Redemption

Shaking off the nausea and disorientation, I take in my surroundings: another forest clearing, similar to the one I just left. Glancing around, I don't immediately spot the structure nearby. After a moment, I see some partially demolished towers sticking up through the trees. Guessing them to be about half a mile away, I glance at Nightmare. "What's the plan of attack, Ma'am?"

"Find the remaining swarmlings, entrap them, and kill them." A voice nearby states. Turning, I get a rather mixed feeling upon seeing a familiar gray unicorn stallion. Thankfully, we should be allies. Should . . . yeah, probably want to be careful around this one.

"Yeah, sounds good. Any idea on enemy numbers?" I turn back to Nightmare Storm questioningly. She just stares at me with a deadpan expression. "About a hundred then?" She sighs and shakes her head turning to look at the structure through the trees. "Less than a thousand at least?" I ask, kind of plaintively.

"Should be less than a thousand." She states, making me perk up. "We think . . ." she mumbles, almost too softly for me to hear.

I sigh and shake my head. "Any idea where Vine's holding at, then? Maybe I can perform a hit and run, snap her out, Her Majesty can fry the area, boom, done." I query, not really looking forward to the ensuing fight.

Nightmare chuckles at my weak joke, but shakes her head again. "Nay, we do not think you'll get to her easily, she seems to have taken cover behind some kind of heavy door. And Tia doesn't condone the use of our powers in that way. Sadly, it will be a hard melee, but with their queens gone, shan't be impossible."

I stare at her uncomprehendingly. She doesn't CONDONE the use of such methods? Nodding my head, because I'm just not touching that subject, I toss her a salute before going looking for the command group. Spotting Celestia's telltale shape in a group of otherwise unremarkable armored ponies, I head over.

She seems busy, directing various units around using jargon I neither comprehend nor really understand half the time, so I hang back. When she has a less-busy moment, I step forward. "Your Highness?" I query, trying to get her attention.

She sees me and smiles. "Yes, Redemit?" she asks, cocking an ear in my direction as she turns to survey the troops moving about as they exit the clearing.

I step forward. "I'm not experienced with any of your tactics or various groups, on the battlefield, I'd be more hindrance than help, which is why I'm requesting permission to make a foray in, see if I can locate Vine, and manage an extraction if possible. Otherwise I'll just tie up the swarms while you get in place."

She turns her head, I'm semi-surprised by the lack of surprise on her face, obviously she knows quite a bit about me to NOT be surprised. Joy. "Are you sure of this, Redemit? Your Queen puts a fair amount of faith in you, but I hardly think going alone into the heart of a swarm is going to allow you to get anything done excepting your demise."

I shake my head. "No, Your Highness, I made a promise, and I mean to fulfill it, so dying is not an option. Besides, I'm in scout gear now, it's not very heavy, and the protection it offers is fairly minimal, but if you thought I was fast before, wait till you see this stuff in action." I state with a grin. "Although, I'm going to be out of commission for awhile afterwards, which is why it's imperative we take out this swarm, right now, right here. We don't have time to train trackers for them, and while we didn't think their drones could mutate into queens, with the current situation, I'd rather not find out," I state reasonably.

She stares at me with narrowed eyes for a second, obviously deep in thought.

"You shall not be going in there alone, Redemit. If you mean to find your dear friend. It's only meet that we accompany you to see to the safety of our two little ponies." I turn to see Nightmare behind me, my satchels of grenades now strapped to her sides, drawing an appreciative whistle from my lips.

"My Queen, your choice of accessory for this event is most dashing, I must say." I snark, shaking my head. She only laughs as I feel the force bow pulled from my chest sheath. As She pulls it to her, I watch the crystal object morph from an ergonomic shape as befitting the human hand to a shape more simplistic, barely more than a simple curved shape. Two glowing blue 'arms' composed of magic drawn from Her essence appear, and, lastly, a glimmering blue string appears, crackling for a second before it stabilizes and connects the two arms. An amorphous arrow appears, already set to string, simply waiting to be pulled back and released. Turning back to Celestia, I toss a thumb over my shoulder at Nightmare. "Well, gee, now there's two of us, I'd say we got them handled, Your Majesty."

Celestia just laughs. "Very well, since you seem intent upon rescuing your friend, I shall agree, just stay out of the advance element's way." She chuckles, then, growing more serious, she turns to Nightmare Storm. "And bring him back, I'd hate to see him end in such a manner," she commands gently, staring at Nightmare who in turn stares back at her solemnly, tear tracks still visible in the hair of Her muzzle. Nightmare storm nods, and we turn and trot towards the structure.

"What did she mean by that last part, Ma'am?" I ask, curious about what end Celestia had been referring to.

Glaring at me, Nightmare tosses Her head. "Do not worry about that, and our name is Nightmare Storm, we bear no rank here,"

Chuckling at the familiar treatment, I nod my head. "As you wish, Nightmare Storm," I state. Grinning at Her I chuckle "Even without most of your magic, I think we'll be sowing a bit of thunder after all," I say with a glance at the grenade satchels, causing Her to grin ferally with a mouth full of sharp teeth, a predator's smile.

"Thy jokes aside, it is time for us to be getting in position, enough of this farce, let us truly move," She snarls, eyes turned forward.

I nod my assent and trigger my jets, felling a familiar hand reach out and pluck me from the ground. Bouncing off a tree with a familiar bend of my legs, I bounce from tree to tree, catching up to and passing the pony teams as they move forward into position. Nightmare punches a small hole in the canopy and takes flight behind me; I feel Her take position over me, watching the path ahead.

We continue in this method, clearing the half mile to the structure in record time. Drawing close, I start to see movement ahead of me. As I cross a clearing, I catch my first clear sight of the enemy. In this case, it's just two drones, but where there are two, there's a dozen in the surrounding area, waiting to respond. Thankfully, I'm saved from having to respond by the timely intervention of two magical arrows, which thud into said drones almost simultaneously, killing them instantly and clearing my path forward.

Moving forward into the dark forest, I'm once again confronted with more swarmlings. Triggering my jump jets, I shoot forward and over them, bouncing from tree to tree in a very real game of cat-and-mouse as I hear various insect calls from all around me. Leaping forward, tightening my actions, increasing my risk of an accident, I eek out as much speed as possible without breaking the canopy and having to rely on my damaged wing muscles.

Seeing the wall coming up fast, I draw my storm sword in my right hand, keeping my left free to assist in mobility. I shift my course to the right, aiming to meet up with the wall at a gentler angle. This saves my life as several dark shapes erupt from the nearby trees, most missing me narrowly as I shift my course, the two that would have still had me end up getting eviscerated in passing; their blood sprays my armor for an instant and then I'm through.

As I meet up with the wall, I time my jumps carefully then divert to the top of the wall, bunny hopping from one point to another, surveying the area. The remains of a once-impressive bastion are spread out before me, with numerous half-destroyed houses filling a walled-in enclosure with a large keep resting towards the center of the old city, enclosed in its own secondary walls. Everywhere I look throughout the city, swarmlings mill about, obviously looking for prey. Most of them seem centered on the keep, which is good, since my best place to find Vine is the center of their activity.

"Watch the skies!" Nightmare screams out.

Glancing up I have time to watch Her perform a dance of death with several locust swarmlings. Locusts are their own version of the pegasus, thankfully lighter and weaker, but still deadly en masse. A glance is all I end up having time for before I find myself with a following of several locusts and numerous swarmling drones following me on the ground. Unable to match my speed and agility, they make up for it by coating much of the surrounding ground and walls, charging at wherever it looks like I'll be touching down for longer than an instant.

"Right!" She calls out, instantly I dodge right, ducking around a small structure. I hear a string of thuds, denoting the detonation of a number of grenades, dealing horrendous damage to a number of swarmlings, possibly taking down a locust or two if I'm really lucky. But judging by the amount of buzzing I'm hearing as I bounce from spot to spot, I'd say there's plenty more of those.

Abandoning the area near the walls, I head inwards into the old city, shooting for the central keep. Slashing out as I go, I inflict frequent minor wounds and the occasional kill on swarmlings as I pass, insuring their unerring attention on me. Nightmare Storm flying over-watch seems to pull most of the locusts up and out of my way, for which I can only be thankful. Because so much of the city lies in ruin, it's hard to stay on the move.

Glancing up, I have an instant to admire Her pulling off a sharp midair turn in Her continuous aerial ballet, the occasional arrow launching from her bow to skewer one or two locusts from the air. Doing a quick count, I'm heartened to note that the number of locusts actually in our area is reasonably low, only being several dozen in number.

My attention crashes back down to the ground, literally. I ran out of houses to bounce off of and now I'm in a causeway, with several leaps between myself and any usable structures. I reach out and grab a leaping swarmling by the throat as my right arm lashes out, the sword in my hand lopping off important bits of other swarmlings, resulting in several shrill screams.

Trying to ignore the ear bleed situation, I throw my meat shield forward, disrupting the swarmlings to my fore as my wings snap out behind me, catching and repelling several behind me. Taking a short running start, I throw myself forward, shooting over the pile of swarmlings to my front, and crushing another beneath my feet as I create a temporary pocket in the surrounding swarm.

Charging my sword, I swing it around, keeping them at bay as I draw my second blade, bringing it alight with energy and heat. Diving forward, I slash both blades down and curve outward at the bottom of the arc in front of myself, searing and shocking the creatures in front of me as my wings sweep out behind me, their powerful sweeps knocking many of the swarmlings back with blasts of air.

Unfortunately, either from my weakened muscles, or just lack of focus, one makes it through. The first warning I have of this is when something lands on my back, staggering me, and I feel the crunch of teeth biting into my left wing. Screaming, I bring my white sword back in a sheathing maneuver along my spine, feeling it punch into the swarmling's body, causing the jaws holding my wing to relax and the body to fall off. Launching myself forward, I body slam a swarmling in front of me as I hurtle forward. That last lunge carries me into the ruins of the buildings and I make my way up and along various pieces of debris. Staying off the ground as much as possible, I wait for my wing to finish healing.

The flapping of feathered wings heralds the appearance of Nightmare flying past me, spinning around as She shoots by me. I take the opportunity to decapitate and maim several locusts that are dumb enough to fly near me. Laughing at the absurdity, I turn and continue my rush through the ruins, watching as the inner walls grow steadily closer.

Then, something I thought I'd never hear again happens, my communications crystal lights up on the unsecured setting and I hear a voice say, "Redemit, can you hear this?"

Narrowing my eyes, and punching a swarmling out of my way, I key my crystal. "This is Echo Two-Four, Please identify yourself, over." Bouncing down an alley like a runaway foal on a caffeine binge, I can only watch in slight amusement as every swarmling in front of me takes an arrow to the face. Raising a fist and pumping it towards Nightmare, I continue on my way.

"Is that you, Redemit? This is Captain Pahnzer, of the Rising Sun. We're at 85% containment, whatever it is you're doing, keep it up, expect us to start moving in about 15 minutes." Shaking my head at the horrid communications discipline, I can only wonder how they even have access to a communications crystal, but I digress. More face-stabbing, less idle curiosity.

Dashing around a corner, I'm met with a large wall. Glancing up, I notice I've arrived at the keep, and oh hey, the swarmlings are here to welcome me, Joy. Turning right back around, I start running the other way, totally not screaming like a little girl as about a hundred frikkin swarmlings bear down on me.

Nightmare swoops over, dropping care packages and screaming something about holes. Not really understanding, I simply settle for hiding behind a handy wall. Big mistake. Apparently, she felt more was needed, and super charged the bucking things. After a few seconds, I'm conscious enough to take stock of my surroundings, and start feeding my dwindling supply of magic into healing.

Staggering along, I drunkenly stab a few swarmlings that aren't dead somehow, before turning my stagger toward the wall. My gait steadies out and accelerates as my body comes back from the shock. Coming up to the wall, I fight the urge to admire the now-pockmarked surface before I pick a direction and start following it. Finding a natural breach, I turn and follow it in.

Entering what I assume was a secondary courtyard, I find the standard swarm waiting for me and wonder why I'm so surprised in a surreal sort of way. I start bouncing all over the place trying to avoid getting myself torn limb from limb. Boosting through what kind of looks like a stable, I take a quick turn and manage to throw most of them off for a short period. I take this opportunity to begin looking for natural bottlenecks so I can signal Nightmare for some more fire support.

Heading for the keep itself, I figure I might as well check it out as nothing out here seems in good enough shape to be feasible. Reaching the front door which proves to be a rather substantial portal to my delight, I check out two partially rotted doors with metallic reinforcements that have seen better days. While the doors won't hold for any length of time, they should serve for about 30 seconds, which is all I should need.

Bouncing up to a rooftop, I take a moment to catch my breath while the swarmlings start climbing up after me. I look up in the sky trying to find Nightmare. Surprisingly, the air seems clear of locusts and Nightmare seems content to be just flying around taking random shots as She goes. Waving my arms, I catch Her attention and point at the door to the keep. She looks over there semi-confused, before nodding and circling around for an approach.

I take my leave, after burying a blade in the first swarmling to get on the roof. (Good boy, nice job and all that, I'm a mean bastard.) I take a short hop off the building and head for the doors. The apparently tireless swarm follows after me doggedly. I start running, slashing side to side as necessary to cut down any swarmlings that get in my way.

Reaching the door, I watch Nightmare swoop in, dropping a couple grenades as she goes. Grabbing the remains of the doors, I pull them to a closed position(And just about off their hinges, was this really a good idea?).Holding them there, I see Nightmare's horn light up and some kind of barrier joins me at the door, holding it closed as swarmlings start pounding and biting at it. For an endless second, I hold the door, feeling it shake and vibrate against me, wondering if it'll hold or if I judged wrong, then I hear the very satisfying thumps of several fragmentation grenades, and then as icing on the cake, I hear incendiary grenades start popping.

Stepping back from the door, I watch it start to smolder and turn away, glancing at the surprisingly empty hallway. Glancing at the few swarmlings that were in there, I can't help but cock an eyebrow at Nightmare, standing there with her muzzle dyed green with swarmling blood. She in turn glances at me, standing still, my visor pointed at her and gives me a odd look. "What?" She asks. I just shake my head and sheath my white sword electing for wrist blades in the close confines.

Coming up to the exit to the hallway or whatever you call the vaulted monstrosity we were in, I glance into the next room. A large room, raised platform at one end, lots of what were once tables, possibly chairs, and about 7 swarmlings, easy. I pull my head back and hand my storm blade to Nightmare as she hands my bow back to me. Putting the bow away, I trigger my wrist blades and charge in screaming a war cry. Reaching the first cluster, I punch a swarmling in the cranium, the blade punching through the skull with a sickening crunch. On my left, Nightmare swings my storm blade end over end like some demented boomerang, slicing wholesale through swarmlings with a minimum of finesse and a maximum of carnage, as several shrill screams soon attest.

Ignoring the mortally wounded ones for the moment, I move on to one of the few stragglers, grabbing it mid leap, and staggering a bit as I absorb its forward momentum without the heavy armor's weight and strength rune to back me up. I wrap one hand around the base of its muzzle and the other goes on the back of its head. One sharp twist, the kind of sounds you come to expect at the chiropractor's office, and the now limp body drops from my grasp. Taking a moment to catch my breath and look around, I see another doorway on my left. This one, though, looks like there USED to be a door, until something big came through.

Stepping closer, I start praying it's just natural wear and tear from the centuries. Moving through, I glance at the corridor I've entered. A small room, barely a broom closet, sits on the right, empty, and the hallway takes a sharp left. Glancing around the corner, I see lots of debris, but only a few swarmlings. Stepping around the corner, I let them charge at me. I punch the first one in the throat region with a swift upper cut from my wrist blade, puncturing the neck and severing some veins. I backhand the second one, letting it stumble past me where a *shlick* and gurgling assures me it's been dealt with.

Moving forward, I continue to sweep the hallway as I go. Along the way, I pay close attention to the places where the roofs collapsed, allowing moonlight, and the trilling of angry insects, to invade the dim interior halls. Coming to what looked like it'd been a T-junction at one time, I examine the collapsed right-hand hallway. Not seeing an easy way through, either over or under, I opt to simply keep heading straight, where I soon come up to a right and left hand turn. I sweep the corridors, finding them apparently empty for the moment. Glancing left, I decide to head right, deeper into the structure.

Moving down the hallway, I assume a defensive stance as several swarmlings pop in through some window frames that at one time may have had colored glass in them. It takes but a moment to punch one in the chest and spartan-kick another into the wall before bringing a boot down on its head. I glance over at Nightmare, only to shake my head as She stares at me with her blood-covered muzzle. "Umm, Nightmare, next time, please don't use your teeth, that's kind of unsettling."

"We cannot help the fact that they choose to bleed upon our person. We make do with the tools at our disposal . . . and this body's instincts are pretty strong . . . " She replies, a slight blush adorning her face. It'd be cute, if She wasn't, you know, drooling green.

Shaking my head, I chuckle. "We'll see about finding something to clean that off with later, okay?"

"We'd appreciate that." She replies demurely. I roll my eyes as I continue on.

"Redemit, you still there?" The same voice, Pahnzer, speaks out over my communicator.

Motioning to Nightmare to take a breather, I glance around and lean against a handy wall, taking deep breaths, ignoring my body's exhaustion for the moment. Keying my crystal, I reply, "Yeah, still here, we've severed contact for the moment, we're somewhere in the central keep, business is pretty slow, you?"

"We've started moving in, you seem to have cut down most of their fliers, so it's been pretty easy, casualties are still light, and we're bagging and tagging as we go, full 'decon' I believe it's called? Assume another 10 minutes and we should be in there," He replies, stumbling over the word for a process they've probably never had to undertake before, lucky bastards.

"We'll be here, still trying to ascertain the location of survivors." I reply. Glancing around, I rub a particularly sore spot on one of my wings absentmindedly, before glancing over to ensure the structures preened properly, and blink as I recall the odd transformation they'd undergone. I'd forgotten in the mad rush to get set up and rescue Vine, but a few moments shouldn't hurt.

"Hey, Nightmare." I call out softly, catching Her attention.

She turns to me and gives me a small smile. After suppressing another shudder, and starting to paw through my pockets for ANYTHING absorbent and cloth-like. "I'm not complaining, but any idea why my wings are like this?" I ask, slightly extending one of my star speckled pitch-black wings.

She shakes her head. "Nay, we are not really sure, but we think it may have to do with the fact that you called us from wherever we were. In essence, you are channeling us, and with your . . . unique physiology, some physical differences to match your inner turmoil is only to be expected."

"My wha-huh now?" is my totally smart response.

She face-hooves, causing me to chuckle nervously rubbing the back of my head, well, okay, the back of my helmet. "Your body, it's different, with the swarmling hybridization forced upon thee, it only makes sense that your subconscious would modify your physical features to mirror the powers moving inside you." She further iterates, causing me to nod.

"Oh . . . joy, will it be a problem?" I ask, giving my still totally awesome wing a fearful glance. Giving up on my search for a cloth-like object, I do my best to just ignore the green ichor coating her muzzle.

"Nay, the visual aspects shouldn't harm thee, we think anyway. But my presence is draining thee, your armor is pushing magic in continuously to replenish thy body, but you will pay for this after we're done. Probably sleep for a week or so." She muses, causing me to nod again.

"Alright, so I'm going to crash hard after this, not much to be done but to do it and get on with stuff then." I say brusquely, shuffling the current situation into my mental safe, right beside the death of my entire planet, where I'll consider it when I'm not fighting for my friend's life. Pushing off the wall, I head further in, Nightmare on my heels.

Just then Pahnzer hops back on the communicator "We have some information that you'll find useful. We've been informed there's a vault in the old throne room, you should know it when you see it. If they're lucky, they took shelter in there. The wards are old, but should suffice for a time, it'd be their best bet for survival, and it matches the description from what you got from the swarm queen," He states, causing me to pause as I look back at Nightmare, silently questioning Her.

"We aren't sure. We don't know much about this place, only that it is where they left items of great power at some point until they were needed again, we think that would be the Elements for this reality, but she didn't exactly trust us when we shared memories." She states with a rueful smile.

Nodding my head, I look forward again and move off, following the corridor down past more ruined empty rooms, the occasional swarmling mob being the only note of interest as we move along. Coming to a right turn, I glance around the corner, to see something that makes my heart stop. The hallway up ahead is absolutely trashed, half the walls are damaged, most of their inner lining being spread across the ground with only the hardened exterior brick still standing. Several doorways look to have been punched out in a uniform shape about 9 feet high and 6 feet wide.

Turning back to Nightmare, I stare at Her incredulously. "They had a BRUTE?!" She only stares at me, irises shrinking to pin-points as Her mouth works soundlessly for a second.

"We did not see, we thought the queen might have been hiding something . . . but we did not think . . . how could they have gotten those through the tunnels of the alpha site? Those tunnels would have crushed them!" She babbles, not exactly taking the situation any better than I was.

Stepping closer to her, I reach out and wrap an arm around her, on further consideration, that was probably a bad thing, I'm absolutely coated in gore. Yuck. "It's fine, we'll deal with that as we have to, any more grenades?"

She shakes Her head. "We have 2 fragmentation and 1 incendiary," She replies, making me grimace.

"Okay, hopefully they only have one. And I think it's the mass involved, I got tossed into one of their major cities taking the transit atop a swarm queen. Probably the same thing with the brute, too bad it didn't end up in the middle of the sky like me," Stepping back, I nod and turn, moving around the corner and creeping forward, Nightmare following after me.

Moving down the hallway, I continue inspecting the various offshoots as we go. Coming across a 4-way intersection, I consider the right hand tunnel. Noting that it is completely caved in, I can only assume it was a shortcut for the roundabout way we just took. Glancing left, I look back at Nightmare. "Any idea which way?" I ask, all out of ideas.

She considers my words for a moment before replying. "We think we haven't gone far enough, straight is our recommendation," She states softly, considering the tunnel ahead.

Nodding my head, I move across the intersection quickly, and move farther in, noting another room on the left that seems to have been a show room, or maybe a dining room, with a large table in the center and small displays collapsed along the walls. Either way, there is nothing in there of interest to me, but it gives the impression of getting close to the ceremonial areas. Crossing another T-junction, we come up to a double-door portal leading into a large chamber stretching out at least 250 feet long, with fluted columns supporting an arching ceiling and stained-glass windows, or the remains of them anyway.

In the darkness, most of their colors are washed out shades of gray, but I can't help but admire what remains for a second before I glance down toward the other end of the room, seeing a raised section and a pile of rubble atop it. After considering the pile carefully, I finally figure out it USED to be two thrones.

Leaning back and nodding to Nightmare, I whisper. "Looks like we found the throne room, good call," to which she nods and we proceed into the room, trying to avoid the rubble on the floor and make as little noise as possible.

About half-way down the room, we hear a dull thudding noise as dust settles from the ceiling. Looking at Nightmare semi-accusingly, to which she simply shrugs sheepishly, I creep forward and pass behind the dais and its destroyed thrones. This gives me a view of a gated passageway, but the gate itself lies twisted and broken, the reinforcing bars torn forcibly from their mountings.

Grimacing, I sidle up to one side of the gate glancing inside. A corridor stretches another 35 feet before splitting around a minor wall, obviously a charge break point, the only problem is the mass of drones in front, meandering around the floor and walls, obviously waiting on something further inside, as if to underline that last thought, we hear another boom, stronger this time, and more dust settles from the ceiling, small stones and bricks in some cases.

Glancing back at Nightmare, I back up and let her glance around as well. Pulling my force bow out, and checking my magic levels, thankfully much restored from our meandering trek through the halls, I once again consider our options. Taking on the swarmlings en masse is sure to invite their larger brother into the fray at which point I'm probably solidly bucked. No way around it, we need to deal with them now.

Tapping Nightmare on the shoulder, I whisper quietly. "Think you can overcharge another one of the frags? We need these cleared out quickly, no telling how many more there are behind the break." I query, continuing to watch the gateway for any signs of movement.

She nods, silently pulling out one of the fragmentation grenades, focusing on it for a moment, then handing it to me.

I push myself up against the wall to one side preparing to pull the pin and toss it around the corner, then my mind catches up to what I'm about to do, and I just stare at Nightmare a second in consideration. Picking my way over to the raised and hopefully solid structure of the dais, I conceal myself behind it. Powering up my armor, and feeling my coordination increase, I touch the priming rune, give a twist to activate it, and then I lob the grenade down the hall. I hear some momentary screeching before the world dissolves in thunder and a shock wave of air and shrapnel.

Peeking over the now-reduced pile of rubble atop the dais, I take a moment to admire the now open-to-air corridor before me. Glancing at the corner that I'd been about to take cover behind, I shake my head, that corner is GONE. "Dang Nightmare, you don't do things by half. I can respect that, ready?" I ask as I glance over at her.

She looks back at me, and raises my blade in a mock salute. Yeah, She's ready.

Standing up, I rocket over my shield of rubble and advance forward into the corridor, bow extended and held ready in my hands. A short bellow is all the warning I have as the wall at the end of the corridor shatters and out comes a brute swarmling. They usually stand about 8 feet at the shoulders, massing somewhere between one and two tons, depending on the desires of the queen and purpose to which its been put. Brutes are readily discernible as being different from other swarmlings due to the bulbous plating covering much of their body, with sharp spines trailing down its neck in three parallel rows, and legs with muscles the size of some ponies. Possibly the most extreme transformation from the original changelings, they're more beetle than equine anymore. Sadly, this one appears to be a siege model, as it's easily pushing two tons, and is headed right for me. Seems mad too. I'll have to do something about that.

Diving to one side, frantically triggering my jump jets to give me as much clearance as possible, I watch him go thundering by. Nightmare gives a war cry shortly before I hear the horrendous noise of my sword scraping along his carapace. Standing, I rush back out into the melee shouting, "Back off, don't try to take it up close, we need to buckle its armor first, then go for the kill!"

Matching actions to words, I stand back and raise my bow in a smooth arc, releasing a shaft at the creature's flank. The arrow impacts, doing minimal damage, but serves to draw its attention away from Nightmare and onto me. Focusing more power into my bow, and shaping the energy to as much of a needle as possible, I release again, this time aiming for one of its shoulders, rather than making the mistake of shooting its thick head armor(It's a living battering ram, duh.). That done, I don't bother watching the results; instead, I spend the next couple of seconds running for my life as the creature decides I'd make a nice puddle and does its best to see that through.

"Run it by the columns!" Nightmare yells out from somewhere in the room. I nod my head and trigger my jump jets, shooting for the side of the room, closer to the fluted spires. While mainly ornamental, a few lucky hits and we should have a chance. Bouncing forward, I glance back and watch the brute charging forward. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice my storm sword lick out and slice a chunk of a column out. Almost imperceptibly at first, but then with growing speed, I watch it tip and fall. Slamming into the creature's shoulders, it does mostly superficial damage, but still manages to bend and break several of its spines.

Noting the damaged area, I loose another shaft at it, watching it shrug the hit off. I roll right, bringing myself away from the columns, out into the open floor. I then start hopping over and around various piles of debris as the brute lives up to its name and just barrels through, lowering its head to take any of the serious piles, and just stomping smaller ones into submission.

I keep this performance up for what feels like an hour, barely dodging every time it charges or attempts to crush me with one of its ridiculously oversize hooves. Finally, I hear Nightmare call out that She's ready, and start scooting towards the columns again. My ginormous attacker continues its efforts to convert me to the belief that I'd look better in only 2 dimensions.

"Bring him here!" Nightmare commands from the darkness between two pillars. For some reason She's not visible, but I'm not about worrying that right now.

Altering my course, I dash between two of the columns, my body fitting between them easily. Unfortunately for the brute, it doesn't fit as easily, and while it does have the mass and brute strength to punch out the two said columns, doing so slows it down long enough for Nightmare to pick up a handy chunk of a pillar, and slam it into the back of the brute's hind legs, eliciting a squeal of pain and the crunch of chitin breaking.

Bringing my bow up, I loose several shafts at its front shoulder, causing the armor there to buckle slightly and turning its attention back to the only visible target. My objective accomplished, I turn tail and start fleeing down the wall bouncing from it to a column or two as the now slower(Thank the moon for small blessings.) and more than a little angry(Buck.) brute chases after me, occasionally taking further hits from objects launched by Nightmare's telekinesis. Sadly, none of them are large enough to cause much damage and simply bounce off its ridiculously tough armor.

Reaching the end of the row of columns, I bring myself to a halt and turn to face the brute as it charges at me. Tensing up, I watch it approach, and begin to count down. Upon reaching critical distance, I throw myself forward, not the best idea, but I'm getting tired, my magic is almost spent, and I need to end this quickly. Making it through its pumping legs with minimal jarring (and a couple of bruises) I roll and find myself staring at its flanks as it tries to stop so fast it ends up dragging its hindquarters on the ground.

I bring my bow up and flood much of my remaining power into my bow, waiting for my opening. Seeing my chance as the creature stands back up and tries to turn in the tight confines, I let loose. The bolt tears from my bow and impacts on the shattered armor of its left hock, piercing and shattering its hock joint with a minor explosion of green gore, the brute collapses on its side with another trilling scream of pain.

Pulling out my sword and tossing the bow aside, I charge forward. Heading for its back, looking for the damaged area on its withers. I reach the creature as it's starting to try to work its way back onto its remaining legs. Wanting this over, I slash down on the damaged withers region, severing most of the spines that remain. As it rises back up to its feet, I grab a hold and find myself sitting astride two tons of angry brute.

Grasping a spine with my off hand, and clenching my knees to hold on, I raise my white blade above my head and bring it down on the buckled armor, sawing into the spine. This causes the creature to start bucking and bouncing, taking out a few columns and making my world go crazy as I feel every bone in my body creaking from the kinetic transfer of the bucking beast.

Pulling my sword out with a spray of green blood, I leap off the brute, bouncing away as it turns to chase me, opening its mouth to scream, it manages to inhale the last incendiary grenade, causing it to start choking shortly before its chest ripples and gore explodes out its mouth. With one final scream, flames erupting from its mouth, the brute slumps to the ground, leaving me not much better, gasping for breath as I collapse to one knee and put a fist on the ground to support myself.

Sensing the approach of something, I tense, but then relax as I hear Nightmare speak out. "Well done, Redemit, well done, indeed." She states, staring at me. I nod, finally bringing myself to my feet, my bow appearing from the rubble, held in Nightmare's magic. "We believe you dropped this." She states in a disapproving voice, smiling at me.

I just shake my head. "You're in a weirdly good mood right now, you know that?" I ask semi-exasperated

She just chuckles. "We haven't had much reason to feel good in a very long time. Seeing our sister again, even one from another reality . . . has made us remember what we gave up in the name of survival. And we hope to see our own sister eventually, so yes, we are in high spirits. Now, let us rescue Vine Bloom so I can take my rest, and you can move on with your lives."

I nod my head. "Yes Ma'am." Turning towards the approach, we give astart, hearing the sound of charging hooves. Turning to face the door, blade at the ready, I await the onrush of bodies. Much to my relief, and delight, instead of swarmling reinforcements, it's a squad of Rising Dawn ponies, slightly worse for the wear, but otherwise in good shape.

As they slowly advance into the room, they stare at the body of the brute with reactions varying from fear to disgust to a few looks of awe directed our way.

Chuckling, I shake my head and turn to head for the vault, advancing cautiously, but receiving no more resistance. Approaching what is obviously the vault door, I grimace as I consider the warped and buckled structure. The doors have taken a severe pounding, and while still holding, it's obviously not going to open again. We're going to have to punch through it somehow.

Turning back to the squad that followed us, I wave them over. "Who's in charge?" I ask, rubbing my sore ribs.

One of them steps forward. "I am. Staff Sergeant Dark Star, Rising Dawn."

I nod. "We need to get into that vault, you got anything capable of breaching it without killing anything inside?"

He turns to consider the door a moment before shaking his head. "No, sir, not a chance, we're going to need a demo squad for that. They should be here in about ten," He responds.

I shake my head. "Not good enough. Alright, may I borrow one of your unicorns, then? My magic is just about spent, but with their help I should be able to force it." I grimace as I turn to consider the doorway in question.

He nods his head. "That I can do." Motioning one of his squad-mates my way, he spreads the others out to maintain a perimeter around us as I work.

Turning to the unicorn in question, I point to my sword. "Just feed magic into this blade, it's got a heat rune, so it should serve to cut the weakened door, probably going to destroy the blade, but we need in there, now."

She nods, and focuses on my blade. Her horn lights up with a light blue aura and my blade starts glowing shortly before I ram it into the weakened door, pushing hard as I feel it slowly start sinking in. The metal around it hisses and spits, magical sparks erupting as the ancient protective wards try to resist my blade's intrusion.

Once I feel it penetrate the door, I start forcing it down, feeling it twitch as it shears through the warped and weakened metal. Once my first vertical cut is judged long enough, I start twisting it into a curving horizontal path before bringing it back up, the blade starting to shudder and twist, its edge probably just about gone at this point.

Once I bring it back up far enough, I start pulling it back into a horizontal path, until, with a snap, the blade breaks just above the pommel, causing me to fall back slightly and curse. Fortunately, the hole is almost complete, and the remaining material linking the plate to the rest of the door is heated to the point I can bend it by applying the base of my boot to the plate repeatedly.

Turning for a moment to thank the panting unicorn, I turn to the door and call out, "Friendlies coming in!" Receiving no response, I step through the jagged hole carefully avoiding the still glowing edges. Glancing around the vault, I see a lime-green Pegasus in a set of Night Guard scout armor laying collapsed on the floor.

Without consciously moving, I find myself at her side, falling to my knees. Cradling her head on my lap, I pull a glove off and rest my bare hand on the cloth armor between the chest plate and helmet, feeling for a pulse. Feeling one faintly trough the insulating fabric, I relax slightly and watch her chest rise and fall evenly.

"Medic!" I cry out. One of the Rising Dawn, another unicorn, is unceremoniously pushed through the opening in a dark blue aura, I can only assume Nightmare Storm's. Staggering a bit on her landing, she nonetheless makes her way over to me as I work the outer release on Vine's armor, popping the helmet off, and working on the clasp of her chest plate.

The unicorn's horn lights up briefly as she looks Vine over before the glow fades. "She's fine, but her body seems to be in a coma, I'm not sure what's causing it," she states, moving closer and examining her body for obvious signs of trauma.

I nod jerkily. "Magic exhaustion. She probably used quite a bit of it on her way here. She'll be fine with some rest and sustenance," I say.

Standing, I sway a bit but steady myself. Looking around the room, I see a small chest with the Night Guard insignia on it, but no other bodies. Moving to the doorway, and stepping out, I glance about, looking for Nightmare. "Nightmare, I'm not seeing the other member of Vine's group, do you think they took cover somewhere else?"

She comes up to me with a hint of sadness on her face. "Nay, they all perished in a rearguard action to give Vine Bloom time to pull away."

I blink my eyes a few times stupidly, my tired mind struggling to assimilate and correlate facts. "But you said there were two of your ponies remaining."

She smiles a bittersweet smile as She draws me close in a hug. "Dear, dear Redemit, there are two of our little ponies left."

Blinking some more, I struggle to stay conscious and make sense of the situation. "But you said . . ."

She squeezes me, stopping my sentence as She lays her head on my shoulder, a tear making its way slowly down Her cheek as her body starts glowing. "You are one of my little ponies, and I shall miss you greatly. But take heart, your life lays before you and the paths open to you are boundless. Take care of Vine, little one. Goodbye." With that, She says no more, Her body glowing brighter and brighter, Her substance breaking up into motes of light that slowly rise towards the sky above me.

Reaching out quickly I grasp Her in turn, my body quaking as I feel Her soul breaking from mine. I hold Her tight as the stress from the last three days and the prospect of losing Her once again fills my mind, and my soul quakes. Sobbing, I can only stand there holding Her as She slowly, oh so slowly, breaks up and melts away.

Falling to my knees, I can only sit there, staring at the spot She'd just been, sobs shaking my body. Finally, the stress proves too much, and I feel myself collapse, the world slowly going black as I feel myself gently lifted up, then I know no more.