//------------------------------// // Chapter 22: Heroes Fallen // Story: Helljumpers // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// "GO, GO, GO!" Twilight shouted as they made their way over the long bridge back to the elevator, the corpses of former covenant loyalist being reanimated and turned against them. "Destroy the bodies to prevent the parasite from reanimating them again!" The Arbiter said as he sliced a combat form in half with his energy sword. Twilight quickly picked up a brute grenade launcher from the ground and fired a shot into a group of infection forms, the small parasites being shredded to bits by the explosion. Around them, a swarm of Sentinels came floating up and started shooting their plasma beams at the flood forms giving an opportunity for the group to make a dash for the elevator. Twilight pointed the grenade launcher back at the blood chasing then and fired its entire magazine into them, "Elevator's not working!" She shouted as the control panel had disappeared. "Ventilator shaft back here!" Scootaloo shouted back at her as she jumped down into it, Twilight also charged to the hole and jumped in as Sentinels swarmed the flood outside. She smashed into the ground below and made a quick roll as not to break any bones, "Scootaloo, status?" She immediately asked. "No flood contamination present." She reported as the filly was scanning the environment. Behind them, a loud *thunk* could be heard as the Chief and Arbiter crashed down the tunnel. "What's our objective, sir?" Twilight asked the Chief but got ignored as the Spartan walked down the hallway. "What do you see?" The Arbiter asked but he too got ignored, the two ponies and the Sangheili looking at each other and following the supersoldier. The Chief pushed a button on another panel which made a blast shield open up before them. "Whoa is that..." Scootaloo gasped as she stepped forward onto the platform next to the Chief. A massive uncompleted Halo rising up from the central forge of the Ark. "A replacement. For the ring you destroyed." The Arbiter said in awe to the Chief. "When did you know?" The Chief asked someone behind the group, Guilty Spark floating forward. "Just now - but...I had my hopes. What will you do?" He said carefully, the Chief answered without hesitation. "Light it." "...Then we are agreed! A tactical pulse will completely eradicate the local infestation! I will personally oversee the final preparations." The Monitor said exited and quickly flew off towards the ring while rambling to himself. "Though it will take time to fabricate an activation index, I will see to the letter that..." "How will you light it?" Arbiter asked the Chief, who turned his head to the crashed wreck of High Charity which the flood had used to get to the Ark. "Cortana still has the activation index from the first Halo." Chief answered to fill in the two ponies. "Wait, hold on. We're talking about lighting a superweapon here guys, shouldn't we, I don't know, think about this for a bit longer?!" Scootaloo asked incredulously as everyone else just seemed to agree with the Chief's plan. Twilight just shrugged, "Spark said this installation was out of range of the other installations so it goes to reason that if we fire this one the galaxy won't be affected by it as well, other than destroying the flood that is." "I-... Fine. Good point. Let's fire it." Scootaloo conceded as she started following the Chief and Arbiter who were already making their way through the hallways of the Citadel, eventually running into three Banshees which were abandoned by the Covenant loyalists. "Well, Crap." Scootaloo commented, "So Twi, are you going to fly or am I?" She asked the alicorn who snorted. "I can't even fly UNSC craft, let alone Covenant ones." She said, "You guys go ahead, I'll follow by wing." She told the other three while she spread her wings and flew off towards the crashed space station. The three remaining soldiers all getting into one of the aircraft and powered it up. Scootaloo flew up to the flying Alicorn as she got used to the controls. "Hey, Twilight. You know you could just get a lift, right?" She said as she snickered at the alicorn whos silently looked at the banshee, "Don't laugh." Twilight told Scootaloo as she grabbed a hold of the aircraft. "Chief, I'll round up our survivors, fall back to the Dawn. The Shipmaster will do the same with the Elites.." Johnson reported as the group landed on the wreck of High Charity. The station even on the outside was covered in the fleshy gore the flood seemed to spread everywhere. "Scootaloo, we're not going in." Twilight stated as the filly disembarked the Banshee, "Neither of us has the energy shields to stop infection forms from getting to us and we can't constantly hide behind the Chief and Arbiter when were inside one of their hives." "But-" "That was an order, Hurricane." Twilight said before Scootaloo could protest any further, "We'd only be a liability to the two of them." She continued before turning to the Chief, "We'll head for the Halo while you get the index." The Chief nodded and jumped down into the wreck followed by the Arbiter, Scootaloo grumbled but got back into the Banshee and fired it back up with Twilight as a passenger behind her. She flew towards the large ring that was continuously rising into space above the Ark, after a good half an hour of flight Scootaloo let out an annoyed scream. "OH COME ON!" "Status?" Twilight asked the filly as she felt the Banshee leveling out. "This thing isn't fast enough to catch the Halo, at this rate it's going to take hours to get to it." She replied, "We're going to have to call in for a pelican or a Phantom from either the Dawn or the Shadow of Intent if we want to get there anytime soon." Twilight sighed and opened a COM channel, "Shipmaster, this is Sergeant Sparkle. Do you copy?" "I hear you, little demon. What do you need?" Rtas 'Vadum replied, Twilight rolled her eyes as the Arbiter nickname was seemingly spreading. "Corporal Hurricane and I need a ride to Halo, our Banshee isn't going to cut it." The Shipmaster remained silent for a moment, "Your sergeant Johnson is headed to your position." he finally said. "Copy that, Sparkle out. Twilight said as she closed the channel. "Holy hell, that's quite the pickup." Scootaloo said from up front after Twilight finished talking. "Got anything on radar?" She asked curious about what Scootaloo had meant. "This is the Forward Unto Dawn, You needed a ride Sparkle?" Johnson's voice came over the radio as the starship came down in front of them and opened its cargo bay, Scootaloo immediately landing in the hold. "We're in Sarge!" She said as she powered down the banshee. The hangar bay door closing behind her and the engines of the frigate hummed as they increased their power output. "Report to the bridge after you two visit the armory. Johnson out." The Sergeant major ordered them as he closed his Com again. Scootaloo and Twilight jumped off the covenant assault craft and ran towards the armory, skidding through the empty hallways as Twilight guessed that the crew had been offloaded onto the Shadow of Intent. "Took you two long enough." Lucy said as he was sitting on a table with a massive grin, "I already gathered the stuff you two probably needed over there." She said while pointing at a couple of boxes stacked in front of one of the lockers that stood in the room. "Thanks, Lucy. Did the crew get dropped off with the elites?" Twilight asked as she and Scootaloo picked through the crates and took out the corresponding ammo to their own weapons. Lucy wanted to answer but was beaten by Mack, "Yes. After the Captain died... Well, we heard what the Chief and Arbiter were planning so we dropped off the crew and the Forward Unto Dawn will act as our way out." "You know you could have left with the Elites right?" Twilight said to Mack who raised an eyebrow before commenting on Twilight's remark, "And leave two of my people? It'll be a cold day in hell when that happens." Twilight smiled at Mack's statement, "Thanks, Mack. We need to get going to the bridge." The others agreed and the Two humans put on their helmets, following the two ponies as they made their way to the bridge. "Roger that. And ma'am, It's good to have you back." They heard the Sergeant Major say as he stood at a communications console in the empty bridge. "Sergeant Sparkle, Sergeant Major." She announced herself to Johnson, who looked up from the console. "Sergeant Sparkle," He said acknowledging her, "Corporal Hurricane, head back to the hangar and prep a Warthog." Scootaloo saluted and ran away to carry out the order. "The Chief and Arbiter succeeded in retrieving Cortana, they're on their way towards the Halo right now." Johnson said as he tapped in a few commands, making the frigate slow down and land. "We're giving the Chief a hand in bringing Cortana to the control room. She has to get there, no matter the cost. If she doesn't, the flood wins and the galaxy gets consumed by them." he said as he picked up a spartan laser. "I've got the ride ready to go at any time, Sergeant major." Scootaloo reported over the radio, "Copy that, Hurricane. We're on our way, Johnson out." The Sergeant Major replied to the pegasus, "You heard her, move out!" At the command the group moved out to the Warthog, Lucy took the wheel and the moment everyone was on board she gunned the engine and took off towards the control room. "We have to hurry up! The Chief will have already reached the Halo." Johnson said as the warthog came to a screetching halt. The group ran throug a building for a couple of minutes before they ended up on a ridge with an overview of the building that housed the control room. Flood forms were massing an attack at it as the group could see the Arbiter and Chief charging up to the top. "We got you covered, Chief. Meet you at the top of that tower." Johnson said as he shot one of the large flood forms from the back of the pelican with the laser he carried. Scootaloo set down the dropship at the ridge and quickly powered down before sprinting out of the back of the dropship where the others were already firing at the flood forms that were attacking the Chief and Arbiter. Mack and Lucy were firing down with DMR's and Twilight was constantly firing her Sniper rifle while simultaneously refilling ammo clips from a munitions box that she had taken with her. "To Tartarus with this." Scootaloo mumbled and jumped of the ridge towards the Chief and Arbiter who were holding up at the door on the top of the strucure. "Spark? You in there? Open the damn door!" Jonson shouted over the radio. "Of course, Reclaimer. Just as soon as you dispose of all proximate Flood threats. I'm afraid containment protocols do not allow me to-" Guilty Spark replied, getting cut off by an annoyed Johnson. "Yeah, yeah, I hear you!" "Was that the Monitor? You didn't tell me he was here. Well, we are finally doing what he wanted." Cortana said, reminding Scootaloo that the AI was also present. "I have beaten fleets of thousands! Consumed a galaxy of flesh and mind and bone!" The Graveminds voice thundered through the minds of everyone present as the large wave of flood forms inensified their assault. Scootaloo jumped into the fray with her energy dagger lit and sliced at a couple of combat forms before she jumped back into cover and fired a burst of rounds from her SMG. The torso of another flood form exploded as Twilight fired a shot at it and others well due to the fire from the two DMR wielding ODST's "Scootaloo on your 3 o'clock!" Twilight shoted at Scootaloo as she saw a floodform charging at the filly from the side, Scootaloo immediately turned and fired a burst into the combat form but didn't do enough damage to take it down. The large meaty claw on the flood form crashed into the filly and launched her into the door, which incidentally gave Twilight the oppertunity to fire at the combat form. "SCOOTALOO!" Twilight shouted as the filly lay motionless for a moment, "Stay focussed, Sparkle. Take out the remaining flood before you get the corporal." Johnson said as he fired a laser at one of the remaining flood forms, Twilight grunted in response but her firing increased as she helped pick up the last flood forms. "Open up! Coast is clear." Johnson said as the last flood form fell and the four soldiers on the ridge charged down towards the door as it opened. The chief grabbed Scootaloo and ran inside with the Arbiter shortly followed by the others, the door closing behind them. "What's her status?" Twilight asked the Chief concirned for the filly, Scootaloo jolted up and groaned as she held her head. "Twilight remind me to take a crate of strong liquor with me to Equis when we get to that point." She said while the Chief put her back on the floor. "Really, Scootaloo. You're impossible." "I try." The pegasus said with a smirk under her helmet. The group running towards the control room the Gravemind speaking to them while they were running. "Do I take life or give it? Who is victim, and who is foe?" "It's trying to rebuild itself on this ring!" Cortana said in a slight panic. "Hurry! Control Room's close!" Johnson said as the final door opened and they entered the control room. The room was circular with a walkway suspended over the middle and a large hologram of the unfinished halo in the middle. "Yank me, Chief." Cortana said as the door closed behind them and sealed. "I'm not gonna lose her too." Johnson said as the Chief tossed Cortana's chip to the Sergeant Major, who started walking to the control panel in the middle of the room. Twilight and Mack walked alongside him as Guilty Spark came floating towards them while humming a tune, "Oh, hello! Wonderful news - the Installation is almost complete!" It said with an upbeat tone. "Terrific." Johnson grunted, being completely uninterested in the monitor. "Yes... isn't it?" It said unsure as it picked up on Johnson's tone. "I have begun my simulations. No promises, but initial results indicate that this facility should be ready to fire...in just a few more days!" It announced proudly. "We don't have a few more days!" Twiligth snapped at the monitor, the Sergeant Major agreeing. "Exactly!" he said and started to activate the ring while Twilight and Mack eyed the monitor. "Bu-bu-but a premature firing will destroy the Ark!" Guilty Spark shouted in alarm, Johnson dismissively shrugged. "Deal with it." "...will destroy this Installation." Guilty Spark quitely said, both Mack and Twilight tensing up for the monitors next move. The monitor's eye suddenly turned red. "Fuck." Mack simply stated as he pushed the Sergeant Major out of the way, which put him in immedeate danger as the monitor fired a beam of red energy hit the Mack in his chest, making him go down with a scream. "Unacceptable! Unacceptable!Absolutely unacceptable!" It ranted as it turned to fire a blast at the Chief and Arbiter, "Protocol dictates action! I see now that helping you was wrong!" It fired another shot at Twilight and Johnson who both had to jump out of the way of the beam before the monitor turned back to the Chief, "You are the child of my makers. Inheritor of all they left behind. You are Forerunner! But this ring... ... is mine." The moment Twilight could get a shot she immedeatly fired her sniper rifle at the monitor but the round seemed to just bounce off the shell of the robot, the other undesired effect it had was that Guilty Spark took notice of her. "Hey beautiful, smile." Johnson said as he fired the spartan laser at Guilty Spark. "You - you cracked my casing!" It shouted angrilly as everyone opened fire on the monitor, The chief charged forward, firing an assault rifle at the rogue AI. "Chief! Catch!" Johnson shouted as he threw the spartan laser at the Spartan who immedeatly shouldered the laser and fired another shot but it went wide as Guilty Spark dodged out of the way of the beam of light. "Stop now, before one of us gets hurt!" Guilty Spark roared as he charged another shot aimed at Twilight, Scootaloo flying in from the side to knock the alicorn out of the way of the beam. "TELL THAT TO MACK, PIECE OF SCRAP!" Scootaloo roared, drawing the monitors attention for long enough that the Chief could score another hit with the laser. Guilty Spark made couple of strange digital sounds as it tried to say something, "-destroy your inheritance!" "Inheritance my ass!" Johnson shouted as he threw a plasma grenade at the monitor, Guilty spark turned around at unnatural speed and charged its energy beam. "Accept your le-gacy!" Scootaloo saw this happening and flew at her top speed towards the Sergeant Major in an attempt to push him out of the way for a second time but was to slow as Johnson went down in a similar way to Mack. "SERGEANT!" Scootaloo shouted as she landed next to the soldier, Guilty spark getting hit by the laser a third time. "M-m-my pr-precious!" It stammered as it leaked plasma and fired another blast at the Chief who just took it and charged the laser once again, "I a-a-a-am the Monitor of Installation Z-Zero F-Four!" Guilty Spark proclaimed as the Chief fired another shot at the monitor, who started screaming as plasma came from the casing and it exploded moments later. Twilight rushed over to Mack where lucy was already sitting on her knees with her medkit shaking her head. Scootaloo simmilarly crouched down next to Johnson, the Chief also running up to them. "I'm getting you out of here." The spartan simply stated as Johnson coughed up blood, "No you're... no you're not." he weakly said as he took hold of the Chiefs hand, "Don't - don't let her go. Don't... ever let her go. *Coughs* Send me out... with a bang." He finished as his lifesigns flatlined. His hand dropping away from the Chief's, leaving behind Cortana's data chip. Scootaloo looked over at Twilight and Lucy who were both shaking their heads as they sat next to Mack's body. The Spartan silently walked up to the control panel and put the data chip into it. "Chief... I'm so sorry." Cortana said as she looked at the two fallen soldiers. She made a motion with her hand and the Chief pulled her out of the system put her back into his helmet. A massive beam of energy suddenly shot up in the middle of the room, the magic field spiking as it had done with the other Halo. The room also began to shudder as the uncompleted structure started coming apart. Twilight's horn lit up as she started making use of the magic that was bleeding off the energy beam, a flash later everyone was standing in the hallway outside of the control room as large pylons crashed into the walkway behind them. "That was *Pant* harder than I expected." Twilight said as she was breathing heavilly as teleporting a thousand pound spartan took a lot of energy out of her. "I am sorry, Spartan, little Demons. But come." The Arbiter said as he started running back out of the structure, cutting down flood forms as they ran. "Even in death, your Sergeant guides us home." The Arbiter commented as a piece of ice gave them a road back up to the ridge behind which Lucy had parked the warthog. "The Dawn... of course, The frigate! We still have a chance!" Cortana practically shouted. Twilight unfurled her wings and flew ahead with Scootaloo, "Follow us! We know where a hog is!" The alicorn shouted as they started fighting through flood forms that were infesting the building they had to run through. "There! The Warthog!" Cortana pointed out as they left the building, Lucy jumping behind the wheel and started the engine. The Chief jumped on the turret and the two ponies jumped on the back in between the driver's seat and the turret. "Come on, Helljumper! Go, go, go!" Cortana shouted as everyone got on board. Lucy immediately went full ahead towards the frigate. Flood and Sentinel forces were clashing along the way as the ring was shuddering apart. "Come on! Faster!" Cortana shouted as a ground panel beside the warthog blew up and flew into the air and forced the ODST to make a sharp turn to not get hit by it as it fell back down. "It's not as easy as it looks!" Lucy replied to the AI as she roadkilled a couple of flood infection forms. "Charging sequence at 30%..." Cortana reported, a wave of magic was released from the Halo causing the two ponies to cringe as it hit them. "Not this again." Scootaloo groaned as she tightly held on to the warthog as not to accidentally get thrown off. "50%, Corporal!" Cortana shouted at Lucy as an entire section of the floor blew up and dropped away, in the distance she could see the floating frigate. Another wave of magic hit the ponies but Twilight quickly put up a shield as an attempt to dampen the effects. "80% charged!" Cortana shouted while Lucy was making a beeline straight to the cargo hold, "90% - firing sequence initiated!" Cortana finally reported as Lucy floored the accelerator even further and the Warthog made a jump into the cargo hold, everyone was thrown from the hog onto the floor as it landed. The starship lurched and various vehicles started to slide away from where they stood, Scootaloo and Arbiter sprinted into a hallway shortly followed by Lucy and Twilight as the alicorn performed another short ranged teleport. The Chief, on the other hand, had to dodge out of the way of the warthog as it slid back out of the hangar bay. “The Demon will be fine, we have to get to the bridge!” The Arbiter said as the group was cut off from the hangar by a scorpion tank and cargo boxes. Twilight cursed for a moment but ran off after the arbiter towards the frigate’s bridge, the hallways felt like they went on forever but they eventually burst into the empty room. “We need to get this thing moving!” She said as she powered up a console and looked at Scootaloo. “What do you want ME to do?!” Scootaloo shouted incredulously at the alicorn, “I’m not rated to fly STARSHIPS!” “Well, you actually know how to fly, stuff unlike me!” Twilight shouted back, the filly let out a frustrated roar and sat down behind a console, “Fuck, fuck, fuck... THERE!” She shouted as the Frigate lurched forward, another wave of magic flew forward from the ring and hit the two ponies. Lucy ran up to them as they screamed from the magic overload. “Come on you two, fight it!” She said as the wave passed and gave the two ponies some reprieve, “It’s turning into dark magic, Lucy.” Twilight panted as black goo oozed from her horn. “please tell me you have one of those rings I made. It works two ways, it can also keep magic from the outside out.” Lucy quickly dug through one of her pockets and revealed one of the black rings, and slit it over Twilight’s horn. “What about me?!” Scootaloo asked as she got up from the ground. “Pegasi and Earthponies can get rid of Dark magic much easier as your casting mechanism isn’t directly connected to your brain.. and due to me having used dark magic before I’m more susceptible to it.” Twilight explained to the filly which seemed to put her at ease for a bit. Scootaloo looked at the monitor again as the Arbiter had increased the power on the thrusters even further. “We’re almost there!” She shouted as she saw the portal coming up on the main screen. Twilight suddenly felt her hair stand on end as she felt a powerful source of dark magic behind her, “IT’S FIRING!” She shouted in a panic, almost immediately after which she felt the transition from real space into slipspace occurring. A loud screech rang through the ship as it sounded as if the frigate was being torn in half, the power suddenly going out plunging the group into darkness as all sounds stopped as well. “We didn’t die.” Scootaloo said baffled breaking the silence as she activated the flashlights on her helmet, “We didn’t DIE!” She shouted again and fell down into hysteric laughter. The ship suddenly lurched as Twilight felt it exiting slipspace and hitting an atmosphere, Everyone was thrown around as the starship came to a sudden halt. “Did we arrive already?!” Lucy asked baffled ass the trip had been nearly instantaneously, “The power input to that portal must have been immense!” "It probably was" Twilight groaned as she stood up onto her hooves, "Everyone still in one piece?" "I'm good." Scootaloo replied, shortly followed by a confirmation from the Arbiter. Twilight nodded and opened a COM channel, "Mayday, Mayday, This is Sergeant Sparkle of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn does anyone copy?" Static followed for a moment but after a couple of seconds, a message came through. "Copy... Sparkle... Imminent, stay pu..." Twilight slumped against a console and pulled off her helmet, Scootaloo sitting down next to her. "It's over... It's actually over." Twilight whispered as tears rolled down her face Scootaloo was sitting in the hold of a pelican as they flew away from the crashed wreck, they had made it but as they had left the spaceship they found out that the entire aft section of the Forward Unto Dawn sheered off somewhere in slipspace. Along with the Chief and Cortana. The war had claimed its final casualties just as they had won. The cargo bay door closed as the pelican flew towards the mainland which was relatively close by, a couple of minutes later Scootaloo felt the familiar feeling of the pelican landing on the ground, the engines coming to a gradual stop as the ramp lowered which revealed Lord Hood standing at the bottom with his dress suit. The three ODST's brought a quick but sloppy salute as exhaustion had finally hit them from the constant fighting for nearly a day. "Glad to see you're still in one piece, Helljumpers. Sergeant Sparkle I want you to report to my office for debriefing in an hour, go take a shower first, a new dress suit should be waiting for you three as well." "Yes, Sir!" Twilight said as she saluted again, the Admiral turned around and walked off. A marine stepped forward and led them towards a barrack where a shower was present. Scootaloo ripped off the armor pieces and unzipped the undersuit, which stank like nothing else before she stepped into the shower. Old blood and bits of gunk washed off her coat as the filly closed her eyes and just let the warm water hit her. "Scootaloo?" Lucy asked from across the showering room where she was washing up. "Yea, what's the matter." The pegasus asked as she saw both Twilight and Lucy staring at her. "You know, I think I know when it happened." Twilight said to Lucy without taking her eyes of Scootaloo, "Uhm, girls? Seriously, what's wrong?" "Your buttmark." Lucy bluntly stated, Scootaloo's eyes going wide as she looked at her flank. "I-I... cutiemark?!" She said baffled at the mark on her flank, "I HAVE A CUTIEMARK!" She shouted as she hopped through the shower room, fatigue momentarily forgotten. She hopped around for a couple more seconds before coming to a standstill, "So what do you think it means?" She asked Twilight who just shrugged. "That's up to how you want to interpret it." The alicorn answered as she turned off her shower and got a towel to dry herself off, Scootaloo raised an eyebrow at Twilight's answer who sighed in turn. "Look, Scootaloo. Think of Dash's Cutie Mark, what about it tells you that she's the fastest pegasus on Equis?" Twilight asked the filly who thought for a moment, "I... don't know." She admitted. "Exactly! it doesn't shout fastest pegasus but it is exactly that because Dash decided that was what it meant!" Twilight explained to the pegasus as she put on her new black dress suit and fixed a similarly colored beret with an ODST emblem onto her head. "I'm going to head for the Admiral, I heard they were going to have a ceremony later today so I'll see you girls over there." "See you there!" Scootaloo replied as she jumped back under the shower, not taking her eyes off her flanks to the amusement of the other two soldiers. Scootaloo was standing alongside Lucy and Twilight at a hillside overlooking the poral site at Voi, it was the site where over a month ago the Forward Unto Dawn and the Sangheili fleet had left for the Ark. The Shadow of Intent was floating in the air behind a monument where Lord Hood stood, he took off his hat as he was about to give a speech. "For us, the storm has passed The war is over. But let us never forget those who journeyed into the howling dark and did not return. For their decision required courage beyond measure..." Scootaloo teared up, she could see Twilight and Lucy doing the same, as memories of the friends who hadn't made it came to her mind. "...sacrifice, and unshakable conviction that their fight, our fight, was elsewhere." Scootaloo looked at the memorial where countless pictures of fallen soldiers were present, some she had never seen and some awfully familiar to the pegasus. She herself had added a scratched 117 to the memorial with her combat knife as she had figured out that the Chief had been designated as MIA instead of KIA even though he was almost certainly gone. "As we start to rebuild, this hillside will remain barren, a memorial to heroes fallen. They ennobled all of us, and they shall not be forgotten." The Admiral finished as he put his hat back on. "Present arms!" A sergeant who Scootaloo had seen several times along with the chief ordered as seven marines took aim at the sky and fired a three-volley salute. Lord hood walked down from the memorial towards the arbiter and stopped in front of the Elite, "I remember how this war started. What your kind did to mine. I can't forgive you. But..." He held out his hand, "You have my thanks. For standing by him to the end." The Arbiter took the Admirals hand and shook it before Lord Hood turned to Twilight. "I take it you still want to leave as soon as possible, Sergeant?" Twilight nodded, "Yes sir, very much so." She answered. "Then I guess I will have to do this now." His stance changing, "Private Savage, Private Woods come forward." He said, Scootaloo's ears perking up. Woods came forward pushing along a wheelchair that held Tyler who had his trademarked smile plastered onto his face. "Corporal Hurricane, Corporal Turner, Sergeant Sparkle. As per the decision of High Command, all UNSC personnel that ventured to the Ark are to be commended with a gold star but due to your actions aboard the Halo and staying to the very end you have been nominated for a higher commendation." Lord hood started as he was given the first of two boxes by Tyler. "Corporal Turner, due to your actions aboard Halo and seeing the venture through to the end I may present to you the Medal of Honor." He said as he pinned the medal to the Corporals chest before he turned to Tyler and grabbed the next box and crouched down in front of the two ponies. "Sergeant Sparkle, Corporal Hurricane. As the first alien members of the UNSC, I'm honored to be allowed to present you both with the Medal of Honor as well. When you first came into contact with UNSC forces you could have decided to sit out the conflict you decided to take up arms instead even though High Command doubted the decision at the time. The UNSC and Humanity are proud to have called you our allies and hope any further coöperation will happen between our two kinds." He finished as he stood back up and saluted the three baffled soldiers who gladly returned the gesture. "Princess Twilight Sparkle, a pelican with supplies has been packed and a long-range communications satellite has been loaded onto the Shadow of Intent. As per the treaty of coöperation that you signed the UNSC will guarantee the safety and wellbeing of Equis while at the same time your kind will eventually step up to help humanity as it struggles to rebuild." The Admiral said to Twilight, surprising Scootaloo at the change of title. "Of course, Admiral. As soon as the Unified Earth Government and my Equestrian government ratify the treaty we'll start mutual coöperation." Twilight answered, Lord Hood nodded and left the group alone. "So when were you going to tell me about that?" Scootaloo asked the alicorn. "We negotiated the initial terms a couple of hours ago, after it's enacted the real negotiations will start." Twilight answered before she turned to Tyler and Woods. "Didn't expect to see the two of you here." She said with a smile, Tyler let out a laugh. "We didn't either but one doesn't say no to Lord Hood when he personally calls you to ask your help with a ceremony." "No, you don't." Lucy said with a smile and hugged the former ODST that was stuck in a wheelchair, "I'm glad you're awake, Savage." "Yeah, no shit. I'm just annoyed that I'm stuck in this damned chair." He answered, "Anyway, issues aside, you two are going home?!" He said as he looked at Twilight and Scootaloo. "Yes, I took care of that. The Arbiter offered to take us home aboard the Shadow of Intent so that'll speed up the journey considerably." Twilight answered as the Arbiter came walking up to the group from behind the alicorn. "Yes and we will have to leave soon as the humans have requested for us to leave the system as soon as possible." He told the two ponies. Tyler and Woods looking up at the Elite in awe as they hadn't worked with him. "Then I guess this is it." Scootaloo said as she looked at the three humans, "I'm really going to miss you all." "Hey, we're not dead and I'm sure Sparkle butt here is going to make sure this isn't going to be the last time we see each other." Tyler said with a smile as he pulled up the pegasus into a hug. "Tyler's right, we'll see each other on the first bird that heads down to your planet." "Well, until we meet again then." Twilight said with a smile as a Phantom came down to pick them up. Twilight alongside Scootaloo and Arbiter stepped into the Phantom and turned around to take a last look at the three humans, both she and Scootaloo using their wings to perform a salute, the three humans returning the gesture as the Phantoms doors closed and cut off the line of sight to them. Scootaloo let out a yawn as she was getting close to two days without sleep, "I guess I could use a na-... O crap, we kinda broke off contact with Equestria a month ago didn't we?" she said as she looked at Twilight, "We'll just have to surprise them, won't we?" Twilight replied with a grin. Scootaloo let out a single laugh, "Yeah, I'm just scared what they'll think of us." She admitted. "Scoots they're our friends and family, they'll love you no matter what." Twilight comforted the filly, "We should probably get some more sleep now because I'm on the verge of collapsing." Both ponies chuckled as they landed in the carrier, "Follow him, he'll lead you to your quarters." The Arbiter told the two as he pointed at a blue armored elite minor, The two nodded and walked to their rooms while they could feel the carrier ascend into space. Once the two ponies entered the room Scootaloo collapsed on one of the beds and almost immediately fell asleep, "You can go, we'll call for an escort after we wake." She told the minor who brought his fist up to his chest and closed the door. Twilight collapsed on the bed beside the filly and also started drifting to sleep. I'm almost home, I'm almost home. She thought as her eyes closed and she fell into a deep slumber.