at her, shrugging. Then, a cough was heard and Sergeant Parker limped towards the pair, only pausing at the corpse of the Hunter to spit on it. His free hand was pressed against the open wounds on his side, where blood flowed down onto the floor, painting the metal in a crimson colour.

Twilight ran up to Parker, allowing him to lean on her as a surviving Marine came up and patched up the wound. The Chief, who had taken a covering position, gave the sergeant a quick nod. "Not bad for a Marine. Thanks."

Parker gave a quick laugh at this, taking his weight off of Twilight as he walked up to a fallen Assault Rifle and picked it up, feeding a fresh magazine into it. He grinned. "Any time, swabbie." He then looked at Twilight. "You too, princess. Thanks."

The Chief also turned to face her and spoke out. "You're not bad yourself, Princess. Good work out there."

Twilight felt her cheeks burn from the congratulations, but was quickly distracted as Cortana's voice came up over the Com. "Got it!", she proclaimed as one of the large doors opened up. "Everyone should move through the door now. I can't guarantee that it won't lock when it closes."

With this in mind, Twilight and the surviving Marines followed the Chief as he led them into another corridor, that had no Covenant in it. They went up onto the upper level in the Shuttle bay, and encountered more enemies, with thankfully no Hunters about. However, there was one of those Jackals with the strange rifles that she had seen outside. Though it was on the other side of the bay, it still managed to hit one of the Marines in the head with a single, precise shot. The team was forced to take cover as the Jackal sniper kept them stuck in a certain area, with a dozen Grunts, Jackals and Elites making their way to finish off the extraction team.

Twilight peeped out of cover for a split second before pulling her head back as fast as possible, with the shot from the Jackal ripping through the spot in the air where her head was originally. But then, she heard three shots from a M6D, saw the Jackal fall of the edge, and looked at the smoking barrel of Chief's pistol. He then threw a grenade at the oncoming Covenant group. The explosion took out the majority of the enemies, leaving the survivors to be wiped out by the humans.

The team moved out once again, crossing to the other side of the upper level, and entered another set of corridors. After engaging another squad of Covenant Troops, which were easily dispatched, Twilight noticed that she only had three magazines of ammo left in her pouch, meaning she would have to conserve her ammo and make her shots count.

They entered another compartment, this time with a platform hovering in the air, connected to the floor by a ramp. On either side of the platform was a trench. On the Platform stood a golden clad Elite, who seemed to be in charge of everything. On the ground floor were a dozen Grunts and Jackals, along with an Elite Major and Minor. The team literally stopped in their tracks at the sight of the Golden Elite, though Twilight didn't know why.

"Shit!", a Marine said, as one of the Grunts spotted the team, attracting the attention of the Covenant troops, including the Golden Elite, who grabbed an object on his thigh and activated it, forming a glowing sword with two blades. "Zealot!"

The Zealot jumped down from the Platform, and plunged its sword into the chest of an unfortunate marine. In a swift movement, he rolled out of the way of an oncoming grenade and sliced another Marine's head off. While the Zealot caused havoc, distracting the entirety of the extraction team with its massacre, the other Covenant Troops rallied, taking advantage of the massacre, focusing fire on a single target, killing the poor Marine.

"Twilight!", the Chief shouted as he focused purely on the Zealot. "Take out those Elites!"

"On it!", Twilight shouted back, as she telekinetically picked up one of the frag grenades a dead Marine had been carrying and threw it at the Elites' feet. However, there was no explosion.

"You have to activate it, with the button!", Parker shouted over the automatic fire of his Assault Rifle, seeing Twilight's mistake.

Twilight nodded, then telekinetically pressed the button on the grenade. After four seconds, the Elites, having no clue about what she did, blew up, along with the Jackals and Grunts next to them.

Twilight couldn't help but grin at her achievement, which seriously horrified her. 'Am I becoming a killer?' she thought to herself before she was thrown to the ground by the Zealot ramming into her.

She landed on her back, and became winded after the Zealots armoured foot jammed into her belly with a lot of force, pinning her to the ground. She looked up, and saw the sword in its grasp about to lodge itself in her chest. She focused as much magic as she could into her horn to use as a single blast, but dispersed it when the Zealot's shields were taken down by the Chief, causing it to stumble off of Twilight, who tripped it with her telekinesis, allowing the Chief to fire a burst at the head of the fallen Zealot, killing it.

Twilight got up to her hooves with the help of the Chief and Parker. On the door on the other side, more Covenant Troops entered the compartment. Without a word, Twilight and the Chief charged the enemy, firing as they ran.

"This looks like the ship's command centre", Cortana commented after the last Covenant Troop was eliminated. "The Captain's transponder's signal is strong. He must be close."

The Chief looked around the command centre and then turned towards Twilight and Parker. "Hold your men here", he told Parker. "I'll be back soon-with the Captain." Twilight began to walk towards him, but he shook his head. "You too, Princess."

Both Twilight and Parker began to protest, but then Parker stopped, and nodded. "Just don't tell Silva", he said.

Twilight continued on though. "What if you need backup?", she said, envisioning the Chief alone, surrounded by Covenant Elites, about to rip him apart and...'Wow, that was violent', she thought, 'why would I even think like that?'

"I'll be back", the Chief said, interrupting Twilight's self reflection. "I promise."

Somehow, those two words managed to stay Twilight's hooves as the Chief ran through the door that the Covenant had come out of just a moment before. Twilight didn't know why but she felt in her gut that his promises were, somehow, powerful.

Parker turned towards Twilight, his face sweaty and pale from the pain from his wounds. "If there's any human who would come back, it would be him", he said to comfort her.

She nodded, but then remembered something that he had said earlier. "Sergeant?", she asked him "what did you mean about him being 'the last Spartan'? And what is a Spartan?"

Parker's expression darkened as he considered how to answer her.

"A Spartan is...well, a super soldier", he started to say to an intrigued Twilight "who in their past has been genetically augmented to function better than a normal human, and has a very fast reaction time, and state of the art armour, Mjolnir armour to be exact. There has always only been a small group of them, but the creation of the Spartans has been classified, though there are some nasty rumours about them."

Twilight was about to inquire further about these rumours when one of the many doors opened, and two stealth Elites, with the same swords as the Zealot, rushed out, only the slight shimmer in the air revealing their camouflaged forms. However, Parker, who was a veteran, spotted them with his experienced eyes and shouted out. He aimed at the wrist hand of one of the Elites, fired a single, short burst that revealed the body temporarily, and finished it off with a burst to the Chest.

Twilight simply threw one of the corpses on the ground at the second Elite, causing the camouflage to fail temporarily when the corpse hit it, allowing Twilight to kill it with the last bullets in her rifle. Twilight, seeing that she had no more spare ammo magazines in her pouch, decided to discard her now useless Assault Rifle, and unclipped her pistol.

It was at this moment that the Chief returned, with a battered and bruised Captain Keyes and three other rescued Marines. Keyes' face actually looked surprised at the sight of Twilight with her pistol in her magical grip. The extraction team gathered around the Chief and Keyes.

"I'm surprised that you joined the rescue op, princess", Keyes stated directly to Twilight, "though I am grateful for everything." He nodded with a faint smile on his face. "Thanks!"

Twilight smiled at this, though her cheeks flushed from the gratitude, but then faltered at the reason why she was actually here. "I didn't have a choice", she said, to his surprise. "Major Silva forced me to come to prove that I'm not a threat to humanity."

Keyes' eyes narrowed at this. "Is that so?", he stated, glancing at the Marines, some of which couldn't face him out of shame. "Well, I'll deal with this matter later", he said, looking back at Twilight with an apologetic face, "but we have another issue to deal with first."

He then looked around at the group assembled before him. "While the Covenant had us locked up in here, I heard then talking about the ringworld, and its destructive capabilities."

A lot of Marines, including Twilight either stared in disbelief or gasped as a result. "What kind of destru…" Twilight started before being interrupted by Cortana.

"One moment sir", she said over Chief's speakers, "I'm accessing the Covenant battlenet." After a few seconds, she continued on. "If I'm interpreting the data correctly, the Covenant believe that Halo is some kind of religious weapon, one that begins the process of something called 'the Great Journey'. They believe that Halo would sweep away all those who are unworthy, and ascend the Covenant into Godhood."

Keyes nodded thoughtfully at this revelation. "The aliens who interrogated me kept saying that whoever controlled Halo controlled the universe."

"Now I see", Cortana added "I intercepted a number of messages about the Covenant searching for a control room. I thought they were looking for the bridge of a ship I damaged with the Autumn during the skirmish above the ring-but they must be looking for Halo's control room."

"Wait", Twilight interrupted, drawing stares from Keyes and the Chief. "So, if the Covenant gain control of Halo, does that mean that...", she paused as she struggled to bring the words out, "that they can kill anything that they want, or conquer the universe? Anywhere?"

"That's what they believe" Cortana answered in a sombre tone, "and if I understand what you are getting at, then yes, your home planet will most likely be in danger, now that the Covenant know you exist."

"That right", Keyes continued in a grave tone, "If the Covenant gain control of Halo, they'll use it against both of our people. And if they're right, the power that they'll gain would be the equivalent of Godhood."

He turned towards Chief. "Chief, Cortana, I have a new mission for you. We need to beat the Covenant to Halo's control room."

"I'll help too!" the words left Twilight's mouth before she could even think. The outburst attracted stares from everyone present.

"Are you sure about this, princess?" Keyes said, "This will be dangerous, and you will run the risk of losing your life on this. I can't ask you to help us with this."

"I know", Twilight said, trying to formulate her thoughts, "but as Cortana stated beforehand, Halo, in the hands of the Covenant, threaten everything, including Equis. Not only do I have a duty to get back there, but, as a princess of Equestria, I have a higher duty to protect it from any kind of danger. If that means having to...lose my life in order to save my friends and subjects, then so be it."

"With all due respect", the Chief interrupted the both of them, "but it might be best to finish this mission before we start considering the next one."

"Good point, Chief", Keyes said. "Marines! Move out."

Just as Keyes had said this, the extraction team were ambushed by a swarm of grunts coming in from every door. However, they were easily dealt with, and the group moved on, though Twilight only kept half her attention on the situation at hand. She was still thinking about what she was about to agree to, and how there was no going back.

She was still thinking about that when an Elite jumped in front of her, armed with a weapon that had the purple shards that almost destroyed her flank earlier. She stumbled back as memories of her wound, and the pain from it, flashed before her eyes, her breath and heartrate increasing.

The Elite fired a volley of needles at her, but thankfully she had put up a shield, causing the needles to shatter when they collided with the shield. Her anger flared. How dare this alien use that brutal weapon against her. In a fit of rage, she blasted it with a large magical bolt, burning through its shields and creating a huge hole in its chest.

Shocked at her actions, she put her hooves to her mouth as the Elite's corpse collapsed to the floor.

'Did I...just do that?' she asked herself, 'and why was I thinking those thoughts? It was horrible!'

"Twilight?", the Chief's voice came from behind her. She turned around and saw the Chief standing beside Keyes, who had a concerned look on his face. It was at this moment that she realised he was holding a captured needler in his hands.

She unconsciously took a step back as soon her eyes caught sight of it. Though Keyes was puzzled by this, the Chief made the connection.

"Sir, I think it would be best if you take this instead of that", he said, grabbing a fallen pistol from beside the corpse of a fallen Marine. Keyes, his eyes showing understanding, accepted the trade, and walked to help Parker with another Marine. Twilight looked up to the Chief, her pulse returning to normal. "Thank you", she whispered to him.

He nodded, and they continued on, fighting their way back to the hangar. When they reached a small compartment, Cortana's voice came over the Com, though not directed at any member of the Group. "Cortana to Echo 419...We have the captain and need extraction on the double."

"Negative Cortana! I have a flock of Banshees on my tail...and I can't seem to shake them. You'll be better off finding your own ride." The instantaneous reply seemed to echo across the room, though only the humans and Twilight could hear it on their radios. Cortana then directly spoke to Keyes about Air support being cut off, but Twilight couldn't help thinking about if Rainbow Dash was here, she would be able to outfly any Banshee.

A Marine cracked and started screaming about them "all about to die!", but Keyes was having none of it. "Stow your bellyaching Marine. Chief, if you could get me to one of those dropships, I can fly us out of here."

"Yes Captain", Cortana replied, "There's a Covenant ship docked below."

"Then what are we waiting for", Twilight said, much to everyone's grim amusement.

They soon reached the troop bay, but it was heavily defended. Elites, Jackals and Grunts all were present at trying to kill the humans before they could escape. Twilight was going through clip after clip due to the number of enemies present. Even the Chief had run out of ammo in his rifle, having to pull out his pistol.

"If we're going", he called out, "we need to go now."

Twilight did a quick teleport behind an Elite, who was guarding a holographic set of controls. She threw him off the edge of the platform. She then noticed that the controls were in front of the floating dropship, which was connected to a clamp on the ceiling.

"Cortana!", she cried out, "do I need to press this to unlock the ship?"

"Yes! Great job", Cortana replied.

Twilight pressed the big marker on the controls, and the Dropship disconnected from the clamp. It then hovered towards her, opening its bay doors. Keyes, when he saw this, cried out, "Everyone mount up!", leading the Marines through the open bay doors and went in through the hatch for the pilot. Twilight entered next, then followed by the Chief, who waited until everyone else had gone on board.

As Cortana and Keyes argued over who will drive the dropship, one Marine called out a warning: "Captain! Hunters!"

Twilight's eyes widened at this, and she peered out of the viewpoint that the Chief was next to. Sure enough, there was a pair of Hunters on the loading platform, charging straight for the ship. Twilight's heart began to race as she saw the weapons on the hunter start to glow green.

"Hang on!" Keyes said over the ship's internal radio. Twilight braced herself as she felt the ship move backwards and the two prongs of the ship rammed into the Hunters. Though they were heavily armoured, even Hunters could not stand up to the heavy weight and kinetic force of the dropship.

As the dropship flew out of the hangar bay and into the open air outside the Truth and Reconciliation, Twilight collapsed to the floor with a thud, exhausted physically, mentally and magically from the entire mission. Twisting around, she saw the Chief leaning back against the metal wall. It wasn't all that surprising, given that he had done a lot more than the rest of the team combined today, but it was still interesting to see him actually look tired with his body language.

He noticed her looking at him, and gave her a tired thumbs up. She smiled, and nodded back at him before closing her eyes and letting sleep overcome her.

Author's Note

Hi everyone,

Well, that was a dousy of a chapter. As you may have noticed, I changed up a few things with the initial explanation of Halo in order to fit the lore of the Covenant more. Also, Twilight now has a fear of needlers.

See you all next time.

Dalek117