Friendship is Seriousby The card holderChaptersThe Start of Something SeriousPonyvilleSerious Apple AcresThrough the Forest and In the CastleDesertAppleoosaThe Calm Before the Serious StormThe Start of Something SeriousTwilight Sparkle placed the book on a desk, preparing to read it. As bad as this "Mental" person was, at least he gave her library a generous selection of new books. Sure, it was because he thought that the ponies would be of no threat to him whatsoever, but she was hoping that his overconfidence would lead to his downfall. Glancing out the window, Twilight sighed. The sight of the usual band of different alien creatures roaming about reminded her of her failure months ago... Although, it wasn't really their fault; The Elements of Harmony had failed to stop Nightmare Moon that fateful day, but after a month of endless night, a foolproof plan was formed in order to finally defeat her. How was the resistance she led supposed to know that they would be beaten to the punch by an evil alien overlord? In a matter of moments, Nightmare Moon had been rather viciously killed (Princess Luna along with her...), and Mental began sending out his forces to occupy various towns across Equestria. Since Celestia was still nowhere to be found, it had seemed rather nice of him at the time to set the sun and moon on a permanent revolution around the planet. Of course, this act of kindness was forgotten once he began the complete eradication of all other countries on the planet. Equestria was spared from this for some reason, though nopony thought it was for anything good. For these reasons, Twilight had been looking for ways to overthrow him, but all of the methods she thought of seemed doomed to fail. If the griffin kingdoms were wiped out in less than a week, what chance would a rag-tag bunch of ponies have? What they would need is a secret weapon. Something- Or, perhaps, someone- that could help them. As it was, she had found just that: one of the books talked about a force that "single-handedly prevented the expansion of Mental's armies to certain planets". Hopefully, this would mean that this force would help them. All Twilight needed was for the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony to arrive, and bring with them the thing she would need to pull this off... A knock on the door alerted her to their arrival. Looking out the window, she saw the five ponies she met on her first day in Ponyville, who were also the other five bearers of the Elements and the other members of the former resistance. Not only that, but even with the constant peril since her arrival, they had become her friends, as well. Opening the door, she said some simple greetings to them as they piled in; no need to bring attention from the patrolling aliens. "Glad to see you're still alright, Twi'," Applejack said, setting down a picnic basket. "Any trouble getting here?" the purple unicorn asked. "Nope, those aliens were clueless!" Rainbow Dash boasted. "We could've snuck anything past 'em!" "I do hope you know what you're doing," Rarity said. "We can't afford to mess this up." "I'm sure it will be fine," Twilight reassured her friends. They went upstairs, where Spike was laying in his bed, looking at the ceiling idly. He looked at the ponies upon hearing their hoofsteps, but his focus centered on a certain white unicorn. "H- Hey, Rarity," he greeted, jumping to his feet. "Hello, Spike," she replied, "How have you been?" Before the young dragon could answer, Twilight cleared her throat. "Talking can come later. For now we need to get this done." Setting the book down on a nearby desk and pulling out the fabled amulet her friends smuggled in, which was needed in order to pull this off, she focused on the page describing this enemy of Mental. She knew that the amulet would twist her thoughts into evil ones, but she only planned to wear it long enough to cast the spell. After putting it on, she immediately began to concentrate, searching for the enemy the book mentioned anywhere in time or space with her augmented magic. Soon, she found traces of something that had destroyed many of the same aliens that were patrolling outside at that very moment. Hoping it was what she was looking for, she put all her energy into a teleportation spell for that very something. The moment she finished, a bright blue flash of light erupted just in front of her horn, knocking all her friends off their hooves and the amulet off her neck. Looking up, she couldn't believe what she saw. 5200 years and two minutes ago, some light years away "YEEEEEHAAAAAW!" In the middle of the Egyptian desert, sometime around 3000 BC, a lone man wearing nothing but a t-shirt with a trademarked logo on it, jeans, and a pair of red sneakers tore through hordes of various creatures, including skeletal horse demon things, half-alien-half-machine abominations, and headless screaming men, all with his own hand-held minigun. The few things that would get close to him he would sidestep, before turning them into minced meat (or a pile of bones). More and more enemies kept teleporting in, but the man welcomed the new bullet sponges. He honestly forgot why he was in that desert for a third time now, but he was sure the voice in his head would tell him once he was done here. As if on cue, the NEuroTRonically Implanted Combat Situation Analyzer (more easily shortened to NETRICSA) implanted in his skull sent a message directly to the man's brain, which was processed as simply hearing a voice in his head. "Sam, I just detected a spike in magical energy nearby," the arguably female voice said. "Be careful!" "Oh, calm down, Netty!" Sam said back, using the even easier shortening of the AI's name. "It's not anything I can't handle!" A large group of beheaded suicide bombers came literally screaming over a hill, and Sam aimed his minigun at them, preparing to paint the sand in their blood. Before he could pull the trigger, however, he was suddenly lifted up into the air by some unseen force. "What the-?!" In a flash of light, he was gone. The group of headless kamikazes, no longer screaming, looked at each other before shrugging and walking off calmly to do things headless kamikazes are wont to do when not blowing up. Back to the present Just a foot in front of Twilight, a bipedal creature had fallen onto the ground. It actually looked somewhat similar to those headless things that wandered the streets, except this one wasn't missing its cranium. It was wearing a simple white shirt with an image of a smirking bomb on it, along with jeans and red shoes. It started to stand up, and Twilight backed away to where her friends were. They watched as the thing stood up, cracked its neck, and looked at them. For a good thirty seconds, neither party said anything. Then suddenly, the thing hit his face with his hand. "Oh, you can't be serious..." he said. PonyvilleTwilight and her friends came downstairs to see a pair of Mental's headless soldiers standing there, one of which was holding a sledgehammer. "Uh... Hello!" Twilight greeted them. "What brings you here?" The one without the sledgehammer began speaking in some alien language, which Twilight understood thanks to a quick translation spell. "What? Teleportation? That's-" She let's out an awkward laugh. "That's ridiculous!" The soldier started talking again. "W-Well, we were... uh..." Twilight looked around the room, until her eyes fell on an open notebook. "We were writing a book!" The headless troops shared a look with each other, before the hammer-less one said something that was easily understood as "About what?" "It's about... uh..." She panicked. "You! Er, what I mean is, it's about Lord Mental's amazing army!" The act seemed to work, as the two shrugged and followed Twilight to the desk, where she kept them busy by asking them questions and writing them down. The soldier who had the hammer had set it down against the wall, close by but still behind him. On the stairs, Sam quietly sneaked his way down. Pinkie saw this, but stayed silent. Sam crept over to the hammer. Making sure his fingerless gloves were properly secured, he silently picked the tool up. Getting a feel for its weight, he got in place behind the two headless troops. He made a quick motion with his head, which Twilight caught. "Just write down what you like about working for Mental," she told the two, "I'll be right back." The beheaded soldiers immediately started writing things, and looked to be arguing over something. Before they could come to fists, Sam tapped their shoulders. "Excuse me, freaks?" They both turned to see him preparing to swing the same hammer they walked inside with. "Heads up!" He swung the hammer, knocking both of them into various meaty chunks. Blood now coated part of the hammer, as well as a good portion of the floor and desk. Behind him, the ponies grimaced at the hit. Twilight, in particular, was the most shocked. "My floor!" "...yeah, sorry about that," Sam apologized. "I almost forgot how effective one of these babies are." "Nevermind the hammer, dear," Rarity said, "what was with that dreadful pun?" "I thought it was funny." "You're also him," Dash pointed out. "Regardless, we should come up with a plan of action." "The 'go in and kill everything' plan hasn't failed us yet," Sam said. "Yes, but we also have to have some kind of destination in mind, because the level has to have an ending somewhere." Pinkie gasped. "You too?!" "Nevermind that. There is an old castle in the middle of the... Everfree Forest, correct?" Twilight answered. "Yes, but what good will that do us?" "When in doubt, go to the nearest ancient place," Sam said. "Well, in that case, the fastest way there is right next to mah farm," Applejack said. "But that no-good Mental took it from my family!" "Well that's no problem. And which way is the farm?" "Just west o' here." "Then I'm going west." Sam started walking out the door, but was stopped by Twilight. "Wait! We... we want to come with you." "Uh, sorry, Twilight, but it's seriously better if you let me go solo. I don't have to worry about friendly fire, that way." "Hold on, Sam. A lot of the ancient ruins and such of this world require some sort of magic, and apparently these six are the current holders of a very powerful item. They could be useful." "Oh, fine. Jeez, Netty, you nag more than my mom, sometimes." "Alright then, it's settled." Twilight turned to Spike. "Spike, I need you to stay here." "What? Why?" "Because I need someone to watch the library while we're gone." "And besides," Rarity added, "somepony needs to watch mine and Applejack's sisters. Would you be a dear and do that, Spike?" She fluttered her eyelashes for further effect. It worked. "Okay, Rarity, for you!" The love-struck dragon waved goodbye as the group walked outside, Sam leading the way. Outside, it was oddly quiet. "Huh, I thought there were aliens around," Dash commented. "So, battle plan," Sam started. "I go and fight, while you six stay out of the way. Okay? Okay." Dash was about to argue, but Twilight's hoof on her shoulder stopped her. Begrudgingly, she nodded her head in agreement. Sam strode to the west, the ponies following closely. It was very cloudy that day, but there was still plenty of light to see perfectly fine. Strangely, there had been no sightings of any of the aliens. "Huh. Usually something's tried to kill me by now," Sam mused. Suddenly, roars could be heard down the road, followed by sets of large fists hitting the ground. Up ahead, a group of one-eyed, gorilla-like beasts ran around a house, going straight for Sam, who held his sledgehammer ready. One by one they ran up to him, and one by one their heads were caved in by the hammer. Once all of them were taken care of, Sam brushed some errant blood of his shirt and kept moving forward, the ponies walking around the corpses. As they continued, occasionally being stopped by a lone creature, they had eventually reached the center of town, where a pair of revolvers were conveniently placed on a nearby table. Sam picked both gun up and inspected them. "Ah, good to see you two again!" he told the guns, twirling them around in his hands a bit. "...were you just talkin' to your guns?" Applejack asks. "Yeah, kind of a habit I picked up. Normally, I only have Netty to talk to." "And is that a bad thing?" All around them, a bunch of headless soldiers teleported in, aiming their handheld rocket launchers at the ready. "Hold that thought, Netty." As the ponies took cover from the incoming projectiles, Sam ran out into the middle of the town square and started gunning the soldiers down. Thanks to Netricsa giving him a way to see exactly where his shots would land, even when using two different guns, he never missed a shot. Once he fired off all six bullets in both guns, he simply opened them up and dropped the spent casings out; the built-in Techno-Magical Ammo Regenerator replaced the spent bullets for fresh ones, making for easy one-handed reloads. Once the last beheaded rocketeer was killed, Sam motioned to the ponies that it was safe, and they followed. "So, how exactly will you help us overthrow Mental?" Twilight asked Sam. "Pretty much by killing all his army here." "...and then him, right?" "Well, not exactly. You see, the whole point I went back in time was to stop my planet from being attacked and destroyed, by killing Mental in the past, which would also mean you were never attacked by him, either." Twilight remained silent, thinking over this plan of action. "Of course, there's the whole "alternate timelines" theory about time travel, but that's opening a can of worms that no one wants to sit through." Conversation stopped at that, Sam dispatching the few headless troops he encountered effortlessly, until he broke the silence. "Wait, shouldn't there be ponies around here or something?" "They probably went inside once they heard the shooting. While Mental's army has never killed anypony on purpose, it wasn't unheard of for ponies to be caught in the crossfire when they were shooting at something else," Twilight explained. "Huh." Soon, near the edge of town, a shotgun was sitting on a bench, surrounded by ammo. Sam eagerly picked all of it up. "Why are these things just lying around?" Dash asked. "When you teleported Sam here, his weapons seem to have been scattered more or less all over the place. We'll probably find the rest on our way." The ponies just shrugged, that being as good an explanation as any. They were about to leave the town proper, when Sam stopped them. "What- What's wrong?" Fluttershy asked. Sam shushed her, and continued listening. Ever so slightly, a certain noise became more and more noticeable on the wind... "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" Over a nearby hill, a lone headless soldier, this one holding a pair of bombs in his hands, came running towards them, revealing it as the source of the yelling. Once it was within range, Sam fired off a single shell, causing it to explode and its body parts to slide forward a decent distance. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, shut up!" Sam mocked, just before becoming aware of several more shouting kamikazes coming over the hill. "Uh oh." With no cover nearby, Twilight put up a shield around herself and her friends, while Sam started running around while blowing up more headless suicide bombers. When he killed one, three more came over the hill, and he was forced to run backwards to put some ground between himself and them. Once he was clear of them, he turned around and fired a single shot, which took all of the bunched up kamikazes out in a rain of gibs. Eventually, the onslaught stopped, and Sam stood there catching his breath from running so much. The ponies made their way to his side, stepping around the body parts scattered around. "Wait, if they're going to blow you up, why do they yell like that?" Dash asks. "...That's a good question, actually," Sam admits. "Well, th' farm's up ahead," Applejack said, pointing. "We can get to th' Everfree from there." "Alright, let's go." And so they went towards the farm. Author's Note Happy 4th everyone Serious Apple AcresAs the group walked over a hill, their destination became visible not too far away. All of the trees that made up the orchard were bare, and the barn had certainly seen better days. Applejack was shocked. "Now just what in the hay did they need mah farm for?" she asked as they walked forward. "I'm not sure," Twilight replied. "Because it just looks like they destroyed it..." They continued on in silence for a few minutes, Sam keeping his shotgun ready for any threats. However, nothing arrived to stop them. "It's been like five minutes, and nothing's trying to kill me," he said. "I don't like this." "Are you saying you prefer it when those things are attacking you?" Rarity asked. "Well, at least that way I know where they are." Before any counter argument could be stated, Sam held up a single hand, telling the others to stop. He crouched down, and pulled a small patch of webs off the ground. "Webs... I think I know what they were using the farm for." Fluttershy shivered at the back of the group. "S- Spiders?" "Something like that," Sam answered. They were now at the barn, and he got into position in front of the closed doors. With a single kick, the doors swung inward, revealing a whole mess of spiderwebs and what looked like pods of some sort. "What is all this?" Twilight asked. "I'm sure you'll see, after-" Sam was cut off by the sound of lots of dirt being displaced behind them. Whirling around, he saw a group of about seven alien spider things approaching, each one a bit bigger than a pony. Twilight wasted no time in putting a shield up around her and her friends, just as the spider things began to spit acid at Sam and the ponies. Meanwhile, inside the barn, numerous pods could be heard breaking open. Sam smirked as he dodged acid shots, and put his shotgun away and replaced it with his sledgehammer. He charged at the larger spiders first, smashing their bodies in one by one. As the last one fell, he pulled out his revolvers and turned to the barn, where much smaller spider things were flowing out in droves. He fired off bullet after bullet at them, many of them dying on the spot. Even more pushed on, however, and Sam was forced to backpedal while shooting. As he was doing this, the ponies were soon left alone. Most of the bugs swarmed past them, but a few tried to get past Twilight's shield. It held, luckily. Soon, the flow of spiders slowed and stopped, though the sounds of gunfire kept going for quite some time. Eventually, even that stopped, and Sam came jogging back towards the ponies, his shoes and some of his pants covered in the spiders' green blood. "I thought you were runnin' away for a second," Dash said, smirking. "Well, you don't become the baddest one man army alive by standing still," Sam shot back. They started moving again, but Sam stopped and looked inside the barn. "Somethin' wrong, Sam?" Applejack asked. "My secret sense is tingling." The human entered the barn, the others following, save for Rarity and Fluttershy (the former not wanting to dirty her hooves more than they already were, and the latter not wanting anywhere near any more of those things). Sam looked around for a bit, but just when he was about to stop looking and move on, he saw a glint of metal out of the corner of his eye. Investigating, he found a double barreled shotgun partially stuck in a pile of web and some mystery goo. He let out a chuckle as he pulled it free. "Looks like the gun has seriously been doubled!" Before numerous readers could no doubt groan at the one-liner, a few more large spiders made themselves known by digging out of the ground. Sam made quick work of them, however. Back outside, Sam looked around. "Alright, which way now?" "The old castle is somewhere to the north, I think," Twilight said. "Looking at a map of the area, it does seem to be north." "Thanks, Netty." They circled around the barn to head in that direction, Sam in the lead, when the sound of galloping could be heard. The ponies gasped. "Somepony's here!" Twilight said. "Wait a second..." Sam listened closely to the quickly approaching sound, but he couldn't find the source of it. At least, not until a skeleton that looked like a large pony, save for the bladed forelegs and horns, rounded the barn ahead of them and let out a noise somewhere between a growl and a shriek. The kleer lunged at Sam, only to be blown apart by his new shotgun. The bone fragments kept moving forward, some of which hit Sam and the ponies behind him. The skull rolled to a stop in front of Fluttershy, who promptly fainted. Twilight, meanwhile, was inspecting the bones. And then more galloping could be heard approaching, from all directions. More kleer charged at Sam, and he sidestepped all of them before blowing them apart, one by one. A few that were still some distance away threw balls and chains at him, for some reason, which were also dodged. After numerous dodges and shotgun blasts, bones and spent shells littered the ground around Sam and the shielded ponies. "What were those things?" Rarity asked, poking one of the skulls with her hoof. "Kleer, skeletons magically reanimated by Mental. I'm pretty sure they have no relation to ponies. Probably." With Applejack carrying an unconscious Fluttershy and Twilight still inspecting one of the skulls, the group moved onward, entering the dense forest known as the Everfree. Through the Forest and In the CastleSam and the ponies kept pushing through the dense trees, the former muttering a few choice words when he was struck in the face by a bent branch. Occasionally aliens would attack, but never more than a few at a time, and they were quickly dispatched. Soon, the group arrived at a hut that looked very abandoned. "Someone lives out here?" Sam asked. "Lived," Twilight corrected. "After Mental showed up, Zecora was forced to move into Ponyville." "Well, still, it's a building, so that means that more than likely there's something inside." With this line of thinking, Sam strode forward towards the entrance to the hut, while the ponies stayed in place, ready for anything. Upon entering the run-down hut, Sam came face to face with a welcome sight. Grinning, he picked up his tommy gun. "Now, it's a party!" Predictably, Sam could hear the sound of a lot of teleporting nearby. He left the hut just in time to see a group of beheaded rocketeers emerge from the trees, and the ponies already shielded by Twilight. Still grinning, Sam gunned down the attackers with little effort, only moving to dodge their slow-moving projectiles. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he motioned to Twilight, who took the shield down. The ponies, including Fluttershy, who was now awake, followed Sam as they headed deeper into the jungle. "Odd, I figured we'd see more wildlife out here," Netricsa commented. "That's a good point, Netty. What's up?" Surprising everyone, Fluttershy spoke up. "After M- Mental started ruling, nearly all of the animals in the forest ran away. It's kind of sad, really..." To keep the pegasus from depressing herself, Twilight changed the subject. "We should be coming to a deep gorge soon, with a rope bridge across." "Is it incredibly flimsy, and likely to collapse if we so much as step on it?" "Is there any other kind of rope bridge, Sam?" "Point taken." Sure enough, they did arrive at the edge of a gorge, with only a single rope bridge across. It didn't look safe in any way whatsoever. "Welp, no time like the present," Sam said, boldly walking onto the bridge. Despite the protests of the boards, it held, and soon the human was across. The ponies followed, and once they were all across they looked up at the foreboding castle in front of them. "So, is this castle booby-trapped?" Sam asked. "Because that would be helpful advice." "Well, it didn't seem to be, when we came here," Twilight said. "Though it is falling apart." "Well, we're no strangers to ruins," Netricsa told them. "Although, they technically weren't always ruins when we went through them..." "So, what are we looking for again?" Sam had to ask. "Anything that would prove useful to fighting Mental. Or at the very least, directions to somewhere else we could find something like that." "I do not know what you expect to find in there," Rarity said, "but surely it wouldn't hurt to look." "No, it wouldn't. And don't call me Shirley." Before the ponies could even question what he meant, Sam took the initiative and kicked open the large front doors of the castle. The inside wasn't much better than the outside, with the walls beginning to crumble apart in several areas. Ahead of the group, situated on a throne on a slightly raised platform, was a somewhat large pony-shaped skeleton. Sam instantly readied his shotgun, but relaxed when he saw it wasn't galloping at him. "Princess Luna..." Twilight trailed off, a hint of sadness in her voice. A quick opening of a file from Netty gave Sam a quick rundown of who it was and why they were important. However, there was something slightly off about the scene, which didn't go unnoticed. "Hey, wasn't she wearin' her armor when she...?" Applejack began, the unspoken question replacing the gloom in the air with confusion. "I... I think she was," Twilight answered, also perplexed. Sam shrugged. "Maybe Mental kept it as a trophy or something." At the ponies' horrified and offended looks, he put up his hands. "What? He's evil, and that sounds like a thing an evil guy would do." "Regardless, try to stay focused, Sam. Perhaps there is something in the castle that could help us." The seven started to split up in order to search for whatever it is they needed, but not even ten seconds after they did so, there was a loud roar from the back of the chamber. Startled, everyone looked just in time to see a large robotic leg crush the throne, and the skeleton on it. Following the leg up, they saw that it was attached to a big, bipedal... thing, which consisted of what looked like a robotic chassis housing a huge brain-shaped creature. Notably, it had what certainly looked like Nightmare Moon's armor mounted on various parts of it, though whether this was for decoration or actual protection was up for debate. In the ensuing shocked silence, Sam was the first to speak. "Well, aren't you adorable!" The thing roared again, and Sam drew his weapon while the ponies crowded together and Twilight shielded them. Sam let out a modest war cry of his own, and the battle began. The monstrosity made the first move, and fired off a volley of rockets at Sam, which were either dodged or shot down by his tommy gun. The human held down the trigger until he ran out of bullets, at which point he pulled out his larger shotgun and began firing that. Despite the blood coming from the beast's head, it didn't seem to be sustaining much injury. A few boxes of ammo were scattered around the area, and Sam wasted no time in picking them up. The creature began advancing towards him, forcing Sam to backpedal, bringing him right beside the shielded ponies. The incoming rockets made the shield flicker, but it still held, Twilight straining under the effort. Because this wasn't quite a party yet, a group of kleers and headless kamikazes came running into the chamber, making a beeline for Sam. He was forced to shift fire towards the newcomers while still being mindful of the rockets being fired at him. Now in his element, Sam let out a laugh. "You freaks seriously need to learn when to quit!" Suddenly, as he was backing up, Sam ran into the wall. He let out a curse as he sidestepped a lunging kleer and sprinted back into the center of the chamber. A rocket wasn't too far behind, and it blew up both the kleer and the wall. After fighting off a few more opponents, the human turned to see a welcome sight behind the destroyed wall. Grinning, he managed to fight his way back over there, where a rocket launcher with a generous amount of ammo was waiting. "Now I got your ticket to hell!" Sam ran back into the fight, where he cleared some space between him and the giant mechanical beast. He fired off a few rockets of his own, which impacted with much more damage than the bullets did, knocking off bits and pieces of its arguably useless armor. After a few more rockets, the monstrosity let out another, weaker roar, and it fell over, firing one more rocket, which took out a couple of incoming kamikazes. Once Sam was done mopping up the remaining enemies, he wiped some sweat off his forehead. "Well, that was fun!" Behind him, the ponies walked to his side, wary of the fallen creature. "Just what is that thing?" Rarity asked. "A major biomechanoid. From the looks of it, this one was modified slightly, what with the armor and all." "So... now what?" Dash questioned, hovering in the air. "Well, I just killed a big, unique thing," Sam explained, "so that usually means that there's a shiny thing somewhere nearby that I need to grab." None of the ponies could argue with that logic, so once again they split up to look for something, this time not getting interrupted by some kind of monster. After about five minutes of searching, Twilight found something, and called everyone else over to where she was. There, in a formerly sealed-off chamber, was a group of five necklaces and one tiara. The ponies gasped with delight, while Sam looked up another file from Netricsa. "Those important?" he asked after reading about what they might've been. "These are the Elements of Harmony, Equestria's greatest defense," Twilight told him. "Although, the one time we used them, it didn't work..." "Well, it's better than nothin'," Applejack said, putting on her own necklace. The others did the same, and Twilight put on the tiara. And then nothing happened. "Uh... Is something supposed to happen?" Sam asked. Twilight inspected her crown. "I'm... not sure. Last time, right after we put them on, they-" She was interrupted by each one of the pieces of jewelry shooting out a strong beam of colored light. The six beams mixed together, and the ensuing rainbow colored beam went into the air... Before heading directly for Sam. "What the-" He was cut off as the beam impacted him, causing only minor pain, which was just as surprising as the beam itself seeking him out. After a few more seconds, it stopped, and Sam looked around to see the ponies staring at him, worried. "Oh, Celestia, Sam! Are you alright?" Fluttershy asked, at her loudest since this whole adventure began. Sam nursed a slight headache. "Yeah, I'm fine, but what was that about?" "I don't know!" Twilight said, slightly panicked. "I don't know why it fired off at you, or why it didn't do anything, or-" "Hold that thought, Twilight. Sam, I'm detecting an anomaly in our systems-" "Please, do not be alarmed." All the ponies gasped at the new voice, noting that it sounded somewhat familiar. Twilight, however, almost couldn't believe it. "C- Celestia?" "Yes, my faithful student, it is me." "So, why do I have two voices in my head now?" Sam had to ask. "When my sister took over, I was forced to go into hiding, lest she try to take revenge on me. When Mental appeared, I thought maybe I could come out of hiding, but it soon became obvious I could not. However, I could still observe the world through the Elements, and I decided that now would be a good time to make myself known, albeit not in person." "So you just jumped into my head?" Sam questioned. "More or less. I knew Twilight put that spell on you, Sam, so I knew that this would be the easiest way to communicate for now." Twilight's brain finally caught up with this turn of events. "But... where are you, Princess?" "As I said, I went into hiding. However, currently my conciseness is located here, inside the head of Sam." "You could've at least warned us, you had me worried for a second." "So, got a plan for getting rid of Mental?" Sam inquired. "Indeed I do. There is a particular set of ruins out in the desert that contains a certain artifact that can be used to power another artifact that will aid us greatly." "Is it another time lock? Because that was kinda my plan to begin with." Sam's comment made Celestia falter slightly. "Well, it probably is... But that is an issue for later. For now, we should get to the desert." "Which is how far, exactly?" "It does not matter. My magic is weakened in this state, but I have enough to teleport you all to somewhere in the desert, though it will not be accurate." By now, the rest of the ponies shook of the shock of the situation. "Whatever it takes, Princess," Rarity told her. "Yeah, we can take it!" Dash chimed in. "Ooh! Now when I throw Sam a party, I get to have three cakes!" Pinkie said, bouncing up and down. "Well, after that exposition dump, a bit of walking through the desert sounds nice," Sam commented. "What do you mean ex-" "Forget it. One thing you learn about Sam after a while being in his head is that he has his moments of being strange. Let's just ignore the fact that technically I am him and do the same things for now." Somewhat confused at Netty's answer, Celestia used what magic she had left, which showed as Sam's forehead glowing yellow. "Oh, this doesn't feel good." Despite his complaint, the seven (or nine, depending on how you look at it) of them vanished in a flash of light, reappearing in the middle of a vast desert, nothing notable visible for miles to come. Sam, not used to magic being used from inside his head, took the time to empty his stomach a bit from nausea. "Apologies, I was not aware you weren't used to magic." Sam took a deep breath. "Seriously, the things I put up with..." "Sam, I'm picking up a settlement of some sort to the northeast. Maybe we should head there." Dash flew up into the air. "Yeah, I can see something over there." "Then it is settled. We will go there to find those ruins. In the meantime, Netricsa-" "Please, call me Netty." "Netty, would it be alright if I look at some of these files you've accumulated?" While the two voices in his head conversed, Sam trudged through the sand, keeping an eye out for any hostiles, his new rocket launcher in his hands. Looks like things were about to seriously get serious. DesertAbout an hour after arriving in the middle of the desert, the sun was high up in the air, beating down on the six ponies and one human. The ponies were all sweating heavily from the heat, and Sam had a few spots on his shirt from his own sweat. Despite this, he seemed to be taking the heat a lot better than the others. "Cancha do somethin' 'bout the sun, Celestia?" Dash gasped, wiping her forehead. "I'm afraid not. Not only is my magic weaker right now, but Mental appears to have locked the sun in its current revolution." "On the bright side, at least there aren't any-" "No, don't!" Pinkie suddenly shouted, holding a hoof up to stop Sam. "You'll jinx it!" "Hell, at least it'd give me something to do," Sam said. Then he suddenly cupped his hands together and shouted, "AT LEAST THERE AREN'T ANY ALIENS ATTACKING US!" They all stood there and waited. But nothing happened. "...huh. Normally that wor-" And then a barrage of teleports could be heard, followed by kamikaze yells and kleer clops. "Was this really necessary, Sam?" "Would you rather them attack us when we least expect it?" "...point taken." A group of various hostile creatures then made their way over a sand dune, but Sam already had his tommy gun readied. While the ponies were shielded from harm, he began mowing down kleer, kamikazes, and even the occasional gnarr. Just as the first wave finished up, a rumbling could be heard in the distance, before a large, tan, bull-like creature came roaring over another dune, heading straight for Sam. Grinning, he took out his rocket launcher and fired a couple of shots, both rockets hitting the creature straight in the face. Upon the second impact, it let out a dying roar and flipped over, its forward momentum still in place. Sam sidestepped the rolling corpse, which then impacted against Twilight's shield. For the second time that day, Fluttershy fainted. "That's a whole lotta bull!" Sam quipped, while more werebulls came hurtling over the dunes. More rockets were fired off, every two shots bringing down another bull, their bodies rolling a good distance before stopping. Eventually, the bulls stopped coming, but another group of aliens teleported in some distance away. They looked a lot like the biomech Sam killed back in the castle, only smaller, and more blue. Also, instead of rockets, they shot blue lasers, which Sam quickly began dodging. Meanwhile, as he was doing battle, Celestia and Netty were having a decidedly peaceful conversation, given the events taking place. "So, from my understanding, most of Mental's forces are either wild animals, half-machine abominations, or 'converted' animals?" "That is correct. It's not exactly an orthodox army, but it's surprisingly effective." "I'm not sure, Sam seems to be doing rather well against them..." "Sam is no ordinary human. I am the biggest reason for that." "You and him behave rather similarly, I must say." "It's a side effect of being in his head for a while. He starts to rub off on you, both in a heart-warming metaphorical sense and in a kinda literal sense." At that moment, Sam fought his way to the top of a nearby sand dune, where he could see dozens of incoming kamikazes, all screaming their non-existent heads off. "Oh, this looks fun- Wait, what am I saying?!" "See what I mean? Don't worry, it isn't permanent. At least, I don't think it is..." While Celestia was having a minor identity crisis, Sam continued fighting the onslaught of enemies, keeping himself rearmed with the boxes of ammo that were just sitting in the middle of a desert for some reason. Soon, the sand was littered with shell casings, blood, bones, and body parts. Convinced that he killed all of the attackers, Sam wiped a combination of sweat and blood off his forehead before walking back to the ponies. "I'm getting the feeling you have too much fun doing this," Twilight said, half-joking. "Hey, some people enjoy playing sports, we enjoy gratuitous amounts of self-defense." "You both can't really be serious." "Oh, calm down, Celly!" Sam said, laughing. "We're doing good, why not have fun doing it?" As they walked up the blood-stained dune, Applejack caught view of a welcome sight: An oasis, not even off the path of their destination. She let out a small cheer, nearly dropping the knocked out Fluttershy in the process. The others saw what she was excited about, and immediately wore looks of relief. "Wait, that's not a mirage, is it?" Rarity asked. "Nope, it's the real deal. I should know, I'm a computer." Now with a goal right in front of them, the seven started moving faster towards the oasis, ready for some relief from the overbearing heat. Author's Note Short chapter is better than no chapter, right? AppleoosaOnce their thirsts were quenched, the six ponies and one human once again began walking in the direction of the settlement they spotted earlier, Sam cracking his neck. "Jeez, it felt like we were there for months," he commented. Ignoring him, Twilight turned to the others. "Dash, can you give us an estimate of how much farther we have to go?" The pegasus saluted, and flew into the air, where she began to scan the horizon. "It's not much farther, but... I think it's covered in... snow?" The others paused. "Uh, y'all know we're in the middle of the desert, right, Dash?" Applejack asked, incredulous. "I know what I said, and it's true!" "There wasn't anything in that water, was there?" Sam asked, more to himself (and therefore, Netricsa) than to the others. "Nope, everything's fine there. And there is a drop in temperature some distance ahead." The group arrived at the top of a dune, and stopped to gape at what they saw. Dash landed next to them, a smug smirk on her face. "See? Told ya so." Ahead of them was a decently sized town, blanketed in a layer of snow. The transition from desert to below freezing seemed immediate, and there was no logical explanation for why the snow wasn't melting. On top of that, they could see that several buildings had multicolored lights strung up around them. Sam's response was very well worded. "What." Netricsa's was slightly more eloquent. "Wait, that doesn't make any sense, even for what we've seen." Applejack was the first to recover from the shock. "Hey, wait a second, this is Appleoosa!" "Apple-what now?" "Appleoosa," Twilight answered. "It seems like the town was emptied during Hearth's Warming..." Sam was still clueless. "A Hearth's what?" "Hearth's Warming, a holiday celebrating the unification of the three different pony tribes, thousands of years ago. Poies spend it by being with their families, exchanging gifts, and overall being joyful to one another." "Er... yeah, what she said." "Sounds an awful lot like Christmas." "Either way, it is probably worth checking the town." Sam nodded. "Alright, let's get going." He lead the others down the sand, which soon gave way to snow crunching under their steps. "So mind telling me how the hell the snow isn't melted?" Sam asked. "Pegasi can control the weather, and-" Sam cut Twilight's explanation off. "Right, magic, gotcha." The seven of them proceeded through the abandoned town, the silence giving an ominous air to the place. "Weird, it's been a whole five minutes without something trying to kill me." As soon as he said that, Sam whirled around, shotgun at the ready, only for the silent town to answer him. Shrugging, he kept moving on, the ponies right behind him. Soon, they came to the center of the town, which featured a large tree, decorated with various lights, similar to the buildings around them. Underneath the tree was a single long, rectangular present. Making sure they were still alone, Sam walked up to it and gave it a small kick. Satisfied that it wasn't a trap, probably, he bent down and opened it up. When he stood back to his full height, the ponies were surprised to see him holding a large mini-gun. "It's exactly what I wanted! It is just like Christmas!" Suddenly, a multitude of teleportations were heard around the town, followed by the sounds of creatures of various sizes and headlessness charging towards them. Twilight immediately put up a shield, and Sam turned to face the horde, minigun at the ready. "Santa Sam's gonna give out lumps of lead to all the bad little monsters and freaks!" With that, the onslaught began. The first to fall to Sam's hail of gunfire was, as usual, a group of kamikazes, who helped to paint the town a little bit more red. Behind them, kleers and bulls charged forward, only to fall to Sam's bullets as well. Behind them, a pair of major biomechs lumbered into view, firing rockets. Sam began to run around the town center, shooting the rockets out of the air and laying into the mechs. Eventually, they both succumbed to his gun, their bodies crushing a couple of kamikazes. Suddenly, there was a high-pitched shriek, and Sam just barely ducked behind a building in time as a large, yellow scorpion-type creature began to fire its own machine gun at him. As soon as the barrage stopped, Sam answered with one of his own, Netricsa letting him kill the arachnoid with unparalleled accuracy. The horde of enemies kept coming strong, and Sam's rain of lead kept equally strong, supplemented by boxes of bullets that were just lying out in the open. Meanwhile, Twilight and her friends were watching the mayhem with mild boredom. "How come he gets to have all the fun?" Dash complained. "Because we wouldn't last a minute out there," Twilight answered. "She's right, Sam is the only one who could help us, even if his methods are a bit..." At that moment, a kleer's skull bounced off the shield, though Fluttershy managed to only wince at it this time. "Don't worry girls, I'm sure ol' Sammy will do just fine!" Pinkie said, trying to cheer them up. Just as she said that, Sam ran back into the clearing, cursing a storm as he lugged his now-empty minigun, a horde of kamikazes on his tail. The others looked at Pinkie, who simply shrugged. Back with Sam, he was frantically unloading shotgun shells at the crowd behind him, thinning them out slowly but surely. Soon, there were no more kamikazes, but there was still the issue of a pack of kleer behind them, and there were too many of them to use a shotgun effectively. Also, Sam had just backed into a building, which probably didn't help at all. Slightly desperate, Sam took out his rocket launcher and fired a rocket at the kleer, shattering a couple and sending the rest flying some distance. Sam took the chance and sprinted through the opening he created, barely escaping their swinging blade arms. Now with plenty of room to run around in, Sam turned and started to blow away the skeletal foes, scattering bone fragments all over the snow. Eventually, the flow of monsters slowed to a trickle, and after shattering one last kleer with his hammer, Sam stood still and waited, listening for any more. Other than the wind, the area was now completely silent. Satisfied with a job well done, Sam started walking back to the ponies, stepping over and around various body parts and blood stains along the way. Back at the center of town, they hadn't moved an inch, and Twilight lowered her shield once she saw that Sam wasn't being pursued. "You would think that they should have run out of units by now," Rarity commented. Netty let out a short laugh. "You have no idea just how many of Mental's army we've killed so far." "Last count, it was definitely in the millions," Sam added. Ignoring the ponies' shocked expressions, Sam strode on, content with getting to the other side of the town. "There should be a set of ruins not too far away from here, if my memory serves me right. There, we should find something that may help us." With a rough plan in mind, Sam and the ponies walked on through the town, the cold starting to get to them. Author's Note Have a belated Christmas miracle. The Calm Before the Serious StormFor almost a whole minute, no words were spoken from either party. Until suddenly, the figure inhaled sharply and clapped his hands together. "Alright then. Start explaining what I'm doing here." Silence reigned in the room for a few more seconds. Then Twilight cleared her throat. "Um... May we ask who you are?" "And why should I tell you?" the being responded. However, he started to look like someone was scolding him, despite the ponies not hearing anyone else, and he threw up his arms. "Alright, Netty, sheesh." He looked back to the ponies. "To answer your question, Sam I am. Serious Sam, to be more exact." Twilight looked at her friends, who only offered shrugs. "Are you the one that the book said defeated most of Mental's forces?" The man seemed surprised at the name Mental. "Well, yeah. What were you expecting, a squad of highly trained special ops soldiers, who only carry two guns each and have to hide behind something if they so much as get a paper cut?" None of Twilight or her friends knew how to respond to this, and they started whispering amongst each other. Twilight then broke the commotion and looked at Sam. "Will you excuse us for one moment?" She led them out the door, leaving Sam alone. "Now, Ah'm th' first one t' trust ya on these things, Twi," Applejack started, "but how in the hay is he supposed t' help us?" "Yeah, he seems kinda... odd," Rainbow Dash chimed in. "And while it's of low priority at the moment, I can't help but notice that his ensemble is rather drab," Rarity said. "Well, he's our best bet at the moment," Twilight told the others. "It's either him, or we do nothing." She turned and looked at Spike. "Spike, will you stay down here for a bit?" "Aww, why?" "Because we don't yet know if he's dangerous. Besides, we'll need someone to keep a lookout for us." Begrudgingly, the dragon nodded, and the others started creeping back into the room where they left Sam, just in time to catch him talking to what looked like nothing but an empty wall. "No, Netty, I'm not saying we should shoot our way out of this, just that I'd like for it to be an option." Silence. "Yeah, because I've really been quite the negotiator this whole time, haven't I?" More silence. "You know what, fine. But if one of them even thinks of calling in those headless freaks, I'm out. Seriously." Sam turned back around just in time to see the six ponies standing back in the room, confused looks on all of their faces. "Who were you talking to?" Applejack asked. "Oh, you know, voice in my head. Nothing unusual." The ponies shared concerned looks, before Twilight spoke up. "So... You hear... voices in your head?" "Nah, just the one voice. She kinda works as the brains to my... everything else, really." "So you're insane," Dash stated, unamused. "While some might say yes, it's not for the reason you're thinking of. You see, it's all a really complicated series of stories and testing with AI and me being picked." A moment of silence passed, then Sam added, "Oh yeah, and Netty asks you where we are." "Well, you're in Ponyville," Twilight said, "which is located in Equestria, which is a country on the planet Equis." Sam just stood there, before he chuckled. "I don't think Netty likes all the puns you listed there." Before Twilight could ask just what he meant, Dash flew up and loudly said, "Can't you just have 'Netty' talk to us herself?!" "Well, let me see." Twilight spotted an almost unnoticeable image of various numbers and letters appear in Sam's eye, then disappear suddenly. "Nope." "Wait," Twilight said, "let me try something." She lit up her horn and started focusing her magic on Sam's head, which didn't go unnoticed by him. "Woah, what are you doing?" he asked, concerned. "Just... hold... still..." Twilight told him, face scrunching up in concentration. Then, as soon as it started, the flow of magic stopped, and she let out a sigh of relief. "Done." Sam rubbed his head. "Well, apart from giving me a headache, what was that supposed to do?" "Running scan on body systems... Well, everything seems fine. Except..." All of the ponies, save for Twilight, gasped. "So he's not crazy!" Pinkie Pie said, hopping in place. "Well I'll be..." Applejack added. "Wait, you can hear her now?" Sam asked, genuinely confused. "Interesting... It seems that here, magic is much more free form. And not a moment too soon; I was getting rather tired of only speaking to Sam." "Hey!" "Anyway, I am the NEuroTRonically Implanted Combat Situation Analyzer, or NETRICSA, for short." "Nice to meet you, Netty!" Pinkie greeted the AI. "Well, now that I can speak to you all directly, would it be too much to ask for, say, books on local geography, history, and legends?" "Why would you need to know about legends?" Dash asked. "Trust me when I say that we have a track record on these sort of things," Netricsa answered. Shrugging, Twilight left the room to tell Spike what to get. "So, you've fought against Mental before?" Rarity asked. Sam laughed. "Boy have I. Through space and time." "Time?" "It's a long story." At that moment, Twilight came back into the room, carrying a rather large supply of books with her. "Will these be good enough, Netricsa?" "That'll be fine, just put them down in front of me- err, Sam. We are technically the same person, aren't we?" While the others pondered the implications of this, Twilight set the books down in front of Sam, and he immediately began reading. Much to Twilight's horror, however, he only skimmed through the books before tossing them behind him carelessly. She had to grab them one by one out of the air with her magic to keep them from getting damaged from the force of the impacts. Soon, Sam had gone through the entire pile in this manner, and he cracked his knuckles. "Alright, Netty, do your thing." "Processing... Done, records updated." "Say, something just occurred to me," Sam said. "We told you our names, but you didn't tell us yours." Twilight blushed slightly once she was sure all of her books were safe. "Oh, right," She stood up straight. "I am Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends, Rainbow Dash..." "Nice to meetcha!" "...Rarity..." "The pleasure is mine." "...Applejack..." "Howdy." "...Pinkie Pie..." "Hi! I can't wait to throw a 'Welcome to Ponyville' party for you two! But how would I give Netty a cupcake? Would I just give Sam two? Or-" "And," Twilight almost had to yell, in order to cut off Pinkie's rambling, "Fluttershy." "Hello..." "What did you say?" Sam questioned the yellow pegasus. "She said 'hello'," Netricsa answered. "Enhanced hearing has its perks." "Huh. Well then," Sam clapped his hands together, "time for you to explain just what Mental is doing this time." Twilight and her friends started explaining the entire situation to them, from the rule of Nightmare Moon, to her sudden overthrowing by Mental, to the campaign he launched against all other countries on the planet. Sam and Netricsa asked for clarification on a few points, but otherwise stayed quiet. "And so, out of options, we decided to bring in a supposed mighty enemy to Mental," Twilight finished. "And that's where you come in." "So, you just need me-" "Ahem." "-us to clear out your little Mental problem here?" "I would hope so." "Sounds like a plan. Except for one problem. I have none of my weapons on me." Twilight smiled sheepishly. "Well, it occurs to me that in casting the spell, I only really focused on you, not quite what you had with you..." "Seriously?" Sam sighed. "Alright, I've started from nothing before, I can do it again." "Wait, before we do anything, I would like to get a look at a up-to-date star chart or something similar, in order to see exactly what time we're at in relation to our planet." "Well, I have an observatory here, and I was able to get a really big telescope for it," Twilight said. "Alright then, let's see it." Twilight led the human and other five ponies into another room, where the only items were a very large telescope mounted in the wall, and a screen hooked up to said telescope. "The screen shows a live feed of whatever the telescope is focused on," Twilight explained, "and it has a very, very high zoom." "Seems generous of Mental to give you this," Sam noted. "Well, apparently it's because he doesn't see us as a threat..." As Sam started looking at various constellations, Netricsa began to give directions to him on where to look. "Look a little more to your left. No, that's too far, go back to the right a bit." "I'm trying, Netty!" While the AI kept giving directions to the human, the ponies looked at the screen to see the view shifting across various groups of stars, not yet focusing on anything notable. "Wait, stop there. That looks like that could be it. Zoom in." Sam did so, and the ponies watched as the display on the screen flew towards a single star, which had a number of small specks revolving around it. "Bingo, that's our Sun." Now no longer needing instructions, Sam zoomed in on one of the specks, revealing it to be a green and blue planet with a single moon. Twilight noted that it looked rather similar to Equis... "Hey, Earth's still there, that's something." This statement broke Twilight out of her thinking. "What do you mean, 'still there'?" "Hold on a sec." The display zoomed into a region on the planet, which looked to be mostly desert. Sporadically placed settlements could be seen, and even without focusing on them the ponies could tell they were mostly in ruins. "Alright, so we know this is the same time Mental was attacking us... And from the looks of things, it's currently near the tail end of the attack..." "Mental attacked your home, too?" Fluttershy asked, barely audible. "Yep," Sam replied simply. He seemed to be looking for a specific spot, and after a bit of searching he found it: a rather long canyon that from what little they could see, looked to be filled with various corpses, both whole and in pieces (but mostly pieces). "What did all that?" Dash asked, both awed and slightly nauseated. "I did." As the ponies stared at Sam in disbelief, he moved the telescope to one end of the canyon, showing a lone set of temple ruins- and a certain white-shirted man walking out of the canyon. "Oh hey, look, it's me." He zoomed in more on the figure, whom the ponies noticed wore orange sunglasses along with their Sam's attire. The man walked towards the ruins, when suddenly the ground started shaking, and Sam zoomed the telescope out enough for the ponies to see a very, very huge alien burst out of the sand. The Sam on the screen didn't look too phased, and simply took out what looked like a whole cannon as the giant alien was attacked by an equally-giant sand worm. As Sam kept the telescope focused on the scene, the ponies watched in awe as the onscreen Sam grabbed a jetpack and flew up into the air, cannon still in his arms. "Just what is that dreadful thing?" Rarity asked. "Ugh-Zan the Fourth, one of Mental's strongest lieutenants. Well, former lieutenant, anyway." The ponies watched as, dodging countless rockets, lasers, and fireballs, onscreen Sam stuck lightning rods in the thing's back, one by one. Eventually, the beast fell with a well-placed cannonball, and Sam flew off to some sort of giant artifact of some kind. Before any of the ponies could inquire as to what it was, Netricsa answered them preemptively. "The Time Lock, an ancient Sirian artifact, vital to mine and Sam's continued existence. And to answer your question, no, I won't go into detail about the Sirians at the moment." Onscreen, Sam had some unheard conversations on his phone, before looking up, seemingly towards the telescope, and started booking it for the Time Lock. "Why were you running?" Dash asked, hovering in the air. In answer, Sam zoomed the telescope out, revealing the planet's moon flying right for it. The two collided, and a massive explosion nearly blinded everyone in the room. When they look back, all that remained was a bunch of floating, still-burning rocks. "You- Your planet was destroyed?" Twilight asked, in disbelief. "Yeah. That's part of the reason I went back, to keep that from happening." "I... I had no idea..." "Don't feel bad, you had nothing to do with it." Suddenly, Spike burst into the room, breathing heavily. "Those things... and the... Here..." "What is it Spike?" Rarity asked, concerned, along with all the other ponies. The dragon gasped some more, before saying a single thing. "Wreckers." Twilight stiffened, while Sam scratched his head in confusion. "Wreckers?" "You see," the unicorn explained, "rather than kill ponies for disobeying his rule, he just sends some foot soldiers to smash all their things." "Hopefully, they don't know that Sam and I are here already..." Spike looked around, confused. "Who was that?" "No time to explain," Twilight urged, leading all her friends downstairs. Sam followed, trying to remain mostly hidden. He didn't need a spot of expository narration to tell him that things were about to get serious. Author's Note This is your daily reminder that anyone who relies on regenerating health is a wuss, and needs to start manning the hell up.
The Start of Something SeriousTwilight Sparkle placed the book on a desk, preparing to read it. As bad as this "Mental" person was, at least he gave her library a generous selection of new books. Sure, it was because he thought that the ponies would be of no threat to him whatsoever, but she was hoping that his overconfidence would lead to his downfall. Glancing out the window, Twilight sighed. The sight of the usual band of different alien creatures roaming about reminded her of her failure months ago... Although, it wasn't really their fault; The Elements of Harmony had failed to stop Nightmare Moon that fateful day, but after a month of endless night, a foolproof plan was formed in order to finally defeat her. How was the resistance she led supposed to know that they would be beaten to the punch by an evil alien overlord? In a matter of moments, Nightmare Moon had been rather viciously killed (Princess Luna along with her...), and Mental began sending out his forces to occupy various towns across Equestria. Since Celestia was still nowhere to be found, it had seemed rather nice of him at the time to set the sun and moon on a permanent revolution around the planet. Of course, this act of kindness was forgotten once he began the complete eradication of all other countries on the planet. Equestria was spared from this for some reason, though nopony thought it was for anything good. For these reasons, Twilight had been looking for ways to overthrow him, but all of the methods she thought of seemed doomed to fail. If the griffin kingdoms were wiped out in less than a week, what chance would a rag-tag bunch of ponies have? What they would need is a secret weapon. Something- Or, perhaps, someone- that could help them. As it was, she had found just that: one of the books talked about a force that "single-handedly prevented the expansion of Mental's armies to certain planets". Hopefully, this would mean that this force would help them. All Twilight needed was for the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony to arrive, and bring with them the thing she would need to pull this off... A knock on the door alerted her to their arrival. Looking out the window, she saw the five ponies she met on her first day in Ponyville, who were also the other five bearers of the Elements and the other members of the former resistance. Not only that, but even with the constant peril since her arrival, they had become her friends, as well. Opening the door, she said some simple greetings to them as they piled in; no need to bring attention from the patrolling aliens. "Glad to see you're still alright, Twi'," Applejack said, setting down a picnic basket. "Any trouble getting here?" the purple unicorn asked. "Nope, those aliens were clueless!" Rainbow Dash boasted. "We could've snuck anything past 'em!" "I do hope you know what you're doing," Rarity said. "We can't afford to mess this up." "I'm sure it will be fine," Twilight reassured her friends. They went upstairs, where Spike was laying in his bed, looking at the ceiling idly. He looked at the ponies upon hearing their hoofsteps, but his focus centered on a certain white unicorn. "H- Hey, Rarity," he greeted, jumping to his feet. "Hello, Spike," she replied, "How have you been?" Before the young dragon could answer, Twilight cleared her throat. "Talking can come later. For now we need to get this done." Setting the book down on a nearby desk and pulling out the fabled amulet her friends smuggled in, which was needed in order to pull this off, she focused on the page describing this enemy of Mental. She knew that the amulet would twist her thoughts into evil ones, but she only planned to wear it long enough to cast the spell. After putting it on, she immediately began to concentrate, searching for the enemy the book mentioned anywhere in time or space with her augmented magic. Soon, she found traces of something that had destroyed many of the same aliens that were patrolling outside at that very moment. Hoping it was what she was looking for, she put all her energy into a teleportation spell for that very something. The moment she finished, a bright blue flash of light erupted just in front of her horn, knocking all her friends off their hooves and the amulet off her neck. Looking up, she couldn't believe what she saw. 5200 years and two minutes ago, some light years away "YEEEEEHAAAAAW!" In the middle of the Egyptian desert, sometime around 3000 BC, a lone man wearing nothing but a t-shirt with a trademarked logo on it, jeans, and a pair of red sneakers tore through hordes of various creatures, including skeletal horse demon things, half-alien-half-machine abominations, and headless screaming men, all with his own hand-held minigun. The few things that would get close to him he would sidestep, before turning them into minced meat (or a pile of bones). More and more enemies kept teleporting in, but the man welcomed the new bullet sponges. He honestly forgot why he was in that desert for a third time now, but he was sure the voice in his head would tell him once he was done here. As if on cue, the NEuroTRonically Implanted Combat Situation Analyzer (more easily shortened to NETRICSA) implanted in his skull sent a message directly to the man's brain, which was processed as simply hearing a voice in his head. "Sam, I just detected a spike in magical energy nearby," the arguably female voice said. "Be careful!" "Oh, calm down, Netty!" Sam said back, using the even easier shortening of the AI's name. "It's not anything I can't handle!" A large group of beheaded suicide bombers came literally screaming over a hill, and Sam aimed his minigun at them, preparing to paint the sand in their blood. Before he could pull the trigger, however, he was suddenly lifted up into the air by some unseen force. "What the-?!" In a flash of light, he was gone. The group of headless kamikazes, no longer screaming, looked at each other before shrugging and walking off calmly to do things headless kamikazes are wont to do when not blowing up. Back to the present Just a foot in front of Twilight, a bipedal creature had fallen onto the ground. It actually looked somewhat similar to those headless things that wandered the streets, except this one wasn't missing its cranium. It was wearing a simple white shirt with an image of a smirking bomb on it, along with jeans and red shoes. It started to stand up, and Twilight backed away to where her friends were. They watched as the thing stood up, cracked its neck, and looked at them. For a good thirty seconds, neither party said anything. Then suddenly, the thing hit his face with his hand. "Oh, you can't be serious..." he said.
PonyvilleTwilight and her friends came downstairs to see a pair of Mental's headless soldiers standing there, one of which was holding a sledgehammer. "Uh... Hello!" Twilight greeted them. "What brings you here?" The one without the sledgehammer began speaking in some alien language, which Twilight understood thanks to a quick translation spell. "What? Teleportation? That's-" She let's out an awkward laugh. "That's ridiculous!" The soldier started talking again. "W-Well, we were... uh..." Twilight looked around the room, until her eyes fell on an open notebook. "We were writing a book!" The headless troops shared a look with each other, before the hammer-less one said something that was easily understood as "About what?" "It's about... uh..." She panicked. "You! Er, what I mean is, it's about Lord Mental's amazing army!" The act seemed to work, as the two shrugged and followed Twilight to the desk, where she kept them busy by asking them questions and writing them down. The soldier who had the hammer had set it down against the wall, close by but still behind him. On the stairs, Sam quietly sneaked his way down. Pinkie saw this, but stayed silent. Sam crept over to the hammer. Making sure his fingerless gloves were properly secured, he silently picked the tool up. Getting a feel for its weight, he got in place behind the two headless troops. He made a quick motion with his head, which Twilight caught. "Just write down what you like about working for Mental," she told the two, "I'll be right back." The beheaded soldiers immediately started writing things, and looked to be arguing over something. Before they could come to fists, Sam tapped their shoulders. "Excuse me, freaks?" They both turned to see him preparing to swing the same hammer they walked inside with. "Heads up!" He swung the hammer, knocking both of them into various meaty chunks. Blood now coated part of the hammer, as well as a good portion of the floor and desk. Behind him, the ponies grimaced at the hit. Twilight, in particular, was the most shocked. "My floor!" "...yeah, sorry about that," Sam apologized. "I almost forgot how effective one of these babies are." "Nevermind the hammer, dear," Rarity said, "what was with that dreadful pun?" "I thought it was funny." "You're also him," Dash pointed out. "Regardless, we should come up with a plan of action." "The 'go in and kill everything' plan hasn't failed us yet," Sam said. "Yes, but we also have to have some kind of destination in mind, because the level has to have an ending somewhere." Pinkie gasped. "You too?!" "Nevermind that. There is an old castle in the middle of the... Everfree Forest, correct?" Twilight answered. "Yes, but what good will that do us?" "When in doubt, go to the nearest ancient place," Sam said. "Well, in that case, the fastest way there is right next to mah farm," Applejack said. "But that no-good Mental took it from my family!" "Well that's no problem. And which way is the farm?" "Just west o' here." "Then I'm going west." Sam started walking out the door, but was stopped by Twilight. "Wait! We... we want to come with you." "Uh, sorry, Twilight, but it's seriously better if you let me go solo. I don't have to worry about friendly fire, that way." "Hold on, Sam. A lot of the ancient ruins and such of this world require some sort of magic, and apparently these six are the current holders of a very powerful item. They could be useful." "Oh, fine. Jeez, Netty, you nag more than my mom, sometimes." "Alright then, it's settled." Twilight turned to Spike. "Spike, I need you to stay here." "What? Why?" "Because I need someone to watch the library while we're gone." "And besides," Rarity added, "somepony needs to watch mine and Applejack's sisters. Would you be a dear and do that, Spike?" She fluttered her eyelashes for further effect. It worked. "Okay, Rarity, for you!" The love-struck dragon waved goodbye as the group walked outside, Sam leading the way. Outside, it was oddly quiet. "Huh, I thought there were aliens around," Dash commented. "So, battle plan," Sam started. "I go and fight, while you six stay out of the way. Okay? Okay." Dash was about to argue, but Twilight's hoof on her shoulder stopped her. Begrudgingly, she nodded her head in agreement. Sam strode to the west, the ponies following closely. It was very cloudy that day, but there was still plenty of light to see perfectly fine. Strangely, there had been no sightings of any of the aliens. "Huh. Usually something's tried to kill me by now," Sam mused. Suddenly, roars could be heard down the road, followed by sets of large fists hitting the ground. Up ahead, a group of one-eyed, gorilla-like beasts ran around a house, going straight for Sam, who held his sledgehammer ready. One by one they ran up to him, and one by one their heads were caved in by the hammer. Once all of them were taken care of, Sam brushed some errant blood of his shirt and kept moving forward, the ponies walking around the corpses. As they continued, occasionally being stopped by a lone creature, they had eventually reached the center of town, where a pair of revolvers were conveniently placed on a nearby table. Sam picked both gun up and inspected them. "Ah, good to see you two again!" he told the guns, twirling them around in his hands a bit. "...were you just talkin' to your guns?" Applejack asks. "Yeah, kind of a habit I picked up. Normally, I only have Netty to talk to." "And is that a bad thing?" All around them, a bunch of headless soldiers teleported in, aiming their handheld rocket launchers at the ready. "Hold that thought, Netty." As the ponies took cover from the incoming projectiles, Sam ran out into the middle of the town square and started gunning the soldiers down. Thanks to Netricsa giving him a way to see exactly where his shots would land, even when using two different guns, he never missed a shot. Once he fired off all six bullets in both guns, he simply opened them up and dropped the spent casings out; the built-in Techno-Magical Ammo Regenerator replaced the spent bullets for fresh ones, making for easy one-handed reloads. Once the last beheaded rocketeer was killed, Sam motioned to the ponies that it was safe, and they followed. "So, how exactly will you help us overthrow Mental?" Twilight asked Sam. "Pretty much by killing all his army here." "...and then him, right?" "Well, not exactly. You see, the whole point I went back in time was to stop my planet from being attacked and destroyed, by killing Mental in the past, which would also mean you were never attacked by him, either." Twilight remained silent, thinking over this plan of action. "Of course, there's the whole "alternate timelines" theory about time travel, but that's opening a can of worms that no one wants to sit through." Conversation stopped at that, Sam dispatching the few headless troops he encountered effortlessly, until he broke the silence. "Wait, shouldn't there be ponies around here or something?" "They probably went inside once they heard the shooting. While Mental's army has never killed anypony on purpose, it wasn't unheard of for ponies to be caught in the crossfire when they were shooting at something else," Twilight explained. "Huh." Soon, near the edge of town, a shotgun was sitting on a bench, surrounded by ammo. Sam eagerly picked all of it up. "Why are these things just lying around?" Dash asked. "When you teleported Sam here, his weapons seem to have been scattered more or less all over the place. We'll probably find the rest on our way." The ponies just shrugged, that being as good an explanation as any. They were about to leave the town proper, when Sam stopped them. "What- What's wrong?" Fluttershy asked. Sam shushed her, and continued listening. Ever so slightly, a certain noise became more and more noticeable on the wind... "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" Over a nearby hill, a lone headless soldier, this one holding a pair of bombs in his hands, came running towards them, revealing it as the source of the yelling. Once it was within range, Sam fired off a single shell, causing it to explode and its body parts to slide forward a decent distance. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA, shut up!" Sam mocked, just before becoming aware of several more shouting kamikazes coming over the hill. "Uh oh." With no cover nearby, Twilight put up a shield around herself and her friends, while Sam started running around while blowing up more headless suicide bombers. When he killed one, three more came over the hill, and he was forced to run backwards to put some ground between himself and them. Once he was clear of them, he turned around and fired a single shot, which took all of the bunched up kamikazes out in a rain of gibs. Eventually, the onslaught stopped, and Sam stood there catching his breath from running so much. The ponies made their way to his side, stepping around the body parts scattered around. "Wait, if they're going to blow you up, why do they yell like that?" Dash asks. "...That's a good question, actually," Sam admits. "Well, th' farm's up ahead," Applejack said, pointing. "We can get to th' Everfree from there." "Alright, let's go." And so they went towards the farm. Author's Note Happy 4th everyone
Serious Apple AcresAs the group walked over a hill, their destination became visible not too far away. All of the trees that made up the orchard were bare, and the barn had certainly seen better days. Applejack was shocked. "Now just what in the hay did they need mah farm for?" she asked as they walked forward. "I'm not sure," Twilight replied. "Because it just looks like they destroyed it..." They continued on in silence for a few minutes, Sam keeping his shotgun ready for any threats. However, nothing arrived to stop them. "It's been like five minutes, and nothing's trying to kill me," he said. "I don't like this." "Are you saying you prefer it when those things are attacking you?" Rarity asked. "Well, at least that way I know where they are." Before any counter argument could be stated, Sam held up a single hand, telling the others to stop. He crouched down, and pulled a small patch of webs off the ground. "Webs... I think I know what they were using the farm for." Fluttershy shivered at the back of the group. "S- Spiders?" "Something like that," Sam answered. They were now at the barn, and he got into position in front of the closed doors. With a single kick, the doors swung inward, revealing a whole mess of spiderwebs and what looked like pods of some sort. "What is all this?" Twilight asked. "I'm sure you'll see, after-" Sam was cut off by the sound of lots of dirt being displaced behind them. Whirling around, he saw a group of about seven alien spider things approaching, each one a bit bigger than a pony. Twilight wasted no time in putting a shield up around her and her friends, just as the spider things began to spit acid at Sam and the ponies. Meanwhile, inside the barn, numerous pods could be heard breaking open. Sam smirked as he dodged acid shots, and put his shotgun away and replaced it with his sledgehammer. He charged at the larger spiders first, smashing their bodies in one by one. As the last one fell, he pulled out his revolvers and turned to the barn, where much smaller spider things were flowing out in droves. He fired off bullet after bullet at them, many of them dying on the spot. Even more pushed on, however, and Sam was forced to backpedal while shooting. As he was doing this, the ponies were soon left alone. Most of the bugs swarmed past them, but a few tried to get past Twilight's shield. It held, luckily. Soon, the flow of spiders slowed and stopped, though the sounds of gunfire kept going for quite some time. Eventually, even that stopped, and Sam came jogging back towards the ponies, his shoes and some of his pants covered in the spiders' green blood. "I thought you were runnin' away for a second," Dash said, smirking. "Well, you don't become the baddest one man army alive by standing still," Sam shot back. They started moving again, but Sam stopped and looked inside the barn. "Somethin' wrong, Sam?" Applejack asked. "My secret sense is tingling." The human entered the barn, the others following, save for Rarity and Fluttershy (the former not wanting to dirty her hooves more than they already were, and the latter not wanting anywhere near any more of those things). Sam looked around for a bit, but just when he was about to stop looking and move on, he saw a glint of metal out of the corner of his eye. Investigating, he found a double barreled shotgun partially stuck in a pile of web and some mystery goo. He let out a chuckle as he pulled it free. "Looks like the gun has seriously been doubled!" Before numerous readers could no doubt groan at the one-liner, a few more large spiders made themselves known by digging out of the ground. Sam made quick work of them, however. Back outside, Sam looked around. "Alright, which way now?" "The old castle is somewhere to the north, I think," Twilight said. "Looking at a map of the area, it does seem to be north." "Thanks, Netty." They circled around the barn to head in that direction, Sam in the lead, when the sound of galloping could be heard. The ponies gasped. "Somepony's here!" Twilight said. "Wait a second..." Sam listened closely to the quickly approaching sound, but he couldn't find the source of it. At least, not until a skeleton that looked like a large pony, save for the bladed forelegs and horns, rounded the barn ahead of them and let out a noise somewhere between a growl and a shriek. The kleer lunged at Sam, only to be blown apart by his new shotgun. The bone fragments kept moving forward, some of which hit Sam and the ponies behind him. The skull rolled to a stop in front of Fluttershy, who promptly fainted. Twilight, meanwhile, was inspecting the bones. And then more galloping could be heard approaching, from all directions. More kleer charged at Sam, and he sidestepped all of them before blowing them apart, one by one. A few that were still some distance away threw balls and chains at him, for some reason, which were also dodged. After numerous dodges and shotgun blasts, bones and spent shells littered the ground around Sam and the shielded ponies. "What were those things?" Rarity asked, poking one of the skulls with her hoof. "Kleer, skeletons magically reanimated by Mental. I'm pretty sure they have no relation to ponies. Probably." With Applejack carrying an unconscious Fluttershy and Twilight still inspecting one of the skulls, the group moved onward, entering the dense forest known as the Everfree.
Through the Forest and In the CastleSam and the ponies kept pushing through the dense trees, the former muttering a few choice words when he was struck in the face by a bent branch. Occasionally aliens would attack, but never more than a few at a time, and they were quickly dispatched. Soon, the group arrived at a hut that looked very abandoned. "Someone lives out here?" Sam asked. "Lived," Twilight corrected. "After Mental showed up, Zecora was forced to move into Ponyville." "Well, still, it's a building, so that means that more than likely there's something inside." With this line of thinking, Sam strode forward towards the entrance to the hut, while the ponies stayed in place, ready for anything. Upon entering the run-down hut, Sam came face to face with a welcome sight. Grinning, he picked up his tommy gun. "Now, it's a party!" Predictably, Sam could hear the sound of a lot of teleporting nearby. He left the hut just in time to see a group of beheaded rocketeers emerge from the trees, and the ponies already shielded by Twilight. Still grinning, Sam gunned down the attackers with little effort, only moving to dodge their slow-moving projectiles. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he motioned to Twilight, who took the shield down. The ponies, including Fluttershy, who was now awake, followed Sam as they headed deeper into the jungle. "Odd, I figured we'd see more wildlife out here," Netricsa commented. "That's a good point, Netty. What's up?" Surprising everyone, Fluttershy spoke up. "After M- Mental started ruling, nearly all of the animals in the forest ran away. It's kind of sad, really..." To keep the pegasus from depressing herself, Twilight changed the subject. "We should be coming to a deep gorge soon, with a rope bridge across." "Is it incredibly flimsy, and likely to collapse if we so much as step on it?" "Is there any other kind of rope bridge, Sam?" "Point taken." Sure enough, they did arrive at the edge of a gorge, with only a single rope bridge across. It didn't look safe in any way whatsoever. "Welp, no time like the present," Sam said, boldly walking onto the bridge. Despite the protests of the boards, it held, and soon the human was across. The ponies followed, and once they were all across they looked up at the foreboding castle in front of them. "So, is this castle booby-trapped?" Sam asked. "Because that would be helpful advice." "Well, it didn't seem to be, when we came here," Twilight said. "Though it is falling apart." "Well, we're no strangers to ruins," Netricsa told them. "Although, they technically weren't always ruins when we went through them..." "So, what are we looking for again?" Sam had to ask. "Anything that would prove useful to fighting Mental. Or at the very least, directions to somewhere else we could find something like that." "I do not know what you expect to find in there," Rarity said, "but surely it wouldn't hurt to look." "No, it wouldn't. And don't call me Shirley." Before the ponies could even question what he meant, Sam took the initiative and kicked open the large front doors of the castle. The inside wasn't much better than the outside, with the walls beginning to crumble apart in several areas. Ahead of the group, situated on a throne on a slightly raised platform, was a somewhat large pony-shaped skeleton. Sam instantly readied his shotgun, but relaxed when he saw it wasn't galloping at him. "Princess Luna..." Twilight trailed off, a hint of sadness in her voice. A quick opening of a file from Netty gave Sam a quick rundown of who it was and why they were important. However, there was something slightly off about the scene, which didn't go unnoticed. "Hey, wasn't she wearin' her armor when she...?" Applejack began, the unspoken question replacing the gloom in the air with confusion. "I... I think she was," Twilight answered, also perplexed. Sam shrugged. "Maybe Mental kept it as a trophy or something." At the ponies' horrified and offended looks, he put up his hands. "What? He's evil, and that sounds like a thing an evil guy would do." "Regardless, try to stay focused, Sam. Perhaps there is something in the castle that could help us." The seven started to split up in order to search for whatever it is they needed, but not even ten seconds after they did so, there was a loud roar from the back of the chamber. Startled, everyone looked just in time to see a large robotic leg crush the throne, and the skeleton on it. Following the leg up, they saw that it was attached to a big, bipedal... thing, which consisted of what looked like a robotic chassis housing a huge brain-shaped creature. Notably, it had what certainly looked like Nightmare Moon's armor mounted on various parts of it, though whether this was for decoration or actual protection was up for debate. In the ensuing shocked silence, Sam was the first to speak. "Well, aren't you adorable!" The thing roared again, and Sam drew his weapon while the ponies crowded together and Twilight shielded them. Sam let out a modest war cry of his own, and the battle began. The monstrosity made the first move, and fired off a volley of rockets at Sam, which were either dodged or shot down by his tommy gun. The human held down the trigger until he ran out of bullets, at which point he pulled out his larger shotgun and began firing that. Despite the blood coming from the beast's head, it didn't seem to be sustaining much injury. A few boxes of ammo were scattered around the area, and Sam wasted no time in picking them up. The creature began advancing towards him, forcing Sam to backpedal, bringing him right beside the shielded ponies. The incoming rockets made the shield flicker, but it still held, Twilight straining under the effort. Because this wasn't quite a party yet, a group of kleers and headless kamikazes came running into the chamber, making a beeline for Sam. He was forced to shift fire towards the newcomers while still being mindful of the rockets being fired at him. Now in his element, Sam let out a laugh. "You freaks seriously need to learn when to quit!" Suddenly, as he was backing up, Sam ran into the wall. He let out a curse as he sidestepped a lunging kleer and sprinted back into the center of the chamber. A rocket wasn't too far behind, and it blew up both the kleer and the wall. After fighting off a few more opponents, the human turned to see a welcome sight behind the destroyed wall. Grinning, he managed to fight his way back over there, where a rocket launcher with a generous amount of ammo was waiting. "Now I got your ticket to hell!" Sam ran back into the fight, where he cleared some space between him and the giant mechanical beast. He fired off a few rockets of his own, which impacted with much more damage than the bullets did, knocking off bits and pieces of its arguably useless armor. After a few more rockets, the monstrosity let out another, weaker roar, and it fell over, firing one more rocket, which took out a couple of incoming kamikazes. Once Sam was done mopping up the remaining enemies, he wiped some sweat off his forehead. "Well, that was fun!" Behind him, the ponies walked to his side, wary of the fallen creature. "Just what is that thing?" Rarity asked. "A major biomechanoid. From the looks of it, this one was modified slightly, what with the armor and all." "So... now what?" Dash questioned, hovering in the air. "Well, I just killed a big, unique thing," Sam explained, "so that usually means that there's a shiny thing somewhere nearby that I need to grab." None of the ponies could argue with that logic, so once again they split up to look for something, this time not getting interrupted by some kind of monster. After about five minutes of searching, Twilight found something, and called everyone else over to where she was. There, in a formerly sealed-off chamber, was a group of five necklaces and one tiara. The ponies gasped with delight, while Sam looked up another file from Netricsa. "Those important?" he asked after reading about what they might've been. "These are the Elements of Harmony, Equestria's greatest defense," Twilight told him. "Although, the one time we used them, it didn't work..." "Well, it's better than nothin'," Applejack said, putting on her own necklace. The others did the same, and Twilight put on the tiara. And then nothing happened. "Uh... Is something supposed to happen?" Sam asked. Twilight inspected her crown. "I'm... not sure. Last time, right after we put them on, they-" She was interrupted by each one of the pieces of jewelry shooting out a strong beam of colored light. The six beams mixed together, and the ensuing rainbow colored beam went into the air... Before heading directly for Sam. "What the-" He was cut off as the beam impacted him, causing only minor pain, which was just as surprising as the beam itself seeking him out. After a few more seconds, it stopped, and Sam looked around to see the ponies staring at him, worried. "Oh, Celestia, Sam! Are you alright?" Fluttershy asked, at her loudest since this whole adventure began. Sam nursed a slight headache. "Yeah, I'm fine, but what was that about?" "I don't know!" Twilight said, slightly panicked. "I don't know why it fired off at you, or why it didn't do anything, or-" "Hold that thought, Twilight. Sam, I'm detecting an anomaly in our systems-" "Please, do not be alarmed." All the ponies gasped at the new voice, noting that it sounded somewhat familiar. Twilight, however, almost couldn't believe it. "C- Celestia?" "Yes, my faithful student, it is me." "So, why do I have two voices in my head now?" Sam had to ask. "When my sister took over, I was forced to go into hiding, lest she try to take revenge on me. When Mental appeared, I thought maybe I could come out of hiding, but it soon became obvious I could not. However, I could still observe the world through the Elements, and I decided that now would be a good time to make myself known, albeit not in person." "So you just jumped into my head?" Sam questioned. "More or less. I knew Twilight put that spell on you, Sam, so I knew that this would be the easiest way to communicate for now." Twilight's brain finally caught up with this turn of events. "But... where are you, Princess?" "As I said, I went into hiding. However, currently my conciseness is located here, inside the head of Sam." "You could've at least warned us, you had me worried for a second." "So, got a plan for getting rid of Mental?" Sam inquired. "Indeed I do. There is a particular set of ruins out in the desert that contains a certain artifact that can be used to power another artifact that will aid us greatly." "Is it another time lock? Because that was kinda my plan to begin with." Sam's comment made Celestia falter slightly. "Well, it probably is... But that is an issue for later. For now, we should get to the desert." "Which is how far, exactly?" "It does not matter. My magic is weakened in this state, but I have enough to teleport you all to somewhere in the desert, though it will not be accurate." By now, the rest of the ponies shook of the shock of the situation. "Whatever it takes, Princess," Rarity told her. "Yeah, we can take it!" Dash chimed in. "Ooh! Now when I throw Sam a party, I get to have three cakes!" Pinkie said, bouncing up and down. "Well, after that exposition dump, a bit of walking through the desert sounds nice," Sam commented. "What do you mean ex-" "Forget it. One thing you learn about Sam after a while being in his head is that he has his moments of being strange. Let's just ignore the fact that technically I am him and do the same things for now." Somewhat confused at Netty's answer, Celestia used what magic she had left, which showed as Sam's forehead glowing yellow. "Oh, this doesn't feel good." Despite his complaint, the seven (or nine, depending on how you look at it) of them vanished in a flash of light, reappearing in the middle of a vast desert, nothing notable visible for miles to come. Sam, not used to magic being used from inside his head, took the time to empty his stomach a bit from nausea. "Apologies, I was not aware you weren't used to magic." Sam took a deep breath. "Seriously, the things I put up with..." "Sam, I'm picking up a settlement of some sort to the northeast. Maybe we should head there." Dash flew up into the air. "Yeah, I can see something over there." "Then it is settled. We will go there to find those ruins. In the meantime, Netricsa-" "Please, call me Netty." "Netty, would it be alright if I look at some of these files you've accumulated?" While the two voices in his head conversed, Sam trudged through the sand, keeping an eye out for any hostiles, his new rocket launcher in his hands. Looks like things were about to seriously get serious.
DesertAbout an hour after arriving in the middle of the desert, the sun was high up in the air, beating down on the six ponies and one human. The ponies were all sweating heavily from the heat, and Sam had a few spots on his shirt from his own sweat. Despite this, he seemed to be taking the heat a lot better than the others. "Cancha do somethin' 'bout the sun, Celestia?" Dash gasped, wiping her forehead. "I'm afraid not. Not only is my magic weaker right now, but Mental appears to have locked the sun in its current revolution." "On the bright side, at least there aren't any-" "No, don't!" Pinkie suddenly shouted, holding a hoof up to stop Sam. "You'll jinx it!" "Hell, at least it'd give me something to do," Sam said. Then he suddenly cupped his hands together and shouted, "AT LEAST THERE AREN'T ANY ALIENS ATTACKING US!" They all stood there and waited. But nothing happened. "...huh. Normally that wor-" And then a barrage of teleports could be heard, followed by kamikaze yells and kleer clops. "Was this really necessary, Sam?" "Would you rather them attack us when we least expect it?" "...point taken." A group of various hostile creatures then made their way over a sand dune, but Sam already had his tommy gun readied. While the ponies were shielded from harm, he began mowing down kleer, kamikazes, and even the occasional gnarr. Just as the first wave finished up, a rumbling could be heard in the distance, before a large, tan, bull-like creature came roaring over another dune, heading straight for Sam. Grinning, he took out his rocket launcher and fired a couple of shots, both rockets hitting the creature straight in the face. Upon the second impact, it let out a dying roar and flipped over, its forward momentum still in place. Sam sidestepped the rolling corpse, which then impacted against Twilight's shield. For the second time that day, Fluttershy fainted. "That's a whole lotta bull!" Sam quipped, while more werebulls came hurtling over the dunes. More rockets were fired off, every two shots bringing down another bull, their bodies rolling a good distance before stopping. Eventually, the bulls stopped coming, but another group of aliens teleported in some distance away. They looked a lot like the biomech Sam killed back in the castle, only smaller, and more blue. Also, instead of rockets, they shot blue lasers, which Sam quickly began dodging. Meanwhile, as he was doing battle, Celestia and Netty were having a decidedly peaceful conversation, given the events taking place. "So, from my understanding, most of Mental's forces are either wild animals, half-machine abominations, or 'converted' animals?" "That is correct. It's not exactly an orthodox army, but it's surprisingly effective." "I'm not sure, Sam seems to be doing rather well against them..." "Sam is no ordinary human. I am the biggest reason for that." "You and him behave rather similarly, I must say." "It's a side effect of being in his head for a while. He starts to rub off on you, both in a heart-warming metaphorical sense and in a kinda literal sense." At that moment, Sam fought his way to the top of a nearby sand dune, where he could see dozens of incoming kamikazes, all screaming their non-existent heads off. "Oh, this looks fun- Wait, what am I saying?!" "See what I mean? Don't worry, it isn't permanent. At least, I don't think it is..." While Celestia was having a minor identity crisis, Sam continued fighting the onslaught of enemies, keeping himself rearmed with the boxes of ammo that were just sitting in the middle of a desert for some reason. Soon, the sand was littered with shell casings, blood, bones, and body parts. Convinced that he killed all of the attackers, Sam wiped a combination of sweat and blood off his forehead before walking back to the ponies. "I'm getting the feeling you have too much fun doing this," Twilight said, half-joking. "Hey, some people enjoy playing sports, we enjoy gratuitous amounts of self-defense." "You both can't really be serious." "Oh, calm down, Celly!" Sam said, laughing. "We're doing good, why not have fun doing it?" As they walked up the blood-stained dune, Applejack caught view of a welcome sight: An oasis, not even off the path of their destination. She let out a small cheer, nearly dropping the knocked out Fluttershy in the process. The others saw what she was excited about, and immediately wore looks of relief. "Wait, that's not a mirage, is it?" Rarity asked. "Nope, it's the real deal. I should know, I'm a computer." Now with a goal right in front of them, the seven started moving faster towards the oasis, ready for some relief from the overbearing heat. Author's Note Short chapter is better than no chapter, right?
AppleoosaOnce their thirsts were quenched, the six ponies and one human once again began walking in the direction of the settlement they spotted earlier, Sam cracking his neck. "Jeez, it felt like we were there for months," he commented. Ignoring him, Twilight turned to the others. "Dash, can you give us an estimate of how much farther we have to go?" The pegasus saluted, and flew into the air, where she began to scan the horizon. "It's not much farther, but... I think it's covered in... snow?" The others paused. "Uh, y'all know we're in the middle of the desert, right, Dash?" Applejack asked, incredulous. "I know what I said, and it's true!" "There wasn't anything in that water, was there?" Sam asked, more to himself (and therefore, Netricsa) than to the others. "Nope, everything's fine there. And there is a drop in temperature some distance ahead." The group arrived at the top of a dune, and stopped to gape at what they saw. Dash landed next to them, a smug smirk on her face. "See? Told ya so." Ahead of them was a decently sized town, blanketed in a layer of snow. The transition from desert to below freezing seemed immediate, and there was no logical explanation for why the snow wasn't melting. On top of that, they could see that several buildings had multicolored lights strung up around them. Sam's response was very well worded. "What." Netricsa's was slightly more eloquent. "Wait, that doesn't make any sense, even for what we've seen." Applejack was the first to recover from the shock. "Hey, wait a second, this is Appleoosa!" "Apple-what now?" "Appleoosa," Twilight answered. "It seems like the town was emptied during Hearth's Warming..." Sam was still clueless. "A Hearth's what?" "Hearth's Warming, a holiday celebrating the unification of the three different pony tribes, thousands of years ago. Poies spend it by being with their families, exchanging gifts, and overall being joyful to one another." "Er... yeah, what she said." "Sounds an awful lot like Christmas." "Either way, it is probably worth checking the town." Sam nodded. "Alright, let's get going." He lead the others down the sand, which soon gave way to snow crunching under their steps. "So mind telling me how the hell the snow isn't melted?" Sam asked. "Pegasi can control the weather, and-" Sam cut Twilight's explanation off. "Right, magic, gotcha." The seven of them proceeded through the abandoned town, the silence giving an ominous air to the place. "Weird, it's been a whole five minutes without something trying to kill me." As soon as he said that, Sam whirled around, shotgun at the ready, only for the silent town to answer him. Shrugging, he kept moving on, the ponies right behind him. Soon, they came to the center of the town, which featured a large tree, decorated with various lights, similar to the buildings around them. Underneath the tree was a single long, rectangular present. Making sure they were still alone, Sam walked up to it and gave it a small kick. Satisfied that it wasn't a trap, probably, he bent down and opened it up. When he stood back to his full height, the ponies were surprised to see him holding a large mini-gun. "It's exactly what I wanted! It is just like Christmas!" Suddenly, a multitude of teleportations were heard around the town, followed by the sounds of creatures of various sizes and headlessness charging towards them. Twilight immediately put up a shield, and Sam turned to face the horde, minigun at the ready. "Santa Sam's gonna give out lumps of lead to all the bad little monsters and freaks!" With that, the onslaught began. The first to fall to Sam's hail of gunfire was, as usual, a group of kamikazes, who helped to paint the town a little bit more red. Behind them, kleers and bulls charged forward, only to fall to Sam's bullets as well. Behind them, a pair of major biomechs lumbered into view, firing rockets. Sam began to run around the town center, shooting the rockets out of the air and laying into the mechs. Eventually, they both succumbed to his gun, their bodies crushing a couple of kamikazes. Suddenly, there was a high-pitched shriek, and Sam just barely ducked behind a building in time as a large, yellow scorpion-type creature began to fire its own machine gun at him. As soon as the barrage stopped, Sam answered with one of his own, Netricsa letting him kill the arachnoid with unparalleled accuracy. The horde of enemies kept coming strong, and Sam's rain of lead kept equally strong, supplemented by boxes of bullets that were just lying out in the open. Meanwhile, Twilight and her friends were watching the mayhem with mild boredom. "How come he gets to have all the fun?" Dash complained. "Because we wouldn't last a minute out there," Twilight answered. "She's right, Sam is the only one who could help us, even if his methods are a bit..." At that moment, a kleer's skull bounced off the shield, though Fluttershy managed to only wince at it this time. "Don't worry girls, I'm sure ol' Sammy will do just fine!" Pinkie said, trying to cheer them up. Just as she said that, Sam ran back into the clearing, cursing a storm as he lugged his now-empty minigun, a horde of kamikazes on his tail. The others looked at Pinkie, who simply shrugged. Back with Sam, he was frantically unloading shotgun shells at the crowd behind him, thinning them out slowly but surely. Soon, there were no more kamikazes, but there was still the issue of a pack of kleer behind them, and there were too many of them to use a shotgun effectively. Also, Sam had just backed into a building, which probably didn't help at all. Slightly desperate, Sam took out his rocket launcher and fired a rocket at the kleer, shattering a couple and sending the rest flying some distance. Sam took the chance and sprinted through the opening he created, barely escaping their swinging blade arms. Now with plenty of room to run around in, Sam turned and started to blow away the skeletal foes, scattering bone fragments all over the snow. Eventually, the flow of monsters slowed to a trickle, and after shattering one last kleer with his hammer, Sam stood still and waited, listening for any more. Other than the wind, the area was now completely silent. Satisfied with a job well done, Sam started walking back to the ponies, stepping over and around various body parts and blood stains along the way. Back at the center of town, they hadn't moved an inch, and Twilight lowered her shield once she saw that Sam wasn't being pursued. "You would think that they should have run out of units by now," Rarity commented. Netty let out a short laugh. "You have no idea just how many of Mental's army we've killed so far." "Last count, it was definitely in the millions," Sam added. Ignoring the ponies' shocked expressions, Sam strode on, content with getting to the other side of the town. "There should be a set of ruins not too far away from here, if my memory serves me right. There, we should find something that may help us." With a rough plan in mind, Sam and the ponies walked on through the town, the cold starting to get to them. Author's Note Have a belated Christmas miracle.
The Calm Before the Serious StormFor almost a whole minute, no words were spoken from either party. Until suddenly, the figure inhaled sharply and clapped his hands together. "Alright then. Start explaining what I'm doing here." Silence reigned in the room for a few more seconds. Then Twilight cleared her throat. "Um... May we ask who you are?" "And why should I tell you?" the being responded. However, he started to look like someone was scolding him, despite the ponies not hearing anyone else, and he threw up his arms. "Alright, Netty, sheesh." He looked back to the ponies. "To answer your question, Sam I am. Serious Sam, to be more exact." Twilight looked at her friends, who only offered shrugs. "Are you the one that the book said defeated most of Mental's forces?" The man seemed surprised at the name Mental. "Well, yeah. What were you expecting, a squad of highly trained special ops soldiers, who only carry two guns each and have to hide behind something if they so much as get a paper cut?" None of Twilight or her friends knew how to respond to this, and they started whispering amongst each other. Twilight then broke the commotion and looked at Sam. "Will you excuse us for one moment?" She led them out the door, leaving Sam alone. "Now, Ah'm th' first one t' trust ya on these things, Twi," Applejack started, "but how in the hay is he supposed t' help us?" "Yeah, he seems kinda... odd," Rainbow Dash chimed in. "And while it's of low priority at the moment, I can't help but notice that his ensemble is rather drab," Rarity said. "Well, he's our best bet at the moment," Twilight told the others. "It's either him, or we do nothing." She turned and looked at Spike. "Spike, will you stay down here for a bit?" "Aww, why?" "Because we don't yet know if he's dangerous. Besides, we'll need someone to keep a lookout for us." Begrudgingly, the dragon nodded, and the others started creeping back into the room where they left Sam, just in time to catch him talking to what looked like nothing but an empty wall. "No, Netty, I'm not saying we should shoot our way out of this, just that I'd like for it to be an option." Silence. "Yeah, because I've really been quite the negotiator this whole time, haven't I?" More silence. "You know what, fine. But if one of them even thinks of calling in those headless freaks, I'm out. Seriously." Sam turned back around just in time to see the six ponies standing back in the room, confused looks on all of their faces. "Who were you talking to?" Applejack asked. "Oh, you know, voice in my head. Nothing unusual." The ponies shared concerned looks, before Twilight spoke up. "So... You hear... voices in your head?" "Nah, just the one voice. She kinda works as the brains to my... everything else, really." "So you're insane," Dash stated, unamused. "While some might say yes, it's not for the reason you're thinking of. You see, it's all a really complicated series of stories and testing with AI and me being picked." A moment of silence passed, then Sam added, "Oh yeah, and Netty asks you where we are." "Well, you're in Ponyville," Twilight said, "which is located in Equestria, which is a country on the planet Equis." Sam just stood there, before he chuckled. "I don't think Netty likes all the puns you listed there." Before Twilight could ask just what he meant, Dash flew up and loudly said, "Can't you just have 'Netty' talk to us herself?!" "Well, let me see." Twilight spotted an almost unnoticeable image of various numbers and letters appear in Sam's eye, then disappear suddenly. "Nope." "Wait," Twilight said, "let me try something." She lit up her horn and started focusing her magic on Sam's head, which didn't go unnoticed by him. "Woah, what are you doing?" he asked, concerned. "Just... hold... still..." Twilight told him, face scrunching up in concentration. Then, as soon as it started, the flow of magic stopped, and she let out a sigh of relief. "Done." Sam rubbed his head. "Well, apart from giving me a headache, what was that supposed to do?" "Running scan on body systems... Well, everything seems fine. Except..." All of the ponies, save for Twilight, gasped. "So he's not crazy!" Pinkie Pie said, hopping in place. "Well I'll be..." Applejack added. "Wait, you can hear her now?" Sam asked, genuinely confused. "Interesting... It seems that here, magic is much more free form. And not a moment too soon; I was getting rather tired of only speaking to Sam." "Hey!" "Anyway, I am the NEuroTRonically Implanted Combat Situation Analyzer, or NETRICSA, for short." "Nice to meet you, Netty!" Pinkie greeted the AI. "Well, now that I can speak to you all directly, would it be too much to ask for, say, books on local geography, history, and legends?" "Why would you need to know about legends?" Dash asked. "Trust me when I say that we have a track record on these sort of things," Netricsa answered. Shrugging, Twilight left the room to tell Spike what to get. "So, you've fought against Mental before?" Rarity asked. Sam laughed. "Boy have I. Through space and time." "Time?" "It's a long story." At that moment, Twilight came back into the room, carrying a rather large supply of books with her. "Will these be good enough, Netricsa?" "That'll be fine, just put them down in front of me- err, Sam. We are technically the same person, aren't we?" While the others pondered the implications of this, Twilight set the books down in front of Sam, and he immediately began reading. Much to Twilight's horror, however, he only skimmed through the books before tossing them behind him carelessly. She had to grab them one by one out of the air with her magic to keep them from getting damaged from the force of the impacts. Soon, Sam had gone through the entire pile in this manner, and he cracked his knuckles. "Alright, Netty, do your thing." "Processing... Done, records updated." "Say, something just occurred to me," Sam said. "We told you our names, but you didn't tell us yours." Twilight blushed slightly once she was sure all of her books were safe. "Oh, right," She stood up straight. "I am Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends, Rainbow Dash..." "Nice to meetcha!" "...Rarity..." "The pleasure is mine." "...Applejack..." "Howdy." "...Pinkie Pie..." "Hi! I can't wait to throw a 'Welcome to Ponyville' party for you two! But how would I give Netty a cupcake? Would I just give Sam two? Or-" "And," Twilight almost had to yell, in order to cut off Pinkie's rambling, "Fluttershy." "Hello..." "What did you say?" Sam questioned the yellow pegasus. "She said 'hello'," Netricsa answered. "Enhanced hearing has its perks." "Huh. Well then," Sam clapped his hands together, "time for you to explain just what Mental is doing this time." Twilight and her friends started explaining the entire situation to them, from the rule of Nightmare Moon, to her sudden overthrowing by Mental, to the campaign he launched against all other countries on the planet. Sam and Netricsa asked for clarification on a few points, but otherwise stayed quiet. "And so, out of options, we decided to bring in a supposed mighty enemy to Mental," Twilight finished. "And that's where you come in." "So, you just need me-" "Ahem." "-us to clear out your little Mental problem here?" "I would hope so." "Sounds like a plan. Except for one problem. I have none of my weapons on me." Twilight smiled sheepishly. "Well, it occurs to me that in casting the spell, I only really focused on you, not quite what you had with you..." "Seriously?" Sam sighed. "Alright, I've started from nothing before, I can do it again." "Wait, before we do anything, I would like to get a look at a up-to-date star chart or something similar, in order to see exactly what time we're at in relation to our planet." "Well, I have an observatory here, and I was able to get a really big telescope for it," Twilight said. "Alright then, let's see it." Twilight led the human and other five ponies into another room, where the only items were a very large telescope mounted in the wall, and a screen hooked up to said telescope. "The screen shows a live feed of whatever the telescope is focused on," Twilight explained, "and it has a very, very high zoom." "Seems generous of Mental to give you this," Sam noted. "Well, apparently it's because he doesn't see us as a threat..." As Sam started looking at various constellations, Netricsa began to give directions to him on where to look. "Look a little more to your left. No, that's too far, go back to the right a bit." "I'm trying, Netty!" While the AI kept giving directions to the human, the ponies looked at the screen to see the view shifting across various groups of stars, not yet focusing on anything notable. "Wait, stop there. That looks like that could be it. Zoom in." Sam did so, and the ponies watched as the display on the screen flew towards a single star, which had a number of small specks revolving around it. "Bingo, that's our Sun." Now no longer needing instructions, Sam zoomed in on one of the specks, revealing it to be a green and blue planet with a single moon. Twilight noted that it looked rather similar to Equis... "Hey, Earth's still there, that's something." This statement broke Twilight out of her thinking. "What do you mean, 'still there'?" "Hold on a sec." The display zoomed into a region on the planet, which looked to be mostly desert. Sporadically placed settlements could be seen, and even without focusing on them the ponies could tell they were mostly in ruins. "Alright, so we know this is the same time Mental was attacking us... And from the looks of things, it's currently near the tail end of the attack..." "Mental attacked your home, too?" Fluttershy asked, barely audible. "Yep," Sam replied simply. He seemed to be looking for a specific spot, and after a bit of searching he found it: a rather long canyon that from what little they could see, looked to be filled with various corpses, both whole and in pieces (but mostly pieces). "What did all that?" Dash asked, both awed and slightly nauseated. "I did." As the ponies stared at Sam in disbelief, he moved the telescope to one end of the canyon, showing a lone set of temple ruins- and a certain white-shirted man walking out of the canyon. "Oh hey, look, it's me." He zoomed in more on the figure, whom the ponies noticed wore orange sunglasses along with their Sam's attire. The man walked towards the ruins, when suddenly the ground started shaking, and Sam zoomed the telescope out enough for the ponies to see a very, very huge alien burst out of the sand. The Sam on the screen didn't look too phased, and simply took out what looked like a whole cannon as the giant alien was attacked by an equally-giant sand worm. As Sam kept the telescope focused on the scene, the ponies watched in awe as the onscreen Sam grabbed a jetpack and flew up into the air, cannon still in his arms. "Just what is that dreadful thing?" Rarity asked. "Ugh-Zan the Fourth, one of Mental's strongest lieutenants. Well, former lieutenant, anyway." The ponies watched as, dodging countless rockets, lasers, and fireballs, onscreen Sam stuck lightning rods in the thing's back, one by one. Eventually, the beast fell with a well-placed cannonball, and Sam flew off to some sort of giant artifact of some kind. Before any of the ponies could inquire as to what it was, Netricsa answered them preemptively. "The Time Lock, an ancient Sirian artifact, vital to mine and Sam's continued existence. And to answer your question, no, I won't go into detail about the Sirians at the moment." Onscreen, Sam had some unheard conversations on his phone, before looking up, seemingly towards the telescope, and started booking it for the Time Lock. "Why were you running?" Dash asked, hovering in the air. In answer, Sam zoomed the telescope out, revealing the planet's moon flying right for it. The two collided, and a massive explosion nearly blinded everyone in the room. When they look back, all that remained was a bunch of floating, still-burning rocks. "You- Your planet was destroyed?" Twilight asked, in disbelief. "Yeah. That's part of the reason I went back, to keep that from happening." "I... I had no idea..." "Don't feel bad, you had nothing to do with it." Suddenly, Spike burst into the room, breathing heavily. "Those things... and the... Here..." "What is it Spike?" Rarity asked, concerned, along with all the other ponies. The dragon gasped some more, before saying a single thing. "Wreckers." Twilight stiffened, while Sam scratched his head in confusion. "Wreckers?" "You see," the unicorn explained, "rather than kill ponies for disobeying his rule, he just sends some foot soldiers to smash all their things." "Hopefully, they don't know that Sam and I are here already..." Spike looked around, confused. "Who was that?" "No time to explain," Twilight urged, leading all her friends downstairs. Sam followed, trying to remain mostly hidden. He didn't need a spot of expository narration to tell him that things were about to get serious. Author's Note This is your daily reminder that anyone who relies on regenerating health is a wuss, and needs to start manning the hell up.
