HMS Endeavor Armory, ten minutes later.

“Dusk, come on.” Archer insisted. “The ship broke apart, there’s no way anyone or anything could’ve survived that.

I stepped off the armor rack and grabbed my helmet, shaking my head while I did so. “Look Archer I’m here for a reason. And that’s to take out Mumm-Ra, so I intend to do just that.”

“And you think going through a debris field in zero gravity is going to give you what you’re looking for?”

“Archer, look. That bastard is still out there.” I said as I finally pulled on my helmet. “I’m going to take Faust’s spirit urn, go bottle this bastard up and then we can go find a black hole to chuck him down.”

“Doesn’t that cross you as a little bit extreme?” Archer asked.

“Maybe it is.” I admitted. “But at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. I’ve already told you what I’m doing, now come to terms with it.” Archer obviously wasn’t pleased as she followed me to the hangar, but there was little she could do to make me change my mind. But as her radio buzzed to life, something started feeling off.

“Archer here, go ahead.”

“General, we’ve lost contact with the main hangar. How close are you?”

“I’m just outside it, and how’d you-” The door suddenly opened and a handful of ODSTs scrambled through. “-lose contact? Gentlemen, what the hell is going on?”

“We’ve been boarded!” The leader responded. “It’s that Mumm-Ra asshole, he’s kicking the crap out of the rest of my guys!”

It took one glance at Archer to convince her that now might be a good time to call for backup. “Bridge, alert all crew that we’ve been boarded! Lock down the hangar deck immediately!”

“I’m getting in there!” I countered, Archer just waved me off and I went charging headlong into the hangar. The troopers weren’t lying, Mumm-Ra was on the deck and he was cutting a swath through the assembled fireteam of ODSTs. “Hey asshole, pick on someone your own size!” I shouted as I pulled out my pistol and started shooting.

Mumm-Ra ended up tossing the ODST he had picked up and made his way towards me under a hail of bullets from my own weapon and those of the ODSTs that were still standing. “You were hoping this wasn’t going to come to pass, weren’t you Dusk?” Mumm-Ra chided as he slammed his sword into the deck in front of me.

I backpedaled away, reloaded and started firing again. “Please, I’ve been itching to finish your ass off!” I retorted. Mumm-Ra suddenly rushed forward and checked me into the bulkhead that made up the wall of the hangar deck. My shields flared under the impact, so I doubt that Mumm-Ra is holding back at this point.

Before Mumm-Ra could swing his blade down one of the ODSTs clambered onto his back and started blasting away with his submachine gun. “Dusk, run!” The soldier shouted.

As Mumm-Ra grabbed the soldier off his back and slammed him into the ground, I realized who I was staring at. It was Commander Tremble. His helmet went clattering across the floor, revealing his longer graying hair. But for all the luck that soldier had, for everything he had been through, nothing was stopping Mumm-Ra’s blade as it plunged down through Don’s shoulder blade. Mumm-Ra ended up picking up the sword, sliding Don down it before flicking it and sending Don flying at the other ODSTs. “Those are your soldiers? Weak fleshings who can’t handle a hit?”

“Flesh and blood isn’t a weakness.” I countered, watching as the ODSTs dragged Don off towards the far hangar entrance. I judged their distance as a heat alarm started flashing on my HUD. I didn’t put much effort into it but I managed to conjure up a ball of flaming plasma, this time being protected from the heat by my armor.

It caught Mumm-Ra square in the chest, staggering the large demon. But where he’s made of energy any hope of seeing it burn through him was pointless. The flames quickly died down, leaving a far angrier looking monster standing over me. “You may not view it as a weakness, but clearly I’m the opposite of the worldly connections you so crave.”

This time Mumm-Ra hit me blade-on with his sword. My shields collapsed under the sharp impact, leaving the armor plating to protect me from the hit. However it didn’t protect me from the momentum it imparted on my body and I went flying across the hangar, bounced off of a Broadsword and tumbled to the ground. Alarms were flashing all across my HUD.

SHIELD EMITTER DAMAGED

ARMOR INTEGRITY DOWN TO 85%

Those two large bold alerts kept flashing until I tapped the side of my helmet to hide them. I glanced over at my shoulder and saw that the sword hit had cut all the way through my left shoulder pad, but the suit underneath was completely intact. Glancing over my shoulder to confirm that the ODSTs had cleared the hangar I pulled up my radio. “Greyscale? Drop the shields and vent the main hangar into space.”

“Sir, I must protest. That is a highly unwise decision and one that is likely-”

“Grey, just do it!” I shouted, cutting off the AI.

I didn’t hear anything else from the intelligence, but I immediately saw his handiwork as the hangar depressurized and ripped myself and Mumm-Ra into the vacuum of space. As I started tumbled away from the ship my thrusters burst to life, and across my HUD a message that read ‘EVA Mode Enabled’ very briefly appeared. That left me with the maneuvering capability.

But Mumm-Ra apparently wasn’t helpless, and as he hit me from behind I ended up careening into a large chunk of his ship. As I turned over and stared at the demon, I noticed that while a being of pure energy doesn’t obviously need oxygen, his maneuvering was incredibly limited. I wasn't sure of what mechanism that Mumm-Ra was using but it didn’t matter. I now had an advantage and I intended to use it.

As I looped over the top of Mumm-Ra’s next slash, my radio chimed to life. “Dusk, are you alright?”

“Just fine Archer.” I said as I dove past an uppercut from Mumm-Ra’s purple blade. “I’m just a little bit busy right now!”

“Well then how are you going to beat this guy?!” Archer yelled.

“I’m probably not going to beat him without some serious help. See if Lion-O’s armor is vacuum rated, and if it is send him out with the spirit urn. I’ll try to keep Mumm-Ra busy until he can get out here!”

Of course keeping a maniac busy means you have to indulge their constant bloodlust, and in my case that might be best served by keeping my distance and letting Mumm-Ra chase after me. So as I rocketed away, I was somewhat relieved to see that Mumm-Ra was chasing after me. As I made for the debris field that was once the monster’s ship I had to start really putting my superior maneuvering ability to work.

Diving through chunks of corridor, rolling over the tops of broken hull plating, occasionally having to blast apart the larger chunks of starship with well-placed magic. It was a constant fight to stay ahead of Mumm-Ra. Lather, rinse, repeat. The same old maneuvers, they repeated over and over. Eventually I’d fall into a pattern that Mumm-Ra would catch onto and he’d find a way to close the gap between us.

As I came out of another section of hull I quickly checked over my shoulder. Mumm-Ra was gone. “This can’t be good…” I muttered.

I wasn’t wrong, and quickly felt something slam into my midsection and slam me into a large chunk of starship with enough force to dent the hull plating. Looking up, Mumm-Ra was standing over me with sword held high. I ended up closing my eyes on instinct as the blade started coming down, but as the point where I logically should’ve been hit came and went, I opened my eyes to see my saving grace had arrived.

Lion-O had blocked the sword with his own, and was doing a damn fine job of holding Mumm-Ra at bay. “Anytime now Dusk!” Came the cat’s voice over my radio.

I scrambled to my feet, hit the mags to lock me to the hull plating and backpedaled away from the locked swords. I spied the spirit urn that Faust had built strapped to the back of the cat’s armor, probably the worst place for it to be where we needed to use it. As I rocketed towards it, Mumm-Ra managed to break his sword free of Lion-O’s block and managed to drop the hit into my back, sending me back down into the hull plating. But I bounced off, and was able to stabilize myself by grabbing the urn. “Hey, did Faust tell you how to use this thing?” I asked as I unhooked it.

“Sorry Dusk, there wasn’t time for a crash course in using weird mystical artifacts.” Lion-O replied.

“Then we need to get back to the Endeavor!” As I said that, a marker appeared on my HUD, and turning towards it brought the looming form of the Endeavor into view. Getting out of the debris field was easier than it was to get into it. There was a straight shot right for the main hangar, but without any obstacles it would be easy for Mumm Ra to catch up. Overfiring my thrusters gave me the speed, but a glance over my shoulder confirmed that Mumm-Ra was closing fast. That was before a wave of lightning sailed past my head and caught the monster square in the face.

“We’ve got you covered Dusk!” I heard Cloud yell over the radio as I closed on the main hangar.

The landing didn’t go as well as I would like… In fact I’d call it a crash as opposed to an actual landing. Once the artificial gravity made its presence known I tumbled to the deck before skidding to a stop at Cloud’s feet. “Where’s Faust?” I asked as the pegasus helped me to my feet.

“No clue, why?”

Lion-O finally joined in as he skidded to a halt on the hangar deck. “We need to know how to activate the urn she built, and fast!”

Cloud nodded before stepping between us and the newly-arrived Mumm-Ra. “Figure it out, I’ll keep ugly occupied.”

Cloud immediately rocketed towards Mumm-Ra and tossed another lightning blast, but I didn’t see the results as I turned my attention to the urn. “Alright, Faust said something about power stones being important. That ring any bells to you?”

As Lion-O’s armor folded back into it’s gauntlet, he motioned to a number of stones in the back of the gauntlet’s hand plate. “That would be these. Why, what are you thinking?”

I studied the urn for a moment and noticed slots in some of the side beams that were the same shape as three of the stones. “I think those stones are supposed to go in these…” I said, pointing out the enclaves.

“And just where did Faust figure out how to make this thing again?” Lion-O asked as he quickly started pulling the stones from his gauntlet and loading them into their respective enclaves.

“The archives back in Thundera if I’m correct. Why?”

As Lion-O put the last stone into the side of the urn, it began to shimmer in a rainbow band of light. “How’d she know that the information was in the archives?”

As Cloud sailed overhead and crashed to the deck behind us, I grabbed the urn and tried to take the top of it off. “No clue, and frankly I don’t care right now!”

“Any last words?” Mumm-Ra asked as he finally loomed over the two of us.

“Go to hell asshole!”

SCHOOM!

The red laser that blasted Mumm-Ra in the chest definitely left a mark, as it toppled the beast to the deck plates. Judging that Cloud was toting an M6E that he must’ve scavenged from one of the weapons containers that dotted the hangar deck, it was a safe assumption that he was responsible for the blast.

“What was that?!” Lion-O exclaimed.

“That was me dumping an entire energy cell into that bastard.” Cloud said as he dumped the Spartan Laser. “Now did you figure out how that thing is supposed to work yet? Because Mumm-Ra is getting up.”

Cloud was right. Although he was smoking from the massive blast that caught him in the chest, Mumm-Ra was slowly rising to his feet. “Shit, pour it on Cloud!” I yelled. The pegasus didn’t wait and immediately began blasting away with his gauntlet-mounted pulse cannons. I quickly turned my attention back to the urn.

“Wait, can we pull the lid off?”

Lion-O’s quick observation was correct. A quick twist showed that the lid moved, even if ever so slightly. “Cloud, get back!” I shouted. The pegasus wordlessly strafed backwards while he kept pouring out fire. Mumm-Ra was back on his feet, fighting to keep the pulse cannon blasts away from his face and what was clearly a wound on his chest.

With one deft motion I managed to slide the lid right out of the urn, and immediately a ray of rainbow colored light shot out and seemed to wrap itself around Mumm-Ra. “NOOOO!” Under the flaring rainbow of colors Mumm-Ra began to seemingly flicker back and forth between solid and ghostly. “I WILL NOT BE DENIED!” But Mumm-Ra started to seemingly shrink as his ghostly state seemed to win out over his mass, and he soon reverted to a frail appearance before finally seeming to dissolve into black mist that started pooling in the urn. In a matter of moments that black mist finally coalesced in the urn, the light died and I did the remaining sensible thing and slammed the lid down hard.

The hangar was quiet, quiet to a point where one could hear a pin drop. The silence was broken as the doors on either end of the hangar opened and armed marines began filing in behind Archer and Faust. I slowly got back to my own feet, turning the urn over in my hands as I did so. For something that looked so frail, the average pony would have trouble wrapping their head around what the vessel imprisoned.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” Archer asked once she approached and eyed the urn in my hands.

And for the first time in what probably amounted to years, I felt I could safely say one thing. “Yes Archer, it’s over… It’s finally over.”

Thundera, Fourteen Hours Later…

The return to Thundera was far from quiet. In fact it was quite the auspicious occasion, as defeating an enemy hell-bent on your extinction is somewhat historic. And when it comes down to historic events, the logical conclusion is apparently to throw a massive party. Personally I’m just glad I got some sleep on the flight back, because I doubt I’d get any shuteye with how outright LOUD the city had become in such a short period of time. Of course being part of the small group that helped imprison an ancient evil has some level of notoriety that comes with it. Right off the bat it felt like everyone was either trying to buy me a drink or wanted me to meet their kids. That didn’t stop it from feeling out of place, even though the admiration was definitely well earned. Eventually I decided that I’d had enough and ended up hiding out in a quiet part of the palace.

“Dad, what are you doing in here?”

Dawn had apparently noticed I missing and came and found me. “Just wandering Dawn. Needed to clear my head a bit.” As we walked through the halls of the palace we came across a workshop, where as it turned out Lion-O must’ve come to a similar conclusion that I had and sought out some solitude. “I take it you got sick of the crowds too?”

Lion-O looked up from a rifle he was tinkering with and nodded. “The crowds will be there later. I’ve got enough on my mind, so I figured I could use the distraction.”

I pulled out a stool and took a seat next to the king at his workbench. “We just beat Mumm-Ra, what else is bugging you? Is it just getting back into the leadership thing after being out of it for a while?”

Lion-O shook his head. “No, it’s about what I asked you back on the Endeavor. How did Faust know where to find the information on building that urn?”

It was a fair question. Just how did Faust know where to look? “Dawn, you’ve known her longer. Does Faust usually pull solutions out of thin air?”

“Oh please, her plans have plans for crying out loud.” Dawn droned. “Faust has so much stuff in her own private arsenal, I wouldn’t be half surprised if she ran out of room and stuffed those plans in someone else’s proverbial closet.”

“Uh, I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“It’s these scrolls that Faust took out of the archives.” Cheetara replied, tossing one of the scrolls to the king. “I can’t make heads or tails of these. They’re some sort of drawings, but I can’t understand any of the writing.”

Lion-O pushed the rifle he was working on off to the side and unfurled the scroll across the workbench. Right away I picked up on why Cheetara was having trouble with understanding the drawings, and it came right down to the writing. “This looks like Old Equestrian… No wonder you can’t make heads or tails of it, you’re dealing with a completely different alphabet.”

“Oh no, that’s not Old Equestrian.” Dawn said as she managed to squeeze past me to get at the workbench. “These are Alicorn symbols, immediate post-fall dialects. But they were added on after this was printed…”

“Seems we’ve found the proverbial closet…” I muttered. “Dawn, can you read any of this?”

“A little bit. Most of these are dimensions that somepony scribbled onto this… But this up here, it looks like graffiti.” Dawn ran her finger under the writing before a confused look crossed her muzzle. “All that’s come before shall come again… What’s that supposed to mean?” She muttered.

“I don’t know… You tell me.” I retorted.

“Without asking Faust, I’ve got nothing.” Dawn replied.

“But would it be wise to ask her?” Cheetara asked. “The only way she could’ve known that these drawings were in our archives is if she put them there herself. Who knows what else she has hidden away in the archives!”

“Dad, normally I’m all for Faust, but Cheetara is right… I don’t think I’d get a straight answer from Faust about any of this if I went to her. This whole thing just feels wrong…”

“It’s like she knew.” Lion-O finally seemed to admit. “She must’ve known Mumm-Ra would come back…”

The cat was right, of course. “She knew Mumm-Ra was still alive before we got here. I thought she got the information from Bengali… But she mentioned that Starswirl tangled with Mumm-Ra before. That must’ve been her first clue.”

“And from that she would’ve come up with some sort of plan.” Dawn added. “Dad… She must’ve known about this for centuries, maybe even millenia.”

“That brings me back to my point, what else does Faust have hidden away?” Cheetara asked.

Both cats had excellent points, and it all lead to one common conclusion. “We can’t trust Faust, period…” I muttered.

“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Dawn asked.

I shook my head. “No, no it’s not. If Faust is holding out on us there’s no way we can easily trust what she tells us. For all we know we could run into a situation where her holding onto critical details could put us squarely on the wrong side. Now tell me this, could Starswirl give us some insight?”

Dawn paused for a moment to think before nodding. “Yeah, he could. Him and Faust have been on shaky ground as long as I’ve known him.”

“Then go track him down and see if he can shed some light on our current mystery.”

Dawn nodded again, before disappearing in a flash of light. “What just happened?” Lion-O asked.

“She teleported, us unicorns and alicorns have that little trick tucked away in case we need it.” I said as I got up from the workbench. “Cheetara, how long would it take for you to do a search of the archives for anything similar to this scroll?”

“Probably not all that long. The regular scrolls and books look nothing like Faust’s.”

“Then get cracking. It won’t hurt to find what else she’s hiding.” Cheetara nodded before heading off, leaving myself and Lion-O the only two left in the workshop.

“So what do we do?”

I did have to think about that one for a moment, admittedly. “Well… They are throwing a party for our sake.” I admitted. “I think it’s time the two of us reappeared.”

***

Aboard HMS Endeavor
Dawn

Knowing that Starswirl had last been on the Endeavor, I decided that starting there would be my best bet in finding him. Even better, members of the crew had seen him rather recently. But as I made my way to the starboard cargo bay, I remembered that was where Faust had set up shop.Walking into the bay, I was greeted by the site of the old wizard and a red-maned alicorn both hovering over a familiar-looking urn.

“You should’ve told me.” Starswirl said, apparently topping off part of a conversation he and Faust were having.

“And what would you have done? Told Dusk I was holding out on him? He doesn’t need to know everything Star!”

“Damnit Faust, you’re trying to get him to win your private war for you!” Starswirl yelled.

“It’s not my private war!”

“Like hell it is! You and your idiot little brother just can’t let it go!”

Wait, idiot little brother? What the hell is Starswirl talking about? “Uh, are you telling me that Faust and Euripides are related?”

Finally opening my mouth led both Starswirl and Faust to notice that they indeed had a visitor. “Dawn, how long were you standing there?” Faust asked.

“Long enough to know that Dad is right about you.” I replied as I felt the heat of anger starting to warm my cheeks. “You hold out on him, and why? Because you don’t want him to know this little war of yours is really just one bad family feud?!”

“Dawn, it’s far more complicated than that.” Faust insisted.

But Starswirl snorted. “Please, the girl is spot on. The whole reason this fight is going on is because you and Euripides have to completely separate world views!”

While Starswirl and Faust went back to arguing I took the opportunity to take off. I felt… Well, broken. Faust had raised me, and here she is actively working to manipulate my own father. And for what, some sibling squabble? At the end of the day it’s a mute point because Dad was right; we can’t trust Faust.

Author's Note

And there you have it folks, another story arc down! And it's pretty obvious that Faust can't be taken at face value, considering that she's hiding plenty from Dusk and company. We'll expand on that in the next story arc, but I really wanted to get these out for you all to read.

Anyone got questions? Like what you're seeing so far? Hell, maybe have some gripes? There's a comment section and the Mirrorverse Codex. Read and comment away, because I want to hear from you fellow denizens of this corner of the internet. Until next time gang!
-Striker