Dark Iron Kingdom

"Uhh Blood Moon...sir?" I heard a distant voice echo in the pure black of my mind.

Nothing but silence reigned for a little while after that before I could faintly feel my right eye open. Then a deep and heavy groan echoed all around me before a familiar multi-tone voice spoke out, "This...is a profound pain."

"Sweet Celestia you're waking up! I thought you were dead!" I heard that first voice shout in reply before another groan emanated from my body.

"No...I am not...him. He is currently...as you mortals say...out cold. A state that...I never thought I...would be envious of. No...I am his...so called 'tag-along' spirit...Death," the multi-toned voice stated with ragged breaths.

"Oh...well...erm Death sir is he going to make it? I feel bad he took most the impact after we fell off the train," I heard that first voice state.

"Perhaps...if I can...get his vam...piric healing...working. However...I require...aid. I am not...an expert...at your species...anatomy. But I know...his legs sh...ould not be...at these...unnatural...angles," Death stated.

Darkness took me again and the only thing I heard was the occasional muffled howl of pain and some sort of crunching sound. But eventually the darkness ebbed away to the extent that I heard the voices once more.

"By the...Void I thought...the first pain...was horrid...enough. That was...much...worse," Death spoke out.

"I'm sorry mister Death sir. I was failing anatomy until Growth started getting on my case. Stiiiiiill not great," the first voice replied.

"It...is fine...little one. Now please...stand back...this is my...first time...doing this. I hope this...works," Death nervously groaned.

In short order my mind had pieced together what was going happen, but like a raging train barreling towards your place of residence there was not much to stop it. Needless to say I had quickly regained the feeling in my body right when the screaming started. For I had begun to experience one of the most horrendous pains I had ever felt in my long life.

What little senses I had at that moment, that was not allocated to blinding agony, was that my body was thrashing around like an ill tempered fish that had been pulled out of its watery home. And additionally what little noise that accompanied said thrashing, minus the ear splitting screaming, was Death attempting to tell whoever was next to me to move away at speed.

Then after what felt like an eternity, the paralyzing pain had somewhat ceased and I had felt my body stand up. A terrible snarl soon followed as my body seemingly crouched down and began to snap at the air.

"MOVE AWAY...HE IS...NOT HIMSELF...PLEASE FLEE!" I heard Death's panicked voice through my mouth mere moments before my body had lunged at something. A delicious liquid then began flowing down my throat as my body greedily started to extract it from whatever source it had seemingly located.

However this was when the true fear of the situation had snapped my mind back to reality. My left eye snapped wide open and darted around the area. Trees, trees, and more trees appeared before me before I spotted an armored and heavily frightened figure about twenty paces from me in the dark cowering in front of one of the previously mentioned trees. My eye then darted to what I was still currently draining and thankfully it was just some unfortunate deer that must had gotten spooked from my previous screaming and had gone in the wrong direction.

In turn while rude to eat in front of others I had fed quite heartily before I forced myself from my now thoroughly expired prey and said, "Where in Tartarus...am I?"

"Oh good, he regained his senses. You can come over here now, little one. I do believe he is back to his somewhat normal self. Well about as normal as he shall ever be," Death had stated.

Confusion then hovered in my mind on who Death was speaking to, but that could also have been the fact that I had felt as if a boulder had recently rolled over me. Regardless though the armored figure from before had begun to walk towards me. And it was then I had realized that it was none other than Blaze Runner.

She had her armor fully up and as she was walking she pulled an unfired shell out of the "Angry Filly" cannon on her back and returned it to the ammo mount on her side. A thought that had actually unnerved me for a second, but in her defense I was not myself a moment ago. However the more interesting part I had noticed was that she was seemly unscathed in terms of movement.

"Oh by the Moon it is you Blaze Runner. My apologizes on my earlier behavior, I was not...myself," I said a bit uneasily before adding, "Are you hurt?"

I could see her scrunch her face behind her helmet in response before she grumbled out, "No, no I'm fine. I just really reeaaallly need a bath. A laaaarge bath. Like all the baths. And a toothbrush. And enough mouthwash to drowned an elephant."

My left eyebrow raised quite high from her comments in sheer confusion until she walked forward under the moon light. For you see poor Blaze Runner was covered from head to hoof in gore.

Then without prompting she described the delightful trip she had just gone on before finding me. Apparently when that huge glob of leviathan flesh had flown through the train engine it had not just taken me. No, it in fact wrapped itself around Blaze Runner like a grizzly cocoon shortly before slamming into yours truly. In turn that flesh helped shield her from the worst of the physical impacts that I had ultimately endured. But the price of that was nearly suffocating under said glob of flesh after it finally splatted in the forest. Well that and also being coated in the most delightful mixture of blood, flesh, offal, and generally foul smelling fluids. A fate that I was luckily only limited in experiencing upon quick inspection.

However, other than her current situation of putrid odors she was not much too worse for the wear if you will. Me on the other hoof still felt just miserably horrid after being pieced back together from the monumentally clumsy efforts of Death. But regardless of my body protesting, and Blaze Runner smelling like the core of an outhouse, we eventually made our way back to the train tracks in short order.

Now after that we soon realized that while finding the train tracks was trivial, just follow the hole in the treeline we left, figuring out far the train had traveled without us was a larger problem.

"Soooo how far do you believe they went without us?" I grumbled.

"What? Oh the train! Well that depends. They made some improvements to the engine efficiencies over the last few years. Buuuut we torched a lot of the wood in the firebox with that awful fire crystal..." she said as she seemed to think for a moment before adding, "I'm guessing about a one to two hour gallop."

My mouth hung open in response before I blurted out, "one to two...hours?!"

Blaze Runner just gave me this almost matter of fact look in reply before stating, "Well yeah. My dad was out cold. And unless somepony figured out how to use the brakes, but at that speed the brakes would just melt anyway. And add in the steam pressure and momentum and..."

"Alright alright I get it," I interrupted before slamming my hoof into my forehead eliciting a protest from Death from the pain.

So once again I found myself in this situation. Merely hoofing it to some destination I needed to go to all while feeling utterly exhausted. And as much as I loathed my title as prince, the ease of transportation was one of the few perks it afforded. But just like it was some sort of cosmic joke it always seemed to be one of the first perks I would always lose. I swear some being somewhere enjoys a chuckle at my expense. Regardless though the world as usual was quite apathetic to any griping of one's state of tiredness, so there was not much else to do but begin our dreadful slog.

And by the Moon a slog it surely was. Though luckily somewhere down the line we met up with a small band of guards that were sent out to search for us. So at least if nothing else we not only knew where we were going, but had some extra protection along the way.

Finally after a bit of a trek we arrived at our destination. Though, in the end, it was not difficult to locate. All you had to do was not only follow the tracks but also follow your nose. For you see the same horrid stench that was emanating from Blaze Runner had also seem to coat the outside of the train. So much so that some of the guards were actively trying to scrub it off said train with little apparent success.

Thankfully though through all this I was quite certain my olfactory system had fried out by this point being so close to Blaze Runner that my sense of smell had been severely blunted. So the smell, while unpleasant, did not seem to bother me as bad as it first had. Which was good because right without warning I got a grand family hug from Twilight and my two children. Three other individuals who also were...coated...nearly as badly as Blaze Runner...

"We were so worried!" Twilight said while smearing her slimy cheek into my face. And while normally I would have grandly enjoyed the family hug this time however I felt as if I was in the middle of a rotten offal sandwich with an extra heaping of the world's smelliest cheese topped with whatever was recently dug out of the castle grease trap.

"I never thought I would state this, but please stop hugging me before I lose my dinner," I coughed out trying to breathe as little as possible.

"Oh yeah...sorry we were just so worried. You and Blaze Runner got launched out of the train back there. And with the smell being so bad everypony was losing their lunch so it took us a while to stop the train after it started slowing down," Twilight said after she literally peeled herself and my children off of me. And I truly mean peeled as the goop all over us acted like a mild glue.

Twilight had then went on to explain that while everypony was accounted for and safe, minus their last meal, we still had a ten hour train ride to get to the Gate of Tartarus. A journey that was delayed further by the train needing some field repairs and a heavy scrub down. But eventually after several baths and all the delays, we had arrived at our dreadful destination.

And it did not take a scholar to know where we were. As one did not even need to gaze out one of the train windows to notice either. A general gloom, dread, and sorrow seemed to blanket the air like a heavy fog. A fog that felt as if it were seeping right into one's soul. For this area was the entryway to the resting place for many a wicked being. A place I had truly wished I had never had to set hoof in, neither in life nor death.

But regardless of my unwillingness I reluctantly steeled myself as I walked out of the train with the others. And I was soon met with the full view of the ominous gate that stood about thirty meters from us and was surrounded by a strange greenish black ward. The very ward I had surmised that Life and Death had setup.

"Soooo who wishes to go in first?" I joked in desperation to try and break the eerie quiet that had taken hold among everypony present. However while the mood did not seem to change, I had at least had gotten a few half-hearted chuckles. In the end I just shook my head before taking stock to who we had with us.

There was me, Death, Twilight, Life, Rainbow Dash, Cloud Streak, the spirit of my mother Life Mender, the spirits of my old lieutenants Tactics and Shadow Dancer, my children Growth and Decay, Blaze Runner and her father, my two practically adopted children Sharp Fang and Silver Mane, numerous guards, and of course the spirit of the hour Dusk Skulker. All others were waiting back at the castle either trying to keep the spirit of Paradise stabilized, doing some form of information gathering, or stomping out the numerous issues around Equestria caused by the nightmare situation we were currently living in. And so that left us with our little legion of misfits to say the least.

However after a few minutes I pushed most of any other thoughts regarding nightmares elsewhere out of my mind before focusing on the task at hoof, namely getting into Tartarus. And while nopony else was brave enough to ask I figured I would take the plunge if you will and state the all important question. "Soooo how do we all get past your wards Life and Death?" I said in a genuinely curious tone.

Death clicked my tongue on the top of my mouth before shaking his head. "Well getting you all through will be somewhat difficult, but Life and myself will have to remain here," he stated in a slightly amused tone.

I had gotten confused for a second before I remembered what he had stated a while ago, that both he and Life needed to remain on the material plane to maintain the ward. However they could not exist outside the bodies of me and Twilight without causing problems. So it seemed we had quite the issue until Death proposed a solution. And by proposed I mean enacted it without input from anypony. In fact I did not know he was going to do anything until he stated, "I would tell you to hold your breath but that will be unimportant in a minute."

Then without any warning Death lifted up my right hoof and plunged it into my chest. And by plunged I mean it seemed to have phased right through my flesh somehow. Then not even a moment later Death forcefully yanked outwards in a forceful jerk and I seemed to have tumbled forward in a sort of weightless feeling.

To say the sensation was unpleasant would have been a grand understatement for it felt like somepony had bucked me in the chest right after they had a full galloping start. However I did not even have enough time to analyze this before I felt something slam right into me.

Existence soon faded in and out a few times further scrambling what few senses I possessed at that moment. What little I did notice was that Life had stated in a strange distant sounding voice, "Death! Why in the green did you do that?! You could have asked them first!"

To which Death replied in an equally distant sounding voice, "Do you truly believe they would have agreed to this? Especially Blood Moon?"

And they were probably going to state more until I forcefully stood up to protest only to stare eye to eye with my own body. And whatever anger fueled statement I was going to make had been extinguished with the sudden horror of that awful realization.

"What...what did you do?" I said in an odd echoing voice while an eerie white haze shifted in and out of my vision.

My body smirked back at me before I could hear Death's voice come out of it, "Well being that Me and Life need to be contained and we cannot go with you this seemed like the most logical solution. As such I pulled you and Twilight temporarily out of your bodies."

I had sputtered on my words and nothing really coherent came out, but just when I was about to speak I felt somepony wrap their forelegs around me. A female voice next to me then said, "I am finally able to hug my son again after all these years. Do not worry I will not let anything happen to you again."

Time stood still for a few moments while I had attempted to process what was happening. And upon quick inspection I noticed my mother was hugging me. To elaborate on the situation she had perished protecting me over sixty some years ago. She had given her life in order to, in a way, save mine. The last time I had felt her touch, she was dying in my hooves while I was powerless to save her. Even with the Gateway to Paradise spirits normally cannot touch material creatures. But they can touch other spirits.

I would have endured a thousand times what Death had done if I knew this was what awaited me. But just as quickly as it started she pulled away to help a thoroughly confused Twilight who had apparently crashed right into me not but a bit ago. A sad frown soon crawled down my face at the absence of that touch. But ultimately I had to shake off that feeling. For now was not the time to weep. No, now was the time to prepare oneself to enter the proverbial breach. Into Tartarus we go.