The Spiral Saga: Operation Lazarusby KleptosharkChaptersPrologueChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3PrologueHerex was deep in thought; contemplating recent events, and his losses at the hands of the Spiral Knights. Warmaster Seerus was dead, and news of this brought mixed emotion to the small, bent creature reclining in a large, red throne. This hunched, pensive creature was known by his underlings as “Herex, the Whispering Venom”. Herex, like any Gremlin of the planet of Cradle, was covered in short, rust-red fur, with the exception for an area on the right side of his face where the flesh had been boiled in a chemical incident. His two long ears were permanently cropped behind his head, like all gremlins. He was wearing a pair of safety goggles, he also wore an iconic, voluminous, pitch-black scarf he always had wrapped around his shoulders, and the blood-red outfit identifying him as a member of the dreaded Crimson Order. The Crimson Order itself was the highest rank attainable for a member of the Gremlin Hierarchy, and was a name that struck fear, reverence, and respect into the name of any Gremlin worth their own spit. As a result, the death of one of these feared Crimson Order members was not taken lightly. Herex brooded over the mixed reports of the battle, some saying that the accursed Spiral Knights just barged through Warmaster’s defences and cut Seerus down like a defenceless pup, others saying that the high ranking Gremlin fought tooth-and-claw, dying in a matter truly befitting someone of his station. Only eight of us left now... thought Herex. To think, there used to be twelve... Granted, Crimson Order members were, if nothing else, ambitious; the first three were killed from in-fighting and intrigues within the Order, before the Spiral Knights landed in their thrice-damned spaceship and started throwing a wrench into everyone’s plans. Herex himself had one of his more delicate projects sabotaged by the Spiral Knights’ strike teams, losing a considerable amount of personnel to their advances, and letting years of military research fall into their grip. On the other hand, he was relatively lucky, when compared to Warmaster Seerus’ ugly fate. Herex’s expression once again turned grim as his mind turned back to the reports. Supposedly the damned Spiral Knights had broken into Seerus’ Grand Arsenal- into his own seat of power, and locked him inside of his own armoury as the facility was brought down on his head. Herex shook his head at the memory. Whether Seerus’ had put up a fight or not, that was no way for a Gremlin to die. After the unfortunate catastrophe regarding Seerus, Herex immediately seized his peer’s death as a chance to expand his realm of influence, quickly pulling strings and pouring resources into obtaining the remnants of Seerus’s domain, which included the hefty workforce of Gremlins that were originally under Seerus’s command, and in addition, all of Warmaster Seerus’s top-secret projects were transferred to Herex, the latter of which he was currently reviewing. At the moment, Herex was busily muttering under his breath as he leafed through the Warmaster’s old projects, opening them to glance at the contents of each folder for anything that could be of use before discarding them into a furnace resting near his throne. Herex’s voice, like that of many other gremlins, had a slightly husky, gravelly sound to it; a by-product from a life spent inhaling chemical fumes and smog from the panoply of machinery that the gremlins were so infatuated with. “’Synthetic Steel’” He muttered, “…hmm, too impractical… ‘Self-Repairing Robots’…. maybe, but… no, no… ‘Killer Paper Cuts’…” Herex didn’t say anything upon reading the last file, although made sure he was very careful to not brush the edges of the brown envelope containing the ridiculous project as he deposited it into the furnace. Herex felt his sense of disappointment increasing with each progressively hare-brained scheme he read. He realised with some dismay that Seerus, being the engineering genius he was, probably completed most of his actually useful projects weeks after their conception. Yet one file from the deceased Warmaster managed to grab Herex’s attention. It was marked with the bright red Wrench-and-Gear of the Crimson Order, which was the main thing that caught Herex’s goggled eyes. Most project folders were marked with the black and beige hourglass of the Gremlins, but obviously Seerus had considered this project to be much more… special, somehow. Herex tipped the folder upside down, slowly, much like a child opening a box when he knew it wasn’t his birthday. His dexterous fingers grabbed the precious papers as they escaped the folder’s confines, eager to spill their secrets upon the world. Herex placed the sheets of paper into order, before reading the title of this apparently ‘Super-Secret’ project. In bright-red letters, the paper read: Time Travel Herex’s lips pulled back across his snout to reveal a neat row of sharp teeth, as well as his unusually long canines, giving him a serpentine look. Herex grinned like a child who just discovered he could burn ants with a magnifying glass. “Oh,” he happily muttered to no one in particular, “now this has potential.” Chapter 1*ZAP* “Agh, not again!” Twilight Sparkle was, to put it frankly, pissed off. Last week, she had received a new shipment of books, and her first reaction was to lock herself up and begin pouring through them, to the immense surprise of absolutely no one. Somewhat more surprising, however, was that she managed to find a book about an area of magic she knew nothing about. So, earlier that day, she told Spike she’d be out, found herself a nice grassy field a little ways away from town, and began practicing. The book claimed that before the Pegasi made their deal with the Unicorns and Earth Ponies, the weather was controlled by magic. Though the spells were never as exact as the Pegasi’s manipulation of the weather, they were the only way to shift the seasons and grow the crops correctly. Weather magic eventually was forgotten in all but the oldest of tomes, and study into it ceased completely. Most ponies would have shrugged and gone about their day upon hearing such news. Of course, why bother learning weather magic? The pegasi were more than capable of taking care of such things. Twilight Sparkle was, of course, not like most ponies. Her drive to discover anything and everything she could about magic had led her to this particular grassy knoll, and she swore she would not leave until the secrets of how to create and control weather were revealed. Of course, such conviction lasted about as long as it took to accidentally blast apart a section of grass with a lightning bolt. Twelve times. Okay, she thought, concentrating once again. Not too much power, not too little. Slowly, her horn began to glow. She shut her eyes tight, blocking out any possible distractions. She pictured the cloud forming, growing from almost invisibly small to the size of a basketball. Once it was at the correct size, she held it there. Now came the hard part. Come on, she willed it, prodding it gently, ever so gently, with a small magical force. Too hard, and the magical energy inside would become unbalanced and discharge into the ground. Too light, and she’d wear herself out holding the cloud in its current state, causing it to dissipate pathetically. Just a little harder, come on! She dared to open an eye and check on her progress. It was working! The first few drops of water were coming out! She was making rain! Yes! Wait, no! Don't lose focus! It was close, but aside from a few wobbles the cloud was stable. It was starting to dissipate, the condensed water vapour running out as it poured into the ground. The feeling was truly amazing. Twilight realized: she was probably one of only a handful of unicorns who has performed weather magic for thousands of years! It was easy to see why. The intense amount of magical energy it required, plus the precision necessary to stop the cloud from exploding, would have made it impossible for most unicorns to accomplish. Perhaps they worked in teams, or maybe unicorns were just more powerful back then… Still, the feeling of accomplishment was euphoric. She looked up at the sun: it was just before lunchtime. The rumbling of her stomach corroborated the information. The unicorn quickly planned out the rest of her day: A quick lunch back at the library, and then back to reading. Today was going to be a good day. ~~~ “Today is going to be terrible.” These were the thoughts of Spiral Knights’ Biotech Hahn as he was being dragged down the hallway by a pair of slouched gremlin soldiers. Hahn’s original escort of four knights had been either eliminated, or dispersed. He knew, sullenly, that the entire reason they had decided to spare him was because of his commission as Biotech, with a mind to rival the most brilliant Gremlin schemers. This most certainly meant that his fate was probably resigned to being tortured for what little information he could add to the Gremlins’ already massive vault of knowledge, before being sent back to his fellow knights- in pieces. Hahn sighed inwardly, if at least he couldn’t look forward to surviving this debacle, he might as well make the most of whatever time he had left. He tried to strike up a conversation with the Gremlins dragging him: “Hey, I was wondering if-“ “Shut up.” What's up his bum? Hahn thought, glumly, At least he isn't facing certain death. The Gremlin jailers dragged Hahn the rest of the way to his cell, before unceremoniously flinging him into the medium-sized confine and programming the magnetic lock on the steel cell bars. As soon as Hahn heard the footsteps of the Gremlins fade away, he sprang up, and went over his gear. Sword, no. Shield, no. Gun, definitely no. Deducting from this inventory check that his captors were not, indeed, idiots, Hahn decided to instead shift the criteria of his check based on what he did have, instead of what was missing (namely just about everything). Padding down the many pockets of his field armour, Hahn felt the familiar shape of his PDA, and quickly freed it from his back pocket, Great… he thought, now what? He stared at the PDA, almost as if he expecting the answer to his predicament to just appear on the small screen in his hands. THINK, Hahn! You’re the leading Biotech for the entire Spiral Order; you should be able to do this stuff in your sleep! an idea finally dawned on him. Granted, it was not one of his better ideas, however he had more to work with when he had his best ideas; he’d have to make the most out of his limited resources. Well, here goes nothing... ~~~ "Warning, initial test firing in thirty seconds, all personell remain clear." Herex gazed down at the spacious area of ground that was designated with yellow and black safety tape. This was it; the first test of his new time portal. His grip tightened on the safety rail in anticipation, his tendons standing out through the fur of his knuckles. A member of the Crimson Order was supposed to show utter and complete composition and austerity at all times, but he couldn’t help but grin, exposing his pointed teeth. This is what a Gremlin lived for, the tension, the anxiety and adrenaline of knowing that within a few seconds, the prototype would succeed with incredible results (or explode, with a probable result of fatality. This was why Herex was on a catwalk far from the actual testing area should his latest experiment amount to nothing more than a destructive fireworks display.) He had commissioned the construction of a giant power generator which took up an entire floor to itself, and yet his most brilliant schemers said that it would only create a rift of about twelve feet in diameter. His vice-like grip on the catwalk’s safety rail only tightened as the ten-second countdown started. Seerus had better have been right about this, Herex thought. He realised how ridiculous the whole situation was, in most situations he would never trust another member of the Crimson Order. For all I know, Seerus could’ve left those blueprints just to screw over the poor soul who tried to steal his plans. Herex decided to push such thoughts from his mind, as the raspy voice over the intercom announced that his project was nearing its moment of truth. "Three..." "Two..." "ONE!" With a soft bubbling noise, an area about one foot above the test area shimmered, then collapsed inwardly, widening to a spherical area of about twelve metres in diameter before stopping. One of Herex’s guards, who had been watching the experiment with some anticipation, was the first to voice the mutual feeling regarding the outcome. “Is that all?!” Normally, Herex would have the guard whipped and demoted for speaking out of line whilst on duty, but he was inclined to agree with the disappointed soldier. Most Gremlin experiments resulted in bright lights, loud noises, or at least a big explosion. Considering all the work that was put into creating the portal, the actual portal itself was noticeably anticlimactic. “Oh well,” Herex sighed, “let’s go get a closer look.” ~~~ Twilight had made her way back to the library in Ponyville, and was about to bite into a daisy sandwich when Pinkie Pie burst through the door. “Stop right there!” Twilight paused nervously, her friend’s exasperated behaviour was positively out of the ordinary, and she wasn’t about to dismiss Pinkie Pie’s concerns. “What is it?” Twilight asked nervously, she had a rather panicked expression on her face, worried about what shocking situation Pinkie had discovered that included her lunch. “You have to come with me for a picnic!” Pinkie exclaimed, “Me and Fluttershy found this really neat field just outside of her cottage, and it’s really great and open for a picnic, I’ve invited all the girls to come and you ARE going, right?” She punctuated her phrase with a dramatic puppy-dog expression for good measure. Twilight rolled her eyes and gave a sigh. She wanted to stick to her schedule, but she decided it would be good to spend time with her friends. She beckoned Spike to follow her as she packed her lunch into a bag and brought it with her, following Pinkie down the road. Twlight felt herself relaxing. After all, today was a weekend; they had all the time in world. ~~~ “What do you mean this wormhole doesn’t go through time?!” “W-w-well, sir-”- Stammered the young gremlin. “I asked for time travel.” “Y-yes, but we-“ “-Made a hole to an alternate dimension. Not through time!” The young gremlin could feel his fur blown back by the breeze of Herex’s enraged voice. He adjusted his goggles nervously, he could almost see the fury creating an ozone of heat around his superior. Herex had been denied his climactic outcome, and now he was being told that his best-laid plans had ultimately missed their mark to naught. “You’d better have some good news for me, or else.” Herex threatened. “W-w-well, th-the Ghostmanes are s-still assembled.” At this point the young Gremlin Schemer was grasping at straws, trying to think of anything that would defuse the rage of the Crimson Order member. “and?!” Herex bellowed. The young gremlin engineer had run out of ideas, he opened his mouth, but then closed it again, he only managed a frightened “U-umm…” before Herex motioned for him to be quiet, a sudden idea forming in the mind of the Gremlin leader. “…are you saying that I should send our scouts through to explore this new dimension for anything of value?” Herex leaned in close to the perspiring engineer, his seemingly rage-filled demeanour replaced by a more curious one. The younger gremlin trembled in his boots, fearing a trick question, but in fear he stammered out an answer without thinking it through, lest the anger flash return to his leader as quickly as it had left. “Y-yes?” he offered. “Excellent! Zoxel!” He called in an impossibly upbeat tone, the gremlin quartermaster, named ‘Zoxel’ stepped forward, smartly snapping to attention. “Yes sir?” “This engineer is demoted, get him out of here.” Herex said in a deadpan, motioning to the cowering gremlin behind him. Herex sat down heavily, massaging his temples. He couldn’t have snivelling yes-men following him around like lost pups; he needed staff he could count on. He looked over to find that the Ghostmane division was, indeed, assembled. Milling about while checking their sawblades and cloaking devices. Normally Herex expected all of his combat divisions to be in perfect formation, but he grinned at the obvious restlessness of his personal division. He had come up with the idea for the Ghostmane Stalkers after seeing a few Recon soldiers from those rust-bucket Spiral Knights in action. The knights would use a sophisticated, if rather bulky, cloaking device to remain hidden during a battle, calling out enemy positions and strike co-ordinates to their allies while remaining unseen. Herex had a much more… practical application for his troops. He considered the contrast between those slow, bulky metal warriors and his own lithe, deadly troops. He prided himself on designing the Ghostmanes in every way, from their uniform, which was a more armoured, closer-fitting variation of his own outfit, right down to the versatile saw blades they carried into battle. He had full confidence in the cloaking devices he had custom-made for each member of the division. The cloak would render its wearer completely invisible, allowing the crack troops to remain seamlessly hidden until they were ready to strike. The Ghostmane Stalker lieutenant noticed Herex eyeing his prized soldiers, and snapped to attention, causing the rest of the unit to do the same. Herex grinned at them, satisfied with their discipline, and turned his gaze to the shimmering portal. Whatever or whoever existed on the other side, they would soon know the power of the gremlin war machine. ~~~ Spiral Knights’ Biotech Hahn was sitting dejectedly in his cell. His attempt to turn his PDA into a digital lockpick had, ultimately, failed. Seeing as the bars on the jail cell didn’t provide him enough room to actually loop his arm through them to press his ingenious lock-cypher against the data pad that kept his cell sealed. Back to the drawing board... Hahn was once again sitting, cross-legged, trying to contemplate the many uses of a re-wired PDA. He did have one idea, but he quickly pushed it to the back of his mind. There has to be another way... but as time went on, the idea kept on resurfacing, like a buoy in storm. Hahn desperately did not want to enlist the help of the other knights, and certainly not by such rudimentary means, but he had run out of options. With a sigh, he went back to work, re-wiring his PDA. ~~~ The stooped, crafty creature came through the shimmering portal, and dropped to the ground, taking a moment to survey his surroundings. “Clear!” On cue, several other Ghostmane scouts emerged through the trans-dimensional rift, silently landing next to their officer, who went by the name of Rejyk. They were all clothed in close-fitting onyx black padding, and wearing concealing red scarves. Unlike most gremlins, the Ghostmane Stalkers wore obscuring black masks emblazoned with the gremlin hourglass sign, as opposed to the thick tinted goggles most gremlins wore. By unsaid cue, the Ghostmanes activated their cloaking devices in unison, rendering the small group completely invisible. Their intent was to search to the area for any threat and, should the opportunity present itself, recover any intelligence, or sources thereof. The lieutenant took an extra moment to assess his surroundings, before turning back to his unit. “You know your orders,” he hissed, “move out.” The Ghostmanes advanced cautiously, moving as one through the rough forested area. A Ghostmane Sergeant, by the name of Jetzul, heard something rustling in a bush off to his left. Drawing a sawblade, ready to face any danger, Jetzul peered over his shoulder, and froze solid, quite literally unable to move. The unfortunate Gremlin was petrified in stone by the gaze of an odd creature, with white head feathers and green body scales. One of Jetzul’s squad mates sensed the danger his sergeant was in, and quickly unsheathed a sawblade from his belt, and threw it with pinpoint accuracy at the serpent-bird in a single, lethal motion, scything the unfortunate animal clean through the middle. “What was that thing, Sergeant?! ...Sir?” The gremlin turned, and was mortified to see the granite statue that used to be Sergeant Jetzul, his facial expression frozen mid-sneer as he was pulling down his scarf. The other gremlins crowded around, horrified. Not even the Gloaming Wildwoods of their home dimension could yield creatures with the same lethality; the sergeant was killed in the blink of an eye, not even the terrifying Snarbolax could boast that. Lieutenant Rejyk shifted nervously, considering withdrawal, but steeled himself. Casualties could be expected, failure could not. The lieutenant gave one last, sombre look at the granite sergeant, and moved on, motioning for the others to follow. He was eager to escape that cursed glade. Moving onwards, many of the Ghostmanes were relieved to see the edge of the forest drawing into view. The Gremlin Lieutenant dropped into a low crouch, motioning for the others to do the same. “Up ahead, see them? Spread out, and stay hidden. Let's go get the locals for questioning.” Heeding their officer’s words, the Gremlins spread out, quietly encircling the collection of curious quadrupeds conversing in the clearing. The sharp voice of one of the more inexperienced soldiers crackled over the intercom. "Um, sir?" “What is it?” "I... I fell, my cloaking device is malfunctioning." “You stupid idiot, you just gave us away!" “I'm sorry sir! Please-! Auugh!" ~~~ "Um, girls?” Fluttershy called, nervously, “ there appears to be, ah, something over there.” “Dear, ‘something’ is horribly vague,” Rarity intoned, “could you be more specific?” “I-I’m not sure what it was…” Fluttershy admitted, the anxiety still tense in her voice. “What’s the matter, ‘Shy?” Rainbow dash was getting antsy anyways, she decided that humouring her friend would be a good way to flex her wings as well. “Um, over there.” Fluttershy mumbled, gesturing with a hoof to where she saw the dark mask wearing creature. “Please be careful.” “Don’t worry,” Dash assured her, “I’ll be fine.” To be honest, Rainbow Dash was not actually expecting her friend’s concerns to amount to anything, so when she flew over to the ravine and saw what looked like a relatively small-sized bipedal creature, clad in black armour save for a blood-red scarf, busily throttling his idiot subordinate for giving away his entire squad’s element of surprise, Rainbow Dash was, suffice to say, astonished. ~~~ “You stupid, stupid, moron!” The Ghostmane officer growled, overcome by rage. “I’m- *ack* -sorry, sir, please!- *hrrk*” The officer was halfway through turning the rookie’s throat into his own personal stress ball, when he noticed the pitiful subordinate broke his gaze, focusing on something behind him. Suffice to say, Rejyk was just as surprised to look upwards and see the cyan-coloured pegasus as she was to see him. Sadly, years of training ensured that the Gremlin officer reacted faster; he grabbed a sawblade from his belt and flung it upwards at the winged equine. Rainbow Dash’s reflexes finally kicked into action, dodging out of the way so that the violently spinning blade only grazed her flank, as opposed to taking off her head. However, it was enough to knock her out of the air, sending her tumbling out of the sky to land behind a small incline. “Enough of this screwing around!” Rejyk snarled, “Gas canisters, knock them out!” On cue, several cylindrical containers sailed through the air, landing near the frightened picnickers. Upon landing, a fine, grey mist dispersed from each of the canisters. “Hey, what’s that funny smell…?” *thump* The gremlins advanced on the picnic, which was now in a deep slumber. “Sir,” One of the gremlins voiced his concerns, “there’s still one left.” Sure enough, sitting amongst the unconscious group was Pinkie Pie, wearing a gas mask. The gremlin officer straightened up as he approached her, picking invisible pieces of grime out of his uniform. “Your fearlessness is noted,” he rasped, “but I’m afraid it won’t be enough.” He pulled out a sawblade and began flexing the motor experimentally. The small pink mare yelled something in retort, but it was muffled by the gasmask. The lieutenant began chuckling; the poor creature didn’t stand a chance. Unexpectedly, the pink creature’s stalwart expression faded to be replaced by a more confident, almost cheery one. “What’s so funny-?” *WHAM* Rainbow Dash slammed into the officer, her momentum carrying them both quite a long distance before gracelessly ploughing him into the ground face-first. Rejyk got up unsteadily, wiping dirt out of his scarf as he did so. He swerved about, trying to spot his attacker, only to be knocked onto his back by Rainbow Dash, driving a foreleg into his sternum. The Gremlin lieutenant grappled with the cyan pegasus for a period of time, trading punches, kicks, and the occasional bite with his flighty foe. However, her injury from earlier steadily sapped away her strength, finally allowing the Gremlin lieutenant to gain the upper paw, pinning her under his knee. Pulling down his scarf to spit out a wad of blood, Rejyk looked back to where the picnic used to be taking place, and was disappointed to see the small pink creature making a mockery out of his beloved soldiers in his absence, dancing and pirouetting in between them as they desperately and belatedly attempted to catch her, and even making two of his troops crash into each other at one point. The Gremlin officer shouted into the radio, determined to gain control of the situation before it went completely out-of-paw. “When you're done frolicking like pups, we still have a mission here! A few of his troops slowed down at hearing this, ashamed of their own lack of discipline and finesse. “Jetzul’s squad, keep chasing that pink one, don’t bother trying to catch her; just keep her away from us! Kixell’s squad, retrieve some of the knocked out creatures, I don’t care which ones, just pick a few, and take them! Rally at the wormhole in half an hour or we will leave you behind!" He paused for a few moments, catching his breath, “…and somebody come help me over here, I’ve got a live one!” He returned his attention to the brightly coloured creature restrained under his knee, which was currently doing her best to escape his grasp. Rejyk leaned over, attempting to put her in a chokehold. He succeeded, but not before Rainbow Dash jerked her head back into the gremlin’s face, producing a spray of blood from his shattered nose. Once Rejyk was certain the cyan Pegasus was unconscious from the choke hold, he fell back, his vision blurring from exhaustion. He sat up slowly, wiping the blood from his snout as he did so, his muscles ached, and he was pretty sure he had minor internal bleeding. Finally, a newer recruit from Kixell’s squad uncloaked near him, helping him hoist the unconscious pegasus over their shoulders before moving back towards the wormhole. Chapter 2“Uughhh…” “Quick! Get up get up get up!” Applejack awoke to see Pinkie Pie standing over her. As if this wasn’t worrying enough, Pinkie Pie was wearing a very panicked expression as opposed to her normally chipper demeanour. “Pinkie… what happened?” Applejack quickly realised why asking Pinkie to explain something to you while you’re half-asleep is not a good idea. She had to ask the hyperactive pony to slow down multiple times before finally understanding what was going on. By this time they had been joined by Fluttershy, who seemed to be the only pony left in the field other than themselves. “So, y’all’s saying that aliens came in and knocked us out with gas b’fore abducting our friends? Remind me why you were somehow-?” “I always have a gasmask nearby-“ “-in case of gasmask emergency?” the skepticism was evident in Applejack’s voice. “Of course!” Pinkie Pie’s optimistic personality seemed to be coming back. “’Right, so, wait, can we jus’ do a headcount here?” At this point, Fluttershy added to the conversation, “I-I think we’re the only ones left.” she mumbled. “Right, so what say we go after ‘em?” Applejack cocked an eyebrow, looking back to Pinkie. “Which way’d they go?” “They carried them off into the Everfree Forest…” Pinkie Pie said, the enthusiasm draining with each syllable. Suddenly, the idea of going after their friends, at least single-handedly, seemed to lose its credibility. “Well, whadda y'all suggest we do?” Applejack shot back, “Just sit ‘round on our rumps?” “We could always send a letter back to Canterlot,” Fluttershy murmured, “I mean, the Princesses would help us, right?” She looked to her friends, timidly waiting to see how they would receive her suggestion. “Well there’s an idea,” Applejack said approvingly, “first things first, tho’,” she said, getting onto her hooves, “we shouldn’t stick ‘round here, we sure ‘aint going to get anythin’ done by sittin’ here.” ~~~ Herex was lying in the middle of his throne room, staring at the ceiling while the gears in his head turned. He was always the most relaxed this way, the cool steel pressed against the back on his head, the gentle, distant rumble of the Clockworks soothing his mind while he schemed, imagining the next big project he’d come up with. Seerus’ time travel project was a pleasant distraction, but he wanted something more… original, something with his own mark on it, as opposed to a salvaged version of somebody else’s creation. He was considering a new bio-weapon of some sort. He recalled his “Toxoil” project in Compound 42, his attempt to create a flammable, sentient, gelatinous biotoxin. The idea behind the Toxoil would be to train them to hone in on knights, light them on fire, then let them charge straight at the knights. Of course, after a report telling him that a number of toxoils had formed a hive-mind and started attacking some of the workers, he realised that the compound would have to be eradicated. Inevitably, the Knights put a stop to that, why did they always have to- “Sir?” Herex’s eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright with a start. Herex hoped his orderly hadn’t realised that he had dozed off. The recruit shuffled nervously, clearing his throat and inspecting his toes. You're just being paranoid, Herex, he thought to himself, nobody could imagine taking you off-guard. Herex pushed his goggles up onto his brow, rubbing the drowsiness out of his eyes. His irises were an irradiated green, contrasting with his black sclerae. “Speak.” The order came out crisp and clear, making his orderly snap to attention. “Sir,” he started, “the Ghostmanes are back from their expedition, they succeeded.” “Oh?” Herex stood up from the floor and stretched his back, making his vertebrae crack and pop. “Lieutenant Rejyk has retrieved denizens from the new dimension, believed to be sentient.” Herex’s brow shot up in surprise as he replaced his goggles over his eyes. He rolled his neck left and right, stretching out the last of the stiffness with a series of loud pops while he mulled over the information. “Alright, give them a few hours to… acclimatize. I’ll have questions for them by then. Casualty report?” Herex wished he didn’t have to ask this, but he knew it was necessary. “Of course, sir.” The orderly cleared his throat again, producing a typed report from his satchel. “Lieutenant Rejyk has been assessed for several injuries dealt to him by one of the inter-dimensional denizens, our menders are reporting a thorough recovery, and he should be able to return to active service soon.” The orderly shifted his weight nervously before continuing, knowing his superior didn’t appreciate bad news, “Sergeant Jetzul died honourably. Reports state he was killed in combat with a feral animal in the vicinity of the trans-dimensional rift. His conduct will serve as an example for generations of soldiers to come.” Herex sighed, he regretted death that resulted from his orders, but he knew that casualties were inevitable in combat. “Well stated, soldier, may Jetzul find eternal peace in The Sanctuary.” ~~~ Applejack was pacing around anxiously. They had written a letter to the princesses in Canterlot, and Fluttershy had insisted on delivering it herself, taking off at her best speed. Applejack only hoped that the princesses would send help soon- *CRACK!* “Well, that was a rush,” Celestia said somewhat shakily, “are you okay, Luna?” Luna, who was equally dizzy after having assisted her sister in teleporting an entire squad of their respective royal guards all the way from Canterlot, replied shakily. “Yes, I think I’m alright, but I feel do feel bit woozy.” Luna looked back at her sister, a fatigued grin on her face. “Right,” Celestia continued, turning to address Pinkie Pie “Pinkamena, could you explain what’s going on here? We received your letter, but I’m not certain I read your note correctly, you said something about aliens?” “Hiya Celestia, Hi Luna, yeah, it was really scary, a bunch of aliens came and carried off Dashie, Twi, Rarity, and Spike! They weren’t all that smart, but it was really scary!” Pinkie looked up at both of the princesses, waiting for their response. Celestia was still a bit wary of Pinkie’s story, but she knew better than to dismiss the pink mare’s claims. Four of her subjects were missing and she was determined to- Celestia succumbed to the a sudden onset dizziness; the teleportation had a very taxing effect on her equilibrium, causing her to stagger slightly before falling onto her flank. “Perhaps the Princesses could just rest a moment while the Royal Guard handles the situation?” This came from Shining Armour, the captain of Celestia’s personal guard. “Of course, Shining, I have every confidence the Royal Guard will be able to solve this mystery.” Upon hearing this, Bellerophon, the captain of the Lunar Guard, muttered his frustrations at this. "Oh sure, just give them all the fun." Luna looked at her guard captain upon hearing this. “Would you like to accompany Celestia’s guards in attempting to search for anything regarding the missing mares?” she asked politely. “Accompany them?!” Bellerophon knew better than to use an insolent tone in front of his sovereign, but his pride wouldn’t stand for it. “I’m certain the Lunar Guard could find twice as much information regarding the missing mares, and twice as useful!” the dark-coloured pegasus puffed his chest out, determined to show himself more than capable of backing up his claim. “Talk is cheap,” Shining Armour was not going to have himself stood up by this wannabe-guard who was claiming to be better than him. “You feel like putting your money where your mouth is, punk?” Fluttershy had enough of the arguing, it wasn’t getting anypony anywhere, and she hated it. “QUIET!!” She screamed. “…please?” After a moment of shocked silence, Luna seized the moment to gain control of the situation before the guard captains began arguing again. “I propose a friendly competition,” she suggested, “the Royal Guard and the Lunar Guard will go into the Everfree forest,” she continued, motioning to the twisted tree line in front of her, “and look for anything that could be of use in our search.” She paused, for dramatic effect. “Whoever’s clues prove to me more useful in finding the mares, is the better guardspony.” Bellerophon and Shining Armour both replied in unison. “Deal.” “Well then,” Celestia chimed, “what’re you waiting around here for? Get going!” ~~~ Across an inter-dimensional boundary, Rainbow Dash felt herself being gently nudged awake. “Daaaaash..." “Ugh,” she mumbled, “Just a few more minutes…” “Daaaash..." “Just a little bit longer…” “Dash! Wake up!” “Oh, what is it?!” Dash retorted angrily. She opened her eyes and took in the metallic atmosphere around her, and suddenly the events of yesterday came back to her in a flood. She sat up quickly, still expecting to be face-to-face with the black-padded creature she was fighting with; she still had a hoof sandwich with that jerk’s name on it. “Calm down, Dash,” Twilight said, assuring her, “there isn’t much you can do from in here.” Rainbow Dash straightened up, and took a moment to examine her surroundings. She appeared to be in a steel-plated jail cell, with a door made from wrought-iron bars. An ache in the side of her head confirmed that the floor was indeed, made from uncomfortable metal plating. In the room with her were Twilight, Spike, Rarity (who was still fast asleep), and…. There appeared to be a medium-sized bipedal creature, sitting in a corner of the room. It was wearing armour that reminded her of Celestia’s own guardsponies. He was wearing large armour-plated boots and gloves that were so oversized compared to his thin frame that they very nearly gave him a comical look. He was also wearing an almost spherical metal helmet, a pair of radio antennae protruding behind his head from where he ears would be, and a curious pale-green visor obscuring his eyes from view. A canteen hung from his shoulders, in addition to a tabard. The tabard extended down his chest and was secured to his waist by a pair of utility belts with several pouches and pockets attached to them. Upon seeing this alarming creature Rainbow Dash sprang to her hooves, and felt a lancing pain through her flank, she remembered the injury from earlier. Although between her wound and this weird… thing they were sharing a cell with, Dash decided that the latter required more attention. She leaned over to Twilight. “Who is this guy?” She hissed. “No clue,” Twilight responded, “he isn’t very talkative.” Dash glanced back to Rarity, where Spike was still doing his best to wake her. Then back to the armoured creature that was busy fiddling with some sort of electronic device clutched in his hands. Dash realised that if Twilight couldn’t find anything out about… it… then she didn’t have much of a chance to find anything out either, but Rainbow Dash approached the metal-clad creature, determined to learn anything she could. “Hi.” She started. The armour plated creature gave a grunt of mutual acknowledgement, not taking his eyes from the piece of machinery he was busily re-assembling. “My name’s Rainbow Dash.” She continued. “Well isn’t that a coincidence.” The creature muttered. At this, Rainbow Dash looked back to Twilight, seeking encouragement of some sort. Twilight merely shrugged. “How so?” Dash continued, hoping the creature would explain the meaning of his cryptic response. “Well,” he stated, “I have a name too, it really is a small world after all.” His metal helmet betrayed none of his emotions, but the sarcasm in his voice was more than apparent. Dash was taken aback by this metal creature’s flippant response, but was determined to find out as much as she could. “So… what’s your name, then?” she continued. “My name’s Hahn, I’m a Spiral Knight.” He said in a monotone. Rainbow Dash paused for a moment, well she had gotten a name, that was a start. The latter half of ‘Hahn’s’ statement still confused her, though. She gulped, then opened her mouth her continue. “What’s a Spira-?” “A Spiral Knight is someone who doesn’t like being asked stupid questions.” Hahn interrupted, “Now could you please… leave me alone? I’m in the middle of something important here.” Rainbow Dash decided she had enough of Hahn’s rude demeanour, and limped back to Twilight with a humourless scowl on her face. Twilight seemed rather pleased, in contrast to her friend’s expression. By this point Rarity had finally regained consciousness, and the group were mulling over what little information they had about their cellmate before a guard opened the door. “You,” he declared, pointing at the ponies, “Crimson Order member Herex has granted you an audience, now follow.” He stood beside the open door, motioning for them to leave. Twlight gulped nervously, then turned to the other Equestrians, “Let’s get going then.” She said, nervously exiting the cell. “Well, what if we decide that we don’t want to see ‘Crimson Order member Herex’ just now?” Rarity pouted, she was not one to be bossed around. In response, the jailer merely growled, and unsheathed a stun stick from his belt, the tip sparking dangerously with electricity. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Spike put threw himself in front of the disgruntled jailer, desperately attempting to protect his crush from an unfortunate accident, “sh-she was just speaking hypothetically, right?” He turned back to Rarity, a pleading look in his eyes. “Yes, of course!” Rarity had not expected the guard to resort to violence so casually, and gave a nervous grin. The guard merely grunted, returning the stun baton to his belt. “Now, follow.” He growled. ~~~ “Sir? I think I found something!” Bellerophon galloped over, equal parts of joy and anger. “Keep your voice down!” he hissed “You don’t want the Royal Guard to take credit for what you found, do you?” He changed his tone, unable to hide his giddiness at his guard’s discovery. “What’d you find?” he whispered, his slitted-pupils glinting in the waning light. “Well, see for yourself, sir.” The Lunar Guard motioned to the ground nearby. Indeed, at their hooves, was a gruesomely butchered cockatrice; near its decapitated body was a circular, bloodstained sawblade, half-buried in the earth. Bellerophon was somewhat disturbed by the scene, but he wouldn’t let it get in the way of his optimism- this was definitely a good find! He congratulated the guardspony who had found it, and, judging the angle of where the blade had come from, by where the blood was splattered, he suggested that they search over where it was assumed to be thrown from. They both crept through the brush, giddy with the idea of finding even more. Neither of them was prepared for what they found, though. Standing in a small clearing, was a statue, or rather, the petrified body of a mid-sized bipedal creature clothed in close-fitting armour, one hand was pulling a scarf away from its face to expose a toothy scowl, in his other hand was clutched a sawblade, identical to the one that killed the cockatrice. The Lunar Guardspony was about to approach it, but was restrained by Bellerophon, who hissed at him to exercise caution. They were both still mulling over how to approach the situation when one of the members of the Royal Guard sauntered over, rapped his hoof against the petrified creature, and turned around. “Found iiit!” he called in a sing-song voice. “Oi!” Bellerophon called angrily, motioning for his fellow guard to follow him, “We found it first!” The gold-plated pegasus gave them a smug look, “Oh really? It’s your word against mine- what’re you going to do about it?” He straightened up, giving a self-righteous smile. “I’m going to call it,” Bellerophon said, leaning in and lowering his voice to almost a whisper "'Called it." The Royal Guard, who was now joined by Shining Armour, and several other Royal Guards, looked mortified, “Y-you can’t do that!” “Why not?” the bat-winged pegasus was definitely starting to enjoy himself now. “‘Because only foals ‘call it’” Shining Armour interjected, the lack of humour evident in his voice. “So?” Bellerophon shot back, “That doesn’t make it any less legitimate.” Shining Armour rolled his eyes. “Fine, you found it first.” He turned to address his Royal Guard, who were now protesting his concession of victory. “What in Celestia’s name are you whining about?!” Shining Armour shouted at them, “Currently, three mares and a dragon are suffering who-knows-what at the hands of these creatures,” he shouted, motioning toward the statue, “one of which is my kid sister,” he added, “and you’re treating it like it’s all some sort of game?!” even the Lunar Guard turned their gazes to the ground, ashamed of their own carefree conduct. He turned back to his dark-coated counterpart, “I don’t know about you,” he said, matter-of-factly, “but I think the fact that we found it is more important than some stupid game, wouldn’t you agree?” Bellerophon mumbled a curt “Fine.” The taste of victory soured in his mouth. “I don’t suppose you could teleport us out of here?” He said, cocking a humourless eyebrow. “Of course.” Shining Armour’s horn fizzed with magical energy, and all the guardsponies, including their oversized lawn ornament, were teleported back to the field, in front of a pair of pleased princesses. “So,” Celestia asked curiously, “who won?” “We did.” Bellerophon muttered, however something in his voice made Celestia think that he wasn’t exactly happy with victory. She made a mental note to ask Luna about what happened later, as she turned her attention to the snarling statue that stood before them. “So… how do we reverse the petrification?” one of the Lunar Guard asked, “The cockatrice responsible was found dead.” “Oh?” Luna inquired, “If that’s the case, we need only wait, the effect should wear off soon-” As if on cue, the stone prison keeping Sergeant Jetzul contained in paralysis crumbled and shattered around him. To be quite honest, nobody was nearly as surprised as Jetzul himself, whose last memory had been of an odd creature staring at him to suddenly be replaced with several quadropedal creatures of varying colours and sizes. He realised that he still had a sawblade clutched in his hand, so he took the only logical course of action for someone in his situation. He threw it. Chapter 3Jetzul woke up with a throbbing headache, as would be expected after being kicked and trampled by two divisions of guards after throwing a motor-propelled sawblade at their sovereigns. He was still unable to fathom how the spinning weapon had frozen in midair as it sailed towards them. Obviously they had promptly confiscated his extra sawblades from his belt after they had beaten him senseless. Jetzul slowly regained his footing, and assessed his surroundings. The armoured quadrupeds who had half-trampled him were standing in a circle around him, in front of him were two more regal-appearing creatures, with coats of sun-silver white and shadowsteel black. He carelessly spat some blood on the ground, before addressing the two creatures. “Why have you spared me?” Jetzul went straight to the point; he was never one to stand on ceremony. The bright-coated creature straightened up, “A number of my subjects have gone missing,” she began, “you wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?” Jetzul waved his hand dismissively, “Yes, that would probably be us,” he wheezed slightly from bruises on his neck, “so what do you want to know?” At this, the dark-coloured one spoke up, “We must know how you have arrived here, why you have done so, and how we can arrange for the return of our subjects.” Jetzul chuckled, “I will answer your questions as best I can, but you may not like what you hear.” He inhaled unevenly before continuing. The Ghostmane sergeant gladly, almost boastfully explained how his brilliant species, the Gremlins, had created a dimensional rift that allowed them to travel between their world and this one. However he remained tight-lipped on the matter of why exactly they arrived, other than they wanted information on the nature of this dimension, and capturing sentient life would be an easier way of learning the lay of the land. “Now tell us: how do we get them back?” The white creature, who introduced herself as ‘Celestia’, leaned in, an intense glare in her eye. An amused, yet crestfallen look crossed Jetzul’s face, who had been bracing himself for this question. “I’m afraid that is impossible.” He sighed before continuing, “I assume you wouldn't know what a power generator is?” he cocked an eyebrow at them. “It wasn’t like we just stepped through a hole in the wall, the amount of energy needed is probably well beyond your means. Unless my superior decides to send more of my kind through, in which I highly doubt you’ll be in a position to negotiate with whoever he sends through. Your subjects are as stranded in my dimension as I am in yours.” Jetzul knew what was coming next. All leaders tended to react the same way to bad news: throwing a fit and having someone killed. The Gremlin sergeant resolved that he would not be dragged off, crying and moaning; he would go forth, and confront his death with honour. He prostrated himself before the princesses. “Execute me: My blood will satiate the injuries caused to you and your domain.” A good minute passed in silence before the Gremlin sergeant lifted his head from the ground, to find the princesses giving him a very shocked expression. “We… don’t…” Luna began decisively, completely fazed by the unorthodox request. “We do not perform executions,” Celestia rejoined, “it isn’t my place to make claims about your own society, but your blood certainly won’t solve anything.” “Then are you going to just let me go?” Jetzul cocked an eyebrow sarcastically. “Of course not,” said Luna, regaining her composure, “we shall have you held for further questioning.” Jetzul rolled his eyes sarcastically as the guards clamped a pair of shackles onto his wrists. “Oh good,” he drawled, “I can’t wait for that.” ~~~ As the Equestrians stranded on Cradle were escorted down the catwalks, they couldn’t help but gaze in awe of their surroundings. It seemed as if they were trapped in one giant clockwork watch, looking up, they could see miles and miles of giant, slowly turning gears perfectly interlocked with each other. Beyond that the faintest shards of sunlight filtered through the maze of gears to strike random locations around the facility. Looking around them yielded an equally astounding view. All around them was machinery of all purposes, belching exhaust and making various whirring and clicking noises. On catwalks below and above them patrols of soldiers marched along, some of which were comprised entirely of androids. Several of the more solid catwalks were lined with sandbags and barbed wire, many of which were guarded by curious bipedal machines, twitching as engine pipes on their backs coughed out plumes of exhaust. Their impromptu tour ended in front of a nine-foot ornate steel double door, where another gremlin was waiting to meet them. Rainbow Dash noted with a smirk that this was the same gremlin she had beaten up prior to being captured. His mask was hanging at his belt, leaving his face bare to show that his cheek, eyebrow, and lip were plastered with adhesive bandages, in addition, a larger bandage covered his broken nose, a small trickle of blood seeping through the dressing. The Gremlin sneered in response to her snide look, stepping forward to address the group as a whole. “Listen up!” He growled, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “You are about to enter the presence of Grand Master Herex, The Whispering Venom, you will not speak unless spoken to, you will answer all questions quickly and concisely, and you will not do anything stupid, or rash, understand?! Any questions before we proceed?” He loomed over the group, daring them to speak up. Rainbow Dash raised a hoof. “Yeah, I got a question: is your nose feelin’ better yet?” She asked with a grin. Rejyk said nothing, but glowered at her angrily, silently containing his rage. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’?” Dash knew she was pushing her luck, but she was enjoying herself too much. The Ghostmane officer remained silent, turning around to push open the steel doors in front of them. Inside the double doors an equally astonishing vista awaited the Equestrians. They were in a room with a ceiling high enough to rival the Canterlot Palace. Lining the walls were monitors and screens of all sizes, displaying everything from security feeds to status reports. Rejyk closed the doors behind the group as they entered, which caused an almost eerie silence to overtake the room as the cacophony from outside was suddenly muffled, leaving the only noise being the gentle hum of the monitors and the distant, titanic rumbles of the gears outside. Sitting at the end of the room was a gremlin wearing a large black scarf, lounging in a throne. He stood up as the group was ushered towards him, and threw his arms wide in a welcoming gesture. “Salutations,” he purred, “first off, let me apologize for the way you have been treated here, I’m afraid I was not… explicit enough in my orders.” He gave a scathing look at Rejyk, who recoiled as if struck. “I certainly hope no lasting damage has been done.” The Gremlin leader cooed apologetically. The attention in the room seemed to shift to Rainbow Dash’s bandaged flank. “I’ll live.” she assured them casually. The Gremlin gave a nod of satisfaction before continuing, “As you have been no doubt informed, I am Herex.” He bowed low to the assembled creatures before him, “However, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, for I do not know your names.” Herex retained his amiable, almost friendly expression as he listened to the group recite their names, although he wrinkled his nose slightly at hearing ‘Rainbow Dash’ and ‘Twilight Sparkle’. He began pacing around the Equestrians in circles with a toothy smile on his face, much akin to a fox examining a henhouse. His long scarf dragged along the ground behind him, giving him the impression of wearing a cape or cloak. “You must let us go,” Rarity demanded, drawing herself up to her full height and regally tilting her nose, “you have no right to keep us here.” Herex gave a low, amused chuckle. “I’m fairly certain you’re in no position to negotiate,” he said. Herex’s tone was still amiable, but his statement was quite obviously a threat, “but perhaps we can come an agreement, hmm?” he paused, before continuing, “What I want is information, provide me this, and I may give… consideration to your release.” ~~~ Hahn had finished reworking his PDA into a short-range radio. He did regret brushing off the quadrupeds when they approached him, but he assumed that there would be time for a proper introduction when the threat of death wasn’t looming over him. He pressed the radio transmitter against the side of his head, letting the antennae on his helmet amplify nearby signals. I probably look like a complete idiot doing this. Hahn thought bitterly. He tucked the PDA in between his head and his shoulder, and leaned into a corner of the cell, obscuring the rewired radio from being seen from outside the cell. He was just about to speak an SOS message into the receiver when gremlin radio chatter sparked at him from the transponder. He realized with a start that he forgot to encrypt his signal to siphon out gremlin transmissions. He took a moment to decide that he would wait a moment, to glean any knowledge about the gremlins’ plans before making the appropriate adjustments. He was intrigued by what he heard; apparently those odd creatures he had been sharing a cell with were inter-dimensional travellers. This was intriguing to the technician, but his real interest was focused on some sort of new, destructive technology the gremlins were working on… ~~~ Jetzul feigned sleep in his cell aboard a prisoner car bound for ‘Canterlot’. He had absolutely no idea what the ‘ponies’ had in mind for him, and he was definitely not going to stick around to find out. He had spent the first night of the train ride carefully analyzing the guards’ schedule. The guards interchanged between the gold-plated ones and the bat-winged guards. Jetzul’s plan was to play on the mutual distrust between the two, and create enough of an opportunity for him to escape. He ran his hand through the coarse material of his scarf: It was made from miracloth fabric; tough enough to easily support his weight, yet soft and supple. The gremlin had even managed to steal a fork that he could use to pick the lock on the cell; the fools had actually believed him when he claimed that gremlins can digest metal, and that he had eaten the piece of silverware in a misunderstanding. The Ghostmane sergeant heard the sound of footsteps dying away, the guards having finished their shift, and quickly sprang into action. In the guard’s car, a Royal Guard unicorn by the name of Quintus felt himself being shaken awake. “Come on, it’s our shift.” Another Royal Guard was pushing him awake. Quintus groggily dragged himself out of his cot, yawning as he donned his golden armour. He and his colleague sleepily shuffled over to the car where the prisoner was being kept. Upon entering, the Royal Guard was surprised that the gremlin prisoner didn’t have some snarky comment for them; no matter what time of day or night it was, the next shift would always be greeted by some sort of moan from the ungrateful whelp, complaining about service quality and acting as if he owned the place. Maybe he finally learned his lesson… thought the guard, wearily shuffling by the cell. He peeked in to see what the prisoner was doing. Oh, just hanging around… mused Quintus, nothing wrong with tha- The guard immediately performed a double-take. The prisoner was hanging from the rafters, his scarf had been tied into a noose, and he swung slightly with the movement of the train car. The guardpony’s sleepiness left him immediately, and he ordered his colleague to open the cell while using his magic to cut the impromptu noose. After what felt like an eternity the Guard finally got the cell door opened, and they both rushed in. “What happened?” The gremlin prisoner coughed and weakly pointed toward the door they had entered from, allowing their imaginations to fill in the gaps. “The Lunar Guards…” Quintus hissed under his breath, “Come on,” He gestured for his colleague to follow him out of the cell, “I’m going to have a discussion with those Lunar thugs about proper prisoner treatment.” The Royal Guards locked the cell door behind them, and left for the guards’ car. As soon as Jetzul heard the raised voices from the next car over, he jumped to his feet, laughing. Incompetents! The gremlin sergeant thought to himself, That’s the oldest trick in the book! And they actually fell for it! Using his stolen eating utensil, Jetzul made quick work of the padlock, threw open the door, and hurled himself out the window opposite his cell. Years of stealth training allowed Jetzul to roll harmlessly and silently across the ground, and he bounded off into the night, still chuckling. ~~~ Hahn was about to make the final adjustments to his short-range radio when he heard the metallic echo from footsteps down the hallway. He quickly hid his miniature escape plan under his tabard, and slumped back into his corner of the cell, his arms crossed over his chest. As the footsteps grew closer he could also hear voices of protest mixed in. He didn’t pay much attention to what words were being wasted, but by the shrill accent of the voice he judged that it belonged to the snowy white creature with the purple mane. Hahn remained still as a pair of guards forced the group back inside of the cell, by this point the purple quadruped was almost pleading for the white creature to show discretion. “Please Rarity, let it go, there’s nothing we can do.” “No, I won’t be quiet!” the creature named ‘Rarity’ retorted, “They have no right to keep us here-“ The Gremlin jailer leaned in and gripped the cell bars with a paw, “Shut up, or I’ll-“ “-You’ll what, share your fleas with us?” Hahn asked bitterly, “Oh, I am absolutely quaking with fear.” The Jailer’s gaze turned to Hahn with a scowl, yet his expression quickly turned to a sadistic smile. “You,” he pointed at Hahn with a declarative finger, “the Schemers are going to torture you when they're done picking at your pitiful carcass, I’ll-" “-pull out my arms, and stick them back down my throat, yes?” Hahn cut off the jailer again, nonchalantly examining his fingernails, “Thank you for informing me, I wasn’t already completely aware of your intentions. And don’t worry, I do actually find your input scintillating and useful.” The gremlin snarled, and pulled out his stun bat, and was stopped by one of the other guards putting a firm hand on his shoulder. The angry jailer let out another snarl before sheathing his stun bat again. He pointed at Hahn and pulled his thumb across his throat in a threatening gesture before stalking off down the corridor. Hahn paused for just a moment, and then removed the jerry-rigged radio from his tabard, making the final adjustments. The purple quadruped paced back and forth through the cell, obviously deep in thought. “Come on, girls, think!” she encouraged them, “We can get out of here, if we just put our heads together!” Spike glanced over to Hahn. “Ask him,” he suggested, “I’m sure he wants out of here just as much as we do.” “Yes,” Rarity concurred, “I’m sure he’s been deep in thought planning on how to get us out of here.” Her voice had a passive-aggressive tone to it, and she said it just loud enough for him to notice. Hahn cocked his head at them, “Way ahead of you. In fact, while you were busy having tea with our gracious host…” he waved his rewired PDA in the air. The group merely gave him a blank expression. Hahn smacked an armoured gauntlet against the front of his helmet, and gave a deep sigh. He decided that it might help to humour them. “This,” he started, “is a rewired Yolek mk.8 Personal Organization Device, standard issue. As of the current moment I have rewired it to be a two-way, short-wave, encrypted communication relay.” He gave a condescending huff as their blank expressions continued, “And… I can use it to get us out of here. Now if you could just stop with the incessant stream of questions, I can start using it.” Hahn spent a moment taking in their slightly offended expressions, waiting to see if they were capable of completing such a simple request. He gave another huff. “Thank you.” He adjusted a dial on the handheld, and held it up to his face. “This is ‘Vox Rationis’, broadcasting on an encrypted channel, any Knights within the vicinity, please respond.” He clicked a button on the PDA and held it against the right side of his head. Rainbow Dash cocked an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Now wha-?” “Shhh!” Hahn pressed a finger to where his mouth would be. The cyan pegasus’s complied, but with thinning patience. Within a moment a static noise could be heard, and a voice crackled in over a small amount of static. “This is recon knight ‘Hauberk’, responding to a distress call, is that you, Hahn?” the voice apparently knew him. “Of course-” Hahn started. “Ha! I’d recognise that stuck-up tone anywhere!” the voice stated victoriously, the Equestrians traded a few smug looks at hearing this, “Alright, I’ve triangulated your frequency, sit tight. I’ll be right with you. ‘Hauberk’, over and out.” There was a small burst of static, and then the radio frequency turned to a small, continuous blipping noise. For a moment, Hahn felt the urge to smack the radio against the wall, but he refrained. “See? I told you it would work.” He turned off the volume on the radio to muffle the blipping, and stored it safely in one of his utility pouches. Spike shifted nervously, “So, how long until your friend shows up?” Hahn’s smug demeanour wilted somewhat at this question. “Well, most response forces would take about eight to ten minutes… Rhendon is a loose cannon, though; I’d give him twenty minutes.” He paused for a moment, “…and that’s being generous.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, “Well buck that, then.” She scoffed, “Can’t we just-?” “-Break open the lock?” Hahn chided, “I’ve tried that.” He assured them, “The cell is sealed by a magnetized combination pad. It’ll only break from an elemental shock surge.” “Elemen-?” Spike started. “Meaning a photonic blast, such as an arcane power manipulation.” “Arcane?” Twilight asked, “You mean like magic and-?” “What? No. I’m talking about a basic psychic energy manipulation,” Hahn scoffed, “let’s try to say on the same page, here.” Twilight regarded the knight for a moment. “So basically magic-?” Hahn performed another face-palm. “Fine, if you want to call it something out of a child’s book, then yes, ‘magic’.” Hahn uttered. A sudden hush came over the room, and Hahn felt everyone in the cell staring at him. He sighed, “What now?” Twilight merely walked over to the cell bars, a pensive look on her face, “So you’re saying that if I managed to send an electric-?” Hahn cut her off, again, “Well to answer the first part of the question, not ‘you’ specifically, because that’s impossible.” he paused, “However, theoretically, yes, an electrical surge will be sufficient to break open the lock.” A smug grin crossed Spike’s face. “Go on, Twi,” he urged her, “show him how it’s done.” Twilight looked back at the Spiral Knight, making sure she had his attention, he regarded her coolly, his head cocked slightly to one side. She flashed him a smile, turned back to the cell bars, and began concentrating. A magenta aura appeared around her horn, and a small rain cloud began manifesting next to the lock. Hahn stood to his feet, and walked over to the bars, a rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Twilight poured magical energy into the storm cloud, and small arcs of electricity cascaded from it. She poured another effort of magical energy into the cloud, and a lightning bolt arced forth from the cloud, into the lock, making a satisfying sizzling noise as the circuits inside of the lock were promptly fried. The lock fell to the ground with a clattering noise. Twilight gave a satisfied “Hah” and turned back to Hahn with a smug expression. Her grin was completely lost on Hahn, who was staring at the cloud, utterly stunned. For once, he was struck speechless. Rarity pushed open the cell door and trotted out. “Well, enough of that dreariness,” the white unicorn huffed, “come along, girls!” “Yeah, let’s blow this popsicle stand!” cheered Rainbow Dash, darting out of the cell. Twilight and Spike exited, and Twilight finally turned back to Hahn, “Well?” she asked, mimicking his matter-of-fact tone, “Are you coming or not?” “Y-yes, of course.” Hahn muttered, tentatively stepping out of the cell. Spike tugged on Twilight’s tail insistently. “Umm, Twilight?” Twilight turned to see what Spike was going on about. “What is it-? Oh.” At the end of the hallway were two gremlin jailers, to say that their slack-jawed expression could be described as ‘completely flabbergasted’ would have been a gross understatement. The group of escapees and the two guards stared at each other for at least a minute. One of the guards was holding a mug of rationed caffeine, after a time of shocked staring the mug slipped out of his hand and clattered on the iron floor. The sudden noise seemed to snap the two parties out of their trance. One the jailers slowly pointed a finger at them. “Y-You’re not supposed to be-?” “RUN!” Hahn shouted, and the convicts rushed off in the opposite direction. One of the jailers gave chase, while the other one slammed a bright red button next to where he was leaning, causing an obnoxious alarm to sound throughout the stratum. ~~~ Herex was in the middle of a report when he heard the alarm sounding from outside of his command room. He guessed with depressing accuracy what the problem was before the intercom sparked, telling him that the new ‘guests’ had escaped. The gremlin commander rose, and set off towards a communication uplink located in the corner of his command centre. He jumped into a chair at his personal command station, and turned on a manual override button, which would broadcast him to every station, every terminal, and every radio throughout his domain. He leaned forward, letting the video recorder take in every detail of his charred face, and began his message. ~~~ The fugitives were running along the catwalks when they heard Herex’s broadcast. “You can all thank the incompetent fools guarding cell block eight for allowing our new guests to escape.” Boomed his voice, “I expect the entire unit to find and apprehend them, one way or another. I need not remind you what the price of failure is. Do not let them leave this facility!” At the end of the catwalk, a bipedal machine carrying a sword and a shield rounded the corner, the motor on its back releasing black smoke into the air. Hahn put all of his momentum and strength into a punch, hoping that a well-placed right-jab could at least stun the sentient mech. His fist landed squarely over the machine’s central eye. *CLANNNNG* Hahn recoiled, clutching at his bruised knuckles, and ducked a counter-swing from the machine’s sword. Twilight’s horn shined with energy, and a purple-coloured laser shot forth from her horn to slam into the machine, melting the android on impact. The group continued onward, running past the pile of half-melted scrap metal. The fugitives had passed off of the catwalks, running into an assembly zone. A lesser gremlin wearing a grease-stained beige tunic moved to block their path, raising a palm and commanding them to stop. Hahn barely slowed down to body-check the smaller creature into a wall, before continuing. As they ran past the partially dazed Gremlin, he lashed out and grabbed at one of the escapees streaking past him, which happened to be Rarity. She fell and tumbled gracelessly, landing in a heap. She tried to get back on her legs, but felt a foot slam into her side, pinning her to the floor. She looked up to see an angry gremlin looming over her. “I’ll be picking my teeth with your bones!” he growled, poising a two-handled hammer over his head. He very well may have fulfilled his statement, too, if a green-and-purple ball of fury hadn’t slammed squarely into his chest, knocking him off his feet. “NO-!” *whack* “-PONY-!” *whump* “-HURTS-!” *crunch* “-RARITY-!” Spike screamed, furiously slamming his fists into the stunned gremlin’s face. Hahn returned, and pried Spike off of the bruised gremlin. “I think he’s had enough, lover boy.” Spike was still flailing his balled claws at the creature as he was pulled off of the beaten gremlin. The creature’s goggles were missing a lens, revealing a terrified yellow eye staring out at him, and several teeth were missing from its jaw. The gremlin curled up in a fetal position, cowering in fear of the scaly abomination. “We have to keep moving.” Hahn turned back to Rarity, “Can you walk?” “I think I’ll be able to-” Rarity started. “-That’s the spirit.” Hahn interrupted, picking Rarity up and placing the white unicorn back on her legs. “Not much farther now, the elevator is just up ahea-” Hahn looked up, a squad of gremlins were blocking off their escape route, and a trio of automatons blocked a side route. Twilight tried firing a burst of magic at the machines. In unison, the metal bipeds raised their shields and locked them together, the laser dissipated in a harmless shower of sparks against the shield wall. Hahn turned to the way they had been going, and was disheartened to see a single, burly gremlin wielding a flamethrower in each hand, a single red optic in the centre of his welding mask glowered at them. Rainbow Dash tried charging him, and the larger gremlin released a massive gout of flame into the air, forcing Rainbow Dash to crash-land near the other fugitives to avoid being set alight. From behind where Hahn was standing, the Spiral Knight could hear one the gremlins let out a bark of laughter. The group of escapees backed into a defensive circle. “Well,” Rarity despaired, “I guess this is it, then, it’s been nice knowing all of you.” The Equestrians muttered their agreement. Hahn desperately tried to think of a way out the situation, and he remembered his PDA, he pulled it out, and noted a timer he had placed on it. 00:02 00:01 00:00 *Fsh-cht-cht-cht-cht-cht-cht! PWING!* The gremlin wielding the flamethrowers staggered forward suddenly. There was a distinctive hissing noise coming from behind him. The Gremlin incinerator sniffed the air curiously. He leaned over to check his petrol supply, which had a thin, blue jet of flame spurting from it. The gremlin groaned in frustration, “Aw, shi-” The unfortunate creature’s fuel tank ruptured into a ball of flame, his suit was flame-retardant, but the force of the blast was enough to slam the surly soldier face-first into the iron flooring, knocking him out instantly. Spike raised a claw to shield his eyes from the blast, he lowered his claw and looked up to see… another knight. Strutting out from behind the fallen brute was a biped wearing armour similar to Hahn’s. This knight was clothed in gleaming silver plate gauntlets and boots. His tabard was similar in fashion to Hahn’s, but it was coloured a dull maroon. Despite having similarly oversized-looking gloves, the new knight’s boots were a much closer fit, running up to knee-height where his baggy trousers were packed into them. This new combatant was wearing a silver-plated crash helmet, a bright red streak adorning the top. A pair of chinstraps hung loosely from the sides of the helmet. Despite the open-fronted nature of the helmet, the only detail of a face that could be made out was a pair of inquisitive scarlet eyes; the rest was shrouded in darkness. Spike also noticed that the knight was wearing a large barrel-shaped object across his back, with a radio antenna protruding from one side. Clutched in his hand was an object that bore similarity to a Gryphon crossbow, except that it had a circular belt mounted under where the crossbow bolt would’ve been kept, with several dangerously glowing crystals stored on it. This curious figure called out to them. “I thought I told you sit tight, Hahn!” “And you told me you’d be ‘right with us’, Rhendon!” Hahn shot back. “You’re late; I was timing you.” The knight known as ‘Rhendon’ merely sighed, pulled out a sword from his belt, and passed it to Hahn. The Biotech Knight grabbed the sword out of the air, turning to face the gremlins and constructs which were fast approaching them. “Let’s go to work.” Rhendon chuckled. The Equestrians merely stood back while the two knights beat back their pursuers. Hahn was not a particularly adept swordsman, but he manipulated the blade well enough to force back the small cluster of poorly-trained gremlins and their bulky machines. Rhendon joined in by unleashing salvoes of glimmering crystal shards from his handheld mechanism into anything that got around Hahn’s swordsmanship. Within a few moments the surviving gremlins were sent scampering back down the hallway, their numbers thinned and their machines dismembered. “Right,” Rhendon dusted himself off, and turned to Hahn, “first things first, who and what are these things?” He pointed at the Equestrians. “Hey,” Rainbow Dash responded angrily, “’these things’ can talk.” The red-silver knight jumped back in surprise, “Whoa! Sorry about that, I didn’t mean-” “Is this really the best time?!” Hahn yelled exasperatedly. “Fair enough,” Rhendon sighed, “there’ll be time for hellos and handshakes when we’re aboard the elevator.” “The elevator?” Twilight asked, unfamiliar with the term. Hahn inhaled as if he were about to explain, but he halted himself, instead providing a cryptic “You’ll see,” as he motioned towards a mechanism at a dead end hallway. The two Spiral Knights jogged over to the large square metal grate, and Rhendon sat down heavily, rubbing his aching ankles. The ponies uneasily followed them onto the marked area. “So, what happens now?” Rarity asked. “Now,” Rhendon responded, getting to his feet, “we get this thing going.” He nodded to Hahn, and they both flicked open small metal plates on the palms of their hands, and pressed their palms against a small control panel attached to the grating. Immediately, safety bars popped up and locked into place around the square area, and a pair of rails shot down from above, slamming into the flooring next to them. “What’s going on?” Spike asked nervously. The platform began gliding upwards, sliding along the two rails as it made its way toward the faint glimmer of light above. Twilight stared upwards at the slowly, but steadily approaching light while Rhendon introduced himself to the rest of the group. “Where is thing taking us?” The purple unicorn finally asked. “To our home away from home,” Rhendon answered, “to Haven.”
PrologueHerex was deep in thought; contemplating recent events, and his losses at the hands of the Spiral Knights. Warmaster Seerus was dead, and news of this brought mixed emotion to the small, bent creature reclining in a large, red throne. This hunched, pensive creature was known by his underlings as “Herex, the Whispering Venom”. Herex, like any Gremlin of the planet of Cradle, was covered in short, rust-red fur, with the exception for an area on the right side of his face where the flesh had been boiled in a chemical incident. His two long ears were permanently cropped behind his head, like all gremlins. He was wearing a pair of safety goggles, he also wore an iconic, voluminous, pitch-black scarf he always had wrapped around his shoulders, and the blood-red outfit identifying him as a member of the dreaded Crimson Order. The Crimson Order itself was the highest rank attainable for a member of the Gremlin Hierarchy, and was a name that struck fear, reverence, and respect into the name of any Gremlin worth their own spit. As a result, the death of one of these feared Crimson Order members was not taken lightly. Herex brooded over the mixed reports of the battle, some saying that the accursed Spiral Knights just barged through Warmaster’s defences and cut Seerus down like a defenceless pup, others saying that the high ranking Gremlin fought tooth-and-claw, dying in a matter truly befitting someone of his station. Only eight of us left now... thought Herex. To think, there used to be twelve... Granted, Crimson Order members were, if nothing else, ambitious; the first three were killed from in-fighting and intrigues within the Order, before the Spiral Knights landed in their thrice-damned spaceship and started throwing a wrench into everyone’s plans. Herex himself had one of his more delicate projects sabotaged by the Spiral Knights’ strike teams, losing a considerable amount of personnel to their advances, and letting years of military research fall into their grip. On the other hand, he was relatively lucky, when compared to Warmaster Seerus’ ugly fate. Herex’s expression once again turned grim as his mind turned back to the reports. Supposedly the damned Spiral Knights had broken into Seerus’ Grand Arsenal- into his own seat of power, and locked him inside of his own armoury as the facility was brought down on his head. Herex shook his head at the memory. Whether Seerus’ had put up a fight or not, that was no way for a Gremlin to die. After the unfortunate catastrophe regarding Seerus, Herex immediately seized his peer’s death as a chance to expand his realm of influence, quickly pulling strings and pouring resources into obtaining the remnants of Seerus’s domain, which included the hefty workforce of Gremlins that were originally under Seerus’s command, and in addition, all of Warmaster Seerus’s top-secret projects were transferred to Herex, the latter of which he was currently reviewing. At the moment, Herex was busily muttering under his breath as he leafed through the Warmaster’s old projects, opening them to glance at the contents of each folder for anything that could be of use before discarding them into a furnace resting near his throne. Herex’s voice, like that of many other gremlins, had a slightly husky, gravelly sound to it; a by-product from a life spent inhaling chemical fumes and smog from the panoply of machinery that the gremlins were so infatuated with. “’Synthetic Steel’” He muttered, “…hmm, too impractical… ‘Self-Repairing Robots’…. maybe, but… no, no… ‘Killer Paper Cuts’…” Herex didn’t say anything upon reading the last file, although made sure he was very careful to not brush the edges of the brown envelope containing the ridiculous project as he deposited it into the furnace. Herex felt his sense of disappointment increasing with each progressively hare-brained scheme he read. He realised with some dismay that Seerus, being the engineering genius he was, probably completed most of his actually useful projects weeks after their conception. Yet one file from the deceased Warmaster managed to grab Herex’s attention. It was marked with the bright red Wrench-and-Gear of the Crimson Order, which was the main thing that caught Herex’s goggled eyes. Most project folders were marked with the black and beige hourglass of the Gremlins, but obviously Seerus had considered this project to be much more… special, somehow. Herex tipped the folder upside down, slowly, much like a child opening a box when he knew it wasn’t his birthday. His dexterous fingers grabbed the precious papers as they escaped the folder’s confines, eager to spill their secrets upon the world. Herex placed the sheets of paper into order, before reading the title of this apparently ‘Super-Secret’ project. In bright-red letters, the paper read: Time Travel Herex’s lips pulled back across his snout to reveal a neat row of sharp teeth, as well as his unusually long canines, giving him a serpentine look. Herex grinned like a child who just discovered he could burn ants with a magnifying glass. “Oh,” he happily muttered to no one in particular, “now this has potential.”
Chapter 1*ZAP* “Agh, not again!” Twilight Sparkle was, to put it frankly, pissed off. Last week, she had received a new shipment of books, and her first reaction was to lock herself up and begin pouring through them, to the immense surprise of absolutely no one. Somewhat more surprising, however, was that she managed to find a book about an area of magic she knew nothing about. So, earlier that day, she told Spike she’d be out, found herself a nice grassy field a little ways away from town, and began practicing. The book claimed that before the Pegasi made their deal with the Unicorns and Earth Ponies, the weather was controlled by magic. Though the spells were never as exact as the Pegasi’s manipulation of the weather, they were the only way to shift the seasons and grow the crops correctly. Weather magic eventually was forgotten in all but the oldest of tomes, and study into it ceased completely. Most ponies would have shrugged and gone about their day upon hearing such news. Of course, why bother learning weather magic? The pegasi were more than capable of taking care of such things. Twilight Sparkle was, of course, not like most ponies. Her drive to discover anything and everything she could about magic had led her to this particular grassy knoll, and she swore she would not leave until the secrets of how to create and control weather were revealed. Of course, such conviction lasted about as long as it took to accidentally blast apart a section of grass with a lightning bolt. Twelve times. Okay, she thought, concentrating once again. Not too much power, not too little. Slowly, her horn began to glow. She shut her eyes tight, blocking out any possible distractions. She pictured the cloud forming, growing from almost invisibly small to the size of a basketball. Once it was at the correct size, she held it there. Now came the hard part. Come on, she willed it, prodding it gently, ever so gently, with a small magical force. Too hard, and the magical energy inside would become unbalanced and discharge into the ground. Too light, and she’d wear herself out holding the cloud in its current state, causing it to dissipate pathetically. Just a little harder, come on! She dared to open an eye and check on her progress. It was working! The first few drops of water were coming out! She was making rain! Yes! Wait, no! Don't lose focus! It was close, but aside from a few wobbles the cloud was stable. It was starting to dissipate, the condensed water vapour running out as it poured into the ground. The feeling was truly amazing. Twilight realized: she was probably one of only a handful of unicorns who has performed weather magic for thousands of years! It was easy to see why. The intense amount of magical energy it required, plus the precision necessary to stop the cloud from exploding, would have made it impossible for most unicorns to accomplish. Perhaps they worked in teams, or maybe unicorns were just more powerful back then… Still, the feeling of accomplishment was euphoric. She looked up at the sun: it was just before lunchtime. The rumbling of her stomach corroborated the information. The unicorn quickly planned out the rest of her day: A quick lunch back at the library, and then back to reading. Today was going to be a good day. ~~~ “Today is going to be terrible.” These were the thoughts of Spiral Knights’ Biotech Hahn as he was being dragged down the hallway by a pair of slouched gremlin soldiers. Hahn’s original escort of four knights had been either eliminated, or dispersed. He knew, sullenly, that the entire reason they had decided to spare him was because of his commission as Biotech, with a mind to rival the most brilliant Gremlin schemers. This most certainly meant that his fate was probably resigned to being tortured for what little information he could add to the Gremlins’ already massive vault of knowledge, before being sent back to his fellow knights- in pieces. Hahn sighed inwardly, if at least he couldn’t look forward to surviving this debacle, he might as well make the most of whatever time he had left. He tried to strike up a conversation with the Gremlins dragging him: “Hey, I was wondering if-“ “Shut up.” What's up his bum? Hahn thought, glumly, At least he isn't facing certain death. The Gremlin jailers dragged Hahn the rest of the way to his cell, before unceremoniously flinging him into the medium-sized confine and programming the magnetic lock on the steel cell bars. As soon as Hahn heard the footsteps of the Gremlins fade away, he sprang up, and went over his gear. Sword, no. Shield, no. Gun, definitely no. Deducting from this inventory check that his captors were not, indeed, idiots, Hahn decided to instead shift the criteria of his check based on what he did have, instead of what was missing (namely just about everything). Padding down the many pockets of his field armour, Hahn felt the familiar shape of his PDA, and quickly freed it from his back pocket, Great… he thought, now what? He stared at the PDA, almost as if he expecting the answer to his predicament to just appear on the small screen in his hands. THINK, Hahn! You’re the leading Biotech for the entire Spiral Order; you should be able to do this stuff in your sleep! an idea finally dawned on him. Granted, it was not one of his better ideas, however he had more to work with when he had his best ideas; he’d have to make the most out of his limited resources. Well, here goes nothing... ~~~ "Warning, initial test firing in thirty seconds, all personell remain clear." Herex gazed down at the spacious area of ground that was designated with yellow and black safety tape. This was it; the first test of his new time portal. His grip tightened on the safety rail in anticipation, his tendons standing out through the fur of his knuckles. A member of the Crimson Order was supposed to show utter and complete composition and austerity at all times, but he couldn’t help but grin, exposing his pointed teeth. This is what a Gremlin lived for, the tension, the anxiety and adrenaline of knowing that within a few seconds, the prototype would succeed with incredible results (or explode, with a probable result of fatality. This was why Herex was on a catwalk far from the actual testing area should his latest experiment amount to nothing more than a destructive fireworks display.) He had commissioned the construction of a giant power generator which took up an entire floor to itself, and yet his most brilliant schemers said that it would only create a rift of about twelve feet in diameter. His vice-like grip on the catwalk’s safety rail only tightened as the ten-second countdown started. Seerus had better have been right about this, Herex thought. He realised how ridiculous the whole situation was, in most situations he would never trust another member of the Crimson Order. For all I know, Seerus could’ve left those blueprints just to screw over the poor soul who tried to steal his plans. Herex decided to push such thoughts from his mind, as the raspy voice over the intercom announced that his project was nearing its moment of truth. "Three..." "Two..." "ONE!" With a soft bubbling noise, an area about one foot above the test area shimmered, then collapsed inwardly, widening to a spherical area of about twelve metres in diameter before stopping. One of Herex’s guards, who had been watching the experiment with some anticipation, was the first to voice the mutual feeling regarding the outcome. “Is that all?!” Normally, Herex would have the guard whipped and demoted for speaking out of line whilst on duty, but he was inclined to agree with the disappointed soldier. Most Gremlin experiments resulted in bright lights, loud noises, or at least a big explosion. Considering all the work that was put into creating the portal, the actual portal itself was noticeably anticlimactic. “Oh well,” Herex sighed, “let’s go get a closer look.” ~~~ Twilight had made her way back to the library in Ponyville, and was about to bite into a daisy sandwich when Pinkie Pie burst through the door. “Stop right there!” Twilight paused nervously, her friend’s exasperated behaviour was positively out of the ordinary, and she wasn’t about to dismiss Pinkie Pie’s concerns. “What is it?” Twilight asked nervously, she had a rather panicked expression on her face, worried about what shocking situation Pinkie had discovered that included her lunch. “You have to come with me for a picnic!” Pinkie exclaimed, “Me and Fluttershy found this really neat field just outside of her cottage, and it’s really great and open for a picnic, I’ve invited all the girls to come and you ARE going, right?” She punctuated her phrase with a dramatic puppy-dog expression for good measure. Twilight rolled her eyes and gave a sigh. She wanted to stick to her schedule, but she decided it would be good to spend time with her friends. She beckoned Spike to follow her as she packed her lunch into a bag and brought it with her, following Pinkie down the road. Twlight felt herself relaxing. After all, today was a weekend; they had all the time in world. ~~~ “What do you mean this wormhole doesn’t go through time?!” “W-w-well, sir-”- Stammered the young gremlin. “I asked for time travel.” “Y-yes, but we-“ “-Made a hole to an alternate dimension. Not through time!” The young gremlin could feel his fur blown back by the breeze of Herex’s enraged voice. He adjusted his goggles nervously, he could almost see the fury creating an ozone of heat around his superior. Herex had been denied his climactic outcome, and now he was being told that his best-laid plans had ultimately missed their mark to naught. “You’d better have some good news for me, or else.” Herex threatened. “W-w-well, th-the Ghostmanes are s-still assembled.” At this point the young Gremlin Schemer was grasping at straws, trying to think of anything that would defuse the rage of the Crimson Order member. “and?!” Herex bellowed. The young gremlin engineer had run out of ideas, he opened his mouth, but then closed it again, he only managed a frightened “U-umm…” before Herex motioned for him to be quiet, a sudden idea forming in the mind of the Gremlin leader. “…are you saying that I should send our scouts through to explore this new dimension for anything of value?” Herex leaned in close to the perspiring engineer, his seemingly rage-filled demeanour replaced by a more curious one. The younger gremlin trembled in his boots, fearing a trick question, but in fear he stammered out an answer without thinking it through, lest the anger flash return to his leader as quickly as it had left. “Y-yes?” he offered. “Excellent! Zoxel!” He called in an impossibly upbeat tone, the gremlin quartermaster, named ‘Zoxel’ stepped forward, smartly snapping to attention. “Yes sir?” “This engineer is demoted, get him out of here.” Herex said in a deadpan, motioning to the cowering gremlin behind him. Herex sat down heavily, massaging his temples. He couldn’t have snivelling yes-men following him around like lost pups; he needed staff he could count on. He looked over to find that the Ghostmane division was, indeed, assembled. Milling about while checking their sawblades and cloaking devices. Normally Herex expected all of his combat divisions to be in perfect formation, but he grinned at the obvious restlessness of his personal division. He had come up with the idea for the Ghostmane Stalkers after seeing a few Recon soldiers from those rust-bucket Spiral Knights in action. The knights would use a sophisticated, if rather bulky, cloaking device to remain hidden during a battle, calling out enemy positions and strike co-ordinates to their allies while remaining unseen. Herex had a much more… practical application for his troops. He considered the contrast between those slow, bulky metal warriors and his own lithe, deadly troops. He prided himself on designing the Ghostmanes in every way, from their uniform, which was a more armoured, closer-fitting variation of his own outfit, right down to the versatile saw blades they carried into battle. He had full confidence in the cloaking devices he had custom-made for each member of the division. The cloak would render its wearer completely invisible, allowing the crack troops to remain seamlessly hidden until they were ready to strike. The Ghostmane Stalker lieutenant noticed Herex eyeing his prized soldiers, and snapped to attention, causing the rest of the unit to do the same. Herex grinned at them, satisfied with their discipline, and turned his gaze to the shimmering portal. Whatever or whoever existed on the other side, they would soon know the power of the gremlin war machine. ~~~ Spiral Knights’ Biotech Hahn was sitting dejectedly in his cell. His attempt to turn his PDA into a digital lockpick had, ultimately, failed. Seeing as the bars on the jail cell didn’t provide him enough room to actually loop his arm through them to press his ingenious lock-cypher against the data pad that kept his cell sealed. Back to the drawing board... Hahn was once again sitting, cross-legged, trying to contemplate the many uses of a re-wired PDA. He did have one idea, but he quickly pushed it to the back of his mind. There has to be another way... but as time went on, the idea kept on resurfacing, like a buoy in storm. Hahn desperately did not want to enlist the help of the other knights, and certainly not by such rudimentary means, but he had run out of options. With a sigh, he went back to work, re-wiring his PDA. ~~~ The stooped, crafty creature came through the shimmering portal, and dropped to the ground, taking a moment to survey his surroundings. “Clear!” On cue, several other Ghostmane scouts emerged through the trans-dimensional rift, silently landing next to their officer, who went by the name of Rejyk. They were all clothed in close-fitting onyx black padding, and wearing concealing red scarves. Unlike most gremlins, the Ghostmane Stalkers wore obscuring black masks emblazoned with the gremlin hourglass sign, as opposed to the thick tinted goggles most gremlins wore. By unsaid cue, the Ghostmanes activated their cloaking devices in unison, rendering the small group completely invisible. Their intent was to search to the area for any threat and, should the opportunity present itself, recover any intelligence, or sources thereof. The lieutenant took an extra moment to assess his surroundings, before turning back to his unit. “You know your orders,” he hissed, “move out.” The Ghostmanes advanced cautiously, moving as one through the rough forested area. A Ghostmane Sergeant, by the name of Jetzul, heard something rustling in a bush off to his left. Drawing a sawblade, ready to face any danger, Jetzul peered over his shoulder, and froze solid, quite literally unable to move. The unfortunate Gremlin was petrified in stone by the gaze of an odd creature, with white head feathers and green body scales. One of Jetzul’s squad mates sensed the danger his sergeant was in, and quickly unsheathed a sawblade from his belt, and threw it with pinpoint accuracy at the serpent-bird in a single, lethal motion, scything the unfortunate animal clean through the middle. “What was that thing, Sergeant?! ...Sir?” The gremlin turned, and was mortified to see the granite statue that used to be Sergeant Jetzul, his facial expression frozen mid-sneer as he was pulling down his scarf. The other gremlins crowded around, horrified. Not even the Gloaming Wildwoods of their home dimension could yield creatures with the same lethality; the sergeant was killed in the blink of an eye, not even the terrifying Snarbolax could boast that. Lieutenant Rejyk shifted nervously, considering withdrawal, but steeled himself. Casualties could be expected, failure could not. The lieutenant gave one last, sombre look at the granite sergeant, and moved on, motioning for the others to follow. He was eager to escape that cursed glade. Moving onwards, many of the Ghostmanes were relieved to see the edge of the forest drawing into view. The Gremlin Lieutenant dropped into a low crouch, motioning for the others to do the same. “Up ahead, see them? Spread out, and stay hidden. Let's go get the locals for questioning.” Heeding their officer’s words, the Gremlins spread out, quietly encircling the collection of curious quadrupeds conversing in the clearing. The sharp voice of one of the more inexperienced soldiers crackled over the intercom. "Um, sir?" “What is it?” "I... I fell, my cloaking device is malfunctioning." “You stupid idiot, you just gave us away!" “I'm sorry sir! Please-! Auugh!" ~~~ "Um, girls?” Fluttershy called, nervously, “ there appears to be, ah, something over there.” “Dear, ‘something’ is horribly vague,” Rarity intoned, “could you be more specific?” “I-I’m not sure what it was…” Fluttershy admitted, the anxiety still tense in her voice. “What’s the matter, ‘Shy?” Rainbow dash was getting antsy anyways, she decided that humouring her friend would be a good way to flex her wings as well. “Um, over there.” Fluttershy mumbled, gesturing with a hoof to where she saw the dark mask wearing creature. “Please be careful.” “Don’t worry,” Dash assured her, “I’ll be fine.” To be honest, Rainbow Dash was not actually expecting her friend’s concerns to amount to anything, so when she flew over to the ravine and saw what looked like a relatively small-sized bipedal creature, clad in black armour save for a blood-red scarf, busily throttling his idiot subordinate for giving away his entire squad’s element of surprise, Rainbow Dash was, suffice to say, astonished. ~~~ “You stupid, stupid, moron!” The Ghostmane officer growled, overcome by rage. “I’m- *ack* -sorry, sir, please!- *hrrk*” The officer was halfway through turning the rookie’s throat into his own personal stress ball, when he noticed the pitiful subordinate broke his gaze, focusing on something behind him. Suffice to say, Rejyk was just as surprised to look upwards and see the cyan-coloured pegasus as she was to see him. Sadly, years of training ensured that the Gremlin officer reacted faster; he grabbed a sawblade from his belt and flung it upwards at the winged equine. Rainbow Dash’s reflexes finally kicked into action, dodging out of the way so that the violently spinning blade only grazed her flank, as opposed to taking off her head. However, it was enough to knock her out of the air, sending her tumbling out of the sky to land behind a small incline. “Enough of this screwing around!” Rejyk snarled, “Gas canisters, knock them out!” On cue, several cylindrical containers sailed through the air, landing near the frightened picnickers. Upon landing, a fine, grey mist dispersed from each of the canisters. “Hey, what’s that funny smell…?” *thump* The gremlins advanced on the picnic, which was now in a deep slumber. “Sir,” One of the gremlins voiced his concerns, “there’s still one left.” Sure enough, sitting amongst the unconscious group was Pinkie Pie, wearing a gas mask. The gremlin officer straightened up as he approached her, picking invisible pieces of grime out of his uniform. “Your fearlessness is noted,” he rasped, “but I’m afraid it won’t be enough.” He pulled out a sawblade and began flexing the motor experimentally. The small pink mare yelled something in retort, but it was muffled by the gasmask. The lieutenant began chuckling; the poor creature didn’t stand a chance. Unexpectedly, the pink creature’s stalwart expression faded to be replaced by a more confident, almost cheery one. “What’s so funny-?” *WHAM* Rainbow Dash slammed into the officer, her momentum carrying them both quite a long distance before gracelessly ploughing him into the ground face-first. Rejyk got up unsteadily, wiping dirt out of his scarf as he did so. He swerved about, trying to spot his attacker, only to be knocked onto his back by Rainbow Dash, driving a foreleg into his sternum. The Gremlin lieutenant grappled with the cyan pegasus for a period of time, trading punches, kicks, and the occasional bite with his flighty foe. However, her injury from earlier steadily sapped away her strength, finally allowing the Gremlin lieutenant to gain the upper paw, pinning her under his knee. Pulling down his scarf to spit out a wad of blood, Rejyk looked back to where the picnic used to be taking place, and was disappointed to see the small pink creature making a mockery out of his beloved soldiers in his absence, dancing and pirouetting in between them as they desperately and belatedly attempted to catch her, and even making two of his troops crash into each other at one point. The Gremlin officer shouted into the radio, determined to gain control of the situation before it went completely out-of-paw. “When you're done frolicking like pups, we still have a mission here! A few of his troops slowed down at hearing this, ashamed of their own lack of discipline and finesse. “Jetzul’s squad, keep chasing that pink one, don’t bother trying to catch her; just keep her away from us! Kixell’s squad, retrieve some of the knocked out creatures, I don’t care which ones, just pick a few, and take them! Rally at the wormhole in half an hour or we will leave you behind!" He paused for a few moments, catching his breath, “…and somebody come help me over here, I’ve got a live one!” He returned his attention to the brightly coloured creature restrained under his knee, which was currently doing her best to escape his grasp. Rejyk leaned over, attempting to put her in a chokehold. He succeeded, but not before Rainbow Dash jerked her head back into the gremlin’s face, producing a spray of blood from his shattered nose. Once Rejyk was certain the cyan Pegasus was unconscious from the choke hold, he fell back, his vision blurring from exhaustion. He sat up slowly, wiping the blood from his snout as he did so, his muscles ached, and he was pretty sure he had minor internal bleeding. Finally, a newer recruit from Kixell’s squad uncloaked near him, helping him hoist the unconscious pegasus over their shoulders before moving back towards the wormhole.
Chapter 2“Uughhh…” “Quick! Get up get up get up!” Applejack awoke to see Pinkie Pie standing over her. As if this wasn’t worrying enough, Pinkie Pie was wearing a very panicked expression as opposed to her normally chipper demeanour. “Pinkie… what happened?” Applejack quickly realised why asking Pinkie to explain something to you while you’re half-asleep is not a good idea. She had to ask the hyperactive pony to slow down multiple times before finally understanding what was going on. By this time they had been joined by Fluttershy, who seemed to be the only pony left in the field other than themselves. “So, y’all’s saying that aliens came in and knocked us out with gas b’fore abducting our friends? Remind me why you were somehow-?” “I always have a gasmask nearby-“ “-in case of gasmask emergency?” the skepticism was evident in Applejack’s voice. “Of course!” Pinkie Pie’s optimistic personality seemed to be coming back. “’Right, so, wait, can we jus’ do a headcount here?” At this point, Fluttershy added to the conversation, “I-I think we’re the only ones left.” she mumbled. “Right, so what say we go after ‘em?” Applejack cocked an eyebrow, looking back to Pinkie. “Which way’d they go?” “They carried them off into the Everfree Forest…” Pinkie Pie said, the enthusiasm draining with each syllable. Suddenly, the idea of going after their friends, at least single-handedly, seemed to lose its credibility. “Well, whadda y'all suggest we do?” Applejack shot back, “Just sit ‘round on our rumps?” “We could always send a letter back to Canterlot,” Fluttershy murmured, “I mean, the Princesses would help us, right?” She looked to her friends, timidly waiting to see how they would receive her suggestion. “Well there’s an idea,” Applejack said approvingly, “first things first, tho’,” she said, getting onto her hooves, “we shouldn’t stick ‘round here, we sure ‘aint going to get anythin’ done by sittin’ here.” ~~~ Herex was lying in the middle of his throne room, staring at the ceiling while the gears in his head turned. He was always the most relaxed this way, the cool steel pressed against the back on his head, the gentle, distant rumble of the Clockworks soothing his mind while he schemed, imagining the next big project he’d come up with. Seerus’ time travel project was a pleasant distraction, but he wanted something more… original, something with his own mark on it, as opposed to a salvaged version of somebody else’s creation. He was considering a new bio-weapon of some sort. He recalled his “Toxoil” project in Compound 42, his attempt to create a flammable, sentient, gelatinous biotoxin. The idea behind the Toxoil would be to train them to hone in on knights, light them on fire, then let them charge straight at the knights. Of course, after a report telling him that a number of toxoils had formed a hive-mind and started attacking some of the workers, he realised that the compound would have to be eradicated. Inevitably, the Knights put a stop to that, why did they always have to- “Sir?” Herex’s eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright with a start. Herex hoped his orderly hadn’t realised that he had dozed off. The recruit shuffled nervously, clearing his throat and inspecting his toes. You're just being paranoid, Herex, he thought to himself, nobody could imagine taking you off-guard. Herex pushed his goggles up onto his brow, rubbing the drowsiness out of his eyes. His irises were an irradiated green, contrasting with his black sclerae. “Speak.” The order came out crisp and clear, making his orderly snap to attention. “Sir,” he started, “the Ghostmanes are back from their expedition, they succeeded.” “Oh?” Herex stood up from the floor and stretched his back, making his vertebrae crack and pop. “Lieutenant Rejyk has retrieved denizens from the new dimension, believed to be sentient.” Herex’s brow shot up in surprise as he replaced his goggles over his eyes. He rolled his neck left and right, stretching out the last of the stiffness with a series of loud pops while he mulled over the information. “Alright, give them a few hours to… acclimatize. I’ll have questions for them by then. Casualty report?” Herex wished he didn’t have to ask this, but he knew it was necessary. “Of course, sir.” The orderly cleared his throat again, producing a typed report from his satchel. “Lieutenant Rejyk has been assessed for several injuries dealt to him by one of the inter-dimensional denizens, our menders are reporting a thorough recovery, and he should be able to return to active service soon.” The orderly shifted his weight nervously before continuing, knowing his superior didn’t appreciate bad news, “Sergeant Jetzul died honourably. Reports state he was killed in combat with a feral animal in the vicinity of the trans-dimensional rift. His conduct will serve as an example for generations of soldiers to come.” Herex sighed, he regretted death that resulted from his orders, but he knew that casualties were inevitable in combat. “Well stated, soldier, may Jetzul find eternal peace in The Sanctuary.” ~~~ Applejack was pacing around anxiously. They had written a letter to the princesses in Canterlot, and Fluttershy had insisted on delivering it herself, taking off at her best speed. Applejack only hoped that the princesses would send help soon- *CRACK!* “Well, that was a rush,” Celestia said somewhat shakily, “are you okay, Luna?” Luna, who was equally dizzy after having assisted her sister in teleporting an entire squad of their respective royal guards all the way from Canterlot, replied shakily. “Yes, I think I’m alright, but I feel do feel bit woozy.” Luna looked back at her sister, a fatigued grin on her face. “Right,” Celestia continued, turning to address Pinkie Pie “Pinkamena, could you explain what’s going on here? We received your letter, but I’m not certain I read your note correctly, you said something about aliens?” “Hiya Celestia, Hi Luna, yeah, it was really scary, a bunch of aliens came and carried off Dashie, Twi, Rarity, and Spike! They weren’t all that smart, but it was really scary!” Pinkie looked up at both of the princesses, waiting for their response. Celestia was still a bit wary of Pinkie’s story, but she knew better than to dismiss the pink mare’s claims. Four of her subjects were missing and she was determined to- Celestia succumbed to the a sudden onset dizziness; the teleportation had a very taxing effect on her equilibrium, causing her to stagger slightly before falling onto her flank. “Perhaps the Princesses could just rest a moment while the Royal Guard handles the situation?” This came from Shining Armour, the captain of Celestia’s personal guard. “Of course, Shining, I have every confidence the Royal Guard will be able to solve this mystery.” Upon hearing this, Bellerophon, the captain of the Lunar Guard, muttered his frustrations at this. "Oh sure, just give them all the fun." Luna looked at her guard captain upon hearing this. “Would you like to accompany Celestia’s guards in attempting to search for anything regarding the missing mares?” she asked politely. “Accompany them?!” Bellerophon knew better than to use an insolent tone in front of his sovereign, but his pride wouldn’t stand for it. “I’m certain the Lunar Guard could find twice as much information regarding the missing mares, and twice as useful!” the dark-coloured pegasus puffed his chest out, determined to show himself more than capable of backing up his claim. “Talk is cheap,” Shining Armour was not going to have himself stood up by this wannabe-guard who was claiming to be better than him. “You feel like putting your money where your mouth is, punk?” Fluttershy had enough of the arguing, it wasn’t getting anypony anywhere, and she hated it. “QUIET!!” She screamed. “…please?” After a moment of shocked silence, Luna seized the moment to gain control of the situation before the guard captains began arguing again. “I propose a friendly competition,” she suggested, “the Royal Guard and the Lunar Guard will go into the Everfree forest,” she continued, motioning to the twisted tree line in front of her, “and look for anything that could be of use in our search.” She paused, for dramatic effect. “Whoever’s clues prove to me more useful in finding the mares, is the better guardspony.” Bellerophon and Shining Armour both replied in unison. “Deal.” “Well then,” Celestia chimed, “what’re you waiting around here for? Get going!” ~~~ Across an inter-dimensional boundary, Rainbow Dash felt herself being gently nudged awake. “Daaaaash..." “Ugh,” she mumbled, “Just a few more minutes…” “Daaaash..." “Just a little bit longer…” “Dash! Wake up!” “Oh, what is it?!” Dash retorted angrily. She opened her eyes and took in the metallic atmosphere around her, and suddenly the events of yesterday came back to her in a flood. She sat up quickly, still expecting to be face-to-face with the black-padded creature she was fighting with; she still had a hoof sandwich with that jerk’s name on it. “Calm down, Dash,” Twilight said, assuring her, “there isn’t much you can do from in here.” Rainbow Dash straightened up, and took a moment to examine her surroundings. She appeared to be in a steel-plated jail cell, with a door made from wrought-iron bars. An ache in the side of her head confirmed that the floor was indeed, made from uncomfortable metal plating. In the room with her were Twilight, Spike, Rarity (who was still fast asleep), and…. There appeared to be a medium-sized bipedal creature, sitting in a corner of the room. It was wearing armour that reminded her of Celestia’s own guardsponies. He was wearing large armour-plated boots and gloves that were so oversized compared to his thin frame that they very nearly gave him a comical look. He was also wearing an almost spherical metal helmet, a pair of radio antennae protruding behind his head from where he ears would be, and a curious pale-green visor obscuring his eyes from view. A canteen hung from his shoulders, in addition to a tabard. The tabard extended down his chest and was secured to his waist by a pair of utility belts with several pouches and pockets attached to them. Upon seeing this alarming creature Rainbow Dash sprang to her hooves, and felt a lancing pain through her flank, she remembered the injury from earlier. Although between her wound and this weird… thing they were sharing a cell with, Dash decided that the latter required more attention. She leaned over to Twilight. “Who is this guy?” She hissed. “No clue,” Twilight responded, “he isn’t very talkative.” Dash glanced back to Rarity, where Spike was still doing his best to wake her. Then back to the armoured creature that was busy fiddling with some sort of electronic device clutched in his hands. Dash realised that if Twilight couldn’t find anything out about… it… then she didn’t have much of a chance to find anything out either, but Rainbow Dash approached the metal-clad creature, determined to learn anything she could. “Hi.” She started. The armour plated creature gave a grunt of mutual acknowledgement, not taking his eyes from the piece of machinery he was busily re-assembling. “My name’s Rainbow Dash.” She continued. “Well isn’t that a coincidence.” The creature muttered. At this, Rainbow Dash looked back to Twilight, seeking encouragement of some sort. Twilight merely shrugged. “How so?” Dash continued, hoping the creature would explain the meaning of his cryptic response. “Well,” he stated, “I have a name too, it really is a small world after all.” His metal helmet betrayed none of his emotions, but the sarcasm in his voice was more than apparent. Dash was taken aback by this metal creature’s flippant response, but was determined to find out as much as she could. “So… what’s your name, then?” she continued. “My name’s Hahn, I’m a Spiral Knight.” He said in a monotone. Rainbow Dash paused for a moment, well she had gotten a name, that was a start. The latter half of ‘Hahn’s’ statement still confused her, though. She gulped, then opened her mouth her continue. “What’s a Spira-?” “A Spiral Knight is someone who doesn’t like being asked stupid questions.” Hahn interrupted, “Now could you please… leave me alone? I’m in the middle of something important here.” Rainbow Dash decided she had enough of Hahn’s rude demeanour, and limped back to Twilight with a humourless scowl on her face. Twilight seemed rather pleased, in contrast to her friend’s expression. By this point Rarity had finally regained consciousness, and the group were mulling over what little information they had about their cellmate before a guard opened the door. “You,” he declared, pointing at the ponies, “Crimson Order member Herex has granted you an audience, now follow.” He stood beside the open door, motioning for them to leave. Twlight gulped nervously, then turned to the other Equestrians, “Let’s get going then.” She said, nervously exiting the cell. “Well, what if we decide that we don’t want to see ‘Crimson Order member Herex’ just now?” Rarity pouted, she was not one to be bossed around. In response, the jailer merely growled, and unsheathed a stun stick from his belt, the tip sparking dangerously with electricity. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Spike put threw himself in front of the disgruntled jailer, desperately attempting to protect his crush from an unfortunate accident, “sh-she was just speaking hypothetically, right?” He turned back to Rarity, a pleading look in his eyes. “Yes, of course!” Rarity had not expected the guard to resort to violence so casually, and gave a nervous grin. The guard merely grunted, returning the stun baton to his belt. “Now, follow.” He growled. ~~~ “Sir? I think I found something!” Bellerophon galloped over, equal parts of joy and anger. “Keep your voice down!” he hissed “You don’t want the Royal Guard to take credit for what you found, do you?” He changed his tone, unable to hide his giddiness at his guard’s discovery. “What’d you find?” he whispered, his slitted-pupils glinting in the waning light. “Well, see for yourself, sir.” The Lunar Guard motioned to the ground nearby. Indeed, at their hooves, was a gruesomely butchered cockatrice; near its decapitated body was a circular, bloodstained sawblade, half-buried in the earth. Bellerophon was somewhat disturbed by the scene, but he wouldn’t let it get in the way of his optimism- this was definitely a good find! He congratulated the guardspony who had found it, and, judging the angle of where the blade had come from, by where the blood was splattered, he suggested that they search over where it was assumed to be thrown from. They both crept through the brush, giddy with the idea of finding even more. Neither of them was prepared for what they found, though. Standing in a small clearing, was a statue, or rather, the petrified body of a mid-sized bipedal creature clothed in close-fitting armour, one hand was pulling a scarf away from its face to expose a toothy scowl, in his other hand was clutched a sawblade, identical to the one that killed the cockatrice. The Lunar Guardspony was about to approach it, but was restrained by Bellerophon, who hissed at him to exercise caution. They were both still mulling over how to approach the situation when one of the members of the Royal Guard sauntered over, rapped his hoof against the petrified creature, and turned around. “Found iiit!” he called in a sing-song voice. “Oi!” Bellerophon called angrily, motioning for his fellow guard to follow him, “We found it first!” The gold-plated pegasus gave them a smug look, “Oh really? It’s your word against mine- what’re you going to do about it?” He straightened up, giving a self-righteous smile. “I’m going to call it,” Bellerophon said, leaning in and lowering his voice to almost a whisper "'Called it." The Royal Guard, who was now joined by Shining Armour, and several other Royal Guards, looked mortified, “Y-you can’t do that!” “Why not?” the bat-winged pegasus was definitely starting to enjoy himself now. “‘Because only foals ‘call it’” Shining Armour interjected, the lack of humour evident in his voice. “So?” Bellerophon shot back, “That doesn’t make it any less legitimate.” Shining Armour rolled his eyes. “Fine, you found it first.” He turned to address his Royal Guard, who were now protesting his concession of victory. “What in Celestia’s name are you whining about?!” Shining Armour shouted at them, “Currently, three mares and a dragon are suffering who-knows-what at the hands of these creatures,” he shouted, motioning toward the statue, “one of which is my kid sister,” he added, “and you’re treating it like it’s all some sort of game?!” even the Lunar Guard turned their gazes to the ground, ashamed of their own carefree conduct. He turned back to his dark-coated counterpart, “I don’t know about you,” he said, matter-of-factly, “but I think the fact that we found it is more important than some stupid game, wouldn’t you agree?” Bellerophon mumbled a curt “Fine.” The taste of victory soured in his mouth. “I don’t suppose you could teleport us out of here?” He said, cocking a humourless eyebrow. “Of course.” Shining Armour’s horn fizzed with magical energy, and all the guardsponies, including their oversized lawn ornament, were teleported back to the field, in front of a pair of pleased princesses. “So,” Celestia asked curiously, “who won?” “We did.” Bellerophon muttered, however something in his voice made Celestia think that he wasn’t exactly happy with victory. She made a mental note to ask Luna about what happened later, as she turned her attention to the snarling statue that stood before them. “So… how do we reverse the petrification?” one of the Lunar Guard asked, “The cockatrice responsible was found dead.” “Oh?” Luna inquired, “If that’s the case, we need only wait, the effect should wear off soon-” As if on cue, the stone prison keeping Sergeant Jetzul contained in paralysis crumbled and shattered around him. To be quite honest, nobody was nearly as surprised as Jetzul himself, whose last memory had been of an odd creature staring at him to suddenly be replaced with several quadropedal creatures of varying colours and sizes. He realised that he still had a sawblade clutched in his hand, so he took the only logical course of action for someone in his situation. He threw it.
Chapter 3Jetzul woke up with a throbbing headache, as would be expected after being kicked and trampled by two divisions of guards after throwing a motor-propelled sawblade at their sovereigns. He was still unable to fathom how the spinning weapon had frozen in midair as it sailed towards them. Obviously they had promptly confiscated his extra sawblades from his belt after they had beaten him senseless. Jetzul slowly regained his footing, and assessed his surroundings. The armoured quadrupeds who had half-trampled him were standing in a circle around him, in front of him were two more regal-appearing creatures, with coats of sun-silver white and shadowsteel black. He carelessly spat some blood on the ground, before addressing the two creatures. “Why have you spared me?” Jetzul went straight to the point; he was never one to stand on ceremony. The bright-coated creature straightened up, “A number of my subjects have gone missing,” she began, “you wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?” Jetzul waved his hand dismissively, “Yes, that would probably be us,” he wheezed slightly from bruises on his neck, “so what do you want to know?” At this, the dark-coloured one spoke up, “We must know how you have arrived here, why you have done so, and how we can arrange for the return of our subjects.” Jetzul chuckled, “I will answer your questions as best I can, but you may not like what you hear.” He inhaled unevenly before continuing. The Ghostmane sergeant gladly, almost boastfully explained how his brilliant species, the Gremlins, had created a dimensional rift that allowed them to travel between their world and this one. However he remained tight-lipped on the matter of why exactly they arrived, other than they wanted information on the nature of this dimension, and capturing sentient life would be an easier way of learning the lay of the land. “Now tell us: how do we get them back?” The white creature, who introduced herself as ‘Celestia’, leaned in, an intense glare in her eye. An amused, yet crestfallen look crossed Jetzul’s face, who had been bracing himself for this question. “I’m afraid that is impossible.” He sighed before continuing, “I assume you wouldn't know what a power generator is?” he cocked an eyebrow at them. “It wasn’t like we just stepped through a hole in the wall, the amount of energy needed is probably well beyond your means. Unless my superior decides to send more of my kind through, in which I highly doubt you’ll be in a position to negotiate with whoever he sends through. Your subjects are as stranded in my dimension as I am in yours.” Jetzul knew what was coming next. All leaders tended to react the same way to bad news: throwing a fit and having someone killed. The Gremlin sergeant resolved that he would not be dragged off, crying and moaning; he would go forth, and confront his death with honour. He prostrated himself before the princesses. “Execute me: My blood will satiate the injuries caused to you and your domain.” A good minute passed in silence before the Gremlin sergeant lifted his head from the ground, to find the princesses giving him a very shocked expression. “We… don’t…” Luna began decisively, completely fazed by the unorthodox request. “We do not perform executions,” Celestia rejoined, “it isn’t my place to make claims about your own society, but your blood certainly won’t solve anything.” “Then are you going to just let me go?” Jetzul cocked an eyebrow sarcastically. “Of course not,” said Luna, regaining her composure, “we shall have you held for further questioning.” Jetzul rolled his eyes sarcastically as the guards clamped a pair of shackles onto his wrists. “Oh good,” he drawled, “I can’t wait for that.” ~~~ As the Equestrians stranded on Cradle were escorted down the catwalks, they couldn’t help but gaze in awe of their surroundings. It seemed as if they were trapped in one giant clockwork watch, looking up, they could see miles and miles of giant, slowly turning gears perfectly interlocked with each other. Beyond that the faintest shards of sunlight filtered through the maze of gears to strike random locations around the facility. Looking around them yielded an equally astounding view. All around them was machinery of all purposes, belching exhaust and making various whirring and clicking noises. On catwalks below and above them patrols of soldiers marched along, some of which were comprised entirely of androids. Several of the more solid catwalks were lined with sandbags and barbed wire, many of which were guarded by curious bipedal machines, twitching as engine pipes on their backs coughed out plumes of exhaust. Their impromptu tour ended in front of a nine-foot ornate steel double door, where another gremlin was waiting to meet them. Rainbow Dash noted with a smirk that this was the same gremlin she had beaten up prior to being captured. His mask was hanging at his belt, leaving his face bare to show that his cheek, eyebrow, and lip were plastered with adhesive bandages, in addition, a larger bandage covered his broken nose, a small trickle of blood seeping through the dressing. The Gremlin sneered in response to her snide look, stepping forward to address the group as a whole. “Listen up!” He growled, crossing his arms in front of his chest, “You are about to enter the presence of Grand Master Herex, The Whispering Venom, you will not speak unless spoken to, you will answer all questions quickly and concisely, and you will not do anything stupid, or rash, understand?! Any questions before we proceed?” He loomed over the group, daring them to speak up. Rainbow Dash raised a hoof. “Yeah, I got a question: is your nose feelin’ better yet?” She asked with a grin. Rejyk said nothing, but glowered at her angrily, silently containing his rage. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’?” Dash knew she was pushing her luck, but she was enjoying herself too much. The Ghostmane officer remained silent, turning around to push open the steel doors in front of them. Inside the double doors an equally astonishing vista awaited the Equestrians. They were in a room with a ceiling high enough to rival the Canterlot Palace. Lining the walls were monitors and screens of all sizes, displaying everything from security feeds to status reports. Rejyk closed the doors behind the group as they entered, which caused an almost eerie silence to overtake the room as the cacophony from outside was suddenly muffled, leaving the only noise being the gentle hum of the monitors and the distant, titanic rumbles of the gears outside. Sitting at the end of the room was a gremlin wearing a large black scarf, lounging in a throne. He stood up as the group was ushered towards him, and threw his arms wide in a welcoming gesture. “Salutations,” he purred, “first off, let me apologize for the way you have been treated here, I’m afraid I was not… explicit enough in my orders.” He gave a scathing look at Rejyk, who recoiled as if struck. “I certainly hope no lasting damage has been done.” The Gremlin leader cooed apologetically. The attention in the room seemed to shift to Rainbow Dash’s bandaged flank. “I’ll live.” she assured them casually. The Gremlin gave a nod of satisfaction before continuing, “As you have been no doubt informed, I am Herex.” He bowed low to the assembled creatures before him, “However, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, for I do not know your names.” Herex retained his amiable, almost friendly expression as he listened to the group recite their names, although he wrinkled his nose slightly at hearing ‘Rainbow Dash’ and ‘Twilight Sparkle’. He began pacing around the Equestrians in circles with a toothy smile on his face, much akin to a fox examining a henhouse. His long scarf dragged along the ground behind him, giving him the impression of wearing a cape or cloak. “You must let us go,” Rarity demanded, drawing herself up to her full height and regally tilting her nose, “you have no right to keep us here.” Herex gave a low, amused chuckle. “I’m fairly certain you’re in no position to negotiate,” he said. Herex’s tone was still amiable, but his statement was quite obviously a threat, “but perhaps we can come an agreement, hmm?” he paused, before continuing, “What I want is information, provide me this, and I may give… consideration to your release.” ~~~ Hahn had finished reworking his PDA into a short-range radio. He did regret brushing off the quadrupeds when they approached him, but he assumed that there would be time for a proper introduction when the threat of death wasn’t looming over him. He pressed the radio transmitter against the side of his head, letting the antennae on his helmet amplify nearby signals. I probably look like a complete idiot doing this. Hahn thought bitterly. He tucked the PDA in between his head and his shoulder, and leaned into a corner of the cell, obscuring the rewired radio from being seen from outside the cell. He was just about to speak an SOS message into the receiver when gremlin radio chatter sparked at him from the transponder. He realized with a start that he forgot to encrypt his signal to siphon out gremlin transmissions. He took a moment to decide that he would wait a moment, to glean any knowledge about the gremlins’ plans before making the appropriate adjustments. He was intrigued by what he heard; apparently those odd creatures he had been sharing a cell with were inter-dimensional travellers. This was intriguing to the technician, but his real interest was focused on some sort of new, destructive technology the gremlins were working on… ~~~ Jetzul feigned sleep in his cell aboard a prisoner car bound for ‘Canterlot’. He had absolutely no idea what the ‘ponies’ had in mind for him, and he was definitely not going to stick around to find out. He had spent the first night of the train ride carefully analyzing the guards’ schedule. The guards interchanged between the gold-plated ones and the bat-winged guards. Jetzul’s plan was to play on the mutual distrust between the two, and create enough of an opportunity for him to escape. He ran his hand through the coarse material of his scarf: It was made from miracloth fabric; tough enough to easily support his weight, yet soft and supple. The gremlin had even managed to steal a fork that he could use to pick the lock on the cell; the fools had actually believed him when he claimed that gremlins can digest metal, and that he had eaten the piece of silverware in a misunderstanding. The Ghostmane sergeant heard the sound of footsteps dying away, the guards having finished their shift, and quickly sprang into action. In the guard’s car, a Royal Guard unicorn by the name of Quintus felt himself being shaken awake. “Come on, it’s our shift.” Another Royal Guard was pushing him awake. Quintus groggily dragged himself out of his cot, yawning as he donned his golden armour. He and his colleague sleepily shuffled over to the car where the prisoner was being kept. Upon entering, the Royal Guard was surprised that the gremlin prisoner didn’t have some snarky comment for them; no matter what time of day or night it was, the next shift would always be greeted by some sort of moan from the ungrateful whelp, complaining about service quality and acting as if he owned the place. Maybe he finally learned his lesson… thought the guard, wearily shuffling by the cell. He peeked in to see what the prisoner was doing. Oh, just hanging around… mused Quintus, nothing wrong with tha- The guard immediately performed a double-take. The prisoner was hanging from the rafters, his scarf had been tied into a noose, and he swung slightly with the movement of the train car. The guardpony’s sleepiness left him immediately, and he ordered his colleague to open the cell while using his magic to cut the impromptu noose. After what felt like an eternity the Guard finally got the cell door opened, and they both rushed in. “What happened?” The gremlin prisoner coughed and weakly pointed toward the door they had entered from, allowing their imaginations to fill in the gaps. “The Lunar Guards…” Quintus hissed under his breath, “Come on,” He gestured for his colleague to follow him out of the cell, “I’m going to have a discussion with those Lunar thugs about proper prisoner treatment.” The Royal Guards locked the cell door behind them, and left for the guards’ car. As soon as Jetzul heard the raised voices from the next car over, he jumped to his feet, laughing. Incompetents! The gremlin sergeant thought to himself, That’s the oldest trick in the book! And they actually fell for it! Using his stolen eating utensil, Jetzul made quick work of the padlock, threw open the door, and hurled himself out the window opposite his cell. Years of stealth training allowed Jetzul to roll harmlessly and silently across the ground, and he bounded off into the night, still chuckling. ~~~ Hahn was about to make the final adjustments to his short-range radio when he heard the metallic echo from footsteps down the hallway. He quickly hid his miniature escape plan under his tabard, and slumped back into his corner of the cell, his arms crossed over his chest. As the footsteps grew closer he could also hear voices of protest mixed in. He didn’t pay much attention to what words were being wasted, but by the shrill accent of the voice he judged that it belonged to the snowy white creature with the purple mane. Hahn remained still as a pair of guards forced the group back inside of the cell, by this point the purple quadruped was almost pleading for the white creature to show discretion. “Please Rarity, let it go, there’s nothing we can do.” “No, I won’t be quiet!” the creature named ‘Rarity’ retorted, “They have no right to keep us here-“ The Gremlin jailer leaned in and gripped the cell bars with a paw, “Shut up, or I’ll-“ “-You’ll what, share your fleas with us?” Hahn asked bitterly, “Oh, I am absolutely quaking with fear.” The Jailer’s gaze turned to Hahn with a scowl, yet his expression quickly turned to a sadistic smile. “You,” he pointed at Hahn with a declarative finger, “the Schemers are going to torture you when they're done picking at your pitiful carcass, I’ll-" “-pull out my arms, and stick them back down my throat, yes?” Hahn cut off the jailer again, nonchalantly examining his fingernails, “Thank you for informing me, I wasn’t already completely aware of your intentions. And don’t worry, I do actually find your input scintillating and useful.” The gremlin snarled, and pulled out his stun bat, and was stopped by one of the other guards putting a firm hand on his shoulder. The angry jailer let out another snarl before sheathing his stun bat again. He pointed at Hahn and pulled his thumb across his throat in a threatening gesture before stalking off down the corridor. Hahn paused for just a moment, and then removed the jerry-rigged radio from his tabard, making the final adjustments. The purple quadruped paced back and forth through the cell, obviously deep in thought. “Come on, girls, think!” she encouraged them, “We can get out of here, if we just put our heads together!” Spike glanced over to Hahn. “Ask him,” he suggested, “I’m sure he wants out of here just as much as we do.” “Yes,” Rarity concurred, “I’m sure he’s been deep in thought planning on how to get us out of here.” Her voice had a passive-aggressive tone to it, and she said it just loud enough for him to notice. Hahn cocked his head at them, “Way ahead of you. In fact, while you were busy having tea with our gracious host…” he waved his rewired PDA in the air. The group merely gave him a blank expression. Hahn smacked an armoured gauntlet against the front of his helmet, and gave a deep sigh. He decided that it might help to humour them. “This,” he started, “is a rewired Yolek mk.8 Personal Organization Device, standard issue. As of the current moment I have rewired it to be a two-way, short-wave, encrypted communication relay.” He gave a condescending huff as their blank expressions continued, “And… I can use it to get us out of here. Now if you could just stop with the incessant stream of questions, I can start using it.” Hahn spent a moment taking in their slightly offended expressions, waiting to see if they were capable of completing such a simple request. He gave another huff. “Thank you.” He adjusted a dial on the handheld, and held it up to his face. “This is ‘Vox Rationis’, broadcasting on an encrypted channel, any Knights within the vicinity, please respond.” He clicked a button on the PDA and held it against the right side of his head. Rainbow Dash cocked an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Now wha-?” “Shhh!” Hahn pressed a finger to where his mouth would be. The cyan pegasus’s complied, but with thinning patience. Within a moment a static noise could be heard, and a voice crackled in over a small amount of static. “This is recon knight ‘Hauberk’, responding to a distress call, is that you, Hahn?” the voice apparently knew him. “Of course-” Hahn started. “Ha! I’d recognise that stuck-up tone anywhere!” the voice stated victoriously, the Equestrians traded a few smug looks at hearing this, “Alright, I’ve triangulated your frequency, sit tight. I’ll be right with you. ‘Hauberk’, over and out.” There was a small burst of static, and then the radio frequency turned to a small, continuous blipping noise. For a moment, Hahn felt the urge to smack the radio against the wall, but he refrained. “See? I told you it would work.” He turned off the volume on the radio to muffle the blipping, and stored it safely in one of his utility pouches. Spike shifted nervously, “So, how long until your friend shows up?” Hahn’s smug demeanour wilted somewhat at this question. “Well, most response forces would take about eight to ten minutes… Rhendon is a loose cannon, though; I’d give him twenty minutes.” He paused for a moment, “…and that’s being generous.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, “Well buck that, then.” She scoffed, “Can’t we just-?” “-Break open the lock?” Hahn chided, “I’ve tried that.” He assured them, “The cell is sealed by a magnetized combination pad. It’ll only break from an elemental shock surge.” “Elemen-?” Spike started. “Meaning a photonic blast, such as an arcane power manipulation.” “Arcane?” Twilight asked, “You mean like magic and-?” “What? No. I’m talking about a basic psychic energy manipulation,” Hahn scoffed, “let’s try to say on the same page, here.” Twilight regarded the knight for a moment. “So basically magic-?” Hahn performed another face-palm. “Fine, if you want to call it something out of a child’s book, then yes, ‘magic’.” Hahn uttered. A sudden hush came over the room, and Hahn felt everyone in the cell staring at him. He sighed, “What now?” Twilight merely walked over to the cell bars, a pensive look on her face, “So you’re saying that if I managed to send an electric-?” Hahn cut her off, again, “Well to answer the first part of the question, not ‘you’ specifically, because that’s impossible.” he paused, “However, theoretically, yes, an electrical surge will be sufficient to break open the lock.” A smug grin crossed Spike’s face. “Go on, Twi,” he urged her, “show him how it’s done.” Twilight looked back at the Spiral Knight, making sure she had his attention, he regarded her coolly, his head cocked slightly to one side. She flashed him a smile, turned back to the cell bars, and began concentrating. A magenta aura appeared around her horn, and a small rain cloud began manifesting next to the lock. Hahn stood to his feet, and walked over to the bars, a rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Twilight poured magical energy into the storm cloud, and small arcs of electricity cascaded from it. She poured another effort of magical energy into the cloud, and a lightning bolt arced forth from the cloud, into the lock, making a satisfying sizzling noise as the circuits inside of the lock were promptly fried. The lock fell to the ground with a clattering noise. Twilight gave a satisfied “Hah” and turned back to Hahn with a smug expression. Her grin was completely lost on Hahn, who was staring at the cloud, utterly stunned. For once, he was struck speechless. Rarity pushed open the cell door and trotted out. “Well, enough of that dreariness,” the white unicorn huffed, “come along, girls!” “Yeah, let’s blow this popsicle stand!” cheered Rainbow Dash, darting out of the cell. Twilight and Spike exited, and Twilight finally turned back to Hahn, “Well?” she asked, mimicking his matter-of-fact tone, “Are you coming or not?” “Y-yes, of course.” Hahn muttered, tentatively stepping out of the cell. Spike tugged on Twilight’s tail insistently. “Umm, Twilight?” Twilight turned to see what Spike was going on about. “What is it-? Oh.” At the end of the hallway were two gremlin jailers, to say that their slack-jawed expression could be described as ‘completely flabbergasted’ would have been a gross understatement. The group of escapees and the two guards stared at each other for at least a minute. One of the guards was holding a mug of rationed caffeine, after a time of shocked staring the mug slipped out of his hand and clattered on the iron floor. The sudden noise seemed to snap the two parties out of their trance. One the jailers slowly pointed a finger at them. “Y-You’re not supposed to be-?” “RUN!” Hahn shouted, and the convicts rushed off in the opposite direction. One of the jailers gave chase, while the other one slammed a bright red button next to where he was leaning, causing an obnoxious alarm to sound throughout the stratum. ~~~ Herex was in the middle of a report when he heard the alarm sounding from outside of his command room. He guessed with depressing accuracy what the problem was before the intercom sparked, telling him that the new ‘guests’ had escaped. The gremlin commander rose, and set off towards a communication uplink located in the corner of his command centre. He jumped into a chair at his personal command station, and turned on a manual override button, which would broadcast him to every station, every terminal, and every radio throughout his domain. He leaned forward, letting the video recorder take in every detail of his charred face, and began his message. ~~~ The fugitives were running along the catwalks when they heard Herex’s broadcast. “You can all thank the incompetent fools guarding cell block eight for allowing our new guests to escape.” Boomed his voice, “I expect the entire unit to find and apprehend them, one way or another. I need not remind you what the price of failure is. Do not let them leave this facility!” At the end of the catwalk, a bipedal machine carrying a sword and a shield rounded the corner, the motor on its back releasing black smoke into the air. Hahn put all of his momentum and strength into a punch, hoping that a well-placed right-jab could at least stun the sentient mech. His fist landed squarely over the machine’s central eye. *CLANNNNG* Hahn recoiled, clutching at his bruised knuckles, and ducked a counter-swing from the machine’s sword. Twilight’s horn shined with energy, and a purple-coloured laser shot forth from her horn to slam into the machine, melting the android on impact. The group continued onward, running past the pile of half-melted scrap metal. The fugitives had passed off of the catwalks, running into an assembly zone. A lesser gremlin wearing a grease-stained beige tunic moved to block their path, raising a palm and commanding them to stop. Hahn barely slowed down to body-check the smaller creature into a wall, before continuing. As they ran past the partially dazed Gremlin, he lashed out and grabbed at one of the escapees streaking past him, which happened to be Rarity. She fell and tumbled gracelessly, landing in a heap. She tried to get back on her legs, but felt a foot slam into her side, pinning her to the floor. She looked up to see an angry gremlin looming over her. “I’ll be picking my teeth with your bones!” he growled, poising a two-handled hammer over his head. He very well may have fulfilled his statement, too, if a green-and-purple ball of fury hadn’t slammed squarely into his chest, knocking him off his feet. “NO-!” *whack* “-PONY-!” *whump* “-HURTS-!” *crunch* “-RARITY-!” Spike screamed, furiously slamming his fists into the stunned gremlin’s face. Hahn returned, and pried Spike off of the bruised gremlin. “I think he’s had enough, lover boy.” Spike was still flailing his balled claws at the creature as he was pulled off of the beaten gremlin. The creature’s goggles were missing a lens, revealing a terrified yellow eye staring out at him, and several teeth were missing from its jaw. The gremlin curled up in a fetal position, cowering in fear of the scaly abomination. “We have to keep moving.” Hahn turned back to Rarity, “Can you walk?” “I think I’ll be able to-” Rarity started. “-That’s the spirit.” Hahn interrupted, picking Rarity up and placing the white unicorn back on her legs. “Not much farther now, the elevator is just up ahea-” Hahn looked up, a squad of gremlins were blocking off their escape route, and a trio of automatons blocked a side route. Twilight tried firing a burst of magic at the machines. In unison, the metal bipeds raised their shields and locked them together, the laser dissipated in a harmless shower of sparks against the shield wall. Hahn turned to the way they had been going, and was disheartened to see a single, burly gremlin wielding a flamethrower in each hand, a single red optic in the centre of his welding mask glowered at them. Rainbow Dash tried charging him, and the larger gremlin released a massive gout of flame into the air, forcing Rainbow Dash to crash-land near the other fugitives to avoid being set alight. From behind where Hahn was standing, the Spiral Knight could hear one the gremlins let out a bark of laughter. The group of escapees backed into a defensive circle. “Well,” Rarity despaired, “I guess this is it, then, it’s been nice knowing all of you.” The Equestrians muttered their agreement. Hahn desperately tried to think of a way out the situation, and he remembered his PDA, he pulled it out, and noted a timer he had placed on it. 00:02 00:01 00:00 *Fsh-cht-cht-cht-cht-cht-cht! PWING!* The gremlin wielding the flamethrowers staggered forward suddenly. There was a distinctive hissing noise coming from behind him. The Gremlin incinerator sniffed the air curiously. He leaned over to check his petrol supply, which had a thin, blue jet of flame spurting from it. The gremlin groaned in frustration, “Aw, shi-” The unfortunate creature’s fuel tank ruptured into a ball of flame, his suit was flame-retardant, but the force of the blast was enough to slam the surly soldier face-first into the iron flooring, knocking him out instantly. Spike raised a claw to shield his eyes from the blast, he lowered his claw and looked up to see… another knight. Strutting out from behind the fallen brute was a biped wearing armour similar to Hahn’s. This knight was clothed in gleaming silver plate gauntlets and boots. His tabard was similar in fashion to Hahn’s, but it was coloured a dull maroon. Despite having similarly oversized-looking gloves, the new knight’s boots were a much closer fit, running up to knee-height where his baggy trousers were packed into them. This new combatant was wearing a silver-plated crash helmet, a bright red streak adorning the top. A pair of chinstraps hung loosely from the sides of the helmet. Despite the open-fronted nature of the helmet, the only detail of a face that could be made out was a pair of inquisitive scarlet eyes; the rest was shrouded in darkness. Spike also noticed that the knight was wearing a large barrel-shaped object across his back, with a radio antenna protruding from one side. Clutched in his hand was an object that bore similarity to a Gryphon crossbow, except that it had a circular belt mounted under where the crossbow bolt would’ve been kept, with several dangerously glowing crystals stored on it. This curious figure called out to them. “I thought I told you sit tight, Hahn!” “And you told me you’d be ‘right with us’, Rhendon!” Hahn shot back. “You’re late; I was timing you.” The knight known as ‘Rhendon’ merely sighed, pulled out a sword from his belt, and passed it to Hahn. The Biotech Knight grabbed the sword out of the air, turning to face the gremlins and constructs which were fast approaching them. “Let’s go to work.” Rhendon chuckled. The Equestrians merely stood back while the two knights beat back their pursuers. Hahn was not a particularly adept swordsman, but he manipulated the blade well enough to force back the small cluster of poorly-trained gremlins and their bulky machines. Rhendon joined in by unleashing salvoes of glimmering crystal shards from his handheld mechanism into anything that got around Hahn’s swordsmanship. Within a few moments the surviving gremlins were sent scampering back down the hallway, their numbers thinned and their machines dismembered. “Right,” Rhendon dusted himself off, and turned to Hahn, “first things first, who and what are these things?” He pointed at the Equestrians. “Hey,” Rainbow Dash responded angrily, “’these things’ can talk.” The red-silver knight jumped back in surprise, “Whoa! Sorry about that, I didn’t mean-” “Is this really the best time?!” Hahn yelled exasperatedly. “Fair enough,” Rhendon sighed, “there’ll be time for hellos and handshakes when we’re aboard the elevator.” “The elevator?” Twilight asked, unfamiliar with the term. Hahn inhaled as if he were about to explain, but he halted himself, instead providing a cryptic “You’ll see,” as he motioned towards a mechanism at a dead end hallway. The two Spiral Knights jogged over to the large square metal grate, and Rhendon sat down heavily, rubbing his aching ankles. The ponies uneasily followed them onto the marked area. “So, what happens now?” Rarity asked. “Now,” Rhendon responded, getting to his feet, “we get this thing going.” He nodded to Hahn, and they both flicked open small metal plates on the palms of their hands, and pressed their palms against a small control panel attached to the grating. Immediately, safety bars popped up and locked into place around the square area, and a pair of rails shot down from above, slamming into the flooring next to them. “What’s going on?” Spike asked nervously. The platform began gliding upwards, sliding along the two rails as it made its way toward the faint glimmer of light above. Twilight stared upwards at the slowly, but steadily approaching light while Rhendon introduced himself to the rest of the group. “Where is thing taking us?” The purple unicorn finally asked. “To our home away from home,” Rhendon answered, “to Haven.”
