We continued to chat as we walked down the halls of the castle, occasionally stopping to take a look at each of the rooms we come across. There wasn't much of interest in each of the rooms as they were all practically the same with some furniture, bookshelves and the usual fireplace. As we were walking, I still couldn't help but feel that someone was watching us. Though those thoughts immediately ceased when I heard corporal Davin call out to someone down the next hall.

"Hey! Identify yourself."

When I rounded the corner, I could see what looked like another human. The only strange thing was that it looked to be wearing similar armor as the one that Nyx and I had encountered before we arrived at the ruins, except that that individual had be reduced to nothing more than dust. A chill when down my spine as I started to notice a few features, or lack of, with the thing and I quickly realized that it was not at all human.

We jumped back a bit when the thing looked towards us. My suspicions were quickly confirmed as when the thing looked at us, it showed that it had no eyes or a nose, but it did have a mouth filled with long, razor sharp fangs. It was especially creepy as its mouth seemed to be set in a permanent smile and it seemed to be drooling some sort of black liquid.

"What the hell?" Mark exclaimed.

Mark, Isa and I quickly drew our weapons. Mark and Isa with their assault rifles and me with my magnum. I looked down to see Nyx trembling in fear behind my leg. I quickly brought my head up as the creature gave a blood curling scream and charged us.

"FIRE!" I yelled.

We fired our weapons at the thing, and the thing staggered as we pelted it with bullets. To our surprise, and horror, the thing was still charging at us even though it was now limping. I noticed that the same black liquid was oozing out of the holes we had put into the thing and watched as they slowly closed up, allowing it to move faster.

It was nearly on top of us when I quickly went to grab the deagle that I had in my duffle bag and fired one shot at the creature. To my surprise, the creatures head exploded the instant the bullet made contact, leaving a mess of flesh and black liquid all over the place. Isa quickly grabbed Nyx and pulled her away as we backpedalled away from the creature as it crashed to the ground.

"Holy hell," Isa said, "did you guys see how fast it was moving."

Mark nodded, "the hell is that thing?"

I carefully took a closer look and could definitely see that it was wearing similar armor as the one that I had seen out in the forest. The only difference being that that person did have facial features while this thing had none whatsoever. It was especially puzzling given the fact that the creature seemed to be leaking some sort of black liquid. I was about to touch it when I heard movement coming down the hall.

We quickly raised our weapons and moved back as two more of those creatures appeared down the hall. They both screamed before charging us. They stopped when they were halfway down the hall when we heard a voice coming from behind us.

"Now, now. That's enough of that."

We quickly turned to confront the new threat only to have our weapons get swatted out of our hands. The creature standing before us was much more frightening than the ones that were about to kill us. Its limbs seemed to be much longer than normal and it had about six black tentacles sprouting out of its back.

The thing smiled at us as it said, "we will be going now."

Before we knew it, the thing walked down the hall with its minions in tow. Even the creature that I had blown its head off got back up and awkwardly followed the others as they disappeared down the hall.

"What the hell was that thing?" The lieutenant asked.

"I don't know, but I would rather not stay here any longer." I replied.

The two marines nodded and we continued down the hall.

"Hey, how'd you do that?" Isa asked. Both her and Mark were looking at me with curious looks on their faces.

I looked at the lieutenant as I replied, "what do you mean."

"What she means is how in the hell were you able to get that gun out before that creature got to us? You were able to draw that gun out of your bag so fast and blew that things head off."

When I thought about it, I realized that everything had slowed down a bit as I went to grab the gun. I thought it was my imagination but it seemed to be similar to what happened on the bridge back when I was helping with the evacuations on Reach before I found myself here.

"I honestly don't know," I replied, "but let's wait until we get back with your group before we try and figure out what happened."

We continued with the usual routine as we walked down the hall.

Princess Luna watched the entire scene unfold and was also surprised at how Garen had managed to kill the creature. She could feel an incredibly powerful form of magic coming from him and wondered if he was actually hiding something. Though it didn't seem like it as he seemed to be unaware of what he just did.

She was lost in thought before she noticed that two more of those creatures showed up only to be following yet another one that seemed to be even more frightening. She also watch in horror as the one that Garen had seemingly killed got back up and followed the others as they disappeared down the hall.

She shook her head to clear her mind and continued to follow the small group of humans as they continued on their way.

Deep in the catacombs

Dark Chronos looked up as he felt an all too familiar presence coming from the upper levels of the castle.

"Did you feel that?"

Dark Chronos turned to see Anex walking up to him. "Yes. However, that should not be possible. We all know that he never leaves his realm for any reason unless he absolutely has to."

The two looked back up to the ceiling when Anex asked, "shall I have one of the Warlords go up and investigate?"

"No," Dark Chronos replied, "I will go and check. Continue with the relocation, I'll deal with whatever's up there."

With that Dark Chronos disappeared in a burst of dark flames while Anex looked back up before heading back to where he came.

Back at where the humans are

Luna continued to silently watch the humans when the reached the room where the elements of harmony were stored. She watched as the humans pause for a moment when she felt a familiar presence coming from the other end of the door.

"That better not be him," the lunar princess said quietly as she watched the humans raise their weapons as they approached the door.

It appears they too are aware of what's waiting for them behind that door.

We arrived at a set of double doors which I realized that led to the room where the elements of harmony were once stored before Twilight and her friends retrieved them. I suddenly felt a chill go down my spine and I instinctively went for my weapon. I watched as the other two raised their weapons as well as though they fell the same thing.

"Alright," I said, "let's see what horror awaits behind that door."

With that we opened the door with our weapons raised ready to fire at whatever threat was waiting for us.

Author's Note

Whew, now this was a doozy of a chapter. Things are really going to get interesting now. Let me know if there are any errors that I left in the chapter. Anyway, hope you guys are still enjoying my story thus far.

Nyx belongs to Pen Stroke

Why do I get the feeling that I might've rushed this one.