While most of us were celebrating the end of the war, there were at least several who were not.

Out in a shapeless, shadowy void, a dark spirit was lurking. He had to stick close to the shadows that had made him now, since he had broken away from his host, all of his powers, and most of his strength went with it. It was one of the only things keeping his weak form alive.

"I can't take this!" He was muttering, "It's UNBEARABLE!!!! The pain, the suffering! The loss of my powers is HORRENDOUS!!!!"

Sombra knew that he had two options. He could either return to me, his current host, and continue to live without his powers, which, although would be humiliating, would keep him alive indefinitely, and even allow him to return to the physical world from time to time. The other option was to find a new host, and manipulate him to kill me, so that he could get all of his powers back.

"But where will I find another willing host? I got lucky with Leopard. Lighting doesn't strike in the same place twice!" He continued to think. "If I can't find another host soon, or return to Leopard, I will die, and that, is NOT an option! I am the Shadows, I am the Darkness, I am, (or was!) King Sombra, ruler of the Crystal Empire!"

Sombra didn't know what to do, so for the time being, he decided to sleep in the shadowy place that he had found, so as to be able to better conserve his already extremely depleted supply of energy.

On another end though, way out in the Undiscovered West, a number of figures were being led by their king. They were now the last of their kind, and the last, tiny splinter of what used to be a great empire.

"We had it all Dothan!" Their leader muttered. "How could it have been allowed to end like this?!"

Dothan shrugged. "I do not know, My King. However, 99% of it was the Humans. If they hadn't showed up with their war train, then I KNOW that we might have won the war!"

Danin looked over at the sergeant-turned-commander. He had such great ideas. In fact, it was his genius that allowed him, Danin, and a select few others the chance to escape from Bryerton unseen. Using their old communicators, they'd created holograms of themselves to make it appear that they were still there. They all then fled one night unseen to the Undiscovered West via Lt. Bolt's airship. Bryerton was then leveled by the Humans, while they were safely several hundred miles Northwest.

"It was a genius plan Dothan" Danin thought to himself, "But the question is, now what? I have maybe 200 of my finest, but that's it. Now, the Undiscovered West will be our new home, and upon which we will build our new empire."

The weather in the area though, was not cooperating the best. It was slightly cold, and there was a fog in the air. It was also drizzling a bit as well.

"Great", Dothan muttered, "Now we've escaped Death, only to wind up in the wilderness, in the middle of nowhere, all by ourselves, with little more than what we were able to carry with us! How in the heck are we going to be able to build a new empire now?"

As they kept walking deeper and deeper into the wooded valley that they'd found themselves in, some of the Caribou began to become rather wary. Periodically, some would spot what they believed to be a figure lurking in the fog close by, but then it would disappear just as fast.

"Gods, this place gives me the creeps!" Dothan muttered. He then turned to Danin. "Rumor has it that there's a lot of old ruins of forgotten settlements around here. Places lost to time when their occupants abandoned them."

"Great, so at least we'll have a start when we begin to put our new Caribou Empire together."

Dothan was maybe about to reply, but then, from out of the corner of his eye, he saw distinct movement. He turned to look, and this time, the figure he saw seemed to linger a bit longer before fading back into the fog.

"Who's there?" He asked, raising his gun.

"What did you see Commander?"

Dothan pointed to a spot near some boulders. "Right over there! I saw a figure step out, linger for a bit, before fading back into the fog."

Danin was worried. "Are you sure Dothan?"

"I'm POSITIVE, My King!"

Before Dothan could say anything further though, the area around them suddenly seemed to get much darker, and a whole lot foggier. Then, from all around them, with seemingly cat-like speed, a number of figures were racing about. They were almost faster than the eye could detect! They appeared to be bipedal, but yet, they could leap from tree, to boulder, to ground, to back into a tree, in a span of only a few seconds!

"ALL HANDS, PROTECT THE KING, NOW!!!" Dothan ordered. Then, with Danin in the middle, all of the other warriors all formed a circle around him, with their weapons pointing out towards the fog.

"Show yourselves, you COWARDS!!!" Dothan yelled to them. "Only cowards hide in the fog! Come out and face us like true warriors, or are you just cowardly?!"

Suddenly, all movement ceased, and all shapes disappeared back into the fog.

"Cowards?" A voice echoed all around them. "My people and I, COWARDS?! How DARE you refer to us as such! We've been a warrior race since long before ANY of you were even born!"

"Then show yourselves!" Dothan shouted back. "If you're such 'warriors', then why do you hide in the fog?"

Suddenly, from the fog all around them, glowing eyes appeared! They were of various colors, to yellow, to green, blue, red, and even purple. The eyes were also followed by a series of angry hisses.

Then, from out of the fog in front of them, a series of figures stepped. From what The Caribou could tell, the figures were varying in height, with the tallest being maybe 6'5". They also appeared to be covered in dark robes or possibly raincoats.

"Who are you?" Dothan asked.

"I could ask you the same question Deer-Boi! Now then, which one of you is the leader here?"

"That would be me." Danin then stepped a little bit closer to the edge of his circle of warriors. "And who might you be?"

The figures didn't answer, but instead, stepped out into the light. What the Caribou saw well and truly horrified them.

The creatures looked similar to Humans, but it was clear that they were not. They were covered in dark hooded raincoats, but from under the hoods, Danin could see glowing, cat-like eyes! They also had cat-like tails, and even cat-like paws!

"I ask again, who are you?"

The leader sighed. "Tell us who you are, and where you've come from, and then I'll tell you about us."

"Ok, well, I am King Danin, King of the Caribou. My band and I are the only survivors of our entire empire, which was wiped out by a filthy, mongrel race called the Humans, from the Planet Earth. They were also joined by Undead Harbingers, and they had a horrible war train to boot as well!"

When Danin finished, the leader could only stare in shock. "Humans? From Earth? Undead Harbingers? And a horrible war-train? It must have been the Wabash Cannonball!" The leader then turned to Danin. "Well then King Danin, you've told me about yourselves, so now, I'll tell you about us. We also come from the Planet Earth. We were a different race than the Humans, but we were still extremely similar. I once ruled and empire that nearly encompassed all of Earth. Unfortunately though, it was not to be, as the Humans destroyed my empire. They invaded my capital city, and then somebody dropped atomic weapons all over the state of Nevada! Sometime during this, ourselves, and our train, were brought to this Goddess forsaken place!"

Danin was very surprised. Here, of all places, he seemed to have found allies. These were creatures that seemed to share similar goals to his people, and they also had their empire wiped out by the Humans.

"Wow, we all sound so similar, but I must ask, what is your name?"

The leader seemed to sigh a bit. Then, it reached up its hands, and pulled back its hood. To the Caribou's shock, the creature appeared to be female! Her long, dark brown hair fell down her back, and she shook her head a bit. On the top of her head were two tan, cat-like ears. When she opened her eyes, she revealed two soft brown, cat-like eyes. Her face also had a few scars on it, and she had cat-like teeth as well.

Finally, she spoke. "I, am the leader of this imperial remnant. I was empress over our race, the Futas. And my name......" She smiled a bit, "Is Demetria!"

This saga is not over yet.......!!!!!!!

Author's Note

Whoa! So now, Danin and his remnant have escaped into the Undiscovered West, and what do they find, the remnants of the Futa Empire, including Empress Demetria herself, thought to have been lost during the Battle for Vegas! How did they survive?! How did they come to Equestria?! Why do they all have cat-like features?! Are these two sides going to join together to form a new empire?! And what about Sombra? How does he play into all of this?

Well, normally I would say, "To find out, just keep reading!" Now, I'm going to have to say, "Stay tuned for this story's sequel, "Beyond the Express", coming soon to a bookshelf near you!"

The saga of the Battleship Express is not over by a long shot, so I hope that this was enough to make you want to see what happens next!

Also, I really hope that you've enjoyed this journey so far. Thanks to your support, "Battleship Express has become far and away, my most successful story so far. It was an amazing blend of war, love, suspense, and a really cool story line.

"Battleship Express" may be over now, but the story continues! Stay tuned for "Beyond the Express", which should be up and running before the weekend is over! It'll be a story to remember, so don't you dare miss it!

And finally, one last time, comments, feedback, questions, as well as spreading the word about this story, are always appreciated, and I'll see you all in "Beyond the Express!"

ScarFox out for now!