Several Hours Later...

Lord Sirius Hex walked through the front doors of his mansion, and was immediately greeted by several servants and assistants, each expressing his or her relief that he had not only survived, but not been injured in his terrible accident. However, Hex could see in each of his servant’s eyes that they had been truly and deeply hoping he’d died in the crash.

If only they knew that their wishes have come to pass, Hex thought as he made his way towards the Master Bedroom. “I am not to be disturbed this evening. I’ve had a very trying day, and the last thing I need is for somepony to bother me while I’m trying to recover,” Hex instructed.

“Sir, this just aired live,” said one of Hex’s assistants as they turned on a large television. It showed a pony Hex immediately recognized as Princess Celestia, who seemed to be holding a press conference.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle may be gone, but I shall make sure that she is never forgotten. Therefore, let this be the final word in the debate that I strongly believe to be the cause for my apprentice’s death; I am taking Executive Action. Henceforth, the Twilight Sparkle Act is hereby made the law of the land,” said Celestia, as multiple reporters, politicians, and maybe a few civilians started shouting questions, stunned disbelief, and who-knew-what else at their leader, whose voice could still be heard over all the ruckus. “Every single one of Princess Twilight’s reforms are hereby approved and are now forevermore Equestrian Law. Twilight’s struggle to help make Equestria better and stronger in this ever-changing world shall not have been for nothing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a very exhausting day and I can practically hear my bed calling my name. This conference is adjourned,” said Celestia before she walked off the stage, tears visible on her face as she met up with and conversed with what seemed to be Princess Luna before the news anchor reappeared.

Hex’s servants and assistants looked at their boss. Hex, for his part, simply stood there, apparently at a loss for words. Finally, when Hex spoke, his voice was strained with effort to maintain control of himself.

“W-well, I do agree with Princess Celestia on one thing,” Hex said, shaking with anger. “I am very, very tired, so if you’ll excuse me, I will retire to my bedroom. Good night to you all.” With that, he entered his bedroom and locked the door.

As soon as he was sure that the assistants had left the area, Hex’s body rippled with biomass and reverted into his true identity as none other than Alex Mercer, a broad smirk on his face at the thought of how easily he had fooled Lord Hex’s assistants. Or rather, his assistants now, he supposed.

All the same, Celestia just set a match next to a powder keg. It won’t be long before it explodes if somebody doesn’t do something to control the Traditionalist mobs, thought Mercer as he flopped down on the massive and extremely comfortable King-Sized bed. Unless he was very much mistaken, someone had put warming pans between the sheets. Any man or pony probably would’ve fallen asleep right then and there. But, Alex Mercer wasn’t a pony, nor was he even a man anymore. He was Zeus, The Prototype, an Evolved. He was the genetic destiny of mankind and quite possibly ponykind, and thus, he no longer slept. He never ate, biomass aside. He never drank. And he was nigh invulnerable. Even a point-blank blast from a nuke had defeated him for the better part of three hours before he regenerated from a splatter of biomass.

Alex looked out the window, towards the moon. He wondered if the real Alex Mercer’s sister, Dana, was awake yet and how Manhattan was getting along after the viral outbreak that had occured when he busted Elizabeth Greene out of Gentek. Admittedly, he missed Dana, almost like she was actually his own sister. After a few moments of simply lying in the bed, listening to the various voices and whispers of those he’d consumed over the last few months, Alex began to feel restless. Finally having enough, he propped up a few pillows to simulate a body, opened a nearby window, climbed out and clung to the ledge long enough to close the window behind him before dropping to the ground before running across the lawn and vaulting over the security fence before any of the mansion’s perimeter guards knew what had blown past them.

Downtown Manehattan — Knave of Clubs Bar and Tavern

“ANOTHER!” Rainbow yelled in a slurred tone as she slammed her wooden mug to the ground, causing it to break into splinters. “I ain’t drunk yet…”

In truth, yes she very much was, but she just wasn't in the mood to care. Twilight's death hit the cyan mare hard — hell, it hit everypony hard in their circle of friends. Twilight was their friend, almost family even. Even her ascension into an Alicorn Princess hadn't changed that. All it did was make Rainbow glad to have a new flying buddy.

But recently, things hadn't been so hot between the two of them. On the day she died, Rainbow Dash had gone to Twilight, asking her to use her newfound role and authority to get her into the Wonderbolts. Twilight had refused, of course, and the two of them had had a big fight over the issue. Tempers had risen, and things had admittedly gotten a little heated between them.

The last words Rainbow had ever said to Twilight had been “I hate you!”

Now, she was never going to get the chance to fix things between them, thanks to the bucking Traditionalists who couldn’t see that Twilight was just trying to help make things better for all of Equestria. So, here she was, trying to drink away her sorrows and regrets in a rundown bar.

“Ma’am, you've had TEN drinks over the last few minutes. If I let you keep going, you’re going to get alcohol poisoning,” the bartender said as he denied Dash her drink.

“I-I’ll tells ya… I’m an Element of Harmony and a future Wonderbolt. Ya ain’t gonna deny me this,” Rainbow snarled as she tried reaching for a drink, but the bouncer grabbed her.

“I think it’s time you left, ma’am,” he told Rainbow before taking her to the door and shoving her out of the pub and into the pouring rain.

“Y-yeah?! WELL, BUCK YOU TOO!!!” Rainbow Dash shouted as she tripped over herself and fell into a mud puddle. With a little bit of effort, she pulled herself out of the ground and, much too drunk to even think of flying, started making her way down a nearly empty street in the direction she thought the hotel she was staying at for the Wonderbolts Show was in.

Unbeknownst to Rainbow as she stumbled her way towards her hotel, she was being followed by a group of thugs who had seen Rainbow stumbling around and recognized her instantly as somepony who was awfully chummy with that dead bitch Twilight Sparkle, and had been paid to rough her up in case she got any ideas about trying to push for support for the purple bitch’s changes, having no clue about the press conference Celestia had just held… and it didn’t help that they found her to be extremely attractive despite her disheveled state. Although Rainbow, through her drunken haze, was quick to pick up on her followers after they started calling after her and attempted to run faster, trying to get her wings going as she did, only to trip and fall flat on her face as her pursuers picked her up off the ground, pushing her around and tearing her clothing while barking like dogs and making smooching sounds.

“Help! Somepony please, help me!” called Rainbow Dash.

A male voice nearby cleared his throat loudly enough to be heard by the attackers, who turned in his direction. It was a strange bipedal creature that wore a black leather jacket with a grey hood and a white shirt and tan vest underneath, blue denim jeans, and black steel-toed boots.

“Let. The girl. Go,” Alex Mercer said, his voice soft yet heavily laced with menace.

“Oh, yeah? How’s about you make us, freak?!” one of the thugs snarled while the others continued to push Rainbow Dash around.

Alex heaved a sigh. “I was really hoping we could settle this the easy way, and that I wouldn’t have to paint the city red with your blood… but I guess we’ll have to settle this the fun away,” he said, before he called upon the Whipfist and impaled the pony who’d spoken in the throat with the spike on the end, despite being several feet away. The Blacklight being pulled him in, absorbing his biomass into himself and assimilating his memories, and by extent, causing the rest of his victim’s crew to freak out, completely horrified.

“What the Tartarus is that thing?!” yelled one of the other thugs.

“Did that thing seriously just eat Low Rider?!” cried another.

“Kill it!” yelled a third thug before pulling out a knife and tried bum-rushing Alex, who simply smirked as he transformed one of his hands into a claw before grabbing the idiot by the skull, crushing it into powder before consuming his victim.

“What else you got?” Alex asked the remaining thugs as his arm returned to normal, all of whom had dark patches on the front of their pants.

The thugs took one look at each other before taking off as fast as they could, throwing each other behind themselves in an attempt to escape this demon. Unfortunately for them, there WAS no escape, as Alex turned both his hands into Whipfists and launched them at the remaining thugs, impaling them before reeling them in and consuming them.

His enemies dealt with, Alex turned his attention to Rainbow Dash, who had apparently been scared sober and had the blood from the first thug that Alex had killed splattered on her. Meeting Mercer’s gaze, Rainbow closed her eyes as tightly as she could, knowing for sure this was game over for her, and thinking Twilight, I’m sorry… please, forgive me.

“Hey, you okay?” asked Alex. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Cautiously, Rainbow opened one eye and saw that Alex was looking down at her, his face cold and cruel. And yet, Rainbow Dash got the feeling that he was telling the truth when he said that he meant her no harm.

“Y-yeah…” said Rainbow in the smallest of squeaks. “Y-yeah, I’m okay…”

“Good. Get yourself some place safe. I’ve got other matters to attend to,” said Alex as he turned and walked away.

As Mercer walked away and before she could stop herself, Rainbow Dash blurted out, “What are you?”

Mercer froze in his tracks at Rainbow’s outburst, turning his head slightly to look over his shoulder at her. “Call me… Zeus. Now, get to safety. I’ve got a message to send to those who hired your attackers,” said Mercer before he began his explanation. “They were hired by the Traditionalists to try and dissuade you from following in Twilight Sparkle’s footsteps.”

“H-how do you know that?” asked Rainbow.

“I can see what they saw, I know what they knew. Their memories are now my memories. Now, Miss Rainbow Dash, I believe I told you to get to safety, so go! I don’t want you getting caught in the crossfire.”

Rainbow wasn’t even gonna bother asking how Zeus knew her name, but under the gaze he gave her, she simply nodded and finally managed to get her wings going as she took to the skies, albeit not very well due to still being fairly drunk. Alex watched the blue pegasus fly away until she was safely out of sight.

Not a moment later, however, Alex heard the sound of a gun being cocked behind him. A nagging feeling told Mercer that whoever was behind him was some form of law enforcement officer, most likely having responded to the screams of the thugs and Rainbow Dash.

“Hands behind your head and get down on the ground!” demanded the cop behind Alex, who had his sidearm drawn and had his hand on his radio. “Charlie Nineteen to Central, I’ve got a weird one for the holding cells. Looks like some kinda—AAAAAAAAAAAAARRGHHH!!!” the cop screamed as Alex turned on his heel at incredible speeds, grabbed the hand the gun was in, crushed the bones in it to powder as evidenced by the torrent of blood that was leaking down it as he forced the gun back on its owner, and pulled the trigger, sending a bullet through the cop’s neck. The unfortunate stallion fell to the ground dead as his nearby partner freaked out and began to radio for backup.

Almost instantly, several more police cars including a S.W.A.T. truck pulled up to face Mercer, who couldn’t help but laugh as S.W.A.T. officers poured out to face him.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Alex asked the gathered police officers as he called upon his claws once again.

The response he got was a hail of gunfire from the cops. Of course, being an Evolved, the bullets did next to nothing to him. Alex raised one of his claws and stabbed the bladed digits into the ground, sending a wave of biomass through the stone and concrete, before it erupted into a set of massive spikes that impaled nearly all the cops and several civilians who’d grown curious, thus almost instantly sending the area into a state of panic and chaos.

Retracting his Groundspikes, Alex marched towards the two remaining, though severely injured officers, both of whom were trying to call in the military to stop Mercer as news reporters arrived on the scene and started filming the action. Alex stopped in his tracks at the sound of what were unmistakably helicopter rotors and tanks heading towards him. He could already hear the conversations between the two pilots of the helicopters.

“Seriously, though? Two combat helicopters and a couple of tanks just to take down one guy?”

“Have you even been listening to the radio chatter? Besides, look down around you! See the carnage?! The dismembered bodies?!”

Alex smirked as he grabbed a nearby car, picked it up as though it were nothing more than a toy, and threw it at one of the helicopters, sending it into a tailspin to the ground while the second opened fired, knocking Alex off his feet, only for Mercer to roll and land on his feet once again, just as a tank launched a shell directly behind him, knocking him forwards. Glancing nearby, Alex saw the smallest hint of a sunrise approaching.

Damn. Guess fun time’s over… Time to end this, said Alex as he began to charge up one of his so-called Devastators, the tendril barrage. A massive number of tendrils burst forth from Alex’s body in all directions, demolishing the tanks, the remaining helicopter, and everything else within a fifty-foot radius, before retracting back into his body.

Looking around at the devastation, Alex gave a satisfied smirk before he spotted a news camera nearby, apparently undamaged by the attack. The cameraman who had been holding it, however, was torn to shreds. Reaching down, Alex picked up the camera and checked that it was still transmitting its feed, before pointing the lense to where it showed his hooded face.

“Heed my warning, you Traditionalist bastards. The assassination of Twilight Sparkle in her sleep has brought my wrath down upon you and your ilk. No matter how hard you hit me, I will hit back ten times as hard. My name is Alex Mercer. You, however, can call me Zeus, a name befitting the closest thing to a God anypony in this nation will ever see, including Celestia and Luna. I am less than a pony, but also so very much more. And I am here to bring about your destruction.”

With that, Alex crushed the camera like an empty soda can, before heading into a dark alleyway, shifting into the form of one of Rainbow Dash’s attackers. Turning a corner, Alex strode away with his hands in his pockets, completely undetected as he whistled a merry little tune.

Meanwhile, perched on a nearby rooftop, Rainbow Dash, for some unknown reason and despite having a horrified expression on her face at all the destruction, found herself extremely attracted to the being who had not only saved her life, but had caused an insane amount of destruction and killed dozens of civilians and law enforcement officers, all apparently to send a message to the Traditionalists that had killed her best friend. And she, for some bizarre, perverted reason, was in love with it all. Then again, maybe it was the booze making her think this way. However, at the moment, all she could think about was one thing.

Twilight… what in the name of Faust Almighty have you unleashed upon us all?

Author's Note

Okay, the finalized version of Chapter Two has been completed! My co-author and I have been having some issues getting together so we can work on both of our Prototype projects, and right now its time to work on his story, which I'm still waiting to get the doc for. In any case, be sure to like, fav, follow, and comment! And remember: dying is easy, comedy is hard!