Luster's Knee Deep in the Dead

In a dark corner of the Temple, Flurry heart just appeared while still flying 6 feet above the ground. While gliding with her wings she activated her own personalized dna scanner, along with a mounted plasma turret on top of the back of her purple, blue Praetor armor. After she disengaged from her flight, Flurry landed on top of the marble pavement and uses her magic to activate the map from her helmet's visor. At the same time, Flurry did her best to look closely at the structure she is in. It appears Flurry found herself inside a small room with a tall candle next to a runic doorway. As she readied her rail-gun Flurry quietly marched forward hoping to confront the demons that kidnapped her auntie.

"I'm feeling a bit excited for some adventure!!" Flurry giggled.

Just when the young alicorn opened the runic doorway, she was met with a huge fireball hitting the floors inches away from where her hooves are at. The next thing she sees is a huge flying red demon appear in the next room, which happens to be a large area with three hallways heading towards different directions. On the ground, Flurry finds herself walking on top of a huge rectangular floor where dark, flaming lanterns are placed in between the entrance of each hallway. The red demon had one big, green eye, small horns coming from the top of its head, and huge jaws with razor sharp teeth that can crush a little filly in an instant. The demon was hovering right in front of Flurry as it started snarling before shooting out another fireball. Thanks to Flurry's DNA scanner, she receives intel on the flying demon.

Cacodemon: An wandering demon that hunts its prey due to its unstoppable hunger for flesh. A disembodied form that shoots out huge fireballs from its blue maw.

"What funny, ugly-looking demon!!" Flurry giggled. "Hey fatso!! YOUR MOMMA IS A DUMB CYCLOPS!!!!"

Enraged by Flurry's insults, the Cacodemon hissed in anger as it launched another fireball at the blue-haired alicorn. Thanks to her early experience in magic, Flurry uses her yellow shield barrier to shrug of the fireball before it even had a chance to hit her. By the time the fireball exploded above Flurry's shield, she aimed and fired her gauss cannon at the floating demon, straight into its maw. In an instant, the demon's floating body got split in two by the gauss cannon's electrical slugs.

After defeating her first demon, a group of imps and possessed pegasus guard ponies appeared in the same room that the cacodemon was in. As the opened fire with their fireballs and crossbow bolts, Flurry unfurled her wings and returned fire while in mid-air with her gauss rifle. In a few well-placed shots, Flurry blasted almost three imps or guards with just one shot with her Gauss Rifle. In its after-effects, Flurry could feel the vibration of her weapon shaking her while flying above the heads of the enemy corpses. Despite this, Flurry still kept flying through the temple like a way in the park, shooting down every single Cacodemon, imp, and possessed guard pony on sight. Upon seeing her enemies fall before her Flurry also enjoyed spitting raspberries at them all.

"I know auntie is out there!!!" Flurry said in herself in excitement. "If I get to rescue her, every pony will address me as a hero. No, not just a hero. They're going to call me Flurry Heart the Demon Slayer of Equestria!!!"

While Flurry is having fun shooting down the imps, cacodemons, and possessed guard ponies, Luster's group entered from the other side of the Temple, which they now find themselves inside a rotunda. All around and above them, Luster sees stained glass windows of scary demons rising from the depths of the abyss. One of the stained glass windows shows a demon puncturing a poor little pony by the gut with his barehands, must to the disgust of Rubeth. On the floor they're all standing in the rotunda is connected with two passages leading to the west and to the east. Luster couldn't decide which passage to take in order to find Flurry Heart. Much to their surprise, they could hear Flurry heart shooting her weapon at the demons from a distance away from the rotunda.

"I can't believe that little alicorn is taking all the glory here!!" Rubeth muttered in embarrassment.

"I thought for sure she understood us." Luster thought. "But apparently, Flurry still has a lot to learn about adventuring!!! Let's find her quick before we continue to find Queen Twilight."

"Yeah, we do that alright!! Because if anything happens to Princess Flurry, King Shinning is going to kick our flanks!!!" Rubeth spoke in agreement.

"Since there is more than one passage to take in this temple, let's split up in two groups!!" Luster told her friends. "We'll be able to cover more ground in this demonic temple conveniently."

"Okay, me and Vecra will head down the right of the temple." Bright said, acknowledging Luster's new decision.

"Me and Rubeth will go with Luster!!" Spring Light said confidently.

"Let's more out!!" Luster said.

Just like that, Luster Dawn, Spring Light, and Rubeth head towards the west passage from the rotunda. For Vecra and Bright, they ventured to the east passage from the same room they're in.

In the east passage, Vecra and Bright find themselves in a stone walkway that leads to a wide-rectangular room filled with extra ammo and a backpack lying in front of them against the walls. But before the had time to stock up, six holes just opened up as Lost Souls started popping out from their right. When the spectators started clamping their jaws at the earth pony, Bright turned his back and kicked one of the Lost Souls with both of his hind legs, sending it pummeling backwards straight into the wall behind him. For the other Lost Souls closing in on Bright, he shot down the rest of them with his Assault Rifle.

For Vecra, she made a mad dash towards the ammo, not paying attention to the Lost Souls charging towards him. At such coincidence, Vecra knocked every Lost Soul away from her with her horns and smashed into the last one with a headbutt. After all the lost souls in the room are destroyed, Vecra reloaded her chain-gun before it was Bright's turn. While Bright reloaded his assault rifle, Vecra spots another arch door on their right, thinking that Flurry might be in the next room. After Bright picked up the backpack and strapped it to his armor, Vecra opened up the door only to be met with a small group of imps, with one of them preparing to leap at the yak. However, thanks to Vecra's natural yak strength, she slammed her skull into the imp's head the moment it tried to get the jump on her. Because Vecra's strength pressurized the imp more than the other way around, the imp's neck snap before it collapsed right in front of her. For the other imps, they backed away before they hurled a volley of fireballs at the yak.

Thankfully, Vecra jumped out of the way for Bright to open fire with a volley of missiles coming from the assault rifle's weapon mod. In a blink of an eye, a few imps got blasted by the missile volley as they bust into an explosion of blood. For the rest of the imps, they wet met by another bash in the stomach by a charging Vecra. At the same time, three imps were smashed up against the walls by the female yak, making them all yelp in pain as they feel their ribs cracking by the yak's brute strength.

In the west passage, Luster spots another Cacodemon flying all over a huge room filled with lava and several flying platforms floating above the burning environment from where Luster and her groups is standing all the way to an altar-like room. Seeing limited space around her and her friends, Luster had Rubeth and Spring hide behind cover before Luster aimed her shotgun at the huge, hovering demon. But before Luster could take her shot, two more Cacodemons appeared from behind the first one, forcing Luster to have Spring join in the firing line. As for Rubeth, he activated his flame Belcher from his praetor armor and sprayed a long stream of fire at one of the flying red demons. In an instant, all three of the Cacodemons were set aflame as they started screeching and crashing into each other blindly, making the black griffon snicker. While they're distracted, Luster blasted one Cacodemon with three shotgun blasts. At the same time, Rubeth activated the Super shotgun's meat hook, snagging the hook to the second Cacodemon and blasting it away in just a mere inch in front of it, the moment the griffon got close to it.

However, for the last Cacodemon, it gave out a wide smirk as it shot out a fireball in which blasted the platform that Luster and Rubeth are standing on top of. Before long, the platform started cracking as it split into three separate ones, isolating the pink unicorn, the green-mane kirin, and the black griffon away from each other. As the Cacodemon started laughing at the latter, Luster teleported herself in front of Rubeth and helped him get to his feet while heading to the next platform, not wanting to get burned by the lava from below. Enraged by such a foul trick, Spring Light lunged at the laughing red demon in mid-air and stabbed it in the eye with her horn. At the same time, the kirin combusted into a nirik before its blue flames caught the demon on fire. The Cacodemon scream in pain from both burns and stab wounds before it disintegrated. After the red demon disappeared, the Nirik landed right on top of the lava. At first, Luster and Rubeth thought that Spring is going to get burned and incinerated.

However, because of Spring's Nirik form, she didn't feel any burns from the lava that she is standing on top of, much to their surprise. It's as if the Nirik is immune to all aspects of fire. While the Nirik reached to the other side undamaged, Spring reverted back to her Kirin form before waving at Rubeth and Luster to keep up. If only Rubeth's wings wasn't burned back when they entered the sacked palace in Canterlot, he would've been able to fly across the lava without delay. However, since Rubeth still needs his wings to heal, he will have to put up with leaping from platform to platform, along with Luster and Spring. After making several leaps, Luster and Rubeth finally made it to Spring's side. Although, Spring couldn't help but feel angry about what that Cacodemon just did.

"Stupid demons!!!" Spring snarled as short bursts of dark-red flame came out of her horn. "I just want to kill that thing over and over again!!!"

"Let's not get too angry, Spring. We still have a job to do, ya know!!" The Griffon reminded the kirin of the situation at hand.

"Oh sure!! Anyway, I hope Vecra and Bright Vermillion are both hanging in there." Spring said as she followed Luster and Rubeth from behind as they made their way into another area within the Temple of the Damned.

On the other side of the Temple, after Vecra and Bright Vermillion took care of the imps recently, they find themselves in a zigzag of corridors that led to another rectangular room of imps waiting just waiting for them. Realizing that they're in luck, Vecra stepped on a pressure plate that triggered the ceiling falling right on top of the demons. With just one slam from above, the imps were turned into a bloody paste. As for Bright, he just stood behind Vecra watching in amusement that the imps weren't clever enough to dodge any booby traps inside the temple.

"Now that's what I call automatic YAK SMASH!!!" Vecra shouted in triumph.

While Vecra was cackling in excitement, it also attracted a group of 15 Lost Souls that came from below the balcony outside of the room that she and Bright are in. As soon as the Lost Souls tried to lung at Vecra, Bright shot a volley of missiles from his assault rifle, obliterating them all before they moved on.

At the balcony, they see Flurry Heart shooting down a few more imps and Cacodemons with her gauss rifle while still in mid-air, right 30 feet below them. Even though, the young alicorn is really enjoying herself, Bright and Vecra . So, Bright and Vecra, went down a long, crumbling winding stairway. Just when Vecra makes one step down the stairs, she immediately started sliding down very fast, much to the fright of Bright Vermillion. However, when Bright tried to stop Vecra from sliding, he actually made it worse by bumping into the yak. Just like that, both the yak and earth pony were screaming their heads off as they fell straight down the winding stairs

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

In just less than 10 seconds, the yak and earth pony crash landed right on top of the pavement, several feet behind Flurry Heart. The moment, she turned around Flurry noticed that both of them are having stars swirling around their heads.

"Hey guys!!! I did managed to help clear most of the area from you!!" Flurry giggled. "You should see the look on that Cacodemon's face when I lifted him up with my magic!!!"

"IT DOESN'T MATTER, FLURRY HEART!!" Bright snapped at the young alicorn, making her flinch. "You still can't run off like that!! This is a very dangerous, alternate dimension and your father is going to kill us if something happens to you out here!!!"

"Sorry guys!! I just want my auntie back!!" Flurry said, cowering before an angry earth pony.

"Anyway, let's go find Luster and the others and get out of here. This place gives me the creeps." Bright told the yak and the alicorn.

The moment Vecra and Bright got back on their hooves, they went through another hallway with Flurry Heart following from behind. Through the hallways, Flurry Heart descended from her flight and decided to take a walk alongside the earth pony. In the next area, from within the temple, the three find themselves in a circular field where several dead ponies were individually hung against a set of metal crucifixes. In Flurry and Bright's shock, they see their fellow ponies already gutted out while their fore hooves are stretched out wide on the crucifixes; considering that some of their bloody insides are missing. However, right below the hung pony corpses, several of their intestines were laying all over the field. As they looked around, the yak, alicorn, and earth pony see metal walls all filled with spikes and faces of screaming ponies. Next to the walls, there are an array of arched gateways sealed off behind metal bars. Up above the walls, a huge crowd of imps and flying demonic creatures were all screeching in excitement as they're about to witness another violent, terrifying event. Upon seeing all of these surroundings, Flurry came up with an educated guess.

"UH OH!!! I think I know where we are right now!!!" Flurry exclaimed in horror. "This setting is very similar to the arena that was being used for ponies to participate in the Equestria Games back in the Crystal Empire!!"

"You don't mean......" Bright muttered in shock.

"We're inside a temple-like coliseum!!" Flurry Heart told the group. "And I don't think we're alone here!!!"

Before either Vecra or Bright could say anything, they start hearing a low-growling noise coming from within the shadows behind the sealed-off gateways surrounding them. In front, Flurry's eyes squinted as she is trying to see what kind of creature is emerging from behind the dark gateways. As the creature made its appearance, the metal bars lifted themselves up before the big, muscular, boar-like demon with medium tusks steeped into full view. The moment it approached the trio, it snarled at them as he kicked its feet backwards, getting ready to charge at them. Upon seeing a new horror before Flurry's very eyes, she finally realized that is just like what Bright just said to her: "we're in a dangerous, alternate dimension." It all points out that Flurry's overconfidence will be her undoing if she isn't careful.

"Oh Faust, please save us all!!" Flurry murmured in horror.

After Luster, Spring Light, and Rubeth made it past the lava flows, they came across a huge altar. On the round floor of the altar, Luster sees more blood red star-like insignias. In the middle of the altar, the group sees a huge, black portal with an orange exterior line circling it.

When they made another step forward, a loud shriek came from beyond the portal. Upon hearing it, Luster raised her shotgun and aimed it at the portal. A new pony-like demon appeared from the portal. In plain sight, Luster's eyes widen with unbelievable shock. The pony demon is seen with twin-rockets launchers mounted on the back of it's guard armor. In addition, his guard armor had a jet pack attached to it. His face is seen will skull-like features, glaring at Luster's group with evil-yellow eyes. In next minute it approached the group, the pony-demon jumped up and activated it's jet pack, making him hover 20 feet in the air.

At first, Luster thought that it was another of those possessed guard ponies but since had a more demon-like appearance instead of a normal pony being afflicted under a grotesque state, Luster activated her dna scanner from her helmet to analyze it's data.

Pegasus Guard-Revenant: A necro pony-demon that shoots out missiles from medium to long range. Just like the Royal guards of Canterlot, these guard ponies have also been possessed by the evil essence of hell itself. Their moderate evasion abilities are maintained by the use of their jet-packs in exchange for their pegasus wings.

As the Guard-Revenant flew around Luster, it started shooting out small missiles at the group, making the unicorn, griffon, and kirin scatter in avoiding its blast radius. While the Guard-Revenant continued to fire upon the three, Luster aimed her shotgun at the demon. However, despite her efforts, the Revenant was dodging every buckshot that came from Luster's gun since Luster was being forced to keep dodging the Revenant's missiles. Thankfully, Rubeth finally gained the upper hand when he was able to fly again. Right behind the Revenant, the griffon grabbed him by the head and pulled his neck backwards, making him snap as the demon losses his flight and collapsed onto the altar. Before Rubeth could celebrate his little victory against the Revenant, several more Revenants flew down from the ominous, blood red sky and landed right behind Rubeth. Fortunately, by the time they unleashed a volley of missiles upon Rubeth, Luster cast her shield wall spell to protect the griffon from behind blasted.

As Rubeth jumped up in mid-air, he turned around and blasted one Guard-Revenant in the face with his super shotgun, turning his face into a bloody chunk of meat before it fell backwards.

For Spring Light, the Kirin fired up a heat wave from her plasma gun, making another Guard-Revenant totally stunned. When the Kirin charged at the stunned demon, she immediately burst into a living flame that engulfed the pony-demon at will. In an instant, the Guard-Revenant was shrieking in pain as the flames were burning him alive, failing its hooves around. The next thing he knew is that the Revenant was met with a stab in the head by Spring's retractable wrist blade coming from her armored hoof. After the Revenant fell backwards dead, Bright leaped up into the air and did swiped his energy sword in a wide arc, cutting off two Revenants by their waist, dissecting them before they succumbed to Bright's mortal blows. Luster finally teleported herself right in front of the last Revenant and before he could jump backwards, he was met with a full blast by Luster's shotgun, puncturing him in the stomach as pieces of his armor came flying off, making him bleed to death. After the last Revenant fell on his back dead, Luster, Spring, and Rubeth regroup as a nearby metal door opened by itself, allowing the group to proceed further into the temple's dark corridors.

As they made their way through the corridors, Luster and the group did their best not to get too distracted by anything disturbing in the temple. In between the group, there is more horrid demon statues and razor sharp teeth jutting from the ground. In addition there are a lot of creatures in the demon realm that Luster couldn't really described, despite her study of Equestrian Creatures. In fact, none of these creatures living in this realm we're even heard of for more than a thousand years. It's as if the realm they're in is very ancient, insidious, and mentioned with limited history. However, Luster and her group stumbled into a temple library filled with black walls and red bookshelves. In a curious manner, Luster went up to one of the bookshelves and discovered more strange tomes. Some of them are even more sinister-looking than the one that Spike gave to her. After skimming through the book shelves, Luster found a parchment at the end of the bookshelf and made a quick scan through the documents.

In the Realm of Demons, it is he who watches all. He is without remorse! He is without mercy! A sinister being without weakness. Mysterious and Relentless. He who destined to bring Doom to the worlds of Mortals. For he is the DARK LORD OF HELL!!!

Upon reading the parchment briefly, Luster started sweating underneath her breath. She feared that whoever this Dark Lord is, he must've been the one behind the abduction of her beloved Alicorn Queen of Equestria. Luster couldn't imagine what kind of terrifying fate will Queen Twilight meet if they don't rescue her in time. This may be the most scariest mission Luster has ever participated in all her life. However, because the Queen's life is at stake, Luster knew that there is no time to be afraid. She remembered that Twilight did taught her how to not only use magic for self-defense but also taught her on how to fight with alternate means, than rather just using magic. It took Luster back 5 years ago when she was still living with Queen Twilight during her first days as her student that Twilight privately taught her and her friends on how to use firearms with extreme caution and responsibility. She never knew that it will be the time for Luster to put all of her firearms skills to the test. Of course, every time Luster takes a break from firearms training or when she takes her leave, the Queen always ordered her to put away her training firearms in a secure vault so that there won't be any mishandling firearms.

In such realization, because of the situation at hoof, Luster gained firearms training from the Queen because it was considered to be a last resort when dealing with creatures that won't show any mercy or any friendship beyond all reason. Therefore, Luster's mission will put all of her fears and her use of firearms to the ultimate test. After scanning the ancient parchment, Luster collected the information in her helmet's database just in case she needs to go over it again. However, now is not the time; her Queen is in mortal danger and Luster and her friends need to keep moving. Speaking of friends, Luster still needs to regroup with the others since its been only a half-an-hour since they separated to find Princess Flurry Heart.

After they left the temple library, Luster, Spring, and Rubeth are finally outside of the temple. Moving on, they made their way through a rocky trail leading up to a wooden bridge, connecting from where they're standing all the way to another trail surrounded by small, rocky mountains. Below the bridge, lies a chasm filled with red fog. Up ahead, they see a strange coliseum beyond the trail. Before they knew it, Luster saw a yellow beam shooting straight up into the blood-red sky. It was Flurry's alicorn magic, indicating that Flurry might be somewhere inside the coliseum and that she might need help big time. With no time to lose, Luster and Spring decided to cross the bridge, with Rubeth taking flight across wooden bridge. Unfortunately, as soon as they made it halfway across the bridge, several Cacodemons, Guard-Revenants, and possessed Pegasus guard ponies came out from the red abyss below the bridge and started shooting at them with their projectile weapons.

Sensing that the bridge will not withstand such an overwhelming barrage of firepower, Luster raised her magic shield, protecting her and Spring from enemy fire while trying to make a run to the other side of the chasm. Thankfully, Rubeth is still able to flying and grabbed one of the Cacodemons by the claws. By such brute force, the Cacodemon screeched as he felt his one big eye get pulled out by Rubeth, making him wail in pain as it disintegrated into a big combustion. Enraged after seeing on their own go down in flames, the other Cacodemons were chasing Rubeth all over chasm. With such bad luck, the demons were met with several more shots made by Rubeth's double-barrelled shotgun. At the same time, Rubeth did his best to draw the Cacodemons away from the bridge that Luster and Spring are standing on.

Behind the unicorn and kirin, the Guard-Revenants and Possessed Pegasus Guards landed on top of the bridge before they started chasing them. To make matters worse they heard a loud roar which was coming from inside the temple. The next thing they saw was that a horde of imps and possessed unicorns came out of the temple and joined in the chase across the bridge, making both Luster and Sprin running for their lives. They were getting ready to pounce on the two as they held up their claws and spears, all armed to the teeth.

"SWEET CELESTIA!!!" Luster shrieked upon seeing the demon horde closing in on her and Spring. "RUUUUUNNNNN!!!!!"

With Spring running ahead of Luster, Luster aimed her shotgun at the enemies behind her with her magic and started shooting at them while galloping across the chasm. They could both feel the bridge breaking apart as they heard the wooden crack underneath their hooves. For the demons and possessed ponies chasing them, it keeps getting worse. The imps were stupidly hurling fireballs at Luster and Spring. Instead, of hitting them, their fireballs struck on wooden boards and the ropes, setting the bridge on fire. While Luster did her best not to look back, she saw that the wooden snapped in two right below Spring. The kirin screamed in terror as she is about to fall off the bridge through a huge gap in the wooden planks. Just in the nick of time, Luster suddenly grabbed Spring Light with her telekinesis and carried her all the way to the other side of the bridge, making a soft landing on top of the rocky ground. While she felt relieved that Luster saved her, Spring sees the unicorn still on top of the bridge when the demons are getting close to her.

"COME ON LUSTER, YOU CAN DO IT!!!" Spring shouted, trying to encourage the unicorn to run like hell.

As Luster resumed her galloping across the bridge, she leaped over the gap first. Just before she got close to the other side, the burning ropes on both of Luster's sides start coming off. In such a fright, the bridge finally fell apart taking most of the imps and possessed unicorns along with it.

After Rubeth took down the last of the Cacodemons during his flight, he saw that Luster's is about to fall of the collapsing bridge, he swooped down below the fall wreckage in hopes of saving the pink unicorn. With Luster losing her footing over the wooden planks, she started screaming in horror as she fell straight into the chasm.

For the Guard-Revenants and possessed pegasi, they flew up off the bridge before they turned their attention towards Spring.

"LUSTER!! RUBETH!!!" Spring Light shrieked.

In such grieving rage, Spring turned into a nirik and let loose a loud roar that engulfed all of the Revenants and possessed pegasus guards, reducing them into charred pieces of flesh. Even though Spring won against the flying demons, she still couldn't stop staring at the destruction that assumed to claimed the life of Luster and Rubeth. After seeing the bridge totally destroyed by the foolish destruction of the imps and possessed unicorns, Spring thought that she will never see Rubeth or Luster again. After she reverted back to her kirin form, Spring is about to cry in anguish. However, after one minute of grieving, Rubeth finally came out of the fog from down below the chasm. The kirin felt totally relieved that Rubeth is actually carrying Luster with both of his claws. Upon seeing them survive the fall, the kirin couldn't help but cry in as she started hugging both Luster and Rubeth.

"Sweet Celestia!!! You both almost gave me a heart attack!!!" Spring said exasperatedly before she let go both of them.

"Sorry about that, Spring!!" Luster said, feeling a bit traumatized after facing a near death experience.

"We have to keep going. The rest of our group is still ahead of us!!" Rubeth said, after taking a few deep breaths from their current fiasco.

"We better head to that Coliseum and fast. We don't know how long with Flurry Heart will last there!" Luster suggested to Spring and Rubeth.

Moving on, the three now ventured down the trail leading straight to the Coliseum.