"... I'm here, Twilight," Rainbow Dash finally responded over the radio.
Fluttershy let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness."
"Ready for that pick up?"
Continuous explosions jostled the whole elevator and the two Mares riding it as it ascended. Each one was louder than the last, and Fluttershy's heart skipped a beat with every blast.
"Definitely," Twilight answered back to Rainbow.
"Junction 4C?"
"External access junction 4C," she emphasised.
"Doh, you know what I mean!"
Twilight took a pause, seeing what Fluttershy was seeing, and Fluttershy was seeing Pinkie Pie, twisted and mangled on the platform.
"... Twilight, you there?"
"... I'm here, Rainbow. Sorry. Yeah, I know what you mean, but I don't wanna take any chances." An explosion interrupted her. "External access junction 4C."
"External access junction 4C," the pilot repeated in confirmation.
*****
Circling the Autumn, Rainbow Dash banked her Pelican around. "I'll be there."
She saw bright orange flowers bloom all over the downed Cruiser's hull, and the distant thunderclaps intruded her ears shortly after.
Full of uncertainty, the rainbow haired Pegasus checked, "Er... Twilight? Things are looking pretty crazy down there. Everything ok?"
The AI's reply was dramatic and punctuated by explosions. "Negative! Negative! We've triggered a wildcat destabilisation of the ship's fusion core! The engines must have sustained more damage than we thought!"
Rainbow was perplexed. "I don't know what a fusion core is. I thought you were just gonna start the self destruct sequence."
"Things got complicated, ok. Spark intervened."
"Spark? Y'mean the guy that took Pinkie to the library?"
"Yep."
"Tricked Fluttershy into activating Halo?"
"Almost."
"Tried to kill you?!"
"Tried to kill Fluttershy. He wanted me intact."
Fluttershy and Applejack began to weep over Pinkie's body.
"Oh, I swear, if I ever meet him, I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind!"
"Then you'll be pleased to know his home will be destroyed in a matter of minutes. That's piece of mind enough, don't you think?"
"Yeah, but... it's not really personal."
"It is for us," Fluttershy breathed down the mic.
Rainbow winced as a particularly loud explosion went off over the radio, along with the ear-splitting shriek of something she'd never heard before.
"Aah! We'll talk to you later, Rainbow! See you soon! ... Hopefully."
Before she could reply, "See you soon, definitely!" the connection ceased, and she was left to gather her thoughts. Sighing, she shed altitude and closed the gap between herself and the Filly of Autumn.
*****
Back inside the exploding ship, on the rising elevator, Fluttershy comforted the wounded Applejack.
She was about to get her med-pack out when the orange Pony said, "Th... there's no time for me, Fluttersh-sh-shy. You... you gotta get off this ship."
"Not without you!" She stomped a hoof, reigniting the agony in her dodgy foreleg. "Ow!"
AJ spluttered, "Why not?"
"Why not?" repeated Twilight, raising a digital eyebrow. "Because you're our friend, and we love you."
"And there's no way we're leaving you here."
"Look at me." Applejack motioned her eyes at her blood-soaked coat and armour. "I'm a... liability... I don't wanna hold you back. I... I left Lyra... I left Bon Bon... And I was gonna l-l-leave Aloe... If it's one thing I need, it's a taste o' my own medicine." Holding back her tears, she bit her lip.
"... Perhaps you forgot what I just said." AI Twilight was stern. "You're our friend and we love you! Don't we, Fluttershy?"
"Oh, we do!" The Pegasus gave Applejack a big, warm hug. "We do!"
The orange one burbled, "I... sure am lucky to have... friends like you."
"Likewise, Applejack."
"... Twilight," AJ strained, weak. "Where's the Truth n' Reconciliation?"
"I don't know. I can't contact it now."
Applejack looked down.
In a soothing manner, the AI spoke, "Don't worry. I'm sure it'll be waiting for us in space. Your cousin's got this, right?"
The frown on Applejack's face increased. She didn't answer.
Fluttershy answered for her. "I'm sure he does."
Gazing up the never ending, burning elevator shaft and the debris that showered them, a funny feeling entered Fluttershy's gut. The end of the nightmare was now. Soon, she, Applejack and Rainbow Dash would be back home, with the real Princess Twilight, and Spike. Home sweet home.
"You know you're driving, right?" Twilight randomly projected, breaking the mood.
Confusion washed over the yellow Mare. "What? What do you mean? I thought we were being picked up by Rainbow Dash?"
"We are, at external access junction 4C. That's one point three kilometres away!"
Fluttershy gasped and Applejack spluttered.
"One point three kilometres?! Ahargh - aharg - ugh!" Blood dribbled from the Earth Pony's lips. "Is that even on the ship?!"
"It's a big ship, Applejack," lectured Twilight, voice partially masked by the explosions. "One point three kilometres isn't even half the length!"
Fluttershy didn't understand. "But, how are we supposed to drive there?!"
As usual, Twilight had an answer. "There's a service corridor that runs along the ship's dorsal structure. It'll take us straight to the access junction!"
"Are you sure?"
"Am I sure? Of course I'm sure!"
The corpses of black clad Covenant and one diseased friend kept the Mares company all the way to the top.
Once the elevator came to a jarring halt that flung Fluttershy off her hooves, Twilight directed, "Warthog bay's to the right! Move!"
Regaining her composure, Fluttershy grasped Applejack's collar with her teeth and put all her strength into dragging her off the elevator, keeping her fractured leg off the ground.
A deafening BOOM shook Fluttershy back and forth, and the elevator platform dropped like a rock.
Fluttershy grunted with every step as she hauled Applejack into a parking lot full of Warthog LRVs. A roaring fire burst from the elevator shaft, and a horrific Flood outcry echoed from every direction at once. One of the Warthogs was ablaze, and another had been blown onto its side. Loud and continuous, an alarm wailed, and red lights strobed on and off.
Gradually but desperately, the burdened Mare wobbled over to the closest truck and slumped AJ into the passenger seat. The farm Pony may have been unable to move, but she did manage to strap herself in.
Whilst coasting around the Warthog's grill to the driver's side, Fluttershy was rocked to the ground once more by a couple of nearby explosions. Two Warthogs on the other side of the bay were thrown up by flaming shockwaves and flipped onto their roofs. Infection forms came oozing out of holes in the walls.
"Hurry!" stressed Applejack, peering over the Hog's hood to find Fluttershy getting back on her hooves.
The petite Pegasus hopped into the driver's seat, fastened her seatbelt, and placed both hooves on the wheel. For the first time since her accidental Spartan training, she was actually going to drive a Warthog, and her entire mind-set overflowed with doubt. Back at Spartan training, her superiors had constantly bawled in her face for being such a lousy driver, and now it was up to her to drive herself and her friends to safety? She closed her eyes and took one deep breath.
Here goes nothing.
The key had been tucked away under the sun-visor, and upon retrieving it, she inserted it into the ignition switch and turned it, hard. The engine roared to life, shaking the whole vehicle side to side. Building up enough revs, the little Pony released the hoofbrake and the Warthog shot out of its bay with squealing tyres.
"Oops!"
She was quick with the wheel, and managed to turn the brute out and away from the parking lot.
Outside the vehicle bay, a fight raged on between a Covenant spec ops team and a swarm of Flood. The aliens held position around a burning Warthog that rested on its side, fending off the howling space zombies.
Fluttershy couldn't understand why they were bothering fighting. The Filly of Autumn was about to blow, and take all of Halo with it. They should be doing what she and Applejack were doing. Running.
Because the combatants were daft enough to be fighting in the middle of the road, Fluttershy ran a whole bunch of them down. An Elite rolled out of the way to let a Grunt eat the bumper, and a contaminated Jackal was pulled under the left side wheels, squelching like a jam donut.
Up ahead, was a steep climb, and a million parasites came pouring down like a waterslide. They crunched and popped under the three tonne vehicle. The ones that survived the brutal game of frogger kept bouncing down the slope to join their buddies in overwhelming the Covies. Them Covies really didn't stand a chance now.
Coming over the top of the slope, sunlight came into view through gaps in the Autumn's roof. Gaps that were built for the servicing of smaller spacecraft, like Longswords. It was dazzling, and Fluttershy squinted her eyes in the golden rays of light.
Applejack shielded her vision. "Sure could do with a... p-pair o' s-sunglasses, eh."
"Or a visor!"
"There are sun-visors above the windscreen."
As Applejack pulled down her sun-visor, Fluttershy mumbled, "I meant visor like the kind on a helmet but ok," and reached up to pull the flap down, stretching her aching foreleg.
Illuminated in golden sunlight, the floor ahead was rife with sub-tunnels, ramps, pipes, metal outcroppings, and a whole bunch of other stuff Fluttershy had no idea what their purposes were. It was also rife with Flood, and a couple of combat forms fired plasma pistols at the oncoming vehicle.
Hitting the gas, Fluttershy drove straight at the lovely couple - and disappeared through a sub-tunnel, right beneath them. They probably weren't expecting that.
Something Fluttershy didn't expect was the bone-rattling blasts that tore through the metal panelling and tossed shrapnel into the Warthog, or the two carrier forms waddling up front that she converted to mush by driving over them. The Hog left foul, olive green tire tracks in its wake as it leapt out of the tunnel and landed on the main floor with a thud. A ramp facing the opposite way was directly in front of her, and she spun the wheel frantically to get around.
"Ow!" she bleated as the sting in her foreleg intensified.
Being at the wheel was not going to help her fracture heal any time soon.
Up ahead, a ramp lead up to an elevated platform, high above the infested obstacle course, so she drove straight at it.
"Fluttershy?! What are you doing?!" moaned Twilight hysterically.
Not sure what she was doing, and busy concentrating, Fluttershy just stuttered, "Well, I... I-I'm driving!"
To have Twilight question her decisions in such a baffled tone sure took a knock on the old confidence, and Fluttershy felt her hoof move slowly off the gas pedal. Realising that the ramp and the platform weren't connected, and she'd accidently lined herself up for a stunt jump, she squealed and slammed her hoof back on the gas.
Off the ramp, the Warthog soared, and that funny butterfly feeling entered Fluttershy's stomach.
"Woah!" sounded Applejack, holding on to the dashboard, wide eyed.
The air time was brief, and the Hog came to a perfect landing on the towering platform, out of reach of the noisy Flood. There were obstacles on the main floor that would've required a lot of steering, foreleg pain, and time consumption, but thanks to Fluttershy's little mistake, she was able to fly the LRV over all that.
However, Flood infection forms could scale vertical surfaces, and some were already waiting for them up there, not that they were any match for the Warthog's chunky, off-road tires. They burst under the Warthog's weight, creating a mini green explosion that provided a lame backdrop for the next unexpected jump. The jump had been formed by the platform that had been sheared in half, and upon landing, the vehicle kept going like it was nothing.
Random jumps were all the rage this moment, as the platform came to a drooping end, and Fluttershy sent the LRV plunging down through the air, straight into a sub-tunnel. Three Flood combat forms came running up, and were subsequently splattered all over the Warthog's grill.
Exiting the sub-tunnel, Fluttershy turned the wheel to round a pit, saw the service chamber end with a narrower yet still really wide vehicle corridor that sloped down and out of sight.
"Yep, through there," Twilight affirmed as Fluttershy left the Flood infested chamber behind and zoomed downhill.
The corridor was full of scorch marks and blast scars, but was relatively calm compared to the scene from hell she'd just driven through. It allowed her a moment to breathe and pick up some serious speed. Speed that she was afraid of. Speed that she needed.
"Ugh, w... what gives, Fluttershy?" Applejack's feeble accent muttered from behind the shipwide explosion fest. "I... I though ya said you were... you were bad at drivin'."
"Well, I am!" the driver replied, blue eyes peering over the hood as she sped along. "This is me being bad!"
Applejack made a noise that Fluttershy wasn't sure if it was coughing or laughing. It turned out to be both.
"This is you being a bad driver? He-he-he-ahurgh-urgh! ... I... I'd... love to see what... you as a good driver is like then, he-he-he-aharg!"
"Rest yourself, Applejack," Twilight instructed firmly.
Adjusting her cowboy hat, AJ relaxed in her seat, breathing heavily, eyelids half closed.
To Fluttershy, Twilight mentioned, "She's right, y'know."
"Huh?"
"So far, you've proven yourself to be a world class driver! Ha! And you told us all you were terrible - you big kidder, you!"
"But I am terrible," the shy one protested as she came out into the next service chamber. "My superiors at Spartan training would always tell me off for not being able to drive up to standard!"
She was in a rant, and she paused briefly to steer and pull the Hog's hoofbrake, power-sliding the vehicle to the right and taking out a group of battling Covies and Flood. The tires screeched across the metal surface and left bloody tracks as Fluttershy corrected the angle and sped up for an elevated grating that ran along the side of the chamber. Sentinels fired in her direction, and she serpentined about to dodge the hissing orange lasers.
"They'd throw me in the ring with the meanest, toughest cadets just so I would get smacked around, in hopes that I'd try harder, but no matter how hard I tried, they still told me I was useless!"
Up a tightly narrowed ramp that was meant for pedestrians, not vehicles, Fluttershy drove the Warthog straight as an arrow along the thin metal grating. An explosion occurred beneath, chucking flames and debris up into the vehicle's V shaped hull, making it loose traction. Briefly taking her hoof off the gas pedal, she was able to regain control of the vehicle, and she kept sailing along the sidewalk, knocking over a poorly pedestrian.
The memories of Spartan training filled up her rage-o-metre, and she gritted her teeth, snarling like an untamed animal. "Every time they threw me in the ring, I came out battered and bruised! I always lost! The other cadets used to make fun of me! Pointing and laughing, saying I was weak, saying I was the runt of the litter, and that I wouldn't last two seconds on the battlefield! I never wanted to be on the battlefield, ok!" She was really shouting now. "I only signed up for the UPSC cos I wanted to help my friends, but now they're all dead, so what was the flipping point, huh?! I didn't want to joint the Spartan programme! I wanted to stay in the UPSC, with my friends, or better yet, at home, with my friends, but nooo! You were all like; "let's show the Covenant what we're made of!" "If we can beat the Changelings, we can beat anyone!" "Come on, Fluttershy, we'll have an adventure!" Oh, I've had a whale of an adventure on this Celestia forsaken ring! I'm sure this memory's gonna be cherished forever!" The pain in her foreleg stabbed her. "Nng!"
A contaminated Elite shambled nearby, and Fluttershy actually aimed for it, turning the wheel just so she could run it over.
Coming down off the metal grating, Fluttershy swerved and exited the service chamber via another vehicle corridor. She was fuming, and she breathed heavily with her teeth gnashed and nostrils flared.
"Fluttershy, dear, calm down," Twilight pleaded with a soft tone. "We're all very sorry about what happened to you."
Spluttering back to life, Applejack commented, "And you do realise you just told us all that while you were makin' road kill of all them... them vermin back there."
A common explosion separated Applejack's line from Twilight's.
"Yeah. Whoever was in charge at Spartan training sounds like they were doing their job wrong. If you can remember their name, I can speak to them. Maybe even have them court-martialled."
Taking deep breaths to control her temper, Fluttershy grumbled, "You weren't there. You don't know what my driving was like."
"Well if it was as good as this, you certainly deserved more than being thrown into the ring with the toughest cadets. Oh, left here."
A narrow tube lead away into the left wall, full of fire and Flood, and Fluttershy reacted in lightning fast time to manoeuvre the Hog through it.
"See! You just did it again!"
Fluttershy still wasn't in the best of moods, and she snapped, "Did what again?"
"Displayed the raw skill of somepony that sure knows their way around a vehicle! Although, now that I think about it, you've been doing that since we landed on Halo."
Suspicious, the young Mare raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Remember our little tank rampage in the Truth and Reconciliation?"
Joining in, Applejack croaked, "Th-that was some fancy tankin' there, F-f-fluttershy. Aha-ahurgh!"
Exiting the narrow, flame filled tunnel with a splattering of Flood, Fluttershy swung the Hog left and followed the curving corridor.
A lot of the time, Ponies would tell her things. Things that were good about her. Things that weren't necessarily true, just to cheer her up. She always ended up feeling patronised though, and she rolled her eyes at what Twilight and Applejack were telling her now. She also debated whether they were actually being truthful. Honest Applejack was saying she was a good driver, so that meant she was a good driver, right?
As Fluttershy brought them into another service chamber full of explosions, Sentinels and Flood, Twilight began listing, "You've driven three Wraiths, one Scorpion, four Banshees, and one Ghost, and you've driven them well enough to get here. I can't think of anypony outside of PONI who can put all that on their résumé!"
Applejack patted the yellow Mare's back. "Yer a real wheel Mare, sugar - woah!"
Fluttershy sent the Warthog flying off a ramp, knocking a Sentinel out of the air and coming to a jostling landing.
In a coughing fit, AJ strained, "Warn me next time you - aha-ah - do - aha - that!"
No answer from the pink maned chauffer. She just kept her eyes riveted to the road and scowled.
There was another jump coming up, so Fluttershy did as Applejack wished. "Jump ahead!"
She sped up the ramp, just as the Autumn's clamorous engine decay decided to let off one heck of a firework right in front of them. A surprised yelp came from Fluttershy, and she almost hit the brakes, but she was going too fast now, so she might as well keep her hoof on the accelerator.
The huge, fiery explosion was much more epic than the pathetic, olive Flood-splosion the infection forms had provided her with earlier, and the Mares earned style points as they continued through the flames and landed back on the main floor.
Up ahead, another vehicle corridor curved up and out of sight, and the Warthog LRV zoomed straight up it. Fire roared down from the ceiling, washing the Hog with heat.
"You still there, Rainbow?" Twilight checked, full of hope.
Rainbow's relieving response was instantaneous. "Still here! I'm circling the Autumn now. Where are you guys?"
"We're almost at the access junction. Should be there within two minutes."
"Access junction whaat...?" Rainbow trolled, getting back at the AI for earlier.
"Ugh. Access junction 4C."
"Rodger that. In fact no, Rainbow that. Rodger's lame. It's important to be specific, Twilight."
"Don't you lecture me on being specific!"
Rainbow chortled out loud. Nice to hear her having fun at such a time.
"Whatever. Hurry up, would ya. I don't like being left hanging. Especially in this place." A distant explosion put a period to the pilot's sentence.
"We're going as fast as we can. See you soon, Rainbow."
"See you soon!"
"We love ya, Rainbow!" the runners hollered as the connection ended.
The next service chamber was a biggie, and it stretched far out in front of them. All manner of obstacles and enemies stood between them and the external access junction.
Luckily, it seemed there was a professional stunt driver at the wheel, and she aimed the Warthog for a sub-tunnel. Infection forms lined the metal panelling like wallpaper, and they were spurred into action upon the large green car flashing by. One of them actually managed to get inside the car and latch onto Applejack's face, and the farm Pony screamed in fear. Fluttershy leaned over and punched the snot-bag away, then immediately put both hooves back on the wheel, just in time to correct the Hog's angle after being struck by an explosion. She'd used her right foreleg; the broken one, to knock the parasite off AJ, and it stung harshly.
"Oh, thank you, Fluttershy!" Applejack swooned. "You... you saved me!"
Steering around a pit, Fluttershy grinned, still not taking her eyes off the road. "It was nothing."
Like before, a ramp lead up to an elevated service platform, high ahead, and Fluttershy opted to use it. However, when she got nearer to the top of the ramp, she realised the gap between it and the platform was way too large, and in order to stop herself smashing into the platform's support pillar, she reduced speed and turned the wheel.
It did the trick. Thanks to her good judgement that, according to her old superior at Spartan training, was hopeless, Fluttershy was able to bring the Warthog LRV down to a harsh yet controlled landing, round the pillar, and keep going.
It was then when Fluttershy noticed she'd joined a queue. A queue of black clad Covies rushing ahead on foot. If she didn't know any better, she'd say they were retreating. Good call.
The Grunts got in her way, and she did something she really hated to do: She killed them. Ran them over. Splattered them all over the front of the Warthog. Blue blood splashed up onto the windscreen, and Applejack took the liberty of switching on the wipers. Olive blood came up as well, implying that she'd actually "saved" one of the Covies.
Once the blood was cleaned up, AJ switched off the wipers and Fluttershy constantly honked the horn, not wanting to run over any more squeakers.
"Make way for the Warthog!"
"Warthog comin' through!"
Diving out of the way, the diminutive little soldiers cleared a path for the Warthog, too busy running to shoot.
However, the path for the Warthog was zigzagged. The long, elevated service platform above that Fluttershy had failed to reach still required support columns, and they stood like cones in the centre of the floor.
Frantically, she wrestled with the wheel, slaloming between the struts like a slippery fish, feeling the burn in her damaged foreleg, listening to the explosion party all around her, and the Flood shrieking up, wherever they were.
At one point, she heard an alarming snapping noise. At first, she thought it came from the Warthog, but then she felt indescribable pain in her right foreleg.
"Dear sweet Celestia! Fluttershy!" cried Applejack, pointing at her. "Yer leg!"
Still driving, Fluttershy kept her eyes forward, spinning the wheel this way and that, tears of agony running down her cheeks. She glanced down at her foreleg for a beat, then straight back at the view ahead. She caught sight of it bending. Bending in a place where it shouldn't be able to bend, and a tapered bump stuck out from under the soft part of her armour.
High-pitched, she whined, "Ow ow ow ow!"
"H-how are you still drivin'?"
At last, the sidewinding session was over, and Fluttershy piloted the Hog over smooth, open ground.
There was another large ramp ahead, so she blinked the water from her eyes, if only temporarily, and rasped, "Jump!"
Acknowledging, AJ braced herself and held on to the dashboard.
As soon as Twilight announced, "Covenant drop ship, incoming!" the Warthog was airborne once more, and something dropped down on either side.
That was when Fluttershy realised she'd driven the Hog up between the two prongs of the fork shaped Spirit drop ship.
The transport's turret opened fire, and lethal tri-bolts of purple plasma raced after the flying Hog. The truck vanished down a sub-tunnel, evading the plasma, and re-emerged on the other side, only to leave the chamber via another descending vehicle corridor.
While the truck of Ponies growled along down the sloping corridor, Twilight hailed, "Rainbow Dash! We need extraction now, on the double!"
"Hold your horses," answered Rainbow through Fluttershy's speaker. "I'm coming!"
Just before the transmission broke, Fluttershy thought she heard a crashing noise come from Rainbow's end.
Her thinking was interrupted by an unexpected drop, and she screamed with Applejack as the Warthog fell a few feet before jarring to the ground.
"Sorry," she apologised to her passenger. "Not even I knew that was coming."
Proceeding, Fluttershy and her Warthog LRV sped out onto a platform that bridged one wall to another. The new chamber was gargantuan, and the sun shone through the open roof above, illuminating everything in a luscious gold. There was plenty of room both above and below the bridge for a Pelican to fly. Maybe even enough room for three Pelicans, all at once. Because of the easy Pelican access, that meant...
"Wait! Stop! This is where Rainbow Dash is coming to pick us up!"
Well, Twilight confirmed it, and Fluttershy hit the brakes, bringing the fast moving Hog to a screeching stop. After one heck of a road trip, they'd finally arrived at external access junction 4C.
Things were starting to get really dicey inside the Filly of Autumn. It was like they were inside a volcano. Everywhere Fluttershy looked, she saw huge infernos and tremendous explosions. Chunks of metal crumbled off and fell to the deck, waaay down below.
Hastily, Fluttershy unstrapped herself with her one good foreleg. The other foreleg was hurting so bad, and she wailed in excruciation as she hopped out of the vehicle. She left the engine running; figured it didn't matter since everything was about to go up in flames in a matter of minutes... or seconds. She had no way of knowing. All she knew was that the Filly of Autumn and Halo would be long gone real soon.
She limped around the back of the LRV and its unmanned turret to reach Applejack in the passenger seat. The poor Mare couldn't move, and needed assistance getting out of the high-riding car. Fluttershy herself needed assistance assisting Applejack; the pain in her broken foreleg stabbing her, telling her not to do what she was trying to do.
"Nnnng... Twilight? ... W-where's Rainbow Dash?" quizzed the Pegasus through gritted teeth, working with Applejack to pull her out of the Warthog.
She felt a sickly warm fluid puddle inside her armour, around her fractured leg.
Twilight's only answer was, "Uh-oh."
"What do you mean uh..." she trailed off, gazing up at the Pelican drop ship rocketing towards them, smoke trailing from its engines and two Banshee fighters closing in behind it. "... Oh..."
Voice full of panic, Twilight yelled into the radio, "Rainbow! Look out behind you!"
The two alien fighter crafts spat blue plasma and green fuel rod projectiles at the Ponies' ticket to freedom, and something within the Pelican detonated in a flash of fire and a plume of smoke.
"I'm hit!" Rainbow cried from behind the controls of her Pelican, grasping the control yoke with all her strength. "Mayday! Mayday! I can't control her!"
Gazing wide eyed in despair, Fluttershy drooped her ears and gawped as Rainbow's Pelican lost altitude, passed under the causeway, and swayed ungracefully closer to the ground, leaving a trail of black smoke that made her cough.
The radio became distorted, and Rainbow's voice crackled over Fluttershy's speaker, "Forg-... -i-... -m bailing! I'm bail-"
-A huge flurry of orange flames burst from the cock-pit's window, and more flames spewed out the back where the gangplank had already been lowered, ready for Fluttershy and Applejack to embark.
The two Mares on the bridge shrieked on as they helplessly watched Rainbow's Pelican pitch down, roll over and yaw right. Right into the wall where it met its end in a devastating fireball. If the impact rocked the ship, it was impossible to tell with all the other explosions taking place.
Applejack and Fluttershy continued to stare longingly at the burning wreckage, praying to see the little blue Pegasus rise from the flames like some sort of rainbow phoenix.
"Rainbow!" Fluttershy called, voice echoing, mane and tail blowing in the shockwaves. "Rainbow!"
... There was no response...
"Raaiinboow!"
A sudden gust of wind blew Fluttershy's mane wild as the Banshees whizzed by, low. She didn't care. She and Applejack were trapped. No escape Pelican or anything. When the Banshees came banking around, all the tired Mare did was stand there. She just stood there and welcomed them...
"... Calculating alternate escape route."
That woke her up. "W-what?!"
"Longsword charter says there's a fighter, still docked in launch bay seven! If we move now, we can make it!"
Shaking her head vigorously, Fluttershy snapped herself out of it and hobbled back to the Warthog's driver's seat.
"Banshees!" Applejack stressed with upward fright.
Just as the evil, Rainbow Dash killing, Covenant aircraft opened fire, Fluttershy put the hammer down and left a big number eleven on the platform. The Hog's bodywork suffered plasma burns, and one close fuel rod projectile threw the truck up on two wheels, almost plucking it right off the bridge. Fluttershy was able to bring it under control though, bringing it back down on all fours with a bump.
Once they were out of the access junction and back in a vehicle corridor, they were free from the Banshees' wrath. Safe? Far from it.
The Autumn's disintegrating engine set off explosions here, there, everywhere, and Fluttershy worked hard to avoid each and every one of them. Her shattered canon bone creaked under the stress as she flung her foreleg around, turning that heavy steering wheel in all directions.
"Oh my stars," whimpered Applejack, burying her face in her hooves. "They... they got Rainbow... They got Rainbow!"
Tearing up behind the wheel was dangerous, but she'd already teared up over the agony in her leg. Might as well lament for Rainbow too. She'd pay her a proper tribute when they got clear of Halo. If they got clear of Halo.
As the corridor swooped down, Fluttershy found herself floating out of her seat. The surface levelled off again, and she plonked back down, hard.
Twilight croaked, "Seatbelt, Fluttershy," and the yellow Mare fiddled with her bad hoof to strap herself back in.
Unable to get a hold of anything without screaming in pain, she left it and put both hooves back on the wheel. Helpfully, Applejack leaned over and did her seatbelt for her.
"Thank you," she snorted, sounding unintentionally aggressive.
AJ spoke no words, just blubbered to herself.
A deeply segmented grating came rushing up to meet them, and the Warthog became a boat on rough seas, bouncing up and down as Fluttershy was forced to reduce speed, kill time, and wallow over it. Crashing waves came in the form of explosions, and attacking sharks came in the form of plague carriers, thrashing the vehicle and denting the bodywork.
On Fluttershy's side, a black clad Elite latched on to the vehicle and grabbed the top of Fluttershy's head with a big alien claw. She screamed and lost control, the Hog swerving from side to side.
"Get outa here!" snarled Applejack, blasting half of the monster off of the Warthog and onto the road.
However, a cluster of tentacles sprang from what remained of its lower torso, and they whipped around wildly, slashing Fluttershy's face. A second buckshot served to eliminate the rest of the ill alien, and it scraped along the road, leaving a trail of mottled olive blood.
Catching her breath, and control of the LRV, Fluttershy wheezed, "Oh... th... thank you... Applejack."
"It was nothing... sugar-cube."
"Sugar-cube." That was another one of Applejack's many trademarks, and it made a smile form inside Fluttershy. Never formed on her lips though.
After racing down another steep slope, splattering some spec-ops Covies, and cutting a corner by traveling down a narrow, flame filled tube that Twilight directed them through, Fluttershy skidded the Hog around with a screech. A screech that came from both her and the tires, and kept the vehicle on the straight and narrow.
They had just begun to pitch down a gentler slope when Twilight broadcasted, "Up ahead, there's a gap!"
"We've cleared gaps before," Applejack theorised, rubbing her eyes.
"Not like this one..."
An awkward silence befell the two Mares as they glanced unsurely at each other.
After an infernal shriek of the Flood, the AI added, "At top speed, we should be able to clear it!"
Fluttershy gulped. If Twilight felt the need to bring it up, it must be one hay of a big jump.
She tried to put on her determination face, but her eyes watered and her lip trembled, so she looked, well, kinda ridiculous. Applejack's face couldn't be seen; hidden in her cradling hooves.
Four hexagonal doorways lined the vehicle corridor; two on each side. Furious flames poured out of one and hungry Flood poured out of another. The whole corridor exploded, the blasts shaking the Mares in their seats. A central support column toppled over, and the Hog whizzed under it just before it came crashing down on a mob of gangrenous beasts.
Fluttershy spied the jump ahead. It was indeed something to be concerned about. The gap was wide, likely deep, and the platform she had to reach was cluttered with striped barrels.
Giving AJ the heads up she requested, Fluttershy stammered, "B-b-brace yourself!"
Peering up, the hat wearing Earth Pony noticed the size of the gap, and she yelped in shock, placing both hooves on the dashboard.
Forcing herself to push the gas pedal through the hoof well, Fluttershy drove the Hog closer... closer... closer... straight off the edge.
Time slowed down for the Mares inside the Warthog. Like a majestic bird, the LRV soared through the open space. All the air fled Fluttershy's lungs, leaving nothing left for her to scream out. Her stomach lurched, and the odd sensation of weightlessness coursed through her body.
She glanced at Applejack, green eyes popped wide open as she let out one long scream. Her trademark cowboy hat flew off her blonde, tied up mane, never to be donned again.
Up ahead, the platform with the barrels rose up, and up, and out of reach. The Warthog plummeted down, down, down into the fiery red abyss, the front end tilting forwards as the vehicle did a nose-over. How could she have failed? How could everything come to an end so suddenly? All the stress she'd been through. All the pain she'd suffered. All so she could drive herself and her friends straight off a cliff. At least the Autumn would still blow without her; that'd save the rest of the universe, right? Of course it would. Twilight said it would. Twilight was always right... except when it came to stunt jumps, as it turns out. With her friend by her side, Fluttershy squeezed her eyes shut and grimaced. Not a scream nor a cry from the little Pony. Just a whimper...
Clunk! All four wheels impacted hard on a sloping metal surface, jostling Fluttershy's eyes open. She witnessed the jeep swoop along through a scooping sub-tunnel, catch a little more air upon exiting, and land as gracefully as an airplane in another vehicle corridor.
The Pegasus was utterly mind blown. "W-wait, what?! Wha-"
"-Hoof back on the gas, Fluttershy!" demanded Twilight firmly. "We're almost there!"
Doing as told, Fluttershy kept the Warthog in motion, but she was super shaken up after what she'd thought was going to be her demise, and her brain was still unable to comprehend what happened.
"I... I don't understand! We didn't make the jump!"
Quick check on AJ. She was literally gawping in disbelief, wide eyes staring right at her.
A giggle came from the AI. "Haha! I told you it was a big jump!"
"B-b-but, I-I saw it myself!" quick turn of the wheel, "The platform, it just... just... we dropped right before it!"
"Oh, you thought we were heading for that thing with the barrels? Nah. No pony could ever make that!"
Smelly little parasites pounced at the Warthog, and were ultimately knocked into olive green oblivion.
"I... I thought we were going to die." She became a dog whistle at "die."
Coughing up a small portion of blood, Applejack agreed, "M... m... me too!"
Trying not to get distracted by AJ's alarming state, Fluttershy aimed the Hog for the narrow tube up ahead.
"Oh... I probably should've explained where the other side of the jump was."
Unable to see Twilight's avatar, Fluttershy pictured the purple Alicorn grinning sheepishly, blushing with a squee.
"Ugh!" she grunted, both in pain and in irritation.
Squeezing through the tunnel, the Warthog mowed down a cluster of Flood forms and braved the flames that licked it from each side. It was explosion party central, and the Hog was pushed up and down, side to side, and shrapnel intruded the interior. The pieces of hot metal pinged off Fluttershy's shields, flaring them, draining them. A glance at Applejack showed that she wasn't faring well, and the scrap cut her skin, making her bleed.
Once out of the tunnel of explosions, one final blast hurled the Warthog's back wheels up off the ground, and its nose scraped across the metal. It would've corrected itself, but then the road started to decline again, and the whole vehicle just became airborne.
Like a rock that had been thrown, the LRV flipped front over rear, and crashed into a scattering of striped barrels. It landed on its roof, making Fluttershy look like a bat, hanging upside-down from her seat, her shields drained.
Spluttering in the settling dust, she checked, "A... Applejack? You... you ok?"
AJ just gasped for air, blood leaking from many different injuries all over her. "I... I... I can't breathe... I can't move!"
"Oh, hold on, Applejack!" Fluttershy told as she fiddled with her seatbelt. She fell head first to the floor with a thud. "Ow! I'll get you out of there!"
In an instant, her shields recharged.
Outside the overturned Warthog, the launch bay was a warzone. Flood and Covenant traded plasma bolts, needles, bullets, shells and all manner of explosives. Some of them even fought hand to hand, hand to tentacle, sword to lead pipe. Covies were ripped apart like paper. Some Covies actually got back up, but they came with a few "new additions."
Also making an appearance were the Sentinels. Those flying robots cooked all life on the hangar floor, focusing mostly on the Flood.
At the very back of the gigantic chamber, a gaping window of gold sunlight lit up the shadows, silhouetting the large, pointy vehicle that was parked behind all the commotion. The Longsword fighter. That's what they needed to escape the ring world.
As the Filly of Autumn continued to tear itself apart, Fluttershy ran around to Applejack and undid her seatbelt. The Earth Pony thudded to the deck with an agonising shriek.
"Oh, Applejack, come on!" groaned Fluttershy, dragging her out from under the wreckage with her teeth.
Applejack's voice was shivery, and it wasn't cold. "I... I c-... I c-c-... ca-..."
With her limp foreleg on the quaking deck, Fluttershy attempted to lift Applejack, but her leg gave way, twisting at a vile angle as if it were made of rubber, and she collapsed to the deck like a sack of potatoes, wailing in torture.
"Aaaaahh! Ahaaah! Nnnng!"
"F-f-fluttershy?"
Peering over herself, the pink maned warhorse looked into Applejack's luminous green eyes. The Staff Sergeant looked back, deep into her blue ones.
"... Just go," she breathed with the wind.
"... No!" barked Fluttershy stubbornly, and she rose to her hooves to have a second go.
"No... F-fluttershy... l-leave me, ok... I'm holdin' you... b-b-back."
"I'm not leaving you, Applejack!"
As the weak Pegasus gave it her all to hoist her one remaining friend onto her back, Twilight strained, "We've got less than a minute! Flood incoming!"
Almost like second nature, Fluttershy pivoted and fired half her pistol's magazine into the stalking ex-pony, killing it, and proceeded to drag Applejack along.
With a mouth full of tail, she growled, "Nnng! We're both going home!"
"Fluttershy, I'm dying!" AJ bellowed with enough volume to scare Fluttershy. She entered another coughing fit, and the blood that came out was all lumpy. "I'm... slowin' you... da-aha-aha-ahown! Hurrgh!"
The young Mare didn't care. "If you're not leaving here with me, I'd rather not leave at all!"
The reanimated equine she'd just killed thrashed back up, so she expended the rest of her magazine, killing it once more.
"W... what about Twilight?" AJ pondered, blood dribbling from her chops. "The... the... r-real Twilight? ... Spike?"
Fluttershy sure did want to see Twilight and Spike again, and she struggled to think of an answer. "Er..."
Softly, AI Twilight added, "I'm sure the real me would love to see you again."
Stopping in her tracks, Fluttershy looked down at the fading Earth Pony with shimmering blue eyes.
"G-get outa here... with... Twilight, and... t-t-tell... everypony what you saw."
Compassionately, the two Mares held each other's hooves.
"Let... the world... know... exactly what... h-aha-aha-ahappennned... here..." To Fluttershy, Applejack offered her her shotgun, and whispered the final words, "Send me out... with a bang..."
Kneeling by Applejack's prone form, Fluttershy started to cry...
"We were lucky to know you, Applejack," mourned Twilight. "We shall not forget your sacrifice."
Nuzzling up to the orange Pony, Fluttershy babbled, "We'll never forget you..."
A looming, black armoured figure came up to Fluttershy's back.
"Behind us!"
Spinning, the yellow Mare brought up Applejack's shotgun and fired a shell into the reanimated spec-ops Elite.
"Now would be a very good time to leave!"
Chucking Rarity's pistol in her saddle bag, Fluttershy gave Applejack one last look, and galloped away. A piercing shriek tore all around the launch bay, and explosions made debris come down in gales.
Speckled with blood from many different races, sporting a black eye and limping, Fluttershy made her difficult way straight and true towards the Longsword, blasting anything that had the misfortune to get in her way.
A healthy black clad Elite rolled out in front of her, plasma rifle blazing. Shotgun to the face!
A spec-ops Grunt lobbed a plasma grenade at an unseen threat, noticed the lone Pony staggering towards him, and opened up with his needler. Shotgun to the face!
A Flood carrier form waddled up from the side, accompanied by something that partially resembled a Unicorn. Shotgun to the... bloated sack? Yeah.
Hostiles continued to shoot at her from all angles, and her shields dwindled.
Eventually, she cleared the final run and arrived at the massive Longsword fighter. The triangular spacecraft sat on its landing gear, ramp down, beckoning her to hurry inside. With a groan of effort, she hauled herself up the ramp, just as her shields popped, and just as an army of Flood assembled at her six.
"Button to close the ramp's on the left wall!" bawled Twilight. "Do you see it?!"
Fluttershy did see it, but didn't answer, just hobbled up and hit it with her forehead. Hydraulics hissed to bring the ramp up, and it slammed shut on the misshapen, tentacled leg of something that was once equine, crunching it off.
Outside, the Flood went barmy, but then the Sentinels and Covenant came to divert their attention.
"We're cutting it close!" grated Twilight, just as a particularly large explosion rocked the whole vessel, and Fluttershy lost her balance, crumpling to the deck and landing on her broken leg funny.
Screaming, she cursed herself for being so sloppy, and made her three legged way over to the pilot's chair.
With the AI's instructions, she strapped herself in and brought the Longsword online, and the consoles before her lit up with vibrant colours. The humming of the engines increased as they woke up, and it eventually transformed into an ear-splitting roar. Using the throttle, she fed fuel to the engines, lifting the mighty Longsword off its landing pad. The thrust blew Flood out from underneath and sent them flying in all directions.
Trembling with overwhelming nerves, Fluttershy gulped and squeaked, "Here we go."
With the push of a lever, the thrust nozzles turned to face back rather than down, and like a bullet, the menacing looking vehicle shot out of the Filly of Autumn, leaving the Flood, Covenant and Sentinels in the dust, and tore up through the atmosphere. The three kilometre long Autumn shrank away fast; the Longsword going the speed of sound.
*****
Back on Halo's surface, on a hill that had a spectacular view of the crumbling Autumn, two beings slouched back against an overturned Ghost RAV. Corpses of Flood and a single black clad Grunt littered the dusty crest.
As for the two souls who were still alive, they just sat there and watched the show, not a care in the world.
Berry Punch, the deep pink, drunken Earth Pony Mare craned her neck to stare at her new best friend. "You - hic... You think they're still... still - hic... coming for us, man?"
The golden armoured Elite that sat next to her grumbled something slurred. He held a bottle of wine in his right hand.
"You... you don't... you don't sound too confi - hic - dent."
The alien didn't answer, just sighed and looked longingly at the Filly of Autumn and the increasingly large, loud explosions that bloomed all over its hull like fungal protrusions on some poor, Flood infected soul.
As a nice gesture of unity, and with a considerable amount of alcohol down each other, the Elite and the Pony shared a comforting hug.
The sense of peace was interrupted when a large shadow drifted overhead, and a Covenant Spirit drop ship bared down on them, hovering just off the dirt. The two companions watched as the side hatch clanked open, waiting for them to enter.
"Oohh, they came!" Berry jumped up, almost fell over, and snuggled up to the rising Zealot. "Y-you... big kidder, you!"
If it was difficult for the four legged equine to bumble over to the shiny purple getaway vehicle, it was even harder for the two legged Elite, and he fell flat on his face with a dumb laugh.
Getting impatient, the pilot swayed the transport side to side, as if it were shaking its head in disapproval.
After much lolling about, the drunken couple were able to flop onto the unhinged side hatch, and were tossed onto the floor of the vessel when it suddenly flipped closed.
Nowhere near as fast as the Longsword fighter that was long gone, the U shaped Spirit made a hasty climb for the heavens, leaving the ground and the Autumn behind.
Messily, Berry Punch tried to pronounce, "Uh, th-thank you for saving our - hic... our lives, mister Covenant sir! I - burp... ooh, am eternally - hic - grateful!" She waddled on over to the cockpit, not bothered by the fact that there could be a hostile Covie driving, leaving the gold armoured Zealot alone with her wine.
Upon seeing the Spirit's pilot, her dopy smile vanished in a flood of surprise, and her cerise eyes widened. A white coated Unicorn sat at the controls and scowled at her.
The silly grin reappeared on Berry's face, and she giggled heartily. "Huh. Huh-huh. H-huh-huh-hic! ... Uh... who are you?"
The pink maned pilot sighed and shook her head.
"Wrargh! Wort - wort - wort! Hahaha!" came Covenant gibberish from the troop compartment.
Covenant language was even less comprehendible when the guys were hooked on wine.
"Who was that?" the equine pilot eventually spoke.
But Berry was playing difficult, and she just smiled into the new Mare's eyes, making the situation fifty types of awkward.
"I can tell you," she started. "But first - hic... you must tell me your name."
"Fleur," Fleur uttered, no big deal.
Berry adjusted her invisible tie with a goofy smirk. "Right... my part of the deal... hic... Ahem! ... Burp - oops, pardon me, ehe-he... He's a - hic... he's a dinosaur... " She raised an eyebrow to herself, knowing that wasn't right.
Fleur just face hoofed and kept the drop ship on its course, out into space.
Making his appearance in the cockpit, the golden armoured Covie fell on top of Berry, and the two of them chortled for no real reason.
"You there!" Fleur snapped, pointing at the Elite. She then began speaking in Elite language. Translated, she interrogated, "What is your name?"
Upon hearing Elite words come from that Pony mouth, the biped seemingly sobered up in a split second and stared at Fleur with wide amber eyes. "How can you speak Sangheili?"
With draining patience, Fleur locked eyes with the warrior of the Covenant and growled, "You didn't answer my question. What. Is. Your. Name?"
Confused beyond the pale, Berry watched back and forth between the two.
After an uncomfortable pause, the Elite spoke, "Thel Vadam."
An actress' smile lit up Fleur de Lis' face. "Thel Vadam, huh? Great." As the Spirit soared away into the stars, she added ominously, "I've been waiting a very, very long time to meet you."
"... I need to sick," - Berry Punch.
*****
As for the Filly of Autumn, one insanely giant explosion grew over the vessel, taking the shape of a mushroom, and the whole super structure cracked and fragmented. The Cruiser became lost in the ultra-bright light of the final detonation, and a shockwave tore the world apart.
Halo began to disintegrate under the Autumn's destruction, and huge cracks ran along its terrain. Oceans were drained by the gaps, and mountains broke in half like twigs.
Fluttershy's Longsword fighter blasted through space, clear of the alien ring world. Well, it didn't really blast, what with there being no sound in space and all, but if there were, the engines would be howling. They could still be heard buzzing from inside the craft though.
Another noise that could be heard was the constant bleeping of the engine temperature alarm, and the caption "warning, engine temp critical" popped up on a blue view screen.
"Shut them down," Twilight advised. "We'll need them later."
*****
In a lush green woodland complete with a beautiful waterfall and a majestic, energy emitting spire, ugly Flood forms gibbered along, stopping to watch the shockwave draw closer. When it raced over them, they were blown away into the sky, along with rocks, trees and pieces of that Forerunner tower. The hosts behind the infection would no doubt be relieved to finally be put out of their torment.
*****
Sentinels hovered over the beach outside Halo's security centre where a downed Pelican laid, lasering a group of straggling Flood. Palm trees blew in a tropical storm, lightning lit up the sky, and thunder rumbled across the island. The same old shockwave come washing over them with a blast so mighty it drowned out the thunder, a light so bright it drowned out the lightning, and a force so strong it sent the Sentinels tumbling and crumbling through the air, becoming lost in the tsunami of ocean water that engulfed the island.
*****
Covenant ships were anchored here and there on Halo, and the alien soldiers rushed to get them all up into space, regardless of quarantine procedures. Some of the floating purple titanics had just started to lift off when the arc of devastation rippled over them, and the monstrosities were plucked out of the air like insects.
*****
Twilight wondered, "Care to take a look?" as Fluttershy pushed herself out of her seat and limped over to an observation window.
She arrived just in time to see a large chunk of Halo go spiralling gracefully through the vacuum, on a collision corse with the rest of the installation. Silently, it impacted the other half of the world, shearing it in half. Everywhere else on Halo started to tear itself apart, not strong enough to cope with the new weak spots.
It was hard for Fluttershy to imagine what it must be like to still be alive on that ring. To watch the world plummeting down on top of you from the sky. To see the sun, moon, gas giant and stars whirl around like oversized flies as the world beneath your hooves spun.
As Halo's ballet came to an end, Fluttershy looked down at the shotgun Applejack had given her. She opened her saddle bag to see the pistol Rarity had given her. The camcorder Lyra had left behind. The pointed, purple hat she'd salvaged from the great and powerful Trixie. Derpy's empty flask.
Biting her bottom lip and tearing up, the sole Mare turned her back on the window and cried. Twilight chose to be silent for a while, allowing Fluttershy some time to let it all out.
Eventually, the tearful Pegasus rose to her shaking hooves, still in a state, and withdrew Twilight's AI chip. Inserting it into a central pedestal, Twilight's digital avatar flickered into existence, a sympathetic expression on her holographic face.
"Fluttershy, I am so sorry," she croaked. "I wish things didn't turn out the way they did."
Sniffling, Fluttershy got the better of her sobbing, if only for a moment, and ditched her saddle bag.
Section by section, she removed the panels of her Spartan armour. Of somepony else's Spartan armour. Leaving her crooked right foreleg for last, she disconnected the armour from her neural interface and threw it away.
Before undressing her broken leg, she looked back at her own two wings, squashed up against her. She opened them with an aching crack, spread them wide, flexed them, gave them a flap. Boy it felt good to stretch her gorgeous feathered wings, and it helped take her mind off the twinge in her leg.
The mess of her face ended at her collar, where the rest of her body had been covered. It was spotlessly clean, aside from the plastered scar on her side that she'd sustained on the Honest Mistake.
She finally got to see her own cutie mark too. Her three little pink butterflies that she was oh so proud of. She hadn't seen her cutie mark, or spread her wings, since...
"Twilight? ... Where's the Truth and Reconciliation?"
A frown creased the AI's muzzle. "I've been scanning, but I can't find anything. Nothing at all."
The Pegasus laid on her belly and hung her head.
"I'll keep scanning."
While Twilight did that, Fluttershy made a start removing the armour from her right foreleg. The metal plates were easily detachable, but the body-hugging sleeve was a trick. Using her mouth, she pealed the sleeve off, cringing in the excruciation. The sleeve was a watering can, soaking the steel turf with warm red blood.
Now that Fluttershy could see her own foreleg, she saw that her closed fracture had become an open one, and a shard of canon bone protruded from her ravaged flesh and blood stained bandages. It hurt so much, she let out a long, piercing wail that sounded like she was dying.
Gawping at the gory sight, Twilight worried, "Oh gosh. You'll be able to fix that, won't you?"
Wincing, Fluttershy answered, "... Mm-hm."
With nothing but AJ's shotgun to bite down on, and no more bandages left in her med-pack, the wounded Fluttershy got to work.
The AI turned away, but could still see Fluttershy through the eyes in the back of her head. Could still hear her deafening screams resonate all around the Longsword's cockpit. Twilight ended up cringing herself, hating seeing her friend in such distress. Hating not being able to help or comfort. Hating the loud clacking noise her bone made when the two halves were pushed back together.
Fluttershy donned the clean sleeve of her left foreleg on her right foreleg, and re-attached the armour plates, just so she had at least a little support. The waters had burst through her eyes, and the tracks on her cheeks stood out in the grime.
Applejack's shotgun now featured teeth marks on its barrel, and Fluttershy felt awful for vandalising what her treasured friend had given her.
Whimpering, Fluttershy asked again, "You... you found the Truth yet?"
"There's nothing; just dust and echoes. I don't know where it is," the teeny Alicorn Princess explained, tone vacant.
A feeble squeak came from the young Mare.
"I'm hoping it's jumped the gun and is waiting for us at Equestria, but... I... I just don't know."
Head in hooves and hidden behind mane, Fluttershy resumed crying.
Interrupting her sobs, Twilight whispered, "... We did it though... You did it... You beat the Covenant, the monitor, the Flood... You have a story to tell when you get back home, and your story will be told for generations to come."
"Home..." Fluttershy breathed quietly.
A single beep sounded from a console, and Fluttershy strained to check it out.
"Permission to make the jump to Equestria," Twilight Sparkle informed as Fluttershy eyed the readout on the screen. "Accept?"
Wordlessly, the last surviving Pony tapped the "accept" tab and slumped back to the deck on her tummy. She retrieved her canteen and guzzled down a sizable amount of icy cold water.
Curled up on the cold metal deck, Fluttershy let out a mighty yawn. She was sad, lonely and tired, and all she wanted to do right now was fall asleep... and that's exactly what she did. She had no idea what kind of dreams she'd have in store, but she didn't care. The real nightmare was over... or at least for now.
"Halo..." Twilight breathed softly, solemnly arcing her translucent hoof. "... It's finished."
"Nn... no," murmured Fluttershy just before she drifted off.
The Covenant were still out there, and Equestria was at risk.
"I think we're just getting started."