Adrift.

Not really one of the largest or spacious multiplayer maps in Halo 4, which meant it was designed for smaller player numbers and team sizes, also for close-quarters type combat.

The map took place on a deserted UNSC civilian gas-mining vessel by the name of CAA Heavy Burden which hovered over an unidentified gas giant planet.

This installation contained corridors, passageways, ramps, staircases, lifts, and man-cannons that all lined up with their symmetrical twins for tactical properties obviously.

In the dead center of the map was the sight of a HRUNTING Mark II [D] Exoskeleton Armor Defense System walker in the progress of construction in a circular chamber.

The game that was currently being played was a match of Regicide.

This multiplayer game is similar to a FFA (Free For All) game of Slayer, but the player who was in the lead would be known as the King.

The objective of the game is to either kill the king to earn bonus points so eventually you would become the new king, or remain king as long as possible by racking up more kills then your enemies while trying not to get yourself killed so you won't lose your title in the lead.

This is no easy task however because one: you have a waypoint above your head for all to see, so you can't hide; and two: everyone is your enemy so you will be outnumbered five to one.

Luckily, they might kill eachother in order to get to you so you may not be completely doomed, but it won't get rid of the waypoint marking your movement and location.

The player currently in the lead was miniwerewolf231 with a total of thirty-five kills so far.

The reason being is that he pretty much knew how to use any weapon or armor ability that he equipped to his arsenal. He was truly a formidable player. Hell, he even managed to make a few players rage quit.

The only problem is that he had a really big ego, probably because he was an eight year old kid. That was probably why the players rage quitted because they really hated little kids like him.

"C'mon, can't any of you faggots play this game?" he asked cockily.

"Shut up you little asshole!" a player shouted.

"Yeah, go back to kindergarten!" another player added.

"I didn't go to kindergarten! I was so bad and tough that I was kicked out of education. I then joined a gang where we smoked weed and fucked whores!"

"Yeah right kid. No bitch would want your tiny dick in her pussy," a player said laughing.

"Yes she would! My penis can grow up to twelve inches!"

This retort just caused more laughter from the players. There was one player who had an unusual laugh through, and may I say rather annoying.

"lololololololololololol"

miniwerewolf231's avatar spun around to face a player wearing a light green Recon armor suit along with a recon helmet with a yellow narrow visor that was placed at the front of the head.

In his hands he held the MA5D-ICWS assault rifle, while on the side of his leg was the M6H-PDWS magnum pistol.

This player walked toward miniwerewolf231 in a slow but intimidating way.

"Who the hell are you kid?" miniwerewolf231 asked.

"it r mastur ch33f 2 u mah fri3nd"

"Oh yeah right. The Master Chief does not wear recon armor you retard, he wears MJOLNIR Mark-VI. He also doesn't talk like a computer either."

"stfu u smart ass. i no th3t a1r3ady. r3c0n armur is jst s0 fucking ossim. ossim possim"

"Whatever dude, you still don't have any skill through. You are at the way bottom of the scoreboard."

"lalalalalalalalalala im not lissening!"

"You will!"

miniwerewolf231 aimed his BR85HB SR battle rifle and began firing.

Chief began firing his MA5D in full auto because he was in close enough range to do so, but didn't take a short break to re-align his aim when miniwerewolf231 began performing evasive moves, so most of his bullets missed their mark.

In about five seconds, Cheif's avatar was killed with a headshot from the last bullet of the battle rifle's three-round burst.

"I told you that you didn't have any skill," miniwerewolf231 said laughing while teabagging and shooting Chief's corpse.

Chief furiously shut the Xbox off with his hoof and flumped down on the sofa fuming his frustration.

"TH00SE STUPID KIDZ R A1WHEYS U SING FUCKING HAX!1!1"

"Still falsely accusing players of using cheat codes I see," said the voice of Arby who could be heard after the door to Cheif's house opened.

Chief didn't bother to turn around.

"shut up dumbass. i no th3y r u sing hax "

"Are you sure it's just not because you are not taking time to aim your reticle over your target and keeping it locked on while shooting? Also that you are not really concentrating at performing your own evasive maneuvers. Maybe if you did thoose two thing you might..."

"y3ah y3ah y3ah," Chief interrupted. "u t311 me teh same shit ovar @ ovar again. u jst think ur sooooooo sm3rt. p3rhaps th3irs a fucking dog biscuit i c00d gave u 4 your servac3s"

"Actually I'd prefer a carrot or a sugarcube," Arby retorted sarcastically. "I'm sure Applejack's collie Winona would probably teach you better than me anyway."

"y3ah ur rite arbiter. th3t bitch c00d make me teh best ha10 p1ehyer on teh planat"

Arby rolled his eyes.

"Sigh, forget it. Anyway, do you know what night it is?"

Chief was about to respond before Arby cut him off.

"No it's not the night where you fuck my mother who I don't even have. Yet there would be no point really considering the fact that you wank yourself to death on a daily basis anyway. I'm just surprised that you never seem to run out of semen."

"in th3t case i dun no what t0night is, an i rly dun gave 2 shits either"

"It's Nightmare Night, Chief."

On that statement, Chief finally placed his gaze on Arby who happened to be wearing a bat costume. This sight amused Chief and cheered him up.

"xD"

"What the hay is so funny about my costume Chief?" Arby demanded.

"u l00k so ghey"

"So your implying that simply dressing up as a bat is a way of expressing that I have an interest in the same sex? Or is it the fact it makes me seem like one of those Furies?"

"if u want 2 put it th3t whey, then yes. lol"

Arby just facehoofed.

"My main point is that you should just stop playing the Xbox for tonight and join me, Applejack, and the girls at the Nightmare Night Festival that being held in town. Also that there's a haunted house attraction at Applejack's farm."

"no whey wh0res ay. im not dressing up n a fag0ty c0stume and joining u, or ur skanky wife 4 a ghey ass party, or a hant3d h0use 3ither"

"It's José Chief, and why not? This is our first Nightmare Night since we arrived in Equestria. Sure their was Halloween back in our world, but the way it's celebrated here is much more fun."

"i dun care arbiter @ i nevar wi11. jst g3t 10st @ enj0y ur retard3d party"

Arby wanted to protest, but decided not to. He was also a little relieved as well because he knew Chief would find a way to ruin everything.

"Suit yourself. I'll just go now and leave you too your task of bashing online players all night long."

"kk nao go plex k thx bai" Chief said shooing off Arby.

With that, Arby closed the door to Chief's home leaving him alone once again.

Arby sighed and trotted off to meet with the girls.

***

When Arby reached the town square of Ponyville, he met up with Applejack and her friends. Just like him, they all wore a variety of costumes.

Pinkie Pie was dressed up as a shark while Rainbow Dash dressed up as her favorite fictional adventure book character, Daring Doo.

Rarity was a vampire princess and Twilight Sparkle dressed up as a witch.

It took a bit of convincing, but Fluttershy decided she should try going out with her friends for once because Nightmare Night is usually when she hides herself inside her cottage for the entire night.

She dressed up as the most adorable thing she could think of, which happened to be a ladybug.

Applejack dressed up as a Viking for this year. She wanted to go as a scarecrow again like she did last year, but decided it would've been better to go as something else.

"Howdy sugarcube," Applejack greeted with a warm smile.

"Hey honey," Arby replied and kissed Applejack. "So are we all ready?"

"You bet we are!" Pinkie replied with her usual enthusiasm.

"Where's Chief?" Rainbow asked.

"I'll give you three guesses," Arby replied expectantly.

Everypony didn't need to guess because they already knew, so they just uttered an "Oh,"

"I swear, why can't that ruffian just stop playing his games for one night and get out of that stuffy house of his?" Rarity asked, or complained.

"The big question is why can't he get his attitude adjusted?" Twilight asked. "I thought thoose three years in Canterlot's Correctional Facility would help him."

"Well Cheif is a hardshell to crack, and is very hard to predict," Arby explained. "Or in short, I would say he is unchangable."

Everypony agreed.

"It's still a bummer through that's he's missing out on such a great party," Pinkie said.

Arby thought for a moment, then a smile crossed his muzzle.

"Well what if we brought the party to him?""

Everypony looked at Arby with curious and intrigued looks.

"That would be impossible," Pinkie said.

Rainbow turned to Pinkie in surprise.

"But Pinkie, you always find a way to bring a party to others."

"I know that silly filly. I said it was impossible because I don't have my party cannon with me at the moment."

Rainbow facehoofed.

"Let me rephrase that statement." Arby said. "What if we played a little Nightmare Night prank on him?"

Everypony seemed to understand now.

"You mean like scare the living daylights out of him?" Rainbow asked looking very excited.

"Is it wrong if I say yes?"

"Heck no! I'm always up for a good prank!"

"Me too!" Pinkie added bouncing.

"Oh I don't know. That seems kind of mean," Fluttershy said in her natural quiet tone.

"Oh c'mon Fluttershy, it's just for fun," Rainbow stated.

"Still, it's not very nice."

"Well can you recall anything that he's done to you that wasn't very nice? Surely there's something there that makes you want to see him get a taste of his own medicine," Rainbow explained.

Fluttershy put a hoof to her chin as she began recalling memories of Cheif's bad behavior.

She remembered the first day she met Arby and Chief. That's when he dumped a bucket of water on her.

She recalled a few other times when he messed around with her animals that caused quite a bit of mayhem and disorder equivalent to what Discord would create if he hadn't been reformed.

When all of her memories passed, she turned to Rainbow with a stern look.

"Perhaps he should get a little scare; but let's not try to make it too harsh okay?"

"I knew you would come through," Rainbow said affectionately wrapping a hoof around the back of Fluttershy's neck.

"Oh you know me," Fluttershy said with a small blush.

"But how are we going to pull it off?" Rainbow asked. "We don't know if Chief has some wits to be able to catch on to us?"

Arby thought, then turned to Twilight.

"Twilight, do you know anypony around here who is good at realistic looking pranks?"

Twilight thought for a moment before an idea crossed her mind.

"Well Princess Luna is quite good at changing her appearance and bending parts of reality," Twilight replied. "She even made herself look like Nightmare Moon last year and that earned a lot of scares, but it was all in good fun."

"Perfect! Is she anywhere around here?"

"Yeah, she's right over there," Pinkie said pointing a hoof in a random direction.

Everypony turned and looked in the direction that Pinkie was pointing in.

They all saw a tall and dark coated alicorn with a long flowing mane that sparkled like the night sky, along with beautiful dark blue eyes that nearly matched her coat.

She wore her traditional dark royal tiara along with a necklace that beared the same crescent moon pattern like her cutie mark.

She also wore a glass slipper on each of her four hoofs.

Apparently Luna was playing a game of Throw the Spider on the Web when she took notice of Twilight and the rest of the gang approaching her.

She welcomed them with a welcome smile.

"Greetings Twilight, how are you and your friends on this fine Nightmare Night?" she asked.

"We're doing great Luna, how about yourself?" Twilight replied.

"I'm doing just perfect. I feel like I'm having more fun then last year!"

Twilight turned too Arby to see if he would give her an approving nod. Luckily he did.

"Have you pranked anypony yet?" Twilight asked.

"I may have earned myself a few scares from a few ponies, but it was nothing serious. Why do you ask?"

"Well we were wondering if you would like to pull a prank on Chief for us?"

Luna seemed a bit confused.

"Can I ask why we should do such a thing?"

"Well you see, Chief doesn't seem to have anykind of holiday spirit in him at all. He just wants to sit around and play his precious Halo games all the time and isolate himself from the outside world. We were thinking that maybe you could give him the boost he needs to be in the Nightmare Night spirit," Arby explained.

Luna thought for a moment about what Arby said to her.

Apparently she knew that the Chief Arby was talking about was the same one that she runs into online whenever she plays Halo.

A smile dawned upon her own muzzle hat indicated she was in.

"So what's the plan?" she asked intrigued.

They all gathered in a circle to draw out their plans.

***

Meanwhile back at Chief's home, a match of Flood just ended on the map of Abandon.

As usual Chief always found himself at the bottom of the scoreboard. The reason being is that he was always the first one to get infected, and not being able to infect others.

"fuck this gheyme. its 4 fag0ts n e whey" Chief muttered to himself and exited the playlist.

Chief then set down the controller next to him on the sofa and then stared at the screen doing nothing. He just had his forehoofs crossed in front of him gazing at the screen with the look of disdain which was masked behind his helmets visor.

Yes, apparently Chief found a new suit to wear after his old one was taken from him when he was sent to the correctional facility.

Chief was thinking about wanting to join Arby and the girls, but always denied himself because of how much he despised them sometimes.

He knew Nightmare Night should have been a time when he should be enjoying himself and having fun, but he just could not find a reason to enjoy it. There was just no point except cheap scares and obnoxious foals knocking on the doors asking for candy.

His thoughts were suddenly interrupted when all of the lights in his house suddenly shut off.

"AAH!1! WTF?" Chief screamed startled.

He took a moment to regain his composure. He just thought it was some pranksters screwing around with his home's electricity board that resided outside of the house.

"dumbass kidz" Chief grumbled and got up from his gaming sofa to go for the electric board.

It was so dark that he couldn't see his hoof in front of his face at all. He even tripped on an unidentified object that rested on his floor.

"OW!1! g0ddammit" he cried rubbing his sore face.

He was halfway across the room, when he heard a dark and creepy and feminine voice call his name.

"Chiiieeeef," it called.

Chief immediately froze in his tracks as chills ran throughout his entire body.

"w..whos th3re?" Chief stammered.

"Chhhhiiieeeef," it called again dragging his name out even more.

"v..very funny arbitur. i n...no th3t this is a sick j0ke. u can knock it off nao plex"

A glowing dark blue fog suddenly appeared before Chief causing him to stumble backward.

"I am not who you speak of. I am the demon of your worst fears. The shadow that always lingers in yours. I am something that will eat your soul!"

"nooooo :'(. don't eet my s0ul1 plixy pl0x. ill do n e thing u say!"

"I want you to go outside and enjoy the festivities of this cursed holiday. Join your friends and collect some candy to offer me so I won't end up  EATING YOU!"

On those last two words, the dreadful face of Nightmare Moon shot from the fog and looked Chief dead in the eye with a menacing and evil expression.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!111!!11eleven" Chief screamed as he mindlessly jumped out the ground floor window of his house and galloped off somewhere into the night.

When the coast was clear, Luna transformed herself into her normal form and spit out the false fangs she was wearing.

Arby and the girls met her at the doorstep. Apparently they were hiding behind the shrubs near Chief's home.

"Oh my Celestia that was awesome!" Rainbow laughed wiping a tear from her eye. "I wish we could've seen the look on his face."

"I don't think we would be able too because of his helmet," Twilight stated.

"I think we can only imagine it. Something tells me his eyes were probably wider then his brain, " Arby said and caused everypony to laugh.

"So, how was I?" Luna asked.

"You were absolutely amazing darling!" Rarity said enthusiastically. "What a superb performance!"

"Um....do you think he's going to be alright?" Fluttershy asked.

"Relax sugarcube, ah think we all know he will be fine," Applejack said.

"I couldn't agree more," Arby said.

Everypony once again laughed. This had to be the best night for everypony, especially Arby and the girls. They only feared Chief may get them back somehow, but that could wait till next Nightmare Night.

End