:Prologue:

(0637) Hours August 30 (Military Calender) UNSC Cruiser Pillar of Autumn, location planet Reach.

The battle for Reach; the UNSC second most heavily guarded and fortified planet, had taken a turn for the worst. The orbital 'super' MAC guns were overran by covenant spacecraft, the UNSC fleets that had been fighting fiercely to defend the planet now lay in tatters and was retreating. Those ships too damaged to run were blasted into oblivion by covenant plasma fire, exploding in a brilliant but horrific light show. The fight on the surface had fared no better. Entire cities now laid in ruins, thousands upon thousands of civilians and combatants laid dead as covenant forces overran whatever human forces stayed behind. The Master Chief could only watch and clench his fist as three dozen covenant craft moved towards gamma station in the now inept orbital defense platform. Plasma fire streaked towards the stations, melting them with a boil. The rest of the covenant fleet moved towards the planet. The Master Chief saw the covenant fleet circling like sharks around the bleeding husk of the planet. Clouds boiled away as the first of many plasma bombardments were launched towards the surface. It was sickiningly familiar to John, who had seen the same process on previous campaigns. Once the covenant finished clearing out resistance, they would move into orbit and begin glassing the world. Despite the familiarity, this time was different, this time they were glassing a world with his men still down there and there was nothing he could about it.

'Am I the last spartan left?'He thought. The captain approached him and interrupted this chain of thought.

"Doctor Halsey's mission," he said, "Is now more important than ever. It may be the only chance Earth has, we have to focus on that." While the chief would rather finish this fight alongside his men, he knew that the captain was right. Putting his feelings aside he watched as Keyes turned away from him and began to bark orders at the bridge crew.

" Ensign Lovell! If you haven't done so already, give us every scrap of acceleration we have, I want to enter slipspace as soon as possible!" Coming directly on the heels of this order Cortana, the Pillar of Autumn's temporary A.I spoke up.

" Excuse me captain, six covenant ships are inbound on a intercept course."

" Continue evasive maneuvers! Prepare the slipspace generators and give me a randomized exit vector!" He yelled.

" Aye sir." Said Cortana, navigation symbols flashing along the length of her holographic body. The Master chief continued to watch as covenant ships closed in on them.

"Generating randomized exit vector per the Cole protocol," Cortana said. The Chief glanced at her translucent body, which looked vaguely like a younger doctor Halsey. Tiny ones and zeros slid over her torso, arms and legs, Her thoughts literally worn on her sleeve.

" Something on your mind Master Chief?" She asked.

" Those symbols, I thought I've seen them somewhere before," He said. " It's nothing." Cortana got a far off look in her eyes. The mark cycling on her hologram shifted and rearranged.

" Jump to slipspace Ensign Lovell!" Ordered captain Keyes. "Get us the hell outta here!" John remembered Chief Mendez's words. That they have to live to fight another day. He was alive and there was plenty of fight left in him, he would win this war. No matter what it took.

" Twilight!" Yelled Spike. " Twilight where are you?!" He stopped to catch his breath. Twilight and Spike had been invited to an excavation site to study ancient ruins in Zebrica. Actually it was Twilight that had been invited, but nobody said she couldn't bring her friends along. It didn't hurt that Princess Celestia was hoofing the bill for all the expenses. It had taken them a week to arrive, but that didn't matter. What the Zebras had found shocked the entire world.

Stretching several kilometers was an ancient super structure, the construction beyond the capabilities of any known current or past civilization. From the air it resembled a metal fortress, half buried in the sand. According to Twilight and several other archaeologists, the structure was made from an unknown alloy, composed of material that did not appear to be native to the planet.

Many of planet's races had sent their best and brightest to study the ruins. The griffins were interested in the possible military applications of the find, while Equestria and the Crystal Empire were focusing on uncovering the origins and nature of the relic and the race built it. The Zebras believed whoever had built the structure were responsible for all life on the planet and thus akin to gods.

Entry to the alien structure had been difficult for the metal that the structure was made from was so dense that nothing they possessed could penetrate it; that was until Twilight Sparkle found what appeared to be a half broken door to the structure. The interior shocked and surpassed everypony expectations. Inside, blue light zigged zagged and could be found going from the floor to the ceiling.

Nopony could guess on how old the structure truly was for even though it had just been found, the interior looked brand new and intact as if it were built to last forever. The archaeologists hypothesized that the structure had it's own power source due to the lights and opening doors.

Spike had been running around the empty hallways looking for Twilight. All the other excavation teams, site surveyors and archaeologists had decided to call it a day and made camp outside. Her friends were planning a huge party in celebration and invited everypony to come, leaving Spike and Twilight as the last two inside. Not wanting to be late, he continued to search. He soon found her studying and examining what appeared to be a door to another room.

"Twilight! I've been looking all over for you!" He said panting. "Everypony else has already left. We gotta go!" Twilight waved her right hoof in the air.

"In a minute Spike. I just want to take one last look at this door." She levitated a quill and scroll and began to write details. "My gut tells me that theirs something big behind this door. I don't know what yet, but I know I gotta get though this door." She said with a determined face. Spike simply frowned.

"You know what my gut tells me? That its very hungry." He said. Twilight sighed. It was getting late and no matter how she looked at it, there was no way to get inside. The door also repealed magic so that wasn't an option.

"Hey what's this?" Twilight turned and saw Spike looking at the blue orb she found earlier. It sat on some pedestal and was covered in hundreds of different symbols.

"I believe thats the switch to open the door." She said. " But it only seems to respond to a specific touch or perhaps some combination. At least a few other archaeologists have tried to open it but failed." She then levitated her materials back into her saddle bag.

"He he. It makes funny sounds." Said Spike as he touched the symbols on the blue sphere.

"Spike! Stop that! You don't know how fragile that artifact could be!" She exclaimed.

"It's okay Twilight. It's just a glowing blue ball-" Spike then planted his entire claw on the orb. The symbols aligned and glowed white at his touch. The room then suddenly began to rumble and shake as it came to life with a loud hum.

"Spike, what did you do!?" Asked Twilight looking around frantically.

" Uhh, whatever I did I didn't mean to!" He said in fear as he placed his arms above his head. "I was just playing around with it!" Suddenly the door that Twilight stood next to began to rise.

"Spike look!" Twilight shouted. The door finished opening with a thunderous roar. She and Spike then peeked inside at the next room as the place calmed down. There eyes opened wide and their mouths dropped to the floor. Inside was a large room with four large metal pillars surrounding a platform. In the center of the platform was another blue orb, above it was a large metal machine resembling a stalagtite. Glowing blue lines ran all around the room, onto the pillars and ended at the blue sphere.

"Spike I don't know how you did it but you opened it!" Said Twilight jofully hopping insides towards the center of the room. Spike follwed her in shrugging.

"Umm, your welcome?"

Twilight began to examine the room in awe. She couldn't begin to comprehend or theorize how the room worked or what it was for and why. She then turned her attention to the orb in the center. She put a hoof to her chin as she looked it over.

'These symbols are the same as the ones on the orb outside. Maybe if they worked the same way . .'She moved the orb a bit with her hoof. It responded with a negative red glow and returned to it's oringinal postion. 'There might be only one way.' She then turned to her scaly assistant.

"Spike come here!" He ran over to her and stood right next to glowing relic.

" Spike, I want you to do whatever you did before with the other artifact outside and try it on this one." She genstured towards the orb. Spike nodded and gulped. He reluctantly strated to press on all the symbols like before. All of his efforts were met with the same negative results. Twilight signed in frustration.

"I actually don't know what I did before." Said Spike innocently. "The last thing I did was put my claw on it like this." He placed his claw on the artifact. The sphere responded with a white glow and a ping. The room began to shake like before and came to life. Twilight and Spike took a step back as from out the large device above the orb shot out white light. They sheilded their eyes as the light consumed everything in the room. When it subsided, they opened their eyes to a unexpected discovery. Floating around them though the room, was a 3D holographic physical representation of the galaxy. Twilight looked in awe and amazement as she saw planets, stars and entire solar systems float right before her very eyes.

'It's like some form of an advance star chart. Or perhaps a map!' She thought.

"I can't believe this Spike! Do you know what this means!?" She said hugging him close.

"No. What? That we can go back and eat now?" He said hopefully. Twilight let go and spun around in a circle like a ballerina.

"It means they not held a better understanding of the stars, but they also had the ability to travel among them!" She said as if she just figured out the anwser to life. She looked and touched some indivdual holographic stars.

"All I see is that we found a map of the stars?" Said Spike blankly. " How dose this prove that they had space ships?" He asked. Though in his mind, he wished he could see how aliens could do that.

" Well first, this structure is made from a material not found on Earth." She said in her lecturing tone." And second, this map is made from not only advance materials but also shows a accurate representation of what I believe is the galaxy." She then turned to Spike. "How on Earth could you know what a star looked like from light years away without a telescope?" She said with a grin.

"Uh, bigger telescope?" He said cheaply. He then turned and looked at the stars before him until one caught his eye. "Hey Twilight. Whats this?"

Twilight trotted over and came to where Spike was and saw what he was gensturing to. It was another planet no doubt, but what caught her assistants attention was what was next to the planet. Right next to the planet was a large ring.

"What is that Twilight?" Asked Spike.

"I don't know Spike." Said Twilight dumbfounded. She didn't know why, but the image of the ring had a certain . . . allure. She started to raise her hoof to touch it, much to Spikes alarm. As she felt herself drawn towards the ring, it began to glow a bright white.

"Uh, Twilight. I don't think you should do that!" Said Spike begining to panic.

"But Spike, there's so much to learn and see." Said Twilight entranced by the glowing ring. "I just have to know more." Spike quickly grabbed her hind legs and began to pull.

"Come on Twilight! I think you've had enough of these alien ruins for one day!" He said in a futile effort to pull her back to reality.

"Oh Spike, you don't know what your're talking about." She said as she neared the ring.

"You don't either!" Said Spike in vain. Right before she could touch it, the room began to roar once again. She returned to normel, causeing Spike to propel backwards into the orb. Suddenly, the large device above them began to whine and the room shook once more. Twilight gave Spike a 'What did you do?' look.

"Uh, oop's." He said in a sorry tone. Suddenly Lighting shot out from all four of the metal pillars and struck the centered device.

"Spike we're leaving!" Shouted Twilight waving him over. He ran over to her, as she prepared a teleportation spell. But before she could finish, a beam of light shot out form the orb and sped towards Spike.

"Spike look out!!" She Shouted. The little dragon had no idea what was coming up behind him. Having no time to think, Twilight lunghed herself at him. She pushed him out of the path of the beam but in doing so got hit instead. Her entire body froze up, the sensation was not painful but instead it felt as though every part of her body was going numb.

"Oh no Twilight!!" Shouted Spike. Twilight couldn't even scream as yellow light enveloped her in bright yellow circles.She soon found herself being blinded by light. The only sound she could hear over the whine of the beam was Spike calling her name. And without one more sound, she vanished.

Author's Note

Well, that wraps up the first chapter. Feel free to point out any errors, misspellings and any other conumdrums in a positive conscriptive manner. As for any halo fans who read this; I originally wanted to do a halo 4 crossover. But then I decided not to and instead, go back to the begining. The very begining. And yes, it will be explained what was the artifact that Twilight found and how did it teleport her. Also, a free internet cookie to whoever guesses where Twilight ended up? 'Hint' , She is not on halo yet. Ciao everypony, and see you on the frontlines in halo 4!