The Aftermath

by Draco Rex Solis

Prologue part 1 - Arrival

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“THEY ARE BURROWING IN!”

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“Attention all units, the Serpents have broken through the defenses on level -3, abandon level -4 and regroup on level -5. I repeat, abandon level -4 and...”

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“THERE ARE TOO MANY OF THE… *AAAGGHH!*”

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"INSUFFICIENT ENERGY, FIRING THE DEVICE IS IMPOSSIBLE.”

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“There’s another way… I will do it…”

“Father… It was an honor fighting with you.”

“The honor was all mine, my children.”

“We will hold them as much as we can. DRAGOONS! TAKE POSITION!”.

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“...ψ̷̨͕̿á̷̼̫k̷͚̬͠ȩ̷͆…̴̙͝ ̷̱̓͝ͅu̶̫̘̔p̸̭͛ …”

---Alexander’s POV---

Underground Test Lab Level -50

Dispositive Test Room - Unknown time

Pain. Body wrecking pain was the first thing that I felt as I slowly came to my senses, my breath raggedy and labored, a massive weight on my back kept me from moving despite my hardest efforts. The second, were the smells, two of them to be exact. The first was of something metallic but familiar, my hazy mind quickly making the correlation to human blood, the other smell, though, was of something pungent, strong enough to make even my enhanced lungs ache and burn, my mind too scrambled and my body in too much pain to remember anything that matched with it, if I even knew what it was.

A couple minutes later, my hearing and vision started to return to me together with a small part of my strength. The deafening sound of the alarm klaxons hit me first, hurting my ears for a few moments before I managed to balance it. My vision came next, and with it, came intermittent flashes of red, passing through the small gaps in the rubble that surrounded me. Using all the strength that I could muster, I slowly but surely started to move my arms, trying to remove the heavy rubble of my body. It was a tiring process, much due to my labored breathing and heavily wounded body, though I was slowly creating some room. A few minutes later, I managed to clear enough space in front of my head so that I could see my surroundings slightly better. The room I was in was totally wrecked, the flashes of red allowing me to see that I was inside of what appeared to be a somewhat shallow crater.

With a little more effort, I managed to move some more rubble, enough so that I could pull myself out and climb up the crater’s hill, though I had to do it in small pulls to give my body time to heal, as all through my body I felt indescribable pain caused by pieces of metal puncturing and ripping me, making blood ooze out like a broken faucet in some places, though the bleeding ceased in a few moments due to my rapid healing, a process that, due to the circumstances I found myself in, quite tiring. A few more painful minutes later, I managed to fully free myself of my rubble prison and slowly crawl up to the crater’s edge, losing my grip here and there, my hazy vision, smashing headache and the pain all over my body definitely weren't helping with my coordination.

After getting out of the crater, I found a rubble block to support myself and check how fucked I was, the light from the alarm flashes helping me to see my body. What remained of my armor were just a few oversized pieces still hanging onto my now baggy battle suit, which itself was in tatters, with huge areas either ripped or burned off, making me practically naked and allowing me to see that I had several, painful bruises nearly everywhere alongside a wide variety of cuts. I also noticed that most of the smaller pieces of jagged metals had been already been either expelled or melted, though the bigger pieces were still holding strong, two of them on my torso, one on the higher part of my right thigh pointing downwards diagonally and exiting through the left side of my right thigh and a final one puncturing through my right calf.

Gripping with both hands on the jagged piece of metal on my lower torso, I held my breath and pulled it with all the strength I had, blood and pieces of flesh coming with it. The searing pain was strong enough to make me let out a loud scream that echoed through the room and the silent corridors. A few moments of struggling breaths later, occasionally breached by the faulty alarm klaxons, I let out the breath that I was holding in, and proceeded to remove the other pieces of steel out of my body, grunting loudly as I did so.

After removing the pieces of metal, my breath still ragged, head throbbing and my vision hazy, I took a last look at the destroyed test room, the crater was wider than it was deep, taking a huge chunk of the center of the room, and the blast-proof panels on the walls and ceiling were completely ruined and threatening to fall apart. ‘How the fuck am I alive?.’ Was the only thing that was on my mind at the moment. Eager to find answers, I started to walk towards the destroyed frame more or less 10 meters away where once stood one of two blast-proof doors connected to a decontamination chamber that were made to resist a nuclear blast, carefully stepping over the jagged pieces of destroyed machinery that once held the device, my steps slow, staggered and heavy.

Walking up the steps to the control room, I passed through the destroyed decontamination chamber, its internal and external walls almost fused, warped outwards from the test room, such was the blast they received. Entering the control room, the flashing red lights allowed me to see the chaos that occurred here. Ignoring the destroyed computers, machinery and the shattered adamantinium glass, I focused on the next most visible thing in the big room. Dried blood, nearly everywhere I looked I saw large splatters and puddles of it, most of it red, but there were also stains of green blood, my proximity to it making me gag due to its strong smell, the same I smelled while buried, forcing me to put a hand up to my mouth and nostrils to try to diminish the its effects while I walked towards the exit.

While doing so, I noticed not only large slashes in the walls and floor, but also deep burnt holes, most of them directed towards the exit, but some of them aimed the walls and ceiling and even back towards the test room, implying that the battle that took place here quickly devolved from a firefight into a CQC. After taking a couple more steps, my eyelids suddenly became extremely heavy and an extreme nausea took over my body. I tried to take another step, only to have my legs fail me, my head impacting the ground heavily, looking towards the exit doorway. The last thing I heard before I went unconscious were a series of rapid, heavy thumps against the floor coming from the hallway.

-Checking Morphing Cores…

XXXXX

--- ??? POV ---

Somewhere in the hallways of the Underground Bunker - Unknown Time

Several minutes before Alexander’s awakening

I awoke slowly as my tertiary power core powered up, my characteristic purple lines that traced from my face all the way to my tail started to glow faintly as my systems started to receive more constant energy. My quad visors and multitude of sensors were the first to receive energy, info flooding my senses while I scanned my surroundings. I was buried under a rubble pile weighing in the hundreds of kilos, too heavy for me to crawl out of due to my weakened state. Analyzing my options in a matter of seconds, I came to the conclusion that the only option would be to generate a sonic blast that would either destroy or push away most of the rubble, allowing me to pull myself out. It would be a dangerous maneuver that had the possibility of shutting me off again in the event of overcharging or charging error and, if there were any enemies in the area, it would result in my destruction, but all the other options would take too long to use in my depowered state. Redirecting energy to my weapons systems, I created several sonic blasters all along my body and started to charge them.

After a few dozens of seconds of charging, which were accompanied by a constant winding up sound, I fired them. The previously silent corridor was filled with a loud *BOOOOM!* whose echo persisted through the hallways for nearly a minute before dying out, confirming that, at least in the near area, I was alone. After shaking off the remnant debris on my 4 meters long, slender body, I gave my surroundings a better scan, my sensors and visors swiftly adapting to the dark area I was in. I detected an unnerving quantity of blood staining the walls, ceiling and floor, which my smell filters could detect two distinct blood types, one of them human, the other, of our enemy, the Serpents. The lack of bodies made me slightly unnerved. I also detected damages to structural areas everywhere I looked, some more severe than others, and almost as if it was waiting for something to notice them, a sudden rumble shook the facility. The emergency lights activated and the alarm klaxons went wild, faltering every now and then due to the state of the facility. With all this damage, the facility would collapse at any moment and, while all my instincts urged me to find the escape, my loyalty compelled me to find Alexander and Saber first. Looking into my Psylinks, I felt both of them, their signals weak, but alive.

The closest to my position was Saber, contact attempts were unsuccessful despite hundreds of trials, so I set a ping on his position, which according to the map was on the same level as me, but in a distant room, and started to quickly move towards his position. I used both the map of the base and a bit of “off-road” movement as I moved through the destroyed hallways, as some places had already caved in, creating new passages, some helped me get closer to Saber’s position, while others took me slightly off path, but the calculated walk time was more or less the same as if everything was normal.

After a couple more minutes of walking through the hallways, I finally reached Saber’s position, though a large Durasteel door separated us, the plaque above it indicating that this was a storage. That, however, wouldn’t stop me for long, activating my plasma claws and unleashing four powerful combat tendrils on my back equipped with vibro blades edges, I started to hack away at the sides of the heavy door. After a few minutes of fast slashes at the door's edges and hinges, I retracted my weaponry to reduce energy usage and took a few steps back, before using my powerful muscles to charge at the door. With a loud *KLANG!* after my body slammed onto the door, it went flying into the room, slamming into the innermost wall with a resonating *BOOM*. Walking through the now destroyed door frame, I started to scan the room, quickly finding the disabled form Saber amongst the rubble, his hulking drake-like body easily discernible.

“Saber? Can you hear me?” I asked, my robotic feminine voice echoing through the large room, though I already knew that the answer wouldn’t come. I didn’t even need to scan him to see that he was heavily damaged, his outer plating possessing many slashes and dents, there were even a few pieces of armor missing all around him, though his overlapping armor diminished the danger for his internal plating and bio-systems.

Walking towards him, I could see better how much his external plating was damaged, confirming my previous assessments, though a quick scan showed no severe damage to internal systems with the exception of some strange anomaly affecting his cores - seemingly the same I had-, he was only de-powered, working on his emergency power. I deployed one of my tendrils, morphing its tip into a charging cable. I couldn’t give him too much energy, as my own emergency power reserves were only at 40%, though two ArcBeasts working at low power were better than one. It wasn’t hard to find his emergency charging port, and after moving the protective plating, I started to charge him, his cores starting to spin with a loud and powerful hum.

After a few seconds of charging him up, I disconnected my tendril and retracted it, then sat down on my haunches a few meters from him, waiting for him to wake up. After a few tense seconds of waiting, his large form started to move, his quad crimson visors lighting up alongside the scales on his drake-like body, their orange and red glow adding up with my own, better illuminating the room.

He slowly stood up, standing at 6 meters long, 4 tall and 3 and a half wide at the moment, his heavier bulk required him to use more power to move himself, but eventually he managed to balance himself and turn towards me. He tried to speak, but only a garbled mess came out of his mouth, making him let out a loud growl. My scanners detected that he was checking his systems, though my own scans showed that everything seemed fine. After analyzing him for a few more moments, I let out a sigh and stood up, taking his attention.

“Saber, do you remember what happened before your… deactivation?” I inquired, though due to his negative head motion, he too, seemed to have had his recent memory fragmented. I let out a mixture of a sigh and a growl, and before I could ask him another thing, something took the attention of us both, something that made our cores spin faster, both of our heads quickly turning towards the exit and our muscles springing into action, a red warning symbol appearing next to the other Psylink signal, Alexander was in danger.

We ran as fast as we could through the destroyed hallways, Saber sometimes taking the lead to smash through a wall, and even though I’ve already seen him in a low power state, his immense strength still amazed me. Focusing again on Alexander’s signal, I saw his signal starting to move out of the center of what seemed to be a test room, his body vitals, despite having stabilized for a few moments, continued to decline at a steady speed, we neared the stairs that took us to where he was, one level above us.

Bolting up the stairs, we had to jump over a few spots where they had collapsed, making us lose precious momentum whenever we had to adjust our path. Some moments later, we managed to get up to the tenth floor where Alexander’s signal was coming from, but it was still a good distance away, on the central area of the floor. Saber again took the lead here, smashing through the walls to make a faster path to Alexander.

As we neared his position, the alert on his link started to pulse faster, and when we turned the corner next to the room where he was, my x-ray and thermal visions allowed me to see him collapse on the floor just as we got near to the lab's door. A quick analysis of the room and of his body which, together with the air scans I made on the way here, allowed me to understand what was wrong instantly. The bright green blood which was splattered nearly everywhere on the facility was releasing their characteristic highly toxic fume, which Alexander’s weakened lungs couldn’t resist, and that, alongside his low inner temperature and the several wounds on his body were slowly killing him!

Deploying one of my tendrils and changing its tip into a syringe, I quickly injected him with a concoction that should help him resist the toxins a better, but it wouldn’t matter if we didn’t get out of the facility as fast as possible. Opening my chest cavity, I sent out several tendrils to grab his smaller than usual body carefully, as the med-scans showed that he also possessed several cracked and broken bones

Turning to Saber, I said urgently “We have to get out of here as fast as we can, the internal atmos of this bunker has become too toxic for him in his current state.” With a single nod, we turned back towards the exit, and bolted out of the room behind Saber. We had dozens of floors to run through, and time was not in our favor. Just as we neared one of the many sets of stairs, we heard the sound of the elevator arriving on our floor, and with it, a slightly distorted voice.

“Mind if I help you, friends?” Icarus, Alexander’s Legion command AAI, said through the elevator’s speakers. We were a little apprehensive of entering the elevator due to the state of the facility, but before I could voice our concerns, Icarus calmed us. “Your fear is comprehensible, but according to my analysis, the state of the facility and the rumbles that shook this place haven't damaged the elevator's gears, yet.”

With our apprehensiveness put aside for the moment, we entered the huge elevator, and as soon as we did, it lurched upwards at a high speed. “I’ve overridden the speed safeties due to the urgency of the situation. Don’t worry, I will closely monitor the temperature and the velocity of the pull...” His voice stopped mid speaking, returning after a few tense moments as the lights flickered.

“This facility is currently at the very last of its...” Once again his voice stopped, the speed of the elevator started to slow down a little as the floor counter showed that we were near the first floor, sending a quick message to Saber, we both prepared to jump just as the elevator opened its doors. Atlas spoke again. “I managed to redirect enough energy to force-open the main gate, bypassing the lock-down mode. As soon as the elevator stops, I will give the command to start its opening. However, the extensive damage to the control circuits can override my command at any time, I will try to hold it as much as I can.”

The elevator finally stopped, its speed launching us in the air, and that, combined with our already prepared stance, meant that we managed to impulse ourselves forward at a high speed as we heard a loud *BUZZ* followed shortly by the sound of the main gate’s gears opening its thick doors. Icarus continued to talk to us, now through the general speakers, his voice now more corrupted.

“We fought many batt… ether, but here is where we shall part...” As we ran through the corridors, stepping on the occasional water puddle caused by infiltration, we heard a loud warning sound, followed by a loud zapping. We gave even more energy to our synth muscles, more than we could generate with our cores’ anomalies, as we heard the sound of the gate's gears stopping and slowly reversing, the rumbling sounds returned, this time louder and accompanied by cave-ins sounds happening deeper in the facility.

“I feel my systems sta… fail, I will soon be deactiv…, it was an honor to fi... alon… you.... ” Icarus said as we entered the main pathway towards the exit, the internal gate was almost halfway closed already, however the path to the external one was blocked by tons upon tons of rocks and dirt. Saber took the lead once again, opening his mouth, he let out a huge plasma breath to drill our way out. That would quickly drain his reserves, but he didn’t care, our time was running ever shorter.

I followed him slower than I would've liked, my low energy reserves making me stumble here and there. And as we did, Icarus managed to speak one last thing before dying out, though due to his corrupted speakers, my location in the middle of our tunnel and the sounds of cave-ins getting louder and louder, it was muffled and slightly hard to hear even with my hearing focused on it, but I managed to hear some of his last words.

“Goodb…, Legi..., may the Phoenix illumina....” That was the last thing I heard before leaping off the tunnel and tumbling down the small hill that was in front of it, the large gate nearly snapping off my rear feet as it finally closed with a *CLANG*. Soon after that, the tunnel finally collapsed, tons of rock denting the weakened gate outwards, locking the facility forever.

Both me and Saber finally released our breaths now that the 3 of us were safe and, after giving some time to regain our energies, we started to look at our surroundings. We were inside of what seemed to be a natural alcove secluded inside the wall of a wide canyon, near the bottom of it to be exact, a rampaging river filled with jagged rocks only a few meters from where we stopped rolling. A storm was pouring down water almost as if it was trying to create a flood in the region, and through the heavy cloud cover my sensors indicated that it was a full moon night.

As I was trying to make sense of how we ended up here, Saber caught my attention with a ping somewhere out of the canyon, following his ping, I found what he was pointing at, more or less at 500 meters from our current location in a diagonal direction there was what appeared to be the top of a… ‘medieval castle’s tower? What the...?’. Confusion filled my systems. The diagnostics part of my PsyBrain went into overdrive, searching for any errors in my being, but everything was functioning as normal as possible given the circumstances. Stopping the checks, I zoomed in on the ping, confirming that it was, indeed, the tower of a medieval castle, but it was decrepit, with many rocks missing and rain falling inside it through a few holes of its roof, there was also a small wooden bridge connecting both side of the canyon. It looked to be very old, but was still holding strong, though it definitely wouldn’t support our weight.

Next to Saber’s ping appeared a message: {That seems to be a good place to pass the night, should we check it?}. With no other option that I could’ve thought of at the moment, I gave him a positive nod, but before we started to climb up the walls, I looked back at the dented gate and used one of my visors to inscribe a laser printed inscription on a nearby rock. It only took a few seconds, but it felt much longer. When I finished, I read out loud what I inscribed, visors closed and my head looking down. Saber did the same.

“May the Phoenix protect the souls of the brave warriors, both organic and mechanical, who perished in this place. May His fiery wings shield them from harm, and may His bright flames light the path towards their next journey.”

Finishing up the prayer, I looked towards Saber and, after giving him a short nod which he reciprocated, we turned towards the canyon’s wall on the other side of the savage river. Giving ourselves as much running distance as we could, we dashed forwards and jumped over the river, deploying our claws while mid-air, extending their size with hard light projections. Slamming into the wall, we gripped as hard as we could, our weight pulling us and nearly making us fall into the raging river, our claws cutting a path through the rock as we stopped our descent, Saber’s tail touching the water, and after making sure we were secured, we started to climb. The climb wasn’t easy, we had to constantly adjust our weight and path to avoid weak or loose rocks. The rain downpour wasn't helping either, making mud slide down the canyon's wall in great quantities and more than once Saber nearly fell, his bigger mass being his biggest disadvantage, but just like in the many hard battles that we fought together, we persevered.

After what seemed to be an eternity of climbing, we managed to grab the canyon’s edge and with a final pull and leap, we managed to get up on the ground above. We were extremely exhausted, but we couldn’t rest yet, a dark-as-night forest beset us on our side of the canyon, dozens of pairs of luminous yellow eyes were watching us with what seemed to be a mixture between curiosity and hunger, their distance from the ground indicating that the average size of those creatures was somewhere in between 2 and 2.5 meters tall, a terrible, foul smell coming from their direction. Amongst them, standing a meter above the rest, a single pair of glowing red eyes watched alongside the rest, the dread that they emanated overwhelming the mass of greens. Even the forest itself gave me a terrible, unnatural feeling.

Saber, however, was either unaffected by the dread I felt, or managed to power through it, as his jaws opened wide, he planted himself firmly on the ground and let out a thunderous roar that shook everything around us, scaring the many green-eyed creatures away. The red-eyed one, unlike the others, who ran away nearly immediately after the roar, watched us for a while longer before going away, leaving us alone in the eerily silent clearing. We turned towards the ruined castle and bolted towards it, which from our new location I saw that it was even bigger than my initial assessments, sprawling for what seemed many hundred meters on all sides, most of it in ruins, though the parts that still stood were in a somewhat good condition. Using a little more of our depleting reserves, we made one final jump over the canyon.

We landed on the other side with a wet *thud*, skidding on it for a few meters before fully stopping. The castle looked ever more massive as we started the final leg of our journey, following a dirt path that led from the bridge to it. As we walked away from the bridge, I noticed that the feeling of dread that was all around us on the other side of the canyon had subsided, and it continued to diminish as we approached the massive castle.

Entering the castle through one of its ajar doors, we shook off the water from our bodies and had our first look at its entrance hall which, like the its outside, had a good deal of damage, with many rocks having fallen out of their places, water dripping inside through a few holes in the roof and there was also what appeared to be battle damage. Walking inwards, past a few column sets, we soon found ourselves in large circular area in which the hallway divided into 3 more, a strange statue of a tree in its middle, several fragments of cracked stone at its feet, there were also six passageways in between the center hallways, though some of them were already collapsed. Above each of them, there were huge pieces of tapestries, extending themselves up to nearly the second floor, where there was an inner balcony which led to a few more hallways. The main hallway ended a few more dozen meters inside, where it turned into another balcony accessible by two sets of stairs on each of its sides.

A sudden lightning bolt struck outside, brightening up the area through stained windows of the central hallway, allowing us to see in better detail the tapestries. Despite their ragged state, they still possessed a royal appearance and were depicting what seemed to be quadrupedal alicorns, each one in a different position. Taking a closer look at them, there were depictions of the sun and a crescent moon above their heads, each one in their own tapestry in an alternating pattern. The beings depicted on them also appeared to have been tattooed on their flanks with similar images, though for what motives I couldn’t spend more processing power at the moment, we had to find somewhere to place Alexander down so he could rest his injuries.

Using a powerful echolocation sensor capable of penetrating through even small gaps, I detected that most rooms in the castle were either empty of their belongings or blocked off by debris, though one caught my immediate attention, it seemed to be somewhere higher up on the castle. Launching another scan focused on that general location to confirm the initial assessment, it seemed that the room was, indeed, unexpectedly well furnished, and I also managed to triangulate its location, inside one of the castle still intact towers. Sending the rudimentary 3D map of the castle to Saber, we started to slowly walk towards the marked tower, stumbling every now and then, as our energy reserves were nearly dry and our tired cores couldn't keep up the production due to previous overuse and their strange behavior.

After approximately one hour of walking, we arrived at the designated room, the depiction of the crescent moon on its door, Saber scratching up against the tower's walls sometimes due to his large width, his cores incapable of diverting enough energy for his morphing core to shrink more his body, his current size being slightly bigger than mine. Opening the door, we saw that the room was as preserved and furnished as my scans showed, a place fit for royalty, with a huge and extravagant emperor-size canopy bed leaning against the wall left from the door and several pieces of furniture of high quality everywhere in the room, some of which emanated a familiar energy reading, plus many things in it, including the bed, had a midnight blue colorization.

I moved towards the bed as Saber stumbled towards the big window on the far end of the room, left of the bed, where he collapsed on the floor and started to power off his main systems, his crimson eyes flickering off and the glow of his orange and red scales getting dimmer and dimmer, the hum of his cores diminishing as its energy demands were lowered, entering sleep-mode.

Opening my chest cavity, I removed Alexander from the inside and laid him on the bed, I did another med scan and detected that his body temperature had already started to normalize and his wounds were slowly getting fixed, his powerful healing factor starting to rise from the critically low level it was during most of our escapade and fight the toxin that affected him, though it would still take quite some time before the more grievous wounds started heal. Deploying tendrils fitted with the vibro-blade edges, I cut a few patches of the blue cloth off the bed’s canopy and used them to stitch a large loincloth for Alexander, so that he could maintain some modesty. Removing what remained of his ruined battle suit and armor, I quickly put the makeshift clothing on him and used the remaining cloth pieces as gauzes to bandage his exposed wounds, covering him with the blanket after I finished, before laying down myself next to the end of the bed, finally giving my tired gears, circuits and cores the rest they deserved.

---Luna 3rd POV---

Dream Realm - 05:30 AM

Normally, Luna found the Dream Realm, her second domain, a relaxing place ever since her return, making periodic visits to the Dream Realm after the Night Court, where the most snooty and snobby noble ponies with their upturned noses came to her with the most bizarre and absurd requests, thinking that she would be easier to manipulate than her sister, so for her this was a good change in pace. Here, in the Dream World, she constantly fought against her subjects' nightmares and transformed them into good dreams and even, sometimes, maybe prank an arrogant noble or two. It had already become a routine, enter through the pony's dream door, calm the nightmare and give the pony a good dream and sometimes talk to the pony, and it was, in a certain way, therapeutic. Tonight, however, was anything BUT normal, as was the case for several nights and days now.

A cataclysmic Everfree-borne storm had been raging for nearly a week now, flooding several towns in the region and forcing thousands to find higher ground to survive. Hundreds of pegasi worked nearly non-stop to try to diminish it, but whenever they think they're gaining ground against it, it regains nearly twice as much strength, nullifying all their hard work, and worsening the damages to the region.

The Dream Realm was as turbulent as the awakened world, Luna flying as fast as possible to calm the dreams of her little ponies, colts, fillies, mares, and stallions alike. 'I hope this nightmare ends soon,' she thought, as she turned yet another nightmare into a dream, already moving to a new cluster of tormented ponies. 'I don't know how much longer we can keep this pace up.'

As she approached the next cluster of nightmares, sensing the many blips of terror in her proximity, a sudden explosion accompanied by a blinding red flash rattled her thoughts, nearly casting her out from the Dream Realm.

'BY FAUST! WHAT WAS THAT?!' She thought-screamed as she regained her concentration. Turning towards the direction of the explosion, she saw a huge pillar of red light standing far away from the various clusters of dreams, a powerful mixture of guilt, terror, rage and despair coming from it, something she never had felt nor seen before in the Dream Realm.

'That's... that's new...' Luna thought as she started to fly, slightly cautious, towards the location, which was deep into the Everfree territory of the Dream Realm, even in here, many strange things occurred due to it. It didn't felt like it was coming from a pony, nor from any other creature she could think of. 'Something like this has never happened before, we need to be sure it isn't a new danger to the kingdom.'

As she approached it, the emotions she felt only strengthened, turning from a mere nuisance to a strong headache, forcing her to land and walk towards it instead, reinforcing her mind-shields as she did so, she was pretty deep into the Everfree, and it was dangerous to go here normally, even more now with this new presence, though it seemed to have scared away the creatures that inhabit this portion of the Dream Realm. She was getting pretty close to it now, however, she felt her anxiety rise up once Luna realized where she was walking towards.

'That’s our old castle…' The ancient structure stood wide in front of her as she exited the forest into the clearing before the castle. Even though she hated this place due to her past, she could see the beacon of light coming from one of the main towers of the castle, from… ‘my room?’ The weight of the emotions still sat heavy on her, the headache she felt from them making it impossible for her to fly, so she swallowed her fears and trudged forward, she had gone way too far to stop now.

In the Dream World, the Castle of The Twin Sisters was much different from its real counterpart, it didn’t look like a decrepit place, looking exactly like it was from before that faithfull night, before her thousand year banishment. She shuddered a little as she walked through the hallways and stairs of her old residence with such familiarity that one would think she still lived there, many sad thoughts and guilt starting to swell up within her. Reaching the short hallway before her room, Luna’s ponderously walked to the final door that stood between her and the mysterious presence, its red light flooding the area. Being this close to it, she turned her head a little as she could feel five presences in there, however four of them were incredibly faint. ‘What’s… *huff*... What’s going on here?’ Finally reaching the door, she put her hoof on it and started to open it, when her entire world exploded.

When she finally came to her senses, she was baffled at the sight around her. An entire portion of the castle had exploded, Luna herself lying on top of a huge floating piece of debris, several more floating all across the dreamscape around her. ‘This never happened before!’ Getting shakily on her hooves, she looked around, mouth wide open, trying to comprehend what could have made this event, when she finally saw it, on the place where once stood her room, a huge red and gold gate, easily 3 to 4 times her size stood tall, it was equally impressive as it was terrifying.

‘...’ Luna was speechless at the sight, she never once could have foreseen something like this happening in the Dream Realm. Using the many floating pieces of debris, she jumped and glided her way towards an area of stable ground that the gate projected around it. Reaching it, she could truly see just how sad of a state it was, rust all over an impressive yet terrifying image of a red dragon's face with flaming eyes, doors slightly ajar, and even big fractures all over it.

'Only beings of phenomenal mental resilience can conjure something like this. I can't even fathom the events that must have occurred to this poor creature for it to have reached this state.' Her apprehension had turned into sadness for the poor being, as well as determination. 'This will take all my power, but it is our duty to help this being, no matter what species they are!' Luna readied herself to force open the decrepit gate, focusing all the power she could gather, she blasted it, willing it to open... but no matter how strong she made her beam, the gate yielded not an inch.

'Come on... come... on!' She tried all the combinations of spells she knew, but the gate, even in its partially collapsed state, remained unmoved. She was about to try the most powerful and dangerous mind-breaching spell she knew, when…

"CONATUS DETECTUS DIRUENDI! CUSTODES EXCITAVERUNT!" A booming voice exploded from the gate alongside another flash of bright red light, throwing Luna away from it and onto a far away piece of floating rubble, once again nearly kicking her out of the Dream Realm.

When she gathered her senses once again, she was once again baffled by what she saw. On either side of the gate, two titanic armored entities the same size as the gate appeared, their forms resembling bipedal dragons and their faces similar to the image on the door. They were majorly red with golden details, several sigils and inscriptions lightning up all over their bodies, those being inscribed with black and purple colors and, on their shoulders, two more symbols appeared, these imprinted with a golden color and clearly depicting front facing dragon’s heads, both of them encircled by a rim of fire whose red and blue flames which nearly reached the top of the armor piece. As Luna was entranced by their sudden appearance, red fire started to billow out of several gaps in their armor, their eyes lighted up in a fiery red color, their six foreclaws twitched and their maws opened wide, fire burning intensely in their depths. Their heads locked onto her and bodies got into a battle-ready position, an uneasy sensation filled her as their fiery eyes started to size her up, for the first time since she started to enter the Dream Realm, Luna was scared.

It was at this moment that Luna took notice that the mysterious strain on her head had disappeared, allowing her to dispel most of the heavy-to-maintain mind-shields. Getting back on her hooves, she readied herself for the unexpected conflict, wings unfurled, horn shining with purple energy and a serious expression on her face. She would help the poor suffering soul, this reaction from their surprisingly strong mental wards showing that its case was severe and her time was short.

Luna took flight, dodging the initial barrage of energy her new enemies shot at her, and counter attacked with her own, easily hitting their massive forms, but despite the apparent success, her blasts didn't even scorch their red plates. She flew in circles erratically around them, avoiding their blasts of energy as well as the occasional bite of their huge jaws and swipe from their six clawed paws when they jumped around the ruins, trying to intercept her. She also continued her own assault, but the only thing they managed to do was tire her further, as the titans of metal seemed unfazed by anything she threw at them.

'I can't keep doing this forever... HAY!' She exclaimed as a near hit singed much of her fur. 'These things have got to have a weakness, all creatures have, no matter if they're physical or ethereal... WAIT, that's it!'

Luna hit herself mentally, as she noticed she was approaching this battle the wrong way. She concentrated as much as one can while under heavy fire, flying away to have some time to analyze the situation, and that's when she understood how to defeat the guardians.

'They're receiving power from the gate,' she mused as she noticed that the defenders stopped following her and rushed back to the ruins, before getting ready once again, should the intruder try another attempt to invade their master's mind. 'I just need a way to cut the connection.'

Luna had just the spell for that. It was, however, dangerous if used incorrectly, because any miscalculations in the concentration of mana could worsen the being's suffering, even awakening them with severe amounts of pain.

'Alright, let's try this again!' Luna charged at the gate once more, already dodging energy blasts as she charged the spell, however... was the gate facing this direction before, and were its eyes glowing so bright?

---Luna’s POV---

Canterlot’s castle

Luna’s bedroom - 5:55

"ARRRRGHH!!!" Luna screamed as she was forced awake, phantom burns and pain wrecking her body in ways that made even the Elements' energy wave when she was Nightmare Moon puny in comparison.

"The gate... it... *RUARG!*" Luna vomited as the pain made her curl over, making any attempt at moving an excruciating ordeal, even with her alicorn resilience. It was at that moment that two things occurred.

"PRINCESS!/SISTER!" Both her guards and her sister barged into the room, that was the first thing, the guards first, and the Sun Princess coming second. The second happened almost immediately after the first. One of the thestrals assigned to guard Luna this night was a quite jumpy one, which normally would be a good thing. Unfortunately, this was one of moments it was more of a curse than a blessing, as a spear flew towards Celestia teleporting flash, bouncing off her toughened hide as her form appeared.

"...oops..." It would be a tartarian morning.

---Alexander’s POV---

Unknown castle

Unknown bedroom - 5:55

"ARRRRGHH!" I woke up screaming, practically jumping from my skin, a severe pain flaring my body once again, one that I’ve only felt once before. It took several minutes before my accelerated pulse and respiration got back under control, adrenaline making my body shake nonstop. When I finally stopped the urge to vomit from the pain, I took notice of the soft material around me.

“Is this… a bed?” I asked to no one, as I started to move to a sitting position before a new spike of pain struck my chest,making me gasp for air and cough, spittle and some blobs of blood flying out of my mouth. Once my coughing stopped, I finally took off the blanket that covered me, a frown forming as I took a careful look at my body, my destroyed battle suit and armor were gone, in their place, several soft dark blue improvised bandages were carefully yet firmly wrapped all around my body, some of them slightly stained with blood. I was also dressed with a makeshift loincloth which was wrapped all around my waist and thighs, it also seemed to be made of the same cloth as the bandages.

‘What is this place?’ Having finished assessing my condition and appearance, I took a look around the room I was in. The first thing I noticed was the metallic behemoth near what seemed to be huge windows. Just from a glance, I already knew what that was, or better, who that was. Saber, my first Arc Beast, the characteristic orange and red glow of his overlapped scales was pretty dim, and a low, albeit powerful snore came from him. Taking a better look at him, I noticed that his outer plating had received a considerable amount of damage, and some plates had been ripped off, though he had the ability to regrow them and the under plates seemed to be undamaged. His size was much smaller than usual, measuring at more or less 5 meters in length, 3.8 in height and 2.5 in width. Considering the size of what seemed to be the entrance to this room, I can see why he decided to shrink down so much.

A more subtle snore came from the end of the huge bed where I sat. Focusing my vision, I saw the sleeping form of Phantom, her black plated body nearly completely merged with the darkness of the bedroom. Her long and slender form, currently measuring approximately 3.5 meters in length, 2 in height and 1.5 in width, accentuated by her glowing purple lines, gave her a deadly beauty, exactly what her makers wanted to do. Phantom’s body is way more streamlined than Saber, where his armor platings were big, overlapped and capable of suffering huge amounts of punishment, hers were more subtle and compact, smaller in size but higher in quantity, allowing her to perform what most would consider to be nearly unnatural feats of agility and contortionist for a machine. They also interacted directly with her Spectral module, giving her the ability to become invisible and to create hard light copies of herself, and in a battle, wherein Saber would charge forwards, his imposing size, overlapped spiked armor plating, savagery and heavy weaponry dealing massive physical and psychological damage to anything he targeted, Phantom was swift and deadly, using her Spectral abilities to attack from where her targets least expected, creating chaos among their ranks.

‘They must be as broken as me, or worse, if my screaming didn't wake them up…’ Having finished assessing their condition, I took a better look around the room, a soft purple light coming from diamond-shaped crystals embedded on the walls helping that process, they also possessed a strange but familiar sensation. It seemed to be a royalty’s room from what appeared to be a middle-age civilization, one that hasn’t seen a cleaning crew in a long, long time. Spider webs covered the darkest corners, while an inordinate amount of dust covered the expensive and masterfully crafted furniture, their soft design indicated that this was the private bedroom of a woman, either a princess or a queen.

‘Why would someone abandon expensive things such as these?’ I thought to myself as I looked at the huge windows near Saber, noticing that they were actually balcony glass doors. I slowly moved to the edge of the huge bed, careful to not open my wounds. ‘It can’t be an invasion, they would’ve stolen everything not bolted to the ground… maybe a plague killed them?’ Reaching the edge of the bed, I tried to stand up, only to nearly fall to the ground, my right leg screaming in pain when I tried to put any significant weight on it. The adrenaline from before was gone from my body, making me feel all the pain that was previously being suppressed.

“FUCK!” I snarled, my body was in way worse condition than I had anticipated, but I had to get up and get a look at our surroundings. Noticing a tall coat rack near the bed, an idea formed in my mind. Grabbing hold of it, I pulled it onto my left side and finally got up, powering through new spikes of pain that racketed my body. “Alright… let’s do this…”

Slowly but surely, I limped my way across the room, avoiding the resting forms of my companions. Getting near the glass doors, I noticed what seemed to be heavy rain on the outside, a sudden flash of a mute lightning confirming that thought. ‘This room has excellent sound muffling… huh, the strange sensation is coming from the outside as well… interesting.’ Pushing open the doors, I managed to see what was making me feel that sensation.

‘So they also have knowledge of the Arcane. That could be either a good thing… or a terrible thing.’ The endless downpour was stopped by an invisible barrier coming from the top of the wall to the bottom of the stone railings at the edge of the balcony. Moving towards it, I started to analyze what surrounded our temporary residence, my enhanced vision allowing me to see, albeit with some difficulty, through the cascade of water, not that it mattered much. I found out that we were on top of a tall tower of an ancient and decrepit castle, many rooms crumbled in or in the process of crumbling. 'This place must be centuries or even millennia old. I wonder what event must've taken place for such a huge impressive building to be abandoned like this...'. A canyon with a wooden bridge crossing it resided a few hundred meters from the castle, the bridge seemed old, but stood defiantly against the wet onslaught, not far from it, spanning across the entirety of my viewpoint, a dark, wicked forest made itself present after another mute crack of lightning, it’s tall trees, almost reaching the size of the tower, rustling wild due to powerful gushes of wind ravaging the land.

‘There’s something wrong here… with both this forest and this storm.’ I frowned once again, despite this being an unfamiliar world, possibly one outside of my dimension, I could feel the… the wrongness of the situation… ‘There’s definitely something foul going on here, the question however, is it due to our invading energies interfering with this realm's natural forces, or is there something darker running this show?’

Hearing the sound of my Arcane Beasts starting to wake up behind me, I took another look around the visage before me, once again illuminated by a soundless lightning bolt. Filling my lungs with the purest air I have breathed in a long while, I held it in for a few seconds before expelling it, saying one of the many questions I had in my mind:

"Where the Tartarus are we?"

Thunderstorm MK10L Underslung Chain Rifle “Legio”: The main weapon in the arsenal of the Legionnaires, this mighty weapon is the pinnacle of handheld weaponry. Its design was left majorly untouched since its introduction thousands of years ago, most of its improvements being internal.

Easily recognized by its quad barrels and imponent size, the Legio variant was modified for the Legionnaires, being longer and bulkier than its counterpart in the GIA. It’s fitted with a more powerful internal factory, capable of forging variable length .50 cal or 30 mm sized hard light plasma flechettes, both calibers being capable of full-auto firing, the first reaching a maximum ROF 6000 per minute and the second, 2000.

This handheld chaingun, despite its size, was built with flexibility in mind. Thanks to its powerful Morph Core and an advanced AI which links itself to the user's Neural Interface, its quad barrels can be modified at will, changing their length and even quantity to better suit the situation, affecting both its precision and muzzle velocity, which can reach a maximum of 3000 m/s when it's morphed to a single barrel with its longest configuration. It’s also capable of freely changing the composition of its ammunition, making it denser to penetrate harder targets, or making it explode on contact, dispersing its plasma over a wider area.

Author's Note

Hello everyone to the first chapter of a story that was I brewing for quite some time but, before anything else, I want to apologize for my long absence, for some reason whenever I sat down to try to write anything, a sensation of tiredness came, and I couldn’t write a single line despite having the ideas on my mind, though now it seems that has stopped. I already have a cover art for this story, but for some reason, whenever I click to save it, it bugs out the system and removes it. I will keep trying to add one, but I will contact a moderator for help if it keeps happening.

As for what will happen with “Getting out of Hell”, it will get a remake. After I was done writing this chapter, I noticed how bland the 3 chapters that I put out were, both in size and in details, so I will either mark them as “OLD”, or cancel that version and start another with “REMAKE” in the title after I reach the twentieth chapter of this story.

More detailed explanations of the form of Saber and Phantom will come next chapter, as well as the appearance of Alexander. Plus I will try to make drawings of how they look, though that may took some time.