4 weeks later

In the icy tundras of Equestria, the snow fell violently as the strong winds turned it into a raging blizzard. This was however only a minor inconvenience to a certain figure walking through the snow. Master Chief walked with his battle rifle, a burst fire rifle with a magazine of thirty two bullets with a x2 scope sight, in his hands as he looked around. For the past four weeks he had been updating himself with modern Equestria and testing out some new weaponry that had been delivered to him, like the new model battle rifle from the more recent halo games and a few covenant weapons.

He and Eris were sent out to the tundras to investigate a strange magical surge along with Shining Armour and a few of the Royal gaurd, although the only one that had actually showed any results was Shining, the other guards were just there to...something. Anyway, the only one that could actually stand the harsher weather was Chief with his Spartan 2 armour, so they had sent him out to explore.

Looking around using thermal vision to actually see anything that came out of the snow storm his sights fell on a large mountain silhouette that started to come into view. Not having any other leads or anywhere else to investigate Chief picked up the pace and began jogging, his heavy armour preventing the winds from blowing him down.

'Hey Marcus, can I ask you something?' Chief heard Eris from his helmet.

"What's up?" He asked while walking around a large block of ice.

'When Celestia sent us on this mission, did you think she was acting...strangely?'

Looking back on when he was briefed about the assignment he did remember Celestia being somewhat more tense than usual, only making him believe that this mission was far more important than it was made out to be. "I did, whatever is out here can't be good."

'Well the only thing out here is ice, snow and that banished King that we heard about from Luna, you think maybe he's trying to free himself?'

"That could be a possibility, but we can't assume that until the Crystal Empire returns, if it returns." The two continued walking through the harsh snow until they reached the mountain, finding it was made entirely of ice. Walking along the right side of it Chief came across a cave leading deep underground, seeing multiple red dots appear on his mini-map. "I think we found whatever we're looking for."

'Should we call the guards to back us up and investigate?'

"No, they would take too long through the snow and they'd only get in my way. We do this alone." Chief replied as he placed the battle rifle on his back and took a plasma pistol, a small firearm that could either fire small bursts of energy rapidly or could be charged up to deal more damage although it will cause the pistol to overheat for a few seconds, from his hip and cautiously walked into the cave.

Eris switched on the torches in his helmet and he looked around, finding small black insect like creatures that seeped black smoke from their bodies.

"Nightmare Fuels?" Chief asked as he blasted one that tried to pounce on him.

'No, some kind of dark magic summoning spell, whatever created the magical surge made these, I'm sure of it.'

The creatures were like large roaches, reminding Chief of Radroaches from Fallout when he used to play video games on earth before the accident. There were a few that took a few shots to kill but none of them possed any real threat. Chief continued his decent through the cave, finding tougher 'Shadow Bugs' as he went. As he came into a large dome-like chamber he looked up and found the cieling covered in black webs. Looking to his mini-map he found a huge red dot right above him.

He rolled to the side to avoid a large thread of black web shot down at him. Looking up he found himself staring at a huge tarantula-like Shadow Bug that was five times his size, it's huge fangs could easily piece his armour if he wasn't careful.

'We should have brought the rocket launcher or at least the fuel rod cannon.'

"Guess we'll have to make do with my guns and grenades." The huge arachnid scuttled along its giant web, shooting long threads down to try to hit Chief who dodged each time, using every chance he could to shoot the spider with his now dual wield plasma pistols. He charged them as he rolled and fired when he recovered.

The spider eventually jumped down from its web to face the super soldier head on. It lunged towards Chief but missed and dug its fangs into the ice walls of the cave. As it tried to free itself it shook the chamber, causing large chunks of ice to fall from the ceiling. Seeing a loose chunk of ice directly above his enemy Chief charged a shot and fired. As the energy burst hit its target the chunk of ice it fell on top of the Shadow Spider, trapping it as more blocks of ice fell.

'Get going Marcus, I don't wanna get in the same room as that thing.'

"Why, scared of a little spider?"

'Cute little jumping spiders I can handle, giant demon Goliath bird eaters however, not so much.'

Chief turned away from his fallen foe and resumed his trek down the icy caves to continue his mission. As he walked down he encountered a few Shadow Spiderlings, most likely upset that their mother was killed. To avoid future obstacles Chief destroyed any black egg sacks he found, because if any adventure game has taught him anything it's that eggs in caves are closer to hatching than you think.

Meanwhile

Above ground at the camp where the Royal gaurd and Shining Armour we're currently resting, said captian of the gaurd was looking out at the icy tundras. He had read the stories and was even informed by the princesses about the monster in the tundras, a pony with a literal black heart, who would keep all of his people as slaves for his own sick and twisted wants and desires. The banished King, Sombra the Shadow Pony. It didn't take a genius to know that it was indeed the dark King that created the magic surge, especially when the white unicorn stallion watched as something rose out of the icy fields and towered over the camp. "The Crystal Enpire." He said before walking into his living quarters and began writing a letter. "I need to inform Cadence and the princesses at once, hopefully Master Chief will notice on his way back so we can deal with this swiftly."

Author's Notes:

Unfortunately chapters will now be cut down to a thousand words, this is to save time and to allow me to manage where the story will go and help out with pacing as well as allow me to make a more flexible schedule with my other stories. My apologies, this was intended t o have at least two thousand a chapter but I'm afraid I simply cannot do this, so shorter chapters are necessary. Thank you.