(???)

The storm was not letting up she had to move quickly her protection spell wears off unless she wants to be torn apart by what the high winds carried. Walking on the glass surface her boots dug their heels into the fragile surface with each step she took, holding up her face covering the wander looked down at the map in her hands.

The cloud cover sky make it hard for her to see what was going but her goggles allowed her to see in the darkness, looking back up she saw it. Walking forward passing by the crystalized skeletons that littered the ground before her, looking down she couldn't help but noticed that some of the skeletons had melted gold fused to their bones while others seemed to have metal slag caking their remains.

Lifting her head up the wander smiled at the sight before her.

'New Never-row,'

Well, at least what was left of it within the crater at her feet.

Kicking off she began to carefully slide down the massive hole in the glass-covered wasteland before making it to the bottom where her boots clanged on something metallic. Looking down sure enough there she was standing on top of a metal floor of some kind, unlike the rest of the crater this was completely undamaged.

Walking forward to the massive archway on the side of the crater, the lone figure moved towards it, and sure enough like what she was told it was.

The doorway...

Doorway to where? No one really knew but everyone she knew had heard stories of many different others going into the opening and no one ever returned except one.

That poor soul had entered this place with thirty others but only he came back out and after what happened he was never the same. He had spoken of things so unbelievable that they couldn't be true and they called him mad for it, in the end, he was slowly gone insane after his experience, and before he could get help he ran back here screaming about someone taking it all away.

No one saw that mad dog ever again but the things that he had spoken of had gotten the attention of fortune seekers and treasure hunters going to this place. Sadly like the many before them none had ever returned, she on the other hand wasn't a fortune seeker or treasure hunter.

She was here because not out of want... but need.

Her home had been falling apart after someone she thought was her friend took power and was running their entire home into the ground while destroying the lives of others that weren't like them. She hoped in some way to stop the madness but everything she did was in vain until she started to have dreams of this place.

Something or someone was reaching out to her through an old magical spell...

Princess Luna was long dead but someone here was reaching out to her through the land of dreams.

So after days of journeying to this place she had finally arrived, hopefully, finding something to end the madness within her homeland.

Entering the massive gear-shaped doorway she walked onto some sort of massive metal platform but the moment she step onto the middle of the floor the entire thing shifted her way back and was blocked with a metal fence. Yellow lights flashed within causing her to be taken aback, pulling off her goggles she looked up seeing that the metal platform she was on was now moving downwards.

After a few minutes, the platform stopped as the metal fence in the front moved down.

Stepping off the platform into a barely lit metal and concrete hallway the wander felt a shiver go down her spine as she walked deeper in. Walking through the halls she finally came to the end where a massive hall waited for her causing the wander to shake her head and sense something about this whole place was off.

Almost felt like something was poking at her very mind.

"Finally..."

The coat of fur on the back of her neck stood up upon hearing the voice that spoke to her.

"For a moment I thought you lost your way... luckily you didn't,"

Every fiber of her body was on edge before she took her first step into the massive hall, although there was little light she looked around seeing massive machines of alien design all about this place. From the Ceiling, floor, and even the walls with cables seemly connecting them all. Yet these very machines made her feel uneasy just by looking at them, for many of these glass tanks were extremely foggy but even though the thick green liquid she could have sworn she saw something move within.

"I..." She took a breath before pressing on. "I've seen this place once... in my dreams a-are you the great mage known as Starswirl the bearded?"

"My dear... I killed starswirl,"

Stopping in her tracks the wander froze up before the voice gave a low chuckle.

"I have been every voice... you have ever heard... inside your head,"

Snapping her head back at the sound of something massive being shut her blood froze at the sight of a door lock itself to her only exit from this place.

"All through what I did was little compared to what your people have done. It didn't really take much, did it? Just one little thing for you kind to start to turn on one another and I didn't have anything to do with it," The voice chuckled. "But sometimes I wish that I did,"

Looking through the darkness trying to find an escape route she was going to try and escape but her eyes widened with horror as machines rose from the darkness. Machine with glass tanks that within them held the one thing all sentient life had... a brain.

"You believed that this place would hope for your people... it's funny how naive you all can be," The voice stated. "Especially when your beloved princess of the sun believed she killed me. Yet she forgot one thing,"

Feeling a presence behind her the wander could hear the pounding of her heart in her ears.

"I have died before and besides what doesn't kill you..." Slowly she turned her head to the voice behind her no long echoing through the hall.

"Just make me stronger,"

Looming over her was a massive being large almost completely glowing red, eyes like hot coals stared right down at her while one of it's giant claws wrapped around her while she was unable to move out of fear. Lifting her up the mouth of the creature twisted itself into a giant smile filled with razor-sharp teeth with two large fangs dripping with glowing venom.

"I almost feel bad for you Sunny... everything that has happened to your people and how your home was shattered is almost sad but after what your kind did to me and my people?" Moving her close to him the pony flinched as one of the massive curved horns threaten to take her eye. "Let's just say I was glad to return the princess's actions and full,"

Looking at her the massive monster that turned her home into a waking nightmare, he snorted before turning to something and then back to her.

"Though there is still a blood debt to be paid one that your kind has yet to pay fully even after what I did... like cockroaches you survived hiding in the dark but now? Now I'll make sure that you'll tell me everything," Sunny spat in the face of the giant.

"I'm not saying anything!" Chuckling 'the devil' whipped his face off.

"You will... you just need to take a dip,"

Walking across the room Sunny felt the giant rip off her clothing leaving her bare but she was then slammed into something before she could react her arms were forced to hold herself before cloth fired around her wrapping her in some kind of cloth. Trying to break free of her bindings, the pony felt the device she was on move back before needles dug into her skin causing her to scream in pain. Her veins roared out in pain while her mummy-wrapped body was grabbed by something, as she was pulled up one of the wrappings around her left eye came to lose.

What she saw terrified her.

Giving a muffled scream the metal claw holding her up let her go before she fell down, falling into a giant pool of glowing liquid Sunny felt her entire body scream out in pain as she sinks into the thick green liquid. The screams of the pony went silent as the liquid slowly went still before an orange fur-covered hand reached out of the liquid before the color of the coat began to turn from orange to ashen grey followed by the fingers of the hand turning to talons as sharp quills grew out on the forearm. Before another similar mutated hand reached from the liquid followed by a skeletal face of the creature that was once Sunny Starscout.

A similar fate waited for the rest of Celestia's 'sweet little ponies' to destroy her very memory.

Author's Note

So I did write a blog about something similar to this, about a dark future involving gen 5 but I wanted to go deeper into that kind of trope. This somewhat grim dark future would happen if the sphinx wasn't allowed to return to the Nile during the invasion.

This would result in Six using the lady for the first time which would lead up to a full-scale war that would involve a pretty bloody war. Where the cult would get their war but like what happened 200 years ago back on earth when the bombs dropped, Six dropped everything he had no other choice.

Basically giving equestrian it's own 'great war' leaving the ponies and other races outside the badlands to survive in the fallout no pun intended.

This dark version of Six is where he had finally gone off the deep end and is so hateful of Celestia that he went down the same dark road Ulysses went. But unlike his fellow Courier Six went down to the end of that dark road and came back as something different.

I did base this dark courier off Palpatine, The master, and even Ultron.

Which I don't have an image of what he is but in a nutshell Six is this heavily mutated creature that would give Frank Horrigan a run for his money. Basically a companion of Deathclaw, Nightslaker, and a super mutant clad in power armor.

But I did have an idea of this being a dream where Six met Six from little nightmares where he would be her protector and give the little yellow raincoat child a new path to take. Yet that would be a happy ending and this is Halloween, plus my little nightmare knowledge isn't the best so... I do hope you enjoy this special.

Also, this isn't canon to the main story think of it as a 'dark mirror' concept or something.