Rise and shine Mr. Sunburst, rise and shine. A dark and strange sounding voice spoke towards me. The voice was filled with a mysterious rustiness, as if it was an old man whispering in my ear.
I understand that you have been through quite a bit Mr.Sunburst, but you need to listen. The information I am going to tell you is very important.
I slowly started to remember everything.
The mission, it was very important. The last orders from Princess Celestia and Luna before they gave up their positions of Princesses of all of Equestria to Twilight Sparkle and her friends.
‘Go to Tartarus with these mysterious fragments. Put them together, study what happens.’ was her order, her very last order.
‘Tartarus was a perfect place for the mission,’ she said. ‘With the high properties of magic in the air, we could figure out the mysteries of these fragments in no time,’ she said.
We went to Tartarus with a Company size worth of soldiers. And with a research team comprised of the best scientists in Equestria. Princess Celestia anticipated that if we set put the fragments together that it would create some sort of gateway to another world.
Princess Celestia was right.
We put the fragments together, and it opened a portal. We were all impressed with it, but something happened.
Dear god above, the mission was a complete disaster. We lost nearly two entire platoons of soldiers, We lost all of the research team.
The portal was still open.
It was a large mistake for your team to open the gateway.
Yeah, no shit.
I see you have fought quite a bit of the ‘aftermath’ of the gateway.
If he meant the creatures that jumped onto your head and quite literally drained your sentience away. Then he was definitely right.
But trust me Mr. Sunburst the worst is only yet to come.
This voice was messing with me. What could be worse than killing your fellow researchers after being taken over by those monsters. What could be worse than having the fate and safety of Equestria itself be left to a lone survivor. I can hardly come up with a single one.
It is too late now Mr. Sunburst, the position of you and your world is out there. There is only one thing you can do.
My eyes widened, what in hell was going on here.
Survive Mr. Sunburst, survive.
I woke up.
Pain.
Pain was all my body could feel, as I tried to move my neck. At first it was painful, then it became really painful.
Pain was rarely ever felt in my life. The life of a scientist/wizard was rarely ever so painful. But here I lie with cracked ribs and a nearly broken neck.
“ARGHHH, FUCK, FUCK, FFUUCCKK!” Normally I would never say such foul words, but this situation was very different.
After cracking my neck in 5 different places I evaluated my situation.
Tartarus looked even hellish than it was before, pillars that once stood tall were collapsed, multiple cages that would’ve been holding dangerous creatures were opened. A massive portal Gleaming brightly, pulsing every few seconds. Needless to say the gateway was still open in the middle of Tartarus.
I stopped to examine myself. My ribs were still cracked incidentally. The steel reinforced, hazardous environment suit (H.E.S.) I wore was still intact, although it was dented up a bit. I looked through my small item carrier in the side of my armor and saw that my inventory was still somewhat intact. A spare magical battery for the H.E.S. Armor, three morphine needles, three magical reserve needles some bandages and an I.V. Mostly medical stuff.
Feeling the pain I pulled out some morphine and injected it into my bloodstream through my neck.
“DR. SUNBURST, DR. SUNBURST!” I heard a voice say.
I looked directly above to see a Royal Guard on top of one of the large rocks. I struggled to speak because of the pain but I managed to scramble together a couple words.
”w-what the hell happened”
The guard tilted his head and answered. “The gateway is still open. We tried to close it but-“
I interrupted the guard. “It’s useless. We’ll just get ourselves killed if we try to close it.”
The guard jumped down towards me and helped pull me on my hooves. “We lost nearly all organization. And the gate to Tartarus is stuck.”
My ears perked up. “What? What do you mean stuck?”
He looked down in disappointment. “The skeleton key was last on colonel Steel Step…… He’s gone now.”
So we were trapped in Tartarus. Oh god, I think I’m going to be sick.
I was thinking about everything I left behind. My friends, My mom, Starlight, Flurry Heart,
Twilight.
I never got to confess to her. I’ll be nothing but dead meat until the princesses send out some sort of recovery team. Who knows how long that’ll be.
.
.
.
Dead
.
.
.
I’m fucking dead
.
.
.
Never to see the light of day
.
.
.
Never to find love
.
.
.
Never to start a family
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
No
.
.
.
NO!
I’m not gonna let some stupid locked door block my way from freedom! I’m not gonna sit here and do nothing while Equestria is at risk! I’m going to escape or die tryin-
“DR. SUNBURST”
“Huh”
I look back up at the guard. He has his eyes trained towards me. ”Doctor, we can’t sit here forever!”
I pondered my thoughts for a while before asking him something.
“Do you have a name”
“What?”
“Do you have a name!? Y‘know what’s your name!”
“Sergeant Oakleaf, sir” finally I knew his name.
”Good where did you last see Colonel Steel Step.”
The guard had a tinge of sadness on his face. “One of the lightning bolts from the portal struck him and killed him. He was on the secondary prison platform and-“
Before he could finish the sentence. I trotted past him.
“Wait, where the fuck are you going!?” Oakleaf said.
I kept walking, “I’m finding the key and getting us out of here.”
“Do you even have a weapon, the place is covered by those head crabs?”
Head crabs huh, so that’s what we’re calling them
”Ok so give me a weapon.” I expected him to have an auto crossbow or at least a spear, but… well.
“A crowbar? Seriously?” I said with a glare of confusion on my face.
“Heh, all the more reason why we should stay here and wait for help-“ I cut him off again.
”I’m not waiting here, give me the crowbar and I’m getting the skeleton key.” He looked at me before sighing and putting the crowbar on my hoof.
“If you die, it’s not my fault.” I stared at him and simply nodded before making my way to the first set of stairs.
I took out the last magical battery and opened up the suits battery pack. I pulled out the depleted battery and put the new one in. The suit came to life.
Welcome to the Mark 2 Hazardous Environment Suit, please wait for all systems to start
The suit spoke as if it was a real being. The suit started tightening around me. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it was definitely enough to assert its presence.
Shock protection: online
Strength enhancements: online
Exoskeleton: online
Armor reinforcements: online
I listened to the suit list off everything.
Please state your SolarCorp. Identification number
“Dr. Sunburst, designation number 14895“ I listed my identification.
Syncing……………... thank you Dr. Sunburst. Multiple fractures in lower leg detected. Rib cage has been damaged. Magical presence inside is weak. It is recommended to take a magical reserve vial immediately.
”Gee thanks,” I said to myself. I took out a magical reserve vial and injected it into my neck. After a small grunt of pain I noticed the blue glowing liquid start pulsing in my veins. It was definitely doing its work.
I started making my way up the first set of stairs. Each step I took made the stone steps creak even more.
This place could definitely use a renovation. The steps were all cracked and ruined. And the platforms looked like they could barely hold themselves up much less a heavy monster and it’s cage. The bolts of lightning and static electricity that the gateway gave didn’t make it any easier on the stairs and platforms.
I remember reading a book on Tartarus. It said that the environment around Tartarus was covered in many magical enchantments. Many were to keep the creatures and prisoners alive and sterile of course. But many others were to keep the stairs and platforms from falling apart. The Gateway was supposed to take magical energy from the environment around it to power the portal. If the enchantments to keep me from falling are being absorbed to power this god forsaken portal, I might want to be careful.
Warning: unknown anomaly detected
The suit chimed a warning no scientist should ever hear. Scratch being careful, I should be extra fucking careful
Halfway up the first set of stairs I heard a strange noise. It sounded almost like a mix between ticking and gargling. I looked towards where the sound was coming from.
The creature was small. I’ve seen these “headcrabs” before when we first opened the gateway. But this was the first time I’ve seen one up close.
It was small, it had no hair and no hardened chitin on the outside like an actual crab would. It’s four legs were the closest thing to looking like an actual crab and even then they were short and weird. What I determined to be the front of the creature had four strange tendril parts. could this be its mouth?
While I was examining the strange creature it let out a shrill and high pitched screech before jumping at me.
”AHHHHH!” I let out my own scream before using my magic to pull out my crowbar and hit it in the air before it landed on my head.
The head crab let out one last shriek before falling off the stairs and into Tartarus’s endless abyss.
I breathed heavily before chuckling to myself. ’That was definitely a short encounter’ I thought to myself before looking back up and seeing four more headcrabs.
“Oh you’ve gotta be kidding me“ I said out loud before the first headcrab lunged at me.
I slammed it with my crowbar and launched it off the stairway and into the abyss. The other head crab jumped at me before I used my magic to pick it up and project it into the abyss with its friend.
The last two headcrabs jumped on me at the same time both looked very ready to kill me. I summoned a bolt with my magic and killed one on impact. The other one was very close to my head and looked very angry at me. I pulled my crowbar close to me and angled it perfectly with the headcrab. The headcrab quite literally impaled itself on my crowbar. It struggled for a few seconds before giving a weak whimper and stopped its movement.
After stopping to catch my breath. I took a deep breath and flung the dead headcrab off of my crowbar.
“Any of you freaks want some more!” I shouted like an idiot. If it wasn’t for the Gateway emitting large amounts of noise I would have alerted even more headcrabs.
I tried to brush off the headcrabs bodily fluids from my crowbar to make it somewhat presentable. After sliding the crowbar on my back strap, I continued my way up the steps.
