Crysis: The Guardian Prophecy

“So you’re an archeologist who goes on cool adventures and have books written about you?” Alcatraz summed up.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Daring Do responded.

Indiana Jones rip-off. Well, I guess she’s a real Indy though, and actually doing it counts for something.

The five of them; Alcatraz, Psycho, Daring Do, the Doctor, and Gilda, all sat in a circle inside a gift shop. They’d been conversing as they reviewed what they knew about the inside of the Obelisk, which was worryingly little.

“Okay, so this trinket Doc has…” Alcatraz trailed off, unsure of how to raise an issue that Daring might not even know how to solve.

“What about it?” The Doctor responded.

“Do we even know where to fit it in, or if we have to do something besides put it in a slot?”

“Yes and no.” Daring rubbed the back of her neck. She checked her watch, which looked like a Breitling to Alcatraz, and displayed a worried look. “Buck me. We do know that there’s a certain time frame we have to do it in, and we’re near the end of it. After that we have to wait ‘til six PM tomorrow. We have twenty minutes to open that obelisk or we’re waiting through the zombies’ peak hours.”

“Fuck.” Alcatraz stood up and grabbed his weapons, slinging the Grendel over his back and checking to make sure a shell was chambered in his Jackal. “Okay people, we either open that obelisk in the next twenty minutes or we wait through the zombie work day.”

When he put it that way, there didn’t seem to be much of a choice. Every one of them grabbed what they had and got ready to move.

“When I open this door, run like hell,” Alcatraz said.

He opened the door, and they all sprinted towards the obelisk. A horde of zombies was waiting for them. Among them were a bull and two elites.

Psycho sprayed his Mk 60 into the horde, thinning the weaker members at a rapid pace. Each bullet left a gaping wound as it passed through a target, splattering blood and organs everywhere.

Gilda and Daring Do began to fire at the elites in the air, keeping them from getting into a position to strike. One of them took a .50 Compact round through the skull and dropped. The duo mistook it for a dive, and continued shooting it.

The other elite swooped down and hit Alcatraz, knocking him to his back. The zombified griffon sprayed spittle all over his visor and knocked his shotgun away. It began to claw at him, and he activated his suit’s armor mode, a soft glow enveloping his muscles.

Alcatraz readied to counterattack. “You’re-” He wound back his left arm for a punch. “One-” A crushing blow to its ribcage. “Ugly-” A right hook to its face shattered its decaying beak. “Motherfucker!” He headbutted the shrieking beast.

The creature was stunned long enough for Gilda to put two into its head. Alcatraz pushed the corpse off, and got to his feet, grabbing his Jackal just in time to blast the bull that had been hanging back in the face. The single shell only pissed it off, and it charged at Alcatraz.

He power jumped over it, landing behind it. The walking mountain of muscle, which had charged into the store the group had fled from, was chased by a pair of frag grenades. Each explosion filled the monster with shrapnel and pounded it with the pressure waves and heat of explosions.

“Hit that fucker!” Alcatraz shouted

“A little busy with this horde!” Psycho shouted back over the roar of his machinegun.

A scan with his tactical visor showed that the bull was still alive and far from death. An idea clicked in the ex-Marine’s head. He scanned the building, which looked ready to collapse. A single brick of C4 detonated inside would cause it to collapse on top of it.

Alcatraz pulled a satchel from his hip and threw it like a Frisbee. It soared into the building and landed at the target’s feet. He pulled out the detonator and squeezed it, causing the charge to detonate. The store was filled with thunder and fire, and the walls blew outwards. The roof fell onto the sole occupant, crushing it under several tons of rubble after the explosion had sent it upwards and impacted its skull on the ceiling.

“I knew C4 was a crowd pleaser, but that really brought the house down,” He quipped.

He turned to fire a few parting shots into what was left of the horde, the tight spread of his weapon’s choke ensuring that he did maximum damage. The steel shot tore through the remainders as his teammates reloaded.

After a mad few minutes, all that stood was the two humans, two ponies, and a single griffon. There were no more projectiles or screeches in the air, only dust and smoke. The three non-nanosuited people, whose biological functions were without assistance, panted like dogs.

“Come on. More of ‘em are probably coming, and I’d like to disappoint them,” Alcatraz told them.

The group began to move towards the obelisk with all due haste. It took a few minutes to reach it.

“Twelve minutes left,” Daring Do stated.

The team searched the obelisk for a slot of some sort, but found none. Psycho had an idea and used his visor to search near the top of the pillar. He found the slot they needed.

“Found it!” He shouted. “It’s at the top, north side.”

“That’s a problem,” Gilda mused. She closed her eyes for a moment, opening them again as a look of determination spread across her face. She spread her wings, ignoring the pain from a prior injury. Daring had taken a lighter wound to one of her wings, but Gilda had the legendary pain tolerance of griffons to call upon. “Hand me the thingy.”

“You sure, Gilda? Your wing-” The Doctor began

“I know my wing is fucked up Doc, but I’m the only one who can do this. The artifact, now.”

Reluctantly the Doctor tossed it to her, and she caught it in her talons. She began to groan as she flapped her wings, and she gained altitude. She needed to get a hundred meters up, which was a nigh-impossible task given her current state.

She did it anyway, ignoring the pain of a thousand nails being driven into her wing. Gilda felt her strength drain, but she kept on, drawing on her will to push forward. After what felt like a thousand eternities, she made it to the top. The griffon pulled the artifact from her vest and slammed it in. She heard stone scrape against stone below her, and fell to the ground.

"Shit!"

Psycho rushed to catch her, and succeeded. The ex-SAS operative managed to grab her and prevent a large splatter of blood on the ground. He set her down gently, and she got to her paws on her own, groaning.

Alcatraz motioned for the rest of them to follow him into the newly created passage. Every one of them readied their weapons and descended into the darkness.

***

“All right. CELL has covered themselves by claiming that the soldiers Alcatraz killed were rogue units, and that the majority of them in Equestria are operating within the law. Even if we could prove otherwise, we can’t exonerate him without CELL files.” Twilight Sparkle explained to her friends.

The Bearers of Harmony were in her library, reviewing what they knew.

“Well, why don’t we just present what we’ve already got?” Rarity inquired.

“All we have is conjecture and some limited circumstantial evidence, and that’ll never stand up in appeals court. We need more.”

“Ooh! Ooh! Pick me!”

“Yes, Pinkie?”

“I met some marines the other day, and they were super-duper cool, and maybe they can help us because they’ve worked with the CIA before, and my Pinkie Sense says that they can do cool stuff unilaterally and get away with it, so maybe they can help us!” Pinkie explained rapidly, with a vocabulary that was both like hers and unlike hers at the same time. But that just made it more like her normal random behavior.

The rest of them just stood there and stared. This was a convenient development, even by Pinkie’s standards. Not unwelcome however.

“Cupcakes are ready!” Spike sang, strolling in wearing a frilly apron. Upon seeing the looks of the mares in the room, he backed out silently and shut the door.

“Um, what’re these fellas’ names?” Applejack asked.

“Redford, Marlowe, Sweetwater and Haggard. Everypony was so happy to see them earlier that they get to appear again!”

***

“Shit! Runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun!!”

Alcatraz had set off a booby trap, sending arrows flying from the walls. While he’d long desired to be like Indiana Jones someday, in retrospect that was a foolish wish. Fortunately for the others, he had been bringing up the rear, leaving them with the least amount of distance to cover.

After a few more mishaps, the team came to a large wall engraved with hieroglyphs. The Doctor and Gilda shone lights on it while Alcatraz and Psycho watched the hall. Daring Do began to run a hoof across a line of glyphs, mouthing words to herself all the while.

“So uh, what’s it say?” Alcatraz asked.

“Not entirely sure,” came her less-than-reassuring answer. “Some of the wording is vague. This one means either a ‘guardian hero’ or a ‘curse-bearer’, and this one means that only one can enter. Something about a prophecy and a destined bearer of the Heart.”

Something clicked in Alcatraz’ head. It meant him. He walked forward and felt the indentations of the writing, sliding his left hand across the face of the wall. The fingertips of his gloves moved gently as they passed over each inscription and softly scraped the barrier.

The wall began to move, revealing a faint blue glow on the other side. As the group strode forwards, they hit it as though it were a solid object. All of them were stayed by it, except Alcatraz.

Psycho tapped the side of his helmet to indicate his radio, and Alcatraz nodded before heading into a door that opened for him. It shut behind him.

Murals lined the walls, depicting a humanoid medieval knight slaying all manner of beasts. His armor was mainly chainmail, with plating on a few areas. His sword was made of shimmering steel, with an ebony grip, and a platinum pommel and guard.

Assuming the murals were life-size, which they seemed to be given that the knight was as big as Alcatraz, the sword was a decent size. Its blade was four feet long.

As for the armor the knight wore, while the chainmail was gray, the plates were polished steel, creating a contrast. The helmet was an old armet type, which matched the plating. Still, it was odd in that it used the chainmail to cover most of the body, which was more common as the main part of armor during the Crusades, yet it had 15th century boots, plating and headgear.

The helmet bore a red stripe across the viewing aperture, and small yellow stripes on the cheeks.

The whole thing struck Alcatraz as anomalous. Why even bother wearing chainmail? Contrary to popular belief, later versions of medieval armor allowed more flexibility than chainmail by virtue of their articulation, although they still generally weighed more. Perhaps it was meant to be a balance between speed and protection.

As he walked further down, a mural depicted the knight fighting a troll or ogre of some sort. The next image was of a sword shattering on his armor. His armor took on a faint blue hue for that mural, which made it all clear to him.

Jesus, that’s supposed to be me!

He reached the end of the tunnel and came to a large chamber populated with statues on either side. Alcatraz unconsciously tightened his grip on his Jackal, the aggressive poses of the decorations filling him with unease.

“You still there, mate?” Psycho inquired over the radio.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Out.”

Alcatraz felt a tap on his shoulder, and turned around only to receive a punch in the face. He was sent careening into a wall, smashing several bricks in. The half-dozen statues that had populated the room were striding towards him.

One was a wingless, quadrupedal dragon hewn from stone, with a spiked tail and back, and a fierce set of glowing white eyes that left trails as it moved. Another was a hulking bipedal figure with four arms and a literally chiseled physique, with no head to speak of. It held onto the dragon with a chain in one of its hands.

A third was a gallant silver pegasus, shaped and detailed in such a manner that it looked like a sculpture of a full-sized horse from Earth, with a blue flaming mane and tail, and glowing red eyes. Atop it rode the knight from the murals, wielding that same majestic sword that had been featured in them.

Fifth was a massive blob, which seemed to be shaping itself into the form of a Ceph Devastator, and fired its weapons into the ceiling to test its transformation.

Last of all was a life-size bronze statue of a unicorn stallion, surrounded by a silvery aura of magic. It motioned with its foreleg for the approaching entities to stop, looking at them sternly. It then looked at Alcatraz with a confident smile.

“Forgive me for my lack of subtlety in this… Display. I’d like you to do me a favor, Lieutenant. When you retrieve the Alicorn’s Heart, I need you to give it to me, or rather this statue I’m using as an avatar. Do that and I can make you a very happy man.” The voice was familiar, but the distortion kept him from identifying it.

“Who the fuck are you to ask me to give away something that powerful?”

“Oh, you don’t remember me? I’m almost insulted. We met at- Never mind, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I can make your problems go away. How would you like to help me rule the wealthiest nation on Equis? I can make that happen too.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Take all the time you need. We’ll be waiting for you.”

The door on the opposite end of the room opened, surrounded by that same blue field that had blocked his friends earlier. He proceeded through it, and found a short hall. Through that short hall he traveled, contemplating the offer made to him.

The door behind him shut, and the one before him opened. Inside was a bare chamber. The shape was a perfect sphere hewn from polished marble, with a matching pathway to a platform suspended in the center. Upon that platform was a pedestal, upon which floated a large spherical ruby.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Alcatraz,” A smooth female voice echoed from every part of the room. Its accent was British, or the pony equivalent thereof. “I’ve been waiting since he died. What a long three thousand years it’s been.”

Alcatraz looked around, and scanned the entire room with his tactical visor. Nothing came up. Not even a single impurity in the stone that composed the room.

“I am the Alicorn’s Heart. At least, that’s what Tau told me I would be called when he comforted me during my final days. I’d contracted an unknown disease which ravaged my body horribly. Though his powerful magic could delay the effects and numb the pain, it could not stop it as it consumed my flesh in the prime of my youth. He offered a way out and I took it. He transferred my soul to this ruby, and we were able to stay together until he died. There was no such blessing for him, as his soul was sent to Tartarus for his toying with Life and Death.”

“That’s why you were his most prized possession,” Alcatraz thought aloud.

“Correct. And I was sealed here for the one he foresaw would need me the most. As our love grew over a thousand years of unnatural companionship, so did the magical power vested in the avatar I remained in. The power in this form. For four thousand years I’ve been in this gem. Alone for the latter three thousand of those years. Watching helplessly as the world outside went by, waiting for the prophesied hero whom Tau told me would liberate me. And here you are.”

“I never asked to be a hero…”

“Of course you didn’t,” The nameless voice responded, her tone sincere. “Heroes have always been reluctant to usurp the mantles bestowed upon them. Celestia and Luna were reluctant to lead until their parents were killed. Tau initially resented the responsibility, the obligation he felt he had to ponykind. You never asked to be given the suit now part of you, given to you by a dying man who asked that you fulfill his last wish. From death comes new purpose in life.”

“That’s quite insightful.”

“I’ve had millennia to contemplate things. I also know that prophesies can be violated by inaction and greed. Such vices were the downfall of the Princesses’ parents, who were to rule for ten thousand years.”

“‘All that is necessary for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing.’”

“Precisely. I know of the offer made to you minutes ago. The identity of the one who made it I do not know, but he has more power than he should logically possess, almost as much as Equestria’s current regents, and his abilities and intentions are unknown to them as well. Even without me he would be formidable and capable of overthrowing them, but with me…”

Alcatraz nodded. He understood the gravity of the situation. That prophecy he’d heard on his first night on Equis was at least partially true.

“How do I get you out of here? You’re a bit big to fit in my pockets, which don’t even exist in the first place.”

The voice chuckled. “Just grab me and I’ll take care of it. No booby traps, I promise. I can’t leave without you anyway.” Alcatraz reached out and rested his left hand on the top of the gem. The gem glowed faintly for a moment before a red liquid began to creep up onto his hand. It crept up his arm, and the ruby shrank as it progressed. Soon it had engulfed his entire suit, and the ruby was gone. The liquid faded away, absorbed into his armor. A quick visual inspection showed that he appeared no different than before.

“Installing firmware upgrade… Complete. Supplementary AI installed. Current version reverting to semi-silent mode; new AI given priority during speech. Don’t get too crazy, marine, I’m still here.”

“Your architecture isn’t much different from the Heart’s…”

“Don’t get any funny ideas.”

“I’m going to be quiet for a spell. I’m just getting used to being mobile again. And if you get into any fights, just try not to get killed, but I’ll let you focus on winning them.”

Alcatraz strolled from the room, the door opening before him, as well as the door at the end of the short hall. He entered the chamber, his Grendel ready.

“Mind telling me where my ruby is?” The unicorn avatar demanded.

“I decided it’d be funny if I destroyed it for the schadenfreude.”

“You idiot…” The bronze statue turned from him and motioned to the others, cantering away behind the row of animated statues.

“I can handle you.”

“Handle us? You’ll 'handle us'? You know I expected a lot more respect from you.”

The four-armed brute cracked its knuckles, while its dragon gnashed its teeth and began to salivate, which didn’t seem possible for a statue. The knight readied his sword and his steed pawed at the ground.

The pseudo-Ceph whirred its cannon and strode forwards. It must’ve thought things would be easy. It fired an extended burst at the target, who had begun to glow blue. The projectiles merely bounced off of him.

Alcatraz knew how many satchels of C4 it took to kill a Devastator, and he had exactly that number. So he threw two of them and detonated them. The creature fell apart just as a real Devastator would’ve.

He readied his rifle. “Who’s next?”

“Okay, you have some skill. Kill him.”

The remaining four charged at him. The brute and dragon merely charged at him and were easy to dodge while taking pot shots. Each tungsten carbide round knocked a chunk of stone off of the golem or its beast when it hit, but the power was insufficient to do any real damage. However, it hurt them and stunned them each time it hit, and they seemed to feel each other’s pain.

Probably only goes as far as pain. Have to assume the fuckers’ lives aren’t bonded.

While he stood his ground, keeping the two beasts at bay with measured fire, the horse and knight flanked him and came around the rear for a decapitating slash. Alcatraz realized this less than a second before his potential death and turned to block with his rifle, only to have it slashed in half.

The follow-up attack came while Alcatraz was contemplating the loss of his rifle. His suit energy was running low, and that meant his armor mode was about to quit on him. He dropped the chunks of the weapon and moved his left hand to intercept the slice. His armor mode ceased, its last feat being to soften the blade’s impact.

The sword rested on his hand, and he kicked the horseman away. The occupants of the room froze. A few drops of blood trickled down the blade, and from his hand, in both cases falling on the floor. It was his blood.

“You see, he is just a man,” The unicorn said, partly to taunt Alcatraz and partly to encourage his warriors.

During that brief pause, Alcatraz’ suit had recharged fully. He drew his Jackal from his back and ran towards the brute and beast. They charged back. Leaping over the four-armed behemoth, Alcatraz blasted a hole in its neck, revealing a hollow interior.

He primed a frag grenade, one of his last three, and made another leap over the golem. Just as he passed over, the animated object grabbed him by the chest. He kicked back hard enough to send him flying backwards, and threw the grenade into the fresh orifice.

Flames jetted out of the top of the monster, and its arms fell of as it collapsed to the ground. The dragon it had controlled charged at Alcatraz and tried to bite his arm off, only to eat several shells of steel buckshot and fall to the ground.

That left him, the knight, and the steed.

“You know, I heard the Headless Horseman is the only headless horseman. Let’s try and change that, shiny boy.”

As the knight charged at him, Alcatraz activated his armor mode and aimed down the reflex sight on his shotgun. He fired a pair of shots at the horse, knocking it down and sending the sword through the sight. He removed the attachment, which left the iron sights, and slung the Jackal over his back.

He charged at the knight, who was struggling to get out from under the horse atop him, which was apparently unharmed and struggling to get up as well. The sword had clattered to the ground several meters from the knight. Grabbing the sword from the ground without losing momentum, he leapt into the air and fell towards the knight.

The armored figure raised his arms to stop him, only to have them impaled as the blade penetrated both gauntlets and his chestplate, driving the sword into the floor. Upon pulling the seemingly indestructible blade out, the knight fell limp. Alcatraz took the black leather scabbard and placed it on his back, sliding his new sword into it.

“Well done. You managed to defeat three statues and disabled the fourth. That’s almost decent considering that I merely activated a severely weakened, millennia old trap.”

The brass unicorn heated, the resulting molten metal burning through the floor.

The sculpted, fearsome pegasus on the ground was still alive, and looked at him with remorse and regret.

“You get a second chance. Don’t make me regret this.”

Alcatraz lifted the equine up, taking full advantage of the Nanosuit 2’s augmentations to do so. The creature whinnied and nodded thankfully at him. It didn’t change its appearance with its allegiance; still silver, muscular, red-eyed, and possessing a mane and tail made of blue flames. Its saddle was made of black leather, seemingly unharmed by the steel buckshot it had been hit with earlier.

Glad I’m good at horseback riding.

“You need a name. Something ominous but respectable, not too long or short, probably two syllables… Prophet.”

If animated statues of horses could smile, this one was grinning like an idiot.

“I’ve got a way out for you and your friends if you’re interested.”

“I am.”

“Now, I may be free of this place, but I have some control over the residual magic, and there’s a lot of that. I can get you and them to the surface. The surface surface, as in, seeing actual daylight. Exactly where you came in.”

“Aw, sweet. There’s something I’ve wanted to say since I became a Trekkie around 12.”

“I’m not sure what a ‘Trekkie’ is, but go ahead.”

Alcatraz put a hand on Prophet and pointed forwards with his other one.

“Make it so.”

In a flash of red light, they all disappeared, only to rematerialize by the APC.

“What the bloody hell!?” Psycho shouted. “What the fuck was that!?”

“Magic,” Alcatraz said smugly. “Take those three and head back to the warehouse, I’ll meet you there.” He hopped onto Prophet’s back and placed his boots in the stirrups. Prophet knew what his rider wanted and followed the APC.

An hour later, they arrived at the warehouse. The APC took position inside, and Alcatraz tied Prophet to a post inside for the time being. One of the doors in the rear of the vehicle opened and Alcatraz climbed in.

“So, where’s the ruby?” Daring Do asked.

“Hold out your hand, palm open and up.”

“What?” Alcatraz said within the confines of his helmet, not a peep escaping.

“Just bloody do it.”

He held out a palm. Red liquid began to form from his suit and condense into the form of the Alicorn’s Heart. He noticed that there was a sort of cloud inside it, shaped in the silhouette of a unicorn, and retaining that image from all sides.

“Christ…”

“Ancestors…”

“Celestia…”

“The ruby is separate from me now. I have some control over it, but my essence is in this suit now, and by extension inside you. Perhaps you should tell your mates about this situation, just to avoid confusion.”

Alcatraz explained the Alicorn’s Heart as best he could, and the presence of an extremely magical soul inside. A soul that had taken its magic and merged with him.

“Does it…” Daring Do trailed off. “Does she have a name?”

“My name was… Is Ruby Gaze. A bit about my somewhat short history as an actual pony is in order. From the way a lot of stallions and a few mares looked at me when I had a body, I was fairly attractive… Well, now I just sound conceited and shallow for saying that and picking that particular bit of information about myself. Sorry. Pretend I’d just mentioned how I was quite bookish and uncommonly good with magic. And socially awkward, which is, um, quite evident at the moment,” Ruby Gaze answered.

“At least she has a civilized accent,” Psycho joked.

“Okay, I’m gonna patch through to the client,” Alcatraz announced. He took a few seconds to punch in the number and hit the connect button. A screen appeared showing the frequency syncing up.

“Yes?” Grimwing looked just as he did the last time they’d contacted him.

“Sir, we located your daughter and got her out, along with the other survivors of the dig.”

A look of relief overwhelmed the griffon’s face, and he closed his eyes while he whispered a thanks. “I’m in your debt. Let me first say that I’m not going to act overly-protective of Gilda and try to lock her in safely; on the contrary, I’ll support your endeavors to a reasonable extent. I can spare a million or so bits to get you started.”

"Thanks dad."

With that offer, the Legion Noire was formed.