Do not Disturb

It was oddly silent, but that was the only part that troubled her. She felt like she should be in some sort of outrage, but everything seemed so normal, more than normal. The walk to the building was short, but she could have sworn that she saw something new in their eyes. Not fear, not some other negative emotion one would give a killer as she now technically knew herself to be, it was oddly something akin to respect. She was finally pulling her weight, or something akin to that idea.

The building was one that she oddly recognized, not because she had seen it before, but because she had worked in the MWT, and their buildings were all rather similar. It was MWT research center, they always stood sturdy and tall. A pure testament to the ability of Earth Ponies and their grasp on the material world, the shaped metal corridors and heavy doors ready to snap shut in case of an emergency made her feel mildly at home.

Oso approached and tried the door, despite his talons capable of rending tempered steel, he couldn't get the doors to budge and while it was unclear as to what motivated her, Lexi found herself wedging herself past him even nudging him out of the way and putting in her personal code.

"29093010491860 requesting permission for entry, code LTG35772A." She didn't need to say it, but it felt good to say it, the machine just had a keypad and she had to put in the codes separately so the computers could track who came in, when and depending on how certain parts were entered it could set off alerts. Entering the numerical part of her password backwards would alert security so that you could lead a spy holding you at gunpoint into an ambush with security, adding the additional emergency segment would set off all the alarms possible initiating a lockdown. It was all so impressive to her now, it was all boring and worrisome back before the world ended, but now she actually felt like she was contributing and showing up the others at least slightly, she allowed herself the smallest smile before she looked to Croce. "THAT... is why I'm here..."

He looked mildly annoyed but let the facial expression be washed away with a bit of relief. It didn't hurt her feelings but it was clear he was happy that she was 'finally' worth keeping around. That appreciation secretly warmed her on the inside feeding into proud Lexi.

The door opened and with little hesitation they all made their way in, the doors were only slightly larger than normal, but it was made to be a place for many ponies at once, so while it was a tight fit it was indeed big enough for Oso to enter as well.

"So... what are we looking for?" Lexi slowed to a halt at the main hub looking over the options. It looked nearly identical to her work place and she was confident that things should be relatively close to where they were in her work center.

"It's a scroll, but a VERY important one. So, library or vault. Probably both if such a place exists." Oso grumbled and tried looking over a slightly too small 'you are here' guiding map of the building.

"There's usually a vault at the back of the library, if it's not there, we will find similar secure locations in deep storage in the basement. Library is two floors up at the center of the structure." An odd feeling washed over her, she was finally not in charge but rather the one leading, the one with all the experience. But even with them all following her, she didn't know what to think about it. It felt natural but at the same time, being the solitary voice of experience felt like it should have been utterly blindingly alien to her.

Stuffing her beaming pride down she focused her memory of the map and the halls, double checking and then moving with the others in tow. As her eyes panned back and forth she made each turn with confidence, it had less to do with the fact that she was comfortable here, even in the nightmare hellscape and being in the Crystal Empire, this place was still a MWT building and more than anywhere else in the run down world, she felt solidly that she belonged here. She paused at the elevator and decided against it, she had legs and was feeling rather indestructible, with all the unneeded sensory input she couldn't be sure that the elevators were working until a very long wait, and she didn't want to know if the independent systems were all at once up. The security and doors were supposed to be fully functional so long as you had the codes, but she did remember something about the elevators shutting down automatically when the emergency systems turned on. She didn't know what this place exactly went through the day everything came crashing down with the bombs, but it would simply take far too long and have too many variables to simply trust the elevators.

Pushing up the stairs she watched the color coding and for the library, it was the place she practically lived in for most of her adult life. She could see herself busy at the company tables, tracking the vaguest mentions of artifacts in Equestria's books untouched by the Ministry of Image. She had seen so many things in the pages available to her and the MWT research team. It always made her feel special, she could feel it even now with the odd distorting haze and occasional frozen screaming pony frozen forever in this horrible hell.

"Alright! This is the place, just gotta get into the vault in the back. But that's about where my expertise kinda falls away. I've got no idea how your going to get into that thing." She gestured to the far end of the library, the high shelves still filled with books, she was tempted to start digging into the shelves once they started to work on the vault. She had never even once had even the slightest authority to access the vault and even if she had the security teams would have gotten into the vault for her. And finally, unlike the personal security codes allowing workers to change locations and use their own personal codes, security teams did not share such privileges. Even if she knew the codes for her work center, they would not be the same for specifically the security team's security systems as they were separate from recorded files belonging to individual workers.

Just as she rounded the corner, right the Lexis inside her started to debate whether the team would mind her digging through the books she spotted it just about the same time as everyone else.

"Oh... um, this is a whole new problem..." Lexi's words tumbled out of her mouth loosely as they all approached the vault.

Fobwatch was the only one who looked like he understood and wasn't worried, and he was the first to approach. "Go figure, bugger was open when the place was sealed away.... now we just gotta get these frozen in time ponies out of the way. Errr... well at least this one..." He poked at a female unicorn in the center of the group who looked to be one of the brass of the place, Lexi figured she was likely the leader of the entire Crystal Empire branch due to the clothes. Most workers had to wear some sort of uniform, she was thankful that her job required very little outside of her security badge which was almost exclusively just an official ID.

The door was only a few inches open, the big problem was the pony in question was frozen into place just in front of it. Oso's iron grip scooped under the pony and Lexi's eyes practically bulged as she saw his muscles tense as he hefted as hard as he could, yet still nothing happened. Most ponies had a general shape and some level of soft tissue which made their form slightly softer, she noted that when Oso strained himself, the muscular tissues became astoundingly clear and tense. The bird really was built as Croce would say, like a brick shithouse. But slightly more of note, the pony still didn't move.

"Fascinating, it's like the lass is frozen literally in place at a spatial level... just a tick..." Fobwatch's horn glowed and the door highlighted with his magic. "Oh dear... that's not... yeah, we have more than just problems with the lass... The door is frozen too."

"Wait... how?" Croce grabbed at the door to see if it would swing the few inches of clearance they had on it and he grumbled angrily as it didn't work. "Then how did we get in here? The front doors worked, I don't like this shit..." He took to the tops of the shelves as if he could just find a magical 'remove magic effect' button.

"Calm down boyo... I think I can jerry rig somethin up right quick..." Fobwatch grumbled looking over everything his magic swirling about wildly as he looked over everything.

Oso watched carefully pulling Reaper away from the frozen guards mostly just to keep him from distracting Fobwatch by very closely inspecting the male guards still frozen in place. Scooped up like a kitten by an uncaring foal, he sat upside down under Oso's arm, purring and batting at the big griffon. But he was ignored until he let out a harrumph and squirmed uncomfortably. Alas, he could not break Oso's grasp so he went on to grumbling and other audible noises which seemed to be halfway born of boredom and half from just trying to get a rise out of the male side of the party.

Doing his best to focus and fight through the magic which effected everything in this darkened world, Fobwatch focused his magical energies, churning the very fabric of the space to feel the magic. Soon his eyes snapped open and through gritted teeth he stuttered out. "We need to hurry, this place is responding to us, to our presence." He cleared his throat and holding the strain in his features and voice he stood up, gesturing to the door. "Say when... and hurry..."

Oso tossed the playful Reaper behind him and nodded. He was ready, or so he thought.

The air crackled and peeled back as if the color was draining from the space in a perfect sphere, only the color was returning, it was still dark and cold but it felt oddly clear. And all at once the frozen ponies, all moved. Half the guards simply fell limp and did not move, the others staggered and slowly curled into a ball not responding to anything. The only pony who did anything beyond laying down was the mare originally in the way.

She didn't address them, she didn't even change the direction she was facing. She just whispered something under her breath and her magic flared, seizing one of the fallen guard's sidearms she hefted it in her magic. Oso moved in just in case she was going to turn aggressive, but she turned, looking him in the eye and even Lexi was halted in her tracks. The look in her eyes, of complete and utter despair, pain beyond knowing. Oso only managed to make a just a second too late lunge for her as she tilted the side arm up and over, the barrel gently laying over her tongue.

The pop was fast and sharp, but her body hitting the floor might as well have been earth shattering. All of Lexi's confidence fell away. Watching this mare take her own life, seeing her eyes. It was unlike anything she had seen so far, even killing ponies was easier than that.

"We need to move... We'll worry about it later!" Fobwatch, pushed on Lexi and Oso, but Oso didn't move. It was something deep inside that triggered, it had metaphorically floored him. "OI! Big guy, we can't waste time, we don't have long at all."

Oso's eyes looked on at the dead pony and just shivered. It hurt Lexi as well, but seeing Oso like this hurt as well. But she did pop back just as Oso did, when Croce pistol whipped the much bigger bird in the face. "MOVE IT TURKEY!"

Oso shook and cleared his throat. "Aye, let's go... we're looking for a scroll. Should be a pretty simple scroll, and with the time sensitive bit... we don't have time to read it, just shove everything in your bags and keep going."

Lexi dove into the room and instantly started searching, anything to keep her mind off of the splattered head of the unicorn mare just behind them. But she was fairly surprised at the size of the vault. She had never been in one or even seen the plans, it was all security's business. She poured over the tables and glass cases, there were several pieces of paper, even books and some scrolls, she just threw everything she could into her bags. She had big bags and a quick look at the tables and she knew that if they all had the average of the table she was currently at she could easily fit at least all the books in her bags. And with all the others here she could easily fit everything. She just started shoveling everything into her bags.

going on a bit, a loud crash alerted her just as she was about to meet up with Croce also shoveling anything and everything that looked at least moderately important into his bags, a quick look showed that he seemed to be taking a lot more than just books, scrolls, and paper. As they both looked back at the crash, they were happy to see it was Oso who appeared to have simply hefted up a massive display and crushed it. Needless violence from an extremely powerful griffon somehow made Lexi feel like Oso was getting better, like if he was simply venting.

Watching the angry griffon sift through the remains of the case he quickly pocketed something and stood quickly. "Aye! we've got it, let's get out of here quickly." He stormed out looking back as Lexi slowed casting a very worried glance at the guards who still shook and shivered refusing or unable to get up or move. She flinched as he growled. "Leave them! We can't do them any good and we have to move now or never."

Lexi's thoughts churned and the Lexis inside her head shot back and forth with worry vs comfort. 'Maybe he's just trying to hide his pain.' 'What if this is more his real self?' 'We don't have the time for this.' 'But what if he...'

The thoughts died out in her mind, oddly they almost seemed to be choked out as she looked in the direction Oso was facing. He oddly shared her worry, Oso worrying yet again drove even more worry into her.

"Where's the exit?" Croce's works echoed Lexi's only real thoughts. But they all saw it, where they had come in from was filled with some sort of dark flowing sickly energy.

"Damn!" Fobwatch lowered himself, drawing his weapon. "Keep your eye out, I knew I didn't feel an adaptation matrix in the magical weaves of this place. The place didn't change due to programing, it changed because someone changed it!"

"Aye, the smart ones are always fun..." The voice was oddly cold and distant, ringing from all directions.

"Who the fuck is that?" Croce too drew his pistol and stood ready, his eyes darting about.

Lexi was pretty sure she knew, but she was in utter denial, she just waited until Fobwatch continued. "You really don't know your history do you, there's not many entities that can do this. It's... gotta be..." He grit his teeth and just as the darkness seething around them started to bubble into a face, the creature answered.

"Sombra... Lord Sombra... the true and rightful ruler of the Crystal Empire..." The seething from protruding from the darkness was far more predatorial than Equine, long teeth characteristic of predators who slashed and tore their prey to pieces, sunken glowing eyes like the most horrendous of magical beasts. "In the.... well... not flesh, but close as we're going to get... nearly two centuries of undying fear, the death of millions, and seething dark magic along with enough balefire to extinguish an entire nation... I'm a little lacking in my looks, but... I feel it's better this way. There's just so much more power. Endless... power...." He seemed nearly in the fits of ecstasy as the power swirled over his visage.

Everyone stood ready, still concerned and unsure. The tension was thick in the air, even as the presence of the long gone monarch filled the vacant air. Fobwatch's effect seemed to bubble away slowly like a melting wax statue. The colors were drowned out and the energy seethed it's way back into the world.

"So then, how long ago did you find us?" Oso's words were firm as his gaze stayed frozen upon Sombra's giant floating shadow head.

"The very moment the door opened... the door into my realm, but don't get me wrong... I'm not angry, I'm overjoyed I get five whole new toys. And look at you all. You stood up to every challenge. Physical, mental, and even your will power matched... you'll be so fun to break..." He grinned unnaturally wide as if he was trying to inspire fear, Lexi wasn't sure about everyone else, but she was most certainly terrified.

"It doesn't have to be like that... there's a whole world out there... and the door is open." Oso's answer was firm, despite his slow retreat as the darkness snaked and slithered in.

"Oh, now why would I leave? I can leave at any time, do you know what kind of power I have in here? and why not just accept the gift of new toys to play with and call it a day?" The tendrils moved forward and Oso's eyes narrowed as he looked to be digging as fast as he could for a reason for the ancient king to leave them alone.

"I don't believe you can't leave. Make a deal with us and we'll get you a way out." He slowly backed away from the encroaching darkness but was rapidly losing room. Lexi didn't like the thought of loosing this horrid thing upon the world, even as it was now, but she didn't see much of a choice if they were going to leave. She just pushed it to the fringes of her mind and backed up with Oso.

Sombra's voice just deepened with a hearty chuckle. "Oh, what you have to offer is irrelevant, firstly your value as my plaything is more than any proposed offering you could have. Second, your help is unneeded. Third... they all tell me their secrets, they all break eventually and they tell me literally everything they know, every deed they have done, every word they have ever uttered. There's NOTHING you can give that I wont have after a few weeks of your darkest of fears."

The darkness tendrils formed and lunged forward. Reaper who had been quiet for a bit too long swallowed and grumbled. "Well this blows... and not in the fun way, just like the tendrils, why can't it EVER be fun tendrils? Fucking cock sucking fuck!" He seemed to grow extra frustrated, his usually bubbly suggestive personality faltering showing the uncharacteristic fear in his voice. It almost seemed like he would hold up, but quite suddenly all at once, he bolted. The majority of the tendrils leaped for the main group and the rest intercepted him, swallowing the red Pegasus within the whole of their seething mass. But the other tendrils smashed against a shield of Fobwatch's making.

"Yeah, we need to figure shit out fast... I can only hold this for so long, and it's hard enough making the damn thing..." The Unicorn focused as hard as he could trying to maintain the shield even as the dark power beat upon it relentlessly before shifting to a grinding shredding like movement trying to put the maximum amount of pressure on the shield.

"Seething pain, your greatest fears, your greatest pains... delicious... Fresh toys for my collection..." The rumbling voice of Sombra seemed in an odd happy trance, but the ghostly visage of his face twitched slightly in annoyance, almost as if his thoughts were being interrupted as he sought to enjoy the moment.

To say fear was up at the top of her mind was an understatement, Lexi's mind was ablaze with fear to the point where she barely seemed to be able to thing otherwise, the only thing that seemed to touch her senses was the surprisingly soft massive talons gently on her shoulders as Oso pulled her in.

"Aye... Lexi... Croce, and you... unicorn... listen carefully... I need you all to get as far away as possible, I'll try and hold him off with everything I've got. Don't wait for me, just run... get to where we came in at and don't look back. Tell, Tyrin to just shut up and deal with it. If he puts you in any real danger, bring the scroll to the wolves or the Ghouls and just try to finish the project..."

Fobwatch grunted, both in effort he was putting into the shield as the many tendrils battered and forced their way into it, and his dislike of the situation. "I don't think we'll get very far without you. And I am pretty sure you won't last against that thing."

"Well..." Oso's voice seemed dark and pained as he looked over the situation. "I'll just have to do, unless we get a different distraction..."

His Talons scooped up Croce Lexi and Fobwatch as if he was going to simply throw them as hard as he could at a moment's notice, but quite suddenly the visage of Sombra changed, he looked downright in pain, like he had accidentally just drank a bottle of bleach with a side of broken glass. And just as suddenly, bursting from his chest a cherry red Pegasus lashed out frothing at the lips in the fits of chemical induced rage. His blazing scythe slashing back the tendrils as he screamed and flailed at nearly impossible speeds.

She wasn't quite sure what happened next, only that in the time it took for her to blink all four of them were halfway down the hall and not far behind, Reaper was flying backwards slashing and hammering at the darkness that perused them. She couldn't very well tell what was what in this foggy nightmare realm, but even less now, Lexi's mind just whirled as adrenaline flooded her. She could hear logical Lexi declaring 'FEATHERS!!' and it took her a moment to tell what the voice meant. Other than the nightmare chasing them, and Reaper high as a kite slashing back at the monsters of her worst nightmares, all she could see was Oso's dark brown feathers. She clenched her eyes and listened, she could hear and then feel the steady bounding rhythm of Oso's full sprint.

As usual her mind was processing information to distract her, but she preferred this distraction. 'He stuffed you under his wing!' She could hear the little inner voice shout. She opened her eyes at the sudden change of lighting, she could see the building starting to shatter and split apart, Sombra's angry attempts to capture them was giving them an avenue of escape. But even with this distraction, she closed her eyes again to distract herself from the nightmare nonsense in his hellish realm. Focusing on the rhythm of Oso's legs and mentally comparing them to a Pony's trot. Trot, gallop, canter, in comparison, a Griffon's gait seemed more of a bounding lunging predatory stride. She pictured the way Griffons would run, their talons opening forward as if to give themselves a chance to grab whatever was ahead of them. A feline like stance and movement designed to let them chase down foes rather than flee.

She opened her eyes to see if her calming distracting thoughts helped them at all and nearly wet herself. They were inside Sombra's mouth.

She screamed and clamped down on the trigger of her battle saddle all but emptying the magazines into the mass of darkness, this however did seem to cause a fair bit of dark brown feathers to shred and leave a tattered trail through the air.

And quite suddenly something blasted Sombra back, his shadowy figure sprawled out as it impacted the ground, a giant mass of pulsing darkness which started to swirl into an upright form. But something she hadn't seen before impacted it once more. Massive skeletal talons, plunging into Sombra's neck as a beaked skull the size of her mother's house and growing pulsated with a sickly tar like darkness as it's second set of skeletal talons grasped over Oso and Lexi.

She had no idea what she was looking at, only it seemed to be even more angry than Sombra, It screeched with the echo of tens of thousands of screaming voices crying out for mercy and death. The mournful and pained voices weaved together like strands of hair in a braided head.

"Heathen!... Anathema to her holy night, perish beneath mine rage and know it was a mercy!"

She blinked, the words he spoke were not in Equestrian but she understood them very clearly. It was as though they were not spoken but projected, and with a kind of hate she could not place. It was a seething superiority, almost sickly hatred. The kind of hate that would poison the soul so horribly that it would cause actual harm to the body.

She shook her head trying to shake free of the nightmare effect of the realm to understand or at least see past whatever this was. But she didn't have the time to do so. The skeletal talons almost felt like they were suddenly shrinking as they tore them all from the realm all until the painful biting cold of the deep north dug into her flesh like a thousand needles looking to drain every ounce of life from her.

As the nightmare effect cleared and the freezing hellscape returned, she saw the rapidly approaching bare stone and ice. She nearly lost a toon as she bounced off her face and skidded to a stop. Oso landed next to her as did a very not invisible Fobwatch. Into the air out of the horrible portal darted Reaper and Croce as Tyrn pulled himself from the portal still spitting hate and anger, but very surprisingly, as the portal closed a strange light left his eyes, as if his strength evaporated.

He took three steps looking as if he was going to start screaming at them, but he simply vomited a beakful of horrifyingly dark coagulated blood which nearly froze solid upon impact with the artic ground. He shivered and went limp only to be caught by the dozens of waiting tendrils, a wooden hammock of roots as his limp and spasming form was pulled closer to Yin who looked over the old Griffon almost passively.

"I must leave with him... He was not supposed to help..." Tyrin's form slung over the wooden pony and Lexi couldn't stop herself.

"Wait! bring us with you, we are straight out of the anti freeze potion... we'll die out here" She looked to the wooden creature with some level of hope yet twinged in pain as it looked back. The wooden face did not look like it was very capable of showing emotions, but just the aura she felt from him told her the answer.

"I'm sorry, there are rules... limitations on what I am allowed to do. I know it might not make sense... but have faith... I won't lie and tell you it'll be easy, but you WILL survive..." He looked them all over before she couldn't see him anymore.

She growled trying her hardest to force herself to see past his perception manipulation but she couldn't. She was left there panting and aching as the cold started to bite at them all.

"That's it? he's fucking leaving us here to die?" Croce seemed to be taking it better than Lexi who only felt the slow sinking despair. She almost envied his ability to respond with rage, she learned long ago that her rage was near pointless as she had no power to back it up, that was possibly the largest difference between her and Croce, why he had survived so long in a place she would have likely died on her first day if he hadn't come along.

"Nay, he said we will make it, there's got to be something behind it... a way out." Fobwatch's eyes locked to the ground as he fought to come to a logical plan.

Reaper still coming off the stampede sputtered and shivered. "Well... if we're all going to die... let's have a pre death orgy?." He chuckled, his slightly darker sense of humor shielding him from the cold already closing in on them.

Oso remained silent as he popped some berries and looked at his wide spread wing, the flight feathers had a fair amount of damage from Lexi's guns, and while it was clear he was feeling the pain of the fading antifreeze, the sun token and his abnormal toughness seemed to be doing him favors.

"If... if he said we'd make it then we'll make it!" Lexi struggled to resolve herself and nearly flinched when Croce scoffed.

"He said YOU would make it, and he's a fucking tree! We are FUCKED! If I had to take fucking advice from a fucking tree my first fucking step would be to stop eating shrooms!" It looked like he was going to say more but he didn't get the chance to. With the odd 'chuff' sound of springs and possibly compressed air, a net shot out and knocked him our of the air.

To his credit, he bounced only twice before his Susi blade flashed cutting through the steel cable net with relative ease. The whole group followed his gaze and lunged into action as not Wraiths but armored figures darted from the snowy abyss at them.

Lexi froze up both mentally but not before she made the world freeze up literally with her SATS. She quickly recognized the armor, it was the same as the enemies at Reaper's club. The ones that were after her. There was at least ten of them, she could see them on her EFS. She struggled not to panic, pushing through the options she had, but not only did her every option have single digit chances of hitting any of these attackers, but she had two rounds in only one of her weapons.

She would have pouted if she hadn't been frozen in time. But as she was, she frustrated flipped as fast as she could between her options when she noticed something. There was ten enemies, but she apparently didn't have an angle on three, but had eight available targets. Straining to look at the mystery target she would have grumbled at her miniscule chances, but she did marvel at the odd chance that the storm had barely parted enough for her to see it from this elevated spot. She queued up her shots and sent a prayer to any god that would listen. She was a touch concerned as one of the figures was already nearly a single yard from her and soaring through the air at her in a tackle. Even if she chose him as a target, he would pound her into the ground before she could turn and fire.

She let SATS do it's thing and the world leapt back into action. Her guns fired off only a single shot before she was plowed into the ground. She could hear a muffled voice issuing what almost sounded like commands behind the pony's mask, but she couldn't place the words even if she could hear it clearly through the storm. But her mind was on something else, even with hooves smashing her down and an armored visor glaring into her soul, she smiled.

"I hit it! I can't believe I hit it!" She was almost giddy with joy at the shot. But a hoof in her throat brought her back to the moment.

"I am still alive fool... you should rethink yo-" He exploded into a squall of gore and viscera, his armor cleaved like butter and his entrails coiling and steaming over the landscape as they splattered about. The sound of catlike power claws tearing through ice and stone made most the assailants turn and look before they opened up on the figure blasting through the snow.

But they were nothing nearly ready to fight him, to fight the weeping Wraith with a simple soft dent over the left side of his visor from a long range miraculous shot.

"I can't beat you guys, but he can."

Footnote: Level 9 achieved

Perk added: Nat 20. Not just weapons, but things tend to go your way when the chances are near non existent. There is a 5% chance you will simply succeed even if the task is all but impossible.

This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat, Fallout Equestria Pink Eyes by Mimezinga and Fallout Equestria Project Horizons by Somber; a familiarity with the source material may aid your understanding.

Author - Sanguine Eyes

Chapter editor - Currently N/A

Earl: Concept artist, Proof reader.

Nick Valentine: Artist

Crimmharmony: Artist

Author's Note

~~Sorry this took so long, I'm going through a lot of medical stuff at the moment and the VA tends to drag it's feet when it's helping it's veterans.~~

Whew, it's been far too long, I am so very sorry I haven't updated this. It's been damn near a year since I've added a chapter, I'll try and stay on this a bit more. It's been a bit rough, but I'll keep it going. Life has been rough and it's hard to get the passion to write when life sucks.