Darkest Hours in Equestria

Twilight and Applejack quickly trot up the stairs as they soon popped out into then actual bunker and as they slowly trotted outside, Twilight began to search for Steeltrix. She thought he may have headed to their tent and with a stubborn Applejack in tow as they went to go to their tent.

She lifted the tent flap up but found it devoid of life and as she looked around, she realized with a gut wrenching moment that Applejack flamethrower, we she hadn't brought on the mission, was missing from its spot and she looked around for anything that might have been a note as Applejack said, "Where's my-?

She heard galloping hooves go by and she poked her head out as she watched a Krieg pony stop before the image of Apollo and salute with a hoof as she listened in on her comm radio.

"Sir! A Guardpony just left the base with only a flamethrower and a lasrifle! We tried to stop him but we couldn't! He's heading to the Everfree forest." The sentry said in an urgent tone.

"What did the pony look like? Did you know his name?" Asked Apollo, his tone taking the urgency into effect.

"Sir! The Pony was named Steeltrix! And I suspect that some pony really got under his skin." The Sentry said.

Apollo swore colorfully as Twilight's stomach did a double-take and as she checked her lasrifle on her battle-saddle, Applwjack next to her said in a shocked voice, "He.... he's really going to go on a suicide mission..."

She bolted to where Apollo was, who had become pale at what had just been told and as she halted before him, he looked at her as she asked him, "Sir! Permission to go after Steeltrix?"

He didn't even think as he said, "Get your squad and get that stallion back!" and she nodded as she and Applejack quickly rounded up their squad and as they mounted into a Chimera APC, she prayed to Celestia that they wouldn't be too late.

****** ******

The forest was much darker at night than in the daytime and as she looked around from her heavy flamers gunport, she couldn't even start on where Steeltrix had went off to. As she looked down the trail they were currently traveling, she wished she could tell which pony hoof prints she saw in the ground when her radio crackled and she tuned her radio in as she realized who's voice it was.

"Steeltrix!" She nearly shouted the name and she asked him, "Where are you?"

"Why do you care, huh? Wanna say anything else at me? I'm going to let off some steam, just as I was ordered to do. Now bug off, I can hear your APC just so you know." Steeltrix answered with a dark tone over the radio.

"Because none of us want you actually dead! Don't throw your life away just because we are-" He mouth stopped short of the word and she slowly forced them to work again, "-ignorant of how you live and think..."

She turned from the viewport as she said to her friends, "He's nearby. Driver! We're getting out here. Standby to pick us up."

The ramp swiftly lowered as everyone quickly fanned out and as Twilight looked around using the NVG's that had been somehow built into the helmets, she began to scan the forest for Steeltrix. She saw shapes everywhere and her stomach dropped out as she realized that they were corpses from before and she could see the Carnifex's corpse nearby but as she continued to look around, she couldn't clearly see where Steeltrix was.

"Ignorant? Do you even know what that means?" Steeltrix sounded genuinely surprised by the statement and she heard him grumble something along the lines of "figures" as he came back on and said to her, "Look, just leave me alone for now, okay? It's not like I haven't come unarmed or anything."

"Listen, Steeltrix, you will get your flank here right now or so help me I will drag over here!" She snapped in her radio as she continued to scan for the black pony. Then she realized in such darkness, he would most likely be near invisible and she looked around at her squad as she asked them, "Anyone have binoculars equipped with heat-vision?"

Sweetie belle appeared with on and as Twilight thanked her, she put them up to her eyes as she rescanned the surrounding area's. Much of the place was purple, blue, and black with some dark red thrown in but just as she scanned over a tree, she saw the white, orange, and yellow figure of what looked like a pony and as she watched the pony, she asked Steeltrix, "Can you shake your head?"

The pony halted and spoke into a radio, "Why?"

"There he is!" She shouted as she put the binoculars on her battle-saddle and the whole squad and even the Chimera set off after her as she made a beeline towards Steeltrix, who stood with a gaping mouth as she ran towards him. He seemed to want to run but then he seemed to pause and as she reached his side, she tackled him to the ground as she cupped his head in her hooves and asked him, "What were you thinking?!"

Before he could answer, he took out his lasrifle as he aimed it and fired at something to her left and she turned to see a hormogaunt pony topple over dead and she quickly got up as Steeltrix ignited the flamer just as Applejack wretched it off his battle-saddle and strapped it onto her just as Twilight shouted, "Tyranid ponies!!" and she fired away as the hormogaunt ponies poured out of the darkness and leaped at them.

Applejack's flamer spewed liquid fire into the many homogaunt ponies and as Twilights lasbolts sliced through the bone plates of some of the hormogaunt ponies, she watched as the flames begin to eat away at the others while they screamed in agony, their fleshing becoming cooked and burnt.

The APC halted nearby as the CMC bolted inside and manned some of the lasguns along the hull as they fired into the darkness while Big Mac retreated inside, knowing his rocket launcher wasn't very useful in this fight. Steeltrix looked around as his lasrifle dropped another hormogaunt pony just as one leaped onto him and began to try and stab at him with its bone blades. Twilight saw the struggle as she fired a stream of ruby-red lasers into the thing and as it dropped off of Steeltrix , he took out a frag grenade, clicked the primer, and then hurled it into the forest as he said to them, "Come on! We gotta get out of here!"

The explosion tore apart a few Tyranid ponies as the squad quickly mounted up into the Chimera but just as the APC got moving, something buckled the armor plating next to Twilight and she looked outside to see a Carnifex slowly advancing towards them and her stomach got ice-cold as she began to call over the radio, "Anyone, this is Twilight Sparkles of Mane 6! We have a Carnifex advancing on us! We need support!!"

Big Mac rolled out as his sister and Steeltrix covered him and as he hefted the launcher, he aimed it at the Carnifex.

But before he could fire, something bigger than one of the hormogaunt ponies but not as big as the Carnifex smashed him aside and Steeltrix nearly swore as the Tyranid Warrior pony, with a bio-weapon growing out of it's flank, turned to face him. Steeltrix let loose a barrage of lasfire and watched as the shots connected all along thee creatures body but it still managed to get up and fire a few shots of deadly bio-acid at him. Steeltrix rolled away as the acid splattered a tree and he watched in shock as the acid began to eagerly devour away at the tree's bark and inner wood.

The Warrior Pony screeched as Applejack turned around and spewed a liquid jet of promethium at the creature and the thing howled as the flames coated it and it began to thrash around as it's flesh began to char and burn. But just as Steeltrix got up, he watched as the Carnifex towered over him and he closed his eyes for the end.

KAA-BBOOOOMMM!!!!

He jumped at the sound but when he felt the earth shake beneath him and he opened his eyes to see the Carnifex with it's chest blown up, lying dead next to him. He turned around and watched in amazement as an armored column of Sentinels, Chimera's, and the Guardsponies Main Battle Tank, the Leman Russ, came charging forth while a wave of familiar ponies dressed in red uniform with grey armor came charging forth with flamethrowers, melta's, lasrifles, and rocket launchers. The Tyrnaid ponies halted in their tracks as the horde of Krieg ponies came swarming through the tree's and as the Krieg ponies began to fire at the remaining Tyranid ponies, the homrogaun ponies and the Tyranid Warrior ponies scattered and fled the area and as Twilight looked back on the Krieg ponies, a familiar face appeared before her.

"Well don't just stand there, you meat shield! Get up and follow us!!!" Lt. Apollo shouted and she grinned as she got up and collected her friends back into the APC before the Chimera joined in the armored convoy.

****** ******

The convoy spearheaded its way through the forest as Sentinels lead them after the fleeing Tyranid ponies. Twilight kept track of the radio chatter as Steeltrix almost gloomily sat next to her, his head held in his hooves as he stared down at the metal flooring. She looked over at him and gave him a friendly, small shove as she asked him, "Hey, are you alright?"

He looked up at her as he waved a hoof around, the universal sign of "leave me alone" as he went back to his stupor.

She sighed at his stubbornness and she looked around at her friends before she hit him upside his head as she said to him, "Hey! This is no time to push us away! Don't make me throw you outside."

"Like you truly would." Sneered Steeltrix as he waved her off and her anger simmered as her eyes narrowed.

She suddenly wrenched him out of his seat and threw him against the nearby wall that was the backside of the driver and she heard his head smack the back of his helmet hard as he slowly slid down onto the metal floor. Everyone looked a little alarmed by this but then they watched as Steeltrix slowly get up and sit back down next to Twilight as she straightened up and she could tell he was no longer going to be with low morale.

If anything, he had his fire burning in his eyes.

She listened back on the radio chatter when she heard Lt. Apollo say, "All units! All units! Dismount now! We have found the main base of the Tyranid ponies! Prepare for a full assault!"

The Chimera, along with all of the other vehicles around her, halted suddenly and as the back opened up, her squad quickly filed out as the other Guardponies also left their own Chimera APC's. She looked all around her as the many squads formed up around them. She saw the Sentinels nearby and apparently they were overlooking another open field in the Everfree Forest.

She saw Lt. Apollo with his squad of Guardponies and noticed next to a chainsword he had a meltagun on his battle-saddle. She looked baack on her own squad and saw them all ready for the coming fight.

"Krieg ponies!" Shouted Lt. Apollo.

Every pony turned as they looked at their commander.

"Charge!!!" Lt. Apollo roared as he lead the whole assembly and as Twilight and her squad followed at a gallop, the vehicles they had brought along roared their engines and followed them. She heard thunderous roars and she watched as shells from the Leman Russ tanks began to fall down amongst the positions of the Tyranid ponies. She heard alien screeches of the Tyranid ponies as she saw large washes of blood go sky high from the shells explosions and then she heard the firing of autocannon's from the Chimera's behind her just as the charge of Guardponies reached the Tyranid lines.

Ruby-red lances struck Tyranid ponies where they were standing and as Twilight lead her squad to what appeared to be the remains of a stone wall, she realized where they were.

"Are we-" Began Applejack when Twilight said, "yes, we're back where we all started...."

Steeltrix ducked down as a glob of bio-acid was hurled over his head and he popped up again to take a shot as he said, "I think I know where these guys put their main organism...."

"Where is it?" Twilight asked urgently as she ducked from a Warrior ponies shot. She fired her lasrifle back at it and watched the shot smack it between it's black, beady eyes.

"It's going to be in the throne room.... just a feeling that it will be..." Muttered Steeltrix as he hurtled the stone blocks and the entire squad followed him as they charged past Guardpony positions, past dying Tyranid ponies, and past the burning remains of the organic structures as they managed to find their way into the Old Ruins.

*** ****

Inside, Steeltrix lead them through some of the few remaining winding passages and as Twilight watched him easily navigate the ruins around them, she began to become suspicious of him and how he knew the place so well. Suddenly, a swarm of Hormogaunt ponies, followed by two Warrior Ponies, came around the corner and everyone yelped as they fired their lasguns at the Tyranid ponies. The red lasers struck the ageing walls just as much as they downed the Tyranid ponies and when Twilight shouted, "Stop! Stop! Cease fire!" the hall smelled distinctively of ozone and of burnt meat which clung in her nostrils and made her gag.

They quickly stepped over the bodies as they approached the throne room and just as they turned the corner, with Steeltrix leading the way, there was a thunderous roar from deep within the castle and everyone stopped as the very stone beneath their hooves began to tremble.

"What's going on?" Shouted Applejack and Twilight tried to listen to the radio lines when Steeltrix shouted, "RUN! Its a Hierophant Bio-titan!!!!!"

They all ran back the way Steeltrix had lead them in and as they ran for their very lives, the stone blocks began to fall away as the huge Bio-titan, easily a towering over the large ruins, slowly was awakened and began to move on large, stilt-like claws. They barely left the keep as they watched in horror as the creature gave another roar and began to move forward while its orfices spewed bio-plasma and bio-acid down upon all below.

"All forces! Retreat!!!" Shouted Lt. Apollo from somewhere and she watched as every pony still alive began to flee the area.

But the bio-titan took notice of them and it sent a stream of death and all that flee and she watched in horror as vehicles exploded, ponies melted, and the ground beneath began pooled with bloody pools.

"We have to get out of here!" Applejack said but Twilight didn't know how they would be able to survive such a terrible thing.

What came next, most assumed was of sheer luck.

A bright light of lancing laser struck the bio-titan and ever pony stopped and turned to see a shape striding from the forest. The Warlord Imperial Titan strode along as its Volcano cannon charged up again while she watched it's 150mm cannon begin to fire a stream of death into the enemy bio-titan and as the fire brought geysers of blood out of the Hierophant titan, it almost made Twilight want to cry out in joy.

The Hierophant titan roared and fired a stream of death at the Warlord but the Warlord's void shields held the assault at bay long enough for another blast from the Volcano cannon to blast itself into the hideous face of the Hierophant and an explosion of blood and brains erupted as the Bio-titan slowly pitched to the side and fell with and earthshaking quake that caused every pony on the ground to fall over and caused vehicles to flip over.

A shadow descended over Twilight and she looked up to see an Ultrapony standing over her, wearing a white crest across its helmet. It had a bolted in hoof and it had also on its battle-saddle a power sword and it looked down at her as it regarded her and said, "Tonight, you have fought well, Princess Twilight Sparkles. You shall no longer be a simple Guardpony.

"You are now an Ultrpony."