The Hero Within

" Yuuuupeeey! "

Pinkie Pie was the only pony, who was enjoying the ride through the portal. It's shadows weren' t very laughable, but Pinkie enjoyed, as if it was a waterslide.

The ride lasted unusually long. Even the Princesses and Vortex were riddled. Dim light made the ponies visible and the ride wasn't so scary... if there weren't the Voidians. Horrible scratching, screaming, yelling and other sinister sounds were to be heard from outside of the tunnel.

However, this gave Twilight long enough time to think over what happened and discuss it with the others:

" So, where do you think he'd be sending us? "

" With our bad luck - strait to Tartarus. " Pony replied, but his humor didn't lift anypony's mood this time. The iron Stallion looked confused from this, so he just let the conversation to the others.

" What did he mean with " more like when " ? " the other armoured pony in the crew, Rainbow Dash, was however interested.

" Princess, is there anyway he might be sending us back in time? Or in the future.... wait a second. " an unexpected memory slowly re - appeared in Twilight's mind. How once her future self tried to warn her for something, that was going to happen in the near future. However, the time- travelling spell didn't proof good enough and the future Twilight vanished before she was able to finish her profound.

Back than, the lavender mare had tried everything to prevent " the Apocalypse " , since future twilight looked horrible: she was wearing a strange " ninja " outfit with many " katana " holes in it, as Pinkie had later commented, she had a scar under her left eye, an eyepatch on the right and her mane looked like it was electrified - it stuck in all directions. Eventually, Twilight's paranoya made her look exactly the same and when the time for " the Apocalypse " came, Twilight just realized her future, or her present, self was just trying to tell her not to worry about stuff so much, but when she tried to tell this to her past self, she just ended repeating the words of her future self, which panicked her earlier.

" But... you were only able to stay in the past for mere seconds! " Dash noted, after the alicorn refreshed her friends' memories.

" And what if he used the power of the Void to stabilize this process? " the young princess replied and looked at Vortex. He just made a strange muzzle and replied to her stare:

" Time is a strange thing: the construction of the spell you have used took Starswirl the Bearded months. However, he wasn't a Chaotic... and he only focused on the travelling back in time. Travelling faster and ending up in the distant future is something, that hasn't been researched... ever. But time in the Void, or in a portal, flows differently. With the power of the Chaotic it could easily be manipulated to be turned to a worm hole, leading to the future... perhaps. But I fear what we might face on the other of the tunnel. "

" If we ever exit it. " Blaze commented

A cry was heard from the back part of the group.

' Rarity. ' Twilight thought. Since Rarity realized what Hase did to save her from becoming Nightmare Rarity again, she wasn't able to hold in her tears. That had a weird effect on her new body. Her coat emitted weaker light, and her mane waved in a synchron with her cries.

Twilight was concerned. First Rarity realized, that she is the new Queen of the Moon, and now this... Rarity had just fell in love for Hase for the second time and he had to sacrofice himself. Of course, this just made her love stronger. The unicorn had a broken heart. The alicorn sighed. She didn't know where ( or when) they were going, she didn't know what to say to Rarity, she didn't know what to do after they reached their destination, she didn't know absolutely anything. However, she knew one thing, and was pretty sure the others would of agreed: they were going to bring Hase back, to cast this Essence of Death of him.

" Something's coming. " Hawk spoke and stretched his bow. The end was near.

The glorious trip ended with falling in the garbage. A week - long adventure, which proved fateful for a whole realm, with a bad end . Celestia wasn't even sure if the Prequestrians have really defeated sabredance. No matter how much grief she felt, a small feeling she was trying to ignore untill now sneaked into her mind: she was right. From the beggining. It was a  great risk to accept Hase for a member of the team. He was friendly, loyal, good... hero? Maybe. But the signs... the Elements of Chaos. A.I.M. . Vortex. The Weapons of Destruction. The Nightmare Spirits? It was obvious he would end up evil. The princess of the day bit her lip. Now the pegasus just dumped them somewhere at sometime and was probably already preparing his army for an invasion of Equestria. The almighty alicorn... was helpless. Blasted into oblivion. At least she didn't have to look at the fall of her kingdom.

' I wouldn't say so. ' the telepath Emma Frost spoke in her mind. The princess slowly raised her head from the pile of scrap.

There was something familliar about the landscape. These low houses, those dust- covered streets, this square... it was the square in front of the mayor office. Ponyville.

Yet something was different. The sky was clear and what was visible shook the both of the Princesses. The sun. And the moon in front of it. Solar eclipse was considered to be rare. Usually Celestia and Luna made this on April's Fool day, one of their small jokes, that remembered them, that no matter that they are the almighty rulers, masters of the sun and the moon, they were also just two sisters, who enjoyed a good joke.

But the Moon wasn't joking. The sky object looked more threatening and dark than ever. It looked like if it consumed light. And it did consume, because it was way darker than ususal. It was probably just noon, and it was dark like if it was dusk.

" What has happenned to the Moon! " Light Warrior and the other Moon Ponies looked far more worried than the others. It was their home world, after all, so Celestia understood them completely.

She didn't like how the Moon hid the sun. All of that light was for the ponies. She focused. A huge amount of energy flowed in her horn. The sun sped up it's movements. It was working. The sun left the moon behind and it's light spread. The Princess smiled. The others cheered. And something unexpected happened.

The moon also sped up it's movements, leaving a trail of darkness behind. The celestial object stood in front of the star and once again the eternal dusk. Celestia angrily stared at Luna, but her younger sister looked more sad even than her. Her anger dissapeared and she asked:

" Is there anything wrong Luna? "

" It ... doesn't obey my orders. The Moon moved by itself. I.. I can't move it. " Luna looked confused and worried. celestia tried to imagine what would happen if she wasn't able to control the sun anymore. That thought horrified her, so she tried to think of something else. Luckily, soon the group had to focus on something else.

The creature was hungry. It snarled. The others also moved forward. It was time to feast.

" Holy moly! " Applejack looked surprised from the unnoticed appearance of the beasts. Celestia, Luna and Vortex stood in front of the others. The creature laughed... was this really laugh? Suddenly, completely unexpected, the beast spoke:

" You even don't now what I am, do you, newbies? Fury is getting more desperate than I have possibly imagined. "

" You are a Voidian. " Twilight replied

The rest of the beasts laughed together with their leader. There were all kinds of beasts... octopie, giant snakes, gigantic vultures, dog- like creatures, and the leader was something, that resembled a lion with wings, a snake for a tail and long dragon claws. The only thing in common, was that they all were pitch black and their lines were a little smudged. The leader revealed his teeth and replied:

" You get an A, hornhead. Most of my lunches think me for a chymera. So you'll have the privilege to be eaten last and to choose from whom.

" Do you actually know who are you talking too? " the Iron Patriot's turret aimed for the beast. This just made the Vodian Chymera smirk, again revealing his sharp teeth.

" Let me guess... three a - la - minutes, ten main dishes and the rest are for desert. " the beast taunted them, counting them with one of sharp nails on his claw.

" No, you are currently speaking to three princesses, a queen, an emperor, 7 lords, a master archer, a pony with breath - taking anger problems, a master - assasin, a small squadron of master magicians, a genius, technocrate... " Dash didn't quite remember the full list of Pony Stark's titles, so the technocrate genius had to join in himself:

" Equantropist, billionaire, playcolt. " he nodded her to continue.

" ... and the best flyer in Equestria. Believe me, you won't ever forget this. " the War Marechine finished her profound and her shoulder turret fed a dozen of energy bullets to the Chymera- like Voidian. Unlike the Nightmare Spirits before, it proved effective. The beast fell apart. Inside her suit Dash grinned and the fight began.

Rockets and magic were most effective. Stark and Dash still had some left from their trip, and they fired untill their clip was empty. But they still got the pulse minigun, repulsors and unibeams.

5 Voidians were obliterated by Mark 42's Unibeam.  The Voidians didn't stand a lot of chance. Luna, Celestia and Twilight had formed a circle and magical bolts killed every Voidian. Thunders and Tesseract bolts ( or Tessabolts, as Loky called them )  were wiping out whole squads. The group had fought in many fights and had a lot of experience. The Lords of the Elements were guarding their backs. Streams of flame and water stopped the Voidians from coming too fast. Landrock just hit the ground and several Voidians turned to a shish - kebab after a huge crystal stuck from the ground. The dirt under the hooves of some of the pony - like Voidians engulfed them and they sunk in the ground. A Voidian Cocatrix tried to rip off Glace' head, but Hydro hit him with a water stream like with a whip, which bought Glace enough time. He spun and freezed his head. Luckily, it didn't petrify him.

" Just crappy replicas. Were we really that afraid from those guys? " he asked, as Vortex passed nearby, opening portals to the Void under the feet of a group of Voidians. His chaotic skills proved useless, but with some creativity they worked again. One of the Voidians got it's head turned to a mug and fell directly into the portal.  The Emperor of Darkness replied:

" They are usually more fierce. It's like if they wish us to get distracted from something. "

" Look! " Applejack noticed something scary. A whole pack was running away from the fight, frightening the ponies, who had gotten on the street.

" Oh, ya'r nat killin' mah hometown ' ponies. " Captain Equestria threw his shield at one of them, who was going to hit a filly. It broke his concentration for long enough, so that AJ could get her shield back and hit the Voidian in the head.

" The Avengers! " the filly cheered.

" More of them have fled. " Hawk was standing next to her, together with Light Warrior and Natasha Romanoff.

" We shouldn't let them hurt more civillians or break in further in the town. It's almost like they are looking for something. " the red-  maned mare noted. Applejack nodded. Hawk fired several arrows, each one of them made a Voidian fell. Some of them were still alive, as the trio caught up, so the Black Widow performed a spectacular kick, which broke the necks of three of them.

But there were still some of them alive. Light Warrior got out his sword and his horn was surrounded by a light oreol. The sword turned to a crescent, that emitted light, and the moon pony threw it at the Voidians. It slashed through the air, eliminated the danger for the civilians, and returned back to him, again turning in a sword.  Light Warrior smiled and together with Hawk, AJ and Natasha ran back to the fight.

" SHYULK SMAAAASH! AAARGH! " Shyulk was just having fun. He grabbed two Voidian birds and used them as boxing gloves to hit another two Vodians. After they fall apart and turned to darkness, Fluttershy grinned and hit the ground with her forehooves. A crack opened and two Voidians unintentionally ended in Shyulk's reach. A strong punch made them fly high in the sky and turn to smoke .

The Voidians were much more than they originally thought. It was a whole batallion. No matter how fierce they fought, there were still many of them. From using the repulsors too often Dash and Stark had to rest for a while, waiting for the weapon sistems to become operational . Thorse and Loky were getting tired too, they already had some wounds. The Lords barely held the line. The only ponies, that weren't that tired yet, were the Scarlet Witchmare, Emma Frost and Johny Blaze.

Arcane magic certainly wasn't good for the Voidians. A magical shield guarded the trio. Whenever a Voidian tried to strike, the attack backfired right at him. Pink balls of energy rained upon the enemies, causing random hillarious effects, as a cup - headed pony Voidian , some birds with no legs and other kinds of hex.

The Voidians' minds were also open for an attack. Emma made some of them fall on the ground and attacked the ones, that tried to breach Wanda's shield in her diamond form. After they fell, Emma smiled at Wanda :

" A mare's best friend. "

The Voidians had no souls, which automatically made them immune to the Penance Stare. However, heated chains proved their weak spot. The Ghost Biker swung his chains at a Voidian. It wrapped around him and the Biker pulled it, turning his enemy to ashes. The ones, who the chain missed, were ran over by the Biker's sinister ride with flaming tires.

But the three of them were also at the limit of their powers. The whole group desperately needed somepony.

Finally, they ended up surrounded by the remaining Voidians. The ugly creatures laughed at them and tightened the circle.

' is this the end? ' Twilight thought worried, as the monsters' grip tightened and tightened.