Midnight Rising

"This is wrong, Twilight. This isn't ponylike. I can't accept this. I'm sorry, but I won't be able to join your new Equestria. I'm planning to campaign against it, peacefully, in the name of Harmony."

As the Shining Armor AI and myself rode the elevator down I ensured my gems were fully charged, and checked my suit to make sure it was ready to go. I stretched my hooves, rolled my head, and took a deep breath, letting it out after a moment. If the scientist buck could be trusted(I've found that most ponies who have guns to their backs are honest) then not only was Flurry Heart down here, but so was Moondancer. And Flurry Heart's bodyguards, most likely.

"Tell me, Meteor Shower. Is this a capture or kill mission?" the Shining Armor AI asked. I turned to face him, the elevator still descending into the depths. Outside the glass walls I could see the deep ocean, noting a large field of lights that appeared to be a building below the elevator.

"Kill. Flurry Heart is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocents on one of our colony worlds, and she's a rogue Alicorn" I explained.

"But you killed that Sunburst buck. He was innocent."

"Traitors are not innocent" I assured him.

The elevator reached the bottom and the door opened, leading out into a hall. There was a door on the far side of the hall, above it a giant ring of five brass necklaces circling a crown. The same jewelry that Empress Twilight had on display in Her living room. A purple velvet banner was strung across the replica jewelry, the banner proclaiming 'No Goddess, no Empress.'

"OK, that's pretty well creepy" Shining AIrmor commented as we strode towards the door, on edge. I could find no reason to disagree with him. "They've made a point of revering the Elements of Harmony, to the point of a religion. Now it makes me truly wonder what Flurry Heart is planning."

"I don't care" I replied as we passed through the door, finding a hub on the other side. Six hallways, each bearing a banner with a particular word on it. 'Generosity', 'Kindness', 'Loyalty', etc. My eyes scanned the six halls, finding they lead down to doors as well.

There was also Starborn patrolling the hub.

"Stars. You go right, I'll head left. Be mindful of their positions at all times; they're a lot more cunning than you think they are!" I declared, galloping to a computer bank that was near the door. The Shining Armor AI raced forward, its horn glowing blue.

As I took cover behind the computer bank I peeked over, finding that there were no Pegasus or Unicorn Stars in the room, just Earth. The Earth Stars only had simple energy blasters in the bottom of their right hooves, meaning they couldn't move and shoot at the same time. Being that was their only armament they made for relatively easy opponents, unless they were in groups.

Which these ones were.

I counted no less than twenty Earth Starborn in the hub room, the mindless drones blasting slowly at the Shining Armor AI. I noticed that the Stars weren't shooting at the computer bank the mechanical echo was behind, but rather shooting over it. My gaze fell on a group of Starborn that were most in the open and I fired one, two, three, four shots, and three Stars went down. I heard them chittering something and half of them remaind focused on the Shining Armor AI, the rest gunning for me. As with Shining AIrmor, they were shooting over me, not at the computer bank. My guess was there was important information on these computers that Flurry Heart didn't want destroyed.

Keeping low I moved down the row to another computer bank, the Starborn not catching sight of me. I ducked out and slagged one of the units before retreating, the Starborn shifting their fire appropriately. I heard a strange magical discharge and peeked over, watching as the Shining Armor AI fired thin arcs of electricity from its horn, the beams lancing through the heads of the Starborn it had targeted, punching through them like bullets.

Pulling back I stomped my back, right hoof against the floor and a grenade popped off my suit. Using one of my forehooves I kicked it out into the room, hunkering down under one of the computer banks, yelling out "grenade, my side!" to warn the Shining Armor AI. A mighty WHUMP! slammed through the room as the grenade went off, taking two Starborn with it. A quick check revealed that there were about eleven Starborn remaining, and I took a moment to recharge my gems.

Heading back to the computer bank closest to the exit I leaned out, firing up the main row and hitting one Star before their fire forced me back. I turned around, preparing to head back up the row, intent on keeping up this back-and-forth game with the Starborn when I saw a pony at the threshold of the 'Generosity' hallway. Turning to face the pony I saw they were unarmored, wearing naught but a simple cloak of black, tan fur covering ther body. Moondancer.

"Moondancer! Moondancer my side!" I called out to Shining Armor AI, taking sight on her. I backpedaled as I fired, the mysterious Unicorn throwing up a shield to block my shots. I watched as she decided not to move, content with just blocking my shots with her shield.

"Come, and face the might of Harmony!" Moondancer shouted, levitating herself with a mighty burst of magic. She kept up her shield as she hovered, conjuring a massive ball of magic and sending it my way. I turned and ran across the aisle to the computer bank on the northern side, near the hall marked 'Magic'. The magical ball imploded where I'd just been, and I recognized it as a black hole spell, designed to swallow up a pony before imploding, leaving the unfortunate pony gone. Nopony had ever figured out where victims of the spell were sent to. It was illegal magic, likely taught to Moondancer by Flurry Heart.

Standing up to take aim I watched Moondancer teleport away in a flash of white, and when she did not reappear in the hub room I considered her no longer an immediate threat. Turning my attention back to the Starborn I discovered that Shining AIrmor had felled another three, leaving just seven remaining. I popped out for a moment, blasting two. With five remaining I snuck down the aisle to the other end of the computer bank, popping up to take a shot. Instead of taking one on the Starborn they took one on me, a magical blast hitting me square in the barrel and knocking me on my rump.

My armor scorched and my Hunter badge baked off I found myself with the wind knocked out of me, leaving me to writhe on the floor. I rolled over, scrambling up against the computer bank as my lungs burned, screaming for air. I sucked in as many breaths as I could, my chest in massive pain. The armor always saved me, but it couldn't spare me from the physical impact of magical fire. The Shining Armor AI must've seen me get hit, and it called out my name. I was unable to answer it, just beginning to recover my breath.

Getting up to my hooves I shook my head, taking in a deep, painful breath. I was alive, and still able to fight. I couldn't afford a moment's rest. Not now, not while we were so close to confronting Flurry Heart and her companions. I slinked back down the aisle, finding a row and turning down it, racing across the open floor. I was now on the same side of the room as my mechanical ally, who had taken down another Star while I had been taking my breather. I kicked out another grenade and lobbed it over, another WHUMP! hitting my ears, a cloud of black filling the room as shrapnel was flung into the multitude of computer arrays. Another two had been dropped, leaving just two remaining.

As I readied myself to pop back out I heard the Starborn galloping across the room. Peeking out I watched as they raced down the hall labelled 'Magic'. My gaze following their retreat I blasted both Starborn in the back, turning them into molten piles of scrap metal.

Regrouping with the Shining Armor AI I found it relatively unscathed, the stallion-turned-robot getting to his hooves and turning to face me. "I'm guessing Flurry Heart is down that hall" the AI commented, and I nodded in agrement. "Final confrontation?" Shining AIrmor asked.

"For her and her friends. Not us. Let's go" I replied, carefully stepping out and entering the 'Magic' hallway. There was a solid steel door at the end, and as we approached it slowly opened, the door splitting in half horizontally, the two halves disappearing into the floor and ceiling. We entered the room beyond, and I saw something unlike I had ever seen before.

It was an array of six cylinders, powered by a single massive generator. There were doors on the fronts of the cylinders, a glass porthole set in each door. Visible through the portholes were six gems, each a different color; white, blue, pink, orange, yellow, and purple. I could see magical electricity being fed into the gems, for an unknown purpose. Standing before the cylinder with the purple gem was Flurry Heart, flanked by Moondancer. Standing with their backs to them, facing us, were Flurry Heart's bodyguards. They alerted their Princess to our presence, and she turned around, horror and shock twisting her face as she saw my mechanical companion.

"F-Father?" Flurry Heart said, stepping past her bodyguards and stopping in the middle of the room. "Dad, is that you?" she questioned, and the Shining Armor AI shook its head.

"I'm not your father anymore, Flurry Heart. You abandoned your Empress, you denounced the New Dawn. Your mother is dead because of you" Shining AIrmor declared.

"My mother served that psychotic Jezebel you call 'Empress'. Twilight KILLED the Princesses, for Celestia's sake! I've never understood how you could stand by Twilight's side, after EVERYTHING she's done! And now I suppose Sunburst is dead, too? He was topside when you two showed up" Flurry Heart exclaimed. Moondancer had joined her at her side, the bodyguards lowering their stances.

"The fact that I'm still alive, even as an AI, is a good enough reason for me to stand by my sister, beyond my obligation to my blood. Twilight created an Equestria that we had never thought possible under the Princesses. New sciences, new magic. The means for the flightless to fly, the means to expand our reach into the stars above! She elevated our standard of living! NOPONY goes hungry! NOPONY goes without the greatest education in the galaxy. NOPONY wants for anything! We enjoy a life not even the maddest had thought possible before Her Ascension" Shining AIrmor declared.

"Yes, and she did it all off the backs of the other species, subjugating them, crushing them into nothing but puppetstates that dance to her tune, and they're the LUCKY ones!! How many species did Twilight render extinct in her 'Expansion Wars'? How many have died because of her 'manifest destiny' BULLSHIT?!!" Flurry Heart shouted hysterically.

I stepped forward, chiming in with "I ask you, are we not the rightful rulers of Equestria? Are we not the descendants of the Golden Age? Is our Empress not the forebear of the greatest era in Equestrian history? What does it matter that the other races do not know what we do, live as we do, when we hold the collective MIGHT and power of the Equestrian Empire?"

"It matters to me, because I remember the key tenet of a PROPER Equestrian society; Harmony" Flurry Heart boldy stated, and with that the doors to the cylinders opened, the gems floating out on their own, drawn to Flurry Heart like she was a magnet. The gems began to circle around Flurry Heart, floating of their own accord. The mad Princess looked down at the gems before looking back up at me and the Shining Armor AI. "These gems, the Elements of Harmony, will power the device the Starborn have built for me in the Siren system, and with this device I will restore Equestria to her prior greatness!" Flurry Heart bellowed, throwing up a magical shield around herself and Moondancer as they retreated, Flurry Heart's bodyguards stepping forward, drawing energy staves from their backs.

"These are the Sisters' Pie, Maud and Limestone. Two of the last remaining echoes of Equestria's past, and victims of Twilight's 'New Dawn', like all who still follow Harmony. Know their names and faces, Hunter, for they will be the last you know" Flurry Heart stated before disappearing in a flash, taking Moondancer with her, leaving Shining AIrmor and myself with the Sisters' Pie. I tensed and lowered my stance, my mechanical ally right by my side, as we stared down more forgotten echoes of a dead past.