The Xenolith Artifice: The Fall of Fort Nexus

"What is it Inkwell?" Luna asked the disturbed stallion, currently curled up beside our legs.

"It's horrible! Ponies were randomly losing body parts, bits of the interior too! Sometimes even, someone just disappears!" He cried out loud. "I lost my filly!" He kept repeating the same phrase all over again.

We looked at him for a moment, and back at the vault's location. "Let's go to the vault, shall we?" Celestia nodded, and trotted forward. We soon followed. The castle looked like a wedge of swiss cheese, there were holes everywhere. Soon, as we got nearer to the more populated areas, we saw bodies of dismembered ponies lying on the floor. Some lost their legs. Some their backside. Some half their body, and some their head. Trails of blood scattered across the floor, and intestinal organs were also found. As we passed through the kitchen, one mare succeeded to crawl her way towards us. She lost almost half her body, her liver, half her kidneys, her stomach and pancreas lied on the floor, still connected to her body.

She raised a hoof to us. "Heelp mee, priinceeess." Her voice soon made a gurgling sound, indicating that blood rose up to her throat. She went limp as soon as she finished that sentence, and the blood was released through her mouth, creating a small puddle. I just looked at her, having all seen this before, sometimes worse. Celestia and Luna had a shocked look on their faces. The orange mare held her hat, a Stetson, to her chest, paying respect. The cyan one flew away, maybe to find something she can use to contain her breakfast. The white one cried, and the yellow one hid. Twilight was speechless, mindless words she kept saying in her mouth, and Pinkie (The only name I knew.) had her mouth agape. Celestia shook her head and continued her way.

"Come on, let's go." I spoke to the traumatized mares. I followed Celestia, and the others soon followed as well. As I took a step, my foot made a squishing sound. I looked down to see a flattened heart, now flushing all it's blood everywhere. The mare's behind me got sprayed with blood, and screamed. They all ran back to the throne room.

"Cowards." I said. Celestia nudged me and smiled.

"Don't forget about the bedroom incident." She held a white crystal, which was the same one Luna held inside the room. It replayed the entire scene inside the crystal.

"Hey, Lulu, watch this!" The sisters both snickered. Celestia proceeded to sneak up on me, and placed her mouth on my shoulder. For some reason, the feed got static and emitted white noise in this scene, but returned to normal as Celestia said...

"Boo." I screamed in a very high pitch, and looked back at Celestia. Luna was snickering in the background. The video went black, and the crystal turned off. I looked up and saw the two sisters snickering silently.

I sighed and continued my way. Fifteen minutes later, we passed by the servant's quarters. There were less bodies, but more holes. We went past by, no items of importance right there. "You know." The two sisters looked at me. "All this time we've been walking, we haven't encountered a single rift ourse-" I was about to open a door, but a rift beat me to it. It flashed a bright light before disappearing, leaving a large hole. "Well, speak of the devil."

Suddenly, a large black ball of glowing goo was lifted up from the hole. It made a stallion shaped form before descending infront of us. "You called?" The goo formed itself into a real stallion, a purple coat and a black and red mane. It smiled at us, as we backed down. His voice sounded dark and distorted.

"What are you?" Celestia asked, as she slowly charged up her magic, preparing for any sudden attacks. The stallion laughed.

"Oh, you don't remember, Tia?" The last part sounded like Luna's voice.

"Are you the Nightmare?" Luna asked. The stallion looked at her.

"What? No!" The stallion laughed at us. "The Nightmare is a fraud, 'I will bring eternal night, to give you all eternal bight! None of you may ever slumber, all shall witness my immortal power!'" He made air quotation marks. "I mean, 'slumber' and 'power' doesn't even rhyme!" He laughed wildly.

I looked at the sisters, and they looked at me, then back at the stallion. "Who, may I ask, are you?" I asked.

He finally stopped laughing and wiped a tear on his eye. "I'm the manifestation of Luna's dark energy!" He threw purple and black confetti. "I'm finally free!" He formed back into a black ball and went back down the hole. We ran towards it and looked down, only to find out that he disappeared.

"That was weird." I commented. Luna and Celestia said their agreements.

After another 15 minutes of walking, we finally found the vault. "Finally." I said as I crawled towards the entrance.

"Don't be such a baby, Silicon." Luna playfully kicked me.

I stood up and brushed some dust from my uniform. I put my hands on my hips, only to notice something missing again. "Hey, where's my gun?" They looked at me.

"You mean that L-shaped one?" Luna asked.

"And that B shaped one too?" Celestia said.

I nodded. "They're in the vault too." I sighed.

"Why can't we just teleport inside the vault?" I crossed my arms while I tapped on the ground with my foot.

"Because, this vault will kill anyone- even me and Luna -if they try to teleport inside or even nearby the vault." Celestia said as she opened the door to reveal a safe combination. She put in the number code...

"8-5-12-12-15." Celestia said.

"Why the hell are you saying the code out loud?" I asked.

Celestia looked at me. "Because, even if the know the combination, they still need to get our horns." A small compartment opened in the safe, revealing two holes of different sizes. Celestia and Luna inserted their horns, and the door glowed. The vault opened, and revealed vast riches and precious items. Celestia's horn glowed, and five items levitated towards me.

"I never noticed that I also lost my vest!" I took the black vest and wore it.

"So that's what it's called." Luna looked at it. "What does it do?" She asked.

"Well, for one. It protects me from projectiles, blades, knives, darts, traps, low to medium powered magic and energy bolts, and pointy things." I spoke.

I took the Infinity and Quantum and wore them as well. I went to grab my guns but Celestia kept them away.

"Promise to never hurt us with these." Celestia glared at me.

I crossed my heart and raised my right hand. "I promise to never hurt any pony unless they totally deserve it-" Luna elbowed me. "Ow!" I looked at Celestia to see her slowly shake her head. "Alright, I promise to only hurt someone if they're evil or whatever." She smiled and lent my guns to me. I holstered the Spectre and slung my Omen.

"Yes! Finally!" I checked myself and my weapons. "A complete set!" I fist pumped. "The holes can be filled up, but the ponies would have to be buried." I said. "The watch creates large groups of rifts until it finds its wearer. It is made that way so no one would dare to steal it." They opened the vault again. "I'm actually surprised that it didn't make the rifts inside."

"Oh, it did." Celestia said.

"How can you tell?" I asked.

"The vault used to overflow with bits if the door opened, now it's just gone." Celestia said, sadly.

We got out of the vault and closed it, only to bump into a pink unicorn with wings, much like Celestia and Luna.

"Celestia, Sombra's back!" The pink mare panicked.

"There, there. It's alright Cadence." Celestia said as she comforted the pink pony, who was now crying at her shoulder.

"Who the hell's Sombra?"